Emissions

 

Car Emissions Advice
“Currently there are no standards for CO2 emissions. The European Parliament has suggested introducing mandatory CO2 emission standards [1] to replace current voluntary commitments by the auto manufacturers and labeling. In late 2005, the European Commission started working on a proposal for a new law to limit CO2 emissions from cars. [2].

About Car Emissions
Most of the latest car engines are built in order to reduce damaging emissions to the environment. Modern technology in engines carefully controls the amount of fuel they burn, reducing the air-to-fuel ratio to a less damaging point. The main emissions of a car engine are:
Nitrogen gas (N2)

Carbon dioxide (CO2)

Water vapor (H2O)

Catalytic converters are built to lower car emissions which damage the environment, such as:-
Carbon monoxide (CO)

Hydrocarbons or volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

Nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2, together called NOx)

What can you do?
“There’s no doubt that new cars are cleaner than ever and are still being improved.” [3]

Due to news headlines and increasing talk about 4X4′s damaging the ozone layer, people have actually started buying smaller cars! In theory this makes sense, and in practice it’s great that people are getting involved in helping to save the planet!
Buying a smaller car is not the only way you can get involved in helping to cut down emissions though. PrudentMinds.com suggests the following ways to cut down your car emissions without having to drive a completely different car:
“Lower the weight in your car (don’t leave unnecessary items in your car, especially if they weigh a lot)

Check your tyre pressure, you car will perform at its best when the tyres are at the correct pressure, you can find this in your log book, or sometimes on the inside of your car door (at the bottom)

Don’t sit idle, if you are going to be at a standstill for longr than 3 minutes, turn the engine off

Don’t over accelerate, save the 0-60 tests for the track

Switch the air conditioning off”

 

 

The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 was signed by 38 signatory countries to address the issues of greenhouse gasses and resulting climate change issues. The following article will provide an understanding of trading greenhouse gas emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol is a UN-led international agreement reached in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan to address the problems of climate change and the reduction greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol went into force on February 2005.

Signatory countries are committed to moving away from fossil fuel energy sources – oil, gas, and coal, to renewable sources of energy such as hydro, wind and solar power, and to less environmentally harmful ways of burning fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are mainly generated by burning fossil fuels. Higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming and climate change.

The Protocol commits 38 industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2008-2012 to overall levels that are 5.2 percent below 1990 levels. Targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction were established for each industrialized country. Developing countries including China and India were asked to set voluntary targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

The Canadian target for Kyoto is to reduce by 2012, greenhouse gas emissions by six percent below their 1990. The United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and in February 2002 introduced the Clean Skies and Global Climate Change initiatives, in which targets for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions are linked directly to GDP and the size of the U.S. economy.

Trading of carbon emissions is linked to a program called Cap-and-Trade. Understanding this concept is necessary to begin effective trading. A central authority (usually a government or international body) sets a limit or cap on the amount of emissions discharged into the atmosphere. Companies that exceed the cap may be subject to fine or regulatory sanction. Therefore, those who find they cannot meet the conditions of the cap will look to buy credits from those who pollute less.

Many older established companies are forced to spend considerable sums of money modernizing plants. In many instances this takes time, usually years to achieve. In contrast to new generation technologies which are not faced with up-grading facilities to comply with 1990 emission standards. Trading emission credits is a way for low emission companies such as wind farms to sell credits to benefit higher emitting companies. Cap-and-trade programs ultimately aid in being a net benefit to the host country by enabling it to meet it’s commitment to the Kyoto Protocol Agreement.

From the very beginning, this first phase of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, or EU-ETS, was intended to be a learning period to work out the kinks and entice major greenhouse gas emitters on board.

On January 1, 2005, the EU-ETS came online with the cap-and-trade program covering approximately 12,000 installations including electricity production and some heavy industry. These 27 member countries of the European Union represents roughly 45 percent of total European CO2 emissions.

Now three years later, amid a flurry of expectations and public controversy, the European Union has credible results to back up its claim of success. Recently, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) affirms that despite rather unstable beginnings, the system has been an unprecedented success. More importantly, it opens the door for skeptical countries like the United States to follow suit.

The United States would have been required to reduce its emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels had it accepted ratification of Kyoto. Instead, U.S. emissions have now risen more than 16 percent between 1990 and 2005.

The Bush administration and Republican lawmakers opposed to emission caps have been touting the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which consists of Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. The aim of the initiative, which began in 2005, is to foster cooperation on ways to improve clean energy development and lower emissions without global mandates. But since the initiative started, the United States, India, and China have come under increased domestic pressure to move toward mandatory emission controls. California is among several U.S. states that have entered into partnerships or passed laws for controlling greenhouse gases ahead of the federal government, leading to a showdown with congressional lawmakers. Major U.S. cities have also instituted a host of policies designed to cut greenhouse gases.

Without the United States entering into a binding commitment, it is feared that several developing countries which have not yet signed plus some Kyoto signatories may be unwilling to agree to additional international commitments.

The releasing of gaseous substances into air is known as environment emissions as a result of combustion, manufacturing, and natural waste and other processes. Environment emissions are now regarded as a matter of conscious as they are classified as greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range and contribute to the increasing of the heating of the earth. Because of these the climate of the earth is changing. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone are the main greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Carbon Dioxide emissions are the most common environment emission. Methane and Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) emissions are some other environmental emissions.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Through the carbon cycle and human activities like the burning of oil, coal and gas, and deforestation Carbon Dioxide Emissions are produced. But the carbon dioxide that is emitted from the carbon circle has a very little effect. Billions of tons of carbon dioxide are removed from the atmosphere, known as ‘sinks’, by oceans and growing plants. But these carbons are emitted back into the atmosphere through natural processes, known as ‘sources’. Because of these processes there is a balance as the total carbon dioxide emissions and removals from the entire carbon cycle are roughly equal.

The carbon emission that is occurred through human activities can’t be equaled through any natural process and this unequalled carbon has very bad effect upon the environment. Since the Industrial Revolution in 1700′s carbon emissions have increased. Now carbon is 35% higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution. Carbon Dioxide Emissions are responsible for about 80% of the problems related to Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

Methane Emissions

Methane emissions are another source of environmental emissions. Methane is emitted from human activities, fossil fuel production, animal husbandry, rice cultivation, biomass burning, and waste management, and natural sources, wetlands, gas hydrates, permafrost, termites, oceans, freshwater bodies, non-wetland soils, and other sources such as wildfires. More than 60 percent of global methane emissions are related to human-related activities.

Methane emission can vary from one country or region to another because it depends upon many factors such as climate, industrial and agricultural production characteristics, energy types and usage, and waste management practices. For example, one of the key biological processes that cause methane emissions in both human-related and natural sources is anaerobic digestion process upon which temperature and moisture have a significant effect. To capture and utilize methane from sources such as landfills, coal mines, and manure management systems different technologies are implemented which affect the emission levels from these sources.

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

CFCs, chlorine, bromine, fluorine et., are man-maid products. It could be found in aerosol canned products as hairspray and deodorant and house hold products like AC, fridge, washing machine etc. CFCs contribute in environment emissions by depleting the ozone layer. Both chlorine and bromine act to destroy ozone, but bromine acts about 45 times more effectively to do so. To recover the ozone layer we have to reduce the CFCs level from the environment.

Reducing environmental emissions totally is impossible but it can be minimized. Minimizing it becomes a must. Otherwise the world will face a gigantic and mortal effect.