Talk:Greenhouse gas emissions

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Hydrogen

I'm planning to remove the following: "While grey hydrogen indirectly contributes to global warming, green hydrogen has the opposite effect. Green hydrogen, in the form of hydrogen fuel cells, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks by replacing fossil-based fuels, such as gasoline and diesel."

Green hydrogen does not contribute to global warming but does not have an opposite effect either, i.e. it does not lead to carbon dioxide removal. Discussion about the role of hydrogen in climate change mitigation is confusing in the context of this particular section, because this section is about emissions of H2, but the role of green hydrogen is primarily to reduce the emissions of CO2. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:05, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Could we explain a bit more in that section what we mean with "Hydrogen leakages"? Is it leakages from pipes delivering hydrogen? Would it make sense to link to Hydrogen economy for further context? EMsmile (talk) 21:03, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

I added a sentence about it. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:05, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated! EMsmile (talk) 14:52, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

References

Need further explanation/elaboration for following wordings

1. I'm not sure I understand the saying - "Natural sources of carbon dioxide are nearly 20 times greater than sources due to human activity, but over periods longer than a few years natural sources are closely balanced by natural sinks, mainly photosynthesis of carbon compounds by plants and marine plankton." 2. Can anybody help use layman language to rewrite following - "Absorption of terrestrial infrared radiation by longwave absorbing gases makes Earth a less efficient emitter. Therefore, in order for Earth to emit as much energy as is absorbed, global temperatures must increase. Thank you very much. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 01:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I've deleted that paragraph now. Instead, I have added an excerpt about the greenhouse effect at the start of the article. EMsmile (talk) 09:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Need elaboaration

"In October 2022, ADNOC announced to decrease the methane emissions from oil and gas by 2025." My question is "how much" ? Thank you for the kind attention. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 05:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I've removed that section now. It was poorly sourced and too detailed. I've moved some of it to Environmental issues in the United Arab Emirates. EMsmile (talk) 09:39, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 04:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Need help to elaborate

In section ===Generational===, can anybody help elaborate the wordings "They are less affected by climate change impacts, but have e.g. the same vote-weights for the available electoral options.", especially the portion of "the same vote-weights for the available electoral options". Thanks. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 04:56, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I've condensed that section; it wasn't very good. EMsmile (talk) 09:59, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Very confusing layout. Often ends up effectively duplicating itself

(A continuation of yesterday's discussion from the Greenhouse gas talk page.)

While technically, this article's size (31 kB, 4963 words) is still only about half of the maximum recommended size (although I am fairly sure those guidelines were developed before the mass use of excerpts like in here became a thing) I think it is too large in practical terms, because the way it transitions from one topic to another seems to lack any flow and make for a confusing layout. Worse, it then often seems to double back on itself, and repeat the same or related point in slightly different terms elsewhere.

Here's what I mean:

• The lead: Has five paragraphs instead of the recommended four; however, it consists of one large paragraph and then four small ones which read like disparate dot points. We first read that CO₂ "accounts for more than half of warming", then we find out that CH₄ has "almost the same short-term impact" (i.e. the other half?) Before the reader can learn more about what that means and how short is "short-term", the paragraph abruptly ends with a single mention of N2O and F-gases. Then, the next paragraph starts talking about methane, N2O and F-gases again, but not before interjecting the stat about energy emission fraction and the mention of deforestation which, IMO, should be combined with its other mention earlier on.

• Greenhouse effect excerpt: really needs an image there, and the lack of references in the first paragraph is unfortunate, but is fine otherwise.
• Relevant greenhouse gases - this entire section feels like it simply "previews" Emissions by type of greenhouse gas much later in the article, for no real benefit? Why can't we just move Emissions by type of greenhouse gas up and get rid of this? Not to mention that half the section is devoted to CFCs and the Montreal Protocol, which is completely disproportionate.
• Human activities - as above. Practically all of those dotpoints seem to be repeated in Emissions by type of greenhouse gas, and any which aren't can be comfortably moved there.
• Global estimates - that section is literally a disparate list of five completely unconnected dotpoints. All of it should be moved to more relevant sections/articles. "See also" links there are quite puzzling too, redirecting to natural emission articles before a section about human emissions.
• High income countries compared to low income countries - this seems like it would belong somewhere in Country examples
• Calculations and reporting - I really hate this entire section. After throwing a lot of disparate information at the reader in the previous section, the article now subjects them to a paragraph upon paragraph of literal accounting and bureaucratic jargon (often poorly referenced to boot). Just what kind of reader would come to this article hoping to see a paragraph like The measurement protocol itself: This may be via direct measurement or estimation. The four main methods are the emission factor-based method, mass balance method, predictive emissions monitoring systems, and continuous emissions monitoring systems. These methods differ in accuracy, cost, and usability. Public information from space-based measurements of carbon dioxide by Climate Trace is expected to reveal individual large plants before the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. (Yes, the last sentence is obsolete now.) How many readers are really here for "time horizons" and "national account balances"? About 90% of this seems to belong in greenhouse gas monitoring and greenhouse gas inventory (ideally, we could probably purge a lot of the excessive, possibly plagiarized detail from the latter and merge it into the former, but that would take a while). This article should only have the briefest summary, and it likely belongs around the very end.
• Historical trends - again, very disparate. The section jumps from the global to regional (the EU) and even national (the UK) and from the Industrial Revolution to recent decades to the geological past (that one mention of Chicxulub). The last two paragraphs are entirely about CO₂ and would seem to belong in its own subsection?
• Changes since a particular base year - should just be in monitoring/inventory, with maybe a sentence in country examples.
• Data from Global Carbon Project - I am not sure if this top-level article even needs the relatively subtle annual changes tracked by this table (as opposed to, say, Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere - ironically a much better article). If it does, it should certainly be in the CO₂ section.
• Emissions by type of greenhouse gas and Emissions by sector - this here is why I want to move much of the material here back to greenhouse gas. Effectively, most of the material in "by type of greenhouse gas" is already talking about sectors - i.e. what is all of this, if not the discussion of sectors?

Fossil fuels (32%), again, account for most of the methane emissions including coal mining (12% of methane total), gas distribution and leakages (11%) as well as gas venting in oil production (9%).

Livestock (28%) with cattle (21%) as the dominant source, followed by buffalo (3%), sheep (2%), and goats (1.5%).

Human waste and wastewater (21%): When biomass waste in landfills and organic substances in domestic and industrial wastewater is decomposed by bacteria in anaerobic conditions, substantial amounts of methane are generated.

Rice cultivation (10%) on flooded rice fields is another agricultural source, where anaerobic decomposition of organic material produces methane.

Or indeed, basically everything in Human activities can be rewritten to go sector by sector:

The main sources of greenhouse gases due to human activity (also called carbon sources) are:

Burning fossil fuels: Burning oil, coal and gas is estimated to have emitted 37.4 billion tonnes of CO2eq in 2023. The largest single source is coal-fired power stations, with 20% of greenhouse gases (GHG) as of 2021.

Land use change (mainly deforestation in the tropics) accounts for about a quarter of total anthropogenic GHG emissions.

Livestock enteric fermentation and manure management, paddy rice farming, land use and wetland changes, man-made lakes, pipeline losses, and covered vented landfill emissions leading to higher methane

atmospheric concentrations. Many of the newer style fully vented septic systems that enhance and target the fermentation process also are sources of atmospheric methane.

Use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigeration systems, and use of CFCs and halons in fire suppression systems and manufacturing processes.

Agricultural soils emit nitrous oxide (N2O) partly due to application of fertilizers.

The largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions is agriculture, closely followed by gas venting and fugitive emissions from the fossil-fuel industry. The largest agricultural methane source is livestock. Cattle (raised for both beef and milk, as well as for inedible outputs like manure and draft power) are the animal species responsible for the most emissions, representing about 65% of the livestock sector's emissions.

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 08:04, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

My suggestions for the article are as follows:

1. Clean up and reorganize disparate content as suggested above.
2. Emissions by type of greenhouse gas is moved to the end of greenhouse gas, going under the "Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities" subheading (currently excerpts the terrible "overview" here.) That section already functions as more of a summary of the more detailed breakdown in Emissions by sector, so moving it to the related article would both improve it and avoid duplication here.
3. This article would thus mainly conist of Emissions by sector and Country examples. We might want to make this article start with a section on individual/per capita emissions (perhaps with a "Further" link to Individual action on climate change), then perhaps make the country section next and make Emissions by sector into the last major section (only followed by excerpt-style sections on "Methods for reducing greenhouse gas emissions", "Projections for future emissions", "Society and culture", etc.) The logic being that the most detailed section should sit in the center of the article.
4. Once this is done, the article is renamed Sources of greenhouse gas emissions. I think that name would be very easy to remember and to search for. To me, it's similar to how we now made Causes of climate change. It would also help avoid the occasional confusion where people don't understand the difference between this article and greenhouse gas. I find it similar to EMsmile's reasoning for making a lot of the article start with "Effects of climate change on..." rather than "Climate change and...".

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 08:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this article would highly benefit from a thorough improvement process. It certainly needs tender, love and care! I've long grappled with how to avoid overlap between the different "emissions by" sections. For example in the two sections: "Emissions by type of greenhouse gas" and "Emissions by sector" there is overlap/repetition. Or perhaps a certain degree of overlap between such sections is OK? Splitting one off into another article is in my opinion not the right solution.

I find the article title "greenhouse gas emissions" just right (and intuitive) and don't see why some emissions content should not be moved back to greenhouse gas and other content be moved to Sources of greenhouse gas emissions. But it's an important discussion to be had. Let's see what others think. Perhaps bring more people to the discussion by posting on the talk page of WikiProject Climate Change? I'll start by pinging User:Chidgk1 who's also been involved in this article in the past.

Note that an additional problem is that there is potential for overlap between this article and the climate change mitigation article... EMsmile (talk) 10:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

With the National inventory reports (NIR) coming out in the next few days I will be thinking too much about my country specific article to look at this. However when I drop notes to the country projects encouraging them to add info from their NIR to their climate change articles I will also mention this article in passing in the hope of getting more opinions. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:19, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Have mentioned at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#Official greenhouse gas statistics now out but there are many more country projects if you want to try more persuasive language Chidgk1 (talk) 17:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

This discussion about a possible revamp of greenhouse gas emissions got a bit stuck. So I am pinging some people who might be willing to help move the discussion along and put their thinking caps on: User:Efbrazil, User:Tpbradbury, User:Bogazicili, User:RCraig09, User:Prototyperspective.

Attempting to summarise the above discussion: User:InformationToKnowledge has suggested moving quite a lot of content back into greenhouse gas (which is where it was some years ago before the split) and to rename this article to Sources of greenhouse gas emissions. I have argued against that although I do agree that the current article structure is sub-optimal and has internal overlaps. I've also pointed out the difficulty in preventing overlap with climate change mitigation when it comes to listing the amounts of GHG emissions (e.g. by sector) and reducing GHG emissions. EMsmile (talk) 09:40, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Contradictory captions?

Hello @RCraig09

The interesting chart at the beginning of this article seems to have contradictory captions. The one below says ‘greenhouse gas’ and the one at the top actually in the chart says ‘carbon dioxide’. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:20, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Changed, thanks.  Done —RCraig09 (talk) 16:52, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for quick response - now that Climate Trace has estimated 2022 GHG is is possible to have such a chart for GHG in total rather than just carbon dioxide? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:54, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be ideal to find data for GHGs in general. Probably, because CO2 is the dominant long-term GHG, references seem to focus on CO2 alone. If you have run across reliable references with long-term data or charts for GHGs in general, I'd be very interested in creating chart(s). —RCraig09 (talk) 16:22, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Removed recently added content about UN Emissions Gap report

I've just removed this recently added text block. I am putting it below because certain statements might be salvageable but overall it reads like UN speech, not encyclopedic language. It also introduces repetition. Also, the exact source is not clear, please provide page numbers, User:BaderMS.

I've noticed that you (User:BaderMS) have recently added content in a similar fashion to a range of Wikipedia articles (I have reverted some of those additions). You seem to add one big long paragraph full of jargon and UN-type speech, with just one vague reference at the end (never with page numbers). Those paragraphs that I reverted were not written in encyclopedic and summary style. Please reconsider how you add content. It might be better to edit in small incremental steps, i.e. just a sentence or two at first, not those long paragraphs with just one ref at the end. Also ensure not to add excessive detail to high level articles, like you did at energy transition where you added detailed content (from a low quality source) on electric vehicles in China.

Here is the text block that I've removed:

++++++

In November 2023, the UNEP published the Emissions Gap Report 2023, signaling an alarming escalation in global greenhouse gas emissions that have led to a dramatic rise in extreme weather events and grave climate consequences. The progress since the Paris Agreement is noted, with a revised estimate that emissions in 2030 are expected to be 3% above 2010 levels rather than the previously anticipated 16%. However, the current trajectory is still on a collision course with a temperature increase that will likely surpass the Paris Agreement's targets. The report projects a potential global temperature rise of up to 2.9°C by the end of this century. UNEP's findings serve as a clarion call for nations, particularly the most capable and historically largest emitters, to urgently strengthen their emission reduction commitments to mitigate the risk of catastrophic climate effects. EMsmile (talk) 22:05, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, EMsmile. I'll consider these notes for future content. BaderMS (talk) 04:02, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 22:05, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

New graph too detailed for the lead?

New chart: 2022 Worldwide Greenhouse Gas Emissions (per capita; by region; growth). In variwide charts, the widths of the bars show country populations, the height of the bars indicates emissions per person, and the areas of the bars indicate total emissions for each country.

Old chart: Annual carbon dioxide emissions per person (height of vertical bars) and per country (area of vertical bars) of the fifteen highest-emitting countries (1990-2018)

Hi User:Tom.schulz, User:RCraig09 and all, I am a bit worried if the new graph is really better than the previous one or if it it's overly "busy". Perhaps it's better for the main text but not for the lead. Also I am a little bit confused as it came from this page: https://aqalgroup.com/2022-worldwide-ghg-emissions/ which was also done up by Thomas Schulz and Mariana Bozesan, AQAL Capital GmbH, Munich. Could there be a WP:COI here? EMsmile (talk) 20:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 20:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Favor more concise, readable image. I purposely made have few, highest-emission countries. Over years discussing climate topics, I've learned the consensus to follow the guideline that text in drawings should be comparable in size to the surrounding narrative prose. Having ~30 countries is overkill in my opinion, WP:UNDUE for lower-emitting countries, and the resulting text is too small in size and too big in quantity. Most of the legends' detail should be in the Wikimedia file description page, not in the graphic itself. The COI issue turns on the original data source; it's OK if he took reliable-source data and merely charted it (as I have done). —RCraig09 (talk) 23:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. I suggest we put the old chart back in the lead but we add the new chart somewhere in the main text. Would it be easy to update the old chart with newer figures? Currently it's for the time period 1990-2018. EMsmile (talk) 09:30, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I've found national GHG data through 2022 at https://globalcarbonatlas.org/emissions/carbon-emissions/ ("Chart view"). I plan to update . It's a non-trivial project to generate variwide charts, so it may be a while. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:23, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. So I propose in the meantime I make this change: I put the old chart back in the lead and add the new chart somewhere in the main text. If no objections in a few days I'll go ahead with that. The updated chart could then easily be replaced in the lead later. EMsmile (talk) 20:06, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree. I plan to overwrite my old file with the 2022 update. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:30, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Version 7 is uploaded and inserted at top of article. The super-detailed chart is moved down to the /* List of countries */ subsection where the detail is more appropriate. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:16, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! That's great. I've added the year in the caption because I think it's useful for the future. However, should I have added a year range, like it was in the old chart where it was "1990-2018"? I take it the population data is for 2024 but the emissions data might be an average over a time period? EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Both emissions and populations are 2022 data. But I don't generally put the date into the chart itself or its caption, because of future-proofing issues. Also, encyclopedia readers generally don't care about dates, and the Wikimedia file description page and its sourcing should have the dates. It's editors' responsibility to keep charts reasonably updated. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:56, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense, thanks. But I am still a bit confused: how come in the old chart caption there was a year range: 1990 to 2018. Was it the average annual emission over that 30-year time period? But the data now is just the values for one specific year, so no longer an average value. Did I understand this correctly? EMsmile (talk) 19:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Can we also show cumulative emissions in the lead? It's not like emissions reset every year. Or maybe it can be integrated into this graph in a pie chart format (adding a pie chart in top right)? [1]? Bogazicili (talk) 15:09, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

— The original caption didn't specify a range, and in any event my 22 Oct 2024 update is definitely 2022 data. See sourcing in the Wikimedia file description page.
— I'm OK with also showing cumulative emissions in the lead, just not a pie chart in the same graphic as the variable-width bar chart using data for one year. Current trends, which don't vary much from year to year, are probably most important to today's readers who are concerned with climate change. Cumulative trends are shown in which is in the /* Historical trends */ section. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:37, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I suggested a pie chart because it is more compact, and can be easily added into the graph above. The graph above shows 2018 population and per capita emissions (and total annual emissions in rectangle area for 2018). So it'd make sense to add cumulative emissions as of 2018. Basically chart 2 here Bogazicili (talk) 16:00, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Charting cumulative emissions raises the questions: cumulative since 1800? Since China's acceleration? Since China overtook the US in annual values? Ending in 2018(?) is already outdated. Mixing annual and cumulative is confusing to the lay reader. Two charts are appropriate; two charts are present. PS - is a 2022 update. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:54, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

1) we are producing updates to this diagrams once per year. It's meant to provide a unique point of view on existing data. There are several new insights that can be derived from the data. Just follow the link for the post. I can't see any conflict of interest.

2) We are following academic standards, as in labeling the data clearly, and providing data sources and the year of the data. Especially, we are explaining the aggregation of regional data into blocks, an we follow guidelines imposed by the IEA (data source).

3) All this makes the text in the chart longer than usual. If there is somebody who can reformat this into a Wikipedia-friendly format that would be great.

4) One of the chart's main features is the fact that the x-axis shoes ALL 8 bn population. So the complete area under the curve (integral) represents the total emissions. The fact that this is not a simple rectangle, but this widely skewed curve, is an important part of the message.

5) Only through the complete display over 8 bn do the average and mean values make sense. TS (talk) 21:33, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@Tom.schulz: Wikipedia guidelines say that important text should be comparable in size to the surrounding text in the narrative of the article. The huge amount of text in the bottom 33% of your chart could be included in the Wikimedia file description page, but not in the chart itself. As you can see from my resizing of the two charts to be the same width, the sheer quantity of text in your diagrams make this guideline unreachable. Re conflict of interest: it's OK if you are merely charting the data of a reliable source. Including your name in the chart itself, and naming your company and a link to it, are WP:spam, which is not allowed on Wikipedia. Charting 15 countries ("old" chart) is much more readable than the ~30 countries/regions (in your "new" chart). Your chart attempts too much, all at once. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:19, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

+ There is also the question of which countries are chosen. The 15-country chart chooses the fifteen highest-emissions countries—an objective standard. However, if you choose countries based on your own criteria, there are issues of editorialization or bias and WP:NPOV. —RCraig09 (talk) 00:29, 11 November 2024 (UTC)