4 Carbon Emissions Reduction
Reducing anthropogenic GHG emissions or carbon emissions for short is key to
prevent a worst future scenario, where life could become a difficult and costly task
for everyone in Earth. This section presents briefly how carbon emissions are being
tackled aiming to control them into a decreasing trend towards its almost disappearance at the mid of this century, which gives humanity a good chance to control
the Earth climate up to an increase of 1.5 °C or 2 °C above pre-industrial levels.
4.1 Carbon Pricing and Climate Mitigation Policies
Greenhouse gas emissions are released by millions of stationary and mobile sources
worldwide present in all economic sectors, from energy to manufacture industries,
agriculture to forestry and fishing, buildings and transports. The release of GHG
emissions has been occurred since the industrial revolution, until recently when the
need to control them for the sake of climate stabilization was assumed by the
UNFCCC [19]. Since there is no end-of-pipe commercial solution available to
reduce carbon emissions from those million sources, the approach to value carbon
emissions reductions through specific market mechanisms was adopted under the
Kyoto Protocol (approved in 1997).
The rationale behind a carbon price, i.e. putting a price on the carbon emissions
released from a specific activity, is to capture its external costs, related with the
negative impacts of climate change like the damage to crops from droughts or
floods, health effects from heatwaves, damage to properties and infrastructures from
sea level rise to name few examples. Public pays these costs in other ways and
carbon pricing tie them to the respective activities’ sources.
A carbon price gives an economic signal and emitters decide whether to discontinue or change their activity, reduce emissions through new processes or
adopting low-carbon energy sources, or continue emitting and pay for it. Put a price
on carbon emissions has been revealed the most flexible and least-cost way to
society, because usually the activities deciding to shift tend to be those where it is
most cost-effective. The carbon price stimulates new clean technologies and new
processes, and market innovation, conducting to cleaner economic production and
consumption models.
There are a multitude of carbon pricing schemes, applied directly oy indirectly to
carbon emissions. The most known and increasingly applied worldwide are the
emissions trading systems (ETS) and carbon taxes, both usually regulated by public
policies. An ETS, also referred to as a cap-and-trade system, caps the total amount
of greenhouse gas emissions that can be emitted by installations covered by the
system. Within the cap, companies receive or buy emission allowances, which they
can trade with one another as needed, i.e. industries with low emissions may sell
their extra allowances to larger emitters. By creating supply and demand for
emissions allowances, an ETS establishes a market price for greenhouse gas
16
J. Seixas and F. Ferreira
Reducing anthropogenic GHG emissions or carbon emissions for short is key to
prevent a worst future scenario, where life could become a difficult and costly task
for everyone in Earth. This section presents briefly how carbon emissions are being
tackled aiming to control them into a decreasing trend towards its almost disappearance at the mid of this century, which gives humanity a good chance to control
the Earth climate up to an increase of 1.5 °C or 2 °C above pre-industrial levels.
4.1 Carbon Pricing and Climate Mitigation Policies
Greenhouse gas emissions are released by millions of stationary and mobile sources
worldwide present in all economic sectors, from energy to manufacture industries,
agriculture to forestry and fishing, buildings and transports. The release of GHG
emissions has been occurred since the industrial revolution, until recently when the
need to control them for the sake of climate stabilization was assumed by the
UNFCCC [19]. Since there is no end-of-pipe commercial solution available to
reduce carbon emissions from those million sources, the approach to value carbon
emissions reductions through specific market mechanisms was adopted under the
Kyoto Protocol (approved in 1997).
The rationale behind a carbon price, i.e. putting a price on the carbon emissions
released from a specific activity, is to capture its external costs, related with the
negative impacts of climate change like the damage to crops from droughts or
floods, health effects from heatwaves, damage to properties and infrastructures from
sea level rise to name few examples. Public pays these costs in other ways and
carbon pricing tie them to the respective activities’ sources.
A carbon price gives an economic signal and emitters decide whether to discontinue or change their activity, reduce emissions through new processes or
adopting low-carbon energy sources, or continue emitting and pay for it. Put a price
on carbon emissions has been revealed the most flexible and least-cost way to
society, because usually the activities deciding to shift tend to be those where it is
most cost-effective. The carbon price stimulates new clean technologies and new
processes, and market innovation, conducting to cleaner economic production and
consumption models.
There are a multitude of carbon pricing schemes, applied directly oy indirectly to
carbon emissions. The most known and increasingly applied worldwide are the
emissions trading systems (ETS) and carbon taxes, both usually regulated by public
policies. An ETS, also referred to as a cap-and-trade system, caps the total amount
of greenhouse gas emissions that can be emitted by installations covered by the
system. Within the cap, companies receive or buy emission allowances, which they
can trade with one another as needed, i.e. industries with low emissions may sell
their extra allowances to larger emitters. By creating supply and demand for
emissions allowances, an ETS establishes a market price for greenhouse gas
16
J. Seixas and F. Ferreira