How the Notion of a Carbon-Constrained World Has Affected the Performance of Carbon House - Essay Example

How the Notion of a ‘Carbon Constrained World’ has affected the Performance of Carbon House Name Institution Professor Course Date How the Notion of a ‘Carbon Constrained World’ has affected the Performance of Carbon House Introduction Climate change is a major challenge of the 21st century. To deal with this menace a lot of hope is pegged on solutions such as carbon emission trading. While such approaches may bear fruits in developed countries, they might certainly not work in developing countries and more so in the fast growing economies of India and China. Climate change has led to reduction of forest cover on the earth’s surface (Grover, 2004).Through industrialization, carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere contributing heavily to the notion of carbon-constrained world. Countries with high carbon emissions are coincidentally rich and they include; Russia, Canada, US, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar among others. Scientists have predicted that the world is approaching a threshold for CO2 concentration in the environment. The high rate of carbon emissions can be associated to the cheap access of energy in some countries such as Abu Dhabi where electricity and petrol are relatively cheap. The developed countries have been highly hit by the effects of climate change. A world Economic Forum that was held in Davos in the year 2000 noted the issue of climate change as the greatest challenge facing the world. This eventually led to the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol in 2005, which was an agreement for the industrial countries to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gasses. As a result there are many opportunities that allow business to address the issue of global change in profitable ways. Business managers who adapt these opportunities gain an advantage in the so called ‘carbon-constrained’ world by strengthening their business operations. Carbon house is one of the firms that have been affected while trying to operate in the ‘carbon-strained’ world. Carbon house is an Australian firm that was formed to assist businesses and agricultural communities to establish sustainable carbon management solutions in order to cope with the issue of global climate change. These projects are expected to give positive outcomes to all the businesses. In an effort to reduce the impact of the climate change, Carbon House teams up with the indigenous communities from Australia and abroad. This firm provides landowners in those communities with advice on how to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by constructing beneficial projects (Frederick & Rosenberg, 2006). Carbon House arranges for one day workshop in these communities where it addresses the business opportunities that emerge from climate change. The communities are advised on various ways of using developing projects that contribute in cutting carbon emissions in the word. On the second visit to the communities, Carbon House assists in initiating the proposed projects. This firm also works with the communities in Australia in the development of renewable energy projects on their indigenous land. These projects have numerous, environmental and socioeconomic benefits for the stakeholders. Introduction of the Farm Ready program has proved to be of great advantage to the indigenous communities. Through the program, industry stakeholders are provided with the relevant skills necessary to deal with the effects of climate change (Toman, 2004). In addition, the stakeholders are also informed on how to make use of the opportunities available in the carbon markets. There are courses that are offered to the indigenous agricultural land managers concerning climate change and how to make use of renewable energy through carbon offset projects. The communities are informed of all the opportunities at their disposal due to the climate change. Indigenous communities are reached through indigenous workshops while the land owners are reached through agricultural workshops. Carbon House educates its stakeholders about carbon offsets by introducing socially and ecologically projects that have long-term benefits for all the stakeholders. One of the firm’s carbon offset project is the offset brokerage program. Through this program, Carbon House facilitates carbon offsets on behalf of other organizations that wish to reduce carbon emissions. At times this is done in conjunction with accredited standards such as Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). Carbon House is also involved in the development of carbon offset projects in Australia and other parts of the world. It works closely with clients to develop projects that can specifically meet their needs (Sioshansi, 2009). Carbon House also ensures that the projects erected are accredited by the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS). This approach enables stakeholders from the community to maximize the benefits they can reap from the projects. Indigenous land owners and managers play a vital role in combating climate change. Carbon House has established strong relationships with indigenous communities in Australia and abroad to educate them on how they can use climate change to their advantage. This relationship empowers the communities to take action on climate change together. They are able to realize more benefits than they can achieve alone. Carbon House works closely with the concerned parties in assessing the viability of the joint venture projects. One main advantage of this system is that the risk of developing a project is shared between the Carbon House and the land managers. It is reported that the quality of carbon emitted to the environment varies. The benefits of the carbon offset projects and their contribution to development also varies tremendously in different organizations. As such, Carbon House strives to develop ‘blue carbon’ projects. These projects are developed in aquatic ecosystems and may include planting of mangrove trees, sea grass, and refurbishment of misused wetlands. These projects have ecological and cultural benefits in addition to being effective in carbon reduction. Carbon House carries out carbon opportunities assessment for rural landowners. The federal government’s Carbon Farming initiative enables landowners to take advantage of the available opportunities as an alternative source of income (Sioshansi, 2009). The firm works with landowners to identify the carbon opportunities present in their property. This is done by assessing the natural assets present in the site as measure to determine the type of offset project that can be applicable. Through this process the requirements of individual projects are analyzed. Also calculated is the total investment required, potential of carbon sequestration, annual revenue expected, and the payback period. The findings are then incorporated in a carbon sequestration plan and a business proposal. The methodology of development used by Carbon House is to foster professional relationships with researchers from main universities in Australia. These researchers provide necessary information concerning new innovative methodologies for carbon offset projects, which strictly adhere to the international standards. Environmental offsets are used as conservation for the natural environment where the offset projects are enacted. Club House works closely with the rural landowners to support the development of environmental offsets in Australia. Climate is being experienced in the whole world. In Australia for example, the temperatures have gone up by 0.7 degrees Celsius for the last one century (Grover 2004, p. 64). Rainfall has decreased in the Western Australia. Water supply levels have also dropped by 50% since 1970. There are a lot of carbon emissions from industries in Australia. Many projects are being initiated bout use of renewable energy such as wind and Carbon House is playing a major role in it. Large scale projects on renewable energy are being developed in different parts of the world including Australia. Australia is known for having natural assets that make it easy to install renewable energy systems. Carbon House is facilitating the development of these projects. Due to the close relationship with indigenous communities and landowners, Carbon House conducts feasibility studies in rural areas to determine the viability of the energy renewal projects in Australia and other countries. For the development of sustainable biomass, solar, and wind energy projects, Carbon House partners with some established large-scale renewable energy developers. These projects have many socio economic benefits to the local communities (Khatib, 2003). Carbon House also acts as a broker by connecting renewable energy producing companies with suitable sites for carrying out their projects. Carbon House ensures that those companies are issued with Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). Renewable energy projects are also being developed through small scale projects. This has created opportunities for the small scale organizations to produce their renewable energy by use of available technologies such as wind, biogas, solar, and biomass generators. Carbon House coordinates with organizations willing to pursue such projects by assisting them in conducting the feasibility studies. It also assesses the environmental economic performance for the developed energy renewable projects. Lack of electricity is a major challenge to many communities in the developing world. Carbon House has realized the opportunities that are available in rural communities by teaming up with other interested organizations to develop viable energy projects for the affected communities. This has been made possible through the use of energy source such as wind, biomass, solar, and micro-hydro techniques. Carbon House also provides ongoing funding to support the continuity of these projects by use of carbon credits. Carbon House also plans to take part in carbon farming initiative which the Australian government wishes to initiate on 1st July 2011 (Frederick & Rosenberg 2006, p.48). This project will be availed to farmers, landowners, and foresters willing to generate carbon credits. Through this project, agricultural businesses will be able to generate carbon credits for the local and international markets. The carbon farming initiative will provide information to assist farmers benefit from carbon markets. Some of the activities that will be included in this initiative are reforestation, reduction of methane emissions from livestock, reduction of fertilizer emissions, forest fire management, manure management, reduction of emissions from rice cultivation, and reduction of emissions from landfill wastes. The carbon farming will also support the domestic carbon offsets that are Kyoto compliant. Demand for carbon farming initiative credits will mainly be from international and domestic markets for the need of regulatory compliance. The socioeconomic impacts of climate change vary in different countries. For instance countries that have coastlines have experienced a decrease in the water level in their main water bodies. This has affected the fish industry with productivity levels decreasing on annual basis (Toman, 2004). The coastal communities that depend on fishing as their main source of income have resulted to alternative means of earning because the future of the fishing industry is full of uncertainty. Weather patterns in the world have become unpredictable with some areas that used to receive substantial amount of rainfall now received inadequate rain. This has affected the planting seasons, where there are times when the rains don’t come at all. Of late there are many cases of draughts and this has caused reduction in food stocks. Regions that experience famine and food shortage largely blame this situation to the issue of climate change. Climate change has affected the agricultural sector in the world. For many years agriculture remains a major contributor to the world economy. The reduction in the rainfall levels has led to the decrease in the farm products. There has been shortage of food commodities such as wheat and rice which has also caused the prices of wheat products to rise. Developing countries are the worst hit by the food shortage as most of them have to depend on donations from the world food program. Reduction in the vegetation cover is another impact of climate change. This has made the bare lands to be prone to soil erosions and hence affected the productivity of such lands. Many rivers have also dried up since the forests that support their water supply have dried up due to lack of rain (Sioshansi, 2009). The irony of the effects of climate change is that the developed countries that emit the highest level of carbon into the atmosphere are not negatively affected as the developing countries. Developing countries have more resources to cushion the negative impacts of climate change. Conclusion The challenge of climate change as a result of carbon emissions into the atmosphere is real. Many of the developed countries contribute the biggest percentage of carbon emissions. Limits to the carbon emissions can only be achieved through the goodwill of the developing and developed countries to adapt the Kyoto Protocol of reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Countries that produce oil should have measures of controlling its use as it has contributed in carbon emissions that have caused climate change in the world. Regulatory policies should be introduced setting regulatory rates and standards for carbon emissions. Failure to do this, might water down the efforts of such firms as Carbon House to introduce and develop viable projects for renewable energy that emit low levels of carbon into the atmosphere. References Grover, V.(2004). Climate Change: Five years after Kyoto Protocol. New York: Science Publishers. Frederick, K. & Rosenberg, N. (2006).Assessing the impacts of climate change on natural resource systems. New York: Springer. Toman, M. (2004). Climate change economics and policy. Boston: Routledge. Sioshansi, F. (2009).Generating Electricity in a Carbon-Constrained World. London: Cambridge University Press. Khatib, H. (2003).Economic evaluation of projects in the electricity supply industry. New Delhi: Time Books. Read More