1.Introduction
Carbon neutrality is not more a dream, a nice marketing phrasing or either a reason to rebel. It is strategy. Many companies now realize that they can rather make profit by being reasonable about global warming than trying to tackle new regulations. This is the result to changes that first became an important issue after the Kyoto Protocol was agreed on, back in 1997. This protocol was the written code for the new era of climate change control, with new resolutions and indexes aimed at the reduction in emission of green house effect gases all around the world, by the countries who agreed upon the protocol, which entered vigor from the beginning of 2005.
Only a handful of nations did not sign the Kyoto Protocol. One of them,
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The word that goes now is to become Carbon Neutral, and to add trading of carbon to the portfolio as soon as possible.
This text is an attempt to make a rough analysis of the state of Barclays Bank PLC strategy in the area. Four sources were used for this article, being a highly reliable report from Ceres (formerly the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies) from January 2008, an article from the Director Magazine from May 2007 and two sources from Barclays itself; one being a press release from march 2007 and the other being Barclays actual website. These sources and this text were backed up by two articles from the Harvard Business Review issue of October 2007.
2.Carbon
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For example, how does wind turbines influence the weather, waves and fishing? These could be the important issues for tomorrow. Investing in research to prevent these threats can make give Barclays another edge.
5.Bibliography
2006, Barclay launches ‘carbon neutral’ card – AllPay News, The Bankwatch. Available from: http://thebankwatch.com/2006/11/05/barclays-launches-carbon-neutral-card-allpaynews-3/ [13-February-2008]
2008, Barclays goes carbon neutral in the UK, Barclays Bank PLC. Available from: http://www.newsroom.barclays.co.uk/content/detail.asp?ReleaseID=972&NewsAreaID=2 [13-February-2008]
CERES, 2008, Corporate Governance and Climate Change: The Bank Sector. Boston: Ceres.
Hoffman, Andrew J., (2007), If You’re not at the Table, You’re on the Menu. Harvard Business Review, 85(10), p. 34 – 35
Porter, Michael E. and Reinhardt, Forest L., (2007), A Strategic Approach to Climate. Harvard Business Review, 85(10), p. 22 – 26 Stevenson, T., 2007, Green and prosperous land? , Director, May 2007, pg54-57.
UCBerkeleyNews, 2007, Glossary of alternative-fuel terms. Available from: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/01_nrg-glossary.shtml
The 38th ICAO Assembly wants to achieve carbon-neutral growth in 2020 to adapt with the climate changes. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its operations it’s reducing the amount of fuel consumptions. To reduce carbon emissions
The Kyoto Protocol is a binding international agreement, which began in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. As of June 2013, there were a total of 192 parties participating in the Kyoto Protocol, Canada was no longer one of them. Canada was one of the first to sign the agreement, in 1998; more than 4 years later, Canada formally approved the Kyoto Accord, in 2002 ("CBC.ca - Timeline: Canada and Kyoto"). This meant Canada would have to decrease its emissions, by 6% in comparison to 1990 levels (461 Mt), by the year 2012. Despite some efforts, Canada failed to meet these requirements and in fact increased total emissions by roughly 24% by the year 2008. Canada formally withdrew from the Kyoto Accord in 2011, avoiding penalties and future detriments ("CBC News in Depth: Kyoto"). The withdrawal of Canada from the Kyoto Protocol was a good decision, the decrease in emissions was an unattainable goal, considering the cost, time, unfairness, dependency and technological advancement.
This rhetorical analysis essay describes how reducing carbon emissions that cause pollution and other harmful effects on the environment and the lives of the people can attain a clean environment. It is based on Andrew C. Revkin’s article Carbon-Neutral is Hip, but is it Green? This article explains how carbon-neutral companies reduce carbon emissions. The companies’ work is to estimate the amount of greenhouse gases that are produced by different bodies like big businesses, international banks and transportation sectors. The effects are then sold to these emitting parties who pay for projects such as algae fertilization and tree plantation that could absorb the emitted gases. The argument of the author of this article is in agreement with what most environmentalists claim.
As the firms have to pay extra costs of what they produce and emit, they have to clearly bring sustainability as the main target of their businesses in order to reduce their emissions. Not doing so, will drop the profits in their business as they have to pay the price for extra emitted carbon. Further it will bring down their reputation from those companies in the market whose carbon labelling will be better. Thus they will have no choice but to take actions. They have to bring sustainability to the core target of their firm. On other hand, it would engage the thoughtful attention of every household and enterprise to the effort to reduce emissions.[6] (Repetto, Cap and Trade is Better Climate Policy than a Carbon Tax, 2013) Each emitter, direct or indirect, would face higher prices for fossil-based energy and for energy intensive goods and services. Each one would then be motivated to find ways to minimize those cost increases in the least onerous way. All the resourcefulness and creativity that the economy and population can muster would be engaged in the effort, not because of environmental commitment or citizenship but because of economic self-interest. Although a large majority of Americans believes that greenhouse gases should be reduced, that alone has not been enough to motivate their actions on nearly the scale required. Values must be supported by economic self interest which is present in the cap and trade policy.
Examine, The World May Have Hit Peak Carbon Emission, document E, which talks about how there is a chance that we may be on our way to lowering carbon dioxide emissions, but the future of climate change lies in the hands of China’s and India’s growth and how they plan on fueling their growth. It also depends on the national leaders that signed the Paris climate agreement and whether they plan on upholding their part of the agreement through the years. The author of the paper Fast Company describes the unpredictable future by saying “Even if emissions were to peak soon, global emissions would still take years to decline substantively. An acceleration in the transformation of energy use and production is needed.” This shows that even though nations are finally coming to the reality of climate change and are planning on taking action with the treaty,
The threat of climate change in recent years is recognized as a real and potentially catastrophic threat to the health and welfare of our planet, as industrialized nations continue to run their economies by burning carbon into the atmosphere. Recently, it has taken on a larger role in our national media, the public, and the government, as the effects of anthropogenic climate change become more evident. In the United States, for example, the year 2007 brought the first major piece of legislation in the country to address the problem under the Climate Security Act, and the United States Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Today, many politicians, economists, scientists, and environmentalists propose a solution that would create a regulated market based on emissions into the atmosphere, effectively internalizing all negative externalities. It’s called cap and trade, and it has a lot of potential to help incentivize the implementation of alternative forms of energy, has several different variations and alternatives, and has already been successful in many programs around the world.
According to the protocol, overall global reduction must be at least five per cent in 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2008-2012. However, the Kyoto Protocol is not a simple document because both of the commitments and the mechanisms on how the developed country Parties can achieve the target are extremely complex. Although all countries recognized the need to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases, but since many developed countries are depend on the fossil fuel industry for their economy, they refused to agree with the limitation of their domestic greenhouse gas emission. This resulting the failure of the Protocol in protecting the earth from climate change, which is supposed to be the reason of its
David, Suzuki. “Carbon Offsets Are One of Many Solutions Needed for Global Warming.” Current Controversies: Carbon Offsets. Ed. Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Print.
Potential impacts of technology on a global scale are relatively long-term, the NCCTI is guided over this by the climate change goals of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992 (Kyoto Protocol), ratified by the United States and more than 170 other countries (5) (3). The UNFCCC calls for the "... stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in Earth's atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."(5) In order to achieve this long-term goal, net emissions of greenhouse gases on a global scale must ultimately approach levels that are lower than they are today. (1)
Carbon dioxide or CO2 is known to be one of a number of gases that are astonishingly transparent to the visible light that falls on the Earth from the Sun, but it absorb the infra-red radiation that emitted by the warm surface of our Earth, to prevents its loss into space. Moreover, CO2 has varied considerably and this affected the Earth’s temperature. Most common source of this CO2 is known as the fossil fuel. Fossil fuels are primarily coal, hydrocarbons, natural gas, or fuel oil that formed from the remains of the dead plants and also animals. The burning fossil fuel that has been created by humans is the largest source of emissions of the carbon dioxide.
One thing is for sure, large number of companies are starting to face problems and trying to come up with solutions to this crisis. Many suggestions have been made towards companies and some include changing more environmental friendly supply chain. (Carbon dioxide supply chain reporting in a Swedish multinational corporation, 2010). Swedish multinational corporation Entra has stated the fact that there is a relationship between their costs and energy sourcing. Since they are sometimes supplier to their suppliers, the environment pushes Entra and all organizations to look into how they can influence their supply channels. BP Amoco as many other companies, have set a target on reducing Greenhouse gasses. One step that they took was...
One of the most compelling and difficult environmental problems society is facing today is climate change. People do not realize how much the environment has changed for the worse in the last ten years, until they are told that the last two decades of the 20th century have been the hottest in the last 400 years, according to climate studies (Conserve Energy Future). Today the carbon dioxide levels have reached 396.81 parts per million (ppm). “Carbon dioxide (CO2) has also increased over the last 100 years-- from about 300 ppm to 370 ppm. Interestingly, the majority of these additions have occurred in the last 50 years, when temperature increases have been slowest” (geocraft). There are no known solutions yet to reverse these effects in the environment, however there are many things people can do to prevent it from increasing. By implementing a carbon tax the government can tax corporations on how much carbon they emit into the atmosphere. With the extra money from the tax, scientist can invest in alternative ways to reduce how much carbon is emitted. Reducing climate change is going to take years and so nothing is going to get fixed anytime soon, but meanwhile we can use that extra money to begin cleaning up the atmosphere. There are many ways to explain climate change, some say its due to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, others say it is the burning of the fossils fuels, some even say it’s the greenhouse gases. All of these sayings mean the exact same thing, no matter how one says it. I believe there are more convenient ways to solve climate change; and if the government would to implement a carbon tax on companies they will then be forced to re-evaluate all the carbon they emit to the environment and red...
Berlin, Germany IPCC present reports it wants to only bring about limitation of temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. The need of International Corporation is needed. The IPCC drew a red line in the sand which tied that 2 degree Celsius to the amount of the fossil fuels we can burn. Which was a trillion tons of carbon. Scientist stated (Disruption, 2014), “We are more than halfway there, and we are already approaching 600,000,000,000 million tons already. With that rate, we will completely use the carbon budget within 30 years.” What the Policy making community did was make a dangerous humane interference. In 2009, they agreed on a target of 2 degree Celsius of max warning. That would require emissions worldwide stopping within a matter of decades. As one scientist stated (Disruption, 2014) “That 2 degrees is not a safe level. It still would have substation climate impact.” With having 1 degrees melting the Arctic and Antarctic it would be crazy to find out what 2 degrees would do. The same leaders that did not want the temperatures to go up 2 degrees, put together a series of proposals, when you add them up the temp will raise 6 degree. Most scientist think if it goes past that civilization will not be possible. Some scientist feel we need to leave 80% of fossil fuel in the ground. The fossil fuel industry wants to burn all the reserves and if that happens that is where we got the 6 degrees. Scientist are screaming if we go over the 2 degree mark that climate change could spin out of control we could trigger our tipping
The emission of carbon dioxide has contributed to 80% to the heating of the earth atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is produced due the burning of fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal and oil. The burning of fossil fuel is very important in our society today, because it is used for cooking, used to produce electricity, for heating, for cooling and also for transportation. The industrialization has led to the use of fossil fuel for running machines and driving cars. The building of fossil fuel contributes towards 80-90% of the carbon dioxide we find in our atmosphere today. When the ecosystems are altered and vegetation is either burned or took out, the carbon stored in them is relinquished to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (What causes global climate change, 2005). Methane is another gas being produced in the process which all have served to increase the greenhouse effect in our atmosphere. Methane is produced from the cultivation of rice, from the burning of coal and from cattle, it has increased by 145% due to human
The world’s greatest powers have shown a lack of interest in the way that they are destroying the environment around them. The rise of the climate through the years has been altering how different organisms have had to survive. The world’s use of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions is at an all-time high. The countries with the highest CO2 emissions are same countries with the largest economies. The United States, China, India, Japan, and Russia are the top five leaders in CO2 emissions. All together they account for around 60% of the total carbon emissions worldwide. In order to cut down on the amount of CO2 emissions counties need start regulating their larger industries that create the highest amount of carbon emissions.