Series Editor
Françoise Gaill
First published 2020 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019952941
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ISBN 978-1-78630-512-1
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 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 CO2 into the atmosphere, thus reinforcing the greenhouse effect 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 CO2? Therefore, it is essential to understand the “overall logic” while 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 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
“If we wait until the climate is too inhospitable before we act against the causes of this imbalance, the only guarantee that we will have at that point is that the future will be worse.”
Jean-Marc Jancovici, Alain Grandjean
C’est maintenant! 3 ans pour sauver le mondeThis book aims to provide an intellectually independent examination of the impact of activities on climate, in particular targeting students and directors of small- and medium-sized organizations.
In France, an institutional method to establish a greenhouse gas assessment exists; the Bilan Carbone® (an English language version of the tools and documentation for this method are available). It includes sophisticated tools and provides full and extremely detailed methodological documentation. The idea behind it was to propose a different perspective, one both precise and global, as well as one obviously compatible with the Bilan Carbone® method.
Since 2006, I have taught students about greenhouse gas emission assessments in universities and in various engineering schools, in addition to teaching the Bilan Carbone® itself on behalf of the Institut de Formation Carbone. Given the questions asked and the difficulties that the students encountered, it seemed useful to focus on certain theoretical and methodological aspects in order to participate in a consolidation of the validity of the analyses and calculations used when establishing an assessment. The general sections of this book are a preparation for understanding and using the documentation and the database on the “Bilan GES” platform, which is available online through ADEME, in addition to the information issued by the Association Bilan Carbone, which is responsible for the development and promotion of the Bilan Carbone® method. All these methods, and in particular the Base Carbone® provided by the ADEME [ADE 18a, 18b], can be employed by any one of us to carry out a greenhouse gas emission assessment ourselves. However, in order to have access to sophisticated and ergonomic calculation tools, and to obtain the Bilan Carbone® designation, an authorization that can be obtained by taking a training course at the Institut de Formation Carbone is a strict requirement.
WARNING.– To sate the curiosity of scientific readers, mathematical workings are presented in some sections of this book. They are not at all essential for an understanding of the assessment methodology, nor are they necessary for practical calculations of emissions. You can purely and simply ignore the mathematical sections that appear arduous.
Jean-Yves ROSSIGNOL
October 2019
I thank, in particular, François Kornmann, president of the Institut de Formation Carbone (IFC), who, since 2011, has given me the opportunity to teach the Bilan Carbone® method to motivated professionals and students as part of the IFC’s integrated educational programs in various higher education establishments. I praise him for his tireless investment in his teaching mission. Concerning this book, I am thankful to him for his informed observations and for the preface that he kindly agreed to provide.
I also express my gratitude to his associate, Isabelle de la Calle, for her devoted and agreeable assistance to those dispensing the training courses. Nor should I omit Laurence Nguyen and Élisabeth Kornmann, who carried out this task before her.
I mention the training staff who work for the IFC, for the interesting exchanges that we have been able to have during the training sessions, in particular Shafik Asal, Laurie Chesné, Frédéric Chome, Thibault Laville, Rémi Marcus, Vincent Mariel, Olivier Papin and Bertrand Thuillier.
I must honor the people that I have met and who have contributed to my own self-improvement, within the Association des Professionnels en Conseil Climat, Energie et Environnement (initially, the Association des Professionnels en Conseil Carbone) – directed successively by Rémi Marcus, Jacques Aflalo and Charles-Adrien Louis – in particular the training staff previously mentioned and Thierry Fornas, Gilles Grandval and Guillaume Neveux, in addition, the members of the South-West branch of the APCC: Patrick Armando, Antoine Audebert, Mathieu Bertrand, Laurent Castagnède and Benoît Mabon.
I would like to thank the research professors who have entrusted numerous interventions to me at universities and in various engineering colleges, for teaching missions that I designed on the subject of climate change, energy, and the characterization of the climate footprint of activities: Bénédicte Morin (Vocational Bachelor’s Degree in Recycling and repurposing of materials for transport, Université Bordeaux 1, France), Catherine Azzaro-Pantel and Stéphan Astier (Institut national polytechnique de Toulouse, specialization in Eco-energy), Philippe Behra (Institut national polytechnique de Toulouse, specialization in Environmental engineering), Nadine Gabas (École nationale supérieure des ingénieurs en arts chimiques et technologiques), Didier Kleiber and Jean-François Gabarrou (École d’ingénieurs de Purpan), Éric Pinelli, Pascal Lafaille, Benoît Van der Rest (École nationale supérieure agronomique de Toulouse), Adeline Ugaglia and Bernard Del’homme, Hervé Jacob, Benoît Grossiord, Michel Le Hénaff and Antoine Proffit (Bordeaux sciences agro), Aline Duneau (Mastère Spécialisé in QSE, CESI Blanquefort), Roman Teisserenc and the steering group for the Mastère Spécialisé in Eco-engineering (Institut national polytechnique de Toulouse).
I would also like to thank Jean-Marc Jancovici [JAN 19], from whom, in 2006, I learnt the Bilan Carbone® method that he designed for ADEME (French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management). He must especially be acknowledged for his precocious and determined engagement in favor of a world that is fit to live in and which is affected as little as possible by climate change, and for his success in instigating an awareness of this subject on a national scale and bringing about dynamic actions.
I extend my sincerest gratitude to Jean-Michel Quenisset for re-reading the methodology section of the book and for his pertinent observations of the presentation of the mathematical sections.
Lastly, I am grateful to Aline Framarin, meticulous proofreader, as persistent as she is enthusiastic in the detection of imperfections of all kinds, no matter how subtle.
National economies refer to the gross domestic product (GDP) to evaluate their performance. This indicator represents the total of the added values, meaning the return on the energy input all along the processing chains. The GDP therefore expresses an annual flow. The priority objective for states is to see an increase in this indicator. However, a flow supposes a difference in potential or, stated in a more prosaic manner, “reservoirs” upstream and downstream from the flow. In the context of the economy, these upstream reservoirs are sources of energy, primary materials and biomass, and the downstream reservoirs are biomes that receive the waste from the activity. The former are emptied when the exploited resources are not renewed or when the anthropological pressure exceeds the capacity of the biosphere to renew the resources. The latter fill up when the flow of waste is higher than the capacity of the natural environment to reabsorb these materials. For example, oil is becoming rarer in the Earth’s crust and carbon dioxide that is produced by its use accumulates in the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, economic logic incorporates neither the capacity nor the status of the reservoirs. The target that it sets for us is therefore detached from physical possibilities, and the pursuit of an increase in worldwide GDP leads us to a dead end [JAN 09]. This simplistic indicator, which also does not take into account people’s well-being, nor the fairness of redistribution of the wealth produced, must be abandoned, or at least complexified, as suggested by the Stiglitz [STI 09a] commission. A physical indicator based on energy (see Appendix 1) and a method of patrimonial accounting, which expresses the resources consumed and the depreciation of the capacity of natural systems to renew them, in the same way as a depreciation allowance, would be more pertinent to guide humanity on a sustainable trajectory.
The natural carbon cycle is disturbed by the consequences of human activity, in particular, due to the release of fossilized carbon into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The climate system is destabilized by this, and warming, which began in the 20th Century, could be on a scale seen during a change in climate era, but at a pace of an order of 100 times faster. Natural systems and the socioeconomic system could be profoundly affected by this. There is significant inertia in the climate system, and the warming process is not reversible in the medium term. However, the collective will to act could limit warming to a tolerable threshold. This is why international institutions, states and certain private actors have designed and implemented instruments that are intended to direct the economy along a new path which integrates a physical indicator, carbon. It is necessary to install a regulation of the exchanges that takes into account the devaluation of the capital made up of carbonized resources that are not very or not at all renewable, in addition to the capacity of ecosystems to regenerate resources.
Several large devices and various tools, more or less generalized, are now in place: the European carbon market initiated by the Kyoto protocol, taxes on carbon dioxide emissions in certain countries, compensation for emissions and analysis methods of the impact of organizations on the climate, in the same way as the greenhouse gas emission assessments.
The Kyoto protocol, which came into effect in 2005, imposed on the 38 industrialized countries that had ratified it a reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% over the period from 2008 to 2012, with respect to the reference emissions for 1990. For the second application period (2013–2020), 37 industrialized countries set themselves an objective of an 18% reduction in emissions compared to 1990. The states transfer part of the obligations to their main industries that cause large amounts of emissions, and which are obliged to reduce their emissions each year. The Emissions Trading System (ETS) is a flexibility mechanism that allows companies to choose to invest in procedures with lower levels of emissions or even to buy quotas to relieve themselves of their reduction obligations, which are, in turn, quotas proposed for sale by companies that have exceeded their assigned emission reduction objectives. The law of supply and demand is supposed to optimize reduction efforts from an economic point of view. The theory of the carbon market is alluring, but its implementation and experience have generated disillusionment, or have drifted away from their initial aims [AYK 14, BER 08].
Taxes on emissions are an additional device on the market, applied to carbon dioxide to make their application easier, insofar as it is sufficient to tax fossil energies at the source. Also in this case, a mechanism of flexibility, with receipt “recycling”, would avoid penalizing economically vulnerable actors and would reduce other deductions that could affect the dynamic of the economy, such as compulsory contributions based on work.
The quota market and carbon taxes are additional devices: the former allows the emission reduction objectives to be expressed quantitatively, but does not provide visibility of the costs, whereas taxation has inverse properties.
Carbon compensation consists of quantifying one’s own emissions, of calculating their monetary equivalent at market price and of entrusting the corresponding funds to an organization that is in charge of funding emission reduction projects, under certain conditions of eligibility. The compensation is only really of use for irreducible emissions, after internal improvements of the climate footprint, because if no actors go further than compensating, it is not possible to reach the objective of global reduction.
Lastly, methods and tools are freely available to all organizations to take stock of and quantify their emissions due to their activity, in order to design and implement actions to improve the climate footprint and then to measure its effectiveness. With this in mind, this book presents the methodological foundations, according to the least reductive approach possible, to an understanding of the problem of the impact of activities on the climate.