Significant efforts are required to reduce carbon emissions and to prevent an increase in temperature of more than 2 degrees compared to preindustrial levels. It is often ignored that it is much cheaper to invest as soon as possible in effective strategies to mitigate carbon emissions than to deal with long-term damage and follow-up costs.
Some developing countries such as South Africa, China, Mexico and South Korea set good examples at the conference in Poznan. They presented ambitious programs to reduce carbon emissions on a national level and thus pressured some industrial countries. Should it prove possible to include emerging markets in a post-Kyoto agreement to reduce carbon emissions, the large industrial countries would be forced to make higher comitments.
Another central question was the inclusion of emission reductions through avoidance of deforestation and degradation in the Clean Development Mechanism. The community is divided on this question.
CO2 emissions can be strongly reduced by using renewable energies for electricity, heating and fuels. To increase energy supply from renewable energy in the European Union the HBF proposes a unified approach to renewable energy through a European Community for Renewable Energies (ERENE) that has been developed in a study by Michaele Schreyer and Lutz Mez. Read more on the vision of 100% renewable energy for the EU on erene.org.
Other publications on mitigation:
- IPCC Working Group III deals with the topic “Mitigation of Climate Change”
- CO2 emissions can be greatly reduced by using renewable energies for electricity, heating and fuels. To increase the amount of energy supplies from renewable energy sources in the European Union, the Heinrich Böll Foundation proposes a unified approach to renewable energy via a European Community for Renewable Energy. For more information about this proposal, download the executive summary.
- Germanwatch provides general information about mitigation on its website.
- Agriculture contributes between 10% and 12% of total global emissions. In the study “Cool Farming”, Greenpeace examines the causes of emissions and indicates reduction opportunities.