This budget estimates the maximum amount of greenhouse gasses we can emit while still keeping global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. On the current course, emissions from plastics will reach 17% of the global carbon budget by 2050, according to the new results. This means we'll need to reduce emissions by 18% just to break even. They project the global demand for plastics will increase by some 22% over the next five years. All told, the emissions from plastics in 2015 were equivalent to nearly 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2.Īnd researchers expect this number to grow. Dumping, incinerating, recycling and composting (for certain plastics) all release carbon dioxide. And the carbon footprint of plastics continues even after we've disposed of them. All of these processes emit greenhouse gases, either directly or via the energy required to accomplish them. Then the resins are formed into products and transported to market. The overwhelming majority of plastic resins come from petroleum, which requires extraction and distillation. Plastics have surprisingly carbon-intense life cycles. "It's also the first evaluation of various strategies to reduce the emissions of plastics." "This is, to our best knowledge, the first global assessment of the life cycle of greenhouse gas emissions from all plastics," said author Sangwon Suh, a professor at UC Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. The results appear in the journal Nature Climate Change. Now researchers at UC Santa Barbara have determined the extent to which plastic contributes to climate change, and what it would take to curb these emissions.
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