Can the blockchain assist with environmental management to the point where we reverse the damage that human activities have caused?
Well, let us see how these folks are monetizing international carbon credits on the blockchain to incentivize competition with fossil fuels!...
What is the pain point?
All of us are busy doing one form of environmental degradation or another, either through direct activity or procurement of environmental hazards.
Through these activities, we are polluting the air, water, and land.
We are cutting trees to build homes without any planting replenishments.
This has not only led to a loss of biodiversity, rising sea levels and melting Arctic ice at the poles but also hitherto untold high levels of flooding, droughts, landslides and other natural calamities.
The Arctic permafrost contains about 180 trillion metric tonnes of carbon which, when it thaws, will enter the atmosphere and triple the carbon concentrations in the air with devastating effects.
Mother nature complains bitterly and often fatally about this wanton destruction of her balance.
Species are disappearing through extinction every day.
We are starting to see unrest and disruption of world peace which can be attributed directly to this phenomenon as world populations start to jostle for the few remaining resources.
Controlling the world temperatures to a rise of only 2°C by the year 2100 is now just a mirage.
Scientists predict that we will soon reach the environmental tipping point.
From there, nothing we do will ever give us back our planet the way it was intended to be to support life.
Until we rise and do something about it.
And most of us are not helping matters…
As much as we would like to feel that we are using green energy, the existing solutions are more expensive than fossil fuel energy.
We also tend to think that our contributions are insignificant from a global perspective, in a typical mob psychology fashion!
Current efforts
It is not that we are not trying to salvage the situation. The following are current efforts at mitigating adverse environmental challenges;
Renewable Energy
Renewable energy sources, which include hydroelectric, wind and solar power are some of the current efforts to help minimize fossil fuel energy.
However, they are supremely expensive to establish and carry high capital recovery charges to consumers.
They are also much slower than the damage they are intended to stem.
Now, Let the questions flow.
1. Who is the Zero Carbon Project?
With 30 energy market experts who are heavily vested in the energy innovation and tackling global climate change, a company called The Beond Group has founded the Zero Carbon Project as a subsidiary.
Headed by Derek Myers, the group is already working with 600 energy consumers from the UK, and they include big names like Knight Frank and the salvation army.
2. Is there any work that the team has already accomplished?
The project has been underway for the last one year.
Activities have revolved around building the development team, completing the project’s systems and designing the smart contracts that will run the ecosystem.
Already, the UK consumers are benefitting from the model, and once the platform is ready, the team is looking to create nationwide partnerships with UK enterprises to embrace the blockchain as a platform to buy and sell carbon credits before going global.
3. What is the opportunity they bring about improving the environment?
The Carbon Credits
Without going into much detail, developed countries are allocated carbon credits to run Green House Gas emitting enterprises. They, in turn, allocate the credits to the ‘operators’ who do the actual emission in their economies.
A credit is a permission certificate to emit a tonne of carbon or carbon equivalent to the atmosphere. It can be earned through verified green activities, allocated by a government or purchased from the open market.
Internationally, credits are purchased from countries who have excess credits or from operators and governments with real environmental initiatives who earn them through validated environment enhancement projects like afforestation or avoidance of fossil fuels.
Innovative energy providers can, therefore, earn these credits and sell them in the open market.
By assigning a monetary value to gas emissions, it is possible to incentivize the emergence of a green revolution and save the planet.
The Zero Carbon Market
A quicker way of exciting consumer action is proposed by the project.
The concept involves bringing green energy providers to a blockchain market and allowing consumers to choose the energy solutions that are presented.
This choice will mainly be based on cost in comparison to the existing fossil fuel or green energy solutions that the consumer is already using.
Suppliers will prove to the blockchain that they are validated and verified using the guidelines developed in the Kyoto Protocol.
Contracts will then be drawn off-chain, and customers will gain the Energis token, which runs the blockchain, in several ways.
Energis will be the only payment method for fees in the ecosystem.
4. How do consumers get the Energis Token?
Energis can be acquired through the initial private and public sales that are happening in the first two quarters of 2018.
Consumers will also be able to acquire tokens when they register as consumers, when they refer other consumers, and when they consume energy generated through contracts that originates from the ecosystem.
They also get rewards when they are nominated by other users.
Users will have to sell their Energis tokens in the open markets. However, if they choose to pay the fees on behalf of the provider, an equivalent reduction in the energy price will be reflected in their purchases.
Energy providers will buy the tokens to pay for the platform. This way, the token's utility and value are maintained and enhanced.
The token will premiere at $0.15 in the private sale and $0.2 in the public sale, with a potential to appreciate quickly when the platform becomes.
5. Why use a blockchain?
International carbon credits are a cheap yet under-utilized tool for combating environmental degradation.
The Zero Carbon Project is leveraging the power of the distributed network to tokenize incentives for consumers at a scale that will make them act in the right direction.
By earning Energis and picking energy providers from a pool of highly competitive solutions, they can choose to pay less for energy, and will also get an opportunity to see how individual efforts will save our planet.
The blockchain will also run the ecosystem by distributing the Energis through immutable, transparent and verified code (aka the smart contracts), cheaply, across the globe.
6. So how will energy providers sell clean energy?
> Energy providers will avail clean energy in two main ways.
Provide clean, validated and verified cheap energy that competes better with both fossil fuels and renewable energy.
> Purchase international carbon credits and use them to offset carbon emissions from fossil fuel and renewable energy.
When carbon credits are used, they will invariably assist the blockchain to bring true usability to the credits and bring lower costs to the consumer through intense competition, while helping with green energy projects and therefore supporting environmental enhancement and preservation.
Final thoughts
We have seen many use-cases for blockchain, and it is now increasingly clear how this technology is going to be used for the future.
We will use this technology to improve the quality of life if we continue to see such blockchains come into existence.
By addressing the loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation through increasing clean energy competition and consumer participation, this blockchain will transform the Kyoto Protocol into a fun-filled and hugely successful planet-saving undertaking.
Uniting energy providers with consumers in a transparently managed platform for environmental gain is as good and noble as a blockchain can get.
The roadmap has been issued by The Zero Carbon Project, and it is not without its fair share of investment risks.
It is a highly personal choice then, for anyone to dare to change the environmental narrative of the world we are living in through investing in this blockchain.
Website | Whitepaper | ANN Thread | Telegram | Twitter
Published by
Bitcointalk username : hunnykaushal
Bitcointalk profile link : https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/hunnykaushal-1091429
ETH Address : 0x1af39d4A51A071D1916991a274cFEf0E6d144D25