Calculate your carbon footprints

Sam Chanthy chanthy.sam@sei.se

Stockholm Environment

Institute

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Quick Fact

• Global warming is REAL.• By 2080– Up to 3 billion people could suffer water shortage– 200-600 million could face famine.– 20-30% of all species may face extinction.– The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet would

accelerate, raising sea levels by as much as 23 feet.• The annual personal carbon footprint of one million

Americans equals CO2 emissions of 1.2 million cars.• Everyone is part of the problem. The question is how

much of a problem are you?• The good news is that each of us can take action to

solve this problem. All of us have a role to play, and none of us bears the burden alone.

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Introduction• Inevitably, in going about our daily lives —

commuting, sheltering our families, eating — each of us contributes to the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.

• Yet, there are many things each of us, as individuals, can do to reduce our carbon emissions. The choices we make in our homes, our travel, the food we eat, and what we buy and throw away all influence our carbon footprint and can help ensure a stable climate for future generations.The Nature Conservancy

What is carbon footprint?

• A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc.

• The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases we individually produce and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent.

(Source: CarbonFootprint.com)

Continued…• A carbon footprint is made up of the sum of two

parts, the primary footprint and the secondary footprint.

–1. The primary footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane). We have direct control of these.

–2. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown. To put it very simply – the more we buy the more emissions will be caused on our behalf.

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Why do we need to know our CO2 footprints?

CO2—a toxic atmospheric gas, causing the extreme change in climate.

Climatic change puts high risk to our natural and human survival in shortcoming time.Our climate

crisis affects everyone, everywhere.

The Earth’s temperature is rising. Our water and food sources are becoming scare.

We are environmental organizations who commit for a better green planet.

We individuals are part of the emissions contributing to the world’s climate change.

It will be not be late for us to stop climate change or to live through it.The only truly

global/individual response can address it.

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Calculating Your Own CO2

Households

Offices• Transportation (Travel & Commuting)

– car, bus, motorcycle, and plane

• Energy and water consumption • Paper consumption • Good and services• Waste Management and Recycling• Communication/Education

How to calculate it!• It is easy to do it.

• There are varieties of online calculating tools which you can access to through websites (as highlighted below).

• What you have to do is to select the tools which fit your context and learn the calculating methodologies. Get the inputs and it is automatically calculated.

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Continued…• Let’s try one or two, and you will get

familiar. • www.carbonfootprint.com• www.carbonfund.org• www.whatsmycarbornfootprint.com • www.coolclimate.berkeley.edu• www.terrapass.com• www.fightglobalwarming.com• www.myfootprint.com• www.myclimate.org• Etc.

Just easy click

Simple Spreadsheet

Yet• Sustainability of the initiative– Institutionalized (i.e. set up environmental policy to

response to it)– Resource allocated (i.e. staff and time to annually

assess the carbon footprint of household or organization)—NOT COSTLY!

– Not only assessment, yet offsetting is practically required (i.e. energy efficiency plan in office or home, use recycled papers, plant something, avoiding unnecessary travelling, or even support others for green planet, etc.)

– Monitoring and Evaluation (i.e. setting the target to achieve emission cuts by specific outputs)

Thank You