135 Million Tons of CO2 Saved - And Counting
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 04.22.08
Red dots denote large-scaled CDM projects, orange are medium-sized, yellow small
The UN's Kyoto Protocol is sometimes considered a bust because it doesn't include the US, yet recent statistics from Det Norske Veritas, the certifying agency of Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in the developing world, are heartening Earth Day news. Thus far 1,000 projects in 49 countries have "saved" carbon dioxide emissions of 135 million tons, and are expected to "save" a total of 1.2 billion tons of CO2 by the end of 2012, when Kyoto's first mandate period ends. For comparison, Norway emits about 54 million tons annually.
There are another 2,000 CDM projects in the pipeline, and if all these manage to get verified, the UN estimates 2.7 billion tons of CO2 will be saved. That's the good news. The bad news is as a global village we emit more than 8 billion tons of carbon from fossil fuel burning annually, and some scientists say we've got to get to near zero man-made emissions to stabilize a cooler climate. Via ::UNFCC
Thanks for posting this good news, (and all the others) it's refreshing to hear positive stuff once and awhile.
There is a firm in BC, Canada, working with an electro-chemist to scale up a technology whereby CO2 is treated with electrical currents, and converted into formic acid. This is a useful chemical in some industrial processes, and potentially useful in fuel cells as well. The company, Mantra Energy, is aiming for technologies in its portfolio that use 'closed-loop' processes. CO2 emitting power plants could one day be creating an alternative fuel source with their emissions. Innovation has the courage to dream big and try new things. Times of crises have the ability to bring this out in us.
http://www.mantraenergy.com