Russia contains the largest area of natural forests in the world, covering 49% of Russia’s landmass and 815 million hectares, 23% of the planet’s total forest area. Yet, much of the country’s forests are under the threats of rapid deforestation. From 2001 to 2019, Russia lost 64 million hectares of relative tree cover, equivalent to an  8.4% decrease since 2000 and 17% of the global total. In 2018 alone, Russia lost 5.6 million hectares of tree cover followed by Brazil with nearly 3 million. What obstacles does Russia face in preventing deforestation?

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Russia’s forests stretch from the Baltic Sea to the Sea of Japan, encompassing the last wild forests of Europe and a substantial portion of the vast wilderness of Siberia. With their ability to soak up carbon dioxide and expel oxygen, the world’s forests are often referred to as the “planet’s lungs.”

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An illustration showing the top five countries in the world for forest area (Source: Weforum.org). 

Poor Forest Management

The forests of Russia are owned by the state and are used for commercial reasons by the private sector. Forests can only be licensed as concessions to enterprises for one to 49 years, but the Office of the President of the Russian Federation reported an approximate 66% increase in illegal logging from 2008 to 2013 in the Russian Federation. 

Action to combat illegal deforestation is taken by the Federal Forestry Agency of Russia, which is responsible for forest policy, regulation of forests as well as enacting new laws. The 2013 Russian Roundwood Act requires the timber process to have documentation for Roundwood transportation, logs of valuable hardwoods and Roundwood sales to be declared in an open-source database alongside the implementation of penalties for non-compliance with the law concerning the Roundwood transaction declaration.

Additionally, an export tax in 2008 aimed to restrict log exports, reduce the loss of forest resources and increase domestic processing, jobs, and revenue for the domestic forestry industry.

Despite this, there are millions of hectares where it is unclear whether they are agricultural or forest areas, making it difficult to understand where illegal logging takes place; the government and administrative bodies often lack the funds to get clear indications of this.

Most illegal logging occurs through permits being issued illegally. The UN has stated that 14.2% of timber firms experienced at least one bribe payment request in 2012 with an overall lack of transparency during concession licensing processes with unfair competition and licences issued based on auctions to the highest bidder or given to individuals with connections to the issuing authorities.

In general, with little oversight by the government and high levels of corruption, many illegal timber activities are left unchallenged resulting in deforestation in Russia occurring unabated.

China’s Wood Demand

China is the world’s largest importer of logs and lumber in the world, becoming a global wood product remanufacturing and redistribution centre. 48.3% of these lumber imports to China are supplied by Russia.

By Russia feeding China’s colossal appetite for wood, China has brought jobs and cash to regions of Russia. Yet China has sharply restricted domestic logging to preserve its own forests, as well as Russian timber facilities to only be staffed by Chinese labour.

Ms Avdoshkevich, the Kansk City Council member said that the Chinese timber barons based in China simply ship as much wood as they can, as quickly as possible, to China, without investment in manufacturing in Russia and without regard to environmental damage.

It is estimated that around 20% of the Russian wood exported to China is felled illegally, helping Russia to become a global leader in forest depletion.

Furthermore, corruption is allegedly widespread in the Russian timber industry. Nikolay Shmatkov from the WWF believes that the law enforcement officials are stretched to their limits and that they stand by without taking action with Russian forestry workers who sell the timber without necessary permissions to China.

Although China’s timber rush has temporarily stimulated Russia’s local economies, it has also stoked localised Russian public anger against China unwilling to let Russia truly benefit from its timber investments while destroying its forests.

Raging Wildfires

Since the start of 2020, it’s estimated by Greenpeace International that fires have burnt through 20 million hectares of the Russian landscape, an area bigger than Greece, and about 10.9 million hectares of forest. 

The Forestry Agency says the authorities will not extinguish 91% of the fires because they are located in “control zones.” Forests fall into control zones when the fires have no effect on local populations and when the cost of extinguishing them is greater than the residual damage of the fires.

“The role of fires in climate change is underestimated. Most of the fires are man-made,” said Grigory Kuksin, head of the fire protection department at Greenpeace Russia.

While the Russian government has previously declared states of emergency and dispatched the military to help firefighting efforts, local authorities have dismissed the wildfires as a natural occurrence, saying that putting out wildfires is not economically viable.

Environmental Damage in Russia Beyond Deforestation

In addition to the destruction of carbon-absorbing forests across Russia, the carbon dioxide, smoke and soot released have increased temperatures, with the winter of 2019 being the warmest winter in 130 years according to the Russian Hydrometeorological Research Center. It is these conditions that have invigorated heat and dry tundra conditions triggering forest fires along the Arctic Circle.

“Now we are seeing these fires within 15 kilometres of the Arctic Ocean,” according to Greg Henry, a climatologist and tundra researcher at the University of British Columbia. “Usually there’s not much fuel to burn there, because it’s kept cold by the ocean so you don’t get ignition of fires that far north.”

In turn, by burning so close to the Arctic, the fires are contributing to the thawing of Arctic permafrost which, in some cases, can lead to sudden ground collapse. The Western Russian Arctic is experiencing some of the highest rates of permafrost degradation globally with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasting that by 2050, near-surface permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere may shrink by 15 to 30%. 

“When surface soil rich in organic matter burns, it places the permafrost at risk which serves as an insulator against warm summer temperatures,” explains Sue Natali, Arctic programme director at Woods Hole Research Centre. 

Permafrost degradation risks the collapsing of infrastructure as well as the release of carbon feedback.

Another implication of forest fires in the Arctic Circle is the burning of peatlands, carbon-rich soils that accumulate as waterlogged plants slowly decay, sometimes over thousands of years. These are the most carbon-dense ecosystems on Earth; a typical northern peatland packs in roughly ten times as much carbon as a boreal forest and nearly half the world’s peatland-stored carbon lies between 60 and 70 degrees north, along the Arctic Circle. 

As a result of Arctic wildfires, northern peatlands could eventually shift from being a sink for carbon to a source, further dramatically accelerating climate change.

Russia ’s lacklustre response to tackle deforestation is in line with the country’s low commitment to addressing climate change, relying heavily on the oil and gas industry as well as having a poor record of enforcing green initiatives that could have greater negative global climate effects simply from not addressing deforestation and for short-term economic gains.

Featured image by: Flickr

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A mysterious pollution outbreak in Kamchatka, Russia, has left many marine species, including seals, octopuses and sea urchins, washing up on Avacha Bay since September. Scientists have reported that as much as 95% of marine species along the seabed have been killed in what is being treated as a major marine pollution incident.

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Ordinarily, the bay is a pristine 1 250-kilometre-long volcanic peninsula well-known for its exceptional landscapes with 160 large symmetrical volcanoes and diversity of wildlife.

The pollution incident came to light in early September after local surfers and swimmers reported stinging eyes and the water changing colour to a greyish-yellow with a thick milky foam on the surface. Officials later reported that people partaking in activities in the sea have sustained mild burns to their corneas.

This prompted Greenpeace to call the incident an “ecological disaster” and backlash from the public led Russia’s Investigative Committee to launch an investigation into the area for the “circulation of environmentally hazardous substances and waste.” Tests showed levels of oil products and phenol that were 3.6 and 2.5 times higher than usual, after Kamchatka’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology’s initial insistence that there was no such issue, saying that “nothing abnormal” had been recorded. 

No Answers

It is still unclear what caused the contamination; however, authorities have confirmed that all possible sources are being investigated. Officials are scrambling to find the origin after President Vladimir Putin reacted angrily to the late reporting of an oil leak in Arctic Siberia that poured thousands of tons of diesel into land and waterways in June. In turn, the ecology minister, Dmitry Kobylkin, stated that Putin had ordered him to establish the cause of the Kamchatka water contamination.

The Emergencies Ministry said it was using boats and drones to monitor the coastline but no pollution was visible. The regional governor, Vladimir Solodov, said it was a problem that the region had no unified system of environmental monitoring.

Local media outlets have speculated about a possible oil tanker leak or military drill gone wrong, which the Defence Ministry has denied. More alarming is that some experts have suggested that highly toxic rocket fuel such as heptyl, samin or mélange could have leaked into the sea. The first test site, Radygino, is about ten km from the sea and was used for drills in August.

Vladimir Burkanov, a biologist specialising in seals, suggested that old stores of rocket fuel kept in Radygino could have rusted and the fuel leaked into streams.

Moreover, the site of Kozelsky, approximately 15km from  the sea, has been used to bury toxic chemicals and pesticides, according to the regional governor’s website. Greenpeace says that stores of over 100 tonnes of toxic substances, including pesticides, had been breached.

While authorities in Russia are opening criminal cases into the Kamchatka crisis by examining man-made pollution, they have refused to rule out the possibility that the pollution could have been caused by a natural phenomena, such as seismic activity or microalgae.

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Potential Threat to World Heritage Sites

While specialists continue to collect samples, scientists say. that the contaminated area is much larger than what they have examined and that the remaining marine life is under threat due to lack of food; some large fish, shrimps and crabs have survived, “but in very small quantities.” However, these too may die as their food supply has been destroyed.

After Greenpeace recently surveyed the territory, the water pollution has been identified in parts of Kamchatka’s World Heritage Site. This includes Vilyuchinskaya Bay that is home to 50% of the world’s Stellar Sea Eagle population.

Traces of the contaminants were also found in the basin and mouth of the Nalychev River, which flows through the Nalychevo Nature Park and is home to a wide variety of species, including the world’s greatest known diversity of salmonid fish, as well as brown bears and sea otters.  “The death of fish and seabed creatures is dangerous for both sea birds and mammals,” WWF says, adding that sea otters that eat urchins and clams could be among the most affected animals.

It is still unclear how much the pollutants will negatively affect the peninsula’s natural ecosystem.

Environmental Pressures

Despite Putin ordering for an immediate investigation into the cause of the Kamchatka water contamination, possibly permafrost thaw in Siberia, Russia’s environmental action is driven with no clear climate policy. As domestic policies continue to focus on its heavily subsidised oil and gas industry, with a strong emphasis on expanding natural gas exports, the Russian Ministry of Energy has explicitly identified the promotion of renewable energy to be a direct threat to planned fossil fuel expansion. Russia accounts for 4.5% of global emissions, behind China, USA and India.

Furthermore, Russia’s industries are not being encouraged to reduce emissions and deal with pollution, drawing a general consensus that there continues to be a lack of action across the board on environmental policy; hence, Russia’s environmental future remains somewhat bleak. 

However, the 2017 Russian Year of Ecology, announced by President Vladimir Putin, was a step towards changing public and policy attitudes towards pollution and other environmental problems in Russia, a welcome development. Further, there are numerous local and citizen-led projects across the country, including Greenpeace Russia, that are assisting authorities in their investigative efforts. 

Perhaps in this way, the government of Russia, supranational bodies, international partners and heavy industries can be influenced to enact much-needed environmental policies and procedures to reduce and tackle the effects of pollution, with this crisis in Kamchatka potentially acting as a turning point for the government and the public to take climate action.

Featured image by: Flickr

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Pork is a big deal in China. As the world’s largest pork consumer, the average Chinese citizen consumes 30kg of pork a year (by comparison, US citizens each eat about 26kg of beef a year and UK consumers about 18kg). Decades of economic growth have enabled China’s leaders to make considerable strides in increasing food access across the country. To meet this demand for pork, China is home to the largest number of pigs of any country with over 310 million pigs of the 677.6 million pigs produced for meat consumption worldwide. For China’s pig production, this accounts for 340 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per annum – about 4.4% of the livestock sector. This contributes to China being the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter accounting for approximately 27% of global GHG emissions with its GHG emissions expected to peak by 2030.

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However, China is facing a chronic pork shortage after the spread of African swine fever (ASF) since August 2018 that has so far resulted in the death of 350 million pigs in China with farmers not restocking their livestock after sick pigs die or culling them, causing pork prices to double since 2018. The Chinese government is turning to radical solutions; for example, the construction of multi-level industrial biosecure pig farms near urban areas. But for how long can the Chinese government continue to prioritise food security over the environment to satisfy consumer appetites?

The Urban Pig Farms

The country has proposed a multitude of measures to tackle the pork crisis that support larger farms, including financial support, and setting pig production targets for each province. Authorities are also constructing the biosecure pig farms in urban areas to add 200 million pigs to its nationwide herd over the next 2 years. These farms are believed to be more efficient as they are less labour intensive and require less land per pig.

Although urban pig farm owners believe modern farms are less likely to damage the environment, these urban farms are reversing years of policies to relocate the livestock over waste concerns. To reduce harm to urban environments, Chinese pig producers must invest in building waste treatment facilities that cost about 500 yuan (USD$70.57) per sow to prevent farm waste from polluting urban areas. Furthermore, farms close to cities must meet higher quality standards in terms of water discharge as well as odour prevention costs. Assimilating environmental risks to urban environments as farmers may not invest in technology and in environmental regulation quotas.

Furthermore, there are also biosecurity concerns as raising pigs closer to people increases the risk of the transmission of viruses like African swine fever. Pigs have a unique capacity to incubate viruses that can bounce between humans, birds and pigs, swapping genes in a process called “reassortment.” So acute is their incubation capacity that hogs are considered potential “mixing vessels” for future pandemics. 

Whilst urban pigs farms may be one of the solutions to the pork crisis, it’s radical approach to farming suggests that in attempting to secure food security to feed its 1.4 billion population, China is willing to do it at the expense of its own environment.

The Changing Dietary Landscape

The Chinese middle class are now more spoilt for choice in terms of the goods and services they have access to, growing from 29 million in 1999 to roughly 531 million in 2013, which is forecasted to reach 550 million by 2022. The emergence of China’s urban middle class has corresponded with a shift away from a grain-orientated diet to an increasingly meat-heavy diet. This may be a difficult trend to buck as there are strong cultural traditions attached to the consumption of many animals, especially pigs. In 1975, China consumed 7 million tonnes of meat, which increased to 86.5 million tonnes by 2018, making it the largest meat consumer in the world.

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“One could argue that Chinese just want to enjoy the kind of life Westerners have for years,” says Pan Genxing, the Director of the Institute of Resources, Environment, and Ecosystem of Agriculture at Nanjing Agricultural University.

The exploding demand for meat can be largely attributed to changing demographics that potentially threatens China’s food security. Of which, the government faces the dual challenge of maintaining economic growth while ensuring the growing population is fed. 

Outsourcing of Pork Problems

While China contributes to emissions outside of its borders by exporting coal equipment and financing overseas coal plants through its Belt and Road Initiative, it is at the same time shifting the adverse environmental effects of meat production to other countries to feed its population.

Alongside China purchasing farms in the US, Australia and other nations to provide feed for the country’s livestock industries to deal with the current pork crisis, China plans to turn Argentina into one of its main pork suppliers with a $3.5bn investment that includes the installation of 25 hog farms with about 12 500 sows each. This would double Argentina’s current 350 000 sows and boost annual production from 700 000 tonnes today to 900 000 tonnes by 2024.

Furthermore, the Argentinian government sees the China deal as an opportunity to turn its main exports – maize and soybean, sold principally as animal feed to China and Europe – into a value-added product. However, meeting China’s target would require hundreds of thousands of additional hectares to be turned over to maize and soybean crops, likely adding to Argentina’s runaway deforestation in its fragile Gran Chaco forest, the second largest forest in South America after the Amazon.

China Getting Green

While China is increasingly becoming recognised as the world leader in green energy, it remains substantially pressured by a multitude of other environmental challenges stimulated by its ambition for greater economic growth. This includes difficulties with ensuring businesses and local governments comply with policies and regulations, as well as gaps in its climate policies. In addition, China is still the biggest producer of coal, producing nearly 3.5 billion tonnes in 2018, representing 46% of the global total coal yield and consuming more than half of the world’s total coal consumption.

Despite these setbacks, China’s climate action is showcased through aggressive investments and a bold mix of climate, renewable energy, energy efficiency and economic policies. Notable examples include recently committing to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, recommitting to achieve the Paris Agreement goals in 2019 as well as implementing plans to tackle GHG emissions by decreasing meat consumption by 50% by 2030. 

Addressing Chinese consumer habits is another way to alleviate the pork crisis. Food waste is a massive problem in the country, with up to 18 million tons being wasted in large cities every year. Hence, the country is attempting to tackle the problem through its “Clean Plate Campaign,” but it could also invest more heavily into the alternative protein industry to secure food security and at the same time, ensure the country is going green. If the country fully executes existing climate policies, its carbon emissions are likely to peak well before its 2030 target. 

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For as long as climate conditions and aridity become more volatile due to global warming, the harmful impact of soil salinisation will continue to threaten agricultural sustainability, with approximately 7% of the Earth’s land surface having salt-affected soils already. This natural process of salinisation occurs when water-soluble salts accumulate in the soil, affecting the metabolism of soil and reducing its productivity, eventually transforming fertile and productive land barren. Destroying all vegetation and other organisms in the soil, rendering land unusable for agriculture production. The Halophyte plant species could be an alternative crop that can be grown in salt-affected conditions to restore these areas. Halophytes are deep-rooting plants that achieve optimum growth and yield potential at levels at which virtually all modern crops would perish. With their vigorous growth and root development, these opportunistic plants are often able to take advantage of less saline moisture within the soil profile and adapt to seasonal variability in salinity by altering germination, growth and reproduction cycles to prosper as a crop in salinised conditions.

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It is estimated that more than 50% of arable land will be salinised by 2050. This will negatively affect global agricultural production; with the world population forecasted to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, food production will need to be increased by 70%. It is clear that we need a solution to soil salinisation. 

Characteristics of the Halophyte Plant

Salt-tolerant, the halophyte is a unique plant. Where other plants struggle to survive, they are capable of growing and reproducing in soils with high salt concentrations. Halophytes are found in a multitude of ecosystems, including coastal regions, irrigated lands with poor drainage in the tropics, saline semi-deserts and mangroves swamps. Yet, they only represent 2% of terrestrial plant species and a small number of flowering plants (2600 out of 400 000) with only a small percentage of halophytes being domesticated and used as food and fodder.

Most importantly, as halophytes can be irrigated with seawater without their yields being compromised, it makes them a strong alternative candidate for degraded areas affected by salinisation. But despite their unique characteristics, the wide span potential of halophyte species that have different degrees of salinity tolerance has not yet been explored. 

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Restoring the Land in an Increasingly Salinised World

Halophytes’ adaptability to ecosystems is highlighted in their ecological value amid the changing climate. As halophytic flora plays a major role in protecting coastal habitats and maintaining ecological stability, they often act as sand dune binders to prevent erosion and seawater incursion into freshwater habitats. 

Moreover, halophytes can be used as biomass material as they can sequester up to 0.7 gigatons of carbon if grown on 1 300 hectares of land. Thus, cultivating halophytes, like planting trees, can play a significant role in mitigating the climate crisis. For instance, certain halophytes such as Salicornia in Mexico that are cultivated for consumption are also playing a key role in carbon sequestration.

Meeting Global Population Demands 

Besides halophytes’ carbon sequestration abilities, researchers have identified that these plants play a substantial role in meeting future resource demands for the world’s rapidly expanding human population.

Some halophytes could yield a sustainable supply of renewable resources like food, fodder, fibre, fuel, green manure and raw materials for pharmaceutical, industrial and household products. Further studies have highlighted that many halophytes can be used as sources of nutritious grain and oil, while some bear edible or economically useful roots, bark, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds. Despite halophytes possessing large potential, there is little knowledge about aspects of consumer preferences and tailoring of standard agricultural practices are needed to be applied to the domestication of the halophyte plant for large-scale commercialisation. Alongside this, there are problems associated with halophyte cultivation as many need to be domesticated to reach yields, taste and agricultural practices comparable to conventional crops. Thus, these fundamental aspects for the successful commercialisation of halophytes are all challenges that withhold farmers from investing in growing the crop due to a lack of market potential.

What is Next for the Halophyte Plant?

It is clear that further halophyte domestication is necessary and will lead to the establishment of completely new agro-ecosystems that yield food, fodder and fuel, as well combat coastal erosion and sequester carbon, vital in the era of increasing climate volatility.

While it is the time for the general public and governments to make serious efforts to identify, propagate and protect halophytes, it is important to prevent the dominance of just one species, as monocropping risks soil depletion and loss of biodiversity.

Although halophytes might not offer a complete solution to reducing land degradation and future population growth demands, it holds the potential to stimulate innovative solutions for tackling soil salinity problems. Through the research of halophyte genomics and proteomics, it will enable the development of crops with enhanced salt tolerance features, enabling farmers to grow crops in saline soil while reducing the negative impact of salinisation.

Featured image by: Flickr

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While the shipping industry has made a commitment to implement the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) ambition of reducing CO2 emissions by at least 70% by 2050, the sector is encountering obstacles in meeting this target. The capital-intensive industry is plagued by thin margins, limited technology and a high dependency on energy-dense fuels. While it already moves approximately 90% of world trade volumes, this volume is expected to almost double by 2030, making meeting these decarbonisation targets all the more important. As the global economy grows, exemplified by the expansion of trading capabilities of the Panama Canal and the Belt and Road Initiative, so too will carbon emissions from the shipping industry and therefore, pressure to accelerate decarbonisation. 

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To reach this goal, commercially viable zero-emission vessels need to be introduced into the global fleet by 2030, and the fuel supply chain must be reexamined. This can only be achieved through existing coalitions and greater collaboration between the major players in the maritime industry, energy sector and governments, but are such commitments possible to reach these decarbonisation targets?

Shipping’s Complex Road Map to Decarbonisation

The shipping industry is large and ever-expanding, with shipping emissions having increased by 70% since 1990. It currently represents 2.7% of global emissions, with 85% of these emissions coming from bulk carriers, oil tankers and container ships. There are 53 732 seagoing vessels that run on highly polluting fuel with most using heavy fuel oil (HFO) or marine gas oil (MGO) which are both major sources of harmful emissions, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), black carbon (BC) and particulate matter (PM), which cause substantial damage to human health and local ecosystems.

Some of the barriers to making the shipping industry more sustainable is that existing cleaner fuels are costly, and the feasibility of energy-efficient solutions, such as liquefied petroleum, remain limited. The industry is exploring several alternative clean fuels, including ammonia, hydrogen, methanol and biofuels, but major shipping players are concerned about not only their costs, but also their lower energy density and extensive storage needs.

Furthermore, given the 20 to 30-year lifespan of ships, those in operation today will still make up most of the global fleet in 2030. To meet the IMO decarbonisation targets, the industry will need to invest substantially in net-zero vessels. However, there remains reluctance due to a lack of clarity regarding future fuels and regulation that has exacerbated unwillingness to invest in new ships.

According to the University Maritime Advisory Services, it is estimated that for the shipping industry to meet the IMO carbon neutrality targets by 2050, the sector will need to invest at least $1.65 trillion, of which 87% will need to be dedicated to creating fuel supply infrastructure. 

Decarbonisation decision-making across the industry is complex due to the fragmentation of the global shipping fleet; 20% of the total shipping capacity is owned by 10 ship owners while the remaining 80% of the global fleet is owned by thousands of smaller ship owners, alongside different forms of company ownership. This makes it difficult to get consensus in the industry. However, this collaboration is vital to stimulate the development of viable technologies, cross-sector research and systemic change across the shipping supply chain.

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Coordination Orchestration: The Zero Carbon Research Centre

To deal with coordination efforts for the transition of shipping from ideas to action, orchestration of the industry stakeholders is vital. An example of this is the creation of a non-profit research centre, the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, has a specific mandate to drive zero shipping emissions by stimulating greater collaboration across all segments of the shipping sector.

The centre is being guided by the shipping giant Maersk who themselves have managed to reduce their emissions by 41% relative to cargo moved by the end of 2017 with a reduction target of 60% by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2050, leading the decarbonisation agenda for the entire shipping industry.

Asides from Maersk, the centre was co-founded by several other leading global maritime industry organisations, including ABS, Cargill, MAN Energy Solutions, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Siemens Energy.

Brian Østergaard Sørensen, vice president at MAN Energy Solutions, says, “No technology or company can do this alone which is why we need to join forces across the supply chain to meet this challenge.”

The centre’s team will focus on collaboration in order to create solutions towards accelerating the development of selected decarbonising fuels, decarbonisation pathways and assist in the establishment of a legal, financial and commercial framework to drive the transformation across the entire shipping industry by working with industry, academia and authorities.

All Hands on Deck: Coordinated Industry Commitments

Much like the research centre in Copenhagen, new industry alliances are being created, such as The Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance and the Clean Cargo Working Group. However, there needs to be greater and more diverse collaborative efforts across the industry due to the complexity of the problems to reach the targets.

These stakeholders vary from across the maritime spectrum, including engine manufacturers, port authorities, ship builders and energy companies that need to share knowledge bases, define their R&D roadmaps, build on existing initiatives and develop new ideas to proactively support and utilise pilot projects necessary to mature new technologies and unlock fuel options.

While maritime organisations might compete with one another, there’s an opportunity to work together and build on the existing momentum to drive practical change towards reaching the decarbonisation objectives and create fundamental systemic change. 

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The European Commission intends to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. To mitigate the climate crisis and meet its targets, the EU has utilised biomass; the biomass feedstock of forestry has become the main source for renewable energy in the EU and is a key part of the European Green Deal. Although the EU nations produce biomass themselves, they have also turned to importing biomass from developing countries, such as Denmark importing from Brazil. While this supports European countries in reaching their environmental goals, what cost does it incur on the environments of developing countries?

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In the EU, forestry is the main feedstock (logging, residues, wood chips and fuelwood etc) for bioenergy, accounting for more than 60% of all EU domestic biomass supplied for bioenergy with 96% of biomass produced domestically and 4% imported from non-EU countries, shown below in Figure 1. But to reach environmental targets, several EU countries have subsidised the biomass industry, including Germany, France, Italy, Sweden and the UK, the largest bioenergy consumers.

With this in mind, the European Commission is aiming to conduct a further ‘transformative approach’ to increase their reliance on biomass for renewable energy purposes.

Woody Biomass: A Carbon Neutral Energy Source?

While the burning of forest biomass has been promoted as a cleaner and more renewable alternative to coal and gas, it is believed that biomass is ‘a carbon emission accounting loophole’, which could destabilise the global climate. 

UK-based researchers found last year that burning wood is a ‘disaster’ for climate change as older trees release large amounts of carbon when they are burned and aren’t always replaced and even when they are, it can take up to 100 years to cultivate an area that soaks up as much carbon as was previously released. 

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The Double Standards of Denmark’s Carbon-Neutral Mission

Biomass is the most dominant source of energy in Denmark, embodying more than two thirds of its overall consumption of renewable energy. It represents an important component of Denmark’s mission to make its capital city, Copenhagen, the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025. Denmark is the second-largest consumer of wood pellets in the EU, using 2.1 million tons in 2018 to generate heat and power with woody biomass usage set to increase by 130% by 2025.

Business with Brazil

Although Denmark is considered the global poster child for renewable energy, driven by its advancements in onshore and offshore wind power, the Danish energy supplier, Hovedstadens Forsyningsselskab (Hofor), has been denounced for wood chip biomass feedstock importations. These imports, approximately 60 000 tons of wood chips since mid-November, originate from Brazil’s eucalyptus plantations in the state of Amapá and are used within the Copenhagen biomass plant of BIO4. The biomass feedstock is produced by AMCEL, a large Brazilian pulp company. 

However, these importations of Brazilian wood chips are facing strong condemnation for not being sustainable biomass, deriving instead from monoculture plantations aimed at producing cheap raw materials while stimulating economic growth. Additionally, AMCEL has been involved in illegal land grabbing and deforestation within these specific eucalyptus plantations. 

Biomass in Developing Countries: The Amazon for Sale

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has increased rapidly since the hard-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took office. The pro-development president once stated, “deforestation and fires will never end.” From August 2018 to July 2019, deforestation of the Amazon rainforest rose 34.4% from a year before, to 10 129 sq kms. Furthermore, between January and April of 2020, the destruction of the forest by illegal loggers and ranchers rose 55% compared to the same four month period last year. It appears that criminal organisations have expanded their operations, as bulldozer sales doubled in Brazil within this four month period. This increase in deforestation activity comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic strains Brazil politically and economically, exacerbating Bolsonaro’s government policies to expand the commercial development of the Amazon rainforest, enabling illegal loggers and miners to face minimal risk of punishment.

While illegal loggers, miners and land grabbers have directly contributed to the increase of deforestation, Bolsonaro is arguably responsible. When he was running for president, it was his rhetoric that suggested deforestation-related practices in the Amazon could help lift the country out of poverty at the expense of indigenous people. “The Indigenous person can’t remain in his land as if he were some prehistoric creature as where there is indigenous land, there is wealth underneath it,” he said in February.

It is this attitude that has made it easier for foreign countries to take advantage of the paper and biomass opportunities afforded by the Amazon. Encouraging developing countries, such as Brazil and Indonesia, to cut down their own forests and export their unsustainably harvested wood to meet foreign demand for bioenergy while developed countries protect their own forests is unfair and irresponsible. 

Phasing Out Biomass

While the importation of woody biomass from developing countries is legal, methods used to cultivate biomass feedstock are arguably unethical. Denmark, an apparent global renewable energy role model, should be held accountable for acquiring biomass feedstock from dubious feedstock sources in Brazil, a developing country with an important responsibility to protect the Amazon but which has a president that promised to exploit the Amazon. This showcases how developed countries, such as Denmark, aim to expand their green capacities at the cost of developing countries’ environmental health.

Furthermore, biomass as a reliable energy feedstock remains ambiguous. Unless we can guarantee forest regrowth to carbon parity, recent research indicates that the production of wood pellets for fuel is likely to put more CO2 in the atmosphere and maintain less biodiversity on the land during the next several decades.

If EU countries continue to use biomass to reach their climate goals, they must either closely examine its origins, or phase out all land-based biofuels and devote greater efforts to promoting sustainable renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal processes. 

Featured image by: photoheuristic.info

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