Sharing the remaining Global Carbon Budget equally between everyone on the earth.
Giving us each a Personal Carbon Budget. (figures on video now out of date, concept still useful)
Giving us each a Personal Carbon Budget. (figures on video now out of date, concept still useful)
Global Carbon Budget
The carbon budget is the amount of carbon dioxide (or equivalent greenhouse gases) that if emitted will cause a specific global temperature rise. For example, if we emit less than about 500 Gigatonnes Carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) from the end of 2017 then there is a 66% chance that the global temperature will stay below a 1.5 degrees global warming.
Currently we are emitting about 42 GtCO2e globally every year which gives us about a decades worth of emissions at current rates left before we've burned through our budget. If we reduce our emissions steadily to zero then globally we need to reach net zero emissions within 2 decades.
Currently we are emitting about 42 GtCO2e globally every year which gives us about a decades worth of emissions at current rates left before we've burned through our budget. If we reduce our emissions steadily to zero then globally we need to reach net zero emissions within 2 decades.
Personal Carbon Budget
The most equitable way to divide up the carbon budget would be to share the total budget since the industrial revolution equally among everyone on earth, accounting for how much of the budget our country has already used up so far since the industrial revolution. Unfortunately, most rich countries used up their equal per capita share of the carbon budgets for 1.5 and 2 degrees C some decades ago. By rights, we should be well past zero emissions and be pulling CO2 out of the air to clean up our share of the mess. Countries that have used very little of their budgets (most of sub-saharan Africa) would by rights be allowed their equal share of the carbon budget to create an infrastructure and basic standard of living for the population in order to then transition to zero carbon with less suffering.
As we are too late to be fair historically, we've done the next best thing and divided the remaining carbon budget equally per person alive today, giving about 89 tonnes CO2 per person left from January 2016 for a 66% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees. Although, it lets rich countries off the hook for all their embedded carbon infrastructure advantages, it still means reducing emissions per person far faster than any government has committed to so far. In the UK, an average person uses about 10 tonnes per year. If you're about average for the UK, an 89 tonne budget from January 2016 gives 9 years of emissions at current levels, of which 4 have gone.
As we are too late to be fair historically, we've done the next best thing and divided the remaining carbon budget equally per person alive today, giving about 89 tonnes CO2 per person left from January 2016 for a 66% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees. Although, it lets rich countries off the hook for all their embedded carbon infrastructure advantages, it still means reducing emissions per person far faster than any government has committed to so far. In the UK, an average person uses about 10 tonnes per year. If you're about average for the UK, an 89 tonne budget from January 2016 gives 9 years of emissions at current levels, of which 4 have gone.
We don't countSo there is a budget, but we don't know how much it is, how much we are using now and how much we can change.
We really need to learn to count CO2. Otherwise we are going into this blindfolded. |
Where do these figures come from?Basically, the remaining, per person budget is obtained by taking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) budget and dividing by the global population. For more detail, discussion and alternatives, see methodology.
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So what now?At some point there will be a snazzy app to easily enter your current lifestyle and experiment with different options for designing your descent to a sustainable life.
Until then here's a work in progress excel spreadsheet. Feel free to use and improve. |
Endorsements
"This is a revealing - and sobering - tool that shows us the predicament we're in;
hopefully it will help people shift in a more sustainable direction."
- Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement and named as “probably America’s most important environmentalist.”
"It is really helpful to be able to highlight this the way you propose."
- Corinne Le Quéré, Professor of Climate Change Science and Policy at the University of East Anglia and Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change
"I was thinking of this too yesterday. It is a very good concept"
- Sir David MacKay, FRS - Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) 2009 to 2014
A Thank You
Really sadly, it's too late to say this. But I want to say thank you to David MacKay for providing inspiration through his book and for always, even when dying of cancer, answering all our questions. Both about this concept as a whole and about the biomass intricacies that came from exploring his BeaC calculator.
Although I didn't know him any more than through emails and reading his work, I feel sad and shocked to lose him. He'd never mentioned why the emails usually got sent at 2am.
He was supportive, honest, engaging and enthusiastic.