| Summary: | Climate change is one of the most pressing matters of modern society. The current models for assessing CO2 emissions do not consider the oxygen drainage from the atmosphere. Oxygen depletion is happening at rates much higher than the natural capacity of the planet to regenerate the oxygen back to the atmosphere through photosynthesis. On average, each 1.0 ppm increase of CO2 brings a corresponding loss of 2.15 ppm of O2 in the atmosphere. The present work provides a new methodology for emissions assessment that includes oxygen usage called Atmospheric Profit and Loss Score. Simple examples are provided to demonstrate that, once oxygen is included in the assessment, renewable and photosynthesis-based processes that follow the sustainability criteria become much more attractive to society.
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