Prof. M. C. Varshneya

Vice Chancellor

Anand Agricultural University, Anand

GLOBAL WARMING

An increase in the Earth’s temperature is caused by human activities such as burning coal, oil and natural gas. This releases carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases form a blanket around the Earth, trapping heat and raising temperatures on the ground. This is steadily changing our climate.
Climates of the past billion years have been about 13°C warmer to 5° C cooler than the current climate.  Data of past 130 years indicate that there has been a 0.3°C to 0.6°C warming of the earth surface since the late 19th century. During last 150 years the rate of increase of  temperature was 0.045°C, for last 100 years 0.074°C, for last 50 years 0.128°C and for last 25 years 0.177°C per decade (Fig. 1) indicating that the recent rate of increase of temperature is the highest as compared to previous years.

Fig. 1. Global average temperature from 1860-2000.

Sector	Key mitigation technologies and practices currently commercially available.
Energy	Supply efficiency; fuel switching; nuclear power; renewable (hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and bio-energy); combined heat and power; early applications of CO2 Capture and Storage.
Transport	More fuel efficient vehicles; hybrid vehicles; bio-fuels; modal shifts from road transport to rail and public transport systems; cycling, walking; land-use planning.
Buildings	Efficient lighting; efficient appliances and air conditioners; improved insulation ; solar heating and cooling; alternatives for fluorinated gases in insulation and appliances
Industry	More efficient electrical equipment; heat and power recovery; material recycling; control of non-CO2 gas emissions
Agriculture	Land management to increase soil carbon storage; restoration of degraded lands; improved rice cultivation techniques; improved nitrogen fertilizer application; dedicated energy crops
Forests	Aforestation; reforestation; forest management; reduced deforestation; use of forestry products for bio-energy
Waste	Landfill methane recovery; waste incineration with energy recovery; composting; recycling and waste minimization

Means of mitigation

Scientific consensus on global warming, together with the precautionary principle and the fear of abrupt climate change is leading to increased effort to develop new technologies and sciences and carefully manage others in an attempt to mitigate global warming. There are several ways of mitigating climate change. These include reducing demand for emissions-intensive goods and services, increasing efficiency gains, increasing use and development of low-carbon technologies, and reducing non-fossil fuel emissions.

The energy policy of the European Union has set a target of limiting the global temperature rise to 2 °C [3.6 °F] compared to pre-industrial levels, of which 0.8 °C has already taken place and another 0.5 °C is already committed. The 2 °C rise is typically associated in climate models with a carbon dioxide concentration of 400-500 ppm by volume; the current level is 383 ppm by volume, and rising at 2 ppm annually. Hence, it is necessity to stabilize CO2 levels very soon.

1. Improve efficiency of coal plants from today’s 40% to 60%.
2. Replace 1,400 GW (gigawatt) of coal power plants with natural gas,
3. Capture and store carbon emitted from 800 GW of new coal plants,
4. Capture and store carbon from coal to fuels conversion at 30 million barrels per day (4,800,000 m3/d),
5. Displace 700 GW of coal power with nuclear,
6. Add 2 million 1 MW wind turbines (50 times current capacity),
7. Displace 700 GW of coal with 2,000 GW (peak) solar power (700 times current capacity),
8. Produce hydrogen fuel from 4 million 1 MW wind turbines,
9. Use biomass to make fuel to displace oil (100 times current capacity),
10. Stop de-forestation and re-establish 300 million hectares of new tree plantations.

Deforestation, Reforestation, and Bio-sequestration
Almost 20% (8 GtCO2/year) of total greenhouse-gas emissions were from deforestation in 2007. The Stern Review found that, based on the opportunity costs of the land use that would no longer be available for agriculture if deforestation were avoided, emission savings from avoided deforestation could potentially reduce CO2 emissions for under $5/tCO2, possibly as little as $1/tCO2. A forestation and reforestation could save at least another 1GtCO2/year, at an estimated cost of $5/tCO2 to $15/tCO2. The Review determined these figures by assessing 8 countries responsible for 70% of global deforestation emissions. Pristine temperate forest has been shown to store three times more carbon than IPCC estimates took into account, and 60% more carbon than plantation forest. Preventing these forests from being logged would have significant effects.

11. Conservation tillage − apply to all crop land (10 times current usage).

Energy efficiency and Energy conservation
Developing countries use their energy less efficiently than developed countries, getting less GDP for the same amount of energy.

The Energy Information Administration predicts world energy usage will rise in the next few decades.

Nuclear power

Nuclear power currently produces over 15% of the world’s electricity. Due to its low emittance of greenhouse gases (comparable to wind power) and reliability it is seen as a possible alternative to fossil fuels, but is controversial for reasons of capital cost and possible environmental impacts.

Life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions comparisons

Most comparisons of life cycle analysis (LCA) of carbon dioxide emissions show nuclear power as comparable to renewable energy sources.
A life cycle analysis centered around the Swedish Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant estimated carbon dioxide emissions at 3.10 g/kWh and 5.05 g/kWh in 2002 for the Torness Nuclear Power Station. This compares to 11 g/kWh for hydroelectric power, 950 g/kWh for installed coal, 900 g/kWh for oil and 600 g/kWh for natural gas generation in the United States in 1999.
The Vattenfall study found Nuclear, Hydro, and Wind to have far less greenhouse emissions than other sources represented. The Swedish utility Vattenfall did a study of full life cycle emissions of nuclear, hydro, coal, gas, solar cell, peat and wind which the utility uses to produce electricity. The net result of the study was that nuclear power produced 3.3 grams of carbon dioxide per KW-Hr of produced power. This compares to 400 for natural gas and 700 for coal (according to this study). The study also concluded that nuclear power produced the smallest amount of CO2 of any of their electricity sources.

Enrichment
The bulk of CO2 emission from nuclear power plants can be eliminated, if nuclear power plants themselves generate the electricity required during the uranium enrichment process (already being done in France and to some extent by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s many nuclear units in the U.S.). In addition, gas centrifuge technology has/will greatly reduced the energy required for enrichment, thus reducing the LCA carbon emissions per kilowatt-hour.

Renewable energy

One means of reducing carbon emissions is the development of new technologies such as renewable energy such as wind power. Most forms of renewable energy generate no appreciable amounts of greenhouse gases except for bio-fuels derived from biomass
Helioculture is a newly developed process which is claimed to be able to produce 20,000 gallons of fuel per acre per year, and which removes carbon dioxide from the air as a feedstock for the fuel. Generally, emissions are a fraction of fossil fuel-based electricity generation. In some cases notably with hydroelectric dams once thought to be one of the cleanest forms of energy. One study shows that a hydroelectric dam in the Amazon has 3.6 times larger greenhouse effect per kW•h than electricity production from oil, due to large scale emission of methane from decaying organic material. This effect applies in particular to dams created by simply flooding a large area, without first clearing it of vegetation. There are however investigations into underwater turbines that do not require a dam.
Currently governments subsidize fossil fuels by an estimated $235 billion a year. However, in some countries, government action has boosted the development of renewable energy technologies e.g. a program to put solar panels on the roofs of a million homes has made Japan a world leader in that technology, and Denmark’s support for wind power ensured its former leadership of that sector. In 2005, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger promised an initiative to install a million solar roofs in California, which became the California Solar Initiative.

Eliminating waste methane

Methane is a significantly more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Burning one molecule of methane generates one molecule of carbon dioxide. Accordingly, burning methane which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere (such as at oil wells, landfills, coal mines, waste treatment plants, etc.) provides a net greenhouse gas emissions benefit. However, reducing the amount of waste methane produced in the first place has an even greater beneficial impact, as might other approaches to productive use of otherwise-wasted methane.

Carbon capture and storage

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a plan to mitigate climate change by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from large point sources such as power plants and subsequently storing it away safely instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. Technology for capturing of CO2 is already commercially available for large CO2 emitters, such as power plants. When this technique is used with biomass, the technique is known as biomass energy with carbon capture and storage and may be carbon negative.
CCS applied to a modern conventional power plant could reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere by approximately 80-90% compared to a plant without CCS.
Storage of the CO2 is envisaged either in deep geological formations, deep oceans, or in the form of mineral carbonates. Geological formations are currently considered the most promising, and these are estimated to have a storage capacity of at least 2000 Gt CO2. IPCC estimates that the economic potential of CCS could be between 10% and 55% of the total carbon mitigation effort until year 2100.
The Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin in the United States studying the feasibility of injecting a large volume of CO2 for underground storage. The project is a research program of the Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB). The SECARB partnership demonstrates that CO2 injection rate and storage capacity in the Tuscaloosa-Woodbine geologic system that stretches from Texas to Florida. The region has the potential to store more than 200 billion tons of CO2 from major point sources in the region, equal to about 33 years of U.S. emissions overall at present rates. The project will inject CO2 at the rate of one million tons per year, for up to 1.5 years, into brine up to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) below the land surface near the Cranfield oil field about 15 miles (24 km) east of Natchez, Mississippi. Experimental equipment will measure the ability of the subsurface to accept and retain CO2.
Carbon sequestration has been proposed as a method of reducing the amount of radiative forcing. Carbon sequestration is a term that describes processes that remove carbon from the atmosphere. A variety of means of artificially capturing and storing carbon, as well as of enhancing natural sequestration processes, are being explored. The main natural process is photosynthesis by plants and single-celled organisms (bio-sequestration).
Biochar
Charcoal, or biochar, created by pyrolysis of biomass can be buried to create terra-preta. The production of biochar may or may not involve energy recovery. The intention is that the carbon in the biomass is removed from the atmosphere for a longer period of time than would otherwise be the case.

Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

During its growth, biomass traps carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. When the biomass decomposes or is combusted, the carbon is again released as carbon dioxide. This process is part of the global carbon cycle. Through the use of biomass for energy and materials, e.g. in biomass fuelled power plants, parts of this cycle is controlled by man. Combining these biomass systems with carbon capture and storage technologies, so called bio-energy with carbon capture and storage, BECCS, is achieved. BECCS systems results in net-negative carbon dioxide emissions, i.e. the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In comparison with other geo-engineering options, BECCS has been suggested as a low-risk, near-term tool to effectively remove carbon from the atmosphere.
In industry, management tools that include staff training, reward systems, regular feedback, and documentation of existing practices can help overcome industrial organization barriers, reduce energy use, and GHG emissions. New energy infrastructure investments in developing countries, upgrades of energy infrastructure in industrialized countries, and policies that promote energy security, can, in many cases, create opportunities to achieve GHG emission reductions compared to baseline scenarios.
Future energy infrastructure investment decisions, expected to total over 20 trillion US$ between now and 2030, will have long term impacts on GHG emissions, because of the long life-times of energy plants and other infrastructure capital stock. The widespread diffusion of low-carbon technologies may take many decades, even if early investments in these technologies are made attractive. Initial estimates show that returning global energy-related CO2 emissions to 2005 levels by 2030 would require a large shift in the pattern of investment, although the net additional investment required ranges from negligible to 5-10%.
It is often more cost-effective to invest in end-use energy efficiency improvement than in increasing energy supply to satisfy demand for energy services. Efficiency improvement has a positive effect on energy security, local and regional air pollution abatement, and employment.

Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at combating global warming. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty  with the goal of achieving “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of November 2009, 187 states have signed and ratified the protocol. The most notable non-member of the Protocol is the United States, which is a signatory of UNFCCC and was responsible for 36.1% of the 1990 emission levels.
Under the Protocol, 37 industrialized countries (called “Annex I countries”) commit themselves to a reduction of four greenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) produced by them, and all member countries give general commitments. Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from the 1990 level. Emission limits do not include emissions by international aviation and shipping, but are in addition to the industrial gases, chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are dealt with under the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
The benchmark 1990 emission levels were accepted by the Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC (decision 2/CP.3) were the values of “global warming potential” calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report. These figures are used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable CO2 equivalents when computing overall sources and sinks.

The five principal concepts of the Kyoto Protocol are:

• commitments to reduce greenhouse gases that are legally binding for annex I countries, as well as general commitments for all member countries;
• implementation to meet the Protocol objectives, to prepare policies and measures which reduce greenhouse gases; increasing absorption of these gases (for example through geosequestration and biosequestration) and use all mechanisms available, such as joint implementation, clean development mechanism and emissions trading; being rewarded with credits which allow more greenhouse gas emissions at home;
• minimizing impacts on developing countries by establishing an adaptation fund for climate change;
• accounting, reporting and review to ensure the integrity of the Protocol;
• compliance by establishing a compliance committee to enforce commitment to the Protocol.

How can governments create incentives for mitigation?
A wide variety of policy tools can be applied by governments to create incentives for mitigation action, such as regulation, taxation, tradable permit schemes, subsidies, and voluntary agreements. Past experience shows that there are advantages and drawbacks for any given policy instrument. For instance, while regulations and standards can provide some certainty about emission levels, they may not encourage innovations and more advanced technologies. Taxes and charges, however, can provide incentives, but cannot guarantee a particular level of emissions. It is important to consider the environmental impacts of policies and instruments, their cost effectiveness, institutional feasibility and how costs and benefits are distributed.
Carbon credit:
Another method being examined is to make carbon a new currency by introducing tradable “Personal Carbon Credits”. The idea being it will encourage and motivate individuals to reduce their ‘carbon footprint’ by the way they live. Each citizen will receive a free annual quota of carbon that they can use to travel, buy food, and go about their business. It has been suggested that by using this concept it could actually solve two problems; pollution and poverty, old age pensioners will actually be better off because they fly less often, so they can cash in their quota at the end of the year to pay heating bills, etc.

Carbon emissions trading

The European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the largest multi-national, greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in the world. It commenced operation on 1 January 2005, and all 25 member states of the European Union participate in the scheme which has created a new market in carbon dioxide allowances estimated at 35 billion Euros (US$43 billion) per year. The Chicago Climate Exchange was the first (voluntary) emissions market, and is soon to be followed by Asia’s first market (Asia Carbon Exchange). A total of 107 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent have been exchanged through projects in 2004, a 38% increase relative to 2003 (78 Mt CO2e).
With the creation of a market for trading carbon dioxide emissions within the Kyoto Protocol, it is likely that London financial markets will be the centre for this potentially highly lucrative business; the New York and Chicago stock markets may have a lower trade volume than expected as long as the US maintains its rejection of the Kyoto). Twenty three multinational corporations have come together in the G8 Climate Change Roundtable, a business group formed at the January 2005 World Economic Forum. The group includes Ford, Toyota, British Airways and BP. On 9 June 2005 the Group published a statement stating that there was a need to act on climate change and claiming that market-based solutions can help. It called on governments to establish “clear, transparent, and consistent price signals” through “creation of a long-term policy framework” that would include all major producers of greenhouse gases.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a proposed carbon trading scheme being created by nine North-eastern and Mid-Atlantic American states; Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. The scheme was due to be developed by April 2005 but has not yet been completed.

Carbon tax

In 1991, Sweden introduced the world’s first carbon tax. The UK has had a Climate Change Levy on fossil-fuel-based electricity generation since 2001. Plans for a carbon tax in New Zealand were abandoned after the 2005 elections. In May 2008, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which covers nine counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, passed a carbon tax of 4.4 cents per ton.

Business action on climate change

On 9 May 2005 Jeff Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric (GE), announced plans to reduce GE’s global warming related emissions by one percent by 2012. “GE said that given its projected growth, those emissions would have risen by 40 percent without such action. On 21 June 2005 a group of leading airlines, airports and aerospace manufacturers pledged to work together to reduce the negative environmental impact of the aviation industry, including limiting the impact of air travel on climate change by improving fuel efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions of new aircraft by fifty percent per seat kilometer by 2020 from 2000 levels. The group aims to develop a common reporting system for carbon dioxide emissions per aircraft by the end of 2005, and pressed for the early inclusion of aviation in the European Union’s carbon emission trading scheme.
Conclusion:

1. Develop a culture to plant a tree to reduce green house effect.
2. Industry should allot at least 1/3rd of its land for aforestation or a part of its budegt for mitagating green house gases.
3. The policy of encuuragring aqaculture/ Fish culture where farm ponds/village pond are constructed through the phyto-plankton present inside the water. It is helpful in mitigating atmospheric CO2.
4. The policy of Agroforesty/Social foresty should be encouraged for helping in mitigation of CO2   at level of 380 ppm.
5. The industrial policy should aim at to fulfill social responsibility of clean environment for all living things.