Carbon Footprint Associated with Firewood Consumption in Northeast Brazil: An Analysis by the IPCC 2013 GWP 100y Criterion

• Published in: Waste and biomass valorization Vol. 10; no. 10; pp. 2985 - 2993
• Main Authors: Coelho Junior, Luiz Moreira, de Lourdes da Costa Martins, Kalyne, Carvalho, Monica
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.10.2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Burning; Carbon; Carbon dioxide; Carbon footprint; Climate change; Climate change mitigation; Consumption; Engineering; Environment; Environmental assessment; Environmental Engineering/Biotechnology; Environmental impact assessment; Footprint analysis; Harvesting; Industrial Pollution Prevention; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Life cycle analysis; Life cycle assessment; Life cycles; Original Paper; Renewable and Green Energy; Silviculture; Waste Management/Waste Technology; Brazil; Life cycle assessment; Bioenergy; Firewood; Wood fuel; Forest biomass; Carbon footprint
• ISSN: 1877-2641; 1877-265X
• DOI: 10.1007/s12649-018-0282-1

Firewood is commonly used in developing regions, mainly as a primary energy source. This study quantified and analyzed the carbon footprint associated with firewood consumption in the Brazilian Northeast. The Life Cycle Assessment methodology was applied, using the IPCC GWP 100y environmental impact assessment method and EcoInvent database, within software SimaPro. Forest product harvesting (extractivism) and silviculture were compared from available data (1994 and 2013). The results revealed that the burning of firewood from extractivism presented a higher carbon footprint than silviculture: 16 versus 10 kg CO 2 -eq/m 3 , respectively. The Rio Grande do Norte state presented the highest carbon footprint per area associated with extractivism and silviculture, for the year 1994. Considering the most recent available 2013 data, the highest carbon footprints per area associated with extractivism and silviculture were, respectively, for the Ceará and Bahia states. Quantification of carbon footprints are crucial to monitor progress in climate change mitigation, and can be utilized to build inventories, which are important for policy formulation and implementation.