Carbon bombs

In News: A group of environmentalists, lawyers, and activists have come together to identify and ‘defuse carbon bombs’– coal, oil and gas projects that have the potential to contribute significantly to global warming.

• The usage of the term ‘carbon bombs’ picked up after an investigative project of The Guardian
• The project reported the plans of countries and private companies all over the world to engage in 195 ‘carbon bomb’ projects.
• Each such project, will release huge amounts of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

What are carbon bombs?

• It is an oil or gas project that will result in at least a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over its lifetime.
• Whenever coal, oil, or gas is extracted it results in pollution and environmental degradation.
• In total, around 195 such projects have been identified world over, including in the US, Russia, West Asia, Australia and India.
• These projects will collectively overshoot the limit of emissions that had been agreed to in the Paris Agreement of 2015.

What does the investigation say?

• More than 60% of these carbon bomb projects are already underway
• Apart from coal, oil, and gas operations, the report highlighted the threat of methane, which routinely leaks from gas operations and is a powerful greenhouse gas, trapping 86 times more heat than CO2 over 20 years
• The report criticized reliance on fuel from conventional sources and not making use of emerging, green sources of energy.

What is the plan for ‘defusing’ carbon bombs?

• The network working towards this goal is called Leave It In the Ground Initiative (LINGO).
• Its mission is to leave fossil fuels in the ground and learn to live without them.
• It believes the root of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, and the 100% use of renewable energy sources is the solution.
• LINGO aims to organise ground support for protesting such projects, challenge them through litigation, and conduct analysis and studies for the same.

Previous Year Questions

Q.1)Which one of the following best describes the term ‘greenwashing’? (2022)

1. Conveying a false impression that company’s products are eco-friendly and environmentally sound
2. Non-inclusion of ecological/environmental costs in the Annual Financial Statements of a country
3. Ignoring the disastrous ecological consequences while undertaking infrastructure development
4. Making mandatory provisions for environmental costs in a government project/programme

Source: Indian Express