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Bio-economy as a New Perspective for Solving Climate Change?

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The Role of Integrity in the Governance of the Commons

Abstract

The EU roadmap for a low carbon economy in 2050 suggests scenarios for massive decarbonization by 2050, aiming to achieve a 80% decrease of overall GHG emissions (compared to 1990) and almost the total decarbonization of the energy sector (European Union 2011). The bio-economy, which is based on bio-energy produced from biomass and waste opens up the possibility to escape from coal and oil resource dependence. Bio-energy is expected to have a crucial role among renewables by 2020. Replacing fossil fuels with biomass could lead to a decrease of CO2 emissions and help solve the problem of global climate change. This chapter attempts to explore the promises and real possibilities of the bio-economy in fulfilling this expectation focusing on some serious risks in the case of its sustainable global application.

The twenty-first century has been heralded as the ‘century of biology’ and the bio-sciences have been compared with the physical sciences in terms of their potential to ‘transform society’ (National Research Council 2009; Petersen and Krisjansen 2015).

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Correspondence to Eva Cudlínová .

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Cudlínová, E., Lapka, M., Vávra, J. (2017). Bio-economy as a New Perspective for Solving Climate Change?. In: Westra, L., Gray, J., Gottwald, FT. (eds) The Role of Integrity in the Governance of the Commons. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54392-5_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54392-5_10

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