The climate is not changing, it has already changed. Everyone, young or old, rich or poor, from developing countries or developed countries is experiencing it in their lives. Pakistan, for example, with its extensive flooding bearing the brunt of the climate crisis despite a very low carbon footprint. The same is the case with the Silicon Valley of India - Bengaluru.?
Europe is facing the worst drought in 500 years. Forest fires in Amazon, California, Australia, Greece, Turkey, Russia have been alarming. All these are consequences of climate change, primarily caused by consumption of carbon based fuels, which amounts to 80 to 85% of total energy used in the world.?
As a solution to such catastrophic climate change, countries and corporations in line with the Paris Agreement are pledging to become carbon neutral or at least appearing to be in the race of being carbon neutral. Some countries like Bhutan, Surinam, Panama have become carbon negative. Some other countries like Austria and Iceland have pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040, most others including European countries by 2050, some by 2060 and India by 2070.?
Big corporate giants like Reliance, TCS, Microsoft, Adani, Honeywell, Delta, General Motors, Disney have pledged to become carbon neutral between 2030 to 2040.
But there is a catch in being carbon neutral, which the whole world is unaware off, and seems to be celebrating carbon neutrality as some kind of magic wand that will solve the problem of climate change.?
As per Wikipedia, Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal which is achieved often through carbon offsetting. Removing CO2 ¡°often through carbon offsetting¡± is that catch.
The best way of being carbon neutral is removing CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by absorbing them back through natural sinks like soil, trees, ocean or through artificial sinks like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies. The emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has already reached to about 40 Gt (Gigaton or billion ton) per year.?
Natural sinks have capacity to absorb only about 10 to 11 Gt of CO2 and there are no effective artificial sinks which can absorb CO2 and other greenhouse gases at the scale that is required to combat global warming and climate change.?
Alternative to removing CO2 through carbon sink is carbon offsetting wherein by means of generating energy through renewable energy sources like solar and wind (instead of carbon based fuels like coal, oil and gas) one avoids emitting CO2. If the total greenhouse gases emitted is equal to the total amount avoided, then the two effects cancel each other out and the net emissions are 'neutral'. As per definition and current norms, it means that if CO2 emitted is equal to CO2 offset then it is net zero carbon emission or it becomes a state of being carbon neutral. This is a big mistake.
This is a mistake not only because emitted CO2 or greenhouse gases will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and cause global warming but also because the offsetting CO2 by means of renewable energy technologies itself emits CO2 to some extent, be it solar or wind.?
For example, generating solar electricity requires many components like manufacturing of silicon crystal, solar cells and solar panels, electronics, cables, structures and at the end of life, all these components require recycling, which itself consumes energy and chemicals and are responsible for CO2 emissions. Of course, solar or wind electricity will have much less carbon emissions compared to coal electricity, but nevertheless it will not be zero.?
The Paris Agreement has been signed by over 190 countries in 2015 with the aim to reduce carbon emission by nearly half till 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2050. But in reality the carbon emissions are rising at a rate of about 1.7% rather than declining, which has put the world on the path of accelerated global warming. Now with this new found approach of achieving carbon neutrality through offsetting would make the situation even worse. Mitigating climate change could only be a distant dream, far away from reality.?
About the author: Chetan Singh Solanki is a Professor at the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at?Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and the founder of Energy Swaraj Foundation. All views/opinions expressed in the article are of the author.?