COVID 19 has marked our time of unprecedented crisis with the global economic shutdown, questioning the way our society operates from an economic and environmental point of view, as daily global CO2 emissions decreased by –17% by early April 2020.
But COVID 19 has also allowed us to see how well human beings can adapt to situations that leave them no choice but to act and adapt. Continuing working remotely, driving our car less, attending a meeting via Zoom, not taking a flight, changing our health habits, shifting to a less carbon-intensive lifestyle, reveal the scope of what we can achieve in just days.
Why, then, is it so laborious to apply and impose new rules in terms of climate change? COVID 19 forced governments to step in and deal with the catastrophe in a way that is unprecedented, including supporting business and industry, and public and private infrastructure. Individual actions won’t be enough to cut CO2 emissions. Governments and industries must take over.
In the Maritime industry for instance, last December, an overwhelming report from SeaIntelligence stated “the carriers’ CO2 calculators are completely useless!”. A very first step could be to harmonize the way CO2 emissions are measured and reported by the Maritime and freight transportation stakeholders.
Few weeks ago, Hapag-Lloyd reported a 50% drop in CO2 emissions per teu/km in 2019 according to its sustainability report. What does this result mean? How do they calculate their CO2 emissions? Shippers need to have a reliable and comprehensive CO2 emissions benchmark. In this new blog series, we’ll give you all the information to become a CO2 expert. This first blog post will help you have an overview of calculating CO2 emissions, and stay focused on the information you need to have accurate results.
Data and emissions factors, are core information to estimate CO2
In order to calculate accurate CO2 emissions, many parameters must be taken into account. The result depends, for example on the distance travelled, the type of vehicle (train, truck, ship but also more specifically cargo container, bulk ship, etc…), the particular vehicle (fuel type, motor power, age of the motors, etc…), the load of the vehicle, the speed of the vehicle compared to its design speed, the weather, etc. The more accurate data you have on these parameters, the more accurate your results will be.
All these parameters make it difficult to design an accurate calculation method. Hence many approximation methods have been presented, from global approximations to more granular methods.
According to Hartmut Zadek & Robert Schulz (2010) “There are two possibilities to calculate the CO2 emissions of mobile sources: the fuel-based method and the distance-based method. Both methods use CO2 emission factors (EFs) for the calculation of CO2 emissions.”
An emission factor is a variable which allows you to transform data you get on a route such as distance, amount of goods transported or the quantity of fuel consumed to a quantity of CO2 consumed. Depending on the parameter you choose in your calculation, your CO2 emissions factor won’t be the same.
1st way: Distance based methodology
2nd way: Fuel consumption based methodology
3rd way: Engine consumption methodology
Read more here
Original article: https://discover.searoutes.com/logistics/co2/
Website: https://discover.searoutes.com
