Talk:Carbon neutrality/Archive 1

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Not a reliable source of information on carbon neutrality
This page contains many misstatements regarding greenhouse gas accounting that it should not be used as a reference by those concerned about the issues and looking for definitions. There is much ongoing work and debate on this topic going on within the expert community on this topic an many unresolved issues. In particular the description here of neutralizing indirect emissions is highly flawed in this article. --Michael Gillenwater (talk) 12:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * See WP:SOFIXIT. I agree that the article in its current form is a bit disheveled. If you can improve the article, please do. Sometimes when an article is really screwed up, it helps to start a user subpage where you can list all your criticisms of the article, and then chip away at each one at your leisure. Trying to improve a messy article in place may be difficult, particular as other editors may jump in and change things before you finish the reorganization you have in mind. --Teratornis (talk) 21:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, i am a bit embarassed by only criticizing without being constructive. Unfortunately, it is not feasible now for me to work on this article. Possibly in the future, or maybe some generous soul will attack it for us. But for now, it is unfortunately, too flawed to be of much use. --Michael Gillenwater (talk) 16:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest adding links to ISO 14060 series & PAS 2050/60 & the GHG Protocol. (TimS TimS (talk) 08:38, 4 October 2010 (UTC))

Are people who sell carbon offsets themselves carbon neutral?
When I read about corporations buying carbon offsets for their fossil fuel use, I have to wonder: do the people who sell carbon offsets take on the carbon non-neutrality of their customers? For example, suppose Joe Wind Farm generates 10 GWhr of wind energy, which he sells to local consumers. If Bob Corporation buys carbon offsets from Joe Wind Farm to cover all the petroleum-power business travel his executives do, does that mean the people who actually consume the wind farm output are effectively no longer "green"? It seems to me the only way to really become carbon neutral is to actually stop consuming fossil fuels. A renewable energy project which is itself merely carbon-neutral could not compensate for someone else's carbon emissions. Only a project that is actually carbon negative could do that. I don't see how planting trees is carbon negative, since the trees will eventually die and release all the carbon they sequester. In particular, as long as the exponential growth of world population continues, no forest can remain safe indefinitely. Eventually humans will have to occupy all the land which can grow trees, and do something more productive with it. --Teratornis (talk) 21:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

There are many related concerns about offsetting. For example, how can anyone be sure that the same set of offset credits are not sold over and over again? The whole concept is akin to buying indulgences from the church in the middle ages. The only real way to do the right thing is to stop sinning -- stop polluting. -69.87.203.152 (talk) 23:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

- The amount of carbon emission reductions attributed to a renewable energy project are calculated by comparing the CO2 emission per kWh (~0 for RE) with the grid average in the country. It is true that therefore the people who consume the energy are no longer "green". Except for the US, renewalbe energies are generally only used for offset credits in developing countries who do not attribute a lot of value to "being green". The Australian Government recently realised the "mistake" and does no longer allow offsets from renewable energies within Australia since July 2010. The double counting issue in Australia was both due to "green image" sold by renewable companies and the national Kyoto-Commitment.

- Planting trees is not a useful concept for offseting. Permanent transformation of degraded lands to forests is a different story. In order to make sense of the concept you need to look at the forest, no the trees.

- ...the same set of offset credits are not sold over and over again? This concern is covered by "registries" - the same technology that makes sure that other limited allowances are not sold over and over again. You can look e.g. at: http://www.v-c-s.org/projects.html

- ...stop polluting. This is included in the article already. Reduction of their own emissions is always regarded as the best way. Offsets are to be used when e.g. national infrastructure (such as the lack of public transport in the US) does not allow further reduction from an individual/company.

(TimS TimS (talk) 08:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC))

Benefits
This article could use a Benefits section. Any suggestions?  Dfrg_ msc  07:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC) Something like:

Benefits include:


 * Savings in money, resulting in saving in energy expenditure.
 * Helping the bottom-line allows for re-investment
 * Increased awareness and recognition
 * Increased enthusiasm, empowerment and creativity in designing solutions to further reducing emissions


 * I agree, but only if there's a source for these claims. -FrankTobia (talk) 15:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Could help on that (including sources) but have a COI - waiting for feedback before I start editing.

TimS TimS (talk) 15:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Vatican Hungary scam?
This possible future forest seems to be mostly a marketing PR game. -69.87.203.121 (talk) 17:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-07/carbon-discredit?page=3
 * Carbon Discredit
 * By Kalee Thompson
 * Popular Science July 2008 p.58

Russ George knew how to fight global warming: Grow rainforests' worth of plantlife in the open ocean, plantlife that would suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He had the boat, the money and the team to make it happen. Everything was going according to plan—that is, until the environmentalists mobilized

On land, storing and mitigating atmospheric carbon is already big business. In Europe, any corporation that emits an excess of CO2 has to pay about $30 a ton for it on the European Union's carbon market, the world's largest. That market doesn't allow credits from carbon-sequestering projects known as "sinks" (at least not yet; the value and trustworthiness of all such efforts is the subject of heated debate). But the credits can be sold on voluntary exchanges, or directly to consumers and businesses that want to reduce their carbon footprint.

These kinds of voluntary efforts have already made trees grown to sequester carbon into a fast-expanding business, as George knows well. The Planktos CEO was also a founder of KlimaFa, a company that plans to suck up carbon by growing forests in a national park in Hungary. '''KlimaFa made international headlines last summer with a donation of carbon credits to the Vatican that, George claimed, would cancel out all of the papal state's 2007 emissions (despite the fact that no trees have been planted yet). The move was marketing genius: Even without the full blessing of the scientific community, George could now claim to be doing God's work.'''

POV tag
This article as it currently stands is not written from a NPOV. The concept of neutral is flawed as no form of reforrestation can effectivly combat the burning of fossil fuels which is releasing carbon from millions of years in the past, whereas trees will release their carbon within 1000 or so years. The article makes no mention of this, nor does it mention the ridiculousness of the concept of carbon neutral. For a good analogy, check out cheat neutral (or google the term). --Rebroad (talk) 15:46, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * (Without checking the article.) The question of whether the article makes inaccurate analysis is different from it not being NPOV. If reliable sources make the claim that this "carbon neutrality" is possible, then we must include those claims.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I believe the article has several inaccuracies. I could help removing them but have a COI - would therefore appreciate if someone could double check suggested changes first. TimS TimS (talk) 15:05, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

External Links to commercial pages
There are several external links to commercial carbon neutrality firms. These should either be deleted or replaced by a link to a site listing offset providers such as http://www.carboncatalog.org/ or a similar site.

I´m refering to the following links:

http://www.carbonneutral.com/uscalculator/householdcalculator.asp http://www.offsetters.ca/calculators_flights.htm http://www.climatefriendly.com.au http://www.cooldrivepass.com/getyourpass/getcalc.cfm

(TimS TimS (talk) 08:13, 4 October 2010 (UTC))

Improvements in the "offsets" paragraph
- "or by buying carbon credits, known as "carbon units"[neologism?] or "air units"[neologism?]." These neologisms could easily be replaced by refering to the standard term

"VER" - Verified Emission Reductions resp. CER - Certified Emission Reductions.

I would suggest to link to typical offset standards including the VCS & Gold Standard, or if aiming at a more complete picture also including VER+, Carbon Fix, Plan Vivo and other marginal standards.

There is a paragraph later in the article that could be moved up here / linked to:

Some of the main standards in the voluntary market include; The Voluntary Carbon Standard, The Gold Standard and The California Climate Action Registry. In addition companies can purchase Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) which result from mitigated carbon emissions from UNFCCC approved projects for voluntary purposes. There are various resources available however to help companies navigate the often complex carbon offsetting standards maze.[11] (TimS TimS (talk) 08:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC))

Carbon Neutral Certification
There needs to be more on this as there are also certifications such as PAS 2060 from the BSI and The CarbonNeutral Certification offered by the CarbonNeutral Company.Theperfectcrime (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Pledges by countries.
I think it would be a better idea to arrange the list by how quickly they have pledged to become carbon neutral; instead of alphabetically. Any comments? - ℤiαηsh  ✍  17:02, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Redirect
Has anyone noticed that while Carbon neutrality with a lowercase 'n' leads to this page while Carbon Neutrality with an uppercase 'N' is redirected to Carbon offset. Was this intentional or a mistake? - ℤiαηsh  ✍  17:01, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Just checked, and they both go here now. Coastwise (talk) 04:44, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Add Climate change mitigation wikilink
Add Climate change mitigation wikilink. 99.56.120.249 (talk) 02:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Why? Indirect, at best, and disconnected entirely, under some interpretations.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 04:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)


 * What are those interpretations? There seems to me a strong connection between the articles. If there were no need for climate change mitigation there would be no concern about carbon neutrality. Coastwise (talk) 06:09, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That is a point, but it's still indirect, although a shorter chain than most of the anon's additions. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 08:06, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe the link is direct; and if this is not a case of black and white, certaintly more direct than indirect. Coastwise (talk) 08:34, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, it's direct from carbon reduction, which redirects here for some unknown reason. Go ahead and add it.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 09:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This appears to by WP:POV pushing by Special:Contributions/Arthur Rubin using Divide and conquer tactics (Divide and rule, Defeat in detail). 99.181.132.192 (talk) 19:01, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

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Merger proposal
I propose to merge 100% renewable energy into Carbon neutrality. I think that the content in the 100% renewable energy article can easily be explained in the context of Carbon neutrality, and the Carbon neutrality article is of a reasonable size that the merging of 100% renewable energy will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:11, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Partial Oppose. The sections in these articles are different and they are different topics overall; being carbon neutral is not the same as having 100% renewable (or clean) energy, especially since they may differ in scale (e.g. companies vs countries) and how offsets may work. I think the content of the pledges may somewhat overlap and could be moved to one place though; within both articles there's the big issue of whether only electricity or all energy is clean/renewable/neutral. If you want to make a draft of how that would look that could work. Neither article is particularly high quality and is has parts that were added piecewise and may be outdated. Reywas92Talk 18:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Good points, especially about the scale, but sorry I don't have time to do a draft or much on this generally as I want to concentrate on this kind of subject but specifically for Turkey. If I was to merge them I would just lump them together and let others do the hard work! I agree there is lots of outdated stuff I would like to delete but I don't want to get into finicky arguments if I start tidying and summarising. Re energy/electricity whether the articles are merged or not the subject(s) are much more than just electricity: I think renewable electricity is a compulsory component of renewable energy which is in turn a compulsory component of carbon neutrality. For example in Iceland as well as 100% renewable energy (not just electricity) they will also need a lot of carbon capture to achieve neutrality I understand. More comments from other people welcome please.Chidgk1 (talk) 06:00, 18 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Clear oppose. 100% renewable energy is a energy concept, carbon neutrality is a climate mitigation concept. Both are different things and should not be confused. 100% renewable energy has more goals than just climate mitigation, and climate mitigation does not necessarily mean 100% renewable energy. Therefore merging both articles doesn't make sense. Andol (talk) 01:40, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. 100% renewable energy is only part of the way to carbon neutrality. Other factors such as agriculture contribute to CO2 (g) emissions as well. – Batreeq ( Talk ) (Contribs) 00:31, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

"Net zero" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Net zero. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 24 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. MB 03:45, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Net Zero should be its own page now there is significant differences that can be described. Our2050World (talk) 18:02, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

replace "post-carbon economy" by "low-carbon economy"
Does anyone know that is the definition of post-carbon economy? and what is the difference between "post-carbon economy" and "low-carbon economy"? would it be better to use "low-carbon economy" since it has a wiki page already. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Littlebugz (talk • contribs) 23:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Some Proposed Changes
Hello, I am employed by Boston University's Fineman & Pappas Law Libraries. After reviewing this Wikipedia page, I believe that information from one of our faculty's scholarship might provide a valuable addition to this page. I would appreciate it if this requested edit could be reviewed.

Add to End of Off-Setting section: Some even consider telling others to consider going carbon neutral to be greenwashing. Greenwashing is an increasing cancer, because most company commitments do not include actionable goals and schedules that implicate that the 'net zero' emission goals are more than good publicity.

Cf2022 (talk) 18:43, 24 January 2021 (UTC)Cf2022


 * yellow check.svg Y Partly done There are some WP:NPOV issues, I have included the text in altered form to fix these. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Campus carbon neutrality
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Campus carbon neutrality. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 09:51, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Is the "atmosphere" or the surface the best measure of the carbon neutrality.
I think the article needs to be updated in the following way.

This article seems to suggest that the atmosphere is the place to measure net carbon. (A tree removes carbon from the atmosphere), but keeps it at the surface where the tree can burn or biodegrade and re-release that carbon. If we mine carbon from deep underground and bring it to the surface, that is a net addition of carbon to the surface (where we experience the carbon cycle). It seems better (and harder) to think of carbon sequestration as needing to take place in relation to the surface and deep underground.

By this articles's (reasonable but flexible) definition carbon offsets can include someone buying an existing forest and "promising" not to cut the trees down... (and then a wildfire can burn the forest)... net neutrality seems like a convenient and perhaps ineffective vehicle for extending and prolonging the mining of fossil fuels from deep underground to the surface.

Is there a different terminology needed for carbon sequestration? (I notice the recent xprize for carbon sequestration sponsored by musk uses the standard "likely to stay underground for at least 100 years").

I'm not sure I'm the one to author this update to the article. Comments please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CheamBaker (talk • contribs) 21:31, 23 November 2021 (UTC)


 * "Neutrality" in this article means turning our tap off completely, not the water in the bathtub returning to its original level. You could make a simpler version of the animation in https://www.metlink.org/blog/carbon-dioxide-in-the-atmosphere-balancing-the-flow/ or ask the graphics workshop to do so. Then you could add it to this article. Chidgk1 (talk) 12:18, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

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