Japan launches tools to help people visualize emissions

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Japan launches tools to help people visualize emissions

TOKYO climate change countermeasures are not only a challenge for governments and companies, but are deeply linked to our everyday lifestyles. Tools to help us visualize our own greenhouse gas emissions are now available to encourage people to rethink their behavior.

The greenhouse gas emissions associated with our daily lives are surprisingly high. This is because they involve the production, distribution, and disposal of any and all things, including foods and everyday items, not just using electricity and gas. Sixty percent of domestic greenhouse gas emissions are caused by households and regular people going about their lives.

Carbon footprint is one of the indicators used to visualize emissions, including those we don't see firsthand. It is the total amount of greenhouse gases generated from raw material procurement and production to disposal that are converted to a CO2 carbon dioxide figure.

According to Ryu Koide, an environmental engineering researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, the estimated carbon footprints per capita in Japan's 52 prefectural capitals and government-designated major cities were calculated using information from the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry's Family Income and Expenditure Survey. The average carbon footprint of 52 cities is 7,300 kilograms of CO 2 per person, according to Koide's team. The highest prefectural capital Mito is 8,430 kg, while the lowest is the 5,780 kg of Okinawa Prefecture's capital Naha. Per capita carbon footprints will need to be 2,500 - 3,200 kg per year by 2030 to hold down the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times.

In Mito, 28% of the emissions are related to housing, such as electricity, gas and kerosene at 2,390 kg, followed by transportation including cars at 25% or 2,150 kg. In Tokyo's 23 special wards, which have an extensive and well established public transportation system, emissions related to transportation account for 12% 850 kg, while leisure-related emissions such as dining out total 1,080 kg.

Cities in cold regions tend to have high housing-linked CO 2 emission levels, including heating. Sapporo, the capital of the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, clocks in at 2,760 kg of CO 2 from housing, or 36% of all emissions, while transportation is 1,600 kg 21% and leisure 630 kg, or 8%.

The research team analyzed 65 options for emission reductions and how much each measure could help reduce emissions in each city. The most promising options, common across the country, included switching from fossil fuel-based electricity to renewable energy sources, which would produce CO 2 savings of at least 910 kg on average.

The National Institute for Environmental Studies and the Association Code for Japan developed an online app that allows people to check their carbon footprints in Japanese. The app estimates a person's carbon footprint in four areas - housing, food, transportation and consumption. The app calculates its carbon footprint and shows countermeasures expected to produce significant emissions reductions by answering questions on power usage, what type of transportation the person uses daily, how often they discard expired foods, and other topics.

The source code for the app is publicly available, so anyone can use it for commercial purposes. There are various ways to make use of this function, such as linking it with different apps that let users earn points and applying it to local governments' policy-making efforts.

Koide believes that efforts to reduce CO 2 emissions will be spread by creating a system in which entities like local governments and retail shops encourage residents to change their behavior.