How is China working to tackle deforestation? The nation implemented the Great Green Wall of China project in 1978 to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert and provide timber to the local population. A quarter of all landmass is desert in China, which until recently was rapidly expanding. Some causes and impacts of desertification include include “aeolian desertification,” caused by wind erosion after vegetation is destroyed, “water and soil loss,” caused by water erosion mainly distributed in the Loess plateau, “salinisation,” caused by poor water management and “rock desertification,” mainly occurring in the Karst region of Southwestern China. 

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Desertification in China

Research shows that currently 27.4% of land in China has undergone desertification, affecting about 400 million people. 

Feng Wang, associate professor at the institute of Desertification Studies at the Chinese Academy of Forestry states, “The main problem [China faces] is an oversized population living in the drylands that surpasses the ecological carrying and restoring capacity of this area.” However, this problem isn’t just unique to China. According to a 2013 report by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), desertification, land degradation and droughts have accelerated globally, especially during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, particularly in areas that are prone to arid, semi- arid and dry sub – humid climates. It adds that throughout the past 40 years, the Earth has lost a third of its arable land, mostly to erosion and degradation. 

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What Is the Great Green Wall of China?

The Great Green Wall project is expected to continue until 2050 and aims to plant around 88 million acres of forests in a wall stretching about 3 000 miles and as wide as 900 miles in some places. The government has subsidised and added numerous major afforestation projects in more recent years, resulting in the biggest tree-planting project in human history. 

The results have so far been satisfactory, as thousands of acres of moving dunes have been stabilised and the frequency of sandstorms nationwide fell by one-fifth between 2009 and 2014. 

However, some experts are more skeptical. Jennifer L. Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the D.C- based Woodrow Wilson Center, says, “with the Great Green Wall, people are planting lots of trees in big ceremonies to stem desertification, but then later no one really takes care of them and they die.”

Precisely speaking, many of the trees that are planted in areas where they do not grow naturally simply perish after a few years. Those that do survive can soak up a lot of the groundwater that the native grasses and shrubs need, causing more soil degradation. If afforestation continually exceeds the land’s carrying capacity, it will lead the trees to an eventual death. Thus it is difficult to determine whether or not the the China Green Wall is helping or hurting local ecosystems; a 2014 study of China’s major trees planting programmes by a group of American and Chinese scientists concluded that “the extent to which the programmes have changed local ecological and socioeconomic conditions are still poorly understood, as local statistics are often not available or unreliable.” 

Scientists predict that desertification will continue to increase as the Earth’s climate changes, proposing the withdrawal of human action and giving the ecosystem enough time to restore itself in the future.

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Featured image by: Wikimedia Commons 

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Australia fails to meet the goals of the five-year project as the government comes up with a new 10-year strategy putting greater focus on preserving the country’s most endangered species, specific habitats and landscapes. 

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A coalition government strategy to save Australia’s most threatened fauna and flora has failed to meet the targets, as shown by the final year report of the five-year strategy, introduced under the former Australian environment minister, Greg Hunt. 

The final year of the five-year project was a year of unique challenges, which covered the summer of 2019 to 2020, where Australia experienced extreme widespread bushfires across many areas of the country. Many threatened species were pushed closer to extinction during this particular period. 

The targets that were not met included five aims to improve the trajectory of 20 birds, 20 mammals, and 30 plants, including endangered species such as the red-tailed black cockatoo and the eastern barred bandicoot. 

One of the most endangered species in Australia, the eastern barred bandicoot. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Although the government had written that this time frame of five years was uniquely challenging and too short, it had also falsely stated that they were able to show “quantifiable progress against ambitious, outcomes-based targets that were pursued over the Strategy’s five years”. 

Ayesha Tulloch, a research fellow at the University of Sydney, holds a strong opinion towards this. She said that the introduction of the strategy itself has been a positive step, but added that it was alarming how there were as many unmet targets as those that had been fully achieved even after five years.  

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She specifically stated that this was mostly the case for “process-focused goals”, such as targets to have up-to-date recovery plans, conservation advice, and threat abatement plans in place for all of the priority species. 

“Given that we have hundreds of threatened plants and we can’t even meet a target of 30 being improved over five years, that’s very alarming,” Tulloch said. 

Euan Ritchie, a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University, was more optimistic as he said that the strategy had raised awareness and believed that there has been some success documented within the five year period, including the establishment of additional wildlife safe havens that were free of feral cats.

But, he had stated that the report did show “many failures”, quantitatively noting that fewer than 35% of the priority plant and animal species had improved population trajectories. 

The government announced back in May that it would be developing a new 10-year strategy for threatened species, made up of various five-year action plans. This strategy will include a greater focus on the landscape and the specific habitat of these species, as Tulloch and Ritchie had stated, this new plan should come with tougher environmental protections such as legislation to halt habitat clearing. As this strategy is tentatively Australia’s first approach to mitigating climate change, the goals were too ambitious, as a spokesman had stated. “It has formed, however, a vital framework for the next decade [that] has already been saving species.” 

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Featured image by: Flickr

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New Zealand bans most single use plastics including straws and utensils while ongoing leveraging of plastic use of the commercial sectors. 

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New Zealand has already banned single use plastic bags back in 2019 but the new ban will specifically include packaging for produce, as well as a range of other items. 

“Every day, New Zealanders throw away an estimated 159g of plastic waste per person, making us some of the highest waste generators in the world,” said David Parker, the current New Zealand environment minister. 

Single use plastics, which will be phased in between 2022 and 2025, would “ensure we live up to our clean, green reputation,” adds Parker. Officials are estimating that this new policy will be able to ban more than 2 billion single-use plastic items annually. 

The UK has similarly introduced a ban on plastic straws, stirrers, and cotton buds in 2020, however at the same time, the government has taken little action to tackle other plastic waste reduction including the massive amount of plastic sachets used primarily by food industries. It is a huge piece of the pollution puzzle that remains unsolved. 

Many countries have stalled progress on reducing plastic waste as a result of  COVID-19.  Some states in the US weakened the ban as the pandemic reached its peak. Single-use surgical masks, plastic gloves, and hand sanitiser bottles have emerged as a new form of environmental hazards across the globe, as well as takeaway and delivery food containers in territories such as Hong Kong. 

The new ban in New Zealand is an important step in combating plastic pollution but it has failed to acknowledge that many of the largest producers of plastic waste have been from the commercial sectors. “It’s very easy to forget that some of our more commercial sectors are also big plastics users,” said Associate Professor Terri-Ann Berry, the director of Environmental Solutions Research at the Centre at Unitec. For instance, construction and demolition alone accounted for more than half of landfill waste in New Zealand. Meanwhile in countries like China and Chile, their commercial sectors will face strict fines for illegal plastic bag distribution. 

New Zealand still has to consider alternatives for domestic and commercial replacements of single use plastics, as the government announces their next steps progressively. 

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New research from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Ecosystems Center published a study indicating that plastic waste and microplastics derived from it have been accumulating in salt marshes for decades. 

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Salt marshes are coastal wetlands that are flooded and drained by salt water. Microplastics tend to float on the water surface which would normally get trapped in the branches and roots and settle into the marsh soil. 

These sediments end up accumulating in the salt marsh for years, essentially creating an historical record of plastic sediments within the ecosystem. 

Globally scientists roughly estimate that about 8 million tons of plastic enter the ocean each year, however there has been no estimation of the amount of plastic that gets trapped in the marsh ecosystems. 

Samples of marsh sediment at six different estuaries in the Waquoit Bay system in Cape Cod in the US allowed researchers to trace the abundance of microplastics dating back decades when there were contrasting differences in land use. 

“As you go into the past, the amount of microplastics you find decreases clearly… The amount of microplastics you find in sediments is related to the population of numbers… but also the amount of plastic that people use” says Lloret, a marine ecologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. 

Rut Pedrosa- Pàmies, an MBL research scientist and co-author on the paper, says, “Waquoit Bay is the perfect salt marsh system to study plastic pollution because we can contrast one area that is almost pristine… with another area that is highly impacted by human activity.”

The researchers primarily focused on two types of microplastic pollution: fragments (breakdown of larger plastic pieces) and fibres (thread like plastics from clothing and fishing gear). They found that fragment pollution increased with urbanisation. 

One surprise in the data however was that microplastic concentration in the sediments wasn’t linear as urbanisation grew. The concentration of microplastic fragments was relatively unchanged up to 50% development, but once the land use exceeded 50%, the number of microplastics grew rapidly and exponentially. 

Pedrosa- Pàmies, says, “Just a few people in the surrounding area is not going to change much, but when urban uses more pristine areas that don’t have urbanisation, we find fiber plastic pollution.”

Pedrosa- Pàmies concludes, There are still a lot of unanswered questions. This is the first step for management, too.” 

You might also like: Microplastics in the Marine Environment and its Climate Implications: How to Overcome the Impacts?

Featured image by: Max Pixel

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The world’s soils, which provide 95% of humanity’s food, are “under great pressure,” according to a UN report, as soil pollution spreads seamlessly throughout terrestrial and aquatic environments and is redistributed by way of food and production chains. 

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Soils are the largest active store of carbon next to the oceans, making it crucial in mitigating the climate crisis. However, industrial pollution, excessive mining and farming, and unregulated waste management are poisoning the soils. More specifically, these pollutants include metals, cyanides, DDT, pesticides and organic chemicals such as PCBs, also known as Polychlorinated biphenyls, which are a group of man-made chemicals that can generate harmful by-products such as dioxins under combustion. However, the report has stated that most of the pollutants that end up penetrating soil layers are difficult to quantify, making the true level of damage uncertain. 

The annual global production of industrial chemicals has doubled since 2000 to 2.3 billion tonnes and is expected to nearly double the current chemical production rate by 2030. The UN warns that due to contaminants including pharmaceuticals, antimicrobials and plastics, soil pollution is expected to increase rapidly. 

What Are the Effects of Soil Pollution?

“Soil pollution may be invisible to human eyes but it compromises the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. Pollution knows no borders – contaminants move through soil, air and water. It is time to reconnect with our soils, as it is where our food begins. Soil pollution should no longer be a hidden reality. Let us all be part of the solution to soil pollution,” Inger Andersen, head of the UN environment stated. 

Since the Industrial Revolution, 136 billion tonnes of soil has been lost and because it takes thousands of years for soils to reform or even recover, urgent protection is necessary.

The report concludes: “Soil contaminants can have irreparable consequences on human and ecosystem health.” Although the major contributing factor of soil pollution differs by region, the biggest problem is the heavy industrialisation in western Europe and North America, mostly farming in Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe, and mining in sub-Saharan Africa. In North Africa, urban pollution is predicted to be the biggest source of contamination. 

The report calls for urgent action to tackle soil pollution, specifically emphasising on the need for governance and legal frameworks, such as international conventions that regulate persistent organic pollutants, as well as thorough identification and risk assessment of contaminated sites and polluted soils. 

The report ends by stating, “Greater political, business and social commitment is needed to seek alternatives to the use of highly toxic contaminants and to increase investment in research, prevention and remediation.” Improved knowledge and awareness of maintaining soil fertility is a crucial step to mitigate climate and environmental issues.  

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B Corporations are for-profit corporations that have been certified by B Lab, another non-profit company that measures a company’s social and environmental performance against the standards in the B Impact Assessment. A certified B Corporation shows its ability to manifest high standards in regards to social and environmental performances, such as reducing inequality, mitigating poverty, conserving the environment, and creating high quality jobs with dignity. 

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B Lab’s long term goal is to build “a global community of Certified B Corporations who meet that highest standard of verified, overall social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability.” By reversing the definition of a successful business, B Corporations become purpose-driven businesses, which aim to reverse climate change.

According to B Lab, the five conditions that define a Certified B Corporation are: 

• Accountability: 

Directors are mandated to consider the company’s impact on all shareholders

• Transparency: 

Certified B Corporations are required to publish a report of their social and environmental performance, as this report is assessed by a neutral party

• Performance: 

The corporations must maintain a minimum score on the B impact Assessment text every two years. The BIA assesses both the company’s day- to- day operations and the business model. B-corp certification requires a minimum score of 80 across all impact areas

• Availability: 

Any business can become a Certified B Corporation regardless of business type and location

• Cost: 

Certification fees vary according to the revenues. These costs are outlined below:

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Table from: https://bcorporation.net/certification

Through the certification issued by B Lab, the B-Corp ensures that new companies are purpose-driven and that growing companies scale with integrity. B Corp companies “use profits and growth as a means to a greater end: positive impact for their employees, communities and the environment,” as stated in the Certified B Corporation website.  

The community of certified B Corps is constantly growing as there are currently over 3 000 issued B corp certification across 150 industries in 71 countries. 

Why Would a Company Pursue a B Corporation Certification? 

Research shows that millennials, representing roughly about 50% of the global workforce, seek work that connects them to a larger purpose. Thus, companies that have fulfilled the assessment requirements of B Lab are highly alluring to them since it practices high standards of social and environmental performances, public transparency, legal accountability to balance the profit and purpose, and “comprehensively covers the impact of a business on all of its stakeholders including its workers, suppliers, community and the environment,” 

In February, several North American Certified B Corporations formed the B Corp Climate Action Collective, a group invested in fighting the climate crisis. The group wrote, “We demonstrate the collective power of our businesses to transform commerce and to create an inclusive society and environmental regeneration.” The Climate Action Collective added, “We commit to taking bold steps toward climate resiliency by using advocacy, cross- sector collaboration, corporate action, and the capital markets to stop emissions and drawdown carbon, improving global well being.”

It is imperative that all companies strive to achieve B Corporation status; doing so shows their willingness to protect the environment and those that are affected by it, which in the future, will be a major part of a company’s profitability. 

Examples of B-Corporations

• Brew Dr. has made a name for themselves as being the first national kombucha company to become a Certified B Corporation with a focus on sustainability. In their words, “As we continue to grow and scale our business, remaining a champion of our earth, land, and people will be at the core of what we do.”
• Patagonia also epitomises what it means to be purpose-driven. They too are transparent about being environmentally conscious as their mission is to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” They emphasise storytelling in their marketing efforts by spotlighting the environmental causes they care about.

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Methane is a powerfully potent greenhouse gas, with more heat-trapping potential than carbon dioxide. Historically, methane emissions have been extremely difficult to measure accurately. Now, a Canadian company, GHGSat, has launched a satellite to detect methane leaks from space and has begun selling data to emitters interested in pinpointing leaks that previously were harder to spot.

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GHGSat uses a two-satellite method to identify unknown methane leaks. First, a satellite identifies a general area where methane concentrations appear to be rising. Then, it sends one of two newer, far more sensitive satellites, known as Claire and Iris, to look more closely. Iris was launched a few months ago and the small emission it detected was a test leak, designed to demonstrate that the product actually worked. Iris was able to  detect methane emission leaks from sources 100 times smaller than any other satellite, but with resolution 100 times higher. 

GHGSat CEO Stephane Germain says, “ We expect Iris to attain 10 times better performance than Claire and now even more confident that we will validate that performance in the coming weeks.” 

Prior to these technological advances, tracking and measuring methane required ground-based sensors, however considering the millions of oil-and-gas facilities worldwide and the high cost of checking and rechecking, finding leaks could be time consuming and complicated, even with the use of airplanes and drones. In 2002, satellites from Japan and the European Space Agency began detecting global emissions, but the resolution was too low to identify point sources.

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“The discovery and quantification of gas leaks from space is a game-changer in the interaction of atmospheric sciences and climate change mitigation,” said Thomas Roeckmann, professor of atmospheric physics and chemistry at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and coordinator of a project called MEMO2, to measure methane leaks at ground level. “We will likely be able to detect smaller and thus potentially many more leaks from space in the near future.”

Besides production of fossil fuels, methane also comes from landfills and agriculture, including livestock and rice farms. Additionally, natural sources such as wetlands produce around 40% of the worldwide emissions.

Given the fact that oil and gas operations are known to be the primary source of methane emission, and that increases in methane in the atmosphere have happened alongside an increase in drilling, they seemed a reasonable area to look. Sure enough, methane emissions from oil and gas operations have consistently been found to be far higher than what the industry and the US’ Environmental Protection Agency were estimating. 

“We do not know what the really large emitters are amongst the many coal mines and millions of oil and gas facilities,” said Ilse Aben, a co-principal investigator with the Earth Science Group at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research. But now “you can really see where the methane is coming from even what part of which facility.” 

According to the company, detecting and selling leaks is a business opportunity because much of what is recovered could be sold to produce energy, since methane is the primary component of natural gas. However, because gas prices are low right now, there is not much economic incentive to patch up leaks. However, satellites will continue to spot emissions from space, which allows observers to hold owners of leaking sites accountable for their pollution.

Greenhouse-gas-detecting satellites work by measuring sunlight reflected from Earth onto an instrument called a spectrometer. Different gases absorb light at different characteristic frequencies, so by seeing how much light of particular wavelengths reach the instrument, operators can see how much methane or other gas there is over a particular landscape. Factoring in wind speed and direction, alongside topography, helps track the gas to a source.

The need to track down methane leaks have never been more important. Although not as abundant as carbon dioxide emissions, methane is able to trap 84 times as much heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide does, which can contribute to about a quarter of global temperature rise. Additionally, research shows that the amount of methane emissions are being heavily underestimated- by as much as 25 to 40%.  

Featured image by: Flickr 

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On October 14, the third International E-Waste Day is being held; this year, a particular focus will be given to educating children and youth about how to tackle the growing e-waste problem. E-waste, or “electronic and electrical waste,” is electronic products that are nearing the end of their “useful life” and are discarded. Computers, televisions, VCRs, stereos, copiers, and fax machines are common electronic waste that can be reused, refurbished, or even recycled. E-waste is particularly dangerous due to toxic chemicals that are released when the appliance is buried.

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The ongoing debate on how to most effectively dispose of used and unwanted electronics has become a major issue, especially with the growing amount of e-waste. Due to rapid technological advances, many electronic devices that still function are considered obsolete, which leads to excessive debris of e-waste found in landfills. 

E-Waste and Toxic Materials 

Most electronic products contain toxic materials such as beryllium, cadmium, mercury, and lead which are serious threats to soil, water, air and wildlife.

More specifically, when E-waste gets buried at a landfill, the toxic materials dissolve into a sludge that permeates at the bottom of a landfill. These traces of toxic materials then sink into the  ground below the landfill. This process is known as leaching. The issue arises when huge amounts of E-Waste results in large toxic dissolved pools that eventually pollute the groundwater and the sources of freshwater in the surrounding area. 

This, once again, poses detrimental threats to nearby wildlife, causing them to get sick from lead, arsenic, cadmium and other metal poisonings. 

In 2019, the world produced a record 59 million metric tons of e-waste, up from 48.5 million tons in 2018, according to a UN report. Out of this, less than 20% is recycled. At this rate, the UN estimates that we could reach 120 million tons of electronic scrap by 2050. This volume of e-waste will present detrimental threats to the environment polluting rivers, lakes and seas, and also release toxic gases into the atmosphere. 

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What Is “Planned Obsolescence”?

Planned or programmed obsolescence refers to the deliberate shortening of electronic products’ life span by the manufacturer in order to circulate new consumption.

In early March, the EU released its Circular Economy Action Plan which requires manufacturers to make products that last longer and are easier to repair, use and recycle. Taking effect in 2021, the plan is a part of the EU’s targets to become a climate-neutral economy by 2050 as outlined in its New Green Deal.

In addition to European legislation, ISSOP is a mark awarded by Spain’s FENISS (Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Innovation Without Planned Obsolescence) certifying companies that produce environmentally respectable goods and services, without planned obsolescence, contributing to efficient waste management and emissions reduction. 

The Benefits of Recycling Technological Waste 

According to a report published in 2019 by Environmental Science & Technology, it is 13 times more costly to extract minerals from natural deposits than it is to recover them from technological waste for the manufacturing of new devices. Obtaining minerals like platinum, copper and palladium is a rigorous process requiring huge quantities of water and energy. Recycling technological waste would be beneficial for further manufacturing of new electronic gadgets.

With the endless production of e-waste, many countries have recognised the need for proper recycling processes and are working on implementing sustainable solutions. 

Besides the EU, some countries are creating their own legal frameworks to anticipate and prevent planned obsolescence. International cooperation and associations are supporting this progress in order to facilitate sustainable and global recycling chains. 

Featured image by: Flickr

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Green hydrogen is a clean burning fuel that eliminates emissions by using renewable energy to electrolyse water, separating the hydrogen atom within it from its molecular twin oxygen. 

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How Is Green Hydrogen Made?

The process of electrolysis has to happen. This process requires water, a big electrolyser and plentiful supplies of electricity. if this electricity comes from renewable sources, then the hydrogen is green; the only carbon emissions are those from the generation infrastructure. 

However, not much green hydrogen is currently being produced; it currently accounts for less than 1% of annual hydrogen production, according to Wood Mackenzie. 

A challenge lies in the relatively small supply of electrolysers and compared to more established production processes, electrolysis is very expensive, so the market for electrolysers is small. 

How Do You Use It?

Green hydrogen can be added to natural gas and burnt in thermal power or district heating plants. It can be used to replace the industrial hydrogen that gets made every year from natural gas. 

However, storing and transporting green hydrogen is difficult; the highly flammable gas occupies a lot of space and can make steel pipes brittle. Because of this, specialised pipelines must be built, which is costly, pressurising the gas or cooling it to a liquid. These last two processes are energy-intensive and undermine green hydrogen’s round-trip efficiency. 

How Expensive Is It?

The International Energy Agency put the cost of green hydrogen at USD$3 to $7.50 per kg, compared to $0.90 to $3.20 for production using steam methane reformation. 

The cost of electrolysers must be cut to reduce the price of green hydrogen, but this will take time and scale. However, the IEA says that electrolyser costs could fall by half by 2040, from around $840 per kilowatt of capacity today. 

Another problem is that green hydrogen requires very large amounts of cheap renewable energy because some is lost in the process of electrolysis. Shell says that electrolyser efficiencies range from around 60-80%. 

It is likely that developers, like Lightsource BP and Shell, will build green hydrogen production plants with dedicated renewable energy generation assets in high-resource locations. 

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Issues 

Although a consensus has been reached that the world cannot be “fully decarbonised in the long term without green hydrogen,” producing the quantities of green hydrogen that the world will need would require a massive amount of renewable energy as well. 

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), the world will need 19 exajoules of green hydrogen in the energy system in 2050- between 133.8 million and 158.3 million tons a year. 

Annual growth rates of wind and solar are increasing, however it is nowhere near enough for the world to be in line with the Paris Agreement goals. “The share of renewables in the worlds’ total final energy consumption has to increase six times faster to meet agreed climate goals,” Irena wrote in a report last year. 

With this, many argue, particularly within the oil and gas sector, that meeting ever- increasing energy demands with solely electricity is not going to be possible.

The current argument for clean hydrogen is that the bulk of the required volume of energy will have to be produced by natural gas and CCUs, also known as blue hydrogen. 

Several oil majors are struggling for pole position in green hydrogen development. For example, Shell Netherland confirmed in May that it had joined forces with energy company Eneco to bid for capacity in the latest Dutch offshore wind tender to create an enormous hydrogen cluster in the Netherlands. BP’s solar developer Lightsource also revealed that it plans to develop an Australian clean hydrogen plant powered by 1.5 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity. 

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According to new research published in the journal Scientific Reports, beluga whales have complex social networks, with close relationships outside of their immediate kin. The study changes scientists’ understanding of the whales’ social dynamics, which they believe are a result of the whales’ highly developed vocalisations. 

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The study, conducted by the Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, brought new insights into the fundamental nature of beluga whale social structures which further challenged prevailing hypotheses about social organisation and kinship in cetaceans. 

The study used field observations, DNA profiling and multi- locus genotyping of beluga whales from 10 sites across the Arctic to address key features of beluga group structure, the pattern of kinship and behavior. 

Contrary to previous studies that postulated that belugas live in communities where social bonds focus on closely related individuals from the same maternal lineage, as seen in African elephants, the study revealed that both large and small social groups also frequently form bonds with whales of unrelated and distant lineages. The genetic analysis from the study revealed that Beluga whale groupings were not usually organised around close maternal relatives, instead involved more paternal relatives, indicating the male beluga whales’ high fidelity to a herd. 

The observed whales were often found in pods organised by age or sex rather than just family, meaning that beluga whales form relationships that go beyond those needed only for survival and “beluga communities have similarities to human societies where social networks, support structures, cooperation and cultures involve interactions between kin and non-kin,” the study authors write. Given the fact that they can live for up to 70 years and tend to remain within their natural community, these findings show that beluga whales may form long-term affiliations with unrelated as well as related individuals.

Further, certain behaviours were associated with group type, and group membership was found to be often dynamic. Greg O’Corry– Crowe, an ecologist at FAU and the lead author of the new study, says, “It may be that their highly developed vocal communication enables them to remain in regular acoustic contact with close relatives even when not associating together.” 

Additionally, the frequency with which adult female belugas associate with non-kin complicates the studies of menopause, indicating a need to expand the study outside of current evolutionary mechanisms. 

O’Corry says, “The findings improve our understanding of why some species are social, how individuals learn from group members and how animal cultures emerge. They also will hopefully promote new research on what constitutes species resilience and how species like the beluga whales can respond to the emerging threats including climate change.”

Featured image by: Tjflex2

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