Where to find a chart breaking out components of possible CO2 reduction?

July 21, 2008 12:41 PM

How big a part of the global warming solution might come from land-use changes, how much from no-till farming and so forth?

I know I've seen charts like this several times in the past, but now I somehow can't turn one up.

So we're trying to cut greenhouse emissions 30 percent by 2030 or whatever. How much of that cut can we reasonably expect to come from transporting less stuff, how much from greener building, etc.?

Ideally I'd like to find a graphical illustration, but words would do. I'm hoping to convince someone of the diversity and difficulty of tactics that it'll take to save the world.

posted by teracloth to society & culture (5 answers total)

Sorry. Couldn't resist. In answer to this:

So we're trying to cut greenhouse emissions 30 percent by 2030 or whatever. How much of that cut can we reasonably expect to come from transporting less stuff, how much from greener building, etc.?

I would definitely say the latter.
posted by Autarky at 12:54 PM on July 21, 2008

Thankfully, the link to the National Review link is gone. I mean...seriously? You link to a dissenting article from a known hack republican publication? Weak.

Anyway, I think much of the harm has already been done, re:land use changes. We could make things worse, but I don't think Land Use changes are going to be a significant sink of CO2, or lower emissions much.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 1:50 PM on July 21, 2008

Perhaps you are looking for "stabilization wedges"?
posted by five toed sloth at 1:56 PM on July 21, 2008

The term you're looking for is LULUCF - land use, land use change and forestry.

Decent international figures are terrible. Most developed countries have reasonable Kyoto-compliant accounting systems. Here's Australia's, for all economic sectors.

You could nick the pie chart from any number of reports (there's probably one in my last link, you'd have to find it).

But short answer for Australia is 16% of emissions are attributed to agriculture. Ruminant methane emissions make up a big part of this, only a small part is deforestation (or in reality, avoided deforestation).
posted by wilful at 12:16 AM on July 22, 2008

Thanks, Five-toe -- that's exactly the concept I'm looking for. Rock on.
posted by teracloth at 9:33 AM on July 23, 2008