How to Lower Agriculture and Land-Use Emissions

Climate change is mainly caused by humans burning fossil fuels, but that’s not the only way we’re warming the planet.

Human activity can affect how many greenhouse gases are emitted by Earth’s soil, plants, and animals. From cutting down trees to growing crops and raising livestock, human land use and agriculture generates 22 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This lesson explains why land use harms the climate so significantly and outlines steps that can help reverse the damage.

The next page contains a video that discusses the relationship between agriculture, land use, and climate change. Play the video. As it plays, think through the following questions:

• What are carbon sinks, and how does human activity impact them?
• What basic components of agriculture lead to greenhouse gas emissions?

How to Reduce Agriculture and Land Use Emissions

There are many ways to reduce agricultural emissions. Let’s take a look at a few examples below!

• Tech innovations: New fertilizers formulated to release nitrogen more slowly can lower nitrous oxide emissions, while improving crop yields. Also, precision agriculture—an umbrella term for an array of data-driven analyses, machinery, and new farming techniques—can fine-tune fertilizer applications, making them more efficient and reducing unnecessary emissions. And analysts can use machine-learning models to determine best practices for reducing emissions from rice paddies.
• Lower livestock emissions: Breeding strategies, feeding animals higher-quality food, and providing modern veterinary care can lead to livestock gaining weight more quickly. That means the livestock can produce the same number of calories while reducing the amount of food eaten and greenhouse gases emitted. Those animals still produce methane as part of their digestion. But feed supplements will likely eventually be able to reduce the amount of methane cattle produce. Under lab conditions, supplements made from a type of seaweed were able to reduce methane production during digestion by up to 60 percent. There are also ways to capture the methane from livestock manure and use it, instead of fossil fuels, to generate electricity and heat homes.
• Diet changes: Reducing demand for beef and other ruminant meats by switching to healthier plant-based foods can lower livestock emissions. That does not mean, however, that everyone should become a vegetarian or vegan. In a recent report, climate experts recommended that wealthy countries limit their intake of beef, lamb, and goat meat to the equivalent of roughly two burgers per person, per week, in order to hit global climate targets.
• Carbon sequestration: Farmers can use regenerative agriculture practices and other soil management techniques to keep an estimated billion tons of CO₂ in the ground each year. That can involve planting “cover crops” that can be plowed into the ground (storing their nutrients and carbon) before the main crop is planted. Also, those practices help limit the extent of tilling farmers need to do, so less of the organic matter is exposed to air and more of its carbon stays in the soil.
• Nature-based solutions: Ranchers and farmers can give more consideration to how their activity damages their unique local environments. Finding ways to grow crops and raise livestock without harming the ecosystems around them can help prevent additional emissions.

Although plenty of opportunities exist to reduce agricultural emissions, changing human land use is also important to addressing climate change.

What Are Humans Doing to Mitigate Agriculture and Land Use Emissions?

For many people around the world, farming and working the land is their livelihood. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as of 2023, agriculture employed some 873 million people in 2021, or 27 percent of the global workforce. Many do not necessarily have the financial resources to adopt new low-emissions practices. And even if they do have the means, farmers could be wary of unfamiliar techniques and could worry that they would increase costs and lower their earnings.

Hunger is another concern. According to some reports, almost one-in-ten people around the world don’t have enough food to eat. What’s more, the need for nourishment is growing. The global population is expected to grow by nearly two billion in the next thirty years. While many governments are concerned about lowering emissions, they could simultaneously be wary of actions that could reduce the available food—particularly as experts fear that droughts and other effects from climate change will worsen food insecurity.

What is being done?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investing over $2 billion in Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. The program finances agricultural pilot projects that feature innovative approaches to tracking and reducing emissions in a way that would lead to viable enterprises. At the same time, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture promotes sustainable agricultural practices and provides funding for research and training programs.

It’s not just the United States taking action. The European Union similarly funds sustainable agriculture research and promotion. International organizations also work to advance emissions-lowering practices in the developing world.

For example, the World Bank–funded Rural Alliances Project (PAR) supports “climate smart agriculture” interventions in Bolivia. They leverage automated irrigation, humidity sensors, and drone technology to enhance data collection that facilitates sustainable farming. While lowering greenhouse gas emissions, the practices also increase the size and quantity of food grown—offering a potential boon to Bolivians, one-third of whom are employed in the agricultural sector.

The United Nations also helps developing countries on that front. Its Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) promotes sustainable approaches for using environmental resources efficiently. FAO offers tools and guidance for policymakers and coordinates international financing for projects and programs related to sustainable agriculture and forestry management.

Farming is fundamental to human survival, but current practices are contributing to climate change, which threatens millions of lives and livelihoods. Ramping up work to reduce emissions from agriculture and land-use practices around the world is an urgent task for policymakers and leaders in this sector.

How to Lower Industry-Sector Emissions

Making planes and skyscrapers, computers and pharmaceuticals—the products that define life in the modern world—has caused a great deal of climate change. Their manufacture involves industrial products like steel, cement, plastic, and chemicals. Creating those raw materials releases a lot of greenhouse gas. As the world’s population and economy grow, the demand for those products grows as well.

All that production makes up the industry sector. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the industry sector accounts for around 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. So, to tackle climate change, the world urgently needs to develop greener and more sustainable industrial practices.

This lesson explores how the industry sector is contributing to climate change and how building a greener industrial sector will require many innovative approaches.

The next page of this lesson contains a video explaining how industry contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, as well as some of the new technologies that can help mitigate those emissions. Play the video. As it plays, think through the following questions:

• How does industry lead to both direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions?
• How can new technologies help humans mitigate emissions from the industrial sector?

What is Holding Back Industry-Sector Mitigation?

Part of the challenge is that the technology isn’t advanced enough yet. Even in the cases where experts understand how to fully eliminate carbon emission from industrial production, the new technology is not yet commercially viable on a large scale.

Even if scientists had everything figured out, there would still be enormous costs to transitioning industrial operations quickly. Most plants in heavy industry are designed and financed to operate for a long time, typically thirty or forty years. Stopping production to retrofit a plant or shutting it down earlier than expected would likely incur major financial losses for the owners. So, widespread adoption of new emissions-reducing technology in the industrial sector could be relatively slow. In many cases, industrial operators are likely to wait until older equipment wears down before replacing it with newer, low-emissions technology.

Industry-Sector Mitigation: What Can Be Done?

The following new technologies and approaches, among others, can help reduce industrial emissions.

• Hydrogen: This clean fuel doesn’t produce any CO₂ when it’s used. Hydrogen burns at high temperatures, and it is easily capable of producing the heat required for many industrial processes like steelmaking. Today, though, most hydrogen is produced from natural gas (emitting CO₂). Zero-carbon hydrogen production is still in its infancy as a technology. However, developing it could replace fossil fuels in high heat production facilities and reduce process emissions from ammonia and petrochemical production.
• Electrification: Although electrical heating isn’t suitable for higher-temperature industrial processes yet, advances are being made. Electricity-based techniques could someday be an economically viable replacement for burning fossil fuels. Researchers are also developing ways to use electricity at certain points in steel and cement production to reduce their process emissions as well.
• Carbon capture: Exhaust from burning fossil fuels, chemical reactions, and waste management could be directly filtered, capturing the greenhouse gas. The gas would then be compressed and either reused or permanently stored so it doesn’t get released into the atmosphere. Directly capturing carbon from industrial production is expensive, and it requires using additional energy. Nevertheless, the International Energy Agency projects that carbon capture will play a significant role in reducing industrial emissions in its net-zero emissions scenarios for the next few decades.
• Alternative feedstocks: Fossil fuel–derived petrochemicals could be replaced by other sources. Those include hydrogen, captured CO₂, biomass (possibly from agricultural waste), and ethanol, which can be made by fermenting corn.

What is Being Done?

Policymakers are directing investment toward the high costs of developing greener industries.

The U.S. Congress provided over $6 billion for the federal Industrial Demonstrations program. The program uses that money to help fund industrial projects that could demonstrate the commercial viability of new low-emissions technology and production processes. All thirty-three projects the program supports are in the United States. They feature a diverse array of green advances—incorporating hydrogen, electricity, and biomass. They also include finding lower-emission inputs and novel ways of capturing and storing carbon dioxide.

New technology isn’t the only answer, though.

Many governments are encouraging the formation of eco-industrial parks. Those are locations where different manufacturers cluster together and share resources, allowing for greater economic and environmental efficiencies. Parks also open up opportunities for the waste from one industrial practice to be used as an input for another manufacturer. For example, at the eco-industrial park in Ulsan, South Korea, steam from an industrial waste incinerator is used to help power a nearby paper mill. Also, wastewater from a different petrochemical plant is used as an input in a sewage treatment facility.

Electricity is the key to modern existence. It powers the machines that keep food fresh, coffee hot, and cream cold. Electricity is used to make clothes, gadgets, and pharmaceuticals. It’s how people communicate with each other every day. (Come on, when’s the last time you wrote a letter with pen and paper?) Electricity is essential for both minor conveniences and manufacturing, and everything in between.

However, the way humans produce electricity—primarily by burning fossil fuels—is causing climate change. The world’s energy sector accounts for around 34 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. And the demand for energy is expected to double by the year 2050.

This activity explains how the energy sector is currently driving climate change and explores the technology and policies that can lead to a greener future.

Energy-Sector Mitigation: What’s Holding Us Back?

If all this green energy technology exists, why hasn’t society completely replaced fossil fuels?

There are many reasons why the green transition hasn’t been achieved yet. Partly, the delay is due to technical and logistical challenges.

For example, wind, solar, and hydropower systems need to be where the natural resources are. You can’t build a hydropower plant without a flowing body of water. However, it’s not always the wettest or sunniest or windiest where the most people live. So, electrical grids need to be updated and expanded to carry the renewable energy from where it can be most effectively produced to where it’s consumed.

Also, renewables like wind and solar are intermittent. This means they only produce energy when it’s windy or when it’s sunny. However, people need electricity when the air is still and after the sun has set. That intermittency challenge is solvable though, largely with giant batteries. Humans can store extra energy produced during the windier and sunnier times in the batteries and then use that energy later as needed; however, the critical minerals required to make those batteries can be relatively rare, or difficult to process, and some are concentrated in just a handful of countries.

One of the largest issues that have been holding back renewables is economics. For a long time, renewable sources of energy were more expensive than fossil fuels. That has been a big concern for policymakers because increasing electricity costs can also raise the prices of goods and services produced using electricity. Energy price increases are not only unpopular but also can reduce economic growth.

Fortunately, renewables have become much cheaper in recent years and are now competitive with fossil fuel pricing in many cases. Advocates expect that increased affordability will encourage individuals, businesses, and public-sector leaders to install more renewables moving forward.

How to make the energy sector greener

Policymakers have plenty of options available to accelerate the adoption of alternative energy.

• Subsidize alternatives: The government can further lower the cost of alternative sources of energy using subsidies. They can offer funding to new alternative and renewable projects and provide financial incentives that make it cheaper for people to switch to renewables.
• Curb fossil fuels: At the same time, policymakers can remove financial support for fossil fuels. As of 2022, the world’s governments were providing $7 trillion worth of fossil fuel subsidies. Instead, they could work to make fossil fuel use more expensive by either taxing carbon emissions or capping the amount the energy sector is allowed to produce.
• Research and development: Governments can invest in research to further develop energy technology. That could involve improving the effectiveness of existing alternative energy sources, as well as figuring out new ways to produce low- and zero-emissions energy.
• Infrastructure: Governments can build out the electrical grid infrastructure necessary to incorporate more renewables into their energy systems. They can also eliminate zoning restrictions and other barriers to the construction of new alternative energy systems.

What Are Humans Doing to Mitigate Energy-Sector Emissions?

Many policymakers are taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector.

In the United States, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allocated billions of dollars in subsidies and investment for developing renewable energy. Also, that bill, as well as legislation in Australia, Canada, and the European Union, is providing additional support for critical mineral production and battery manufacturing. Meanwhile, Hungary adopted a carbon tax last year, joining dozens of other countries, including Argentina, Japan, Mexico, and South Africa. And the United Kingdom recently lifted its ban on building new wind farms on land.

Although promoting renewable energy is critical to mitigating climate change, we can also reduce the energy sector’s emissions in the meantime by reducing energy demands from other sectors.

Most of the electricity and heat that the energy sector produces is used to power industry and buildings. So, finding ways to make industrial processes and energy use in buildings more efficient could help lower emissions significantly.

Also, about one-third of the energy sector’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the production and refining process. Those gases either inadvertently escape the fossil fuel equipment as “fugitive emissions” or are deliberately vented and burned off. Stricter regulations and more advanced processes could help limit that large source of emissions.

How Can the World Work Together on Greener Energy?

Although many countries are making strides on renewable energy sources, progress is uneven.

Between 2013 and 2023, India doubled its electricity generation from renewables, and China increased the amount of electricity it produced from renewables by over 150 percent. But renewable energy is growing at slower rates in other countries. The world averaged a 5.5 percent annual growth rate during that same decade.

Increasing renewables’ share of electricity production requires much more climate financing. The World Bank estimates that energy sector investments in lower- and middle-income countries (excluding China) will need to quadruple to $1 trillion per year on average by 2030 to hit global climate targets.

Fortunately, the world is relatively unified in its general support for renewable energy. Over 160 countries, including the United States, China, and Russia, as well as those in the European Union, have signed on as members to the International Renewable Energy Agency. The intergovernmental organization is meant to serve as a platform for countries to share policy, technology, and financial knowledge to help facilitate the adoption of renewable energy around the world. It’s an important goal, as reducing emissions from the energy sector is a critical part of mitigating climate change.

1 Introduction

Addressing climate change is a collective responsibility. Early climate negotiations at the United Nations recognized that all countries shared responsibility for climate change but—driven by a principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”— relied on developed countries, and not developing ones, to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Developed countries had released most of the greenhouse gases to date, beginning in the industrial revolution, the thinking went, and their advanced economies could better absorb the costs.

More recent climate negotiations have acknowledged that all countries—including developing ones—need to address climate change. But the historical difference in responsibility is echoed in current climate debates, as developing countries such as India face the challenges of a growing economy alongside a changing climate.

This module explores the question of responsibility, paying attention to the different ways countries can interpret climate data and the practical ramifications of those varying interpretations.

2 Who is Responsible for Climate Change?

Climate change is a harmful global problem, and addressing it would benefit every country. But taking collective global action is challenging.

While climate change affects us all, its causes and impacts are not evenly spread. In some cases, the countries that emit the least greenhouse gases get harmed by climate change the most.

At the same time, different ways exist to calculate a country’s greenhouse gas emissions, and each method carries with it political implications for how much of the climate burden a country is willing to bear. A country with high historical amounts of emissions but minimal contemporary emissions, for example, might argue that a country with low historical emissions but high contemporary emissions should bear more of the financial burden of addressing climate change. The opposite situation is also possible, where a country with high emissions today might argue that resolving climate change is the responsibility of countries with the highest emissions over time.

To make matters even more complicated, some countries might be encouraged to “free ride,” and continue to emit greenhouse gases while they benefit from other countries’ emissions reductions.

3 Who Releases the Most Greenhouse Gases?

Imagine you’re seated at an international climate conference, surrounded by delegates from all corners of the globe. The room agrees: the countries that emit the most greenhouse gases are the most responsible. But then one representative poses a pressing question: “So, who releases the most greenhouse gases?”

How would you answer? Is it the countries that are currently spewing out the most greenhouse gases, or is it the countries that have grown rich by burning fossil fuels for over a hundred years? Depending on how you count emissions, you could arrive at different conclusions.

That question isn’t just theoretical; it’s at the heart of global efforts to shape fair climate policies and agreements. Who bears the most responsibility and, by extension, who should take on more of the costs of fighting climate change has been debated for decades.

Since the early 1990s, the consensus has been that countries with higher emissions should shoulder a large portion of the costs for transitioning away from fossil fuels. The challenge, however, lies in how to track emissions to determine which countries emit the most.

Without a clear and consistent method for counting emissions, crafting fair international agreements on how to reduce them – by how much, how quickly, and with what techniques – becomes difficult. Here, knowledge isn’t just power; it’s crucial for designing fair policies that preserve a climate and allow future generations to thrive.

In this lesson, you’ll learn about the intricate and sometimes contentious process of accounting for emissions and determining who is responsible for climate change. That exploration will reveal the underlying complexities and challenges in creating fair and effective climate agreements.

How the World Tracks Emissions

Before determining who emits the most greenhouse gases, experts first need to calculate how much each country emits.

The good news is that tracking those amounts is a relatively straightforward process. Many countries use a method called the “bottom-up approach” to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions. Here’s how it works:

• Collecting data: Countries gather information on activities that produce emissions, like how much fuel a factory burns, the number of cars on the roads, or the amount of electricity generated from coal or gas.
• Applying emission factors: Each activity has an “emission factor,” a number that indicates how much greenhouse gas is produced per unit of activity. For example, burning one ton of coal releases a specific amount of carbon dioxide. By multiplying the amount of fuel used by its emission factor, countries estimate the emissions from that activity.
• Totaling up emissions: The previous two steps are repeated for all activities across different sectors – such as transportation, agriculture, and energy production. Adding up those numbers provides the total greenhouse gas emissions for the country.

Tracking emissions is not just about determining who emits the most. It also helps international organizations gather worldwide data about climate change and set targets for countries to reduce their emissions.

The main intergovernmental organization involved in these tasks is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC helps countries measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions consistently. It then collects and uses emissions data from participating countries to create reports that inform policymakers and the public about climate change. Those reports project probably future climate scenarios based on different factors like changes in emissions, temperatures, and human choices. They are important because they help people understand what could happen based on their efforts—or lack thereof—to address climate change. They also allow countries to set specific goals for reducing emissions.

Different Ways of Determining Responsibility

Calculating emissions is one thing, but deciding how to use that information to determine a country’s responsibility can be a contentious issue. Part of the problem is that there are different ways to present countries’ emissions, and each one can tell a different story. Let’s break them down.

Annual emissions: Who is polluting the most right now?

This method focuses on identifying which countries are currently producing the most greenhouse gases. Right now, some countries are emitting much more than others. For instance, China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases today, even though that wasn’t always the case. Historically, countries like the United States and many in Europe had higher emissions, but they have reduced their greenhouse gases in recent years due to stricter environmental regulations. Meanwhile, China’s emissions have increased because of its rapid economic growth. Measuring today’s emissions illuminates which countries are worsening climate change the most right now.

Cumulative emissions: Who’s been polluting the longest?

The measurement of “cumulative emissions” looks at emissions over time, adding up all the emissions a country has ever released since records began around 1850. By that measure, countries like the United States and other wealthy, industrialized nations are the biggest historical polluters. They have been burning fossil fuels for a long time, indeed, long before countries like China and India were industrialized. Many developing countries highlight that the uneven history of industrialization makes calls for them to reduce their emissions unfair. Wealthy countries faced no pressure to reduce their emissions as they developed then, so why should developing countries limit themselves now?

Emissions per capita: How much does each person pollute?

A third way to measure emissions is to look at how much each person in a country is responsible for—a method called “emissions per capita.” Some developing countries like to use emissions per capita because it shows that, despite high overall emissions, their emissions per person are lower than those of richer countries. Many countries with small populations but energy-hungry industries have high emissions per capita. In contrast, large countries like China and India don’t show up as high per-capita emitters because their huge populations spread out the total emissions.

The End Result

Reducing global emissions will take a lot of work, money, and international coordination. These different ways of counting emissions, however, can make that coordination difficult to achieve. After a brief knowledge check to help process the information in this reading, the next lesson will take a closer look at how policymakers have determined—and are continuing to determine—which countries should take on the most responsibility for climate change.

The Paris Agreement is unique because, under its terms, all countries share responsibility for addressing climate change. Previous climate agreements mandated that countries reduce their emissions by particular standards and placed responsibility for climate change—and the obligation to fix it— on developed countries, which historically have emitted the most greenhouse gases.

How to Decide Who is Responsible

Reducing global emissions will take a lot of work and money, with many countries coordinating their efforts. But given the different counting styles discussed in the preceding lesson, how should policymakers decide which countries should take on the most responsibility for fighting climate change? Should it be countries with high emissions in total or high emissions per capita? And should it be countries emitting the most today or countries who have emitted the most historically?

The debate is ongoing, but countries generally agree on certain core principles. Since the first major global agreement on climate change in 1992— the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change—governments have agreed on this important idea: countries bear “common but differentiated responsibilities” to fight climate change. That means that although all countries need to pitch in to fight climate change, some need to do more than others.

How the 2015 Paris Agreement Addresses Climate Responsibility

As you just learned, at the time of the 1992 UN Climate Change Convention, countries like China, India, and many other low- and middle-income countries were not expected to reduce their emissions immediately. However, significant changes have occurred. Critics in more developed countries say it’s unfair to expect fewer reductions from the low- and middle-income countries because some are now the world’s largest polluters, and their economies have grown rapidly. Still, their total emissions and emissions per capita are often lower than those of wealthier nations.

Today, countries across the world have almost universally chosen to address the question of climate responsibility by signing the Paris Agreement.

In the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries acknowledged that climate change required action from everyone, not just developed countries. Almost every country agreed to a target of keeping global warming, compared to preindustrial levels, to a rise of well below a 2°C, aiming for a limit of 1.5°C. To achieve that goal, every country had to set emissions reductions targets. Still, developing countries were expected to make less ambitious pledges than developed countries.

El primer acuerdo internacional para descarbonizar fue el tratado de la UNFCC (United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change) que fué firmado en 1992 y entró a funcionar en 1995.

Este acuerdo estableció el acuerdo de reunirse una vez cada año en las COP (Conference of Parties) y estoa venido sucediendo desde 1995.

El primer resultado fué el protocolo de Kioto firmado en 1997 y que entró en vigor en 2005.La cadacterística principal en que estableció una meta obligatoria de cumplir para 37 países de los cuales 28 eran la Unión Europea. El protocolo tenía dos períodos de compromisos, el primero de 2008 al 2012 y el segundo del 2013 al 2020, pero nunca entró en funcionamiento en forma total.

El enfoque de solución al problema fue el top-down , es decir de arriba hacia abajo, por la cual los acuerdos tomados y aceptados deberían ser implementados y cumplidos por los países firmantes. El primer gran problema de este protocolo es que países industrializados muy importates como EEUU y China no participaban en él o que no ratificaron el protocolo. El segundo problema es que una gran cantidad de países firmantes no estaban obligados a cumplir los acuerdos.

En 2009 en la COP15 de Copenhagen se tomó el acuerdo de que todos los países que participen se comprometan a cumplir las metas, pero esto fue casí imposible de lograrlo, por lo que optó por un enfoque bottom up (abajo hacia arriba) , por lo que cada país se comprometió a colaborar con una meta, la cual debía ser negociada individualmente. Esta es la base del Acuerdo de París el cual se firmó en la reunión de París en la COP 21 de 2015.

En el Artículo 2 del Acuerdo se enuncia la meta : “Mantener el aumento de la temperatura media mundial muy por debajo de 2 °C con respecto a los niveles preindustriales, y proseguir los esfuerzos
para limitar ese aumento de la temperatura a 1,5 °C con respecto a los niveles preindustriales, reconociendo que ello reduciría considerablemente los riesgos y los efectos del cambio climático;”

Así miemo determina las Contribuciones Nacionalmente Determinadas (NDC Nationally-determined commitments) como los compromisos asumidos por las partes para la acción que se hace para limitar la acción de los gases de efecto invernadero.

En el Artículo 4 se especifica que “Cada Parte deberá preparar, comunicar y mantener las sucesivas contribuciones determinadas a nivel nacional que tenga previsto efectuar. Las Partes procurarán adoptar medidas de mitigación internas, con el fin de alcanzar los
objetivos de esas contribuciones.”

En paralelo a los esfuerzos de la COP se creo en 1988 el Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) por la Organización Meteorológica Mundial (WMO World Meteorological Organization) y el programa ambiental de las Naciones Unidas UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) . Este proceso está mas dirigido a los científicos.

Cada cierto tiempo se hace una evaluación de los conocimientos adquiridos sobre el clima y se produce un reporte que es discutido con los gobiernos y publicado. El último reporte del IPCC es el “Sixth Assesment Report (AR6) que fue publicado el 20 MArzo de 2023 como una síntesis del reporte.

En la conferencia del IPCC en 2018, en Edmonton, Canadá, el Quinto Reporte fue presentado. En el los científicos argumentaron que la meta de 2.0 Grados era muy laxa en vista de que los efectos del calentamiento global eran mayores a los esperados, y recomendaban que la temperatura media no debía pasar de 1.5 grados.

En esta conferencia estuvimos presentes y la foto estamos con la Gobernadora de Alberta después de nuestra presentación.

En la siguiente COP en Katowice , la COP24 los gobiernos no apoyaron este informe y solo manifestaron que la tomaban en cuenta.

Aquí pueden ver la presentación de los estudiantes en una escuela técnica en Katowice.

1.- Descarbonización

Descarbonización es el proceso por el cual el dióxido de carbono es retirado de la atmósfera, pero también se entiende como el proceso por el cual se evita que la concentración de ese gas aumente.

Las políticas de descarbonización pueden agruparse en dos grupos:

1. Políticas basadas en el mercado
2. Políticas administrativas

Las políticas basadas en el mercado consiste en internalizar los costos y hacer pagar un precio alto por la emision de los gases de efecto invernadero. La idea es que si el precio es muy alto debe haber entonces un motivo para redcir la emición de esos gases. El problema radica en la complejidad de la producción y del consumo. Una forma de educar al consumidor es mediante las señales que representan el precio del producto.

Hay dos enfoques basados en el mercado.

1. El impuesto al carbono
2. El tope y comercio de derechos de emisión (cap and trade)

La mayoría de los economistas están a favor del impuesto al carbono, primero porque es fácil de entenderlo al aplicarlo a todas las formas de emisión de gases de efecto invernadero, segundo porque es fácil de armonizarlo para el caso de internacionalizarlo, al comparar el porcentaje de impuesto de un país con otro, y por lo tanto es fácil aplicar tarifas en las fronteras. Sin embargo al público no le agrada pagar más impuestos de los que ya paga, por lo que a muchos gobiernos no les es atractiva la idea.

El impuesto al carbono es fijado por el gobierno y es ajustado dependiendo de las fuerzas del mercado y de las mediciones de las reducciones de las emisiones. En este caso se conoce el precio pero no se conocen los resultados.

Por ello los políticos y los gobiernos prefieren el ETS (Emision Trade System o sistema de negociación de emisiones). En el siguiente mapa se puede ver los países que han implementado el ETS o están en proceso.

Para incentivar a las empresas a reducir sus emisiones un gobierno asigna un tope al nivel máximo de emisiones y crea permisos para cada unidad de emisiones permitidas bajo ese tope. Lasempresas que emiten deben solicitar y entregar un permiso para sus emisiones. Ellos pueden obtener un permiso a través del gobierno o negociar a través de otras empresas, El gobierno puede escoger dar los permisos gratis o a teavés de subastas.

Las empresas que esperan no tener suficientes permisos deben cortar sus emisiones o comprar permisos a otra empresa. por un precio dado algunas empresas puede encontrar que es más fácil o barato reducir sus emisiones y vender sus permisos a otras empresas. Si hay muchas de esas empresas en el mercado entonces el precio de venta de los permisos se reduce y así se reducen las emisiones, luego en un próximo período el número escogido para el tope disminuido repitiendose el proceso.

En el mapa siguiente se muestra el estado en que se encuentran los países respecto a las negociaciones de emisiones

Las regulaciones administrativas pueden tener varias formas, desde prohibiciones, hasta subsidios que pueden favorecer determinadas tecnologías o soluciones en detrimento de otras. Las regulaciones administrativas en muchos casos no optan por la mejor solución técnica o económica, sino que son sujetos a ciertos intereses, presiones e interferencia política e ideológica.

2.- Los bonos de carbono

El Cap and Trade es el nombre del sistema utiizado para descarbonizar, pero para negociar los permisos se necesitan los certificados comerciales , que son una especie de “dinero”. y que representan el derecho a emitir. La unidad de medida es la tonelada de Co2, así pues un bono de carbono es igual a 1 Tonelada de Co2.  Se toma este gas porque es el que tiene mayor participación entre los gases de efecto invernadero y su efecto nocivo es mayor que el del resto de los gases.

Los mercados de carbono se crearon a partir del protocolo de Kioto de 1997 Los mercados obligatorios o regulados son los que funcionan a partir de reglamentaciones y normas que establecen países u organismos internacionales. Actualmente los más grandes son los de la UE (que funciona desde 2005) y el de China (desde julio 2021).

Pero también existen los mercados voluntarios en que no hay un organismo, ni país que pone las reglas, son empresas, individuos, que toman la decisión de reducir su huella de carbono. Para los mercados voluntarios funciona el sistema de precios por oferta y demanda pues en este caso, no hay aun topes de contaminación establecidos obligatoriamente a nivel global y no existe aún un mercado global que regule uniformemente ni las emisiones ni la forma de negociar los bonos.

Es por eso que por el momento se establecen acuerdos bilaterales entre países o entre empresas.

El primer gran acuerdo en el mundo en este sentido es entre Perú y Suiza. El primero hace un desarrollo forestal sostenible, financiado por Suiza. Así Perú recibe un ingreso por capturar carbono, y Suiza paga por recibir un “crédito” de carbono para compensar en parte sus emisiones.

Perú y Suiza firman convenio para reducir gases en el marco del Acuerdo de París

https://www.gob.pe/institucion/minam/noticias/308992-peru-y-suiza-firman-acuerdo-de-cooperacion-que-busca-reducir-efectos-del-cambio-climatico

Un problema

A consecuencia de la firma de este acuerdo se aprobó el desarrollo del primer proyecto sobre la implementación de cocinas mejoradas en la serrania del Perú:

https://microsol-int.com/itmo/#:~:text=Acuerdo%20entre%20Per%C3%BA%20y%20Suiza%20En%20noviembre,Resultados%20de%20Mitigaci%C3%B3n%20de%20Transferencia%20Internacional%20(ITMO).

Peru y Suiza

Y el siguiente video muestra toda la complejidad del tratado

y también las múltiples objeciones que se presentan.

1. El mercado

El funcionamiento del mercado se basa en la interacción voluntaria entre los vendedores y compradores para intercambiar bienes o servicios a un precio determinado . Este mecanismo, regido por la ley de oferta y demanda, busca alcanzar un equilibrio donde la cantidad ofrecida iguala a la demandada, estableciendo precios a través de la competencia y las decisiones racionales de los agentes.

La ley de la Oferta y la Demanda estyablece que si la demanda supera a la oferta, entonces los precios suben, si por el contrario la oferta supera a la demanda los precios bajan.

El punto de equilibrio ocurre cuando los deseos de los compradores y vendedores coinciden en el precio, cantidad y calidad, estabilizando el mercado.

El mercado permite que los recursos se distribuyan y que el intercambio se realice, convirtiéndose en el motor de la actividad económica.

La producción como el consumo están relacionados con la competencia entre los vendedores y entre los compradores. La competencia perfecta se caracteriza por la existencia de muchos compradores y vendedores de productos homogéneos, donde nadie influye en el precio, el cual se fija por la ley de oferta y demanda.

En contraste, la competencia imperfecta presenta pocas empresas o productos diferenciados, lo que otorga a los vendedores control sobre los precios, o también la existencia de pocos compradores con poder.

En un modelo ideal los Bienes son idénticos, sin marcas ni diferenciación., por ejemplo cuanndo van al mercado a comprar papas blancas , deberá también información completa y gratuita para compradores y vendedores, por ejemplo las fechas de vencimiento de los productos y no deben haber barreras que permitan la entrada y salida libre de empresas.

En la vida real la competencia es imperfecta por las siguiente razones

Pocos o únicos vendedores: Empresas con poder para fijar precios, siendo el caso extremo el monopolio, en la cual una sola empresa domina el mercado, por ejemplo es suministro de agua y desague, o también el oligopolio en las cuales pocas empresas grandes dominan el mercado como la telefonía móvil.

Los productos diferenciados crean la existencia de productos únicos o de marca.

Existen también barreras de entrada que dificultan la competencia, como patentes, barreras legales, costos altos, así como la existencia de la información asimétrica en que los vendedores suelen tener más informacióin que los compradores o viceversa.

Los costos de producción son los gastos directos (materias primas, mano de obra) que una empresa asume para fabricar un bien, mientras que las externalidades son efectos secundarios —positivos o negativos— que afectan a terceros no involucrados en la transacción, sin reflejarse en el precio final. Cuando estos costos externos no son asumidos por el productor, se produce una falla de mercado conocida como externalización de costos

2. Externalidades

1¿Qué son las externalidades?

Las externalidades son efectos secundarios —positivos o negativos— de la producción o consumo de bienes que impactan a terceros no involucrados, sin reflejarse en los precios de mercado. Representan un fallo de mercado donde el coste o beneficio privado difiere del social, a menudo requiriendo intervención gubernamental (impuestos o regulación). 

Externalidades Negativas (Coste social > Coste privado): La actividad perjudica a terceros. Ejemplos:

Contaminación Las industrias producen humos que perjudican a los habitantes aledaños.

Cambio climático La generación de energía mediante combustibles fósiles produce el calentamiento global.

Destrucción de la biodiversidad . Uso de pesticidas afectan a insectos y aves que son benéficas.

Externalidades Positivas (Beneficio social > Beneficio privado): La actividad beneficia a terceros. Ejemplos:

vacunas (menor contagio), educación (mejor sociedad), investigación científica, apicultura cerca de cultivos

Las externalidades pueden originarse en la producción ó en el consumo

Externalidades en la producción que se originan cuando se generan bienes o materiales, estas pueden ser positivas por ejemplo enseñando a la población nuesvas técnicas que pueden ser utilizadas en otros campos diferente de la producción en sí o pueden ser negativas tales como los humos que se pruducen en fundiciones.

Las externalidades en el consumo se produce cuando los consumidores no asumen los costos de sus actos, pueden ser positivos como la generación de fuentes de trabajo o pueden ser negativos como la contaminación de las bolsas de plástico de un solo uso.

¿Cómo se resuelven los problemas producidos por la externalidades negativas? Una forma es la Internalización del costo de producción, es decir que el productor asume los costo de las externalidades negativas y se la incluye en el precio del producto.

Lo que es claro cuando se enfoca a la economía de mercado, es que las externalidades constituyen una explicación económica los los problemas de cambio climáticos así como la pérdida de biodiversidad. Así mismo se puede asignarle también la contaminación provocada o inconsiente. Por lo tanto el manejo de las externalidades son fundamentales para la solución de los problemas ambientales.