Personal Annual Carbon Allowance
RenSMART is dedicated to helping mitigate accelerated climate change due to human factors. Three measures are required to reduce our cabon intensity to a level where temperature rises can be kept with safe limits. Firstly a measure of where we are now, secondly a measure of where we should be and finally a measure of the improvment delivered by the life choices we make.
To enable the second measure, where we should be, we are introducing the PACA (Personal Annual Carbon Allowance). A voluntary target for indivuduals to attempt to attain through actions they choose to take.
1 PACA (for 2021) = 4660 kg CO2 per person per year.
RenSMART will use the PACA as a measure throughout our site, applications and calculations, and make tools available for people to track their progress.
To enable the PACA to be used in daily life choices, we will be presenting some values as percentage of a PACA and as the following sub units:- dPACA (daily allowance) = 4660/365 = 12.8kg CO2 per day
- hPACA (hourly allocance) = 4660/(24*365) = 532g CO2 per hour (which is about 2kW if just electricity was the only source)
- 2020 target = 38.5 GtCO2e yr−1
- 2020 World Population estimate 7.87 billion
- 38.5 Gt / 7.87 billion = 4.892 Gt = 4892 kg CO2 per year = 1 PACA
- Our spreadsheet calculations
- IPCC Special Report (D.1)
- Cop21 (II.17)
- Nature Climate
Calculator
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The methdology
The methodology we have used is very simple. Take the amount of CO2 due to humans that would keep us within a 2o increase in global temperature and divide it by the world population.
In 2019 global CO2e emmissions have been calculated at about 40Gt for the year.
By 2029 global CO2e emmissions need to be reduced to 25Gt per year to restrict global warming to and increase of 1.5C. 1.5C is seen as a relatively safe level of warming.
To be on course to reach this target, emmissions need to be reduced to 38.5 Gt CO2e per year by 2020.
Based on these figures: