Buildings (residential and commercial) account for 10 to 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions, including almost 70% carbon dioxide and 25% methane.

Facilities emitting more than 100 000 tonnes of CO2 each year

Thousand million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year (1970-2004 period)

The data comes from national reports to UNFCCC. For developing countries (i. e. non-Annex I countries), data is either old or missing. To better reflect the truth, we chose to overlap 2000 data from IEA (dashed circles). Please note that the calculation methods are different. Data is for 2004, except * (1994) and dashed circles (2000). Only emissions above 40 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent are represented.

Global map about Biofuel production

About table03

Examples of GHG emission amounts generated by different activities or goods are scattered across the book in the form of proportional bubbles (in kilograms of CO2 equivalent).

Examples of GHG emission amounts generated by different activities or goods are scattered across the book in the form of proportional bubbles (in kilograms of CO2 equivalent).

Number of projects by host parties and Number of projects by investor parties

Phosphorus is naturally present in water, primarily as inorganic and organic phosphates. Phosphates can enter aquatic environments in several ways: from the natural weathering of minerals in the drainage basin, from biological decomposition, or as runoff from human activity in urban and agricultural areas. A comparison of the major watersheds between the two decades showed that northern Europe and North America had lower phosphate concentrations...

Water overuse is damaging the environment in many major basins. High overuse tends to occur in regions heavily dependent on irrigated agriculture, such as the Indo-Gangetic Plain in south Asia, the North China Plain and the High Plains of North America, and in areas undergoing rapid urbanization and industrial development. An estimated 1.4 billion people now live in river basin areas that are ‘closed’ (in that water use exceeds minimum recharge l...

It is estimated that water pollution denies close to 1.3 billion people (20% of the global population in 2000) access to clean water supplies. In 1986, WHO reported that there were 250 million new cases of waterborne diseases each year, causing the deaths of nearly 3.5 million people. An estimated 4.2 billion cases of waterborne diseases are reported each year, with diarrhoea accounting for 4 billion of the total (Cosgrove and Rijsberman, 2000; R...

A significant sea level rise is one of the major anticipated consequences of climate change. This will cause some low-lying coastal areas to become completely submerged, while others will increasingly face short-lived high-water levels. These anticipated changes could have a major impact on the lives of coastal populations. The small island developing states (SIDS) will be especially vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise, and to changes in ...

The supply of safe drinking water and the provision of sanitation are management issues that raise concerns about inequitable service provision, particularly in developing countries. Although several successful initiatives have been launched to supply safe drinking water to urban populations, efforts still fall short of the required targets for sustainable development. In developing countries water delivery systems are plagued by leakages, illega...

According to Population Action International, based upon the UN Medium Population Projections of 1998, more than 2.8 billion people in 48 countries will face water stress, or scarcity conditions by 2025. Of these countries, 40 are in West Asia, North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa. Over the next two decades, population increases and growing demands are projected to push all the West Asian countries into water scarcity conditions. By 2050, the numbe...

Population percentage increase by continent.

According to the medium hypothesis of the United Nations, a projection comparing the population in developed and undeveloped countries.

Three-quarters of the world’s fish stocks are currently exploited to the maximum extent, if not in excess (FAO, 2000). This exploitation has had the following impacts: - A growing variety of fishery products are being exploited. Commercial fishermen are targeting progressively smaller species at lower levels of the food chain because the main predator species are being depleted. - Most of the world’s main fishing areas are close to full exploit...

Environment water transport system. The water cycle consists of precipitation, vapour transport, evaporation, evapo-transpiration, infiltration, groundwater flow and runoff. Figure 1 explains the global water cycle, illustrating how nearly 577,000 km3 of water circulates through the cycle each year. A table of estimated residence times shows the approximate times that water resources exist as biospheric water, atmospheric water and so on. The w...

History shows that conflicts over water often emerge and give rise to political tensions, but that most disputes are resolved peacefully. However, the absence of conflict is, at best, only a partial indicator of the depth of cooperation. Measuring the level of conflict between governments over water is inherently difficult as water is seldom a stand-alone foreign policy issue. Oregon State University has attempted to compile data covering every r...