The Paris Agreement represented a paradigm shift from cost-minimizing to
opportunity-seizing, and thus from a focus on emissions to a focus on technologies
[3]. With the increased competitiveness of low-carbon technologies, policymakers
increasingly recognize the potential to create local industries and jobs around them,
leading to strong incentives for ambitious national and subnational policies.
Understanding the technology–politics feedback link may provide more realistic
and transformative recommendations for climate and energy policy design, which
are currently often lacking. The new technologies and processes as those tackled in
this book, as hydrogen production, carbon dioxide utilization, methane utilization,
biomass-based added-value compounds, fuel cells or energy from bacteria, clearly
benefit from the focus on technologies, for which carbon pricing and other climate
mitigation policies may condition its R and D and deployment. Therefore, assessing
its carbon footprint is of upmost importance to avoid carbon burdens when entering
the market.
4.2 Carbon Footprint Assessment
4.2.1 Concept
Historically, the concept of carbon footprint can be considered as a subset of the
so-called ecological footprint developed by Wackernagel [28] under his PhD
studies in the beginning of the 1990s. The book published afterwards by Wackernagel and Rees [29] was a key document explaining the concept and the
methodology of calculation, but particularly alerting the world to the unsustainable
way, humans were using their resources in relation to the production by the
ecosystems to renew them. The ecological footprint applied to a certain area, with
an associated number of inhabitants (from a city to the whole planet but with a
particular emphasis to the country level), evaluates the amount of space required to
provide the resources demand from the population, from food to infrastructure, to
carbon dioxide absorption resulting from anthropogenic activities. Products require
a certain area of bioproductive land. Therefore, the concept of biocapacity, stating
for the area of land and sea required to supply the resources for human activity and
to process its wastes, is key within the ecological footprint methodology. This area
is standardized according to its biological productivity and expressed in “global
hectares” [30]. Trade can be also incorporated in the methodology by taking into
account the flows of resources between areas, particularly between countries.
Figure 6 illustrates the rationale of the ecological footprint calculation.
The ecological impact of human activity can be assessed by calculating the
balance between the biocapacity and the ecological footprint of consumption within
the boundaries considered. Depending on the outcome, a country can be considered
as a creditor if the result is positive, and as a debtor if the result is negative, meaning
that the renewable resources provided within the established area are not sufficient
to assure the amounts taken by the population. This assessment can be applied at
the local level, as provided for the case of several municipalities in Portugal [31], at
the country level or even for the overall planet, as shown in Fig. 7.
18
J. Seixas and F. Ferreira
opportunity-seizing, and thus from a focus on emissions to a focus on technologies
[3]. With the increased competitiveness of low-carbon technologies, policymakers
increasingly recognize the potential to create local industries and jobs around them,
leading to strong incentives for ambitious national and subnational policies.
Understanding the technology–politics feedback link may provide more realistic
and transformative recommendations for climate and energy policy design, which
are currently often lacking. The new technologies and processes as those tackled in
this book, as hydrogen production, carbon dioxide utilization, methane utilization,
biomass-based added-value compounds, fuel cells or energy from bacteria, clearly
benefit from the focus on technologies, for which carbon pricing and other climate
mitigation policies may condition its R and D and deployment. Therefore, assessing
its carbon footprint is of upmost importance to avoid carbon burdens when entering
the market.
4.2 Carbon Footprint Assessment
4.2.1 Concept
Historically, the concept of carbon footprint can be considered as a subset of the
so-called ecological footprint developed by Wackernagel [28] under his PhD
studies in the beginning of the 1990s. The book published afterwards by Wackernagel and Rees [29] was a key document explaining the concept and the
methodology of calculation, but particularly alerting the world to the unsustainable
way, humans were using their resources in relation to the production by the
ecosystems to renew them. The ecological footprint applied to a certain area, with
an associated number of inhabitants (from a city to the whole planet but with a
particular emphasis to the country level), evaluates the amount of space required to
provide the resources demand from the population, from food to infrastructure, to
carbon dioxide absorption resulting from anthropogenic activities. Products require
a certain area of bioproductive land. Therefore, the concept of biocapacity, stating
for the area of land and sea required to supply the resources for human activity and
to process its wastes, is key within the ecological footprint methodology. This area
is standardized according to its biological productivity and expressed in “global
hectares” [30]. Trade can be also incorporated in the methodology by taking into
account the flows of resources between areas, particularly between countries.
Figure 6 illustrates the rationale of the ecological footprint calculation.
The ecological impact of human activity can be assessed by calculating the
balance between the biocapacity and the ecological footprint of consumption within
the boundaries considered. Depending on the outcome, a country can be considered
as a creditor if the result is positive, and as a debtor if the result is negative, meaning
that the renewable resources provided within the established area are not sufficient
to assure the amounts taken by the population. This assessment can be applied at
the local level, as provided for the case of several municipalities in Portugal [31], at
the country level or even for the overall planet, as shown in Fig. 7.
18
J. Seixas and F. Ferreira