Background Information on Climate Change

Scientists have been concerned for over a hundred years that our ever-increasing need for energy will ultimately cause major changes to our climate and disrupt our way of life. For more than a century, we have been mining coal, pumping oil and extracting gas from below the ground, burning it and then releasing the resulting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels are continuing to increase in our atmosphere and efforts to date have not succeeded to stop the annual increases in fossil fuel use. Emissions from the use of these fossil fuels is the main reason why the Earth is warming up.

This heating is the result of the greenhouse effect where excess carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases, also called the Greenhouse gases (GHG) trap the heat from the sun and warm the earth.

The primary sources of greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels, methane leaked to the atmosphere from waste dumps, agriculture and oil and gas leaks. Nitrous oxides and fluorinated carbons also form part of the greenhouse gases (GHG) impacting our climate.

The contribution of each Greenhouse gas to global warming is based on quantity of the specific greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of each gas versus carbon dioxide. During 2023, greenhouse gases increased the earth's mean temperature by 1.5 degrees C from the Earth's mean temperature prior to industrialization. Unfortunately, this temperature increase was reached 27 years earlier than the Government Leaders at the Paris UN Conference on Climate Change (COP 21) hoped for in 2015.

Carbon Dioxide is responsible for 69% of global warming. 80% of it lasts for 200 years in the atmosphere, the remaining 20% for as long as 300,000 years. Since COP 21, most regions of the world have curbed down their CO2 emissions except for Asia.

Methane is responsible for 20% of global warming and lasts an average of 12 years in the atmosphere. Methane has a GWP of about a 150 once it is released to the atmosphere but given its short lifespan, the GWP for methane is strongly influenced by period used to calculate its impact. As all other gases last more than a hundred years in the atmosphere, normally, a hundred-year period is used to calculate impact and in this case, methane has a GWP of approximately 28. On the other hand, if we use 20 years as a period for comparing the impact of greenhouse gases, methane's GWP becomes about 84. As a result, on a 20-year basis methane becomes almost as important as carbon dioxide. Methane is produced by livestock and other agricultural activities, by wastewater treatment emissions, oil and gas distribution leaks and by landfills spewing methane from food waste trapped in the ground.

2021 US Methane Emissions by Sources

Like Carbon Dioxide, Methane is rising rapidly year over year and the largest contributor is Asia. In Asia rice paddies are important contributors of methane adding to the other sources.

Since Methane only has a short life and its effect on global warming is 84 times higher than Carbon Dioxide, it is easy to predict that if we were to focus on reducing Methane from the GHC emissions that the effects on global warming would be significant. We believe that tackling Methane emissions should be high on Government agenda and the larger emitters of methane should be tackled first. In fact, reducing methane emissions can have a significant short-term reduction in the Earth's temperature within ten years due to its short lifetime in the atmosphere.

- Nitrous Oxide is responsible for 6% of global warming and last up to 114 years in the atmosphere. These are mostly generated by the chemical production of fertilizers, wastewater treatment and the combustion of fossil fuels. The Global Warming Potential of Nitrous Oxide is 273 times of CO2. Like for Carbon Dioxide and Methane, the biggest contributor of nitrous oxide is Asia

- Fluorinated gases are responsible for 5% of global warming. There is a large number of these gases used in various industrial processes such as refrigeration. Some of these gases have a lifespan of only a few months, unfortunately most last for thousands of years. Their concentration is low in the atmosphere but their GWPs are high, hence the significant impact on global warming. (Understanding Global Warming Potentials | US EPA).

Across the world, the major sources of Greenhouse gases are associated with the use of Energy, followed by Agriculture, Waste and Industry.

We believe that replacing most of the fossil fuels by renewable energy and reduce and control methane emissions will be the biggest actions we can do to reduce warming while maintaining our way of life.

Important Technologies to
Combat Global Warming

Solar Energy

Solar Energy is expanding rapidly for new plants as its costs are now below fossil fuel based energy costs

Carbon Capture

New Technology that is rapidly being deployed for CO2 capture from chimneys and from the air. This technology will be vital to meet net zero.

Wind Energy

Wind is the most used renewable energy and when there is sufficient wind, it is the lowest cost way to generate electrical energy

Green Hydrogen

Hydrogen will be needed to produce e-fuels from the carbon captured.

Anaerobic Digestion

An effective technology to reduce carbon dioxide and methane emissions from organic wastes while generating a renewable fuel

Glossary of Common Terms in Climate Change Studies

BioFuels = a man-made renewable fuel created from organic material (plant or animal) . Biodiesel, Biomethane, Biodiesel and Butanol are biodiesels.

CO2 Equivalent = The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission that would cause the same temperature change, over a given time horizon, as an emitted amount of a greenhouse.

Clean energy = Energy that creates little or no greenhouse gas emissions when used as a source of energy.

Drop-in Fuel = Fuel that can be used exactly the same as a fossil fuel. Neither the infrastructure nor the equipment using the fuels need to be changed. Drop-in Fuels made from plant materials include biodiesel and renewable natural gas (biomethane)

E-Fuels = Electro-fuels are synthetic fuels manufactured using captured carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, together with hydrogen obtained from sustainable electricity sources such as wind, solar or nuclear power.

E-

Global Warming Potential (GWP) = measure of how much energy the emission of 1 ton of a gas will absorb over a time period, relative to the emissions of 1 ton of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The larger the GWP, the more a gas warms the Earth compared to CO2 over that same time period. The time period typically used for GWPs is 100 years. CO2, by definition, has a GWP of 1 since it is the gas being used as the reference. The Global Warming potential of hte GHC gases is:

- Carbon Dioxide: 1

- Methane: 27 to 84 depending if 20 or 100 years are used to calculate

- Nitrous Oxide: 273

- Fluorinated Gases: >1000

Green Energy = Energy that can be produced using a method and from a source, that causes no harm to the environment. Green energy is not always renewable.

Low carbon Energy = Energy that when used releases significantly less carbon than fossil fuels. Thease include all renewables as well as nuclear energy.

Renewable Energy = Renewable energy is energy generated from renewable resources that replenish themselves on a human timescale. Renewable energies include solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal heat and are often called sustainable energy.

Background Information on Climate Change

Important Technologies to Combat Global Warming

Important Technologies to
Combat Global Warming