A definition of “carbon footprint”
15 Jan 2010-
About: The article was published on 2010-01-15 and is currently open access. It has received 1228 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Carbon footprint.
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TL;DR: The cross-national expenditure elasticity for just CO2 corresponds remarkably well to the cross-sectional elasticities found within nations, suggesting a global relationship between expenditure and emissions that holds across several orders of magnitude difference.
Abstract: Processes causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions benefit humans by providing consumer goods and services. This benefit, and hence the responsibility for emissions, varies by purpose or consumption category and is unevenly distributed across and within countries. We quantify greenhouse gas emissions associated with the final consumption of goods and services for 73 nations and 14 aggregate world regions. We analyze the contribution of 8 categories: construction, shelter, food, clothing, mobility, manufactured products, services, and trade. National average per capita footprints vary from 1 tCO2e/y in African countries to ∼30t/y in Luxembourg and the United States. The expenditure elasticity is 0.57. The cross-national expenditure elasticity for just CO2, 0.81, corresponds remarkably well to the cross-sectional elasticities found within nations, suggesting a global relationship between expenditure and emissions that holds across several orders of magnitude difference. On the global level, 72% of greenhouse ...
1,421 citations
TL;DR: An overview of the definitions and units of measurement associated with environmental, social, and economic footprints is presented in this paper, where composite footprints combining two or more individual footprints are also assessed.
726 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a definition of the Footprint Family as a suite of indicators to track human pressure on the planet and under different angles, based on the premise that no single indicator per se is able to comprehensively monitor human impact on the environment, but indicators rather need to be used and interpreted jointly.
693 citations
TL;DR: The history of US shale gas in this article is divided into three periods and based on the change of oil price (i.e., the period before the 1970s oil crisis, the period from 1970s to 2000, and the period since 2000), the US has moved from being one of the world's biggest importers of gas to being selfsufficient in less than a decade, with the shale gas production increasing 12fold (from 2000 to 2010).
Abstract: Extraction of natural gas from shale rock in the United States (US) is one of the landmark events in the 21st century. The combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing can extract huge quantities of natural gas from impermeable shale formations, which were previously thought to be either impossible or uneconomic to produce. This review offers a comprehensive insight into US shale gas opportunities, appraising the evolution, evidence and the challenges of shale gas production in the US. The history of US shale gas in this article is divided into three periods and based on the change of oil price (i.e., the period before the 1970s oil crisis, the period from 1970s to 2000, and the period since 2000), the US has moved from being one of the world's biggest importers of gas to being self-sufficient in less than a decade, with the shale gas production increasing 12-fold (from 2000 to 2010). The US domestic natural gas price hit a 10-year low in 2012. The US domestic natural gas price in the first half of 2012 was about $2 per million British Thermal Unit (BTU), compared with Brent crude, the world benchmark price for oil, now about $ 80–100/barrel, or $14–17 per million BTU. Partly due to an increase in gas-fired power generation in response to low gas prices, US carbon emissions from fossil-fuel combustion fell by 430 million ton CO 2 – more than any other country – between 2006 and 2011. Shale gas also stimulated economic growth, creating 600,000 new jobs in the US by 2010. However, the US shale gas revolution would be curbed, if the environmental risks posed by hydraulic fracturing are not managed effectively. The hydraulic fracturing is water intensive, and can cause pollution in the marine environment, with implications for long-term environmental sustainability in several ways. Also, large amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, can be emitted during the shale gas exploration and production. Hydraulic fracturing also may induce earthquakes. These environmental risks need to be managed by good practices which is not being applied by all the producers in all the locations. Enforcing stronger regulations are necessary to minimize risk to the environment and on human health. Robust regulatory oversight can however increase the cost of extraction, but stringent regulations can foster an historic opportunity to provide cheaper and cleaner gas to meet the consumer demand, as well as to usher in the future growth of the industry.
630 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a socio-economically disaggregated framework for attributing CO2 emissions to people's high level functional needs is presented, based on a quasi-multi-regional input-output (QMRIO) model.
531 citations
References
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: Wackernagel and Rees as mentioned in this paper presented an analysis of the aggregate land area required for a given population to exist in a sustainable manner, and showed that at 11 acres per person, the U.S. has the highest per capita footprint.
Abstract: Review: Our Ecological Footprint: reducing human impact on the Earth. By Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees Reviewed by Gene Bazan Center for Sustainability, Pennsylvania State University Wackernagel, Mathis and William Rees. Our Ecological Footprint: reducing human impact on the Earth. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1996. 160 pp. US $14.94 paper ISBN: 0-86571-312-X. Partially recycled, acid-free paper using soy-based ink. If the earth's inhabitants were to live at the standard of the U.S., we would require three planet Earths to support us. Many of us have heard or read something like this before. Our Ecological Footprint provides a graphically compelling and quantitatively rigorous way for us to engage in the worldwide sustainability debate: Ecological Footprint analysis. Through this analysis we can determine the consequences of our behavior, and proposed solutions, at any level: individual, household, community, nation, or world. Ecological Footprint analysis measures the aggregate land area required for a given population to exist in a sustainable manner. Wackernagel and Rees note that at 11 acres per person, the U.S. has the highest per capita footprint and suggest that this number should be closer to 6 acres per person. Further, the U.S. faces an 80% ecological deficit, which means we are borrowing from our grandchildren's legacy, and expropriating land from elsewhere in the world. By contrast, each European requires around 5 acres; however, Europeans face higher ecological deficits because they have smaller land areas. Unlike other approaches, which focus on the depletion of non-renewables such as fossil fuel and minerals, Ecological Footprint analysis asserts that the road to sustainability must be paved with sustainable practices. Thus, our use of fossil fuel must have as a compensatory sink the acres of woodlot required to sequester the carbon from our combustion of fossil fuel (in our cars, home heating, etc.) or, alternatively, the acres of fields required to grow biofuel. For example, in comparing our daily commute by car, bus or bicycle, and considering all land requirements (e.g., manufacturing land to produce
3,790 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: Wackernagel and Rees as mentioned in this paper presented an analysis of the aggregate land area required for a given population to exist in a sustainable manner, and showed that at 11 acres per person, the U.S. has the highest per capita footprint.
Abstract: Review: Our Ecological Footprint: reducing human impact on the Earth. By Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees Reviewed by Gene Bazan Center for Sustainability, Pennsylvania State University Wackernagel, Mathis and William Rees. Our Ecological Footprint: reducing human impact on the Earth. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1996. 160 pp. US $14.94 paper ISBN: 0-86571-312-X. Partially recycled, acid-free paper using soy-based ink. If the earth's inhabitants were to live at the standard of the U.S., we would require three planet Earths to support us. Many of us have heard or read something like this before. Our Ecological Footprint provides a graphically compelling and quantitatively rigorous way for us to engage in the worldwide sustainability debate: Ecological Footprint analysis. Through this analysis we can determine the consequences of our behavior, and proposed solutions, at any level: individual, household, community, nation, or world. Ecological Footprint analysis measures the aggregate land area required for a given population to exist in a sustainable manner. Wackernagel and Rees note that at 11 acres per person, the U.S. has the highest per capita footprint and suggest that this number should be closer to 6 acres per person. Further, the U.S. faces an 80% ecological deficit, which means we are borrowing from our grandchildren's legacy, and expropriating land from elsewhere in the world. By contrast, each European requires around 5 acres; however, Europeans face higher ecological deficits because they have smaller land areas. Unlike other approaches, which focus on the depletion of non-renewables such as fossil fuel and minerals, Ecological Footprint analysis asserts that the road to sustainability must be paved with sustainable practices. Thus, our use of fossil fuel must have as a compensatory sink the acres of woodlot required to sequester the carbon from our combustion of fossil fuel (in our cars, home heating, etc.) or, alternatively, the acres of fields required to grow biofuel. For example, in comparing our daily commute by car, bus or bicycle, and considering all land requirements (e.g., manufacturing land to produce
3,418 citations
TL;DR: There are several hybrid input-output analysis-based LCA methods that can be implemented in practice for broadening system boundary and also for ISO compliance.
Abstract: Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a method for evaluating the environmental impacts of products holistically, including direct and supply chain impacts. The current LCA methodologies and the standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) impose practical difficulties for drawing system boundaries; decisions on inclusion or exclusion of processes in an analysis (the cutoff criteria) are typically not made on a scientific basis. In particular, the requirement of deciding which processes could be excluded from the inventory can be rather difficult to meet because many excluded processes have often never been assessed by the practitioner, and therefore, their negligibility cannot be guaranteed. LCA studies utilizing economic input-output analysis have shown that, in practice, excluded processes can contribute as much to the product system under study as included processes; thus, the subjective determination of the system boundary may lead to invalid results. System boundaries in LCA are discussed herein with particular attention to outlining hybrid approaches as methods for resolving the boundary selection problem in LCA. An input-output model can be used to describe at least a part of a product system, and an ISO-compatible system boundary selection procedure can be designed by applying hybrid input-output-assisted approaches. There are several hybrid input-output analysis-based LCA methods that can be implemented in practice for broadening system boundary and also for ISO compliance.
964 citations
TL;DR: Using Monte‐Carlo simulations, it can be shown that uncertainties of input‐output– based life‐cycle assessments are often lower than truncation errors in even extensive, third‐order process analyses.
Abstract: Summary
Conventional process-analysis-type techniques for compiling life-cycle inventories suffer from a truncation error, which is caused by the omission of resource requirements or pollutant releases of higher-order upstream stages of the production process. The magnitude of this truncation error varies with the type of product or process considered, but can be on the order of 50%. One way to avoid such significant errors is to incorporate input-output analysis into the assessment framework, resulting in a hybrid life-cycle inventory method. Using Monte-Carlo simulations, it can be shown that uncertainties of input-output– based life-cycle assessments are often lower than truncation errors in even extensive, third-order process analyses.
708 citations
TL;DR: This paper presents a refined model for inventory analysis based on Matrix algebra that is applicable to most important algorithms inMatlab and discusses its application in the context of inventory analysis.
Abstract: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. The basic model for inventory analysis. 3. The refined model for inventory analysis. 4. Advanced topics in inventory analysis*. 5. Relation with input-output analysis*. 6. Perturbation theory. 7. Structural theory. 8. Beyond the inventory analysis. 9. Further extensions*. 10. Issues of implementation*. A. Matrix algebra. B. Main terms and symbols. C. Matlab code for most important algorithms. References. Index.
640 citations