# Juridical national measures on climate change

This is a list of suggestions to neutralise countries' emissions by means of a set of nationally implementable laws. The suggestions were taken from the JNMOCC website. As can be seen in the index below, this first document covers the measures focused
* On climate change and economy
* On Increased Environmental Advantage
* On Globalisation and Increased Urban Efficiency
The second document focuses
* On Transport
* On Political Reform
* On Education Reform
One must keep in mind that this document (at least at present: August 2008) only reflects my own research and beliefs. As this document ages, it will be modified (which I encourage) by several other Wikipedians which will think along how the current problems in our society can be addressed. Once this has happened (in a few years or so), this document will reflect the position of many people.

## Main Measures (focused on climate change and economy
#### Objective 1

* To decrease 80% of global carbon and 40% of global methane emissions composed from:
** electricity generation (42% of global carbon and 40% of global methane emissions)
** transport (24% of global carbon emissions)
** residential and commercial sector (responsible for 14% of carbon emissions)
* To decrease health problems and associated expenses in healthcare
* To eliminate dependence on foreign countries for energy supply (oil, gas, coal, ...)
* To decrease the death toll global warming is causing (trough extreme weather effects and effects on food production)
Means
* By implementing a law that states that the use of coal, gas, fossil & non-2nd generation vegetable oil, non-2nd generation alcohols and non-2nd generation biomass is forbidden if it is intended to be used as a harnassable source of energy, trough it's incineration.
* To implement a law that states that the sale and possession of alkane, and liquified petroleum gases aswell as mixtures thereof, coal, fossil oil, non-2nd generation solid biomass, and non-2nd generation alcohols are forbidden.
* To implement a law that states that sale, construction, installation or possession of any machinery, device or structure that is to use coal, fossil gas, fossil oil, non-2nd generation vegetable oil, non-2nd generation alcohols or non-2nd generation solid biomass as an energy source is forbidden.
Gases that are emissionless regardless of their use (ie incineration) should be excepted from these rules. Such gases include biogas, hydrogen, oxyhydrogen, liquid nitrogen, nitrous oxide, syngas, nitric oxide, nitrogen trioxide, nitrogen pentoxide, and the 2 forms of nitrogen peroxide (nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen tetroxide). However, these gases are only to be considered emissionless if they are produced from constituents (ie N, O, H, ...) that were already in the atmosphere.
Sectors that should be excepted from these main rules include: the metal sector, research sector, and aviation sector (turbofan airplanes). Finally, the waste disposal and energy sector's power plants that run on polluting resources, yet are equipped with carbon dioxide storage should also be excluded if the carbon dioxide storage eliminates all emissions resulting from the electricity power plants operation, and if the plants themselves have been constructed before the suggestions have come in effect.
Note At the moment, no laws exist in any country that forbid the use of these polluting energy resources, aldough enough alternatives are present. This makes it possible that climate change is increased as people are free to use these energy sources in their current, unmodified machinery and even built and buy new ones ( e.g. energy companies are still building allot more coal-fired powerplants without carbon dioxide storage although it is extremely polluting). Besides this, without the law, environmental technology needs to compete with this polluting technology (and other environmental technology that is not too clean e.g. coal without carbon dioxide storage, internal combustion engines running on 1st generation vegetable fuels, ...).
At the moment, oil, coal, gas, alcohols (made from fossil fuels or non-2nd generation) can all be replaced by alternatives as nuclear, wind, hydro, marine, geothermal and solar power (which can already be seen by several countries and cities as GSEII, Dongtan, and Newcastle). Depending on the sector, different energy sources or systems are used to replace the above polluting energy sources.
For electricity generation: They can be replaced by power plants, build by electricity companies and consumers (see suggestion 2) and running on nuclear or renewable (wind, hydro, marine, geothermal, solar, biomass, biogas, waste) power. Biomass is only to be allowed if it can be proven that the crops (of which the biomass is derived) have indeed been grown in advance, specifically with the intent to gather the main produce (i.e. grains, …) and fuel the power plant with the waste plant parts (so any pre-existing crops can’t be harvested to fuel the power plant). Waste can also be used as an energy source for electricity generation, if the waste used is non-recyclable. Polluting power sources (ie coal, natural gas, …) are also an option when the powerplant is foreseen with carbon dioxide storage.
For transport: All internal combustion engines can be either converted to a emissionless fuel (hydrogen, oxyhydrogen, liquid nitrogen, 2nd generation alcohols or 2nd generation vegetable oils) or replaced by combustionless zero-emission engines which include electrical engines powered by batteries, fuel cells or flywheels (FES) and compressed air engines. Although hydrogen has been the most popularised fuel for transport, being already adopted by several countries ( e.g. Iceland, ...) for use in the future, allot more alternatives exist such as the mentioned 2nd generation alcohols and 2nd generation vegetable oils, oxyhydrogen, nitrous oxide, ... Switching to 2nd generation vegetable oils and alcohols is the most intresting option as vegetable oil is about 2x cheaper than fossil oils. In most cases (e.g. IC-engines), only very limited changes will need to be done for running on such alternative fuels and costs will hence be very limited. E.g. changing from direct to indirect injection for IC (Diesel) engines needs to be done to allow running on vegetable oils, limited changes on indirect injection gasoline engines (on the carburettor) need to be done to allow running on 2nd generation alcohols as ethanol and methanol (more changes need to be done with direct injection gasoline engines; more precisely on the ECU) and no changes at all need to be done with gasoline engines when you simply use biobutanol as the fuel). For certain people that have already switched to environmental engines (e.g. hybrid electric vehicles), the new change required will be even smaller as in this case, even less modifications are needed (eg convertion or merely disabling the fossil-fuel powered engine).
As the converted (emissionless) IC engines as well as the fuel-less engines can be used in all vehicles, everything can altered; from cars to boats as well as some airplanes (turbofan/jet propelled aircraft will not be able to be changed). As said, for boats the engines proposed can be used as primary replacement alternatives, but given the size of the vehicle some more alternatives than those proposed are available, namely passive wind power (trough sails, kites, turbosails/rotorsails, ...), nuclear power and other less common ways of energy production also used on the ground ( e.g. PV solar panels, ...). As said, besides sails, kites too are available for boats (trough companies as SkySails). Besides kites, nuclear marine propulsion is also being used (e.g. in the NS Savannah, Otto Hahn, Mutsu, ...). Finally, other ways of energy production will be used by new ships as the E/S Orcelle.
Finally, the number of vehicles that will need this (very moderate) change needs to be put into perspective as a large portion of them are already electrified ( e.g. trains, trams, trolleys, ...) or do not feature a polluting engine at all (human/animal powered vehicles as bicycles, sailboats, rowboats, ...).
For residential and commercial sector: Heating of rooms, heating of water, and cooking can all be done by their electrical variants (electrical boilers, electrical radiators/convectors/heat pumps, and electric stoves). Conventional (non-electric) heaters can also be used, when they use 2nd generation biofuels. The required electricity can be gathered from the described power plants running on nuclear or renewable power.
For a small part of of the electrical equipment (especially heating of rooms) more energy may be needed than before. However as this electricity would be entirely clean this added extra energy need would be of no importance, and for these devices too when compared it would be seen that allot of pollution/GHG-gases would be avoided of being released than would otherwise be the case. If however the owner wishes to decrease his energy usage as well despite the fact that it does not really matter, this would also be possible and well combinable with electrical equipment. In the case of the heating of water and rooms for example, respectively by a solar thermal collector and home generation of electricity (trough e.g. a small windmill together with an energy storage device) can be used. Also, for cooking solar cookers may be used to some extent (depending on the local climate). Again, besides being environmental, economic gain can be achieved with these devices as the price of electricity from companies is generally higher than if you make it yourself.
Changing the economy to work on these power sources is needed anyhow as the current Western type oil-economy is producing way too much greenhouse gases to be sustainable. In fact, by 2050 countries will globally need to halve their carbon emissions to keep climate change within a safety margin. If this does not happen, an even much higher economic and ecological cost will result than that what will already be the case (at least 5% of GDP is the minimal cost when this margin is respected). Given the fact that we will need to to change our economy anyway to a more sustainable one, a complete withdrawal from gas, coal, oil, and wood might be invoked instead.
Besides being cheaper the sooner we change (5-20x the cost), and even being cheaper in operation, there are also other advantages. Changing to these energy sources has the advantages of not weakening the domestic economy by transferring our money abroad and also has the advantage of increased energy security (as the energy does not need to be gathered from the other countries).
Because of the fact that by using polluting resources as oil, gas, coal, ... we let our energy security depend on oil producing countries as Iran, Irak, Venezuela, Russia, ... in this regard too, it would be better to change to widely available renewable resources.
Finally, ethicaly seen should the polluting energy sources be abandoned as they are causing health problems with the domestic population and because of the indirect negative consequences they have on agriculture and severe weather (which is causing the death of thousands of people).

#### Objective 2

* To aid in the set-up of the described non-polluting technologies (modifications of , and when not possible, new devices/machines) for energy production, transport and domestic/commercial use.
Means
* By implementing a one time money collection (trough taxes, ...) and transferring the money to energy companies so they can build timely, sufficient replacement energy plants on nuclear power and renewable energy. The money induced by the countries' inhabitants can afterwards be recovered by lower energy prices (depending on the energy sources used).
-OR-
* By implementing a law that states that each private person, or company has in the first place the obligation to generate his own power, by means of a renewable and constant power source. It is only when the company or person is not capable of doing so, that he/it can opt to buy power from electricity companies.
* By implementing a law that states that the electricity generation source for private persons and companies needs to be chosen in descending order from the least polluting electricity production source to the most polluting, depending on price and local circumstances.
Note
These suggestions should only be applied when they are needed, in most cases the electricity companies themselves will probably have enough resources and expertise to modify their powerplants and private people/companies will probably also be able to implement the changes, so that this preposition will not need to be executed.
For people that are not financially capable of changing (which would be only a very small part of the inhabitants) to a zero-emission engine and other electrical devices/machinery, the price advantage of the use of this electrical/zero-emission equipment can be used to repay an innitial loan ( e.g. by the state). As such people will be able to change, and even save more money after the downpayments have been done. Also, to decrease the price of the initial procurement of some of the environmental technology described ( e.g. solar thermal collector), do-it-yourself information-provisioning may be extended (e.g. via internet) and workshops/kits can be set-up/made available.
In countries where reliable energy companies reside and where the electricity lines are maintained and set-up correctly, the first suggestion can be chosen to allow decrease global warming and pollution timely. Depending on how it is handled, this first system could be more cost-effective and does not require inhabitants to put matters into their own hands.
In countries where no reliable energy system is set-up beforehand, the second suggestion should be followed. Depending on how things are handled, it might be more expensive and requires inhabitants to put matters into their own hands; however when there are no aduquate energy provisions present, it is the only way how matters can be handled efficiently.
For the second suggestion, the way how this is done can be chosen freely. Private people can do so on their own (trough a rechargable battery, flywheel energy storage (FES) or compressed air tank, powered by a solar panel, small windmill or small waterturbine) or they can join groups of people to pay for bigger power generation plants ( e.g. big windmills and waterturbines). Any surplus energy that is generated by a private person/company can be can be redistributed on the net (trough net-metering) which ensures that all generated energy is used optimally and also makes the system more financially attractive for private persons and companies .
The extra power supply generated should be more than sufficient to bridge the gap that will occur by putting the polluting power plants of electricity companies out of commission. As a similar system is also used by the ecocity of Dongtan, there should be no problems.
The electricity companies will keep providing the backbone of the energy system with nuclear and renewable power. Besides electricity production, the electricity companies can also keep taking care of the maintenance of power lines and distribution of leftover power by consumers, and monitor the electricity use (so it can be checked whether the consumer obeys the law, and fined when not following it).
This method, has several advantages over the traditional way of a power production generated solely by electricity companies:
* it allows countries to quickly change their energy production to become near-emissionless, as set up of power plants by the public can happen near-instantanious. This because the installation of a small powerplant can be done much faster than a large powerplant and together, the public has much more capital to invest in this energy production. The latter would also fasten the set-up as no time needs to be spend on gathering the money
* as no polluting electricity generation plants can be used (see suggestion 1), it would not only help to clean up power production faster, but also make the power production renewable. Renewable energy, as opposed to nuclear energy and the polluting coal, fossil oil, gas, ... is infinite
* given the huge increase in quantity of the energy production plants, and less dependence on the connecting electricity grid, there is also an increase in energy security. This is helpful as the electricity grids in Europe and the USA is becoming of age-and over the last decade, there have been more and more reported cases of malfunctioning and power outtages.
* it allows for much more efficient energy usage as less power is lost trough long power lines and their resulting great electric resistance
* The order of the degree of pollution of the energy sources can be determined trough the POST-report, and information from the company that supplied the energy source.

#### Objective 3

* To decrease emissions from waste management, responsable for 31% of global methane emissions.
* To decrease costs in waste management.
* To decrease pressure on the environment.
Means
* To implement a law that states that products that contain fossil oil-derivates or other non-degradable materials whenever alternatives can be used instead, are forbidden of being sold (banning to be done only after careful, case-by-case evaluation).
* To implement a law that states that companies should try to align their products to the cradle-to-cradle design system and opt for natural alternatives, whenever possible.
* To implement a law that forbids the burying of non-biodegredable waste in waste disposal without a preceding waste treatment.
* To implement a law that forbids the storing of unpolluted biodegradable waste (e.g. from biodegradable municipal waste) at waste disposal sites, and transferring it to compostation factories instead.
* To implement a law that states that the waste disposal sector should adapt to the cradle to cradle concept, so that it's full potential can be attained (zero waste).
Note By implementing this law, we be able to save on costs on waste management, and decrease its emissions. Besides this, companies can save allot themselves, dumping of garbage is limited. Furthermore, if we want to stop using fossil oil, all byproducts made from fossil oil ( e.g. plastics, food additives, ...) will need to be replaced too. Like some of the other suggestions, the cradle-to-cradle system proposed is sturdy and will not give any problem in even the least developed countries. Especially in the developing world, wandering garbage will be reduced to a minimum so that clean-up costs, disease outbreak, ... will be reduced to a minimum. Finally, a cradle-to-cradle design system is already implemented in China (Circular Economy) and here it has already proven its value.
At the moment, companies can, in most cases, already opt for alternatives. Examples are:
* motor oil can also be created from other origins (plants)
* instead of making plastics from (fossil) oil, bioplastics (polylactate) and where possible, natural alternatives as rubber
* enough alternatives are already present to replace any harmful materials used in construction (e.g. certain insulation materials)
* asphalt can be replaced by concrete for road building
* glucose and food additives can already be supplied by the white biotechnology-sector
* vitamins and antibiotics can also be supplied by the red biotechnology sector
At the moment, almost all petrochemical products can already be replaced by products made by the white, red and green biotechnology-sectors, combined with natural products (e.g. rubber, sisal, hemp, jute, climatex, ...). Products ( e.g. oils, ...) derived from plants has the advantage that it contributes far less to global warming, when compared to fossil oil.
In regards to cradle-to-cradle housing, there should be no problem in achieving this as most common houses are already set-up fairly less polluting ( e.g. most houses are made from stone or wood, ...), and only some certain materials may need to be replaced (e.g. insolation materials). In less urbanized zones however, biodegradable housing may be used to also offer environmental protection (fauna & flora); especially as, because of the proposed population control less houses and urbanized areas will be needed anyhow and can be cleared (very gradually) to attain maximum advantage for the environment. As already mentioned this can be accomplished by wooden (light-frame) housing, already present in the USA, Canada, ... aswell as other natural building techniques as straw-bale construction, earth-sheltering, ... Finally, MBDC (and to some degree EarthShip BioTecture too) has already created such biodegradable housing. Complementary (dough not obligatory) to this biodegradable housing, the house lay-out, ... can be improved with the construction of new houses so that the costs of the buildings operation can be lowered and pollution (from energy use) can be lowered still. This can be done by promoting low-energy house construction ( e.g. the passivhaus standard) for new (and some existing) buildings. This suggestion would primarily serve to make the environmental measures proposed more popular, as the lower costs of operation would be far greater than the decrease in pollution. Please note that this suggestion is mostly intented for the western world as in the developing world (most of them located in the tropical or subtropical climate zones), the advantage of these houses is heavily diminished. This, as it focuses on decreasing heat loss, which is unneccessairy in these tropical or subtropical belts. Instead, in the tropical/subtropical regions, some mere low-cost solutions may be extra implemented, when this proves necessairy (e.g. when airconditioning is being over-used to compensate bad house construction). Even still these solutions needed would be very limited and only require implementations as house whitening (or zebra-striping), passive ventilation, ...
The measures the waste disposal sector need to take generally includes recycling metals and other certain material seperatly. Besides using different materials (including a high percentage biodegradable material aswell as metals), and seperating the materials more, the materials that can be completely or atleast heavily recycled ( e.g. glass, paper, ...) should be recycled to the highest extent possible. The seperation of materials can, unlike in the past can be done efficiently with the cradle-to-cradle system as cradle-to-cradle products are manufactured at such method that the different materials can very quickly and easily be disassembled (often even without any tools). Recycling together with certain other methods as incineration, compostation, materials recovery, reparing and return of broken products to the companies that created them ( e.g. Nike and its ReUse-A-Shoe program, ...) would even allow to completely eradicate the need of any landfills (zero-waste).
To decrease the extra needed effort that will need to be made in seperating the materials, besides seperation at the landfill/disposal sites themselves, private persons themselves can already do allot of the work by already (partially) seperating their (municipal) waste. If efficient municipal solid waste collection systems are implemented in the city (e.g. vacuum-based collection via the Envac-system), this extra effort that would otherwise need to be taken by increased sorting can be nullified.
What's more, the landfills created in the past can be regarded as an easy and valuable source of materials ( e.g. ferrous materials and other recyclable material, that is high in density and relatively easy to retrieve), aswell as a valuable source of energy (e.g. organic materials that are usable as a fuel, methane gases, ...) and can be reintroduced into the economy by making use of existing technologies as Materials Recovery Facility's and Waste-to-Energy Plants. This feature combined with natural occuring compostation and perhaps incineration of any leftover material (preferably using carbon dioxide storage) can allow previous landfill sites to be completely cleaned up, while benefitting he local economy. Examples of companies who can accomplish this are for example Green Power Inc. and Alphakat. Aldough fossil fuels are to be banned from being sold to the regular public, the fossils fuels these plants produce would be used merely in the beginning of the transition process and would only be used in (government) installations in which it is combined with underground carbon dioxide storage.
The cradle-to-cradle design plan for products will have as a result that allot of products, as they will be organic, will no longer need to be treated by incineration, ... yet will still need to composted. This can be done by the regular waste disposal or it can be left to private composting companies which can, when composted, return the nutrients back into the society by spreading it over land used in agriculture. This would again offer economic benefits to the society as this material too makes good fertiliser.

#### Objective 4

* To decrease carbon and methane emissions from electricity generation, by lowering the energy use.
* To decrease costs in most sectors.
* To speed up transportation.
Means
* By implementing a law that states that all new roads, houses, electricity, and waterlines that need to be constructed should be set up in a grid plan (preferably cube-shaped).
Note By standardisation of waterlines, house, road construction and electricity grids, huge amounts of costs and energy can be saved, as it affects all sectors. At the moment both in the developed and undeveloped countries, no standardisation for these are present (aldough better city designs are present in some cities as New York City, Philadelphia, Lisbon, ...). This means a.e. that :
* trough the erratic shape of the roads, no efficient traffic flow is possible, provoking traffic jams and slowering the speed of delivery for goods, ...
* for houses, allot of energy is wasted trough heat loss as the surface cover is greater
* for the watertransportation, the erratic city grid also influences its efficiency at a negative manner
* the electricity grid's erratic shape and resulting longer power lines increase the amount of electric resistance, which is part of the reason why 4x more energy is needed in today's power scheme to transport the energy over the network
It is clear that trough inefficient city design, lots more energy need to be generated and climate change is increased. However, as only the manner on which electricity is generated (coal, oil & gas power plants) contribute the most to global warming, this added power loss is still of small importance for climate change when put into perspective. Instead, encouraging change on the above matter would make our climate change mitigation suggestions more popular as no one likes the annoyances (traffic jams, expensive energy/watt, ...) associated with the inefficient city design. As it has been proven in the past ( e.g. Lisbon) that even old cities not complying to the grid system can be altered efficiently over time, the West could gradually start to alter its urban planning. In the less-developed world however, as allot of cities still need to be created/expanded here they may inmediatly start to implement them in their new structures and save energy, cut back annoyances, ... easily.
The watertransportation system may also be improved by eliminating the use of watertowers. Instead, the piping itself can be pressurized. Extra waterreserves can be build by using regular reservoirs, supplemented with pressurized underground cisterns.

#### Objective 5

* To increase the wealth, and wages of the people and decrease costs of consumer goods.
* To decrease health problems ans associated expenses in healthcare.
* To decrease stress on the environment in general.
* To eliminate the extra greenhouse gases (up to 50%) sure to be emitted as the population is growing.
Means
* To implement population control (targeting a population number of 2 billion people)
Note The extra greenhouse gases would, by 2050 double. Growth of the population would eliminate our previous work done on mitigating climate change. For this reason and because of the fact that current population levels need to be lowered anyhow (as they are unsustainable; not only on climate change but on the decline of biodiversity, pollution, diminishing resources, ...).
If we decide to decrease the size of the population rather than slow down or stop it, we can not only stop the increase of greenhouse gases, but also decrease present greenhouse gas levels. Besides the advantage for the environment, trough this birth control, the population would also become richer and wages would rise (which would also make our suggestion more popular), costs on healthcare would decrease, risk of pandamics lessen, less strain would be put on the environment, and inflation could drop ( e.g. price of food drops, ...). Similiar measures have already been taken by the P.R. of China since 1979 (One Child Policy), and therefore the method is proven to work.
Together with the birth control, eugenics may be used which would physically strengthen the population, making them healthier, more resistant or immune to diseases, and as such more productive. Especially in the developing world, where people are subjected to a physically harder life, where certain untreatable diseases ( e.g. malaria, HIV AIDS, ...) are prevailent and where not everyone is always vaccinated against the treatable ones (yellow fever, polio, ...), eugenics would ease their life substantially.
In order to achieve a sustainable economy that has all the above advantages, the exact population number to be targeted, should probably be around 2 billion people (1900-1950 pop. level). This, based on WWF's Living Planet report that states that if we all want to live with a high degree of luxury (European standards), we would be spending 3x more than what the planet can supply. This number would offcourse not be spread evenly, but instead the demographics charts of 1900-1950 could be used to determine the rate of decreasement needed per country, and region. I rest assured that country leaders (and their inhabitants) can be persuaded to decrease their population rate, given the many advantages. What's more, the (poor) countries that will need to decrease their population rate the most, will also see the most financial retribution. To convince the developed countries, their commitment to the Millenium Development Goals can be used in our advantage, for if they wish to keep them the industrialised countries too will need to lower their population number. Finally, it is a measure that can be implemented inmediatly, by all countries including the most undeveloped (as it is a low-tech solution) and could ensure a very big decrease in greenhouse gases.

#### Objective 6

* To neutralise all emitted anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
Means
* By preparing a protocol that commits participating countries to neutralise all their emitted greenhouse gases, induced by human activity and emitted between 1860 and the current year + greenhouse gases spontanuously emitted trough the effects of climate change ( e.g. methane emissions trough defrosting of permafrost, ...).
Note The Kyoto-protocol was designed as a way to stop the worst effects of global warming from happening. As it is unable to stop or revert climate change, we will need a new protocol. This new protocol is needed as the current Kyoto-protocol is too weak (50% reduction is needed by 2050, which will not be attained by the Kyoto-protocol), and is not balanced fairly in terms of what certain countries have generated and are still generating in terms of GHG-gases and what measures they need only to take ( e.g. the industrialised countries have been and are generating the bulk of the gases yet only need to take more or less the same measures than the developing ones). A new protocol can level this by stating that all emitted anthropogenic GHG gases (thus emitted in the past and the current amount of GHG-gases) should be mitigated. This should be done only by methods that really absorb the gases, as the other methods described in Kyoto's flexible mechanisms (CDM/JI/ET) will no longer have any use (preposition 1 would already forbid all polluting energy production, so that there is no point in supporting environmental friendly energy production, which would become mainstream).
Although the first suggestion already decreases emissions by 80%, a complete mitigation is needed if we intent to create a sustainable society. As we can not eliminate all production of GHG-gases (sectors as manufacturing, agriculture, ... cannot go without), a protocol to mitigate the remaining 20% is needed.
Normally, all of the countries' oil usage, rates of deforestation, ... are known and calculating this should be no problem. The country can use this information to tax its inhabitants (average price), and companies (depending on the amount of emissions generated and their nature (GWP-value)). This revenue can then be used to neutralise the countries' emissions by tree plantations.
The location of tree plantations should be determined based on the vegetation (as how it was in 1900), and cost of the project/hectare. Particularly in developing countries, can very cost-effective plantations be set up ( e.g. Sahel-area, ...). The protocol could also be used to revert the natural vegetation and ecosystems by planting indigenous vegetation and mimicking the conditions of site as how it was in the 1900's. To support this using indigenous species to the particular site as well as a minimum number of tree-species/ha can be made obligatory. With this protocol it should be possible to replant the number of forests that were present a few hundred years ago, since the amount of co2 to be stored by the protocol would be as high and possibly even higher than what is needed for this. Besides the economic aspect, it would also be possible to do so practically as according to a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the decline in woodlands would be reversed in 30 years, even without this extra funding.
To benefit the local population and possibly increase the financial profits, the plantations could also provide energy trough power plants running on the wood coming from the plantation site (biomass), as described in suggestion 1.
In addition, tree plantations, as they alter the local climate, would also provide (in some cases) the planting of certain foodcrops where before this would not be possible (e.g. in arid environments, trees can increase water availability, ...) and could hereby financially support the local population. To address any problems with soil nutrition that might introduce itself, the suggested system of nutrient recycling (in a closed loop system) may be used.
Finally, there are already enough ways how companies can lower their emissions (and taxes).
For farms, these include:
* techniques as manure application, management of nitrogen fertilization, reduced tillage systems, ...
* changing to other animals, or crops that are less carbon intensive (wheat instead of corn, ...)
For factories, they include:
* underground carbon dioxide storage
* carbon dioxide storage in seawater
In some cases, farms will however need to switch to alternative crops/cattle. This as certain crops/cattle may become less profitable, given as the extra expendatures on the GHG-emissions. However, this switch may only be required in very specific cases , and the switch itself can be very limited ( e.g. wheat instead of crops). As a result, very little investments or modifications to the machinery is required. If the government decides to also direct the attention on healthier food (e.g. by promoting vegetarian and macrobiotic cuisine, ... and besides these diets also promotes replacement foodproducts ( e.g. soy milk instead of plain milk, ...), than the farmer's switch to these different crops will be assisted (and in some specific cases, the farmers will get higher returns). This as demand for these environmental foods, proposed in vegetarism, macrobiotics, ... and now grown by farmers will increase. Also, promoting these diets will result in extra savings/profits as certain diseases (obesity, certain intestinal cancers) will decrease and thus health expendatures are decreased and economic productivity is increased.
Besides promoting diets that discourage (excessive) meat consumption, it may also be advisable to relook and update the government's agricultural subsidies (especially on meat production / cattle rearing). As the government should be seen as to sponsor certain types of high-carbon farming ( e.g. cattle rearing), these subsidies may be lowered or removed.
Given the above measures, the now common meat production will heavily decrease (however, for those willing to pay an extra price for meat produced at this way it will still be possible to obtain whilest having all gases in its production mitigated). For those people however that want to continue eating meat, at affordable prices, yet hereby accepting another way of production, solutions exist. These meat substitutes include first of all meat produced from algae, fungi or soy (brand names respectively valess, quorn, tivall/vivera, ...).Besides this, meat can also be produced industrially from animal cells, something which is already happening ( e.g. by a coalition between Stegeman and the universities of Eindhoven, Utrecht and Amsterdam).