The conundrum of calculating carbon footprints

TY - CHAP

T1 - The conundrum of calculating carbon footprints

AU - Strobel, Bjarne W.

AU - Erichsen, Anders Christian

AU - Gausset, Quentin

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - A pre-condition for reducing global warming is to minimise the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs). A common approach to informing people about the link between behaviour and climate change rests on developing GHG calculators that quantify the ‘carbon footprint’ of a product, a sector or an actor. There is, however, an abundance of GHG calculators that rely on very different premises and give very different estimates of carbon footprints. In this chapter, we compare and analyse the main principles of calculating carbon footprints, and discuss how calculators can inform (or misinform) people who wish to adopt greener behaviour.

AB - A pre-condition for reducing global warming is to minimise the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs). A common approach to informing people about the link between behaviour and climate change rests on developing GHG calculators that quantify the ‘carbon footprint’ of a product, a sector or an actor. There is, however, an abundance of GHG calculators that rely on very different premises and give very different estimates of carbon footprints. In this chapter, we compare and analyse the main principles of calculating carbon footprints, and discuss how calculators can inform (or misinform) people who wish to adopt greener behaviour.

KW - Global warming

KW - Green house gas

KW - Footprint calculators

KW - Behaviour change

KW - Climate change

KW - carbon footprint

UR - https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138901094

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-1-138-90109-4

T3 - Routledge Advances in Climate Change Research

SP - 7

EP - 27

BT - Community governance and citizen driven initiatives in climate change mitigation

A2 - Hoff, Jens

A2 - Gausset, Quentin

PB - Routledge

ER -