As we know that that the average
temperature of earth is increasing, which lead to global warming. This is
mainly due to the heat trapping gases produced by the anthropogenic and natural
activities to the atmosphere.
Before the industrial revolution,
green house gases mainly the carbon dioxide was very low. This trend was
continued till the 20th century further till mid-20th
century emissions were still relatively low. In 1950 global emissions were
about 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. By 1990 this figure quadrupled
reaching up to 22 billion tonnes. We
continued to grow rapidly and produced emissions at the same pattern, currently
we are emitting 34 billion tonnes each year of carbon dioxide. Picture shows
the trend of carbon emission increase with time.
From the trend shown above it can be
clearly seen that carbon dioxide has direct relation with fossil fuel
usage. As we already know that it is
life-threatening gas as it is present in abundance and ability to remain in
atmosphere for thousand of years.
Carbon dioxide emissions comes from both man made and natural resources, one of the man-made processes is urbanization. This is a dynamic process which changes the rural areas to urban ones by expanding the built environment vertically as well as horizontally. Further defining the built environment as manmade surroundings which provides all facilities to human activities and also become the part of social and economic development of a country. So, it will be considered as the major role in contributing carbon dioxide in global warming.
The main sources of carbon dioxide
emission are from energy consumption, which is needed for the manufacturing
process also in transportation sector. Building sector also plays a vital role
is production of carbon dioxide by consuming nonrenewable resources. It is
estimated that 39% of annual global carbon dioxide is contributed by building
and infrastructure. Sector wise carbon dioxide emissions is mentioned in
figure.
Due to usage of non-sustainable
resources and carbon emission are produced more in the environment and
continuously depleting it. The energy
harnessed from fossil fuel is also non sustainable, which is mostly used in
major activities of urbanization. Sustainable energy resource only contributes
6% of the carbon dioxide whereas fossil fuel contributes 40% of carbon dioxide
to the global greenhouse gas emissions. Keeping in mind the increase use of the
fossil fuels and release of carbon dioxide, methods have been devised to reduce
its impacts including carbon foot printing mainly for high density urban areas
and industries. This solution has reduced the impact but the challenge yet
needs to be solved.
Carbon dioxide directly produced from burning
natural gas, light fuel oil and applications of electricity. Worldwide indirect
carbon dioxide emissions accounts 85% of carbon dioxide emitted, whereas 14%
from direct emissions. Globally, the indirect CO2 emission accounts for 85% of
the total CO2 emitted, while only 14% is from direct emissions.
By 2030 it is estimated that 27% of
energy would be obtained from sustainable sources, whereas energy efficiency
productivity will increase by 27%. There is still room for improvement to
reduce the non-renewable resources and switch renewables ones as they are less
polluting and more efficient. Need to switch from conventional pattern to
sustainable pattern. Need to conduct life cycle assessment of the whole process
and access the pattern for consumption of resources and production of green house
gases. In this way, we can reduce the impact on our environment and give a
better future to our coming generations.
References:
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
About the Author: Meraj Ahsan Qureshi
is a young, enthusiastic EHS official dedicated to create awareness and to
create a change is society regarding environment and social issues.
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