Talk:Greenhouse gas emissions

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Global Carbon Budget 2022 (open access)

This is a useful publication to take info on latest greenhouse gas emissions from: Global Carbon Budget 2022. It's handy because it's under a compatible licence. EMsmile (talk) 22:12, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@EMsmile: Fully agree. But also, although this article is about GHG emissions, not about the net annual contribution to the atmosphere, we should add some brief comments on the overall budget. This can help avoid "climate sceptics'" argument that "you forgot about the carbon sinks". The article itself uses GtC rather than GtCO_2 - multiply by (12+2*16)/12 = 11/3 approx 3.67 to convert from C to CO_2. Fig 14 is the key figure IMHO; ~11 GtC emissions annually on average from 2012 to 2021 with 5.2 GtC going annually into the atmosphere gives around 40 GtCO_2 emissions annually and 19 GtCO_2 addition to the atmosphere annually. We already have many articles related to the climate emergency, but given the topic's significance, having a specific article on the annual additions to the atmosphere, or on the annual budget, would be worth it if someone's motivated. Boud (talk) 10:42, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Where do we put information about GHGE from wetlands?

I am wondering where we should information about greenhouse gas emissions from wetlands? I.e. this is from a natural source but human interference can increase or decrease those amounts; so I think it would be useful to mention it somewhere. I haven't yet understood to what extent humans can influence this - given that wetland restoration is regarded as a climate change mitigation option. I need to educate myself further on this, maybe someone can give me some pointers. EMsmile (talk) 17:24, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Possible type of content for the transport section

I've deleted this info from carbon footprint as it would in principle fit better here; it might provide inspiration for us about what to add to the transport section. These figures are rather outdated so I am not suggesting to add them. But perhaps we could look for more recent figures. Or maybe this would all be too detailed and should rather be in a sub-article?: +++++++++++++++++++++

Transport

This section gives representative figures for the carbon footprint of the fuel burned by different transport types (not including the carbon footprints of the vehicles or related infrastructure themselves). The precise figures vary according to a wide range of factors.

Flight

Main article: Environmental effects of aviation

Some representative figures for CO₂ emissions are provided by LIPASTO's survey of average direct emissions (not accounting for high-altitude radiative effects) of airliners expressed as CO₂ and CO₂ equivalent per passenger kilometre:

• Domestic, short distance, less than 463 km (288 mi): 257 g/km CO₂ or 259 g/km (14.7 oz/mile) CO₂e
• Long-distance flights: 113 g/km CO₂ or 114 g/km (6.5 oz/mile) CO₂e

However, emissions per unit distance travelled is not necessarily the best indicator for the carbon footprint of air travel, because the distances covered are commonly longer than by other modes of travel. It is the total emissions for a trip that matters for a carbon footprint, not merely the rate of emissions. For example, because air travel makes rapid long-distance travel feasible, a holiday destination may be chosen that is much more distant than if another mode of travel were used.

Road

See also: Environmental aspects of the electric car

CO₂ emissions per passenger-kilometre (pkm) for all road travel for 2011 in Europe as provided by the European Environment Agency:

• 109 g/km CO₂ (Figure 2)

For vehicles, average figures for CO₂ emissions per kilometer for road travel for 2013 in Europe, normalized to the NEDC test cycle, are provided by the International Council on Clean Transportation:

• Newly registered passenger cars: 127 g CO₂/km
• Hybrid-electric vehicles: 92 g CO₂/km
• Light commercial vehicles (LCV): 175 g CO₂/km

Average figures for the United States are provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency, based on the EPA Federal Test Procedure, for the following categories:

• Passenger cars: 200 g CO₂/km (322 g/mi)
• Trucks: 280 g CO₂/km (450 g/mi)
• Combined: 229 g CO₂/km (369 g/mi)

Rail

See also: Environmental design in rail transportation

Shipping

EMsmile (talk) 22:36, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Update: I have now included some of this content about aviation in the article but none of the content about emissions from cars (it seemed to me too detailed and outdated). We probably do still need a few general sentences about emissions for cars; some of that same or similar content is also here: Climate change mitigation#Transport. EMsmile (talk) 12:40, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 22:36, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Added links to carbon accounting and carbon footprint

I've just added links to carbon accounting and carbon footprint in the lead and in the main text but I think we need to add a bit more to explain how those two articles fit together with this one:

• @Dtetta could you check if the wording about carbon accounting in this article makes sense or if it can be done better?
• The term carbon footprint is pretty much the same as greenhouse gas emissions but more commonplace in every day language maybe? EMsmile (talk) 13:35, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest that the sentence in the lead be focused more on the totality of what is covered in Section 3 - Measurements and calculations, rather than specifically on carbon accounting. Good to have a sentence on that in Section 3, but not sure it merits a mention in the lead, based on the overall content of the article. From my point of view carbon footprint is sort of a meme that provides a mental image of the relative share of the overall emission problem that an individual, product, company, etc., has. Seems to be related to the metaphor “to tread lightly”. Dtetta (talk) 14:19, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi User:ASRASR (who is currently improving carbon footprint) and User:Dtetta (who has improved carbon accounting), what are your specific suggestions to make those above-mentioned improvements to the lead? The lead is still rather short (269 words) so we have space available to explain to readers the relationship to carbon footprint, carbon accounting and also carbon source (see also below). (you can just make your edits directly in the lead itself, no need to discuss here first, unless it's unclear) EMsmile (talk) 06:29, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

How to mention "carbon source" in this article?

I have plans to redirect "carbon source" to this article. See discussion on the talk page of carbon source (which will be renamed) here. Once we have the redirect in place we need to mention the term carbon source at least once in this article. I think possibly even in the lead, or alternatively in a specific section that the redirect can then point to. EMsmile (talk) 06:32, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I've now followed through with my plan: The term carbon source now redirects to here into the section on "human activities". I have mentioned the term like this now: "The main sources of greenhouse gases due to human activity (also called carbon sources) are". Is that good? (note the previous article that was called "carbon source" is now called carbon source (biology)). EMsmile (talk) 12:54, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Removed section on Fiscal decentralisation and carbon reductions

I've removed this textblock as it contains too much detail from one primary source for this high-level article. Moved to talk page in case someone wants to rescue something from this:

++++++++ Fiscal decentralisation and carbon reductions

As carbon oxides are one important source of greenhouse gas, having means to reduce it is important. One suggestion, is to consider some means in relation to fiscal decentralisation. Previous research found that the linear term of fiscal decentralization promotes carbon emissions, while the non-linear term mitigates it. It verified the inverted U-shaped curve between fiscal decentralization and carbon emissions. Besides, increasing energy prices for non-renewable energy decrease carbon emission due to a substitution effect. Among other explanatory variables, improvement in the quality of institutions decreases carbon emissions, while the gross domestic product increases it. Strengthening fiscal decentralization, lowering non-renewable energy prices, and improving institutional quality to check the deteriorating environmental quality in the study sample and other worldwide regions can reduce carbon emissions. EMsmile (talk) 12:38, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 12:38, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Overhaul (June 2023)

I've just done a bit of an overhaul on this article and will stop now:

• I've mainly re-arranged things into a more logical structure (I hope), also removed some outdated or unsourced content.
• In general I think a high-level article like this one should not go into too much detail and not provide too many numbers, as many of those numbers quickly get outdated and are better off in the respective sub-articles, like greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
• I have included quite a few excerpts in an attempt to reduce doubling up of work, so that we don't have to update the same GHG emissions data in too many separate articles.
• I have also tried to reduce unnecessary overlap with climate change mitigation, although a little bit of overlap is unavoidable I guess.
• The lead should still be longer, I think we should aim for maybe 500 words. Currently it's only 273 words long.
• I am stopping for now. Hoping that other Wikipedians will find time to help with this article further. EMsmile (talk) 13:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

@EMsmile Found the revised organization logical and functional. Have added a reference where it was requested and updated the statement and reference regarding natural vs human carbon dioxide emissions. Will look at the lead as well to see where it can include more of the article content. ASRASR (talk) 13:45, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Please stop readding Water Vapor

@Comp.arch -- please stop adding Water Vapor to the lead -- humans do not emit water vapor in a significant way that effects climate change. The scope of the article is emissions, not greenhouse gases which includes all greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect which describes forcing and other effects, Sadads (talk) 20:50, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

The process you are trying to identify is in climate feedbacks and forcing, I think, which has nothing to do with emissions Sadads (talk) 20:57, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Reference Needed

There is no reference to support the repeated assertion that more CO2 will affect the climate. And this is the basis of the whole article Bobhisey (talk) 12:32, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

I see several. --Licks-rocks (talk) 15:11, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Hydrogen

I'm planning to remove the following: "While grey hydrogen indirectly contributes to global warming, green hydrogen has the opposite effect. Green hydrogen, in the form of hydrogen fuel cells, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks by replacing fossil-based fuels, such as gasoline and diesel."

Green hydrogen does not contribute to global warming but does not have an opposite effect either, i.e. it does not lead to carbon dioxide removal. Discussion about the role of hydrogen in climate change mitigation is confusing in the context of this particular section, because this section is about emissions of H2, but the role of green hydrogen is primarily to reduce the emissions of CO2. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:05, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Could we explain a bit more in that section what we mean with "Hydrogen leakages"? Is it leakages from pipes delivering hydrogen? Would it make sense to link to Hydrogen economy for further context? EMsmile (talk) 21:03, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

I added a sentence about it. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:05, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated! EMsmile (talk) 14:52, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

References

Need further explanation/elaboration for following wordings

1. I'm not sure I understand the saying - "Natural sources of carbon dioxide are nearly 20 times greater than sources due to human activity, but over periods longer than a few years natural sources are closely balanced by natural sinks, mainly photosynthesis of carbon compounds by plants and marine plankton." 2. Can anybody help use layman language to rewrite following - "Absorption of terrestrial infrared radiation by longwave absorbing gases makes Earth a less efficient emitter. Therefore, in order for Earth to emit as much energy as is absorbed, global temperatures must increase. Thank you very much. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 01:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I've deleted that paragraph now. Instead, I have added an excerpt about the greenhouse effect at the start of the article. EMsmile (talk) 09:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Need elaboaration

"In October 2022, ADNOC announced to decrease the methane emissions from oil and gas by 2025." My question is "how much" ? Thank you for the kind attention. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 05:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I've removed that section now. It was poorly sourced and too detailed. I've moved some of it to Environmental issues in the United Arab Emirates. EMsmile (talk) 09:39, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 04:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Need help to elaborate

In section ===Generational===, can anybody help elaborate the wordings "They are less affected by climate change impacts, but have e.g. the same vote-weights for the available electoral options.", especially the portion of "the same vote-weights for the available electoral options". Thanks. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 04:56, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I've condensed that section; it wasn't very good. EMsmile (talk) 09:59, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Very confusing layout. Often ends up effectively duplicating itself

(A continuation of yesterday's discussion from the Greenhouse gas talk page.)

While technically, this article's size (31 kB, 4963 words) is still only about half of the maximum recommended size (although I am fairly sure those guidelines were developed before the mass use of excerpts like in here became a thing) I think it is too large in practical terms, because the way it transitions from one topic to another seems to lack any flow and make for a confusing layout. Worse, it then often seems to double back on itself, and repeat the same or related point in slightly different terms elsewhere.

Here's what I mean:

• The lead: Has five paragraphs instead of the recommended four; however, it consists of one large paragraph and then four small ones which read like disparate dot points. We first read that CO₂ "accounts for more than half of warming", then we find out that CH₄ has "almost the same short-term impact" (i.e. the other half?) Before the reader can learn more about what that means and how short is "short-term", the paragraph abruptly ends with a single mention of N2O and F-gases. Then, the next paragraph starts talking about methane, N2O and F-gases again, but not before interjecting the stat about energy emission fraction and the mention of deforestation which, IMO, should be combined with its other mention earlier on.

• Greenhouse effect excerpt: really needs an image there, and the lack of references in the first paragraph is unfortunate, but is fine otherwise.
• Relevant greenhouse gases - this entire section feels like it simply "previews" Emissions by type of greenhouse gas much later in the article, for no real benefit? Why can't we just move Emissions by type of greenhouse gas up and get rid of this? Not to mention that half the section is devoted to CFCs and the Montreal Protocol, which is completely disproportionate.
• Human activities - as above. Practically all of those dotpoints seem to be repeated in Emissions by type of greenhouse gas, and any which aren't can be comfortably moved there.
• Global estimates - that section is literally a disparate list of five completely unconnected dotpoints. All of it should be moved to more relevant sections/articles. "See also" links there are quite puzzling too, redirecting to natural emission articles before a section about human emissions.
• High income countries compared to low income countries - this seems like it would belong somewhere in Country examples
• Calculations and reporting - I really hate this entire section. After throwing a lot of disparate information at the reader in the previous section, the article now subjects them to a paragraph upon paragraph of literal accounting and bureaucratic jargon (often poorly referenced to boot). Just what kind of reader would come to this article hoping to see a paragraph like The measurement protocol itself: This may be via direct measurement or estimation. The four main methods are the emission factor-based method, mass balance method, predictive emissions monitoring systems, and continuous emissions monitoring systems. These methods differ in accuracy, cost, and usability. Public information from space-based measurements of carbon dioxide by Climate Trace is expected to reveal individual large plants before the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. (Yes, the last sentence is obsolete now.) How many readers are really here for "time horizons" and "national account balances"? About 90% of this seems to belong in greenhouse gas monitoring and greenhouse gas inventory (ideally, we could probably purge a lot of the excessive, possibly plagiarized detail from the latter and merge it into the former, but that would take a while). This article should only have the briefest summary, and it likely belongs around the very end.
• Historical trends - again, very disparate. The section jumps from the global to regional (the EU) and even national (the UK) and from the Industrial Revolution to recent decades to the geological past (that one mention of Chicxulub). The last two paragraphs are entirely about CO₂ and would seem to belong in its own subsection?
• Changes since a particular base year - should just be in monitoring/inventory, with maybe a sentence in country examples.
• Data from Global Carbon Project - I am not sure if this top-level article even needs the relatively subtle annual changes tracked by this table (as opposed to, say, Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere - ironically a much better article). If it does, it should certainly be in the CO₂ section.
• Emissions by type of greenhouse gas and Emissions by sector - this here is why I want to move much of the material here back to greenhouse gas. Effectively, most of the material in "by type of greenhouse gas" is already talking about sectors - i.e. what is all of this, if not the discussion of sectors?

Fossil fuels (32%), again, account for most of the methane emissions including coal mining (12% of methane total), gas distribution and leakages (11%) as well as gas venting in oil production (9%).

Livestock (28%) with cattle (21%) as the dominant source, followed by buffalo (3%), sheep (2%), and goats (1.5%).

Human waste and wastewater (21%): When biomass waste in landfills and organic substances in domestic and industrial wastewater is decomposed by bacteria in anaerobic conditions, substantial amounts of methane are generated.

Rice cultivation (10%) on flooded rice fields is another agricultural source, where anaerobic decomposition of organic material produces methane.

Or indeed, basically everything in Human activities can be rewritten to go sector by sector:

The main sources of greenhouse gases due to human activity (also called carbon sources) are:

Burning fossil fuels: Burning oil, coal and gas is estimated to have emitted 37.4 billion tonnes of CO2eq in 2023. The largest single source is coal-fired power stations, with 20% of greenhouse gases (GHG) as of 2021.

Land use change (mainly deforestation in the tropics) accounts for about a quarter of total anthropogenic GHG emissions.

Livestock enteric fermentation and manure management, paddy rice farming, land use and wetland changes, man-made lakes, pipeline losses, and covered vented landfill emissions leading to higher methane

atmospheric concentrations. Many of the newer style fully vented septic systems that enhance and target the fermentation process also are sources of atmospheric methane.

Use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigeration systems, and use of CFCs and halons in fire suppression systems and manufacturing processes.

Agricultural soils emit nitrous oxide (N2O) partly due to application of fertilizers.

The largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions is agriculture, closely followed by gas venting and fugitive emissions from the fossil-fuel industry. The largest agricultural methane source is livestock. Cattle (raised for both beef and milk, as well as for inedible outputs like manure and draft power) are the animal species responsible for the most emissions, representing about 65% of the livestock sector's emissions.

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 08:04, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

My suggestions for the article are as follows:

1. Clean up and reorganize disparate content as suggested above.
2. Emissions by type of greenhouse gas is moved to the end of greenhouse gas, going under the "Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities" subheading (currently excerpts the terrible "overview" here.) That section already functions as more of a summary of the more detailed breakdown in Emissions by sector, so moving it to the related article would both improve it and avoid duplication here.
3. This article would thus mainly conist of Emissions by sector and Country examples. We might want to make this article start with a section on individual/per capita emissions (perhaps with a "Further" link to Individual action on climate change), then perhaps make the country section next and make Emissions by sector into the last major section (only followed by excerpt-style sections on "Methods for reducing greenhouse gas emissions", "Projections for future emissions", "Society and culture", etc.) The logic being that the most detailed section should sit in the center of the article.
4. Once this is done, the article is renamed Sources of greenhouse gas emissions. I think that name would be very easy to remember and to search for. To me, it's similar to how we now made Causes of climate change. It would also help avoid the occasional confusion where people don't understand the difference between this article and greenhouse gas. I find it similar to EMsmile's reasoning for making a lot of the article start with "Effects of climate change on..." rather than "Climate change and...".

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 08:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this article would highly benefit from a thorough improvement process. It certainly needs tender, love and care! I've long grappled with how to avoid overlap between the different "emissions by" sections. For example in the two sections: "Emissions by type of greenhouse gas" and "Emissions by sector" there is overlap/repetition. Or perhaps a certain degree of overlap between such sections is OK? Splitting one off into another article is in my opinion not the right solution.

I find the article title "greenhouse gas emissions" just right (and intuitive) and don't see why some emissions content should not be moved back to greenhouse gas and other content be moved to Sources of greenhouse gas emissions. But it's an important discussion to be had. Let's see what others think. Perhaps bring more people to the discussion by posting on the talk page of WikiProject Climate Change? I'll start by pinging User:Chidgk1 who's also been involved in this article in the past.

Note that an additional problem is that there is potential for overlap between this article and the climate change mitigation article... EMsmile (talk) 10:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

With the National inventory reports (NIR) coming out in the next few days I will be thinking too much about my country specific article to look at this. However when I drop notes to the country projects encouraging them to add info from their NIR to their climate change articles I will also mention this article in passing in the hope of getting more opinions. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:19, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Have mentioned at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#Official greenhouse gas statistics now out but there are many more country projects if you want to try more persuasive language Chidgk1 (talk) 17:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Contradictory captions?

Hello @RCraig09

The interesting chart at the beginning of this article seems to have contradictory captions. The one below says ‘greenhouse gas’ and the one at the top actually in the chart says ‘carbon dioxide’. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:20, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Changed, thanks.  Done —RCraig09 (talk) 16:52, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for quick response - now that Climate Trace has estimated 2022 GHG is is possible to have such a chart for GHG in total rather than just carbon dioxide? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:54, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be ideal to find data for GHGs in general. Probably, because CO2 is the dominant long-term GHG, references seem to focus on CO2 alone. If you have run across reliable references with long-term data or charts for GHGs in general, I'd be very interested in creating chart(s). —RCraig09 (talk) 16:22, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Removed recently added content about UN Emissions Gap report

I've just removed this recently added text block. I am putting it below because certain statements might be salvageable but overall it reads like UN speech, not encyclopedic language. It also introduces repetition. Also, the exact source is not clear, please provide page numbers, User:BaderMS.

I've noticed that you (User:BaderMS) have recently added content in a similar fashion to a range of Wikipedia articles (I have reverted some of those additions). You seem to add one big long paragraph full of jargon and UN-type speech, with just one vague reference at the end (never with page numbers). Those paragraphs that I reverted were not written in encyclopedic and summary style. Please reconsider how you add content. It might be better to edit in small incremental steps, i.e. just a sentence or two at first, not those long paragraphs with just one ref at the end. Also ensure not to add excessive detail to high level articles, like you did at energy transition where you added detailed content (from a low quality source) on electric vehicles in China.

Here is the text block that I've removed:

++++++

In November 2023, the UNEP published the Emissions Gap Report 2023, signaling an alarming escalation in global greenhouse gas emissions that have led to a dramatic rise in extreme weather events and grave climate consequences. The progress since the Paris Agreement is noted, with a revised estimate that emissions in 2030 are expected to be 3% above 2010 levels rather than the previously anticipated 16%. However, the current trajectory is still on a collision course with a temperature increase that will likely surpass the Paris Agreement's targets. The report projects a potential global temperature rise of up to 2.9°C by the end of this century. UNEP's findings serve as a clarion call for nations, particularly the most capable and historically largest emitters, to urgently strengthen their emission reduction commitments to mitigate the risk of catastrophic climate effects. EMsmile (talk) 22:05, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, EMsmile. I'll consider these notes for future content. BaderMS (talk) 04:02, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 22:05, 17 April 2024 (UTC)