Decarbonizing Earth

A few examples of projects that can help to decarbonize the planet-

Decarbonizing the built environment

Decarbonizing our built environment through carbon-negative development and making existing buildings more energy efficient may cut emissions while also supporting more egalitarian, healthier communities. We walk and drive across cities, towns, and villages every day, hearing about how climate change is hurting our lives and livelihoods. While we are wondering about these sites, we forget that the buildings we work in, the stores we go to buy our necessities, and the dwellings we live in are all contributing to climate change. The cities, towns, villages, and offices where we spend our time are referred to as the built environment, or the area created by humans. This built environment accounts for roughly 40% of world carbon emissions, whereas cement and concrete makers account for 8% of global GHG emissions. However, there are ways to combat climate change by focusing on decarbonizing the built environment through efforts such as carbon-negative future projects and making present structures more efficient. To accomplish our decarbonization targets, we must go beyond zero emissions and create more energy than the building requires while also providing extra energy to others.

Alternative Refrigerants

Refrigerants are used as working fluids in refrigeration systems and household appliances such as air conditioners and refrigerators, refrigerated containers used to transport fresh supplies, air conditioning systems onboard cars, trains, aircraft, and ships, and industrial cooling systems, among other things. If refrigerants are discharged into the environment, they have a high GWP and contribute to global warming. Given the influence of refrigerant emission on global warming, the world is phasing out HFCs in favor of natural refrigerants with lower warming potential under the Kigali Accord of October 2016. Refrigerants are released into the atmosphere during the manufacturing process, as a result of refrigerant leaks, and while disposing of appliances.

Refrigerant emissions can be decreased in five ways:

• reduce appliance demand/use and thus refrigerant production;
• replace refrigerants with low-warming HFCs/new cooling agents/non-HFC substances;
• increase refrigeration efficiency in appliances, thereby lowering refrigerant use;
• control refrigerant leakages from existing appliances through good management practices; and
• ensure recovery, reclaiming/recycling, and destruction of refrigerants at end of life.

Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) are defined as the rising usage of battery and plug-in hybrid cars, SUVs, and light trucks. This method eliminates the need for traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. The majority of light-duty cars on the road today use liquid fuel for energy storage and propulsion in an internal combustion engine. Electric vehicles (EVs) feature a more energy-efficient electric motor and large batteries that can be charged from the grid. The electric vehicle market is still in its infancy, with early adopters fueling the rapid development observed over the last decade. EVs are now a small portion of vehicle sales and inventory, but they are predicted to rise rapidly in the next decades, replacing a large portion of conventional cars and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from road traffic. Both battery EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs are included in defined shares for this work. This share is used to weigh all relevant factors.

Alternative Agriculture

As the spotlight is always on transitioning to greener, less pollutant energy systems, the significance of agriculture in creating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – as well as how to minimize such emissions – has become obvious.

Agriculture is estimated to be associated with up to 24% of global GHG emissions. This is due to the methods used to generate agricultural commodities, as well as the changes in land use that occur when forests or carbon sinks are destroyed to cultivate crops or graze cattle. Agriculture also emits the biggest amount of methane and nitrogen dioxide. This is primarily due to livestock dung and enteric fermentation, as well as over-fertilization and flooding of rice paddies. Agricultural production and land-use changes can also result in the loss of biodiversity or the conversion of valuable ecosystems. Agricultural emissions can be lowered if production is modified and land-use changes are minimized. Here are a few suggestions:

• To lower their carbon impact, they could promote more precise fertilizer usage and produce superior fertilizers.
• Optimizing pasture lands and manure management, and also farm animal production, and lowering enteric emissions through food modification.
• Reduce the overall number of ruminants by encouraging important consumer groups in high-income countries (HICs) and developing economies to adopt more plant-based diets, when per capita meat consumption is on the increase.
• Increasing rice yields by decreasing the frequency of floods in paddy fields.
• Preventing the cultivation of animals or crops in forests or peatland.

Another key goal, in addition to lowering agricultural emissions, is to detain carbon on land as well as in the plants growing on it. Agro-forestry, for example, with species tailored to specific biological systems and focused in places many under environmental stress, offers immense potential for carbon absorption and retention.

There are potential aspects policymakers might better help agriculture:

The best shot at success is to divert ongoing assistance to payments that are not tied to production rates. These payments shall be made wherever they may have the most combined social, economic, and environmental impact, and they should be conditional on environmental public goods being supported.

1. Decoupling payments is a step in the right direction.

To diminish the incentive to boost production, the industry should gradually shift from linked payments toward decoupling compensation, which is not based on output.

• Improved support for specific targets

Agriculture should be better supported, with an emphasis on areas or sub-regions with the least marginal abatement costs and crops or animals with the greatest GHG emissions concentration. Adaptive targeting with national carbon reduction objectives – and a framework that allows for this – will be critical.

• Increasing policy consistency

Policymakers should contribute to the improvement of policy coherence by ensuring that all policy instruments are working in the same direction. While attaining other development goals, this should ideally support initiatives to decrease environmental impact and GHG emissions.

• Introduce the concept of conditionality.

Farmers should get public assistance if they meet environmental goals and provide public environmental goods.

• Increase funds for research

Policymakers must increase financing for research and development across all of these indicators. Emission reduction and other environmental goals must be prioritized alongside the more conventional research goals of boosting productivity and resilience. To obtain a better understanding of what form of support is most climate compatible and how to create policy coherence, public financing must also be used to fill knowledge gaps.

Marine Sector

Maritime trade energy consumption make up nearly 11 exajoules (EJ) in 2018, culminating in around 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) (international shipping and domestic navigation) and 3% of worldwide annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on a CO2-equivalent basis, according to the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO’s) Fourth GHG study 2020. Heavy fuel oil (HFO), marine gas oil (MGO), very low-sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO), and, more recent times on a limited scale, liquefied natural gas (LNG) encounter up to 99 percent of the sector’s ultimate energy demand. International shipping facilitates 80-90 percent of world trade and accounts for around 70% of all shipping-related energy emissions. If the worldwide shipping industry were a country, it would be similar to Germany as the sixth or seventh highest CO2 emitter. International shipping emissions, on the other hand, are not included in national GHG emission accounting regimes.

The key approach in the short term must be to replace fossil fuels gradually but swiftly with renewable fuels. Advanced biofuels and e-fuels, such as methanol and ammonia, are the renewable energy fuels most suited for international transport. Each renewable energy source has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. The supply chain, engine technology, environmental implications, and manufacturing costs all influence fuel choice. The final adoption of renewable energy fuels will be determined by the cost of production and availability of these alternative fuels. The cost of any fuel is dictated by the cost and availability of feedstock, the manufacturing method, and the technological maturity of the process.

Advanced biofuels: These are a possible short-term solution for the shipping sector because existing regulations allow for fuel mixes of up to 20% without requiring engine changes, and tests have been completed with a maximum blend of 30%. It’s also worth noting that 100 percent methanol engines are a tried and true technology, so new ships can readily run entirely on biofuels. Advanced biofuels have similar production costs to other options, ranging from USD 72-238 per kilowatt hour (MWh). The long-term viability of the biomass feedstocks employed is crucial. As a result, the current focus is on using waste fats, oils, and greases (FOGs) to make fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) biodiesel and hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVOs) that do not compromise food security or land availability.

Biomethane: Biomethane has the potential to play a role, although it is likely to be limited. The cost of production is greatly reliant on feedstock availability and market pricing, resulting in a wide cost range of USD 25-176/MWh. Biogas produced by anaerobic digestion for the manufacture of liquid biogas and compressed biogas has a high level of technological maturity, making it a viable alternative to LNG.

Unfortunately, the significance of renewable gaseous fuel may well be restricted owing to scalability and logistical constraints, and biogas may be more effective in end-use applications other than transport.

Direct use of green hydrogen (H2) via fuel cells and internal combustion engines (ICEs) is an alternative, however, it is mostly for limited tours, such as domestic navigation. However, for the decarbonization of international shipping, the indirect use of green H2, i.e. for the later manufacture of e-fuels, would be crucial. Green H2 production prices now range from USD 66/MWh to USD 154/MWh, but as the costs of electrolyzers and renewable energy decline, green H2 costs will become cost-competitive in some settings from 2030, finally reaching USD 32-100/MWh in 2050.

Renewable methanol, such as bio-methanol and renewable e-methanol, requires almost no major engine changes and may reduce carbon emissions significantly when compared to traditional fuels. The maritime industry is particularly interested in renewable e-methanol. The availability and affordability of a CO2 supply that is not derived from fossil fuels is a major stumbling block in the manufacturing of sustainable e-methanol.

Renewable e-fuels, methanol, and ammonia are the most promising fuels for decarbonizing the industry. Because of its low carbon content, ammonia is the more appealing of the two alternatives. This property exempts it from the cost of CO2 capture, which adds considerably to the ultimate cost of e-methanol. The dropping cost of green H2 combined with the cost decrease of CO2 capture technology may allow renewable e-methanol production prices to approach USD 107-145/MWh by 2050.

Renewable ammonia: In the medium and long term, e-ammonia appears to be the backbone for decarbonizing international shipping. The cost of producing e-ammonia is anticipated to be between USD 67 and USD 114 per MWh by 2050. Validation of ammonia engine designs by 2023 will be a crucial step toward allowing renewable ammonia to be used. Even though ammonia is corrosive and very poisonous when inhaled in high amounts, it has been safely handled for over a century. As a result, ammonia’s toxicity and safe handling should not be regarded significant obstacles.

Road Freight 

Road freight decarbonization must become a greater priority on the decarbonization policy agenda. According to estimates, road freight transport consumes the most energy and emits the most pollutants. According to baseline forecasts, trucks are the fastest rising source of world oil demand, accounting for 40% of demand growth by 2050 and 15% of the rise in global CO2 emissions. Trucks will soon overtake passenger vehicles as the largest oil consumer. The available data demonstrate not just road freight’s existing significant contribution to CO2 emissions, but also its growing importance in the overall decarbonization effort. Decarbonizing road freight today necessitates applying simple-to-implement methods that have previously demonstrated their efficacy in lowering emissions — low-tech solutions or existing mature technologies. However, meeting climate change goals would need broad acceptance of solutions that are still in the development stage, whether in logistics or technology. To establish a favorable climate for the implementation of these technologies, the policy must adapt. It also has to adapt to new trends that might further destabilize an industry that is already changing.

A roadmap to decarbonization entails putting in place low-barrier-to-adoption solutions that have previously been evaluated and are recognized as a prerequisite to reducing emissions. Technologies that enhance the fuel economy of diesel heavy trucks (e.g. aerodynamics, decreased rolling resistance of tires, weight reduction, better engine efficiency, and hybridization) are critical components of a path to decarbonizing road freight. This is where a major portion of emissions reductions may be provided in the short to medium term, particularly for big vehicles on long-haul operations. To encourage the widespread deployment of these solutions, fuel efficiency and CO2 emission norms and regulations are required, and it is crucial that they also encompass big freight vehicles.

One of the most cost-effective ways to reduce CO2 emissions is to practice eco-driving. It is the quintessential example of “low-hanging fruit.” Although some major organizations have already embraced this technique, there is still an opportunity for it to be expanded, particularly for mid and small-sized businesses. On-board devices that monitor fuel use and offer feedback to the driver may and should be used in conjunction with eco-driving. In reality, for this strategy to be successful in the long run, it must be monitored and feedback on driving behavior frequently.

Alternative fuels are presently or will be a viable commercial solution for urban operations shortly. For example, there is already an economic rationale for electric battery light commercial vehicles (LCVs) in cities in specific scenarios. They will be more cost-effective than typical internal combustion engine (ICE) diesel/gasoline engines shortly. To encourage general use, common standards for new equipment and procedures (such as electric battery chargers, electric road systems (ERS), or modular packaging units) must be developed and adopted. To adequately identify best practices, analyze policies, and assess the contribution of different technology packages to decarbonization, the methodology for measuring emissions must be harmonized.