The Paris Party

Big things happened this weekend within climate change. Big. Things.

I couldn’t be happier to hear that after years of fighting for some kind of global environmental change, we have FINALLY come to a promising conclusion within the United Nations’ climate conference. There are many media outlets that are covering the story, but I’ve done quite a fair amount of research in the past and thought it would a good idea to sum up the history of this all in my own words.

(PLEASE NOTE: I know a lot of people may crucify me for leaving out some important details, but this is just a vague summary).

I watched this one amazing video that explained what all these conferences were about. They said to think of the conferences as a large dinner party, of 25,000 people, who all sort of don’t get along, who all have to save the world.

Somehow.

Let’s begin…

1992

The United Nations (UN) held the first conference in Rio de Janeiro to discuss issues regarding the earth and climate. After much discussion and realization that something needed to be done, they agreed upon creating an international treaty that would be based upon limiting global average temperature increases and climate change. This treaty is called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or the UNFCCC as it’s commonly abbreviated to.

The UNFCCC’s objective is to “stabilize green house gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. In other words, make sure our planet isn’t in climatic trouble in the near future. The framework outlines how certain international protocols (or agreements) may be negotiated in order to decrease GHGs.

The outcome was a little loose; essentially the treaty claimed that countries were to figure out how to accomplish GHG emission goals by the use of future agreements that weren’t in place yet.

1994

The UNFCCC entered into force and many interested countries signed the treaty. These countries are known as “Parties”. It was decided that the Parties were to meet annually at the Conference of Parties (COP) to negotiate climate issues and responses.

1995

The UNFCCC’s first conference began (COP 1) in Berlin. The Parties outlined specific targets on emissions. Nothing was set in stone to hold anyone accountable though, it was simply a mere get together.

1996

Nothing REALLY important happens.

1997

The third COP established the Kyoto Protocol; the world’s first greenhouse gas emissions reduction agreement. The Kyoto Protocol stated that industrialized and established countries were to cut down on GHG emissions (a little), but developing countries like India and China were exempt because of their economic situation.

This meant they could generate as many GHG emissions as they wanted to reach economic prosperity. As well, the USA came back and said they didn’t want to participate anymore.

So you can see where the issues stand.

So to date:

• We’ve had a meeting to establish a committee to fight climate change.
• We’ve met with this committee a few times to discuss climate change.
• We’ve decided we will write up a document to establish what countries need to do to fight climate change. 

A lot of talk, little action.

1998-2004

Many conferences to discuss the Kyoto Protocol action plan. Keep in mind, it hasn’t actually been instated, these years of meetings were literally just to tweak the Protocol to come to some agreeable conclusion. The problem was that one solution isn’t applicable to everyone, and countries don’t legally NEED to be apart of it.

2005

The Kyoto Protocol entered into force and people signed onto it; it was divided into two commitment periods, 2008-2012 and 2013-2020. Those countries who signed into it were now to commit to the first “Commitment Period” in which they had goals GHG emission targets that had to be reached in comparison to 1990 levels.

2005-2007

More conferences.

Nothing super important.

Little results.

2008

Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period begins.

2009

Copenhagen 2009, this was meant to be the conference of conferences. This conference was supposed to complete and adopt the legal framework that would take into effect after the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol ended in 2012. It was the action plan for the commitment period #2 starting 2013.

This conference ended BADLY; the protocol was not passed unanimously, meaning not everyone agreed to it. Although the actual agreement had good intentions, it was not legally binding so no country was held accountable to decrease their GHG emissions… legally. In fact, nothing was adopted; parties only “took note” of what needed to be done and went about their days.

COP15 is remembered as one of the most unsuccessful events in history.

2011

Canada was the first country to withdraw after the realization that the targeted reduction of GHG emissions to 6% below 1990 levels in 2012 was not being met. In fact, at the time we were 17% higher. That is an increase of 23% from our target.

Harpers government failed.

2014 – prior to the yearly COP

Reality check taken from the UNFCCC Timeline. For years and years of UNFCCC conferences and treaties and agreements and commitments, this was the reality of our situation:

Clearly something wasn’t working…

2014 COP

This conference was held in Lima. They came to an agreement that countries were to make their own solutions on how they fight climate change. It was impossible to make an agreement for every country to adhere to because all countries operated differently. These pledges are now known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs. They are individual pledges of what the country will do to drop GHG emissions and what their individual targets will be. Better…but not great.

The issue with INDCs is that there is no penalty for not meeting their pledged goals.

Fast forward to today…

December 12 2015

This marks the 21st session of the Conference of Parties (COP 21) and the 11th session of the Conference of Parties serving as the meeting of Parties focusing on the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). Parties around the world met to discuss the INDCs from the year before and to write up a draft agreement on what can and needs to be done in regards to climate change.

This is what the COP 21 concluded:

Emphasizing with serious concern the urgent need to address the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C

Or in other words…

The world is a doughy fellow who has promised to drop three suit sizes in time for his wedding, which is now only a month away.

Yup.

I won’t lie, there is reason to be skepticle, seeing how the past 20 years conferences have panned out and that many countries have failed to uphold their part in reducing GHG emissions. HOWEVER, this year each participating government has publicly announced their pledges (and there are some very promising things to come out of it). This means we can now hold them accountable. It’s like when your friend announces they will lose 20 lbs and you make them feel bad when they take a bite of cake.

World leaders – I dare you to try and take a bite of that cake…

 

Resources:

http://unfccc.int/timeline/

http://unfccc.int/meetings/copenhagen_dec_2009/items/5262.php

http://grist.org/climate-energy/theres-a-high-stakes-dinner-party-in-paris-and-youre-invited-check-out-our-climate-negotiations-explainer/

http://grist.org/climate-energy/world-leaders-adopt-1-5-c-goal-and-were-damn-well-going-to-hold-them-to-it/

http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php

http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/3145.php

Click to access l06r01.pdf

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/12/world/global-climate-change-conference-vote/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-climate-agreement_566c732be4b0fccee16ed32b?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Quick-Ship, Quick Decline

Immediacy is now a thing, and it’s a common thing that we have become accustomed to. Whether it be depositing cheques straight from your smartphone for immediate access to cash, or brewing up an instant k-cup single serve coffee, it has become apparent that our society no longer has patience (myself included).

On that note, the concept of online shopping has skyrocketed. The percentage of online shoppers within the US has increased from 37% to 61% over just the past two years. You can imagine that with the exponential growth of technology we can safely assume there will be a comparable growth in online shopping too. However, no one ever said online shopping was a bad thing, right? In fact, it can be a great thing sometimes. The problem lies in the shipping; and not only regular shipping, but quick-ship methods which tend to be very environmentally unfriendly. The more conveniently rushed option may be a priority for those getting last minute forgotten birthday presents or those desperate to rock the new apple watch, but lest we forget the environmental cost of convenience.

There are two major elements that change when going from a regular delivery to a rushed shipping method; the mode of transportation and the packaging. Let me explain:

Transportation

Whatever you decide will greatly influence the mode of transportation that is used in the delivery stream. Typically when items are categorized as a rushed delivery, they are put on a plane because air travel tends to be the fastest way to get items across the world. Now if you know that your items are being delivered from a local source, then a rushed delivery might end up yielding the same carbon footprint as something that has a regular delivery time. If you’d like to be on the safe side, a good rule of thumb is that the more time you give a company to fulfill your order, the more freedom it has to choose lower-carbon shipping methods.

However, if you’re ordering from a major big-box store, chances are you are getting your items shipped from overseas. In that case, a quick-ship choice likely could mean that your items will be travelling luxuriously on a gas-guzzling, carbon-intensive airplane. According to the World Shipping Council, airplane transportation for shipments can emit up to 470g of carbon dioxide per ton per kilometer travelled compared to a train which on average emits only 21g.

Even more so, Grist’s extensive research states that;

If the shipper has more freedom in scheduling deliveries, it can choose to hold back a delivery truck until it’s crammed full rather than send it out half-empty. And if your package doesn’t have to reach you by any particular time, the company can design the most efficient delivery route to your neighborhood.

In fact to back up that statement, the University of Washington did a study that proved that grocery-delivery services could save 80-90% of it’s potential carbon emissions if they had to option to group together customers in clusters and deliver according to location rather than if they had to deliver based on customers’ requested times.

So in summary, it’s best to allow the company freedom of choice and delivery time if you can hold off.

Packaging

Packing will differ too. Believe it or not, the faster you need your deliveries, the more intensive the packaging needs to be. For instance, packaging would typically include an overly bubbled lining and the use of bleached papered boxes; both of which cannot be recycled. Lucky for us though, some companies have taken into account their environmental impact to that extent. UPS for example has developed a two-use paperboard envelope designed for overnight shipping needs. This helps in the reduction of sourcing virgin materials, reducing the influx of packaging, and thus reducing the overall waste generated.

After all has been said and done, I think it’s apparent what choice is best. I understand sometimes impatience can get the best of us, or that life happens and we may forget things, but there is much to be learned and implemented from this…patience is a virtue.

References:

http://www.bizreport.com/2015/01/research-reveals-significant-increase-in-online-shopping.html

http://www.worldshipping.org/industry-issues/environment/air-emissions/carbon-emissions

http://grist.org/living/two-day-shipping-free-to-you-but-how-costly-to-the-planet/

Click to access O16F3108.pdf

http://www.greenworld365.com/overnight-shipping-green-delivery-options/

Click to access Dimitri-Weideli-Environmental-Analysis-of-US-Online-Shopping_0.pdf

http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/04/29/grocery-delivery-service-is-greener-than-driving-to-the-store/

Eco-Propoganda: The Truth About Greenwashing

Labels are always right…right? In a world where the word “green” has become a part of every product, company, and service, it’s hard to believe we are still in an environmental crisis. The reasons being that “green” doesn’t exactly mean what we think it does. It has become such a wide-spread, trendy word that is seen so predominantly everywhere we go. Our mass consumerism and necessity for legitimacy in the things we buy has led us to become victims of eco-propaganda.

How many times have we gone shopping and bought something “eco-friendly” in hopes that our moral compass will be fulfilled with sunshine, rainbows and the satisfaction of knowing that you did something environmentally responsible? I’m guilty of it… we all are to an extent. Truth be told, a lot of the time we are unknowingly being greenwashed. What is greenwashing you ask? Let’s see…

According to the Greenwashing Index:

Greenwashing is when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact.

For example: airlines that advertise their new low-emission airplanes. I said airplanes right?

It’s incredibly important as consumers to be aware of greenwashing because the more we indulge in the issue, the more companies find it acceptable. We are being taken advantage of in thinking that we are making responsible choices when in reality, they are potentially no better. Or at least not nearly as good as we think they are. Ever heard of the saying “that’s too good to be true”? Well, case and point.

So how can we differentiate between false advertising and the truth? Here’s a few things to look for:

1. Filler text: words and statements without any clear meaning, like “Eco-friendly”. This happens to be one of the major problems in advertising and marketing. Companies who use filler words like low impact, or recycled content tend to mislead consumers into thinking the entire product is accounted for under these claims. Worse yet, these claims are left so open-ended that many people interpret them as they see fit. So a product that is made of “recycled content” could potentially only refer to the cardboard packaging while the rest of the product is composed to virgin materials. Words like low impact literally can mean 1001 different things…
2. Suggestive images: pretty flowers and green leaves don’t really mean anything. This drives me crazy. As consumers we tend to be very visual and we associate colours and images with certain things. For example, the colours yellow and red are typically seen in the food industry because those two colours together both make people happy and hungry. The colour green on the other hand is so often associated with nature and the environment that companies have begun using them as a suggestive means of being green, even when they’re not. Images of leaves and flowers only make matters worse because that is a literal translation for the environment, in which case many consumers bypass the research and buy the product.
3. Exaggerated claims: over-emphasis on the one “green” element within the product. For example, if a clothing store begins using organic cotton blend within their clothes, they might begin to emphasize this all over their stores. Something like this can easily hide the fact that the company is still underpaying their factory works who work in poor conditions within a third world country. But the clothing has organic cotton…
4. Betterment claims: just because you’re better than the competition doesn’t mean you’re green. Being the “least bad” doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good. Being the most environmentally friendly SUV, that still guzzles gas and impacts air quality, doesn’t mean you’re suddenly responsible. Look who the competition is; in this case it’s not hard to be top of the food chain.

Once you’re aware and slightly skeptical, it’s easy to spot the bs. It’s actually a bit heartbreaking seeing so many companies fall under this category of greenwashing that you never would’ve thought. But why has this become such a problem in the past decade? Money. Consumers have come to demand that companies become more socially and environmentally responsible, as we should be doing. The response to these demands have shown to be incredibly overwhelming, as all companies now seem to have green products and services. Without these green claims, many consumers wouldn’t even think twice. It also gives companies an excuse to rack up prices in hopes that the green claims would be sufficient enough reason to charge double.

This can be a potentially dangerous problem. Greenwashing decreases the credibility of the whole sustainability business case and devalues those companies that are actually practicing sustainability. It’s counter-intuitive if you think about it, sooner or later many of these greenwashing companies will make consumers so skeptical that people will less likely than ever to buy something off green claims because of their fear for marketing tactics. As we are more and more exposed to greenwashing, it’s inevitable that our society will begin to fall off the greenmobile. These companies are beginning to diminish the market that they’re trying to exploit.

So what can we do about it?

Stop buying from companies we know to be greenwashing. The less we buy, the less they make right? It’s not always easy spotting it but I have equipped you with the knowledge to catch these villains of greenwashing. Remember:

• Look for filler text that doesn’t address anything specific
• Look for pretty flowers and green colouring
• Look for OVER emphasis on something green (they’re obviously trying to hide something)
• Look for betterment claims… just because you’re the least bad doesn’t mean you’re good!

Here’s an advertisement I got from the Greenwash Guide that I found to be pretty good:

Lastly, something I didn’t mention earlier, please look for third party verifications. Certifications such as Fairtrade or Oceanwise are credible and can only be marked on certified products. Food companies that claim their fish is sustainably farmed but fail to have Oceanwise on their packaging are most likely greenwashing you.

Help end this illegitimacy and keep real sustainable companies in business. We are the consumers and we should be demanding the best for ourselves and for our planet.

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References:

Examples of Greenwashing Eco-Propaganda

Click to access Greenwash_Guide.pdf

ABOUT GREENWASHING

http://www.green-interior-design.com/articles.html

Random fact of the day:

In the U.S, paper, food, glass, metals, and plastics – all recyclable – make up approximately 69% of total municipal solid waste.  

References:

LEED Reference Guide for Interior Design and Construction 

How Much Water Do You Eat?

I think its time I set things straight… I’m a vegetarian (well pescetarian for the most part).

Many people don’t get it (my eastern European family), many people joke about (everyone), some think it’s a fad (my uncle), but I am going to finally explain my lifestyle choice once and for all so that people can stop telling me I’m crazy.

The big question is why I became a vegetarian. It all started when I wrote a blog post about sustainable coffee and in my research I discovered the amount of virtual water that goes into just one cup. During that time I also came across a devastating fact about the virtual water that goes into a burger. First let me clarify what exactly this “virtual water” thing is. According to The Water Footprint Assessment Manual:

Virtual water (also known as embedded or embodied water) refers to the hidden flow of water in food or other commodities when traded from one place to another. The precise volume can be more or less depending on climatic conditions and agricultural practice.

Essentially all the water that is used in the process of making what you’re buying. They call it “virtual” water because you don’t actually consume the water, instead it is consumed within the initial lifecycle of that product or food.  Virtual water is divided into three main categories:

Green water: the amount of rainwater that circulates through crops.

Blue water: the volume of surface and ground water required for food production and thus unavailable for other uses.

Grey water: water required to dilute until no longer hazardous contaminants arising from fertilisation and other processes.

The most frightening fact that I have learned in my research is that one pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water to produce. And that ladies and gentlemen is the reason I am a vegetarian. Not something most people think about on the daily which is completely understandable. I had no idea myself until I wrote my other blog post.

So you ask; why is producing livestock so water resource intensive? The answer mainly lies in the feed for the livestock, not the livestock itself. There are two main reasons for this, the first is the feed-to-meat ratio, so how much feed is needed for a cow compared to how much meat we actually get from it. For beef, the Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) is 7:1. Let me say that again… 7:1. That’s completely insane. In fact the larger the animal’s body mass, the larger the percentage of inedible mater such as bones and muscles. That’s a lot of water that goes into feeding parts of animals that we’re not even eating. That water is consumed by the feed that is required for the livestock, fertilizers, fuel to power farm machinery, land for farm fields and so forth. Eventually it all adds up. The second reason that livestock is so water resource intensive is the quantity of livestock on our planet. While livestock is estimated to be around 20 billion, there are only 7 billion people. As our population grows, the livestock population grows at a much quicker rate. We’re essentially creating a world where we are in competition with cows for one of our most precious and scarce resources.

One thing to take into consideration is where the livestock is grown. Or anything you eat for that matter. Something grown or raised in a country like Egypt will require three times the water as something grown or raised in Canada due to the extremely hot climate. However, if you were situated in Egypt then the embodied water of a local product, regardless of the high water consumption volume, might actually be less than something produced in Canada that was transported there… it’s tricky, sustainable food is a very situational and geographic thing.

So for this reason, vegetarianism appealed to me. I try to limit my fish and seafood intake to those sustainably farmed or locally caught. How will you know? Typically at restaurants you will see this logo below; it’s the Ocean Wise certification. Ocean Wise is a conservation program that works to prevent over fishing, maintaining sustainably farmed fish and limiting habitat damage. However in general, seafood tends to be on the lower end of the water consumption ladder anyways.

I’ve gotten a thousand and one questions about what it is that I eat then. Well one rule of thumb is to stick to locally grown produce or farmers markets. That way you know that the transportation element is limited and hopefully if it’s from a farmers market, the chemical usage is probably at a minimum. This would limit the chemical filtration process, or the grey water phase I mentioned earlier in the post. I can get further into it in another post, but as always, the closer the better!

Vegetarianism isn’t that bad… I’m almost at a year and it’s one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made.

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References:

Meat’s large water footprint: why raising livestock and poultry for meat is so resource-intensive

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http://www.wearewater.org/en/wwdlegal

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