COP17 Set to Begin this Month in Durban, South Africa

COP17 (The Conference of the Parties) is set to take place this month in Durban, South Africa from November 28 to December 9, 2011. This will be the seventh meeting since the Kyoto Protocol entered in to effect in February 2005. COP17 is a meeting of the countries who ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The commitment made to the Kyoto Protocol by the involved states is that there will be an average of a five percent reduction in the green house gasses (GHG) from 2008-2012 compared to that of 1990.

There are many ways these countries can reduce green house gas emissions. Techniques used to meet the Kyoto Protocol range anywhere from optimizing logistical operations to retrofitting facilities and equipment. A large portion of this carbon reduction will come from major corporations. Last month Coca-Cola earned the highest score ever given for carbon reduction efforts from The Carbon Trust. Coca-Cola earned this award by redesigning many different aspects of the company to become more energy efficient. Their first step was to install energy monitoring systems in their manufacturing plants, which resulted in an 11.25 percent reduction in energy use since 2007. They have also updated their trucking fleet to 14 heavy goods trucks that burn biomethane which emits 65 percent less carbon gas than Diesel. However, the two most important “green” strategies that they have incorporated are (a) updating their logistics therefore using less truck deliveries and (b) installing LED lighting in 23,000 machines. Their switch from fluorescent lighting to LED’s allowed those machines to run 80 percent more efficiently. For more information on Coke's energy efficient solutions please click here.

Currently the United States has no intention to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The United States emitted 6,576 million metric tones of carbon dioxide in 2009. In the future, major corporations such as Coca-Cola will be essential to reducing our national carbon footprint. Steps toward global energy efficiency will be a central topic at COP17.