In 2023, World Milk Day, with the theme 'Enjoy Dairy', will focus on showcasing how dairy products reduce their environmental footprint while providing nutritious food and livelihoods. The aim will be to lead an active narrative that integrates the environmental, nutritional and social impacts of the industry. This day is celebrated by all the member states of the United Nations, which organize various events to educate the public about the importance of milk. In our home, however, the rising price of milk and milk products has taken the luster off the nutrient-rich product. Saraswati Devi, a resident of Sailashree Vihar area in Bhubaneswar, said milk and its benefits are incalculable. (Post News Network)

"by clicking on the title of the article, you will be redirected to the entire article"

People in rich countries can lead cleaner lives faster if governments make it easier for them to get rid of dirty habits. Some of the most powerful tools to stop the planet from warming involve changing the way we eat, heat, move and shop. But lifestyle changes that reduce demand for polluting products, have for the most part proven to be difficult to sell. Electric cars cost more than regular ones. Tofu tastes less like meat than steak. Influencers are constantly pushing people to buy more stuff. (Deutsche Welle (DW))

"by clicking on the title of the article, you will be redirected to the entire article"

Generative AI is the hot new technology behind chatbots and image generators. But how hot does that make the planet? As an AI researcher, I often worry about the energy costs of building AI models. The more powerful the AI, the more power it requires. What does the emergence of increasingly powerful generative AI models mean for the future carbon footprint of society? "Generative" refers to the ability of an AI algorithm to produce complex data. An alternative is "discriminative AI", which chooses between a fixed number of options and produces only one number. An example of a discriminatory output is choosing whether to approve a loan application. Generative AI can produce much more complex output such as a sentence, paragraph, image or even a short video. It has long been used in applications such as smart speakers to generate audio responses or in autocomplete to suggest a search query. But only recently has he acquired the ability to create human language and realistic photographs. Size is not the only predictor of carbon emissions. The open-access model BLOOM, developed by the BigScience project in France, is similar in size to GPT-3 but has a much lower carbon footprint, consuming 433 MWh of electricity while producing 30 tonnes of CO2 eq. A Google study found that for the same size, using a more efficient model architecture and processor and a greener data center can reduce the carbon footprint by 100 to 1,000 times. (stuff)

"by clicking on the title of the article, you will be redirected to the entire article"

The world’s leading carmakers emit an estimated 74 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. This is largely linked to the industry’s failure to decarbonise its steel supply chain. Steel production last year emitted 573 million tonnes of CO2, roughly the same as Australia’s annual output. For climate change news and analysis, visit News24 Climate Future. The world’s leading carmakers emit an estimated 74 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year due to the industry’s failure to decarbonise its steel supply chain, according to a new report by Greenpeace. The automotive industry is heavily reliant on steel as a key production material, with the top 16 carmakers estimated to have consumed between 39 million and 65 million tonnes of steel in 2022, the environmental group said in a report. Toyota, the world's leading automaker, consumed 6.3 million tons of steel in 2022 alone, followed by Volkswagen with 5.2 million tons and Hyundai-Kia with 5.2 million tons, according to a report released Thursday. This dependence is coming at a cost to the planet, according to Greenpeace, due to the large amount of carbon emissions in the process, pushing global temperatures ever closer to the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold that climate scientists say will spell disaster. (News24) 

"by clicking on the title of the article, you will be redirected to the entire article"

Every activity we do leaves a mark on our planet. Transport, shopping, energy consumption, all this has an impact on the environment. If we know the weight of our decisions, it is easier to change something. The carbon footprint represents the amount of emissions and greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere. The higher it is, the more it burdens our planet and accelerates climate change. This is also why we are introducing the display of the estimated carbon footprint of purchases paid for by payment card in the Tatra banka mobile application. So that we all contribute to positive changes together.

"by clicking on the title of the article, you will be redirected to the entire article"

If all the talk of net zero has inspired you to go greener at home, the good news is that it's never too late to start. There's a lot more to it than simply remembering your bag for life or choosing a veggie hot dog on Monday, but these small steps, along with bigger steps like installing insulation or solar panels , will all help us reach our 1.5C global warming target by 2050. And with some of the UK government's latest net-zero plans facing criticism from environmental experts , you may be wondering what you can do independently to help the cause. Jodi Manning, vice president of marketing and corporate partnerships at Cool Effect , a US-based non-profit organization dedicated to combating the climate crisis, tells us: “The good news is that there are simple changes people can make to change and they adopted the climate. -friendly habits”. This can include reducing waste, reducing the use of plastics and adopting the use of renewable energy sources. Here are 15 ways you can be more green.

1. Check the efficiency of the heating system

A healthy heating system is environmentally friendly and ensuring you run on low carbon fuel is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint. If your boiler is 10 or more years old, it may be time to upgrade it to a modern "condensing" boiler, which can achieve an efficiency of up to 90 percent, or consider alternatives such as a heat pump or a biomass boiler. From 2025, the installation of gas and oil boilers in banned in new homes and looking ahead it is likely that the UK will phase out traditional fossil fuel boilers entirely within the next few years. So now is a good time to look at a greener heating system alternative, especially with a boiler upgrade scheme available to alleviate some of the financial problems this can cause.

"by clicking on the title of the article, you will be redirected to the entire article"

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) sustainable development scenario, energy efficiency represents more than 40 % of emission reductions needed by 2040 ¹ . The IEA says: “Energy efficiency is 'the first fuel': mastering the scale of this unprecedented challenge, supporting net-zero energy targets at lower costs and delivering a wide range of benefits for society. Furthermore, "According to the IEA Efficient World Scenario, currently existing cost-effective technologies are sufficient to double global energy efficiency by 2040". Heat exchangers are just such an existing, cost-effective technology. Technologically proven for over a century, developments in materials and design mean that many types of heat exchangers, such as those using corrugated tubes and energy recovery, are now more energy efficient than ever before. The greatest efficiency benefits of heat exchangers arise when they facilitate the reuse of as much of the heat energy generated or used during a process (such as heating, cooling, pasteurization, evaporation, etc.) as possible. More efficient heat distribution in production facilities is considered a key factor in improving efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in industries including chemical refining, water treatment and manufacturing. (Matt Hale)

Campaigners have hit out at the UK government over its assessment of a looming free trade deal with Australia, which critics say ignored the full climate impact of meat farming and consumption. Activists from the NGO Feedback launched a formal legal challenge against the UK government, arguing that it risked breaching its international climate commitments by failing to properly assess the deal's environmental impacts. The UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement which takes effect at the end of the month, giving Australian producers better access to the UK market to sell beef, lamb and dairy products.

(Isabella Kaminski)

BRAZIL, May 23 (Reuters) - Britain announced new funding on Tuesday for a major scientific experiment deep in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest that will measure the impact of rising carbon dioxide levels on trees, the British embassy said. Foreign Secretary James Cleverley visited the project north of the city of Manaus, where scientists are building dozens of towers that will inject carbon dioxide into the forest canopy and watch as plants absorb it. The experiment, called AmazonFACE, or Free-Air CO2 Enrichment, will help scientists better understand how the tropical forest might respond to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas that drives climate change. In addition to raising temperatures, the gas can also fertilize plants, which can affect the water cycle. This could determine how resilient the rainforest will be to climate change in the coming decades. The results obtained from 2024 will be made available to the scientific community worldwide and will improve understanding of how the world's largest tropical forest can help sequester some of the carbon, while also revealing the vulnerability of the Amazon to climate change, the embassy said in a statement..(Reuters)

CO exchange flows₂  between the plant and the atmosphere measured by the Eddy covariance method are widely used to assess ecosystem carbon budgets worldwide. This paper describes eddy flux measurements for managed mountain grasslands in central France studied over two decades (2003–2021). We present site meteorological data for this measurement period and describe the pre-processing and post-processing approaches used to overcome the data gap issues commonly associated with long-term EC datasets. Recent advances in eddy flux and machine learning technology are now paving the way for the creation of robust long-term datasets based on standardized data processing techniques, but such reference datasets are rare for grasslands. Here we combined two gap-filling techniques, edge-sampling (short gaps) and random forest (long gaps), to complete two reference flux datasets at half-hourly and daily scales. The resulting datasets are valuable for assessing the response of grassland ecosystems to (past) climate change, but also for evaluating and validating models with a view to future research on global change in the carbon cycle community. Long-term measurements of carbon (C) flux are crucial for assessing patterns and drivers of ecosystem functioning in space and time. Eddy covariance (EC) measurements are a direct and instantaneous way to measure carbon and energy fluxes between the atmosphere and the surface. In recent years, networks of flow towers (EC measurements) have played a key role in improving our understanding of large-scale carbon budgets and responses to abiotic and biotic factors across and within different ecosystems. (Bruna R. Winck, Juliette MG Bloor, Katja Klumppová, Nature)

Comprehensive forest carbon accounting requires reliable estimation of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks. Despite being an important source of carbon, limited information is available on SOC stocks in global forests, particularly in forests in montane regions such as the central Himalayas. The availability of rigorously measured new field data allowed us to accurately estimate forest soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in Nepal, addressing a previously existing knowledge gap. Our method involved modeling forest SOC estimates using covariates related to climate, soil, and topographic location. Our quantile random forest model resulted in high spatial resolution prediction of Nepal's national forest SOC stock along with prediction uncertainties. Our spatially explicit forest SOC map showed high levels of SOC in high-elevation forests and a significant underrepresentation of these stocks in global-scale assessments. Our results offer an improved baseline of the distribution of total carbon in central Himalayan forests. Reference maps of predicted forest SOC and associated errors, together with our estimate of 494 million tons (SE = 16) of total SOC in the topsoil (0–30 cm) of forested areas in Nepal have important implications for understanding the spatial variability of forest SOC in mountainous areas with complex terrain . Accurate and reliable estimation of national soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks is critical for reporting in the context of the UN's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) 1 and several other initiatives. Assessing carbon stocks in forest ecosystems requires an understanding of tree biomass, belowground biomass and soil carbon, as well as fluxes. (Shiva Khanal, Rachael H. Nolan, Belinda E. Medlynová, Matthias M. Boer, Scientific Reports)

Climate change can still be tackled - but only if people are willing to accept fundamental changes in the way we live, the report says. The authors have compiled a list of the best ways people can reduce their carbon footprint. The response to the Covid-19 crisis has shown that the public is willing to accept radical change if it deems it necessary, they explain. And the report adds that the government's priorities must be rearranged. Scientists say that protecting the planet must become the first duty of all decision makers. The authors urge the public to contribute by taking action to reduce carbon emissions in the report, which is based on an analysis of 7,000 other studies. At the top of the list is a car-free life, which saves an average of 2.04 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per person per year. This is followed by driving a battery electric car – 1.95 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per person per year – and one less long-haul flight each year – 1.68 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per person. Switching to a vegan diet will help – but less so than tackling transport, research shows. They say popular activities like recycling are worth it, but don't reduce emissions by that much.

Carbon dioxide equivalent or CO equivalent ₂ , abbreviated CO ₂ - eq , is a metric measure used to compare emissions from different greenhouse gases based on their global warming potential (GWP) by converting the amount of other gases into an equivalent. amount of carbon dioxide with the same global warming potential. Carbon dioxide equivalents are commonly expressed as million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents,  abbreviated  MMTCDE . The carbon dioxide equivalent for a gas is derived by multiplying the tonnes of gas by the associated GWP:

MMTCDE = (million metric tons of gas) * (GWP of gas).

For example, the GWP for methane is 25 and for nitrous oxide is 298. This means that emissions of 1 million metric tons of methane and nitrous oxide are equivalent to emissions of 25 and 298 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, respectively.

A new study reveals an alarming rise in emissions of five ozone-depleting substances from 2010 to 2020, despite their production for most applications being banned by the Montreal Protocol. The release of these five chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) stems in part from leakage during the production of ozone-friendly CFC alternatives. Although these incidental or transient emissions are technically permitted under the Montreal Protocol, they are at odds with the broader objective of the agreement and the observed increase is cause for concern. "We're paying attention to these emissions now because of the success of the Montreal Protocol," says Luke Western, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Global Monitoring Laboratory and the University of Bristol. CFC emissions from more widespread uses that are now banned have fallen to such low levels that CFC emissions from previously minor sources are now on our radar.” A study by an international team of scientists from NOAA, University of Bristol , Empa, CSIRO, University of East Anglia, University of California San Diego, University of Colorado, Boulder and Forschungszentrum Jülich was recently published in a journal Nature Geoscience. No immediate threat to the ozone layer - but a significant greenhouse effect. According to researchers, emissions from these freons currently do not significantly threaten ozone restoration. However, at the current rate of increase, they could become a significant contributor to the total emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals. Because they are strong greenhouse gases, they have an impact on the climate: their combined emissions equal the CO2 emissions in 2020 for a country as small as Switzerland. This is equal to about one percent of total United States greenhouse gas emissions, or 1/1,000th of all global greenhouse gas emissions. (SciTechDaily)

If you're reading this, you're emitting carbon. A single online search uses about as much electricity as a lightbulb left on for 35 minutes. Sending an email with a large attachment? That lightbulb will last about an hour. And if digital technology were a country, it would be the third-largest consumer of electricity in the world, after China and the United States. These are some of the findings in a new book by French journalist and documentary filmmaker Guillaume Pitron. The Dark Cloud: How the digital world is costing the earth. At a time when many of us are trying to be as environmentally friendly as possible – using reusable shopping bags, bringing our own cups to the cafe – it’s easy to forget that part of our carbon footprint comes from the devices we use every day. But how did we get here – and what can we do about it?

E-fuels, renewable natural gas, carbon capture – fossil fuel companies will stop at nothing to protect their business model. Oh, the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth over the demise of fossil fuels. Everywhere you look, there’s a story about how e-fuels can keep internal combustion cars on the road without burning gasoline, how renewable natural gas can keep generators running without producing carbon emissions, and how carbon capture will allow us to vastly expand our wet dream of fossil fuels forever. The problem is that they all have a certain kernel of potential, but they’re all just another way for fossil fuel lovers to continue doing what they’ve always done — making extraordinary profits from mining, transporting, refining, distributing, and burning coal, oil, and methane gas. It’s a scam, people, and we need to stop believing that some form of magical pixie dust will keep those pistons pumping and those turbines spinning until every last molecule of fossil fuel is burned — which means every last penny of profit is gone.

(Steve Hanle)

The European Commission has finally acknowledged the absence of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in its emissions reduction strategy, but much still needs to be done, writes Chris Davies. Chris Davies is Director of CCS Europe. He was the European Parliament Rapporteur on CCS in 2008-2009 and 2013-2014. It took a long time, but the European Commission has finally acknowledged that there is a gaping hole at the heart of its climate policy. The absence of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in its emissions reduction strategy has left it without a credible means of achieving its net-zero CO2 ambitions, despite the authoritative voice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) repeatedly insisting that the technology will be needed. However, acceptance is now replacing reluctance, goals are being set and an outline of a CCS deployment strategy is beginning to take shape. The Commission's reluctance in the past may have grown out of the perception that involvement in CCS was a career killer. It was back in January 2007 that the Commission promised to propose a mechanism to stimulate the construction and operation of up to 12 large CCS demonstration projects by 2015. Since then, not a single one has been started, let alone completed. The funding support mechanism, NER300, failed and the €1 billion made available from the 2009 economic recovery programme came up short. Environmental NGOs, which argued that CCS was simply a means to support the continued use of fossil fuels, reveled in their ridicule of the technology. Reducing CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants was the basis of considerations in 2007. Since then, subsidies paid to support the successful development of renewable energy systems have shifted the dial, reducing (but not always eliminating) the dependence of many Member States on fossil fuels. (Chris Davies, Euractiv)

Mispricing in voluntary carbon markets offers high potential returns for investors looking to support the path to net zero. Carbon markets investor Carbon Growth Partners (CGP) is betting on an imminent correction in the price of carbon credits to bridge the gap between impact and profitable investing. Following stronger-than-expected demand for its debut fund, the Carbon Growth Opportunities Fund, the firm recently launched a second vehicle focused on investments that contribute to global CO2 reductions. “Our goal is to be a dedicated investment manager in what most people call the ‘voluntary carbon market’ (VCM) – but we consider it a ‘verified carbon market’ because in our view, emissions reductions are not voluntary,” founder and CEO Rich Gilmore told FinanceAsia. Gilmore said his team was excited to be at the forefront of this investment trend, adding: “I think there’s a pretty fair consensus that decarbonisation and tackling climate change is the biggest and most important issue for the next 30 years.” Carbon credits allow companies to invest in projects that contribute to reducing global carbon emissions as part of their transition to net zero. One carbon credit is typically equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by one tonne. (Sara Velezmoro, FinanceAsia)