Carbon Emission and it Effects on Environment (Essay Sample)

Carbon Emission and Effects on the Environment
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Carbon is the primary green gas emitted to the environment following organizational individual and product usage. The consumption of fossil fuels is the major source of carbon emission with the biodiversity increasingly becoming incapable of absorbing and recycling all carbon that is released in the environment following human activities. By extension, green gas emission has brought about unpredictable changes in the environment thereby calling for increased efforts by countries and the global community to reduce green gas emissions. The purpose of this paper to compare carbon emission in UAE and Switzerland both in terms of present carbon foot print for both countries and the policies being instituted to better the situation.
UAE was reported as the country with the highest ecological footprint in the year 2007. By the year 2010, the region carbon emissions stood at 19.9 metric tons per capita. Beginning the year 1960, carbon emissions in UAE has been increasing at an alarming rate to hit 112, 551.2 metric tons in the year 2009 as compared to that of Switzerland which stood at 6, 171.6 metric tons in the same year (Go Green, 2010). In this context, carbon emission in Switzerland accounted for 65 % of its total ecological footprint (Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 2014). In both countries, the major sources of carbon dioxide emissions came from oil, fossil fuel, space heating and renewable and combustible waste. In a rating done Go Green (2010), carbon efficiency for UAE stood at 4.92 CO2 emissions per GDP as compared with that of Switzerland which stood at 0.61 CO2 emissions per GDP (Go Green, 2010).
While Switzerland has instituted carbon taxes to discourage or to reduce the amount of carbon emissions in the domestic economy, UAE is yet to establish such measures. In essence, there has been a lot of resistance in the region to have carbon tax introduced and its only until recently (2010) that oil companies have started calling for pricing mechanisms to curb the increasing rate of carbon emissions (Carlisle, 2010). On its part, Switzerland has already implemented a carbon tax aimed at making the polluters to cater for the price of decarbonisation (Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 2014). Further, the country also has counter factual environmental taxes in place with a shared target (with EU) of reducing carbon emissions by 20 to 30 percent by the year 2012 (Binsal, 2013). Such measures have enabled the country to keep its carbon dioxide emissions relatively low as compared to UAE which has been rated among the highest contributors to green gas emission globally.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that both countries are gearing up their effort to minimize carbon emissions. Save for the renewed efforts to have pricing mechanisms introduced in the region, UAE is also looking for ways to increase desalination initiatives that make use of renewable energy. One of the major causes of high carbon emission in UAE is lack of natural water resources which forces the region to over rely on desalination in cleaning water. Clearly, UAE still has a long way in achieving the set international standards for carbon emission. Still,...