Carbon Crisis

Carbon is a basic element of life on Earth. It is the most abundant
element, one on which many life systems depend, and a primary
source of energy (fossil fuels). Today carbon is in huge turmoil—
humans are on their way to creating a global carbon crisis. Eons of
stable transformation and retransformation of carbon on Earth are
now being destabilized by anthropogenic activities. Large humanpopulations, their habitats, production and consumption processes
are leading to a significant overuse of the element carbon. Excessive
use of non-renewable, carbon-based fuels has caused excessive emissions
of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere.
The phenomenon of high crude oil and gas prices coupled with the
prevailing public and scientific debate about climate change have onething in common: both center on carbon. Despite carbon abundance
in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, there are limited resources
of it in its useable form for fossil fuels. In other words, carbon is
accumulating in the wrong forms and in the wrong place. Historically,
carbon naturally accumulated in the ground in great quantities
over geologic timescales; now, however, this quantity is beingtransferred to the atmosphere in a comparatively short time period.
This ongoing process has accelerated, and as such contributes to the
1 The two sides of the carbon coin  7
emergence of a new industrial crisis (Shrivastava et al. 1988): the
global carbon crisis.
Overcoming the dependency on fossil fuels and significantly reducing
greenhouse gas emissions has been recognized as one of themajor challenges of the 21st century. However, global energy consumption
continues to expand. A United Nations (UN 2007) report
estimates that there has been an increase of 20 percent since 1990.
Although progress has been achieved in developing and using cleaner
energy technologies, the majority of current energy sources remain
carbon-based. The amount of fossil-fuel-based energyconsumption
dropped in OECD countries from 94 percent in 1960 to 81 percent
in 2009, while at the same time the total energy use almost tripled.1
Today, energy from established renewable energy sources, such as
hydropower and biofuels, accounts for only about 12 percent of total
energy consumption, whereas newer technologies relying on wind,
solar, wave, and geothermal energy account for only 0.5percent of
total energy consumption (UN 2007). Nevertheless, it is particularly
important to recognize the possible strategies at hand in order to
prevent a full-blown carbon crisis, as was the case with the global
financial crisis; thus it is important to start managing carbon strategically
and with foresight. This holds for policy makers and firms, as
well as individual consumers—everyone hashis or her stake in the
emerging global carbon crisis.
This book stresses the role of firms and industrial production processes
in the context of the carbon crisis. Both entities represent a
fundamental portion of the carbon dilemma while simultaneously
are most affected by its emerging constraints. We argue that managers
need to be aware of the relevance of an emerging carbon crisis
fortheir business environment and that proactive responses to this
crisis are urgently required, from a business standpoint (Lovins et al.
2005; Stern 2006) as well as in terms of social responsibility (UNDP
2007). Notably, we stress that climate change and dependency on
fossil fuels are related business topics that need to be managed
1 World Development Indicators: data.worldbank.org/indicator(accessed
February 17, 2011). In 1960 the OECD countries’ energy use was about
1,924 million tons of oil equivalent; in 2009 this was about 5,230 million
tons, which corresponds to an increase of 172 percent.
8 The Global Carbon Crisis
simultaneously. When intensifying efforts to prevent a potential climate
collapse, the adverse effects stemming from mismanaging fossil
fuels can be...