How fracking could threaten Australia's Paris target

The Morrison Government claims Australia will meet its emissions targets "in a canter".

It points to Australia's status as the world's largest LNG exporter to show how the nation's carbon footprint is getting smaller.

But Background Briefing has seen bombshell emails by government advisors that reveal a very different picture.

Jane Bardon investigates the true extent of Australia's fracking emissions.

Listen to the story on Radio National Sunday Extra - “How fracking could threaten Australia's Paris target.”

Awareness of environmental issues is at its highest, research shows

New figures suggest people are increasingly motivated to make changes to reduce their carbon footprint 

People in the UK are more aware than ever of the impact of the climate crisis – and are planning to reduce their own carbon footprints in 2020. That’s according to figures released today, which found that 29 per cent are aiming to use less energy at home this year.

The survey of 2,000 people in December 2019, found that 67 per cent of respondents believed they were more aware of the impact of the climate crisis than they had been a year previously.

Read the story from Positive.News by Lucy Douglas - “Awareness of environmental issues is at its highest, research shows.”

The carbon footprint of tourism revealed (it’s bigger than we thought)

The carbon footprint of tourism is about four times larger than previously thought, according to a world-first study published today in Nature Climate Change. 

There's a huge carbon cost with flying.

Researchers from the University of Sydney, University of Queensland and National Cheng Kung University – including ourselves – worked together to assess the entire supply chain of tourism. This includes transportation, accommodation, food and beverages, souvenirs, clothing, cosmetics and other goods.

Put together, global tourism produces about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, much more than previous estimates. 

Read the story from The Conversation - “The carbon footprint of tourism revealed (it’s bigger than we thought).”

(Climate Conversations considers the environmental cost of flying, including tourism)

Cement production makes more CO2 than all the trucks in the world

Whenever anyone complains about the carbon footprint of making cement and how it is responsible for 7 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, the industry responds, saying, “We’re working on it!” And it’s true, they are. But as Vanessa Dezem writes in Bloomberg, that doesn’t mean anyone is buying it, or that the customers care.

Cement is used everywhere and it is responsible
for seven per cent of the world's CO2 emissions.

“There is so far too little demand for sustainable materials,” said Jens Diebold, head of sustainability at LafargeHolcim. “I would love to see more demand from customers for it. There is limited sensitivity for carbon emissions in the construction of a building.”

The article is particularly interesting because it shows that the problem of Upfront Carbon Emissions is finally going mainstream and getting on the radar.

While architects and developers concentrate on the energy used by their buildings, it’s actually the materials supporting the structure that embody the biggest share of its lifetime carbon footprint. Cement’s contribution to emissions is especially immense because of the chemical process required to make it.

Until now, nobody really cared. LafargeHolcim tried selling a carbon-free cement but “customers were 'very price sensitive' and didn’t show interest.”

Read the Treehugger story by Lloyd Alter - “Cement production makes more CO2 than all the trucks in the world.”

No Drop in U.S. Carbon Footprint Expected Through 2050, Energy Department Says

The carbon footprint of the United States will barely go down at all for the foreseeable future and will be slightly higher in 2050 than it is now, according to a new projection by the Energy Department's data office.

President Trump, speaking here at a refinery in North
Dakota, has pushed for policies that promote fossil fuels
 and for the removal of greenhouse gas regulations. 

If that projection came true, it would spell the end of an era in which the U.S. led the world in reducing the tonnage of carbon dioxide it pumped each year into the atmosphere.

The new plateau would reflect Donald Trump's determination to walk away from the Paris climate agreement, to abandon any thought of more ambitious climate change policies, and to overturn the main federal climate protections recently put in place, like President Barack Obama's rules to curtail emissions from electric power plants.

Read the Inside Climate News story by John H. Cushman Jr. - “No Drop in U.S. Carbon Footprint Expected Through 2050, Energy Department Says.”

Diet, Including Eating Less Beef, Dropped Americans' Carbon Emissions by 9%

Giving up meat help Americans cut
their carbon dioxide emissions.

The carbon footprint of the average American's diet has shrunk by about 9 percent, largely because people are eating less beef, according to a new report.

Changes in the American diet—lower consumption of not only beef, but orange juice, pork, whole milk and chicken—meant that the average American's diet-related greenhouse gas emissions dropped from 1,932 kilograms in 2005 to 1,762 in 2014.

The analysis "just shows that small changes in our diets have impacts," said Sujatha Bergen, a food specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There's a very concrete association between reduced red meat consumption and reduced emissions.”

The biggest contributor to the reduction was a decline in beef consumption of about 19 percent over the course of the decade, adding up to a cumulative reduction of 185 million tons of climate change pollution. Total emissions cuts from dietary changes were 271 million tons. During that time, overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions averaged more than 6 billion tons a year.

Read the Inside Climate News story - “Diet, Including Eating Less Beef, Dropped Americans' Carbon Emissions by 9%.”

'Hacking' your carbon footprint

Measuring your carbon footprint (by Jen Luxton).

Many of the actions we take in our daily lives contribute to global warming. When we start a car, we’ve made a decision to change the Earth’s climate. This is also true when we eat lunch, book a flight, do the laundry, turn on the television, or flush the toilet. But the fossil fuels we consume tend to be hidden from our immediate experience, making them easy to take for granted.

Over the past few years I’ve been working to systematically reduce my impact. I didn’t set out to save the world; my reductions are a billion times too small for that. Instead, I’m motivated to avoid harming others, human and nonhuman, and it has become clear that burning fossil fuel does, in fact, harm others. I was also curious to see what life without all the fossil fuel would be like. It turns out that I like it better.

Read the Yes! story by Peter Kalmus - “Real Life Hacks to Cut Your Carbon Footprint (Plus: A Personal Emissions Calculator).”

Carbon-positive prefabricated home - world's first

W

hat's being called the world's first carbon-positive prefabricated house has been unveiled in Melbourne, Australia, and we really want one.

Created by Australian manufacturing company ArchiBlox, the prefab homes can be ordered, built and delivered, ready to move in within 12 to 28 weeks. The aim is to provide a simple, affordable and stylish way to help people greatly reduce their carbon footprint.

Read the Science Alert story - “This Australian prefab home generates more energy than it uses”.