Blog Posts: carbon

Editor's Note: This blog post is available in English.

O mundo está perdendo a janela de oportunidade para resolver a crise do clima. Para ter uma chance razoável de deter o aquecimento global em 2ºC e evitar seus efeitos mais dramáticos, precisamos limitar todas as emissões de gás carbônico (CO₂) a um trilhão de toneladas.

No ritmo atual, o "espaço seguro" de carbono para limitar o aquecimento global será ultrapassado em menos de 30 anos. Para atingir a meta de 2ºC será necessária uma radical e...

With the world’s appetite for chocolate at an all-time high, producers are looking for new places to grow cacao—the raw ingredient in cocoa and chocolate. Some are turning to South America, where satellite images show one cacao plantation encroaching dramatically on the Amazon rainforest.

El apetito mundial por el chocolate está a un punto máximo sin precedentes, y los productores buscan nuevos lugares para cultivar cacao, la materia prima del chocolate y del cacao en polvo. Algunos productores han recurrido a Sudamérica, donde las imágenes satelitales resaltan a una plantación de cacao que está invadiendo la selva tropical amazónica.

Thirty-nine countries now have carbon-pricing policies on the books, while hundreds of businesses have voiced support. Pricing carbon, which was just a theoretical concept a few years ago, has blossomed into real climate action.

Large trucks and airplanes account for about one-third of total U.S. transportation emissions. WRI analysis shows that setting strong efficiency standards for these sectors could deliver at least 6 percent of the total reductions the United States needs to meet its goal of reducing total emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

WRI Board member and former Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy Sue Tierney explains why April 16th was a remarkable (and remarkably dull) milestone in electric-industry history.

Nobel Laureate Carlos Nobre is one of Brazil’s top climate scientists and member of the Brazilian Academy of Science. He is a founding member of WRI Brasil and served until recently on its Board of Directors. In this post, he explains the Earth League's "Earth Declaration."

The U.S. EPA has proposed standards to limit power sector emissions, which, once adopted, are expected to reduce carbon pollution from power plants by 25 percent by 2020. But as we recently noted in our public comment on the proposal, increasingly cost-effective efficiency and renewable energy opportunities mean that the EPA can and should require even greater emissions reductions.

The just concluded U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit focused attention on Africa’s promises and challenges, including energy, agriculture and the $14 billion in investment pledged by companies. The visiting heads of state—just shy of 50—also discussed climate change and its effects on crop production, nutrition and food security. New research by the World Resources Institute and Rights and Resources Initiative on the climate dividends of secure community land rights can help Africa address these challenges.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from human activities are now higher than at any point in our history. In fact, recent data reveals that global CO₂ emissions were 150 times higher in 2011 than they were in 1850.

How did we arrive at such an unprecedented—and precarious—state? Read on for a visual history of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.