Talk:Low-carbon economy

Inaccurate, misleading wording

"Continued emission of greenhouse gases ??*may*?? cause long-lasting changes around the world, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible effects for people and ecosystems". Observational science and existing observed effects demonstrate that the continued emission of greenhouse gases already is, and will continue to, cause long-lasting changes around the world, radically increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible effects for people and ecosystems. U.S. Department of Defense internal documents also articulate that climate change is increasing the likelihood of nuclear war. It's not a matter of "may". It is, and will, if greenhouse gas emissions are not drastically reduced. An accurate "Encyclopedia" has to stick to the facts as they are, and keep ambiguity and vagaries to a bare minimum.

You're right, I have removed "may" and replaced it with "will" in the lead. EMsmile (talk) 23:14, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement

I came to this project as part of this project but have currently run out of time to make these improvements myself:

• Some of the structure seems a bit non-conforming (not using standard headings) and might require a rethink;
• The example section overlaps with renewable energy content. There is also overlap with the article on sustainable energy.
• The country examples section also needs a rethink (just seems to repeat info from renewable energy in that country).
• The lead is missing a good image (or image collage?). EMsmile (talk) 23:21, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Where do we stand with this now?

I am just wondering where we stand with this article now, as we had a quick discussion about it two years ago on the talk page of sustainable energy, see here. At the time, User:Clayoquot remarked "Low-carbon economy is one of the most frighteningly chaotic and error-filled articles I've seen in a while, to be honest. I'm tempted to nominate it for deletion. Or, it could be redirected to Climate change mitigation or perhaps Sustainable energy." How do you feel about it now, User:Clayoquot? Also pinging User:Chidgk1. Is this article better off as a redirect or should it undergo WP:TNT? EMsmile (talk) 21:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I've just removed a bunch of outdated or poorly sourced stuff. I put my justification in each of the edit summaries. The remaining content could be moved, or overlaps with, climate change mitigation, sustainable energy, net zero emissions. The question in my mind is, which option is better: Option 1: we cull this article right down but leave it in existence (as the term is in use) or - Option 2 - we eliminate it altogether (rescuing any useful content by moving those bits to another article) and then redirect it to climate change mitigation? At the moment I am leaning towards Option 1. EMsmile (talk) 23:22, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I would not consider the topic the same as climate change mitigation, a low-carbon economy is a specific economic model (although much variation within that model). That said, I agree the current article is muddied, lots of stuff about reducing carbon which is better suited as mitigation information. There should be coverage of transition in a theoretical low carbon economy article, but it should not be the focus. I do not see much content that I would want to keep here, although there are specific articles such as Sustainable architecture that might be better locations for the detail here rather than the higher-level articles mentioned. CMD (talk) 01:54, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping and for giving this article attention. I'm hoping to get through a GA review soon and will take a look at this article after that. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:01, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both for your responses. In the meantime, I have done some further culling (see if you agree); I think I will stop now. @CDM: what did you mean by "There should be coverage of transition in a theoretical low carbon economy article, but it should not be the focus.". I have mentioned energy transition and just transition now, should this be expanded further?

I was looking on the internet for high quality publications that would provide a clear definition of "low-carbon economy" but found none. The IPCC AR 6 WG 3 report does mention low-carbon economy in multiple places but without ever defining it (nothing in the glossary either). I guess it's not really rocket science, it's just about have an economy and a society that minimises its GHG emissions as much as possible... (hence the potential overlap of this article with greenhouse gas emissions, net zero emissions and climate change mitigation). EMsmile (talk) 23:07, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Sources on the low-carbon economy often discuss ways to transition from current societies (current to whichever source) to low-carbon ones, eg.[1][2], so I would expect that to be covered in the article. However, I wouldn't expect it to be the main focus on the article as it is in the current writing, as that would as you mention overlap heavily with Climate change mitigation. For example, the current article discusses the transition away from using fossil fuel to produce energy. It does not conceptualise this within the context of a low-carbon economy, specifically decoupling the economy as a whole from greenhouse gases (carbon), despite this being one of the most positive modern successes in a low-carbon economy context. CMD (talk) 02:01, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I am not planning to work on this but I did notice a possible source https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/10/we-cant-pretend-the-ecological-crisis-is-separate-the-economist-thinking-differently-about-climate-breakdown?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Chidgk1 (talk) 07:39, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, CMD, for these pointers. I might not have time in the near future to work on these aspects but I hope someone will. However, I wonder how we can avoid overlap with energy transition where the transition question is also a topic. With regards to the decoupling topic, thanks for pointing this out. I am unclear on how this could be addressed exactly but for now I have added a graph from OWID and added eco-economic decoupling under "See also" (that article needs work itself as well; see its last section which is unclear on whether decoupling is or is not possible; see also talk page). EMsmile (talk) 09:06, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

I just re-read the article and I feel it's still, frankly, awful.

I've managed to find one well-sourced definition, "The low carbon economy is defined as economic activities that deliver goods and services that generate significantly lower emissions of greenhouse gases; predominantly carbon dioxide."[3]. It is country-specific so I'm not sure how widely-accepted it is. A possible redirect target is Green economy which gets a lot of traffic but is currently also awful. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Good find although I don't think it's a great definition as it begs the question "lower than what"? Lower than the current status quo but by how much? See also my comments in the section below regarding the first sentence and how this is related to Global North and Global South issues.

Would you favour a merge and redirect to "Green economy"? I would be hesitant. I think low-carbon economy is specific to GHG emissions, whereas green economy is not. But I haven't read enough about green economy yet to know much about it. I agree with you that the green economy article is awful. - I've used Chat-GPT to get some inspiration about the similarities and differences of the two terms. I'll put that in a separate section below. EMsmile (talk) 10:04, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

P.S. I've added that definition from the UK Statistics Office now. Interestingly, their most recent release in 2021 doesn't include that definition anymore.EMsmile (talk) 10:39, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal for image collage for the lead

I've just added an image collage for the lead. As I didn't have much time, I opted to simply use the same image collage as for sustainable energy but replaced the fourth photo (cooking in Ethiopia) with the lead image from renewable energy. I'd be happy if others would like to suggest further improvements / tweaks / different images. Pinging User:RCraig09 because the lead image of renewable energy is from him so perhaps he's interested to comment here. EMsmile (talk) 11:48, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm ok with the present collage. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe a useful reference

I've taken this reference out from the first sentence but this publication could be useful as a source for elsewhere in this article: Under the different sectors: the relationship between low-carbon economic development, health and GDP EMsmile (talk) 16:55, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

First sentence and what is "low"?

I recently changed the first sentence to A low-carbon economy (LCE) or decarbonised economy is a concept for a desirable economy which has relatively low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per person.. Two thoughts here:

• I think it's important to stress that this is only a concept or goal but not an absolute thing.
• But then I wondered about what exactly do we mean with "low"? Is it GHGE per capita? But that would make almost every developing country a "low-carbon economy" country, wouldn't it? Think e.g. Kenya, Rwanda. Out of poverty the GHGE per person overall are low but the country overall still relies on fossil fuels.

Is the concept of low-carbon economy more of a Global North thing? We don't want countries to having to be poor to qualify for a low-carbon economy... I guess this comes back to the issue that I just mentioned above about the decoupling. See eco-economic decoupling. Who knows good references that we could use to explain this well? The link to the OWID article that CDM gave above could be a good starting point. EMsmile (talk) 09:12, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Possible merger with green economy

The question was raised above if this article might be better off merged into green economy. For brainstorming purposes, I copy below what Chapt-GPT provided when I asked it about the differences between the two terms:

+++++++++

The terms "green economy" and "low-carbon economy" are related concepts, but they focus on slightly different aspects of sustainability and environmental impact. Here's an overview of the key differences:

Green Economy:

• Broad Focus: The green economy is a more comprehensive and inclusive concept that encompasses a wide range of economic activities, products, and services that are environmentally sustainable.
• Beyond Carbon Emissions: While reducing carbon emissions is an important aspect, the green economy also considers other environmental factors such as biodiversity conservation, water and energy efficiency, waste reduction, and overall ecosystem health.
• Sustainable Development: The green economy is often associated with the idea of sustainable development, aiming to meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Low-Carbon Economy:

• Specific Focus: The low-carbon economy specifically targets the reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions associated with human activities.
• Climate Change Mitigation: The primary goal of a low-carbon economy is to mitigate climate change by minimizing the release of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.
• Transition from Fossil Fuels: Achieving a low-carbon economy often involves transitioning away from reliance on fossil fuels, which are major sources of carbon emissions, and adopting cleaner, renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydropower.

In summary, the green economy is a more comprehensive concept that considers various aspects of environmental sustainability, including but not limited to carbon emissions. On the other hand, the low-carbon economy specifically focuses on reducing carbon emissions to address the urgent issue of climate change. While there is overlap between the two concepts, the green economy provides a broader perspective on sustainable and environmentally friendly economic practices.

++++++

EMsmile (talk) 10:09, 17 January 2024 (UTC) Even so, the two concepts could be covered in the same article (similar to carbon offsets and credits but I am not yet sure if it would be beneficial to do so. Instead, one could rework it so that low-carbon economy is like a sub-article to green economy perhaps. But I wouldn't be totally opposed to a merger either. In any case, the green economy article ought to be improved, given it gets 400 pageviews per day, about 4 times as many as the low-carbon economy one. EMsmile (talk) 10:09, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Just a note that I'm taking this article off my watchlist for now. This article and Green economy need someone to review the literature, i.e. find the best sources and read them, to fully understand what the topic is. I can't be that person at the moment. If someone is (or becomes) knowledgeable about the topic I might be able to help with specific questions at that point. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:49, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to merge hydrogen economy into this article

The hydrogen economy article was created 20 years ago. At the time it was a good idea, but it is now obvious that the world economy will not become a hydrogen economy, and very unlikely that any national economy will become a hydrogen economy. However it is still possible that hydrogen will be part of a global or national low carbon economy. Therefore I propose this merge as a small step to help Wikipedia better represent the real world. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. We need a page to talk about the current and evolving role of hydrogen in the world. The Hydrogen economy article is currently that page. Merging it into Low carbon economy would require that the discussion of hydrogen be shrunk down so much that we'd have to leave out important information on a complex set of issues. I do agree with the sentiments behind this request though. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose After looking at both articles, I don’t agree a merger is a good idea, given their length, and in my view, encyclopedic importance. These are two different articles not suitable for merger. Jusdafax (talk) 02:45, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
• Undecided. Both articles are extremely short. How come the low-carbon economy article doesn't even mention hydrogen once? Isn't "low-carbon economy" the parent article for hydrogen economy? Or do we envision some kind of "zero carbon economy" article (or maybe it already exists but under a different name). Currently "zero carbon economy" redirects to here. I agree with User:Chidgk1 that the current situation is not ideal and needs improving. But not sure how much content about hydrogen would be WP:DUE in a "low-carbon economy" article? Should we mention this discussion on the WikiProject Climate Change talk page to alert more people to this? What could be other options to improve the "low-carbon economy" article? EMsmile (talk) 15:40, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

What's the way forward? Is the consensus not to merge? EMsmile (talk) 09:17, 17 April 2024 (UTC)