Monday 21 February 2011

Low carbon, resource efficient green economy

With revision starting soon for my Geography A-level exam, I've been deciding on which topics I'll learn for my actual examination. One of the best choices for me would to consider taking the "energy" question, so I've been doing some background reading regarding issues in preparation for my exams.


This week a UN report suggested changes in the spending of a countries GNP to achieve a more energy secure, and environmentally better situation for itself. 


Unep defined a "green economy" as one that resulted in "improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities".


Some suggested changes to a countries spending are as followed:

  • $108bn greening agriculture, such as encouraging and supporting smallholder farms
  • $134bn on the building sector, including improving energy efficiency
  • $110bn improving fisheries, including reducing the capacity of the world's fishing fleet
  • $15bn on forestry, with "important knock-on benefits for combating climate change"
  • Almost of $110bn on both water and waste, including sanitation and recycling
If you wish to find out more, I suggest that you read this article, published by the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12507714

It's evident that we need to make a move away from the "business-as-usual" model the world currently adopts - consuming fossil fuels at an extreme rate, with no direct push for renewable energies. With the population to increase by another 2 billion by 2050, estimated to be the same time fossil fuels will be fully depleted, as well as further problems such as bad access to water, the future of this planet is looking fairly grim. 

3 comments:

ed said...

wow the costs are really high, probably worth it in the long run

Rose said...

interesting article. read it earlier

FilmAdviser said...

I'm now engaged into one alternative heat energetics project and this is very hard to convince the authorities that would be not only more environmentally friendly, but also cheaper.
They just don't want things to be improved!