Isramart : Reduce production and consumption of carbon goods

Isramart news:A practical way to reduce TT’s carbon emissions is to reduce the amount of goods being manufactured which produce carbon, and to reduce consumption of such goods.

This view was expressed by physicist Dr Peter Vine in an interview yesterday.

He said the US had very high carbon emissions because it produced many goods which were to satisfy “wants, not needs”. Vine said TT had similar consumption patterns and if the persons who were “relatively rich” reduced their excessive consumption of goods then this could have an impact.

He said if no new carbon industries opened then this could also be a reflection of reduced demand. Vine said “political will” was needed to reduce consumption.

In a media briefing on November 29 Prime Minister Patrick Manning said that TT would work towards voluntary reduction of carbon emissions, and one option was to use carbon sequestration. Manning said one method was putting carbon oxide formations into areas which once contained oil and gas. Concern has been raised about the risk of leakage. However, Manning said the government was not convinced that this was a problem as “some others see it”. Manning said the method has been tried in TT.

Vine said “theoretically” the method sounds good but he did not think in “any part of the world it has proven itself”. He said biological methods of carbon reduction were not feasible for TT because it did not have sufficient land space. Dr Vine discussed the possibilities and pitfalls of carbon sequestration at a seminar organised by the Association of Professional Agriculture Scientists of TT at the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine on Tuesday evening.

He spoke about the biological sequestration through storage in plants, the soil and ocean.

Carbon can be stored in plants, but when plants become mature they begin to emit carbon.

It can also be stored in the soil but this also had a limit. Vine said certain land use practices can also help remove carbon from the atmosphere.