Third of emissions cuts must come from behaviour changes

[Joeboy]

This guy has got is sussed, well within limits

[Oldgreybeard]

Part of the problem is how we measure/estimate/otherwise determine emissions, isn't it?

This is an area that looks to be more complex every time I've tried to get my head around it.

I can, for example, take the known energy consumption of our car, work out/estimate the emissions from the way we charge it without too much trouble, but that doesn't account for the emissions produced when the car was made, the emissions produced by whoever services it, or even the emissions produced from everyday replacement service items, like tyres, windscreen wipers, even washer fluid.

Same goes for our house. I have a certificate from when the house was built that tells me how much energy it uses/generates and the estimated amount of carbon dioxide it emits (which for us are both negative numbers). This takes no account of us, though, our food, consumables, the energy and emissions from all the various entities that provide us with services (post, refuse and recycling collection, etc).

This complexity means that it's far too easy to cherry pick numbers from official looking sources and quote them, when in reality they are both inaccurate and pretty meaningless (other than for mythical bragging rights). I accidentally got a fair bit of local media attention back in 2016, when the council picked up that our house was the lowest energy house in the county, and decided (without asking us!) to use this as some sort of indicator that they were doing a good job (reality is that much of what I did was despite the council, not because of the council's help - there wasn't much of that!).

The process of trying to work out how close I came to meeting the nominal targets I'd set out to try and achieve, well over 20 years ago when I first started planning to build a zero energy home hasn't been at all easy, and even now I have two sets of data, both derived from official/reputable modelling methods, that give very different answers. The house meets the Passivhaus Institut definition as being a passive house (although I couldn't afford the around £1500 it costs for certification) and it also has a quite ludicrous Energy Performance Certificate and Environmental Impact Rating chit, which seems to show that we use no energy and emit no carbon dioxide at all.

Are those measures meaningful? I'm not at all sure they are. As a comparison with other houses they may be of some use, but my own view is that they are mostly misleading and give an overly optimistic view of our true energy usage and emissions.

[Ken]

do we really have to change drasticly ? once we have non polluting EVs,HPs,RE, in fact just get rid of fossil fuels is that not enough ? It feels like it should be.

[AE-NMidlands]

do we really have to change drasticly ? once we have non polluting EVs,HPs,RE, in fact just get rid of fossil fuels is that not enough ? It feels like it should be.

I think this misses the embodied energy (i.e. mostly recent carbon emissions) in all the "stuff" we have, including cars. I'm keeping our 4th petrol ICE car - in 55 years - until it dies. Then none.
EVs still have tyres and, to a lesser extent, brakes - and lots of stuff brought half way round the world. RE (pv) worries me a bit as it all seems to come from China... HPs I don't recognise unless it means Heat Pumps, in which case, see cars!

The other thing is that I suspect that the western world has gobbled/burnt so much carbon in the last century that the desperate problems of low-lying coastal states like Bangladesh and Pacific islands really deserve our support to help them cope with the crisis they are in now. I don't know how you deal with the likes of India and China desperately trying to catch up and using mostly coal.

We in the UK, Europe and USA have no excuse for not going carbon-negative as quickly as we can, even if it does mean putting the economy on a war-footing (i.e. directed) and a long spell of austerity while we re-jig almost everything. The trouble is that our economy currently only recognises the health of "the city" as a measure of health and wealth.

[Mr Gus]

This guy has got is sussed, well within limits

I'm confused joe, (as ever) .shouldnt that boats propeller be UNDER the water!?

[Countrypaul]

This guy has got is sussed, well within limits

I'm confused joe, (as ever) .shouldnt that boats propeller be UNDER the water!?

You mean it isn't a wind turbine?

[Mr Gus]

Propellor- potato, wind turbine, TomATO ..etc

[dangermouse]

Part of the problem is how we measure/estimate/otherwise determine emissions, isn't it?

This is an area that looks to be more complex every time I've tried to get my head around it.

There's a very good book "How bad are bananas?" by Mike Berners-Lee in which he analyses and estimates (very scientifically) the carbon footprint of a whole range of goods and activities.

There's some surprising figures in the book - for example despite our general feeling that "shipping things half way round the world" is bad, goods shipped by boat are actually quite low carbon. Air freight is another matter. Asparagus shipped by air has one of the highest carbon footprints of all foods. And if you cycle, and get your energy from eating beefburgers, your journey emits more carbon than if you had driven an SUV (this doesn't reflect badly on cycling, it shows how bad raising cattle for food is).

A very interesting and useful read!

[Joeboy]

This guy has got is sussed, well within limits

I'm confused joe, (as ever) .shouldnt that boats propeller be UNDER the water!?

You mean it isn't a wind turbine?

He also has at least one solar panel port fwd. I have tried to convince swmbo that getting my skippers ticket and having a year or two floating around the Med is the way forward. As yet she is unconvinced.

[Ken]

do we really have to change drasticly ? once we have non polluting EVs,HPs,RE, in fact just get rid of fossil fuels is that not enough ? It feels like it should be.

I think this misses the embodied energy (i.e. mostly recent carbon emissions) in all the "stuff" we have, including cars. I'm keeping our 4th petrol ICE car - in 55 years - until it dies. Then none.
EVs still have tyres and, to a lesser extent, brakes - and lots of stuff brought half way round the world. RE (pv) worries me a bit as it all seems to come from China... HPs I don't recognise unless it means Heat Pumps, in which case, see cars!

yes i can see that but as industry becomes closer to zero co2 then so does the embedded energy. Even mineing is becoming cleaner and then we will have green steel.