Photo source: Green Kunming 

According to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), household carbon emissions in China now account for about 50% of the country's total carbon emissions. A research study by the Journal of Beijing University of Technology found that, in terms of total emissions, China's indirect CO2 emissions from residential consumption were about 2.817 billion tons in 2017.

Having organized volunteer activities for a long time, Green Kunming found that many idle items of volunteer families are related to consumption, and some families regularly clean up these idle items, put useless things into the trash can, and finally burn them after unified transportation, becoming a carbon source, greatly increasing carbon emissions. At the same time, the items they throw away happen to be needed by many other families, and when faced with demand, they can only buy them, and consume them while indirectly creating carbon emissions.

So as community residents, how to reduce carbon emissions?

Through practice evidence, we found that low-carbon community is a suitable and feasible solution.

Low carbon community can be achieved through online and offline gift exchanges and online donation requests - three ways to carry out second hand exchange gift activities. Gifts are unlimited and can be furniture, clothes, makeup, books, toys, electronics, etc.

Among them, the online activities of asking for things and gifts are not limited by time, and are more flexible. They can be carried out in wechat groups at any time, and the corresponding types of items are relatively rich. Especially during the epidemic, the request and gift groups are more active, and everyone "responds to requests" and gives the desired items.

Zitong is a netizen in Kunming to do bulk material procurement, businesses sent her a lot of samples. With the accumulation of time, her various samples also accumulated more and more, and finally she had to rent a warehouse for storage. After she joined our spare items giveaway group, one of our friends asked for a small domestic meat grinder. Less than 5 minutes after the message was sent, Zitong presented a new, unopened meat grinder. At the same time, Zitong said that there are many more meat grinders in her warehouse, so friends asked for gifts. This afternoon, Zitong donated 5 domestic meat grinder and 2 washing machines.

Gift groups not only solve Zitong's excess items, but also help other people in need to avoid a part of the consumption of carbon emissions. Such gift exchange activities greatly reduce the carbon emissions of residents' consumption, and demonstrate the concept of low-carbon life.

Low carbon community offline exchange activities are held regularly. Volunteers participate in barter activities and calculate emissions reduction by recording on the ‘Carbon Weekly Recorder’ app. Good results have been achieved in the three activities held. The first campaign reduced emissions by 683.7kg; The second activity reduced emissions by 436kg; The third event ended with emission reduction of 596.1kg.

Combined with the exchange events, Green Kunming organizes its volunteers to watch climate change science popularization videos, translated by the organization, and organizes volunteers to talk about low-carbon emission reduction and coping with climate change in daily life in combination with the video content.

Reduce consumption carbon emissions and practice low-carbon concepts. We have a long way to go to solve the climate crisis we face.

Finally, we call on everyone to take active action to create more low-carbon communities, make more low-carbon actions, and protect the earth, without delay.