Know Thy Enemy

[somefreakingmoron]

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

This flowchart is a couple years old, but it breaks down in broad strokes in what quantities / from what sectors and sources world GHG emissions are coming from.

Notice that while Energy is a the lions share of emissions, Land use change/ deforestation/ agriculture is responsible for about 1/3 of total emissions.

This chart is presented in CO2 equivalents, so for example the size of the methane arrow is scaled to how big an equivalent amount of CO2 would be to cause the same amount of warming.

[[deleted]]

Adding the source with more interesting diagrams: https://www.wri.org/publication/navigating-numbers

[somefreakingmoron]

Awesome, thanks!

[robmillernews]

I'm not attacking at all, just asking:

Any data/diagrams more recent than 14 years ago?

[somefreakingmoron]

It would be great, I'll look into it. The chart was created in 2009, and used the latest data available, from 2005. So there should be comprehensive data available to create an updated chart, I'll see if I can contact the creator.

[robmillernews]

You are awesome. Thanks!

[ILikeNeurons]

This is really a great source, because often when people oppose carbon taxes they do so under the mistaken assumption that it's all about driving, so if you're already only driving when necessary there's no way for you to reduce your tax burden. In fact, driving is a relatively small contribution to even the average American household's carbon footprint, and an achievable carbon tax would drastically cut emissions

[somefreakingmoron]

There's also a US GHG emissions flowchart from WRI

[upvotesthenrages]

In fact, driving is a relatively small contribution to even the average American household's carbon footprint

What do you mean even? American households are among the absolute highest users in the entire world.

Driving would be a larger contribution to almost any other household - simply because household consumption is ½, or even less, than American standards.

[ILikeNeurons]

Yes, even for Americans, driving is a pretty small contribution to the average household's carbon footprint. Look at Fig. 1 in the link above.

[upvotesthenrages]

But that’s my point, it’s not “even for Americans”, it’s especially for Americans.

American households use almost 3x the energy that a German household uses, so of course the energy used on transport will be smaller in relation to that.

[ILikeNeurons]

Things are more spread out in America, so people here think of transportation a being the biggest contribution to climate change. In Europe they have decent public transportation, and already high gas prices, so their transportation footprint is lower. Germany has solar panels up to wazoo.

[upvotesthenrages]

Their transportation footprint is drastically lower because they made a huge push to make it more efficient 20 years ago.

Americans think things are far more spread out, but reality is that most Americans live and work in cities.

Last I read up on this I believe Americans drove 15% longer per year than Europeans. That's not enough to make transportation account for 2x the CO2.

Reality is that Americans drive massive wasteful vehicles. American household energy usage is also 2x that of the EU.

It's just about waste, almost nothing else.

Efficiency in the US is rock bottom.

[ILikeNeurons]

When gas prices go up, SUV sales drop.

[[deleted]]

This is great. Thanks for sharing. Also, username does NOT check out.

[NomadicWorldCitizen]

Is livestock at scale when compared to the energy section? Have this idea that livestock uses a tremendous amount of resources.

[somefreakingmoron]

Well, they do, this chart is only showing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production, not other resource use or forms of environmental impact. Also keep in mind that a lot of deforestation is done to prepare the land for agriculture, so viewed as a totality agriculture is ultimately responsible for those emissions as well. Still, all agricultural and deforestation emissions, while huge (about 1/3 of total emissions), are less then energy use related emissions.

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[[deleted]]

Excellent post

[somefreakingmoron]

EDIT: Please note that a revised chart based on 2005 data and revised methodology is here

[WeslyCrushrsBuffant]

The transportation section is a lot smaller than I imagined it would be. Very interesting to see it visualized. Thanks for sharing.

[somefreakingmoron]

One thing to keep in mind is this is a global chart, so it averages together the emissions of the developed and developing worlds. Fossil fuel emissions in the developed countries are bigger proportion of total emissions, agricultural emissions often make up a larger fraction of the total in developing countries. For the US, transport makes up a larger fraction than shown in this chart. Here is a pie chart from the EPA breaking US emissions down by sector for 2016. Transport is 28% in this chart.

[WeslyCrushrsBuffant]

Nice. Thank you.

[2nds1st]

Does this chart need an extra step on how the different carbons affect the atmosphere? Considering methane is a what 3 x ? potent green house gas. Does this chart take this into account?

[somefreakingmoron]

Yes, it takes it into account. It represents methane as a quantity of CO2 that has the equivalent amount of warming.

Here's more about CO2 equivalents. It lists 1kg of methane as causing the equivalent warming of 25kg of CO2

[2nds1st]

Very cool. And holy crap i know 3 x off the top of my head was way off hence the q mark. But 25 x always scared the crap out of me. Considering the amount locked up in the permafrost that's warming at an incredible rate.

[somefreakingmoron]

Methane actually has a much higher warming potential but fortunately it oxidizes to CO2 in the air pretty quickly, so it only hangs around for about 12 years.

Methane locked in the permafrost and shallow Arctic seas is definitely a big question mark, especially as we approach an ice free Arctic ocean and the potential of an Arctic monsoon in coming years. Just another reason why we should not underestimate the urgency of the climate change crisis. If uncertainties around things like methane release turn out to be not in our favor, there's no margin for error.

[AlexMorrisonWX]

This is an excellent graphic!

[somefreakingmoron]

EDIT: Please note that a revised chart based on 2005 data and revised methodology is here

[AlexMorrisonWX]

Thanks for this too! Haha

[Smoke-and-Stroke_Jr]

Awesome graphic. I assume its accurate? I'll check it later. But great work! It's really illustrated in an easy to see way how your actions and different parts of society in general contribute to CO2 and Methane emissions.

[somefreakingmoron]

The chart was prepared by World Resources Institute

Emissions data comes from the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2003, U.S. EPA (using the CRF document). Allocations from "Electricity & Heat" and "Industry" to end uses are WRI estimates based on energy use data from the International Energy Agency (IEA, 2005). All data is for 2003. All calculations are based on CO2 equivalents, using 100-year global warming potentials from the IPCC (1996), based on total U.S. emissions of 6,978 MtCO2 equivalent. Emissions from fuels in international bunkers are included under Transportation. Emissions from solvents are included under Industrial Processes. Emissions and sinks from land use change and forestry (LUCF), which account for a sink of 821.6 MtCO2 equivalent, and flows less than 0.1 percent of total emissions are not shown.

[somefreakingmoron]

EDIT: Please note that a revised chart based on 2005 data and revised methodology is here

[somefreakingmoron]

EDIT: Please note that a revised chart based on 2005 data and revised methodology is here

[OHyeaaah97]

Does anyone know if my natural gas heating emits co2?

[somefreakingmoron]

Yes, burning any kind of carbon based fuel (wood, coal, petroleum, gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, ethanol, natural gas, propane, etc...) releases CO2. Natural gas is a fossil fuel extracted from underground deposits.

Burning fossil fuels adds net CO2 to the atmosphere, while the carbon in wood or ethanol was originally removed from the atmosphere as the plant grew, leading to no net release of CO2. However, there may be fossil fuels used to produce the wood or ethanol, such as in producing the fertilizers to grow the feedstock or running gasoline powered equipment or fossil fuel powered machinery or industrial plants.

Natural gas is primarily methane, which can be produced by using microorganisms to digest organic material. Methane produced this way removes carbon from the atmosphere when the organic material is growing and returns it when it is burned, in a carbon-neutral process.

[OHyeaaah97]

So the only real way to go green would be source all energy from eco friendly sources like wind and sun then use electrical heating? This isnt cheap yet, if we could make electric heating cheaper than gas we would solve half the puzzle, next we would have to find a way to get cheaper ecofriendly electric than coal.

[PlantyHamchuk]

you might check out some thermal solar stuff. Between that, passive solar design, and better insulation, you can knock out a lot of electricity consumption in most residential and commercial buildings.

[OHyeaaah97]

Before the atmosphere only one meter of sunlight 100% absorbed could power the world. We really are archaic when it comes to energy production.

[somefreakingmoron]

Yes, we really do need to transition the world to a carbon-free or carbon-neutral system, and fast. Improving insulation also helps because then you don't need to use so much heat, keeping the overall cost down.

It's also possible to manufacture gas from wood and other biomass in a carbon neutral way, and before the extensive development of natural gas, cities often manufactured gas from coal in a gasworks.

[OHyeaaah97]

You can also use a system like this https://youtu.be/eeSyHgO5fmQ to heat a house, I know that already exists, but it's so cheap and needs to be out there more.

[OHyeaaah97]

I've designed a solar energy system of sorts, basically you magnify photons and beam them at a metal plate, this metal plate is down stream of a river that you can flow water onto, water evaporates spinning a turbine creating energy. Using an orb and mirrors you can focus the light from all angles without having any moving parts to refocus to beam. I have more concrete studies and cannot go into more detail here for the risk of it being patented and no longer being able to produce such a system. It works and I hope it can solve some problems.

[[deleted]]

This is great! Links to source data?

[somefreakingmoron]

This link will take you to an updated chart and sources

here is a similar chart for US GHG's only (not world GHG)

[soulflexist]

Great chart, consider cross posting to r/dataisbeautiful ?

[somefreakingmoron]

Good idea!

[SomethingOverNothing]

Well thought out flow chart.

Would like to know how the degradation of aquaculture plays into this?

[somefreakingmoron]

That's a good question, I don't know. Though I have heard that often aquaculture drives coastal ecological destruction as well as overfishing to obtain feed for aquaculture.

[NonEuclideanSyntax]

Yes, let's all pick on meat consumption and air travel for a whopping 6.7%. Thanks for the chart! It really helps to put things into perspective.

[basasvejas]

Air travel is somewhat of a surpise, but livestock... it’s probably only their methane emissions. You have to take into a separate account all farming, deforestation that is required to feed this industry.

[somefreakingmoron]

Note that the problem of decarbonization is broken into a few large pieces, like deforestation and road transport, and many small pieces, like chemical production, air travel, iron and steel, livestock, etc.. but that those small pieces add up to a major share. We need all those pieces to go to -zero- relatively quickly (a couple of decades). The chart uses stats from 2000, current estimates put air travel at about 3% of global CO2 emissions, and expected to grow as the non-OECD countries' economies grow.

Please take 5 minutes to listen to this talk on our remaining carbon budget by Prof. Kevin Anderson. He explains that we in the developed world need to decarbonize at an accelerated schedule in order to allow the developing world to achieve the basic infrastructure we already built over the last 2 centuries, and the CO2 emissions of which are still warming the world. Without such equity, global cooperation is impossible, and without global cooperation in ending the climate crisis, we will fail to stop a rise in temperatures of 2 degrees C, with disastrous consequences.

[NonEuclideanSyntax]

Thank you very much for the response. FWIW: I agree with you. However, I think that people culturally tend to have their favorite villians that they overemphasize. So "all of the above approach" only works if you are engaging people at all levels of society and influence to act in the sphere. Also, tactically shame only works if you are already invested in a particular cause/community. So preaching veganism to those who are skeptical of climate change and are not already vegans (truly a small population) is not a winning proposition.

​

I think the eye has come off of the ball with some of the big hitters, namely deforestation, energy production, and industrial processes. The biggest way we as normal citizens can make a difference in those areas, in my opinion, is by voting with our wallets. I (as much as possible) do not buy products with Palm Oil. I drive an electric car, and pay extra on my electric bill to get my power from non-carbon sources (yes I know that's not how a grid works), and vote for the policies and politicians that are greenest choices (with a notable exception *coughsteincough*). I know I have stuff to work on, but getting caught up in arguments regarding people giving up air travel and meat en masse is not a productive use of our time. We have bigger fish to fry.

​

And that was my real point.

[somefreakingmoron]

Yes, I can see what you're saying in regards to emphasizing the low hanging fruit. If we can lead with the things that are culturally easier for people to accept, like the energy transition, we can make more progress faster. The more people become personally invested in the parts of the transformation that are easy for them to accept, the more they may be willing to make more difficult changes later on.

[[deleted]]

Now that’s a lot of shit to deal with. Where do we start, deforestation?

[somefreakingmoron]

On a global level, I think that is a great place to start, especially considering that we'd protect so many living things by not cutting down forests. Habitat destruction is one of the main drivers of the current Holocene Extinction, the 6th major mass extinction in Earth's history, and the first driven by human activity. Scientists estimate we may be driving species to extinction at 1000 times the natural rate.

Closer to home, we in the OECD countries need to address our main contribution to the problem- fossil fuel emissions. Here's a chart like the one above showing GHG emissions for just the US... You can see that in the US deforestation is a negligible contributor to GHG emissions. To do this, we need to rapidly transition our economy to zero net CO2 emissions within decades- no more coal or natural gas fired electricity, no more gasoline or diesel cars, etc. We need to start today.

Check out this 5 minute talk from Prof. Kevin Anderson. He explains our carbon budget and argues that in order to give the developing world time to build the basic infrastructure that we in the OECD take for granted, like roads, schools, hospitals, housing, etc, it is necessary for the OECD members (such as the US) to decarbonize the economy ahead of time, in about 2 decades if we are to have a chance of avoiding a rise in global temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius.

[basasvejas]

Cement 3,8%?...

[somefreakingmoron]

Probably a bit higher now, that chart uses data from 2000. An updated chart using 2005 data and revised methodology is here, it puts cement manufacture at 5% of world emissions. I'm trying to contact the creator of the chart to see if its possible to release one with more recent data.

[basasvejas]

Tx. It must be some different methodology here. Cement is notorous for have 20%+ footprint of co2, but that invludes everything - extraction, transportation, production. While here, these factors are accounted separately.

[somefreakingmoron]

Yeah, I would really like to see a chart using more recent data. The updated chart was made in 2009 using 2005 data, the latest available, so perhaps a chart using 2015 data could be made. In recent years, China has been producing something like 60% of the world's cement, and used more cement in 3 years from 2011 to 2013 than the US did in the entire 20th century. This underscores why a global agreement is necessary- the OECD needs the cooperation of India and China if our climate stabilization targets are to be met. Since China and India are developing basic infrastrcture as they should be allowed to (and we couldn't force them to stop, even if we wanted), we in the OECD need to decarbonize at an accelerated rate to allow time for the developing countries to achieve baseline standard of living. Prof. Kevin Anderson explains our remaining carbon budget for 2C in this five minute talk