Some Facts about Climate Change
- ‘Climate change’ and ‘Global warming’ are often used interchangeable. Global warming in fact refers to the increase in the average temperature of the earth’s surface and oceans in recent history, and its projected continuation climate change describes the consequences of global warming.
- Carbon dioxide is the main contributor responsible for 80% of carbon emissions from industrial countries burning fossil fuels; oil, petrol and natural gas (The Carbon Trust).
- A carbon footprint is the amount of CO2 directly associated with every activity, project or service. Everything has a carbon footprint – your kettle, the electricity used to boil the water, the purification of the water you use to put in the kettle. Tackling climate change means cutting the carbon footprint of the things we use and the way we operate.
- You can measure your carbon footprint by checking out the carbon calculator at www.carbonneutral.com
- Carbon credits – is a generic term for a tradable emission reduction and it’s the basic ‘currency’ of climate change. There are 2 basic types of carbon credit.
- Allowances – a number of Governments around the world have agreed to cap emissions for their country in total. They then pass these caps onto the individual industries and companies within the country. These caps are represented as ‘allowances’ to emit CO2. An allowance is simply a permit to emit a unit (counted in units of 1 tonne) of CO2.
- Project based credits – these are created by implementing an activity that reduces emissions compared to what would have happened with business as usual. Companies and individuals can support such projects by buying project based credits to off-set their own impact on the environment.
