Carbon credits: for whom the bells ring in greenhouse gas mitigation

摘要

Climate change is, among other things, related to the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as CO_2, CH_4, and N_2O. Higher concentrations mean global warming. In order to simplify the calculation of climate change and global warming contributions from GHG emissions, CO_2 has been chosen as the common unit of assessment. This means that when emitting CH_4, each unit weight must be multiplied by a factor 25 to achieve CO_2 weight equivalents (CO_2 eqv.); for N_2O the factor is 298. Carbon counting in terms of CO_2 eqv. is therefore a keyrnmechanism in assessing climate change and global warming contributions.rnIn addition, the origin of the carbon has to be taken into account to correctly assess climate change and global warming. When counting CO_2 release from biogenic waste management, a factor 0 should be used, because the release is substituting an earlier uptake by plants to produce the biomass that has now become waste; that is, the biogenic carbon cycling is neutral with regard to global warming.