“Carbon Positive” Cities?
"Our carbon language is very confusing. We hear, 'I'm negative carbon,' but that's a positive. We've demonized carbon. Poor little carbon. It was innocent, but now it's a demon... We also hear 'net zero.' You can release so much carbon and do so much renewable power and you're net zero. That's insane--you're comparing physics and chemistry; you're putting electrons in the same chart as molecules... You could double the carbon and double the renewable, and you're still net zero when you've just released twice as much carbon! Zero as a goal is kind of funny. You don't go home to your children and say, My goal is nothing ... and I'll try to be less bad.... Carbon is an asset when used properly."
That's what renowned architect and product designer William McDonough told climate-action leaders from 17 global cities, during a late 2016 international exchange sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies and designed by INC and Meister Consulting Group. At about the same time McDonough published his thoughts online in "A New Language for Carbon," a short essay that sought to straighten things out.
"The world’s current carbon strategy aims to promote a goal of zero," McDonough noted. "Predominant language currently includes words such as 'low carbon,' 'zero carbon,' 'negative carbon,' and even a 'war on carbon.' The design world needs values-based language that reflects a safe, healthy and just world. In this new paradigm, by building urban food systems and cultivating closed-loop flows of carbon nutrients, carbon can be recognized as an asset rather than a toxin, and the life-giving carbon cycle can become a model for human designs."
McDonough's alternative language identifies three types of carbon:
- Living carbon: organic, flowing in biological cycles, providing fresh food, healthy forests and fertile soil; something we want to cultivate and grow
- Durable carbon: locked in stable solids such as coal and limestone or recyclable polymers that are used and reused; ranges from reusable fibers like paper and cloth, to building and infrastructure elements that can last for generations and then be reused
- Fugitive carbon: has ended up somewhere unwanted and can be toxic; includes carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, ‘waste to energy’ plants, methane leaks, deforestation, much industrial agriculture and urban development
And he offers three carbon-management strategies:
- Carbon positive: actions converting atmospheric carbon to forms that enhance soil nutrition or to durable forms such as polymers and solid aggregates; also recycling of carbon into nutrients from organic materials, food waste, compostable polymers and sewers
- Carbon neutral: actions that transform or maintain carbon in durable Earth-bound forms and cycles across generations; or renewable energy such as solar, wind and hydropower that do not release carbon
- Carbon negative: actions that pollute the land, water and atmosphere with various forms of carbon, for example, CO2 and methane into the atmosphere or plastics in the ocean.
The point, McDonough concludes, is to "work toward a Carbon Positive design framework." In this proposed language, cities' carbon-reduction approaches can be understood as using all three strategies. They seek to reduce Carbon Negative actions, while increasing Carbon Neutral and Carbon Positive actions.
What McDonough's framework seems to suggest is that a city's goal should be to become Carbon Positive and Carbon Neutral, and over time the balance of its actions would shift away from reducing Carbon Negative actions and toward promoting Carbon Positive and Negative actions. The Carbon Positive city is what might be called a Carbon Circular City -- intentionally moving carbon from toxic forms (in the atmosphere) into harmless and usable forms.
In this language, "carbon neutrality," a goal many cities aspire to, is not enough.
