Dashboard map for 2022 SDG Index Goal #13 ratings. Data source: sdgindex.org
CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production (tCO₂/capita)
One of the first things worth noting about SDG #13 is the Goal works in symbiosis with the UNFCCC’s Paris Agreement. The UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) is the primary international forum for tackling climate change. The UNFCCC and Paris Agreement are international agreements which your country has signed and ratified. Mentioned in the introductory chapter was the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the UNFCCC was adopted. Article 2 of the UNFCCC encompasses the treaty’s goal, which is:
So where does the Paris Agreement come into play? The history of the negotiations and their mechanics is demoralising, despite what I imagine to be the best efforts. Each year since 1995 (except for 2020, due to COVID-19) the Conference of the Parties (COP) has met. The COP are all the countries which signed the UNFCCC, which continue negotiations within the framework, to put into action the intention of the treaty.
You may remember having heard about the Kyoto Protocol in the past, which was to guide how the UNFCCC operated, intended to translate it from words on a page to mechanisms for action. The US Senate failed to adopt the Kyoto Protocol at the time of its signing by the Clinton Administration, nor did they reconsider under later Congresses thereafter. This was due to the Senate’s perceived unfairness of the treaty concerning the developing countries. China was the largest of these developing countries, thus free from being subject to the terms of the Protocol, as at the time of negotiation, developed countries were responsible for the most emissions. Thus, in many senses, without the participation of the largest emitter of all time - the US - the Kyoto Protocol was somewhat of a lame duck.
The COP invested much effort in an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol at the summit in Copenhagen in 2009, but alas failed. The COP postponed the task to the 21st Conference of the Parties, meeting in December 2015 in Paris, a couple of months after the unanimous adoption of the SDGs. In Paris, all countries of the world reached an agreement to guide the glide path for the coming decades of decarbonisation. The Paris Agreement’s strength has been its meaningfulness to signal to the globe to decarbonise, with pathways planning toward this goal now in the mainstream. The world will leave behind industries and businesses failing to attend to this reality. Such businesses will strand their assets, and will have to account to irate shareholders why management failed to heed what was evident in the headwinds of a shifting status quo.
Two important numbers quantify Article 2 of the UNFCCC: 2°C and 1.5°C. We measure this temperature rise against the average temperature of Earth before the Industrial Revolution. The UN considers a rise of 2°C to give us a two-thirds chance to meet Article 2, revised down in the past couple of years to 1.5°C, which is scary since the increase is already about 1.2°.
Thus, highlighted below, Article 2a of the Paris Agreement calls us to:
We measure the number of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere via ‘parts per million’ (ppm). In May 2022, the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were 418ppm. If we are to live according to Article 2 of the UNFCCC, we must limit this concentration to a level below what is considered dangerous human-caused climate change.
Because of the greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere. In the absence of these gases suspended in the atmosphere, sunlight would enter Earth’s atmosphere, reflect off the surface of the Earth, then exit the atmosphere. As the sunlight is trapped by these gases, the effect is a warming of the planet, much like sunlight trapped in a greenhouse. Across the globe, this effect causes climate change. The main greenhouse gases driving climate change are:
carbon dioxide, emitted from the burning of oil and coal
methane, from natural gas and cattle
The most notorious greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, of which the biggest source is fossil fuels, which are hydrocarbons - meaning their chemical mix is a combination of carbon and hydrogen atoms. When we burn fossil fuels, they create energy, but also release carbon dioxide.
The major fossil fuels are coal, oil and natural gas. Coal is a fossil fuel, combustible once extracted from the Earth’s rocks via mining. Likewise found in the geological formations of Earth is petroleum. As we have a solid in the form of coal, and a liquid in the form of petroleum, we also have a gas, known as natural gas, a hydrocarbon combination known as methane (one carbon atom, four hydrogen atoms).
The two biggest emitting countries by a wide margin are the US and China. The US is the biggest historical emitter, and China the current biggest emitter, with most of the latter's emissions from burning coal.
The biggest players in the petroleum industry split between public corporations and the OPEC member states, the latter acting as a cartel of countries. Many of the biggest emitting companies since 1988 are state-owned:
Alongside those state-owned companies mentioned above, I include the UK as a proxy for BP and Shell, and the US for ExxonMobil and Chevron. As public limited companies, each exists by incorporation according to a country's company law, even though the companies’ operations are multinational. Likewise for the Netherlands and Shell, until it ended its dual listing in that country in 2022, and dropped the ‘Royal Dutch’ from the name on the heels of a Dutch court decision in 2021.
Beyond burning fossil fuels, cement production is also a strong source of CO₂ emissions, because the limestone input heats to extremely hot temperatures to create lime - a process known as calcination. Limestone’s chemical make-up is calcium, plus one carbon atom and three oxygen atoms. This latter portion is similar to carbon dioxide i.e., one carbon and two oxygen atoms. Calcination of limestone emits carbon dioxide from the chemical reaction, as well as via the energy used to heat it. As a reader, a solution to this is to use less cement i.e., lowering demand. Cement production will, for the medium term, remain one of the main long-term challenges, as there are yet to be any available solutions to decarbonising the process. The cement production industry must invest in R&D for alternatives emitting less carbon dioxide. Cement will continue to be a necessary material in the industrialised world, but we can evaluate each construction decision with a mind to the environmental consequences.
So now we know what's causing CO₂ emissions, we have the means to research a little into what power source our own power utility draws on. Armed with this knowledge, we can switch utilities with relative ease to an alternative using renewable energy. Or we can switch to a different plan using renewable energy with our existing utility. It could be debatable whether you as the consumer are to incur the responsibility for the emissions, or instead the utility. But for our purposes here, let’s take personal responsibility.
If your electricity comes from a utility, then the utility, or the power distribution company connecting your home or business, draws from a grid, with this energy flowing from the generating facilities of many different companies. If your power plan has a share of renewable energy, it’s still drawing on power from the same grid and pool of energy. If you’re yet to get a renewable energy plan, the generating assets your utility owns may come from coal-fired power plants. You may already know enough about your utility to know what source your utility uses to feed into the grid. Do some research about what power sources are owned by your utility. The bottom line for you is to choose a renewable energy plan if utilities servicing your home or business offer it. The cost of fossil fuels is at parity with renewable power, depending on the country you live in, so the situation is optimistic.
A transition to electric vehicles will help, though to emphasise, they are short of being a silver bullet. At scale, the manufacture of vehicles requires a lot of material input, and the attendant extraction of earth resources. EVs are an important part of the energy transition, but I’d encourage people to consider their relationship with their personal vehicle. Many of us have grown up in an era accustomed to, and unquestioning of, the centrality of private car ownership, as commonplace as a kettle or toaster. I’d hope COVID-19 lockdowns might’ve offered us some alternative perspective in the wake of the ubiquity of videoconference calls and telecommuting. Tally the cost of what your vehicle costs you:
purchase price
services at regular intervals
unanticipated maintenance costs
variable fuel costs, unpredictable to some consumers due to distant oil production decisions
parking
unwelcome infringements
Eschewing a vehicle from your life is a little like the analogy of a circulatory system for the global economy, but instead substituting your car for a kidney - it’s possible to live without it. Like power plants, vehicles are a long-term asset, used over a span of 20 years, therefore buying a new internal combustion vehicle in the decade ahead is senseless.
This indicator, in microcosm, reflects the major undertaking of this current cohort of the global population. Reducing our emissions to zero by mid-century is possible. But action is lagging, both at the level of individuals, as well as at the height of global action.
Why are we aiming for zero emissions by 2050? A lot of it hinges on the rise of the global average surface temperature since industrialisation, from the mid-19th century onward. Up to the current point of industrialisation, we’ve already emitted a certain amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Many of those emissions are here to stay for a long time, up to a millennium in the instance of carbon dioxide, explaining the focus on CO₂ over and above other damaging greenhouse gases. We can expect methane emissions to stay in the atmosphere for a dozen years, making it the second-most damaging greenhouse gas after CO₂.
Given what we’ve already emitted, climate scientists can plan scenarios, following trajectories for what emissions would be like if the rest of the century follows a hypothesised course. To mark out a pathway of deep decarbonisation, we work backwards, according to scenarios of the temperature we wish for ourselves, although we have little in the way of choice left when it comes to ideal temperature increases. Up until the adoption of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement, the consensus was a 2°C rise was acceptable, giving the planet a two-thirds probability to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference”, per Article 2 of the UNFCCC. The parties to the UNFCCC agreed upon this by consensus, though the Paris Agreement further stated 1.5°C were preferable. A 1.5°C rise above pre-industrial levels switched from being ‘preferable’ to superseding a 2°C rise upon publication in 2018 of a Special Report on 1.5°C by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is the UN body charged with gathering the world’s foremost climate scientists, who synthesise their work and model scenarios to inform the work of the UNFCCC.
We could be looking at up to a 4 to 6°C rise in the average global surface temperature since the start of the industrial era. What a 4 to 6°C rise in the average global surface temperature looks like can only be described as catastrophic, in the most florid sense of the word. To rein in the current pathway is much more complicated than flipping a switch. It’s pulling out the circulatory system which has been sustaining a global economic juggernaut.
For more guidance on how to reduce carbon dioxide and its equivalents, two great guides are:
Summary: Decarbonise your life.
CO₂ emissions embodied in imports (tCO₂/capita)
This indicator measures the carbon dioxide emissions which, because of the demand for imports, occurs in other countries to produce a good or service, which will be exported.
We’ve seen in the discussion of results of the previous indicator which countries are the biggest emitters. But to be fair, the demand side of the equation needs to shoulder responsibility. Most of the countries scoring red on this indicator for the 2022 SDG Index are OECD countries and the Arabian Peninsula.
If you’re from a country scoring red, you can avoid purchasing goods and services imported from countries scoring red for the previous indicator. To use the latter method, India would be off-the-hook on a per capita basis, scoring green, but ranking third in global 2021 emissions.
Summary: For readers in countries off-track, try to purchase goods produced domestically, or imported from countries on-track for the previous indicator
CO₂ emissions embodied in fossil fuel exports (kg/capita)
This indicator is the inverse of the prior indicators, considering the potential per capita CO₂ emissions contained within the fossil fuels exported from a country, aiming for 0 kg per capita by 2030.
The main offenders are Australia, the Gulf states, Norway, and Brunei, as well as Libya, Canada, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
Summary: For readers in countries off-track:
workers involved in fossil fuel exploration, production, and export: get a different job
owners of fossil fuel interests: sell the shares
other citizens: contact your government representative to communicate your desire for your country to end exports of fossil fuels, as well as any subsidies
Carbon Pricing Score at EUR60/t (%, worst 0-100 best) *
Different countries have made varying attempts at pricing or taxing carbon emissions. In my own country, it has become such a hot potato, it's caused the fall of several governments who’ve embraced carbon pricing efforts. The debate continues to rage, alongside catastrophic bushfires.
As with most societal ills, it makes sense taxing carbon emissions would curb them due to market forces, driving the economy toward low-carbon or no-carbon alternatives. Is the genius of the free market as robust as many advocates claim? If so, using a pricing mechanism of our capitalistic economies ought to salve the wound it inflicted upon itself.
The Carbon Pricing Score is a measure of a country’s ability to price carbon emissions from the energy sector at the benchmark value of €60 per tonne. The greater the progress toward this value of pricing carbon for the country, the higher the Carbon Pricing Score. This means a score of 100% would mean valuing carbon emissions at the equivalent of €60, and 0% would mean unpriced carbon. The 2030 aim for this indicator is a 100% Carbon Pricing Score, with most OECD countries off-track to varying degrees.
My solution to this, appropriate to the mission of this book, is for you to grasp action from the hands of policymakers, instead pricing your own carbon footprint. The first step is to measure your carbon footprint, the next to price your footprint at the value of €60 per tonne. Given this sum, you can then offset your emissions using carbon credits.
To illustrate:
Measuring your annual carbon footprint. Let's say the result is an annual carbon footprint of 10 tonnes.
Your next step is to offset your carbon footprint by purchasing carbon offsets to the value of €600 (i.e., 10 tonnes x €60).
Calculate your bill and buy carbon credits equal to this amount.
The point is this becomes expensive. The intention of carbon pricing is to disincentive emitting carbon dioxide. If you receive a hefty power bill, we could gripe about it, or we could be energy efficient. If enough years go by where you’re stung with a €600 bill at year’s end, you’re going to get the message and change your lifestyle to lower the bill for next year. You’re doing your part in paying this price, because by failing to price carbon, we've externalised its societal and environmental costs.
In the past, I’ve used the UN’s carbon offset platform, which corresponds to Certified Emissions Reductions, an offset which is part of the UN’s official Kyoto Protocol process. If this means nothing to you, my suggestion is to find a carbon offsetting provider of your choosing. If the provider you choose is based in your country, you might be able to claim a tax deduction for the offset. Remember, you’re paying for what your government failed to establish, so you deserve to get the spoils in the form of a tax deduction. Do a little research, and try to find the carbon offset provider which attracts you most.
Now you’ve paid for it, do you feel a lot better about your emissions? You’ve now ceased to externalise the cost the emissions were having upon the health of the environment and humans at your hands. You’ve paid the price. Come the year ahead, I doubt you’re going to want to pay another hefty sum, and instead will investigate how to reduce your carbon footprint.
Summary:
Find a suitable carbon footprint calculator online. e.g., the UN carbon footprint calculator
Calculate your carbon footprint
Convert your currency from euros (for those outside eurozone)
Multiply your emissions by the equivalent €60 in your currency
Find a suitable carbon offsets/credits platform
Pay the carbon pricing of your carbon footprint in carbon offsets/credits