Sentences with phrase «increasing carbon debt»

Any further carbon expenditure goes toward increasing carbon debt.

We are out of carbon budget; EVERY expenditure of fossil fuel from now on increases our carbon debt, and reduces our chances of avoiding the climate Apocalypse.

Not exact matches

Why spending on a Green New Deal will reduce the public debt, cut carbon emissions, increase energy security and reduce fuel poverty

«I expected an increase in both carbon emissions and species extinctions debts, but the magnitude of these debts was surprising,» Rosa says.

«We show that even if deforestation had completely halted in 2010, time lags ensured there would still be a carbon emissions debt equivalent to five to ten years of global deforestation and an extinction debt of more than 140 bird, mammal, and amphibian forest - specific species, which, if paid, would increase the number of 20th century extinctions in these groups by 120 percent,» says Isabel Rosa (@isamdr86) of the Imperial College of London.

«[P] rojected growth in wood harvest for bioenergy would increase atmospheric CO2 for at least a century because new carbon debt continuously exceeds NPP.»

Burning wood instead of coal therefore creates a carbon debt — an immediate increase in atmospheric CO2 compared to fossil energy — that can be repaid over time only as — and if — NPP [net primary production] rises above the flux of carbon from biomass and soils to the atmosphere on the harvested lands.»

The qualitative result that growth in bioenergy raises atmospheric CO2 does not depend on the parameters: as long as bioenergy generates an initial carbon debt, increasing harvests mean more is «borrowed» every year than is paid back.

Focusing on the carbon emissions associated with tropical deforestation, it showed that converting rainforests or grasslands to corn, soybean, or palm oil biofuel production led to a carbon emissions increase — a «biofuel carbon debt» — that was at least 37 times greater than the annual reduction in greenhouse gases resulting from the shift from fossil fuels to biofuels.

Even if the forests eventually regrow, notes Prof. Sterman, each year the new carbon debt from increased harvest and combustion outweighs the regrowth, just as borrowing more on a credit card each month than one is able to pay back will steadily increase what he or she owes.

Interestingly, beyond this, despite considerable rhetoric about moving beyond debates about carbon - pricing, the report recommends that in order to avoid adding to the Federal debt, it would be necessary to impose new taxes, including increased royalties for oil and gas extraction, a tax on imported oil, a tax on electricity sales, and a «very small carbon price» (presumably from a modest carbon tax or unambitious cap - and - trade system).