UN Discloses Its Own CO2 Emissions Data

The United Nations has disclosed details of its own yearly CO2 emissions total and, this done, pledged to cut down on its emissions too. In an announcement that coincided with the current Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Martin Nesirky - a spokesman for the organisation – stated: “The UN emits the equivalent of 1.7 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, of which approximately 1 million tons comes from peacekeeping operations.

He continued: “This inventory is a first step in cutting back emissions. The UN will now work towards a common approach on emission reduction and also towards emission reduction strategies for each UN institution.”

UN Carbon Footprint

At 1.7 million tons, the overall UN carbon footprint stands at just below that of approximately 90,000 people in the United States, based on three-year-old per capita data produced by the UN itself. Its total output is considerably below those of a lot of industrial sources but, still, the UN can now be considered to have more of an impact on the environment than a number of the world’s most significant firms. The Starbucks coffee chain is one of these: it produced the equivalent of 913,000 tons of CO2 during 2007.

The United Nations headquarters is located in New York and, here, an environmental retrofit is in progress, aimed at achieving improved energy efficiency levels and significantly cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions.

United Nations Emissions

In related news, United Nations emissions data has also been released in respect of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference itself, which opened on December 7th and runs until the 18th. Approximately 40,500 tons of CO2 are set to be released into the atmosphere as a result of the event taking place, the majority of these (90 per cent) from international flights into/out of Denmark. It has been reported than only a very limited number of nations are offsetting these emissions –Sweden among them.

Danish governmental officials are, however, understood to have taken steps to mitigate the Climate Change Conference’s carbon footprint, including installation of energy efficient lighting systems in the main discussion locations.

See also:

UN Offsets Climate Meeting CO2 Emissions