Carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities have been preventing carbon dioxide from being added to the atmosphere since the early 1970s. While interest in the establishment of such facilities has grown, the process by which this is accomplished is problematically time-consuming. Earth.Org spoke to researchers Granger Morgan and Valerie Karplus from the Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering who, alongside graduate student Emily Moore, completed a scientific assessment of the time required to develop, approve, and implement a CCS facility in the US, while also providing suggestions as to how to streamline the process.

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The Problem With Carbon Capture Facilities

During the 1920s, when the collection of natural gas was still a procedure in its early years, carbon capture was invented as a means of separating carbon dioxide (CO2) from the saleable methane gas. The CO2 would then either be released into the air or captured and stored. 

Today, this process is known as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and, while it is still used in the oil refinement industry, the technology seems to have found itself a redeeming foothold within the field of conservation.

More on the topic: The Feasibility and Future of Carbon Capture and Storage Technology

With 40 CCS facilities in operation around the globe, approximately 45 metric tons (Mt) of CO2 is prevented from entering the atmosphere every year. This amount is only expected to increase as 50 more facilities will be operational by the end of the decade.

Though this number may seem large, it could be even larger, were it not for the long and arduous process behind the establishment of one of these carbon capture facilities; an issue that many experts, as well as worried stakeholders, have taken serious note of. 

Take researchers Granger Morgan, Valerie Karplus, and Emily Moore for example. 

After observing a need for a CCS facility in their own tri-state region of southwest Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, the three researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering determined an estimation of the time required to develop, approve, and implement a CCS facility within the United States. They found a 90% probability that the amount of time associated with site operational approval can be anywhere between 5.5 and 9.6 years, though in the more extreme cases, the time frame can be pushed forward by as far as 12 years, an amount of time deemed far too long to meet the nation’s ambitious climate goals set at this year’s UN climate summit, COP28.

“From a policy perspective we found that as things stand, the timelines are long. And if we want this to make a big difference, speeding up those timelines could really help us get our arms around the climate problem a lot faster,” Karplus told Earth.Org. 

Though carbon storage is not a solution to climate change but rather a tool that can be used to mitigate it, estimates say that carbon capture alone could achieve 14% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction required by 2050, and could even put the US on track to achieve its 2050 net-zero goal. The country also committed to an interim target of 65% reduction in GHG by 2030, which may prove difficult to achieve without the assistance of CCS technology.

“We’ve heard reports, for example, at various meetings we go to that this was emerging as a serious problem. And we understood that the White House and the Department of Energy (DOE) and EPA were talking with each other about trying to speed it up,” explained Morgan. “This is not something that just sort of came out of thin air.” 

Streamlining the Approval Process

The paper clarifies that the approval process itself is divided into six main checkpoints, what they refer to as clearance points: time to locate site(s), time to prepare selected site, time for approval from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), time to resolve any legal challenge, time to build well and pipeline, and time for injection authorization. In addition, there are seven strategies emphasized near the end of the paper (and summarized below)  that may assist in shortening each of these clearance points.

1. Pre-vet sites

The government at both the state and federal level could assess the more promising sequestration sites on land they own in order to prepare a set of pre-vetted sets. In respect to land they do not own, they could provide incentives to private landowners who choose to host CCS sites. 

2. Reduce Barriers to multi-state coordination

In the Eastern United States, CCS infrastructure often crosses state boundaries. Eliminating any potential barriers to multi-state coordination ahead of time is likely to reduce the risk of any delays in the future. 

3. Develop guidance on landowner compensation

In regards to compensation, there is still a significant level of uncertainty for private landowners who choose to host CCS sites. If the DOE were to develop a standard, delays due to ambiguity could be avoided. 

4. Early and transparent community engagement

In order to minimize any potential objections from the community, engaging with them earlier may be advantageous. The paper also mentions that early engagement does not guarantee public support, and that they should prepare and present their organizational models to feel more like public utilities and less like private industry if they hope to gain public support. 

5. Legal framework to help minimize litigation

The researchers mention that most new developments are opposed, regardless of their potential benefits. They advise that employing legal counsel to anticipate any objections that could occur in the future would assist in reducing the overall time associated with CCS site establishment. 

6. Assess and facilitate state primacy application

As stated in their paper, the researchers found that granting state primacy “may, but would not necessarily, speed up the permitting process.”  

When state primacy is achieved, the state in question is given the ability to carry out EPA’s authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act (Class VI review) in approving a specific permit. This includes the establishment of a CCS facility. Though this may streamline the process, the researchers suggest that if a particular state intends to achieve state primacy, they should be fully versed on what that entails, otherwise they may only cause further delays.

7. Strengthen EPA and state-level staffing

Whether the Class VI review is accomplished by the EPA or the State, the researchers determined that approval “[depends] heavily on the number of staff performing reviews,” and that a strengthening of said staff would significantly reduce delays.

Karplus pointed out that of the seven strategies, strengthening EPA and state-level staffing should be considered a priority. “We looked at a lot of steps in the process and we found that indeed, one of the bottlenecks is the local state capacity,” she said.

“All of these steps take time and reducing any of them will help. However, one way to further accelerate the process safely could be to reinforce the EPA Regional Offices in their capacity to review permit applications.”

CCS Tax Incentives in the US

It should also be noted that if project developers responsible for carbon capture facilities are unable to navigate this process in time they may not be eligible for a significant tax incentive. 

Known as the Section 45Q CCS Tax Credit of the Biden Administration’s historic 2022 Inflation Reduction Act – the largest climate investment in US history, this performance-based tax credit reserved for carbon management programs that capture carbon oxides is set to expire by the end of 2032. 

“Right now you’re looking at 6 to 10 years and up to 12 years, potentially, to get through all of these regulatory steps. Said Karplus.  

“If you’re not anticipating that, or if you’re not focused on accelerating that timeframe, then you may have trouble with the [development of your project].” 

You might also like: 3 Carbon Capture Technologies We Must Scale Up to Meet Net Zero

The post Building Carbon Capture and Storage Facilities in the US Takes Too Long: How Can We Streamline the Process? appeared first on Earth.Org.

As of October 2023, Environmentalist and tech entrepreneur Dax Dasilva of the non-profit environmental alliance Age of Union has been admitted onto the Council for Hope of the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation. In addition, after a trip to Brazil with Goodall herself, Dasilva’s own non-profit Age of Union has partnered with the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation as well as the Juma Institute of Brazil to assist in protecting local Indigenous culture and territories.

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As of last month, Vancouver-born environmentalist and tech entrepreneur Dax Dasilva of the non-profit environmental alliance Age of Union joined the Council for Hope of the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation – a group of experts from across the globe hand-selected by renowned British primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall to continue her work for many years to come.

“I am delighted to welcome Dax Dasilva into the Council for Hope,” said Goodall in a press release. “His commitment to conservation is truly inspirational, and he brings a wealth of technical and practical knowledge and experience from Africa and particularly from Latin America to the Council.”

“It is an immense honor to join the Council for Hope and be part of an organization with such a profound commitment to the betterment of our planet,” Dasilva, Founder of Age of Union, told Earth.Org. “Dr. Jane Goodall’s tireless work in the fields of conservation and humanitarianism has always been an inspiration to me, and I look forward to contributing to her legacy.” 

In choosing Dasilva for the Council, Goodall not only gained an invaluable member to her team, she also formed a partnership with Age of Union, Dasilva’s conservation powerhouse. Through his non-profit organization Age of Union, Dasilva has invested more than US$40 million of his own funds across 10 “grassroots” environmental projects in locations such as Peru, Indonesia, Haiti, Trinidad, the Congo, and Canada, utilizing an approach that focuses on giving the most power to those who actually live on the ground and call these places home.

“I think that that’s whyI really connect with Jane, because I really believe in projects that come from the ground up,” said Dasilva. 

You might also like: 7 Best Books by Jane Goodall on Nature and Primatology

Just recently, Dasilva and Goodall returned from a trip to Brazil, marking the partnering of their two organizations, as well as that of their mutual partnering with the Juma Institute – an NGO based in the Kaarimã Village within the Indigenous Territory of the Xipaia, located in Brazil’s Pará state, deep within the Amazon jungle. The trip was facilitated by filmmakers Richard and Anita Ladkani of Malaika Pictures, who have been working on a documentary in the Amazon over the past three years, and was in fact Goodall’s first foray into the thriving, yet still threatened jungle. 

After a short journey to the Kaarimã Village, they met with Juma Xipaia, founder of the Juma Institute and a renowned environmental activist. Xipaia has been fighting for nature ever since she witnessed the construction of the Belo Monte Dam in the northern Amazon, which resulted in the displacement of 20,000 to 40,000 people as well as the diversion of 85% of river water to Indigenous communities. 

“She’s been an activist for more than a dozen years and now she’s the secretary of Indigenous rights under Lula.” explained Dasilva. “ Her rise and prominence as an activist has been remarkable.”

The meeting itself took place in the hopes that Dasliva and Dr. Goodall could learn more about Juma’s organization, their goals, and how they hope to preserve and to pass along their knowledge to the next generation.

“We wanted to get a sense of the kinds of things that are important to them and what their goals are for preservation and for teaching,” said Dasilva. 

Dr. Goodall and Dasilva also hope to one day implement a “Roots and Shoots” youth leadership initiative that would work with the Juma Institute to provide the tools and knowledge necessary for local indigenous youth to act as leaders, teachers, and to protect the very same ecosystems that they live in. 

According to Jane Goodall’s Good for All News website, the Roots & Shoots program is active in almost 70 countries around the world, with over 12,000 active members in Canada alone. Since the program’s inception in 1991, millions of students across the world have “taken on the challenge of making the world a better place”.

“Since Jane started it, a lot of people that did the Roots and Shoots program in their youth are now influential ministers or people that are connected to the fight against climate change, or biodiversity loss,” said Dasilva. “By [fostering] those values of nature at a young age, I think it really stays with people and influences what they do with that love for nature and life.”

Featured image: Age of Union

You might also like: A Partnership to Protect the Dulan Forest of Indonesia: An Interview with Dax Dasilva

The post Age of Union and Jane Goodall’s Legacy Foundation Form Partnership to Protect the Amazon Rainforest appeared first on Earth.Org.

Since the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the IPCC special report that followed, 70 countries have chosen a net-zero target in accordance with the Net Zero coalition. Thankfully, some of the globe’s most prolific carbon producers are among them, including the United States, China, and the European Union. Meanwhile, however, global temperatures have reached an increase of 1.3C, leaving little time for countries to accomplish what is necessary to maintain the 1.5-degree limit. This also makes achieving net zero without a doubt the biggest challenge of our lifetime. As stipulated in the Coalition, by the time COP28 commences in November 2023, the participating parties must develop a roadmap outlining how they plan to achieve this paramount goal.

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The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27), held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022, was for the most part a productive and purposeful meeting. The landmark agreement to establish an international fund to assist the most vulnerable nations affected by climate change certainly made an impression on the global community. While this is great news, little was said in regard to one of the most important topics of the COP: the 1.5-degree limit.

Many experts agree that if the 197 countries involved in the Paris Agreement ever hope to achieve their goal of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees over the next decade, then serious steps need to be taken immediately, the kind of steps that involve big changes from the top-down.

Thankfully, there are already initiatives in place to limit the global temperature increase. For those who don’t know, the Net Zero initiative started with the adoption of the Paris Agreement and the release of the IPCC special report on global warming in 2015. Since then, those countries that signed on to the agreement are required to have a reduction in emissions equivalent to 45% by 2030, and country-wide net-zero emissions by 2050.
But what does “Net-Zero” even mean?

Net Zero: Why Is It So Important?

The official UN website defines net zero as “cutting greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions re-absorbed from the atmosphere.”

To clarify, this essentially means that the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released is equivalent to the amount absorbed. The phenomena of reabsorption can occur through several pathways, but some of the more common routes are via large bodies of water, or forests, for example. In addition, the term “net-zero” is not to be confused with carbon neutral, which refers only to carbon emissions, and nothing else.

Since the early 1800s, when the industrial revolution first began, temperatures have increased by 1.3C; this means we have only 0.2C left. As anyone can see, the window of opportunity has unfortunately been shrinking faster than we can keep up, and many experts are worried that the 1.5-degree goal is nearly out of reach.
Because of this, achieving net-zero emissions should now be a goal of extreme concern for every country involved in the Paris-agreement, even more so than it was before.

More on this topic: What Does Net Zero Mean and Why Is It Important?

What Are Countries Doing to Reduce their Emissions?

Thankfully, some countries are taking their net-zero goals seriously, pushing for more and more initiatives to slash national emissions. For example, the United States and 18 other countries have committed to achieving net-zero emissions for all government operations by no later than 2050. The commitment also stipulates that the participating countries must develop a roadmap by COP28 which outlines how they plan on meeting their goal.

In total, there are 70 countries – including the largest polluters such as China, the European Union, and the United States – that have chosen a net-zero target and are participating in the net-zero coalition. Their targets are reported to cover as much as 76% of the entire globe’s emissions.

The private sector has also been asked to step up to the plate. More than 3,000 businesses and institutions have set what is known as science-based targets (a clearly-defined pathway for companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that is by the scale required to achieve the Paris-agreement temperature standard). In addition, 1,000 cities, 400 financial institutions, and 1,000 educational institutions are all participating in the Race to Zero, an UN-supported global initiative asking companies, cities, regions, and financial and educational institutions to take “rigorous and immediate action” to reduce global emissions by 50%. To make things even more exciting, they plan on reaching their goal by as early as 2030.

If the private sector wants to speed up its emissions reductions, they also have the opportunity to turn towards the voluntary carbon market (VCM), a tool that enables investors, governments, non-governmental organisations, and businesses the ability to fund natural climate solutions by purchasing carbon credits. The carbon credit purchased acts as a verified emissions reduction, which can then be used towards the achievement of their emissions reduction goals.

Though the VCM has been around since the early 1990s, it has gained significant popularity as of late due to increasingly restrictive government mandates surrounding the emissions output of companies. Now that these rules are in place, companies are finding ways to offset their emissions by purchasing the emissions reductions (known as natural climate solutions) that others have achieved.

According to recent research, these natural climate solutions are not to be ignored and could account for a third of the emissions reductions required by 2030.

Colossal Change Needed

Though the 1.5C limit is approaching, so much so that many are arguing that it will likely be unachievable, there are still experts who believe that if colossal changes are made now, the increase could still be kept at bay. That being said, numbers show that a reduction of at least 45% of emissions would be required over the next 10 years to accomplish such a goal.

The 1.5C goal “is on life support, and the machines are rattling,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres during the opening ceremony of the conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. “We are getting dangerously close to the point of no return.”

You might also like: World On Track To Warm Above 2C As Greenhouse Gases Surge, UN Report Warns

The post Achieving Net Zero: Where Are We Today? appeared first on Earth.Org.

Utilising an innovative mixture of advanced, high-resolution aerial mapping technology and geotag information data-scrapped from social-media giant Instagram, researchers from Arizona State University and Princeton University recently discovered a “strong correlation” between overtourism and coral reef degradation. The research highlights not only the importance of understanding the intricate relationships between coral reef health and tourism but also how essential high-resolution data is in determining how influential local stressors affect coral reef health. Furthermore, the study also touches upon the subject of Hawaiian water quality and pollution, a topic that Greg Asner, director of the ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and co-author of the paper, suggests should be taken more seriously in light of Hawaii’s limited wastewater-treatment infrastructure.

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Regardless of where they are on the planet, coral reefs are universally beloved for their vibrant colours, their beautiful shapes, and their incredibly alien-like, awe-inspiring appearance. Coral reefs are so prized by the global community that the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef on the planet, is considered one of the world’s seven natural wonders, and is diligently conserved by the Australian government through funding equivalent to billions of dollars each year.

As beautiful as coral reefs are, their conservation is not solely due to their attractive appearance. According to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), coral reefs support approximately 25% of all marine life that live within the Earth’s oceans. They are known as foundational or architect species, providing homes for an incredibly biodiverse ecosystem of oceanic organisms.

Not only that, coral reefs provide food and income for hundreds of millions of people across the planet, while also protecting shores from as much as 97% of potentially damaging waves and flooding. In truth, it is estimated that the benefits coral reefs provide are worth approximately US$11.9 trillion per year to the global economy.

So, If you plan to go coral reef snorkelling on your next vacation, you may want to reconsider how you interact with these cherished, essential organisms. They may look like rocks, but they are quite susceptible to damage– even by the average person.

In fact, recent research into coral reef degradation conducted by scientists from Arizona State University and Princeton University has brought to light the damages that the average person can cause to coral reefs, specifically the destructive nature of the seemingly innocuous, leisure activity of coral reef snorkelling, scuba diving, and tourism in Hawaii.

You might also like: What Are Coral Reefs and Why Are They So Important?

‘Strong Correlation’ Between Overtourism and Coral Reef Degradation

Co-authored by Greg Asner, director of the ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, and leader of the largest coral reef monitoring program on the planet, the study in question found that there was a “strong correlation” between what has been dubbed  “overtourism” and significant coral reef degradation. 

“I know these reefs extremely well, so I’m careful to not say correlation is causation,” explains Asner. “But there was a really strong correlation – even I was impressed.” 

While wearing flight suits and oxygen masks, Asner and his colleagues accrued the data necessary for this study from as high as 18,000 ft (5,486 metres), utilising the most advanced airborne mapping technology available in the civil sector today. Known as the Global Airborne Observatory (GAO), the plane Asner and his team worked with – a highly modified Dornier 228-202 aircraft – was used to take  high-resolution images of the Hawaiian coastlines below. They then gathered the spectroscopic data from the pixels of each of those images to determine where the coral reefs were, and even the degree to which they had degraded.

 “A spectroscopic signature is far beyond the visual range. It’s in the near-infrared and it allows us to see the absorption and scattering of different molecules,” explains Asner. “We’re able to convert the molecular information into chemistry, and then the chemistry into ‘Is it a living coral or is it a dead coral?’” 

However, this was not the end-all to their study. 

“Ingredient number two is what my friends at Princeton brought to the table,” he adds.

The “ingredient” Asner is referring to are 275,724 public Instagram posts from the years 2018 to 2021, spread across 333 bays and beaches of the main Hawaiian islands. The posts were painstakingly data-scraped by Princeton researchers specifically for the geotag information associated with them. 

By combining the datasets harvested through both the GAO and Instagram, Asner and his colleagues were able to map out exactly where tourism hotspots were (measured as both overall and on-reef coastal tourism), and if those hotspots were centred around living coral or dead coral. As far as they could see from the data, tourists in Hawaii really liked coral, an obsession that could be causing serious problems for the health and well-being of these sensitive, living reefs. 

“They want to go to where there’s coral. And then where there’s a lot of tourism, there’s a lot of degraded coral,” says Asner. 

According to the study, of the hundreds of thousands of Instagram posts, 9,231 were associated with on-reef visitation. Specific on-reef visitation was associated with not only a higher hotel density, but also with higher quality of water and higher total and average coral reef coverage. This suggests that on-reef tourism is driven by both high-quality water and high-quality coral reefs. 

That being said, overall coastal visitations were found to be highest where accessibility was greatest – near hotels and roads – but also associated with greater levels of nearshore effluent, and thus, poorer quality of water.

The study also points out that visitation is highest where absolute live coral reef coverage is greatest, however, at the most popular sites, there is evidence that live coral coverage nearer to the shore is also being suppressed. These findings, as they state, suggest that areas with greater live coral coverage may attract more visitors, but the increase in visitation may also stifle the living coral – an effect that lessens the further the coverage is from land. 

Overtourism likely to Blame for Poor Coral Reef Health

As the study shows, the likely culprit behind coral reef degradation in Hawaii is tourism; or rather, overtourism.

“Tourism is good for the economy, but overtourism is bad for the environment,” says Asner. 

In the past, overtourism has often been associated with the negative impacts it can have on the quality of life for people–both tourists and residents. Today, the term has found new ground within the topic of conservation and sustainability as environmental scientists begin to notice how significantly the two are intertwined. Some, like Asner, are even seeing the consequences firsthand.

“We’re starting to see the effects of overtourism in specific locations. It’s not wall-to-wall yet. It’s not the entire coastline of all four of these islands, but it’s certain areas, certain bays, that attract a huge number of tourists. And I can tell you, I live near one that gets tourism monitoring, they say that sometimes they get 300 people per hour on only about 10 acres of reef,” he explains.  

According to the Economic Research Organization at the University of Hawaii, in 1960, Hawaii had a mere 300,000 visitors. By 1980, that number rose to approximately 3.9 million. By the start of the new millennium, the amount of visitors reached a staggering 7 million; today, the numbers are unprecedented. 

“Hawaii has ten and a half million visitors per year, and most of those visitors are on just four of the eight main Hawaiian islands,” says Asner. 

He also clarifies that with global warming heating oceans around the world, having so many visitors at once is a serious concern for the health of coral reefs, which are known to be very sensitive to changes in temperature.

“The reef becomes stressed as the temperature goes up, and then the effects of people directly on those warming reefs is exacerbated,” says Asner. “It’s like an amplifier. It takes a little bit of heat to stress a reef, and then you put people on it, and the reef goes belly up.”

What are Tourists Doing to Cause the Degradation of Coral Reefs in Hawaii? 

Though there is a strong correlation between overtourism and coral reef degradation, there is still the question of what exactly tourists are doing to cause such harm to coral reefs in Hawaii. 

Asner explains that there are a few reasons tourists are causing coral reef degradation. The first, and most obvious problem being physical contact with the reefs themselves.

As he stated, overtourism has filled certain coastal coral reef locations with more and more people every year. These hotspots become so overcrowded that abrasive contact with the coral reefs is almost guaranteed; and despite their rock-like appearance, they are still very susceptible to direct physical damage. 

Secondly, what Asner is clear to say is only circumstantial evidence, the water at these locations is in many cases polluted with not only debris and garbage, but also the urine of the tourists who swim there. An individual’s urine can contain all kinds of unwanted and harmful chemicals, the kind that can cause serious harm to coral. Ibuprofen, and even caffeine can be very detrimental to the health of a living coral reef, especially if exposure occurs on a daily basis.  

However, as Asner further elaborates, it is not only the chemicals tourists put into their bodies that are causing harm, it’s also the chemicals that they are putting on to their bodies. In a separate study published by Environmental Health Perspectives, it was found that the chemicals in sunscreen can cause “abrupt and complete bleaching of hard corals,” even at extremely low concentrations. Rather disturbingly, the researchers found that the chemicals – paraben, cinnamate, benzophenone, and camphor derivatives – stimulated dormant viral infections in their zooxanthellae (the symbiotic algal component of coral) subjects, which in turn, caused them to explode. This explosion then spread viruses outwards into the surrounding seawater, which resulted in further infections to nearby coral communities. 

You might also like: What is Coral Bleaching?

Residential Effluent a Serious Concern for Coral Reef Health

Although overtourism has proven to be unsustainable for natural ecosystems like coral reefs, it is not the sole reason for coral reef degradation in Hawaii. There is another, less obvious reason; one that many may not even be aware of.

“It’s really well known here, but I think the rest of the world doesn’t know about it,” says Asner. “We have 88,000 cesspools – just holes in the ground – that human waste and laundry detergent goes into.”

According to Asner, the government of Hawaii attempted to circumnavigate this issue by developing septic tank infrastructure, however the tanks still require leach fields, which only capture the toilet paper and other solids, while expelling the liquids regardless. 

Furthermore, because younger islands like the Big Island (as it’s known by locals) are mainly composed of basalt, there is less soil available in comparison to the older islands. This means that the liquids expelled by both septic-tank leach fields and cesspools have nowhere to go but back out into the ocean. In a study published by the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, researchers from the University of Hawaii at Hilo used dyes to follow how far the effluent from septic tanks, otherwise known as onsite sewage disposal systems, traveled. Their findings suggest that the effluent from these tanks is quite capable of reaching shorelines, thereby polluting coastal waters. 

“Scientists have very clearly shown that both are equally a problem, septic tanks and cesspools,” explains Asner. 

What Can Be Done to Prevent Coral Reef Degradation in Hawaii? 

In regards to overtourism, Asner explains that there are two ways that tourists can help mitigate and possibly even prevent damages to coral reefs on their trips to Hawaii. 

“One, educate yourself about these problems, and become part of the story of addressing them. We want people to come here, but we want them to come here really educated. And not social media educated, but really educated about what the situation is,” says Asner.

He explains that every swimmer visiting Hawaii’s coastlines should be wearing rash guards and, contrary to what your mother may tell you, absolutely no sunscreen. He also recommends that people stay as far from the coral reefs as possible, at least a 20-foot distance. 

The second method of damage mitigation, as Asner states frankly, is to use the washrooms on the mainland, rather than the ocean as a toilet. 

“At least it’s not right on the reef. You know?” he says.

As for residential waste, Asner believes that the focus should be on upgrading and streamlining their wastewater-treatment infrastructure, a task that not only involves the government, but the people of Hawaii. “We have got to work together to get our wastewater treatment fixed. The county and state want to do it, but they need communities to want to as well.” 

He explains that although there is money available to implement more refined and modern wastewater-treatment infrastructure, many residents of Hawaii are unwilling to go through the process of installation; a process that entails extensive excavation, construction and manipulation of their yards and homes.

“A lot of people are just not lifting a finger about it. And there isn’t enough federal regulation to force it fast enough. So it’s really a collaborative process where there is money to do these wastewater treatment facilities, but people are going to have to dig up a small part of their yards,” says Asner.

Help is Needed to Save Coral Reefs in Hawaii

Currently, Asner and his colleagues are building the largest coral reef restoration facility in the Pacific, a venture that will require as many hands on deck as possible. In light of this fact, Asner is asking anyone, especially tourists and the residents of Hawaii, to help out by cleaning the land, particularly where coral reefs are most prominent.

“We need people to clean up the land,” says Asner. “If we restore coral reefs in areas where land is still being polluted, the reef will just die again.”

In addition, they’ll eventually need help collecting what are known as COO’s, or “corals of opportunity,” which are essentially coral that have been separated from their communities due to storms, ship-groundings, anchors, and other mishaps. By June of this year, their restoration facility will be fully functional, allowing for the storing of half a million COO’s within coral nurseries, for the purpose of not only rehabilitation, but propagation.   

“We can take one coral, and we can create 10 or 20 out of that same coral. They’re called clones–coral clones.” explains Asner. “We can take those corals into the nursery, propagate them, and then we can go out and plant them back on the reef.”

You might also like: 5 Coral Reefs That Are Currently Under Threat and Dying

The post Coral Reef Degradation in Hawaii: Is Overtourism to Blame? appeared first on Earth.Org.

On December 12, tech leader and environmental activist Dax Dasilva of the Age of Union Alliance announced that they will be pledging US$3.5 million towards the conservation of the Madre de Dios region of Southeastern Peru. These funds are intended to be provided over the course of five years to Junglekeepers, a local NGO founded by Paul Rosolie, and one of the very first projects Age of Union worked with. In the next five years, these funds will hopefully secure more land concessions, expand the ranger programme, establish greater ties with local Indigenous communities, create sustainability programmes centred on neutralising unsustainable practices, mitigate the damages caused to wildlife by local industries, and regenerate the damaged landscape through reforestation, sustainable cultivation of native flora, and animal conservation. 

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Under the leadership of tech leader and environmental activist Dax Dasilva, the Age of Union Alliance announced on December 12 a US$3.5 million pledge to protect the Las Piedras River, located in Madre de Dios, southeastern Peru. The funds will be provided over the course of five years to Junglekeepers, an NGO based out of Peru dedicated to protecting approximately 50,000 acres of the Madre de Dios region, and will further expand upon Age of Union’s initial 2021 investment of $625,000.

“In 2021 we initially pledged US$625,000, which included $250,000 to secure land and $375,000 in operational costs that focused solely on building out the ranger program.” says Dasilva. “Now, we’ve increased our total funds to $3.5M over a five-year pledge period, to help Junglekeepers to accelerate their mission to create a protected corridor along the Las Piedras river.”

As Dasilva further elaborated, the funds will be used to secure land concessions, expand the ranger programme, build partnerships with local Indigenous communities, regenerate damaged landscapes, rescue wildlife through the support of Amazon Shelter, and to establish sustainability programs, such as indigenous community-focused food programs. 

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The Peruvian Capital of Biodiversity

Known as the “Peruvian capital of biodiversity”, the Madre De Dios region contains tens of millions of trees, numerous indigenous communities, and some of the world’s most rich and complex ecosystems. In fact, according to the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, the locale contains approximately one-sixth of all plant life in the world. Rare flora and fauna, the likes of which are hardly seen anywhere else on Earth, are easily found along the Las Piedras River, including Shihuahuaco trees dating back as far as 1,000 years and growing as tall as 50 metres. Unfortunately, these ancient, majestic trees are a prized commodity for the timber industry, so much so that, according to Dasilva, they could go extinct within the next ten years, making their protection all the more important, and required. 

“Slow-growth trees act as anchors to the webs of biodiversity in these rainforests, creating the right conditions and forest density for species to thrive. Timber extraction, specifically the extraction of slow-growth trees, represents the greatest threat to biodiversity in the region,” explains Dasilva.  

Community Outreach – SMART Training. Photo by Paul Rosolie

A Looming Threat to Local Indigenous Peoples 

Over the past few decades, the region has become so exposed to illegal logging, poaching, and gold mining, it has caused unprecedented damages to not only the wildlife that call this locale home, but to some of the last isolated tribes on Earth. Thankfully, as Dasilva explains, Junglekeepers and Age of Union share the belief that the conservation work that they do in the madre De Dios region should take into account the indigenous communities that reside there. As such, they aim to establish deep, long-term ties with the local indigenous peoples, so that they can collaborate, exchange knowledge, and understand each other’s goals more clearly. 

“Currently the team works closely with two main communities: those of Puerto Nuevo and Monte Salvado. The team regularly visits these communities every three months, staying with them for at least three days at a time to align their goals and share insights, through programs including: sustainable cooking programmes, wildlife monitoring technology knowledge sharing and the “mini-ranger program”, which teaches children about rainforest best practises and the challenges their home faces today.” says Dasilva. 

In the future, the funds from Age of Union are intended to expand their programs to connect with all seven main indigenous communities, including programs that are centred on exploring alternative revenue streams to the logging, mining, and agricultural industries that occur in the area.

A Race Against Time 

Unfortunately, these indigenous and natural communities are also in close proximity to the Interoceanic Highway, a passageway built in 2011 that connects the Peruvian ports of San Juan de Marcona to the Brazilian city of Rio Branco, its special export zone. This highway has only made things worse for the Madre De Dios region as it has enabled the mining, logging, and agricultural industries to further extract highly valuable resources from an already degraded and sensitive ecosystem.  

Photo by Gowri Varanashi

“The most current urgency to conserve the region is due to the impacts of the Interoceanic Highway.” says Dasilva. 

“As of 2022 the pressure from this road system continues to mount and Junglekeeper rangers and directors have observed heavy machinery, new roads, and an accelerated rate of deforestation that is alarming. This is a clear and present danger that makes our goal to protect the whole river a race against time that will play out over the next few years.” 

Featured image by Mohsin Kazmi

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The post Age of Union Pledges $3.5 Million to the Conservation of the ‘Peruvian Capital of Biodiversity’ Madre de Dios Region appeared first on Earth.Org.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released the 2022 Restoration Barometer Report yesterday, a collection of documented investments covering 18 countries and $26 billion in funding from both the private and public sectors. As stated in the report, the funds have so far been used to restore 14 million hectares of degraded landscapes, a total equivalent to nearly the size of Greece, and are expected to cover 48 million hectares by 2030. The report also details some other benefits that these conservation efforts have brought to the table, including but not limited to the creation of 12 million new jobs and the sequestration of approximately 145 million tonnes of carbon. 

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Endorsed by over 50 governments, the Restoration Barometer tool, as described on their official website, is a tool used to collect and keep track of restoration project data so as to maintain a clear picture of how and where funds are being allocated in the healing of degraded landscapes across the globe. More specifically, the Restoration Barometer tool can be used to record restoration policies, modes of planning, monitoring systems, and funding structures. It can also be used to track the sizes of the locales under restoration, their corresponding climates, levels of biodiversity, and the resulting socio-economic benefits that arise when conservation efforts are implemented. 

Originally developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with the support of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection, for countries that are working in accordance with international restoration agreements, the tool is now used by both national and sub-national governments, as well as the private sector, to streamline their conservation reporting. Essentially, the Restoration Barometer makes it easier for interested parties to access and assess their work in real time, compare their achievements with other participants, and present their quantified progress at both board and international meetings.

Currently, it is the only tool being used by governments across the globe to keep track of their restorative projects, and to use that data to highlight progress against global commitments such as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, The Bonn Challenge, the Paris Agreement, 1t.org, and the eventual post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework Targets being prepared at the upcoming COP15.  

As Natalia Alekseeva, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration coordinator stated: “The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration can only succeed if we measure progress on the ground. This is where tools like IUCN’s Restoration Barometer are crucial. Countries have promised to restore 1 billion hectares – an area the size of China. But where is that restoration happening? And how successful is it? The Barometer is already and will continue to be essential in answering this question, and we anticipate close collaboration with the UN Decade’s monitoring platform, the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring.”

By next year, the Restoration Barometer’s capacities will be upgraded to include restorative efforts in kelp, seagrasses, and shallow reefs. It will also be able to track restoration targets, a feature that is currently being piloted by 34 companies in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and 1t.org. This new feature will officially be online by next year, providing the private sector with the ability to transparently monitor company-wide commitments. 

 “It is encouraging to see progress made by countries in their landscape restoration targets, as outlined in the 2022 Restoration Barometer report.” Said Anita Diederichsen, WWF lead for Forest Landscape Restoration, in response to the 2022 report. 

“The report provides critical insight that will be instrumental in increasing transparency and accountability. And it goes beyond the hectares to show the impact of restoration on people and the climate, a key part of the global restoration agenda.” 

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The post IUCN Restoration Barometer Report Highlights $26 billion in Restorative Efforts Across 18 Countries appeared first on Earth.Org.

The carbon market has existed in one form or another since the early 1990s. However, COP27 and discussions surrounding Article 6 of the Paris Agreement are sure to solidify a new, more refined carbon market, one which is designed to involve both the private sector and governments in achieving their climate-action goals. Meanwhile, as the focus on carbon markets increases, experts agree that the voluntary carbon market holds great promise as a means of financing sustainable infrastructure in developing nations. Funds from the private sector would go a long way in leapfrogging the industry technologies of developing nations toward a more sustainable future. 

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As the rest of humanity watches, leaders across the world are gathering yet again for the annual Conference of the Parties – COP27. This year’s summit, which is running from November 6 to November 18 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, has a number of focuses, namely financing solutions for emissions reductions, as well as mitigating the emissions output of countries and their associated industries. 

Taking centre stage for many of these conversations will be the carbon market, more specifically, the newly developed carbon market scheme prepared under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Within this new scheme, both countries and companies can engage in carbon credit transactions to mitigate their own emissions outputs. In effect, the scheme provides a much-required avenue for both the government and private sector to collaborate effectively in achieving their net-zero and emissions reductions goals.

Furthermore, with increased attention on global carbon markets, the voluntary carbon market (VCM) is showing promise as a development mechanism for impoverished countries. Through the use of the VCM, much-required sustainability-focused funds can be allocated towards impoverished locations across the globe. 

But before we can have a discussion on what article 6 means for the future of carbon markets, there needs to be a common understanding of the associated vocabulary, so what exactly are we talking about when we say “carbon market” and “carbon credits”? 

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What Are Carbon Credits?

As established under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, carbon credits are defined as verified and measured reductions in emissions that are achieved by accredited climate-action projects. Before a project is accredited, they must seek approval from their host country party, then make an application to what is known as the Supervisory Body; a collection of 12 members specially chosen from the parties of the Paris Agreement. Once the project has been approved, the Supervisory Body generates the carbon credits. These credits can then be sold to companies, countries, and even individuals so that they can meet their emissions reductions goals in accordance with the Paris Agreement.

For more information on carbon credits, check out this next: What are Carbon Credits and How Do They Work?

What Does Article 6 Entail?

In a nutshell, article 6 of the Paris Agreement describes the means by which countries and companies will be able to voluntarily cooperate with one another to achieve their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), a set of climate-action goals that each party of the Paris Agreement is required to submit and improve upon every five years. 

Within article 6 (specifically 6.2), it is stated that a country is permitted to transfer the carbon credits they earned thourgh carbon emissions reductions in their own country to other countries. Known as Internationally Traded Mitigation Outcomes (ITMO), a country can utilise this bilateral mechanism to sell carbon credits (carbon credits that have become ITMOs) to other countries. However, they must “un-count” their own emissions reductions towards their NDCs once the purchase has been made so as to prevent double-counting. 

The fourth paragraph of article 6 (6.4) sets the framework for a multilateral mechanism of carbon credit exchange with the intention of involving the private sector. Using this mechanism, a company from one country can credit their emissions reductions and then sell them to another company in another country. These reductions, in the form of carbon credits can then be used by the purchasing company to meet their own emission-reduction goals, likely set in accordance with their net-zero commitments.  

What Are Carbon Markets? 

The scientific and legislative jargon associated with carbon credits, especially carbon markets as a whole, is quite complex, making it difficult to decipher and to understand fully. Thankfully, there are experts like Naomi Swickard, the Head of Public Affairs for South Pole – a climate advisory and strategic action firm – available to sift through the technical vocabulary, making it a little easier for the layman to understand what exactly a carbon market is. 

“So there has been two major markets – technically there’s more than that – but essentially, there has been two for a number of years.” explained Swickard in an exclusive interview with Earth.Org.

“There was a prior version of the Paris Agreement called the Kyoto Protocol, and under the Kyoto Protocol there was a mechanism called the Clean Development Mechanism or CDM. CDM was the initial international regulatory market, but the CDM was quite slow, and so the voluntary market really cropped up because a lot of companies wanted to go beyond what was regulated under the Kyoto Protocol.”

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As Swickard explained, a standardised, methodological approach was required for these markets, and so the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) was prepared to ensure that there was a high degree of integrity when determining carbon credit measurements. When the Paris Agreement eventually replaced the Kyoto Protocol, a new market was designed to replace the CDM, under what has been designated Article 6.

“The other trading mechanism is Article 6.4, which will have a crediting mechanism.” said Swickard. “It is essentially CDM 2.0.”

What she is referring to is the Sustainable Development Mechanism (SDM). Under Article 6, the SDM will provide a more robust and demanding framework for participating parties to engage with, while also taking into consideration all previous emissions reductions accomplished under the CDM. “It’s going to leverage a lot of what’s already been done under the CDM, hopefully.” she added.

Potential Issues With Article 6 

As ambitious and well-prepared as Article 6 may be, there are still some grey areas of contentious debate that are sure to rear their ugly heads at COP27, namely the issues of double-counting, the wording associated with “overall mitigation of global emissions”, the share of proceeds, and the carryover from the Kyoto mechanism. 

Double-counting has become an issue due to corresponding adjustments, which may or may not be required for certain projects. If, for example, credits from an emissions project were purchased by a country, a country may then use those credits towards their NDC’s. However, if no adjustment has been made, the reduction will be counted twice.

“In the accepted view of the market until now, and I think we will likely continue to see this stand, units that are traded between countries need to be adjusted because you can’t count across more than one country.” explained Swickard. 

As for the overall mitigation in global emissions (OMGE), it is specified within Article 6.4 that the mechanism is intended to deliver an OMGE. For some countries, this could mean that a portion of the credits produced under Article 6.4 are not used towards any specific party’s NDC’s, rather they are used for a net decrease in emissions.   

The share of proceeds discussion arose due to the levy that was placed on carbon trades occurring under the CDM. The levy was intended to be used for administrative purposes, as well as to replenish the Adaptation Fund ( a support fund to assist vulnerable countries with adapting to the impacts of climate change). When the Paris Agreement replaced the Kyoto Protocol, it was explicit in maintaining the share of proceeds levy, but under Article 6.4. The wording was unfortunately unclear as to whether or not the same tax would be applied to trades occurring under Article 6.2.

Lastly, one of the greater sleeping giants awaiting those fighting for the 1.5-degree limit is the problematic result of possibly billions of unused CDM credits. If countries were able to use these credits (which could amount to as much as 4 gigatons of emissions) towards their current NDC’s, achieving the 1.5-degree goal would become even further out of reach.  

The Potential of the Voluntary Carbon Market to Assist Developing Countries

One of the main topics being addressed at COP27 is the need to maintain global warming to 1.5 degrees or less, an amount that many experts believe is practically unreachable. In fact, in a recent report by the IPCC, it was found that under all scenarios examined, the Earth will reach the 1.5 degree limit within a decade.

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“While we expect some increased commitments, it’s also really obvious that we need to go beyond the Paris agreement and what governments have committed.” explained Swickard. “In order to do that, we really need the private sector to step up. And one of the key ways that they can do that is through the voluntary market.”

Though the voluntary market isn’t regulated by the Paris Agreement (and therefore isn’t a topic of discussion at COP27), as Swickard elaborates, it does provide a mechanism for the injection of funds from the private sector (i.e companies) towards select, developing locations. This immediate allocation of funds provides a speedier, and sometimes necessary alternative for those countries which may not have the means to make their industries more sustainable.

Furthermore, if the funds are used correctly, they can be put towards a sustainable infrastructure, rather than an infrastructure that supports high-emissions industries.

“Instead of building new coal, You can use this finance to help distribute renewable energy, for example, and avoid the emissions problem from occurring at all while also providing that development advancement.” explained Swickard. “So that’s a fundamental part of what we do at South Pole. We help companies understand what their emissions profile is, how they can reduce it internally, and then how they can use these credits to fund climate action around the world.”

The Carbon Market Is Here to Stay

As the demand for carbon credits increases in the face of growing climate commitments, the carbon market is sure to become a much greater area of focus. Thankfully, last year’s COP26 solidified Article 6, but there is still much work to be done in efficiently utilising this mechanism to reach NDC’s, and to avoid the 1.5-degree limit.  

For developing countries, the private-sector funds made available through the voluntary carbon market mechanism could be a game changer, not only for the well-being of their people, but in involving them in the climate-action agenda. With every country doing their part, it may be possible to avert worsening climate-change related disasters in the near future, while also building sustainable infrastructure from the ground up. 

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The post Can the Voluntary Carbon Market Help Improve Sustainability in Developing Countries? appeared first on Earth.Org.

The wetlands, peat bogs, and forests of Polesia, as well as the mountainous, rocky regions of Carpathia, are home to some of Ukraine’s most beloved and cherished creatures. Lynx, wolves, bears, deer, bats, otters, and many other beloved animals have lasted countless generations within its alpine meadows, winding rivers, and endless steppes. Now, with the war in Ukraine, everything they’ve ever known is at stake. On International Day for Exploitation of the Environment in War, observed annually on November 6, we reflect on the environmental impact of the conflict and what can be done to mitigate its impact on the country’s ecosystems.

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What Is Happening In Ukraine?

On February 24, 2022, Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine, giving them free rein to cause as much carnage and destruction as possible. Nearly 200,000 troops, 4800 armoured vehicles, and as many as 2,700 tanks were observed entering the country that day. 

The mayhem that has transpired to this date can only be described as horrific. Entire cities have been reduced to rubble under relentless shelling and bombing; Ukrainian citizens have been murdered indiscriminately on the streets by Russian forces; and Ukrainian prisoners of war, soldiers as young as 18, have been abused and tortured in unspeakable ways.

During dire times such as these, the objectives of war often take precedence over the environment. However, we cannot completely ignore the environmental implications that violent and prolonged conflicts like the one in Ukraine have.

The Environmental Impact of the War

Along the southern coast of the war-torn country, in a once-protected locale known as the Black Sea Biosphere, the environmental cost of the war is assumed to be staggering, and perhaps at its worst. Many endangered species that live in this area, including the Russian desman (Desmana Moschata), the sandy blind mole-rat (Spalex Arenarius), and a Ukrainian species of snail (Vitrea Nadejdae), as well as varying species of rare plants and insects, are all under extreme threat now that Russian forces are conducting military operations in their vicinity, and may very well be driven to extinction, should the war persist.

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Over 120,000 birds, including seagulls, swallows, snipe, ducks and grouse nest along the beaches and wetlands of this coastal region, and over 250,000 common, mereswine, and bottlenose dolphins swim along the shorelines of the Black Sea Biosphere. Unfortunately, those  very same shorelines are now being patrolled by attack boats, the beaches are covered in landmines, and due to the presence of the Russian military, all conservation efforts in the area have effectively ended.

The same can be said of many other protected locations across the country. In an article by The New York Times, Oleksandr Krasnolutskyi, deputy minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources in Ukraine, stated that Russian troops have already conducted military operations in over a third of Ukraine’s protected natural areas. 

In a separate interview with The Guardian, Krasnolutskyi also said that almost 400,000 hectares and 14 Ramsar sites along the coastline and lower reaches of the Dnipro river are currently under huge threat.

Almost 31 years ago, on December 1, 1991, Ukraine joined the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (RCWII), delegating approximately 803,000 hectares as official Ramsar sites. 

Ramsar sites – aptly named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the treaty originated – are designated as protected, ecologically important wetlands, in accordance with the framework set forth by the RCWII. Since 1975, four years after its original inception in Iran, the Convention has garnered support from 90% of United Nations member states, including Russia.

In spite of their commitment to the Convention, Russia’s military continues to aggressively encroach on these sensitive and vital ecosystems, placing the health of the species that live here at risk. The bombs, bullets, and other munitions they employ often contain high levels of toxic metals (lead, mercury and arsenic, to name a few) and other environmental pollutants, and their invading military vehicles – the troop trucks, armoured personnel carriers, and armoured tanks – weigh thousands of pounds and thus carve deep gouges into the sensitive peat bogs and wetlands that these conservationists have spent decades restoring. 

Experts are predicting that the environmental cost of the war will be so severe there will be lasting consequences for not only Ukraine, but for all of Europe.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises a host of unique and potentially profound environmental concerns for not only the people of Ukraine, but the wider region” stated Carroll Muffet, president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law in an interview with ABC News. “Those human impacts of the war take on a lot of forms and a lot of dimensions, and many of them last long after the hostilities have ceased.”

Some of the key areas of concern understandably include the associated greenhouse gas emissions of this entire war – which may prevent global climate goals from being reached, including the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting heating to 1.5C. However, Ukraine is also host to a number of chemical, industrial and more importantly nuclear facilities, all of which are very hazardous and thus extremely concerning. 

“The conduct of active military operations in a country with four nuclear facilities and 15 active nuclear reactors poses extraordinary risks,” Muffett noted.

As many experts agree, should any of these facilities be destroyed, their toxic contents could leach into both the atmosphere and the soil, causing far-reaching damages that could take decades or even centuries to repair. 

Take the disaster that occurred in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, also located in Ukraine, for example. The accident has left the surrounding area largely uninhabited, with soil still showing high levels of radioactivity nearly four decades later, meaning any surface-level disturbances will likely push radioactive dust particles into the atmosphere. 

The fact that Russia is now mobilising large militaries in the proximity of destroyed nuclear facilities is raising alarm among experts. In fact, this could create radioactive “clouds” that can travel great distances, depositing nuclear fallout in neighbouring countries, and possibly even further.

“We now understand the environmental dimensions of war in ways that we didn’t decades ago,” stated Muffet.  

Can We Help?

The war in Ukraine does not only cause unimaginable amounts of suffering, loss, and destruction but it also has catastrophic environmental implications. Though aid is truly needed in the humanitarian sector right this second, the rebuilding of Ukraine and its environment after the war is another avenue of investment that one could take if they still want to assist where one can. 

The start-up project Let’s Get Ready to Rebuild Ukraine has already managed to accrue over US$27,000 towards the clean-up, rehabilitation, and restoration of Ukraine. The World to Rebuild Rural Ukraine is another effort garnering serious attention. Their goal is to help Ukrainian villagers rebuild their homes, farms, and eventually, their lives after the war in Ukraine has finally ended. 

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The post The Environmental Impact of the War in Ukraine appeared first on Earth.Org.

In anticipation of COP27, South Pole, a global climate project developer and advisory firm, recently released their Net Zero 2022 report, titled “Net Zero and Beyond”, so as to spread awareness of the quality of the climate commitments that companies are making to reach their net-zero targets. In so doing, the firm revealed a troubling phenomenon. Known as greenhushing, a minority of companies surveyed are choosing to set science-based targets, but are also choosing not to publicise them openly, opting for the bare-minimum, government-mandated amount of transparency. Of course, in a time where transparency and collaboration are paramount, this lack of cooperation has some experts worried about the future. 

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The UN Climate Change Conference, otherwise known as the Conference of the Parties (COP) has been gathering almost every country on Earth for nearly thirty years to focus global attention on climate change, sustainability, and current environmental affairs. 

With last year’s 26th annual conference (COP26), which took place in Glasgow, a series of goals were set to further bolster efforts towards climate change action on a global scale. Some of them included adapting to protect global communities and natural habitats, mobilising finances from both developed countries and international institutions, and working together to deliver on climate action through the collaboration of governments, businesses and civil society. However, it is arguable that the greatest of these goals was to secure “global net zero” by mid-century, and to keep the 1.5C Paris Agreement target well within reach. 

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In order to achieve these targets, governments, businesses and institutions often look for assistance in handling the complicated science, logistics, and groundwork behind climate change action. This is where companies like South Pole, a global climate project developer and advisory firm, come into play.

What Did South Pole’s Report Find?

Active in nearly 40 locations across the world, South Pole is a profit-for-purpose company with many climate-action capacities, including but not limited to sustainable finances, plastic solutions, digital climate solutions and climate investments. 

“We’ve been at the forefront of decarbonisation since 2006, and we are known for our ability to develop climate action projects.” says Nadia Kähkönen, South Pole’s deputy director of global communications, in an exclusive interview with Earth.Org. “We do this all over the world, providing stellar sustainability advice to companies big and small, as well as different levels of the government.” 

The company is also heavily invested in providing accessible and accurate climate activism data, the kind that paints a clear, reliable picture of the current state of global environmental affairs. This is made evident in their annual Net Zero Report, the third of which occurred this year.

“Governments [across the world] have set these targets to reduce emissions to net-zero by 2050, and so companies are starting to focus on the same target.” – says Kähkönen. “For the first time, we have this opportunity to really think between governments and the private sector on reaching this target, and why it’s so important to do so.” 

South Pole’s extensive Net Zero 2022 report, titled “Net Zero and Beyond”, covers a wide range of data related to sustainable action, including both UK-specific and global trends, from 1,220 companies across 15 sectors in 12 countries. However, their main focus, as the title suggests, is to ascertain exactly how well companies are doing in the setting and attainment of their “Net Zero” goals.  

“We need to be able to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, and we’re really running out of time.” – explains Kähkönen. “The reason we do this report is to be able to shed light on the drivers of the road, the enablers of the private sector who are trying to chart this tricky journey to net zero emissions.”

As the report states, as much as 95% of heavy-emitter companies have targets set in place (a significant difference to the 71% of companies that are not heavy emitters), with net-zero targets growing linearly in relation to a company’s revenue; a strategy South Pole calls the “race to the top”, and attributes to not only satisfaction of consumer demand and a need to evoke brand leadership, but more importantly, to the anticipation of regulatory pressure. 

This is because regulations tend to target heavy emitting companies, who are under constant scrutiny from their stakeholders, which in turn forces them to act quickly to show they have everything under control, and won’t be losing finances needlessly to hefty environmental fines.  

Furthermore, and rather interestingly,  the report suggests that these companies may also be attempting to gather valuable information in an attempt to better understand supply chain risks and external shocks.

”We noticed this shift.” – says Kähkönen. “The focus on supply chains was not as prevalent in the past two years, and it was top of mind this year.”

“If we look at the current landscape one might even say it’s been a collision of crises. Inflation is biting. We’ve had covid, we’ve had conflict. And so that link between business resilience, sustainability and you know, business continuity has just become abundantly clear for many businesses.”

What Is Greenhushing?

Though many companies have adapted earnestly to the demands of the modern age, it was also determined that there is a minority – the equivalent of 25% of surveyed, UK-based, heavy-emitting companies – that are choosing to set these targets, but still refusing to publicise them completely. 

Even more worrisome, this issue is happening on a global scale. Approximately 20% of companies surveyed across the world are also deciding to keep quiet – a move South Pole refers to as “going green, then going dark”–  otherwise known as “greenhushing”; a relatively new term that refers to a company’s refusal to publicise anything about the sustainability of its products or services for fear of being open to criticism.

“Greenhushing is almost the opposite of greenwashing.” – Kähkönen explains. “There are companies who have set very demanding science-based emissions reduction targets and are now deciding not to publicise them beyond what’s mandatory.”

However, this begs the question: why?

As Kähkönen describes, there may be three reasons why: Fear of failure, fear of scrutiny, and fear of litigation. Businesses fear failing because they are currently operating in a completely different economic environment than even just a year ago, and they fear scrutiny because people will judge their efforts and will likely ask for improvements. As for legislation, modern businesses in some countries like France, for example, must follow explicit rules surrounding corporate environmental claims. These rules are likely to arise in other countries as well. 

South Pole observed the phenomena of greenhushing by asking surveyed companies a relatively simple question: “Do you have a science based target (SBT), and do you plan to publicise it?”

A target is considered “science-based” when they are in line with what modern science deems necessary to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement (limiting global warming to below 2 C above pre-industrial levels and continuing to limit warming to 1.5 C).

“For some, this may actually mean the verified SBT, through the SBTi, which is the body that validates them.” – says Kähkönen. “For others, it might be something that is taken from this practice, but they’re setting that target on their own.”

The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), is the governing body that provides a global framework for which targets should be deemed acceptable by the science-based community. 

“They’re coming out with sector specific guidance every year. So essentially, if you think about it for the first time, we have this standard for what credible looks like.” 

The initiative is accessible by anyone with an internet connection, providing a detailed account of every participating company’s commitments to climate action. So far, 3,901 companies have agreed to share their targets, with 1,859 SBT’s and 1,541 Net Zero commitments set.

As Kähkönen explains, having a set standard instills a sense of urgency and resilience in a business’s ability to express that they are best in class. The Net Zero target focuses the whole company together under one umbrella, unifying their goals as one. 

“This is what you use to bring the whole organisation together on this journey.” 

An End to Greenhushing

South Pole condemns greenhushing for a number of reasons, but mainly because it makes it harder for others to assess if a company is meeting its goals, while also making it more difficult for companies to collaborate and encourage one another to meet more ambitious targets.

As South Pole CEO Renat Heuberger said in a statement: “The speed at which we are overshooting our planetary boundaries is mind-blowing. More than ever we need the companies making progress on sustainability to inspire their peers to make a start. This is impossible if progress is happening in silence,” 

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The post ‘Greenhushing’ on the Rise as Companies Keep Quiet on Science-Based Targets appeared first on Earth.Org.

The recent floods in Pakistan are by far the worst and most destructive the country has ever experienced. Current damage estimates are as high as US$28 billion. Nearly 1,700 people have lost their lives, two million acres of land are currently underwater, two million homes have been destroyed, and thousands upon thousands of kilometres of roads, bridges, and railways have been lost. As the flood-ravaged country desperately seeks aid from the international community, millions of Pakistani residents are either starving, dying, or both, leaving the rest of the world watching in disbelief as yet another calamity strikes this record-breaking year.

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Pakistan, a country that contributes as little as 0.8% to global greenhouse gasses, is currently experiencing its worst and most destructive monsoon season yet, likely the result of climate change itself. 

Described as biblical in proportion, the current Pakistan monsoon season has caused an incomprehensible amount of destruction, leaving over one-third of its land underwater and almost 1,700 people killed. The loss of two million homes, thousands of kilometres of roads, and hundreds of vital bridges mark the beginning of what will likely be an extremely difficult time for the 33 million displaced individuals who are still trying to survive, stay positive, and call Pakistan home.

During times such as these, information is an absolute necessity, and if you are looking to assist, you are probably wondering the same thing we are: What’s behind the catastrophic floods in Pakistan, what exactly is happening on the ground, and what can I do to help?  

Food Insecurity Exacerbated by the Flooding 

In a recent statement, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs made it abundantly clear that food insecurity – a problem that Pakistan was already facing prior to the flooding – will now be an issue of even greater concern for the nearly 5.7 million people (3.4 million of which are children) that live within the flood-affected areas of Pakistan. 

Making matters worse, the little food that is available to these survivors is now being sold at absurdly high prices (the price of vegetables, for example, has tripled) in markets that are oftentimes too far to reach. This, in turn, requires that these desperate, fatigued, and hungry individuals wade through dangerous, unpredictable waters for hours on end just to feed themselves and their families.

In response to the destruction that has happened in Pakistan, Save the Children’s country director, Khuram Gondal stated: “The true devastation caused by these floods is becoming clearer every day. As well as dealing with the wreckage, the country is now facing a full-blown hunger crisis.” 

Research by Save the Children has found that 86% of Pakistani families affected by the flood have lost their incomes completely and are unable to afford food. Some families are in such a state of desperation that they are encouraging their children to roam the streets and beg. Others are even willing to marry their children off in the hopes that they’ll survive with someone else. In a report by Save the Children, as many as 55 parents admitted to parting with their children and leaving them in the hands of somebody else just so they could survive.

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The Destruction of Vital Agricultural Infrastructure

With 39% of the country’s workforce involved in agriculture, this year’s unprecedented monsoon season has been catastrophic to say the least. The record-breaking rains and floods that pummeled the Pakistan landscape left many farmers ill-prepared, and thus unable to preserve their crops. 

Right before their eyes, their entire livelihoods – farms and other forms of agriculture that provide the food that makes up the backbone of the Pakistani diet – were completely swept away, leaving many of them desperately scouring the floodwaters for anything that they could save to survive the months ahead.

Photo by UN/Evan Schneider (Flickr).

Altaf Hussain Marri, a significant landholder in Khairpur stated in an interview that his 400 acres of cotton, rice, and wheat, worth over $40,000, had been completely destroyed in the floods, and that he is worried not just for himself, but for his entire country. 

“If we fail to grow wheat, next year we might not have  wheat to eat,” Marri said. “It will create food insecurity in the country. The poor will suffer a lot. There will be no flour.”

As troubling as this sounds, the government of Pakistan has stated that their disaster relief wheat stores are sufficient to last through the next harvest, and that they plan on purchasing more. 

However, whether or not they’ll be able to achieve pre-flood production rates within a reasonable amount of time has yet to be determined. 50% of their second largest producer of wheat, the southern Sindh province of Pakistan, remains underwater, according to Jam Khan Shoro, a provincial irrigation minister in Sindh. 

In an interview with The New York Times, a resident of rural Pakistan by the name of Padooma explained how vital these crops were to most farmers. “It is even more important than our children. We are living and we are dying for the wheat.”

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Floods in Pakistan Are Spreading Diseases

According to Julien Harneis, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Pakistan, the flood-stricken country is now entering its “second wave of death and destruction” as diseases like malaria, dengue, and diarrhoea are likely to proliferate, with children being the most vulnerable. 

“There will be an increase in child morbidity and it will be pretty terrible unless we act rapidly to support the government in increasing the provision of health, nutrition and water and sanitation services across the affected areas,” said Harneis. 

He has also stated that some of the main drivers of illness and disease after floods such as this are a lack of health facilities but, even more importantly, a lack of proper sanitation. Since many survivors are unable to access a proper toilet or other sanitary measures, many are forced to drink and bathe with the very same waters they defecate in. This can lead to all sorts of problems, namely e.coli infections, which in turn cause extreme fatigue, diarrhoea, and even death. 

Since much of the water that has covered Pakistan is not moving, the standing waters have provided ample opportunity for mosquitoes to breed, and dominate the landscape. This has led to widespread infections of malaria, a devastating disease passed on through mosquito bites. According to data garnered from the Health Department of Balochistan, the worst-hit province, approximately 2,434 cases of malaria were reported within a single day in the Naseerabad division, prompting them to open as many as 1,621 medical camps to prevent its spread. 

Is Climate Change to Blame for the Record-Breaking Floods in Pakistan?

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that Pakistan has experienced extreme weather events. During what would normally have been a cool March of this year, temperatures skyrocketed and were recorded as high as 40C.  

The Global Climate Risk Index 2021 ranked Pakistan as one of the most susceptible to the effects of climate change. Despite the serious nature of this most recent flood, the disaster-prone country experiences destructive floods on an annual basis.  

That being said, this year’s deluge has been called the most destructive Pakistan has seen in its entire history as a country.

“The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres during his appeal for US$160 million (an amount that has increased fivefold, since then) in aid on August 30. 

“Today it is Pakistan, tomorrow it could be your country.”

In an interview with Earth.org, Dr Asif Khan Khattak of the University of Peshawar, a professor  who specialises in environmental sciences, says that climate change is the most likely culprit behind the sudden, extreme flooding that Pakistan has suffered. 

“Pakistan experiences monsoon rainfall every year with some variation from year to year that has led to flooding in the past. However, this year the monsoon flooding has been unprecedented due to the record rainfall during the monsoon period in Sindh and Balochistan provinces. Moreover, the monsoon rainfall also saw a shift north-westwards resulting in excessive precipitation in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This led to flash floods.”

Dr. Khattak further states that climate change-induced heatwaves have had a disastrous effect on Northern Pakistan’s icy, mountainous regions, so much so that they became a significant contributor to the floodwaters that cover Pakistan today. 

“Due to global warming there has been rapid melting of the glaciers in the Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountainous regions increasing the volume of water in the Indus river system. The glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF’s) also contributed to the flash flooding in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province causing extensive damage. Based on an attribution study recently by Freiderike Otto, it was shown that climate change likely contributed to the intensity and severity of the monsoon rainfall in Pakistan.”

It may come as a surprise to some, but the mountainous ranges of Northern Pakistan are home to over 7,000 glaciers, and is known as the world’s third pole. In some extraordinary situations (a heatwave, for example), major flooding can occur when these  glaciers melt quickly. Referred to as GLOF’s the phenomena is characterised by the relatively quick buildup of melt-water lakes in the vicinity of glaciers, which eventually burst and cause destructive flash floods, much like what we are seeing today across most of Pakistan.

The phenomenon is especially prevalent in Pakistan. In fact, the Hunza district was recently hit by a GLOF in May of this year after a significant heatwave. 

However, some experts do not believe this most recent deluge was a GLOF. “These floods were mostly the result of southbound rains,” said Dr Shafqat Munir, a research fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute of Islamabad in an interview. 

“To be very clear, the glaciers had nothing to do with the recent floods,”

Are There Any Solutions?

Though many believe that global warming is the sole reason Pakistan suffers such disastrous natural phenomena, the reality is that the country’s poorly prepared infrastructure further exacerbate the already catastrophic consequences of climate change-induced weather events that repeatedly hit the Asian nation.

Under the previous Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government, most climate resilience efforts were centered on tree planting, clean energy, and electric vehicles. Although these are all commendable efforts, this was likely a serious mistake (aside from tree planting!), as issues like illegal construction, poor urban development, and a lack of proper water storage should have taken the forefront if they hoped to combat the disastrous natural phenomena that awaited them.

For example, urban development, like the building of large hotels and entire communities, was allowed to continue in areas where floods were known to cause the most damage. Illegal development in locations that were previously destroyed by floods, like the one that occurred 12 years ago, in July of 2010, went on undisturbed.

The Indus River System Authority (IRSA) reported that Pakistan receives approximately 145 million acre-feet (MAF) of water every year, but is only capable of storing 13.7 MAF. If they could store the floodwaters properly, not only would they prevent billions in damages and the loss of thousands of lives, they could also provide fresh water to their entire country.

However, this would require the Pakistani government to invest in dams, more specifically mega dams, that are capable of handling the increases in rainfall and glacier meltwater that are being seen every year. For example, the Diamer-Basha dam, should it be built in Gilgit-Baltistan, is expected to have an 892 feet-high spillway, 14 gates, and will be capable of holding 6.4 MAF alone. As life changing as its construction would be for the people of Pakistan, the associated cost is equivalent to nearly 10% of Pakistan’s total GDP.

That being said, there are other ways to prevent the damages caused by floods. The regular cleaning and maintenance of storm drains, the installation of rain management systems (water storage tanks), and the implementation of proper by-laws to prevent water diversion to city streets by large corporate chains and government buildings, would be a great place to start.  Furthermore, being aware of water stock, and where storage tanks should be empty and ready for intense rainfalls, is also an area of focus that could use some improvement.  

Photo by Abdul Majeed/European Union (Flickr).

How Can I Help?

Near the end of August this year, the United Nations issued an appeal for US$160 million in emergency funding for Pakistan, however this amount was found to be inadequate. As of October 5, the appeal has been increased five-fold – to $816 million. 

“The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has already increased the relief funding for Pakistan.” says Dr. Khattak. “[However], Pakistan has been a victim of the impacts of climate change just like many of the other developing countries that have contributed very little to global greenhouse gas emissions. Developed countries that have caused the global climate change problem should ensure the provision of Loss and Damage Funding according to the Paris Agreement 2015 to those developing countries which are suffering due to the severe impacts of climate change.” 

“Pakistan’s debt burden is very high, and the IMF and World Bank should provide relief.”

Dr. Khattak further states that although the Pakistan military, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), and the Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMA) have been providing assistance in all four provinces of the country, they could certainly use some help from the international community. “There is a need to enhance the operational capacity of these organisations.” 

As you can see, help is needed urgently. If you’d like to donate, the UN Refugee agency, otherwise known as the UNHCR, is actively accepting donations. As are many other disaster relief efforts, including Save the Children, UNICEF, and Global Giving. 

The UN is also asking for in-person volunteer support, with more ways than one to help out. 

Featured image by Shahid Saeed Mirza/AFP via Getty Images

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