mitigation and adaptation CC Flashcards
what is mitigation?
Aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle the causes of global warming and climate change
-Long-term approach
what are five examples of mitigation
-Energy efficiency and conservation
-fuel shifts and low carbon energy sources
-Carbon capturing and storage
-Geo engineering
-reforestation and forest conservation
What is the first step to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and moving to a low carbon economy
Energy efficiency and conservation
What makes a house energy efficient
-generates own electricity from solar power and heat exchange
-Conserves energy with effective insulation
-House orientated to achieve maximum solar gain with large south facing windows
-Equipped with a smart energy meter
What is three changes in the U.K.’s energy economy
-overall energy consumption has fallen steady since 2010, from 214 million tons oil equivalent to 190 million by 2020
-coal consumption decreased most dramatically to less than 1.5 mil in 2020
-Contribution of renewable sources to electricity generation has grown rapidly from 29% in 2017 to 43% in 2020
What are the changes in the U.K.’s energy economy due to?
-expanding renewables
-Closing several large coal fired power stations
-Converting some coal fired power stations to bio fuels
how has went power been promoted?
With the use of green subsidies
what is carbon capture and storage?
New technology that extract CO2 admitted by coal fired power stations and transfers it to long-term storage underground
what is carbon capture and storage limited by?
Costs and shortages of storage sites, such as old oil and gas fields
what is Geo engineering?
The use of technology to modify the environment on a large scale
What two strategies does Geo engineering focus on?
- reducing amount of insolation absorbed by the Earth and its atmosphere.
-reducing CO2 from atmosphere
What can increase reflection of incoming solar radiation do?
reduce energy absorbed and converted to heat
how can increasing reflection be done?
-By placing huge reflective plates in orbit or on earth
-Seed the stratosphere with aerosols that were scatter insolation back to space
how can we reduce CO2? (oceans)
-By fertilising the ocean with nutrients such as iron
-This stimulates the growth of phytoplankton and extract CO2 via photosynthesis
what is enhanced weathering?
-some abundant silicate minerals such as olivine react on exposure to air and absorbs CO2 from carbonates
-Find its way into long-term storage on the ocean floor
-Done by crashing, huge amounts of rock to increase the surface area and speed up weathering
how can CO2 be extracted via artificial trees?
Plastic resin captures CO2 and it’s compressed and stored
-A single sheet of resin, the size of a door extracts up to 700 kg per day
what is reforestation and forest conservation?
-replanting trees when they’re chopped down to store carbon
-Cheapest and most effective
-UN has taken a lead in promoting its reducing emissions from deforestation and forest decoration program (REDD)
-This scheme gives financial value to carbon stored in forest by providing incentives to developing countries to conserve forests and reduce CO2
what are the three adaptions strategies for climate change?
Retreat
Accommodation
Protection
What do adaption strategies involve?
Predicting the adverse effect on climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimise potential damage
What is retreat?
coastal zones and River valleys are at risk of natural hazards, caused by extreme weather events, flood and erosion
-Vulnerable, coastlines with a few settlements are set back in land where there’s less risk of flooding and erosion
where is retreat action not possible?
Poor countries
what are three methods of accommodation
Agriculture
zero tillage
water supply
what is the agriculture accommodation approach?
New crop strains are developed and adapted to shorter or longer growing seasons
-Irrigation will be extended and regions of water shortages
-More efficient irrigation systems
What is the zero tillage accommodation approach?
conserves soil moisture by rotating crops, growing water resistant crops, mulching, planting hedge rows and wind breaks
What is the water supply approach to accommodation?
reduces loss to leaking recycling waste water, using grey water for gardens and flushing toilets
-Improve education and awareness on hazards
what are protection methods?
-Hard engineering - sea walls
-Storm surge barriers- low lying coasts
-Hard defences- storage reservoirs
-Soft engineering- beach conservation
-Natural barriers- Salts marshes
-Natural water storage- increase wetland areas, so run-off is controlled by afforestation
-In cities, increase reflection from urban surfaces and plant trees
-Human health-vaccines and pesticides
what are adaptive strategies for buildings in high temperatures?
-Heat adaptive strategies such as Aircon and fans
-Reduce window area and increase south facing windows
-Increase albedo with reflective, roofing and white walls
-Sunshades over windows
-Airtight building stop air entering
What are adaptive strategies for buildings for floods?
-relocating, important and valuable services from basements and ground floors
-Build houses on stilts
-Floating houses to counter sea level rise
What do adaptive strategies for buildings in drought?
-Rainwater harvesting(collecting run-off from roofs and guttering)
-Use grey water systems(e.g. flushing, toilets, and watering gardens)
What are transport adaptions to sea level change?
-storm surges destroy seawalls and disrupt rail links-future strengthening of Dykes and walls
-Rail routes are diverted inland and tracks are elevated
How are transport systems adapted to river flooding?
-flood barriers and elevating track
-2014, severe storms and depressants, but flood and disruption
How are transport systems adapted to increase temperatures?
-rails buckling- sleepers, and rail fastening
-melted tarmac creates potholes- resurface roads in heat resistant materials
-Less aircraft taking off
how are transport systems adapted to drought?
-Disrupt traffic on major European waterways like the Rhine
-low flow conditions, where water depth is below 1.6 m. Traffic comes to a standstill
-River Engineering makes river deeper
-Buoyancy aids on barges, so they sit higher and can sail
