One of the great challenges of our generation is Climate Change, which will bring natural disasters of great magnitude, affecting the health of the population, the balance of ecosystems and the world economy. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main greenhouse gas and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing faster than the international community has been able to to assume. However, the constant fight in favor of the climate has been winning small battles until obtaining the commitment of 121 countries to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050 and keep global warming well below 2 °C (Paris Agreement).
The EU, for its part, has endorsed this goal and has developed the European Green Deal to, among other things, achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2050. Likewise, many countries, regions and cities have committed to this shared objective and are developing strategies aimed at transforming production and consumption models towards sustainable systems with zero net emissions.
But what really is Carbon Neutrality?
CO2 neutrality does not mean that you stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere, rather it consists of the emissions that are produced are equal to the capacity of forests and oceans to absorb them, that is: there must be a zero balance between emissions and absorption.
Emissions: produced by the combustion of energy fossil fuels in production processes and in the generation of thermal energy and electric.
Absorptions: is the capacity of forests to (and vegetation in general) in breathing and fixing carbon.
Now, this process of balancing emissions with the absorption lies in the difficulty of reducing current emissions, since they are much higher than the capacity of the natural environment to absorb them. To level state, an absorption capacity of 11.4% of the emissions was estimated totals in 2018 (inventory National Emissions, 2020).
The forecasts say that to reduce emissions to a level where the vegetation is capable of kidnapping it, it would be necessary to electrify 80-90% of the transport sector, that all electricity comes from renewable sources, reduce the loss of thermal energy drastically in the residential sector, among other issues, which represent a structural change of the current model of energy use and consumption (IRENA , 2020).
Given the growing commitment by cities to adopt these commitments, from Naider, we suggest having a monitoring system of energy consumption that allow to evaluate the emissions of the municipality, as well as determining the capacity of its natural environment to absorb emissions. Once the starting point is known, simulations can be carried out applying results visualization tools, to propose the best strategy looking to the future, always bearing in mind the impact of the transition energy at a supra-municipal level.
