The Basics
Climate Change Basics
Lessen Your Impact
A Quick Note on Offsets
The Chicago Climate Exchange
Climate Change Basics
Climate change, also known as global warming or the greenhouse effect, is caused by the trapping of the sun’s energy by the atmosphere. Although this effect occurs naturally, human activity is causing it to happen at a much greater rate through the increased emission of greenhouse gases. There are six main greenhouse gases involved; in addition to the well-known carbon dioxide, the other potent greenhouse gases are methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride.(1) As these gases trap more heat and energy in the atmosphere, the earth becomes warmer overall, and scientists predict that more dramatic releases of that energy will occur — storms will get more violent, droughts and heatwaves will be longer and more severe, and flooding will be worse and more widespread.(2)
Lessen Your Impact
So what’s a concerned citizen to do?
- Baseline: Figure out your footprint.
How much greenhouse gases are generated by your lifestyle and transportation activities, and how do they translate into carbon equivalences? Delta Carbon offers an online calculator to help you determine your personal carbon footprint. Determining your baseline will help you identify the sources of your emissions and what you can do to lower them. Delta can also assist organizations in calculating and offsetting emissions from conferences, business travel, workshops, etc. more... - Reduce: Emit less greenhouse gases.
The most important activity in solving the climate change puzzle includes reducing energy consumption, traveling less, and using less cement and concrete to generate less greenhouse gases. more... - Sequester: Take more greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and store them somewhere.
Emissions that can’t be reduced can be offset by funding activities that sequester them, or take them out of the atmosphere. There are many activities that sequester carbon; planting trees, creating green space, and trapping methane from animal manure are but a few examples. It may be difficult for you to sequester carbon yourself, but it may be easier for someone else to do it. A carbon offset allows you to fund the storage of greenhouse gas emissions through supporting someone else’s activities. Delta Offsets support farmers, landowners and project owners in their commitment to conservation practices that store greenhouse gases. So while you’re trying to figure out how to emit less, you can offset your emissions by purchasing carbon credits to reduce your impact on climate change. more... - Support: Put more pressure on decision makers to develop policy that addresses climate change.
Talk to your friends and neighbors about climate change, make sure that your representatives know that it’s an important issue that needs to be dealt with, and businesses need to know too. more...
Synergy: Do a combination of the above activities.
Doing a bit of everything can yield even more reductions in overall emissions: emitting less, sequestering more, and getting everyone on board.
A Quick Note on Offsets
Climate change isn’t necessarily an easy topic to understand. Delta knows that a typical consumer has a lot of questions about offsets, and many of them, we’ve asked ourselves. The three questions that come up the most about purchasing offsets are:
What am I actually buying?
When you purchase Delta Offsets, you are funding a project run by a farmer, landowner, or project owner to do something that reduces greenhouse gas emissions or increases the amount of greenhouse gases being sequestered. Your purchase moves a specified amount of metric tons of carbon dioxide from the Delta trading account to our retirement account, where it cannot be traded, sold or transferred.
The offset credits you purchase are based on a calculation of the net impact of the projects that we register on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). That calculation comes from the protocol set by CCX and is based on either actual measurement through metering, or modeling from formulae developed by the scientific community from peer-reviewed research.
Your purchase retires the offset on your behalf, the offset cannot be traded or sold by you, us, or any other entity. It remains in our CCX Retirement Account in perpetuity.
Would the greenhouse gases have been sequestered or eliminated even if I didn’t purchase offsets?
Once you start looking at setting greenhouse gas emission baselines, enrolling offset projects, or reviewing the quality of offset credits, this question comes up frequently. This question is referred to by the term, “Additionality.” Additionality refers to whether or not the offset activity would have occurred without an outside investment. Simply, is it your money that allowed the offset project to commence? Delta Offsets are checked, verified and registered with the Chicago Climate Exchange to help ensure that the offsets are actually taking place and being maintained. Some of the activities that are sequestering or reducing greenhouse gas emissions were already going on when they became eligible to be assigned offset credits. However, the carbon offset revenue helps support and maintain the activities that were occurring and insures that they continue at least through the end of their contract with Delta. Revenue from their carbon offset activities helps them support conservation activities that have other environmental benefits and increases awareness to other farmers and landowners that people want these activities to occur.
Does it make any difference?
The Energy Information Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, reports that carbon dioxide emissions for the United States were approximately 5,956,980,000 metric tons in 2005 (just under 6 billion). So, is your offset purchase going to change the world? Statistically speaking, an individual purchase of a few metric tons of carbon offsets does not make a difference. However, with a larger scale and broader reach, the impact quickly multiplies. At Delta we believe that calculating greenhouse gas emissions, finding ways to offset the impacts of climate change, and putting a monetary value on the cost of emissions does make a difference.
Additional questions and answers can be found on the Frequently Asked Questions page. more...
The Chicago Climate Exchange
All Delta Carbon Offset Projects are registered on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX®). The Delta Institute is an Associate Member of the CCX and offsets its own emissions annually. The Delta P2E2 Center, an affiliate of the Delta Institute, is an Offset Aggregator (that is, we pool offsets that qualify on the CCX), and we provide the offset projects that are registered on the CCX for sale.
"CCX is the world’s first and North America’s only legally binding rules-based greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system, as well as the world’s only global system for emissions trading based on all six greenhouse gases.
"CCX Members are leaders in greenhouse gas (GHG) management and represent all sectors of the global economy, as well as public sector innovators. GHG emission reductions achieved through CCX are the only reductions in North America being made through a legally binding compliance regime, providing independent third party verification by NASD and price transparency. The founder, Chairman and CEO of CCX is economist and financial innovator Dr. Richard L. Sandor, who was named a Hero of the Planet by Time magazine for his founding of CCX.
"CCX emitting Members make a voluntary but legally binding commitment to meet annual GHG emission reduction targets. Those who reduce below the targets have surplus allowances to sell or bank; those who emit above the targets comply by purchasing CCX® Carbon Financial Instrument® (CFI™) contracts."(3)
References
1. These six were recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize co-winners). There are a whole range of others that have “Global Warming Potential”, but these are the biggies. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Technical Summary of the Working Group I Report “The Physical Science Basis." 2007.
2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. 2007.
3. From the Chicago Climate Exchange web site.
