Climatic Impact of Activities: Methodological Guide for Analysis and Action (Ecological Sciences)

228 Pages·2020·10.237 MB·English

by  Jean-Yves Rossignol

Climatic Impact of Activities
Series Editor
Françoise Gaill
Climatic Impact of Activities

Methodological Guide for
Analysis and Action

Jean-Yves Rossignol
First published 2020 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
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ISBN 978-1-78630-512-1
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Chapter 1. Overview of the Scientific Basis for the
Greenhouse Effect and Geocycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1. Greenhouse effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2. The additional criteria of the emissions in the atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.1. The carbon geocycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2. The water geocycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3. Answers to exercises in Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter 2. General Methodology for Quantification
of a Climate Footprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1. Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2. Identification of the greenhouse gases to be included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3. Quantification of the impact of greenhouse gases on the
climate: radiative forcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4. Quantification of the relative climate impact: the
Global Warming Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5. Climate impact of gases in relation to their quantity:
the emission factor of greenhouse gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.6. Impact of greenhouse gas emission processes on the
climate: the emissions factor of any material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
vi Climatic Impact of Activities
2.7. Impact of an activity on the climate: generalization of the
characterization of flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.8. Answers to the exercises in Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 3. Quantification of the Climate Footprint of an
Organization: Methodology of the Balance of Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1. The various methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2. The broad-spectrum greenhouse gas emission balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.3. The system at hand: processes and flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.4. Data harvesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.5. The case of the regulatory greenhouse gas emission
balance in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.6. Answers to the exercises in Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Chapter 4. Calculation of Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.1. Emissions due to the use of energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2. Other direct emissions (excluding energy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.3. Emissions due to manufacturing of inputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.4. Emissions due to transport of merchandise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.4.1. Road transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.4.2. Non-road transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.5. Emissions due to movements of people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.6. Emissions due to waste treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.7. Emissions due to the production of tangible assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.8. Emissions due to the use of products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.9. Emissions due to the end of life of products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.10. Calculation of uncertainties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.10.1. Emissions due to the incineration of plastic waste
(see section 6.1.3.7.3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.10.2. Emissions due to transportation of sawdust supplies
(see section 6.1.3.5.2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.11. Answers to the exercises in Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Chapter 5. Results Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.1. Recommended actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.2. Interpreting balances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.3. Carbon dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.4. Answer to the exercise in Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Contents vii
Chapter 6. Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6.1. Case study 1: brickworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.1.1. Description of the activity and challenge in the exercise . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.1.2. Activity data and emissions factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
6.1.3. Calculation of emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.1.4. Recap of the quantification of emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.1.5. Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
6.2. Case study 2: vineyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.2.1. Description of the activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.2.2. Challenge in this exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.2.3. Specifications about the activity and questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.2.4. Activity data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.2.5. Answer to case study 2: winemaking industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.3. Case study 3: factory for production of animal feed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.3.1. Description of the activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.3.2. Challenge in this exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.3.3. Specific activity data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.3.4. Answer to case study 3: factory for production
of animal feed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Appendix 1. For a Physical Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Appendix 2. Explanation of the Calculation Methods for
Emissions due to Transport of Merchandise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Appendix 3. Accounting of Emissions due to the Production
of Fixed Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Appendix 4. Emissions Related to Journeys Made Between the
Brickworks and Employees’ Places of Residence: Analysis
of Sensitivity to Calculation Hypotheses (Case Study 1) . . . . . . . . . . . 203
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Foreword
For more than 30 years, the scientific community has been trying to draw the
attention of political decision-makers and the wider public to climate imbalance and
all the potential consequences that it brings. But the subject is vast and complicated
and, above all, requires us to make an in-depth reconsideration of the economic
development model that has shaped our societies for 150 years. How can we
establish a sustainable reconciliation between issues that are generally perceived to
be antagonistic: maintaining growth in the value of wealth of countries and
individuals while very significantly reducing (dividing by 4, and more) the general
consumption of natural resources, and fossil fuels in particular, all without recourse
to radical solutions such as the division of the world population by 2 or 3 and/or a
dramatic reduction in individual material wealth and therefore of purchasing power?
In fact, this is the key point. Everything, absolutely everything that characterizes
our societies today has been made possible due to oil, coal and gas, these fantastic
concentrated sources of energy that are easy to exploit and therefore of a totally
insignificant cost compared to the services that they provide us with. What is more
“normal” today than being able to cross an ocean in a few hours, buy almost
everything at the click of a mouse, move at a speed of 130 km/h by simply pressing
a button while listening to our favorite music or even being able to live longer and
with a better quality of life thanks to progress in medical research. And since we all
“stumbled into it naturally when we were young”, how many of us realize that the
comfort and way of life that we enjoy every day is possible thanks to the numerous
machines that work in our place by “using up” fossil fuels? How many of us realize
that the total energy contained in a single liter of oil is equivalent to what an
individual in good health would be capable of “producing” with their arms by
shifting 6 m3 of earth with a spade every day for 200 days? In total, today, each day
x Climatic Impact of Activities
around the world, the consumption of oil (approximately 100 million barrels) is the
equivalent, in volume, of a square-based tower with sides of 100 m and a height of
1 km. This has absolutely no precedent in the history of humanity.
Besides the fact that, given the intrinsically non-renewable nature of these fossil
resources, this level of consumption can only last for a few decades more at the
most, the other consequence is that by burning almost all these fossils, we are adding
a massive amount of CO into the atmosphere, thus reinforcing the greenhouse effect
2
excessively rapidly with the consequence of a general imbalance of the climate
system, which is already in place and which will last for several centuries more.
While for the planet, which functions on the time scale of millions of years, this
imbalance is a “non-subject”, for the Homo sapiens species that we are, with our
time scale of a few decades, this question must be at the top of our “to-do” list.
This being the case, given the urgency and the scale of the means that need to be
mobilized, it is essential to keep our priorities straight. To act in an effective and
pertinent manner, the first thing is to have an inventory of our greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions which is both complete and specific. Today, among those who
wish to take action, far too many people and organizations directly aim for an action
plan before carrying out any initial diagnostic assessment, or at best having drawn
one up based on an extremely cursory diagnosis. It would certainly not occur to you
to go and see your doctor and to ask them for a prescription without prior
examination or analyses. How is he or she to know if your problem is the heart,
kidneys or the stomach? In terms of GHGs, the situation is similar, because the
greatest sources of emissions at the scale of a person or of an organization are those
that we cannot “see”. Who knows if their favorite smartphone, which sits in their
pocket with a weight of a few tens of grams, “weighs” in reality between 30 and
50 kg of CO ? Therefore, it is essential to understand the “overall logic” while
2
ensuring certain subtle points are not missed out, and to have an overview of the
situation which has been gained from an objective initial analysis.
However, for the subject in question, there are very many individuals and
organizations that need to “increase their skills” concerning this issue of the
quantification of GHG emissions. Yet higher education establishments or lifelong
learning programs that include these questions in their course content are rare.
If you are reading this, then we can say a priori that you are interested in the
subject or you are at least asking questions about it. Whether you are in formal
education or whether that is now, in the past, Jean-Yves Rossignol’s book is a very
good starting point for the subject. Its content, simultaneously complete,
thorough, precise and accessible, will allow you to establish a solid foundation
Foreword xi
in both methodological and practical knowledge. Moreover, the exercises and case
studies proposed throughout the book will allow you to make an immediate transfer
from theory to practice, and by doing so will contribute to an effective consolidation
of this newly acquired knowledge.
In summary, a reference book for all those who truly wish to add this string to
their bow and thus play their part in building an effective response to climate
change.
François KORNMANN
President of the Institut de Formation Carbone