pas 2060 carbon neutrality

Courtesy: pas 2060 carbon neutrality

Under the leadership of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations pledged to work towards climate neutrality in December 2007. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced it was becoming climate neutral in 2008 and established a Climate Neutral Network to promote the idea in February 2008.

Events such as the G8 Summit and organizations like the World Bank are also using offset schemes to become carbon neutral. Artists like The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd have made albums or tours carbon neutral, while Live Earth says that its seven concerts held on 7 July 2007 were the largest carbon neutral public event in history.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games were the first carbon neutral Games in history through a large partnership with the carbon offset provider, Offsetters.

Buildings are the largest single contributor to the production of greenhouse gases. The American Institute of Architects 2030 Commitment is a voluntary program for AIA member firms and other entities in the built environment that asks these organizations to pledge to design all their buildings to be carbon neutral by 2030.

In 2010, architectural firm HOK worked with energy and daylighting consultant The Weidt Group to design a 170,735-square-foot (15,861.8 m²) net zero carbon emissions Class A office building prototype in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.

Goodvalley became a carbon neutral company as the first pork meat producer. It was possible by lowering greenhouse gases emission at every stage of production. In addition to reducing its primary carbon footprint, the company achieves carbon neutrality by producing green energy from its agricultural biogas plants. The sum of CO₂ emissions and reductions are calculated by NIRAS and since 2018, the calculation has labelled Goodvalley Group Corporate Carbon Neutral. The certification is done according to ISO-14064 and verified by TÜV Rheinland.

Since 2019, an increasing number of business organisations have committed to attaining carbon neutrality by, or before, 2050, such as Microsoft (2030), Amazon (2040), and L’Oreal (2050).

In 2020, BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm, announced that it would begin making decisions with climate change and sustainability in mind, and begin exiting assets that it believed represented a “high sustainablilty-related risk”. Activists have accused the company of greenwashing, as it still has a considerable amount of money invested in coal companies. In CEO Larry Fink’s 2021 annual letter, however, he further pushed for businesses to begin laying out explicit plans on how they will be carbon neutral by 2050.

Canada

In June 2011, the Canadian province of British Columbia announced they had officially become the first provincial/state jurisdiction in North America to achieve carbon neutrality in public sector operations: Every school, hospital, university, Crown corporation, and government office measured, reported, and purchased carbon offsets on all of their 2010 greenhouse gas emissions as required under legislation. Local Governments across B.C. began to declare carbon neutrality, including the Regional District of Mount Waddington on Vancouver Island, whose indoor ice arena, the Chilton Regional Arena, is now carbon neutral and relies on solely on electricity from flooding their ice to mowing the grass. The province intended to accelerate the deployment of natural gas vehicles. Under the LiveSmart BC initiative, natural gas furnaces and water heaters receive cash back thereby promoting the burning of fossil fuel in the province. The province stated that an important part of new natural gas production will come from the Horn River basin where about 500 million tonnes of CO₂ will be released into the atmosphere.

On 24 September 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to make Canada carbon neutral by 2050 if re-elected. On 21 October 2019, Trudeau was re-elected, and in December 2019, the Canadian government formally announced its goal for Canada to be carbon neutral by 2050. In its speech from the throne, which was delivered on 23 September 2020, the federal government pledged to legislate its goal of making Canada carbon neutral by 2050.

The city of Edmonton, Alberta, is currently developing a carbon neutral community called Blatchford, on the grounds of its former City Centre Airport.

China

By 2020, China has announced its goal of achieving carbon neutrality and has decided to complete this strategic plan by 2060.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica aims to be fully carbon neutral by at least 2050. In 2004, 46.7% of Costa Rica’s primary energy came from renewable sources, while 94% of its electricity was generated from hydroelectric power, wind farms and geothermal energy in 2006.A 3.5% tax on gasoline in the country is used for payments to compensate landowners for growing trees and protecting forests and its government is making further plans for reducing emissions from transport, farming and industry. In 2019, Costa Rica was one of the first countries that crafted a national decarbonization plan.