EBRD supports green transition of Poland’s electricity producer Tauron

04.11.2020

sky-vetropark — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Photo-illustration: Unspash (Nazrin B-va)

Tauron Polska Energia, one of the largest energy firms in Poland, is moving from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy with the support of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

The EBRD has invested PLN 240 million (equivalent to EUR 55.8 million) for 24 percent of a PLN 1 billion local currency bond issued by Tauron to support its decarbonisation strategy.

At present Tauron still generates most of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, but in line with Poland’s overall energy strategy the company has committed to an ambitious reduction in its carbon intensity through the closure of coal plants and a large increase in the use of renewable energy. The bond represents an important statement of the company’s new trajectory. This strategy includes a gradual decommissioning of coal-fired units, an expansion of renewable energy sources and the reduction of CO2 emissions.

The proceeds of the bond will be used to expand Tauron’s portfolio of solar photovoltaic installations to up to 300 MW and its portfolio of onshore wind farms by another 720 MW by 2025, as well as to continue investments in the distribution grid to facilitate renewable energy generation. By 2030, the company aims to generate more than 65 percent of its energy from zero- and low-emission sources, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by half. One innovative feature of the bond is that Tauron will face higher financing costs should it fail to meet these two objectives.

Grzegorz Zieliński, EBRD Regional Director for Central Europe and Head of Poland, said: “Projects such as this are crucial for Poland’s green transition. We have financed more than 1.5 GW of renewable capacity in Poland to date and we are proud to partner with Tauron in pioneering its shift from coal to renewable energy sources. This project is an example of how coal-reliant regions can be transformed, while providing new employment opportunities and driving green investment.”

In line with the EBRD’s just transition initiative, the company will develop a programme to address the potential social impact of closing its coal-powered plants in Silesia, one of Poland’s most carbon-dependent regions.

The EBRD’s investment is aligned with the Bank’s Green Economy Transition (GET) approach, its strategy for helping the economies where it invests become green, low carbon and resilient. It will also contribute to the development of the local currency bond market in Poland as the securities will be listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

The EBRD started investing in Poland in 1991 and to date has provided EUR 10.5 billion through 439 projects in all sectors of the economy.

Source: EBRD

Here’s Why the Business of Sustainability Has Come of Age

04.11.2020

solar-panels-solarna-energija-krov-kuća-zgrada — Foto-ilustracija: Pixabay

Photo- illustration: Unsplash (Adeolu Eletu)

In 2019, impact investing was a $715 billion global market. Looking beyond the pure financial heft of the market, the number accurately reflects the growing reality among corporates and investors who are seeking to deliver strong financial returns for their shareholders, while building a more equitable world for their stakeholders.

With a sharper corporate focus on achieving Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) impact, the appetite for investments that address some of the world’s most pressing challenges has grown steadily in recent years. In seeking to address these challenges, business has an historic opportunity.

It cannot abdicate its responsibility in working for a more just and progressive society for one fundamental reason: such an environment is a prerequisite for a sustainable, resilient and market-oriented private sector.

Historically, investments in sustainability have always been regarded through a narrow return-on-investment lens – an approach that could be even more challenging in the current context. However, that thinking has evolved over the years as global investors, pension funds, and financial institutions are demanding that their investee companies incorporate, track and report ESG performance into the risk-adjusted returns that they deliver.

What is more, there is growing evidence that by focusing on ‘people, prosperity and the planet’, businesses can generate long-term business value. This could be achieved by strengthening health and safety measures in hospitality assets to ensure guest well-being and drive greater footfall; by saving energy costs and reducing carbon emissions; or by making property assets more liveable with the help of digitalization and automation, ultimately enhancing the underlying value of these assets.

The list goes on and the arguments are compelling. For real estate affordability, liveability and resilience, investing in ESG is a ‘trade-on’ – not a ‘trade-off’.

ESG and value creation

Enterprises large and small have one dominant goal for 2020: economic survival. Beyond just ‘making it’ and getting through the year, businesses must also plan for the long-term to get back onto a growth curve. However, the choice between ‘survival’ and ‘survival with more costs’ is challenging.

A report by real-estate expert Knight Frank in 2019 underlined that there is strong evidence that investors are increasingly looking to deploy capital into energy-efficient, sustainable buildings. While implementing new, often complex, technology requires upfront investments, these are more than offset by higher rental incomes and lower operating costs.

Majid Al Futtaim’s hotel portfolio in the UAE is a case in point: together with Siemens and facilities management firm Enova (a joint venture between Veolia and Majid Al Futtaim) we embarked on introducing energy conservation measures across 13 hotels. While the cost of AED22.5 million is significant, the measures will lead to guaranteed annual savings of AED5.5 million – with a payback period of just over four years.

With utilities representing one of the largest operational costs for real estate assets, this increased efficiency will have a direct financial impact over the long-term. Moreover, assets with recognized sustainability credentials such as LEED, command a favourable premium as this serves as reassurance to both investors and tenants, thereby lowering the perceived risk of their commitment to the asset.

Our experience has taken us from regarding ESG as a lever to reduce risk and liabilities to embracing it as an opportunity to increase business performance and strengthen valuations across the lifecycle of our assets.

A Market for ‘Green’

While the risks associated with sustainability and other ESG-related investments have been a considerable barrier in the past, the ‘business of sustainability’ is now truly coming of age.

This is apparent when we look at the shift in the financial industry toward green bonds and similar vehicles for funding ESG-related investments. For 2019, green bonds reached an unprecedented $255 billion globally, led by China, France and the US. The new President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, has stressed her commitment to combatting climate change and examining green changes to the ECB’s activities, including its €2.8 trillion asset purchase scheme.

Closer to home, when Majid Al Futtaim launched its Green Sukuk (bond) in 2019 valued at $600 million, it was oversubscribed more than six times, with an order book above $3 billion. The first corporate Green Sukuk in the Middle East, the investments will be used towards Majid Al Futtaim’s long-standing 2040 Net Positive targets that align with our objectives of creating a more sustainable future for our stakeholders and generating strong returns for our partners.

The recovery from the pandemic has been called the ‘Great Reset’ by Professor Klaus Schwab and calls have been made to ‘build back better’. Strategic investments in ESG must represent a fundamental tenet of this framework. In building this ‘reset’, a whole range of stakeholders from investors, corporates, governments, financial institutions and consumers must align to create an ecosystem through which we invest in a cleaner, greener future.

Today, there is a unique opportunity for the property industry to lead the way when it comes to sustainable investments. But we also need the support of Governments and regulators to mandate and incentivize such investments to create meaningful opportunities for the industry and the multiple stakeholders it serves.

This will require hard dollars and soft power. But by working together and seizing the opportunities that are ahead, we can not only create a more sustainable future, but also unlock significant long-term value, for business and for society.

Source: World Economic Forum

Sustainable Cities: Lessons from Nepal and Colombia

03.11.2020

Cities have always had to conform to their natural surroundings. Traditional Moroccan housing was designed with open air courtyards to help with ventilation in the dry and hot climate. While in Iceland, turf houses covered in grass— the original “green buildings”— offered superior insulation in cold weather compared to those made only of wood or stone.

Nature-based solutions have played a crucial role in cities’ design for centuries, but rapid urbanization is putting natural resources to the test.

The UN estimates that over the next 30 years, an additional 2.4 billion people are likely to live in urban areas, 68 percent of the global population in 2050, with most of this shift occurring in the global south. Currently, a third of city inhabitants are estimated to live in slums and informal settlements, often without access to proper housing and basic services. Poor and unplanned urbanization impact resource use, biodiversity and climate.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) cities’ unit is releasing a new set of guidelines for policymakers and city practitioners for integrated and sustainable neighbourhood design with an emphasis on community needs. These guidelines aim at guiding policy development and practical application in new developments and in the regeneration of existing neighbourhoods.

“Sustainable cities and communities start with sustainable neighbourhoods,” said Martina Otto, head of the cities’ unit at UNEP. “By emphasising the importance of local context, design and integration, we aim to inspire stakeholders involved in urban planning to think sustainably about the daily needs of people in their neighbourhoods. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate, nature and pollution crisis, reconsidering present urban development paradigms is all the more important and mixed-use, green and interconnected neighbourhoods are a stepping stone for the needed transformation.”

An eco-city in Nepal

One of the cities that UNEP is working with is Lalitpur, in Nepal’s Kathmandu valley. When it was built about 1720 years ago, city planners ensured that open spaces, water availability and ground water recharge were inclusive.

But urbanization and inadequate growth management deteriorated the quality of life in new neighbourhoods. Today, Lalitpur is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, with many residents lacking basic facilities, like water supply and sanitation, and with few green spaces.

UNEP is working with the city government to reinstate Lalitpur as an eco-city. Starting with three neighbourhoods, the consort will construct seven parks, install smart, solar lights; reduce waste to landfill; cut down open burning; and give residents access to health facilities in their neighbourhoods, among other benefits.

“Lalitpur is restoring the resilient and resource-efficient forms of urbanism on the basis of its history and local knowledge, with the goal of becoming a clean and sustainable city,” said Lalitpur Metropolitan City Mayor, Chiri Babu Maharjan. “We have built 4.7 km of bicycle lanes to link the northern and southern parts of the city, and installed bicycle stands in the historic Patan Durbar Square. Thanks to this, the air pollution in the city center has greatly improved, and with that, the health and well-being of our citizens.”

On the move in Medellin

UNEP is also working with the city of Medellin in Colombia on the neighbourhood of Moravian the 1960s, millions of internally displaced Colombians set up homes in Moravia, which at the time held the municipal landfill site. The living conditions were dangerous and many residents suffered serious health consequences from the toxic fumes.

While the neighbourhood has made many advances in sanitation and urban planning since then, city authorities are determined to do more. Medellin is establishing “habitat and mobility corridors” that will simultaneously address mobility issues while creating green spaces and biodiversity. The corridors will be pathways for cyclists and pedestrians to access recreational places such as the local soccer field and cultural centres, but also provide habitats for native animals and plants. They should also have a positive impact on the microclimate by reducing heat and creating shade.

“Neighbourhoods are windows for immediate action,” said André Confiado, who works on Sustainable Cities for UNEP. “They are big enough to bundle interrelated components and give way to a coherent urban fragment, yet small enough to achieve results in a foreseeable time period. The approaches suggested in UNEP’s Integrated Guidelines for Sustainable Neighbourhood Design, and the training we propose to participating cities will contribute to the Global Environment Facility funded Sustainable Cities Impact Programme”.

Source: UNEP

Recycling Wind Turbine Blades

03.11.2020

wind-turbin-vetroturbina — Photo illustration: Pixabay

Wind turbines have increased in size and quantity to meet clean energy capacity demands

Modern wind power converts the kinetic (movement) energy from wind into mechanical energy. This happens through the turning of large fiberglass blades, which then spin a generator to produce electricity. Wind turbines, as they are known, can be located onshore or offshore.

Wind power is projected to continue growing across the U.S. by 2050. The latest Wind Technologies Market Report prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that wind energy prices are at all-time lows, and for 2019, 7.3 percent of utility-scale electricity generation in the U.S. came from wind. In this blog post, we will examine land-based wind turbines and the recycling opportunities that exist but are not yet widely implemented for the turbine blades.

Wind turbine designs have evolved over time to increase in size and efficiency, ultimately leading to greater generating capacity. The principle design of commercial turbines today are horizontal axis wind turbines consisting of a rotor with three fiberglass blades attached to a hub, which is itself attached to a central piece (the nacelle) that is mounted on a steel tower. Various other machinery and concrete foundations are also included in modern wind turbine design, which include over 8,000 parts per turbine.

Wind turbine blades in the existing U.S. fleet average around 50 meters in length, or about 164 feet (approximately the width of a U.S. football field). And with recent trends to use longer blades on bigger turbines and taller towers to increase electricity production, a few of the largest blades produced today reach 60–80 meters in length.

In terms of durability, wind turbines last an average of about 25 years. About 85 percent of turbine component materials — such as steel, copper wire, electronics, and gearing — can be recycled or reused. But the blades are different as they are made up of fiberglass (a composite material) to be lightweight for efficiency yet still durable enough to withstand storms. The mixed nature of the blade material makes separating the plastics from the glass fibers to recycle into a workable fiberglass material difficult — and the strength needed for the blades means they are also physically challenging to break apart.

Where do used wind turbine blades end up now?

Wind turbine blades require disposal or recycling when the turbines are decommissioned at the end-of-use stage, or when wind farms are being upgraded in a process known as repowering. Repowering involves keeping the same site and often maintaining or reusing the primary infrastructure for wind turbines but upgrading with larger capacity turbines. The blades might be replaced with more modern and typically larger blades. Either way, the fiberglass blades, once they’re no longer needed, pose the greatest challenge to end-of-use considerations for wind energy.

While it’s possible to cut the blades into a few pieces onsite during a decommissioning or repowering process, the pieces are still difficult and costly to transport for recycling or disposal. And the process of cutting the extremely strong blades requires enormous equipment such as vehicle mounted wire saws or diamond-wire saws similar to what is used in quarries. Because there are so few options for recycling the blades currently, the vast majority of those that reach end-of-use are either being stored in various places or taken to landfills.

Indeed, Bloomberg Green reported earlier this year on wind turbine blades being disposed of in landfills. Even though the waste stream represents only a tiny fraction of U.S. municipal solid waste, it’s clearly not an ideal situation. As wind turbines are being decommissioned or replaced, the necessity arises for more creative recycling solutions for used blades.

The good news is that some efforts at developing alternatives are underway. Two large utilities in the US, PacificCorp and MidAmerican Energy, for example, have recently announced plans to partner with the Tennessee company Carbon Rivers to recycle some of the utilities spent turbine blades instead of landfilling them. The technology used by Carbon Rivers is being supported through grant funding by the U.S. Department of Energy and will be used to break down and reuse fiberglass from used turbine blades.

While the composite nature of fiberglass turbine blades makes them notoriously difficult to deal with at the end-of-use stage, interest in finding alternatives can also spark creativity and innovation. For example, a partnership involving US, Ireland, and Northern Ireland Universities called Re-wind developed some interesting civil engineering project ideas for reusing and repurposing fiberglass blades. These include using decommissioned blades in civil engineering projects as part of powerline structures or towers, or roofs for emergency or affordable housing. In Northern Ireland, Re-wind is also considering piloting them for use in pedestrian bridges along greenways.

Further down the waste hierarchy, additional recycling options are beginning to emerge. Wind Europe, representing the European Union’s wind industry, is partnering with the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) and the European Composites Industry Association (EuCIA) to develop new methods to reuse blade materials. The organizations estimate that 14,000 wind turbine blades will be decommissioned over the next few years in Europe alone. In May 2020, the consortium produced Accelerating Wind Turbine Blade Circularity, a comprehensive report which details design, research, and technical solutions focused on the wind turbine life cycle.

A key consideration for recycling of composite materials is to ensure that the recycling process has a net positive result compared to the alternative of disposing in landfills. One example comes from Germany, where the concept of recycling turbine blades into cement was first developed about a decade ago through a plant built under a partnership between Geocycle, a business unit of the building materials corporation HolcimAG, and the company Zajons.

This form of recycling involves control of the disposal supply chain — including sawing the turbine blades into smaller pieces at the decommissioning site to decrease transportation logistics and costs. The process promises 100 percent recycling and reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from cement co-processing through replacing production of cement raw materials with the recycled blades, plus the use of biogas from organic remnants in place of coal as a fuel.

Other technologies such as mechanical recycling, solvolysis, and pyrolysis are also being developed, which will ideally provide the industry with additional options for handling fiberglass blades when they reach end-of-use.

Another creative recycling option produces pellets or boards that can be used in carpentry applications. In 2019, Global Fiberglass Solutions began producing a product called EcoPoly Pellets in the U.S. and will soon additionally produce a panel version. These products are certified as being recycled from decommissioned wind turbine blades through radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking from the blade to the end-product. EcoPoly Pellets can be transformed into a variety of products such as warehouse pallets, flooring material, or parking bollards. Based on its demand forecasts, Global Fiberglass Solutions anticipates being able to process 6,000 to 7,000 blades per year at each of its two plants in Texas and Iowa.

An added approach to the blade recycling issue is to focus on the upfront piece — what the blades are made of. Additional research and development is looking into using thermoplastic resin instead of fiberglass or carbon fiber for wind turbine blades. The material may be easier and cheaper to recycle.

In the end, the goal of increasing innovation towards additional use applications for retired turbine blades requires having enough market demand to incentivize the creation of facilities that can recycle the blades. Alongside that challenge is a lack of policy in the U.S. regarding end-of-use considerations for turbine blades, further contributing to the status quo of storage or disposal as solid waste in landfills.

Achieving 100 percentage recyclability of wind turbine systems

As discussed above, it is currently less expensive to dispose of wind turbine blades in the closest landfill rather than the oftentimes long-distance transport required for recycling in the limited number of facilities that can process them efficiently. The industry, in addition, currently suffers from a lack of regulatory pressure or market incentives to fully develop other end-of-use options.

Two approaches to a more circular economy are greater communication along the wind turbine supply chain, and ambitious goals. For example, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, a wind turbine design, manufacturing, and global installation company, announced a bold commitment to produce zero waste wind turbines by 2040. The company plans to achieve this by increasing recyclability over the next 20 years through working closely with its partners along the supply chain to ultimately avoid any incineration or landfilling of its products. More partnerships like these between wind industry companies are needed to help fill the gap and make wind energy systems 100 percent recyclable.

Also, U.S. states should consider policy mechanisms to drive market development of alternative solutions, such as increased producer responsibilities, beyond the disposal of wind turbine blades in landfills. States could additionally contemplate ways to support construction of regional recycling infrastructure — particularly in states with larger portions of wind power such as Texas or Iowa — to address the end-of-use stage for wind turbine blades.

Source: CleanTechnica

Digital Hub Designed to Protect Coral Reefs Shortlisted for Global Award

01.11.2020

reef-korali — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

A new digital platform to help dive professionals protect fragile coral reefs has been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2020 Con X Tech Prize, an award that provides seed funding to innovative conservation projects.

The Green Fins Global Hub by The Reef-World Foundation, which is being developed in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), was shortlisted for what organizers called its potentially transformative approach to conserve biodiversity and ending human-induced species extinctions.

Once up and running, the hub aims to provide more than 30,000 dive and snorkel operators across 100 countries with practical information on how to reduce the impact that tourism has on coral reefs. Among other things, it will showcase low-cost alternatives to harmful practices, like anchoring and fish feeding, while helping operators limit chemical pollution.

“UNEP is proud to support the work of the Reef-World Foundation and Green Fins to promote sustainable tourism practices around the world,” said UNEP marine ecosystems expert Gabriel Grimsditch. “As tourism businesses recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that they do so in an environmentally sustainable manner that does not harm the ecosystems that their businesses depend on.”

Found in over 100 countries and territories globally, coral reefs support a quarter of all marine life—up to 1 million species. They also provide at least 500 million people with jobs and food while protecting coastlines from storms and flooding. However, the recently released fifth Global Biodiversity Outlook says coral reefs are at risk of extinction due to human-related pressures, including climate change.

Reef-World is one of 20 finalists for the Con X Prize and was shortlisted from 167 submissions from around the world. Each of the shortlisted teams received USD 3,500 to turn their idea into a prototype. In October, one project will be awarded the USD 20,000 grand prize.

James Greenhalgh, Digital Strategy Manager at The Reef-World Foundation, said: “There is no other product like the Global Hub on the market and our market research shows strong industry demand for a service providing this type of solution. The hub will enable operators to train and empower their staff to adopt better environmental behaviours and collaborate with other businesses. We’re excited about the project’s potential to benefit reefs globally.”

Reef-World has already secured funding for this project from UNEP, The Matthew Good Foundation and G-Research. It is continuing to fundraise to cover the remaining development costs.

Tom Quigley, Community Manager at Conservation X Labs, said: “The Con X Tech Prize is meant for opportunities just like this – where some funding and support through a prototyping sprint can help a product like Green Fins make a transformative leap in the scale of their impact. We’re excited to see what Reef-World builds over the prototyping period.”

The hub lends itself to the ongoing calls for global conservation to protect coral reefs. In May, the International Coral Reef Initiative, a long-standing partner of UNEP, adopted recommendations from the Convention on Biological Diversity Post 2020 Framework to safeguard the future of coral reefs. Meanwhile, the Glowing Gone Campaign is raising awareness about the plight of coral reefs by enlisting the support of companies, like Adobe, and several celebrities, including Jane Goodall.

Source: UNEP

How to Get Private Capital to Protect Nature – Without Greenwashing

31.10.2020

ocean_okean_coast_obala_beach_plaža — Foto-ilustracija: Pixabay

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Jakob Owens)

“Innovative finance” is the newest buzzword used to find ways to channel money – especially private money – to nature-based solutions. But bringing nature and private investors together in a sustainable and lasting way is easier said than done.

I love nature and, especially, I love the ocean. For about 12 years now, I have worked as a conservationist trying to find pragmatic solutions for how to conserve, protect, restore and ensure sustainable use of natural resources and their ecosystems. More recently, I started to learn about private financing, now a very “hot topic” in the conservation world. The main message I have gleaned is: there is not enough public and philanthropic money available to fund nature conservation, and even if those amounts are drastically increased (which they should be) over the next few years, we still need private money to close that “funding gap”.

Then, engaging more within the finance world, I learned: There is enough private money that could potentially go to conservation, but not enough projects that can absorb private capital and are at a scale that makes sense from a private investors’ point of view.

For many projects involving the active conservation and/or restoration of ecosystems, it becomes very challenging to provide a well-developed business plan, with a clear return on investment. Especially in the coastal and marine space, we see very promising deals, yet they primarily include technologies (e.g. around by-catch reduction) or plastic-related activities. All are urgently needed, yet don’t solve the problem of how we will get private money to pay for active, direct nature conservation and restoration. Because where is the financial return in that?

Private actors engaging in nature conservation isn’t new at all. For corporate social responsibility (CSR) reasons, big and small companies have long supported conservation projects. The interest from private-capital investors is certainly also there. The emergence of a flurry of new impact investments funds is proof of that on one hand, and the engagement of multilateral development banks in nature-based solutions on the other hand. But they want, compared to pure CSR, a return on investment. And this is where it becomes tricky.

Some might argue: Do we actually need private capital to pay for the conservation, protection and/or restoration of nature? I would argue: given the above-mentioned “funding gap”, yes we do. But this is not to say that we only need private money. Some projects can simply not be paid for by return-on-investment private capital. Also, the engagement with private finance needs to happen around sound environmental and social safeguards (ESS). Especially now that it has become clearer what so-called nature-based solutions are and are not.

Nature-based solutions are put forward as nature’s contribution to meet societal challenges, including climate-change mitigation and adaptation, as well as food security. The UN, big corporates, small NGOs, countries all around the globe, and also the private finance sector, embrace such solutions and want to invest in them. But what has to always be avoided at all costs is greenwashing, especially if private money is involved. Yes, private money needs to come into play, but it should go without saying that only projects with active conservation, protection and/or restoration of ecosystems ought to claim, “We are investing in nature-based solutions.” The goal is to have projects conforming to the eight criteria of the IUCN Global Standard on NbS.

Which brings us back to the lack of a clear project pipeline. As part of my work at IUCN, we have been trying to identify and support investable projects in the coastal and marine space, with clear nature-based solutions. Most are linked to the well-established revenue-generating activities around sustainable natural resources management (fisheries and aquaculture), carbon trading and tourism. We received many outstanding conservation project applications, yet without a clear (or only very early stage) business plan nor the right partnerships to engage with private capital. We have also received fascinating applications from start-ups, proposing new technologies and requesting help with how to include nature-based solutions into their business concept as a whole, and finance structure in particular.

Both established projects and startups merit support “to get further off the ground”, in terms of technical assistance as well as seed/grant funding. But neither is the silver bullet in terms of getting finance to conservation at scale.

Investment projects with nature-based solutions need innovative and creative project developers and entrepreneurs; risk-taking investors, NGOs that apply high ESS, and constructive government authorities. And ideally, back-up from government entities, in a blended finance format, to support such projects through dedicated technical assistance as well as seed funding.

This journey is not a quick one, especially if it is to be one with long-lasting impacts. Bringing a diverse set of stakeholders and interests together isn’t done overnight. It’s about constant learning, adjusting of expectations, and finding compromises without losing environmental, social and ethical standards.

Luckily, there are a lot of willing actors – from all bases – out there. The signs are extremely positive: from new (ocean) investment funds to established fund managers adding nature-based solutions prominently to their new business endeavours as well as “mainstreaming” through their more traditional investment portfolios.

And the final point: Engaging with private finance is not to let governments, or CSR- and philanthropic-driven funding, off the hook. Especially this year we have seen the need to invest in nature, from all angles, to support a healthy environment for all. We heard a lot about “build back better” – some argue “build forward better” is a more suitable slogan – we cannot allow ourselves to go back to normal and only make it a bit better. We need to have much more visionary, forward-looking thinking that includes nature at its core, from policy-making all the way to private investment. And let’s lead with continued support for those visionaries, in all the shapes and forms in which they might arise.

The World Economic Forum’s UpLink platform is searching for solutions that protect, restore and support the ocean and its blue economy. For more information, visit UpLink.

Source: World Economic Forum

Locust Control Campaign Covers Millions of Hectares, But the Voracious Pest is Still a Threat in East Africa

30.10.2020

desert-locust-skakvci — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Questions and Answers with Keith Cressman, FAO’s Senior Locust Forecasting Officer

Why are we seeing a resurgence of Desert Locust in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula?

Well, as we predicted, climatic conditions are driving this new round of locust activity. In many areas, rains came early, triggering earlier than usual reproduction; other areas continue to get steady rains, which sparks locust breeding. Large swathes of Yemen that are inaccessible are also key locust breeding grounds – basically a reservoir for the pest.

We always knew that seasonal change in winds plus these rains would spark another uptick in activity. And that this activity would be significant, given the high numbers of locusts that have been present in the region since January. So though large scale control operations have significantly improved the situation, locust populations remain in the region – especially in remote, hard to reach areas where surveillance or control operations are not possible.

Early and ongoing rains have led to a new cycle of breeding and fresh swarms are forming in Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen. Immature hopper bands have also been identified in Eritrea, The Sudan and Saudi Arabia and are likely to form new swarms. The winds over the northern portion of the Horn of Africa are now starting to blow southwards again raising concerns they could again reach Kenya later in the year.

Does this mean that efforts to control the upsurge have failed?

Quite the opposite. A massive humanitarian disaster has been averted. With international support coordinated by FAO, over 1.1 million hectares of land in 10 countries have been surveyed and treated for locust infestation since January. When you add in locust control efforts outside of East Africa and Yemen, 2.3 million hectares of land have been controlled this year.

These operations have prevented the loss of 2.3 million tonnes of cereal – enough to feed more than 15 million people a year – in countries already hard hit by acute food insecurity and poverty. And our efforts have blunted impacts to an estimated 1.1 million pastoralist families, as well.

It’s important to remember, by the way, that efforts to contain the last large Desert Locust upsurge, in Africa’s Sahel region, lasted two whole years, from 2003 to 2005. The scale of the challenge and the time required to contain it should not be underestimated.

The Sahel was once again under threat of locust invasion earlier this year. How are things there now? And in Southwest Asia?

There’s been great progress in both those regions. Southwest Asia was indeed facing a huge locust upsurge earlier in the year but thanks to intensive locust control operations by India, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan, the upsurge has effectively been extinguished there. Kenya experienced its worst outbreak in 70 years, but has now largely contained the locusts to just one northern county. The threat to the Sahel and West Africa has been averted, which is great news for a region wrestling with other threats to food security.

But even in those areas of East Africa where the threat persists, countries are today in a far stronger position to manage and contain the infestations than they were just 10 months ago. National capacities have been significantly strengthened. All the pesticides that are needed to carry out controls has been sourced and deployed across the region. Countries now have fleets of aircraft and ground vehicles for surveillance and control in place and operating. FAO is now helping them scale up fleets again ahead of the winter rainy season.

For us this strengthening of capacity is a major accomplishment. as the goal has not just been to scale up control operations, FAO has prioritized building the capacity of governments to manage locusts. Countries now have in place capacity that just did not exist before, or that was insufficient to meet the threat of this uncommonly large upsurge.

What needs to happen now to contain this renewed locust activity?

When it comes to this pest, perseverance and consistency are key. This is a pest that is endemic in the region and then can explode when the right variables come together. Desert Locusts reproduce like wildfire in good conditions, their numbers growing by a factor of 20 with each 3 month reproductive cycle. Suppression and containment are the goals. We want to see the swarms diminish and the locust return to their solitary, non-threatening life cycle phase..

The planning and action that governments are taking with FAO support remains solid: Survey, target, control consistently – and at scale. There will be no overnight victories. The locust campaign must be sustained over the long haul and this will take time.

Apart from aerial control operations, governments must maintain and increase their control efforts using ground survey and control teams, and reporting with eLocust3, an innovative tool that enables data to be recorded and transmitted in real time via satellite to FAO and national locust centres.

Source: FAO

This Initiative Can Give City Trees a Second Life – and Create Jobs

30.10.2020

street_light_ulična_rasveta — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Bertrand Gabioud)

The city is a difficult place for a tree to survive. Compared to their counterparts in the countryside, urban trees generally get less water, suffer more intense heat, compete for space with unyielding infrastructure and frequently become riddled with disease and pests. As a result, many cities are stuck with a lot of dead trees every year.

Cities and private contractors cut them down and usually turn them into firewood, mulch or haul them to the landfill. Often, cities replant fewer trees than they remove, leading to a net loss in canopy cover over time.

However, these trees don’t have to go to waste. “Reforestation hubs” are an exciting model that will save these trees from landfills and instead find new uses for them, such as repurposing for furniture or flooring. This can help cities deal with dead trees while saving money, creating new jobs, addressing long-term public health goals and mitigating climate change at scale.

The urban wood opportunity

Restoring trees to the United States landscape offers big benefits for the climate and communities alike. The scale of the opportunity is staggering: landscapes across the United States alone could support 60 billion new trees. This would sequester up to 540 million tons of CO2 per year — equivalent to replacing 117 million gasoline cars with electric vehicles running on clean electricity. The United States could plant an estimated 400 million of these trees in cities. Capturing this opportunity will take financial resources and concerted effort by a variety of public and private partners.

While waiting for government funding or voluntary private sector finance to kick in at a meaningful scale, cities across the country hold a massive and untapped resource. However, this resource is going to waste — literally.

Every year, 36 million trees come down in cities across the United States due to old age, disease and new development, resulting in economic losses up to $786 million each year. Much of this wood could become valuable products, but instead often gets chipped, thrown in a landfill or burned as firewood. Rethinking urban wood waste could be an unexpected climate and economic solution, turning a burden on the climate and city budgets into a financial engine for reforestation across the broader landscape.

This opportunity is the impetus for the concept of reforestation hubs, pioneered by Cambium Carbon, Cities4Forests and the Arbor Day Foundation, which will be working with city officials to create the nation’s first reforestation hubs by 2022 through a TNC Natural Climate Change Solutions Accelerator Grant.

drvo — Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Pedro Kummel)

What is a reforestation hub?

In their simplest form, reforestation hubs are public-private partnerships that save cities money and generate revenue to plant and maintain more trees by diverting downed urban trees from landfills. Instead of going to waste, downed trees are sorted and turned into their highest and best use like furniture, cross-laminated timber, lumber, flooring, compost or mulch. This saves cities money and generates revenue to plant and maintain more trees, building a vibrant circular economy and allowing cities to better combat climate change. In the process, reforestation hubs also support public health and economic growth by creating jobs in green infrastructure through employing people at mills, nurseries and new planting initiatives.

Despite the value urban wood can provide, critical obstacles stand in the way of utilizing them. Cities lack the infrastructure to make fallen trees valuable, and wood product supply chains are not structured around urban wood products. Addressing these two gaps is the first step in creating a functioning reforestation hub. Doing so will require investments in sort yards and mill infrastructure to process incoming wood waste, bringing together city officials, urban millers, artisans, furniture makers, biochar facilities and composting operations. Additionally, it will require building value chains that connect these urban wood ecosystems to the broader market.

Urban wood champions are chipping away at this vision, but with slow progress. Building a reforestation hub requires immense collaboration, and urban wood is a complex raw material to build consistent supply chains around. Reforestation hubs break this log jam by bringing together four ingredients:

1. City-level commitments to divert wood from city agency and contractor operations, buy urban wood for city operations and establish long-term planting plans.

2. Private finance from philanthropic and impact investors for necessary infrastructure.

3. A market incubation platform that drives consumer awareness and leverages technology to connect buyers and sellers.

4. A social impact mission that reinvests profits from the new urban wood economy into tree planting in reforestation hub cities and the surrounding landscapes.

This vision builds on the work of the Baltimore Wood Project, which creates furniture and other high-value products from dead urban trees and reclaimed lumber from houses facing demolition. Baltimore created a network of suppliers and buyers of reclaimed lumber and invested heavily in Camp Small, a sort yard that can process their existing waste stream and turn it into value.

Growing new opportunities for city trees

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Josh Withers)

Reforestation hubs not only bring value through using dead trees, but by creating a path for planting new trees in cities. This comes with numerous public health benefits, including purifying air and water, helping to reduce respiratory disease and decreasing heat. Trees also increase stormwater retention to ease stress on city sewer systems.

Tree canopy health often follows wealth and racial lines in cities, depriving underserved communities of these benefits. Reforestation hubs, by applying the principles of tree equity, can provide funds to improve tree health and plant more trees that benefit these communities. They can also provide new employment opportunities through the markets created for previously under-utilized urban wood.

Making the most of fallen trees

With the financial strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, cities may face pressure to defer tree maintenance and replanting, despite the many benefits urban trees provide. At the same time, well-planned reforestation holds the potential to improve the respiratory health of residents and increased urban tree canopies can help cities meet their climate goals. Reforestation hubs offer a multitude of benefits, building new revenue to help fund tree care and planting as well as providing a path to financing broader tree-work in cities. As a result, reforestation hubs have immense potential to become economic, public health and climate boons for cities in the face of intersecting crises.

United States cities and NGOs looking for assistance in developing a reforestation hub can apply to receive pro-bono assistance by October 30 here. Stay up to date on this exciting work and encourage your city to join the movement here.

Source: World Economic Forum

Iowa’s Largest Solar Power Plant Nearly Finished

29.10.2020

construction-solar — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Solar power continues to plow forward thanks to record-low costs that have followed a long, long slide (or at times avalanche) in solar panel prices. This week we got news of Iowa getting its largest solar power park to date.

Renewable energy company Clēnera and RES (Renewable Energy Systems) have teamed up on a 127.5 megawatt (MW) solar project in Louisa County, the Wapello Solar project. It will produce enough electricity for around 45,000 homes, but with the electricity sold to the local utility, the Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO).

“We are thrilled to work with Clēnera on this milestone project, as we look to strike a meaningful balance with energy cost, reliability and stewardship for our members,” said CIPCO CEO and Executive Vice President Bill Cherrier.

“Energy produced by the sun provides an excellent complement to wind energy. The energy we purchase from Wapello Solar will be produced during our daily and seasonal peak demand times. This is an innovative way for us to offer reliability and efficiency to CIPCO’s energy portfolio.”

The solar power plant should go into operation by the end of 2020. RES is the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) partner on the project. “RES, the world’s largest independent renewable energy company, commenced construction in July 2020 and will employ over 280 workers at the peak of construction, many of whom will be locally hired,” a press release notes.

Here are a few more facts about the project:

Construction started in June.
The project has hired 200+ construction workers.
It’s expected to create $5.2 million in tax revenue.

Source: Clean Technica

Fao Calls for Stepping up Forest and Landscape Restoration

29.10.2020

drought-dry-suva zemlja — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Efforts to restore the world’s degraded forests and landscapes must be scaled up to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, said FAO in a new publication released today.

Land and forest degradation are among the world’s most pressing environmental issues. Globally, 25 percent of the total land area has been degraded. To safeguard the future of our planet, major actions are needed to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide.

The importance of land and forest restoration is highlighted in a new edition of FAO’s quarterly forestry publication Unasylva, launched today at the Global Landscapes Forum Biodiversity Digital Conference: One World – One Health.

Entitled Restoring the Earth: the next decade, the latest edition also underlines that considerable progress in forest and landscape restoration has been made in the last ten years.

To date, 63 countries and other entities have committed to restoring 173 million hectares – an area half the size of India – and regional responses such as the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and Initiative 20×20 in Latin America are making significant advances.

However, the publication argues that much more needs to be done at the national, regional and global scale to meet commitments under the Bonn Challenge, which aim to restore 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested lands by 2030, and other international pledges.

“Forest and landscape restoration is about much more than trees: it has social and economic benefits such as improving human well-being and livelihoods, and contributes to many of the Sustainable Development Goals, including mitigating climate change and conserving biodiversity,” said Mette Wilkie, Director, FAO Forestry.

New initiatives

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Patrick Hendry)

The new edition of Unasylva outlines a series of new restoration initiatives and programmes aimed at increasing funding, empowering local stakeholders and enhancing technical assistance for forest and landscape restoration.

The publication also presents technical approaches, such as Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR), to increase the adoption of forest and landscape restoration, and underlines the factors that underpin its implementation.

Among positive stories highlighted is China’s success in reversing centuries of forest degradation and loss thanks to political leadership, multi-stakeholder involvement and an adaptive management approach.

Unasylva also profiles Northern Kenya’s community conservation movement, which shows that land restoration is most successful when peace, governance, enterprise and wildlife conservation are also addressed.

Case studies in Brazil, Cambodia, Madagascar and Sao Tome and Principe meanwhile illustrate the range of options for institutional coordination mechanisms in forest and landscape restoration. Examples from the Niger and Burkina-Faso showcase the importance of local government and community’s empowerment for planning and financing restoration and sustainable land management.

Action needed

The publication also outlines actions needed to realize the momentum offered by the upcoming UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) to upscale forest restoration across hundreds of millions of hectares.

These include developing comprehensive business cases for governments and private-sector investors, new policies and legislation to support investments in restoration, and protocols for restoration tailored for specific landscapes.

Effective monitoring at the global, landscape and project scales is also essential for keeping restoration on track.

“Societies worldwide will need to be convinced of the global restoration imperative by rational economic argument, compassion for current and future generations, and an emotional connection to nature,” according to the authors of one article in the journal.

About Unasylva

Unasylva is an international journal of forestry and forest industries and FAO’s longest running periodical, existing since 1947. Its goal is to bring globally significant developments in forestry to a broad range of readers – such as policymakers, forest managers, technicians, researchers, students and teachers.

Each issue involves authors from every region of the world and from a variety of academic and research institutions, other United Nations (UN) agencies, non-governmental organizations and civil society.

Source: FAO

The Global Transformation of the Electricity Sector Requires Greater Efforts to Ensure Security of Supply

28.10.2020

electric-cables-energetski-sistem — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

New IEA report offers recommendations for how to respond to evolving challenges for electricity systems from growth of variable renewable electricity, cyber threats and extreme weather events.

The electricity sector, which plays a large and growing role in energy systems around the world, is undergoing its most dramatic transformation since its creation more than a century ago. The importance of electricity is only set to increase in the years ahead, calling for a more comprehensive approach to electricity security to meet evolving challenges such as cyber threats, extreme weather events and rapidly growing shares of variable electricity generation from wind and solar power, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency.

The report, Power Systems in Transition, is the first major global study to examine in depth these three key areas for the future of electricity security at the same time and offer recommendations for addressing them in a way that supports the acceleration of clean energy transitions globally.

“Energy security is at the heart of the IEA’s mission because it is critical for social wellbeing, economic prosperity and successful clean energy transitions. We are dedicated to helping countries around the world ensure that all their citizens have access to clean, reliable and affordable energy,” said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA Executive Director. “Electricity is essential for the functioning of modern societies – as the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted – and for bringing down global emissions. This is why we are continuing to expand and deepen our work on electricity security.”

The report is being launched at the 2nd Global Ministerial Conference on System Integration of Renewables, which is co-hosted by the IEA and the Singapore government. The event will bring together Ministers, industry CEOs and thought leaders from around the world for discussions on the theme of “Investment, Integration and Resilience: A Secure, Clean Energy Future.”

Electricity accounts for one-fifth of global energy consumption today, and its share is rising. It is set to play a bigger role in heating, cooling and transport as well as many digitally integrated sectors such as communication, finance and healthcare. In pathways towards meeting international energy and climate goals, such as the IEA Sustainable Development Scenario, the trend will accelerate. In that scenario, electricity could surpass oil as the world’s largest energy source by 2040. Wind and solar’s share of global electricity generation would rise from 7 percent to 45 percent, with all renewables combined generating more than 70 percent of the total.

Many countries today enjoy a high level of electricity security thanks to centrally controlled systems, relatively simple supply chains, and power plants that can supply electricity whenever needed. But recent technology and policy developments are now radically changing the sector and with it, the electricity security model that has prevailed for the past century. These developments include steep declines in the costs of variable renewables, the trends of decentralisation and digitalisation, and the impacts of climate change.

The challenge for governments and utilities is to update policies, regulations and market designs to ensure that power systems remain secure throughout clean energy transitions. The new IEA report maps out key steps for achieving this. An essential goal is to make systems more flexible so they can smoothly accommodate the variable electricity production from wind and solar. This includes making the best use of the flexibility on offer from existing power plants that can generate electricity when required, as well as increasing investments in grids and other sources of flexibility such as demand-side technologies and storage resources. However, global investment in these areas is declining, a trend that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis. An increase in investments should be facilitated by better-designed markets that reward power system resources that deliver flexibility and capacity.

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Serge le Strat)

The growing digitalisation of electricity systems, the rise of smart grids and the shift to a wider distribution of generation resources offers many opportunities and benefits. But with cyber threats already substantial and growing, it is imperative to strengthen cyber resilience measures and make them a central part of the planning and operation of power systems. Governments can achieve this through a wide range of policy and regulatory approaches – from highly prescriptive ones to framework-oriented, performance-based ones.

The effects of climate change mean that electricity systems need to become more resilient to the impacts of changing weather patterns, rising sea levels and more extreme weather events. This can be accomplished by giving a high priority to climate resilience in electricity security policies and establishing better standards to guide the necessary investments. Enhancing the resilience of electricity systems to climate change also brings multiple benefits.

The new IEA report identifies best practices and lessons learned from around the globe. It also provides a set of recommendations for institutional frameworks that establish clear responsibilities, incentives and rules; measures to identify, manage and mitigate risks; and protocols to monitor progress, respond and recover, including through emergency response exercises.

“The IEA is the world’s energy authority where governments and industry leaders can share experiences and expertise to help move the world towards a more secure and sustainable energy future,” said Dr Birol. “This report is the reference manual for policy-making on electricity security now and for years to come.”

The IEA’s expanding work on energy security challenges will next year include a special report providing a forward-looking assessment of the global supply of critical minerals for clean energy technologies.

Source: IEA

Over 200,000 Tonnes of Plastic Leaking Into the Mediterranean Each Year

28.10.2020

plastična_viljuška_okean — Foto-ilustracija: Unsplash (Brian Yurasits)

A new IUCN report finds that an estimated 229,000 tonnes of plastic are leaking into the Mediterranean Sea every year – equivalent to over 500 shipping containers each day. Unless significant measures are taken to address mismanaged waste, the main source of the leakage, this will at least double by 2040.

Based on a compilation of data from field studies and using the IUCN marine plastic footprint methodology, the report, “Mare Plasticum: The Mediterranean”, compiled in collaboration with Environmental Action, estimates plastic fluxes from 33 countries around the Mediterranean basin. It finds that macro-plastics resulting from mismanaged waste make up 94 percentage of the total plastic leakage. Once washed into the sea, plastic mostly settles in the sediments in the form of microplastics (particles smaller than 5mm). The report estimates that more than one million tonnes of plastic have accumulated in the Mediterranean Sea.

“Plastic pollution can cause long-term damage to terrestrial and marine ecosystems and biodiversity. Marine animals can get entangled or swallow plastic waste, and ultimately end up dying from exhaustion and starvation. Additionally, plastic waste releases chemical substances such as softeners or fire retardants into the environment, which can be harmful to both ecosystems and human health, especially in a semi-closed sea such as the Mediterranean. As this report makes clear, current and planned measures are not enough to reduce plastic leakage and pre-vent these impacts”, said Minna Epps, Director, IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme.

According to the report, Egypt (around 74,000 tonnes/year), Italy (34,000 tonnes/year) and Turkey (24,000 tonnes/year) are the countries with the highest plastic leakage rates into the Mediterranean, mainly due to high quantities of mismanaged waste and large coastal populations. Per capita, however, Montenegro (8kg/year/person), Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia (each contributing an estimated 3kg/year/person) have the highest levels of leakage.

For primary microplastics – plastics that enter the oceans in the form of small particles, as op-posed to larger plastic waste that degrades in the water – the plastic flow into the Mediterranean is estimated at 13,000 tonnes/year. Tyre dust is the largest source of leakage (53 percentage), followed by textiles (33 percentage), microbeads in cosmetics (12 percentage), and production pellets (2 percentage).

Based on a projected annual increase in global plastic production of 4 percentage, the report lays out different leakage scenarios and assesses key actions that could contribute to cutting plastic flows into the Mediterranean over next 20 years. It finds that under a business as usual scenario, annual leakage will reach 500,000 tonnes per year by 2040, and underlines that ambitious interventions beyond current commitments will be required to reduce the flow of plastic into the sea.

“Governments, private sector, research institutions and other industries and consumers need to work collaboratively to redesign processes and supply chains, invest in innovation and adopt sustainable consumption patterns and improved waste management practices to close the plastic tap,” said Antonio Troya, Director of the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation.

Improving waste management, starting with waste collection, has the greatest potential to reduce plastic leakage over time, according to the report. It finds that more than 50,000 tonnes of plastic leakage into the Mediterranean could be avoided each year if waste management were to be improved to global best practice standards in the top 100 contributing cities alone. Additionally, the report highlights that bans can be effective interventions if widely implemented – for instance, it estimates that a global ban on plastic bags in the basin would further reduce plastic leakage by around 50,000 tonnes per year.

Plastic pollution is harmful to marine wildlife, e.g. through entanglement, or by causing starvation when ingested. It is also thought to accumulate in the food web, with potentially negative impacts on human health.

This report is part of a series of publications under IUCN’s Close the Plastic Tap programme. The publication has been supported by Mava Foundation.

The publication is available here.

Source: IUCN

New Strains of Rice Could Address Climate Change

27.10.2020

rice-pirinac — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Rice is a staple for more than 3.5 billion people, including most of the world’s poor. But it can be a problematic crop to farm. It requires massive amounts of water and the paddies in which it grows emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

To tackle such issues, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been working with the Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center to develop strains of rice that are drought resistant and don’t need to be planted in paddies. The research, say, experts, could help bolster food security at a time when COVID-19 is threatening to propel more people into hunger.

The study, which runs from 2017 to 2021, is funded by the Government of China and falls under the China-Africa South-South Cooperation arrangement.

“China has lots of experience growing rice and this collaboration with China is a first,” says UNEP ecosystems expert Levis Kavagi, who has been closely involved with the project.

Researchers have developed and tested over 50 varieties of rice in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. They evaluated how the grains grow at different elevations and, importantly, how they taste.

WDR 73 also doesn’t need to be planted in a flooded paddy. That’s important for several reasons.

Transporting seedlings into flooded fields is a laborious process. Paddies are breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Water shortages, sparked by climate change, are expected to make filling paddies a challenge in many countries. And paddies themselves vent massive amounts of methane – up to 20 percent of human-related emissions of the greenhouse gas, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Growing rice on relatively dry land also reduces the ever-growing quest to open up wetlands, havens for birds and other animals, to farming.

“Usually the most suitable land for growing rice also tends to be next to, or in, wetlands or flood plains,” says Kavagi. “Expanding agricultural land involves draining the wetlands. This leads to loss of biodiversity, and reduced water purification and climate regulation services provided by wetlands.”

The ultimate goal of the project is to get a national certification of WDR 73, allowing it to be broadly disseminated to farmers. The project is part of a larger effort by China, African countries and UNEP to develop better rice varieties, improve livelihoods and bolster food security.

“The project shows that with new rice varieties it is possible to achieve the multiple objectives of food security, biodiversity and nature conservation – and fight against climate change,” says Kavagi.

Technical details of rice trials in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda

In Kenya, trials were conducted over three growing seasons in Mwea (central Kenya), Busia (western), and Mtwapa (coastal area). Rice variety WDR 73 performed well compared with the local Basmati varieties. The growth duration varied from 125 days in Mtwapa, to 150 days in Mwea and Busia, where the altitude is over 1,000m. Average grain yield was 5.1 to 9.0 tonnes per hectare. Plant height was 100-110 cm, which shows that this variety is tolerant to rice blast disease and displays good drought-resistant qualities compared to Basmati varieties.

In Uganda, WDR73 cultivation experiments were conducted in Lukaya, Luweero and Arua. In well-managed farms, grain yield increased from 4.35 to more than 6.0 tons per hectare. In Arua, in 2019 the rain-fed crop was direct sowed from 25-30 August and harvested from 30 November to 5 December. The growth duration was 90-95 days and yielded 4.35 tonnes per hectare. Direct seeded WDR 73 grain yield in Luweero in 2019 varied from 6 tonnes per hectare in rain-fed conditions to 8 tonnes per hectare in irrigated paddy fields.

In Bolgatanga, a drought-prone area in northern Ghana, WDR 73 growth duration was 105 days and plant height 110-120 cm, while the grain yield was 6.0 tonnes per hectare.

Source: UNEP

This Is What’s Happening With Single-Use Plastics Around the World

27.10.2020

the-bottle-flaša-plastika — Photo illustration: Pixabay

Canada will ban a range of single-use plastic products by the end of next year.

The ban will focus on six items that are often found in the environment, are often not recycled and that have readily available alternatives, the country says. These are plastic grocery bags, straws, stir sticks, six-pack rings, cutlery and food take-out containers that are hard to recycle.

The plan – which also proposes measures to recover and recycle plastic to keep it in the economy and out of the environment – is part of a national drive to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030.

Global effort

Canada joins a growing list of countries taking action on plastic pollution.

Last year, 170 nations pledged to “significantly reduce” use of plastic by 2030. And many have already started by proposing or imposing rules on certain single-use plastics:

Kenya – banned single-use plastic bags in 2017 and, this June, prohibited visitors from taking single-use plastics such as water bottles and disposable plates into national parks, forests, beaches, and conservation areas.

Zimbabwe – introduced a ban on polystyrene food containers in 2017, with fines of between $30 to $5,000 for anyone breaking the rules.

United Kingdom – introduced a tax on plastic bags in 2015 and banned the sale of products containing microbeads, like shower gels and face scrubs, in 2018. A ban on supplying plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds recently came into force in England.

United States – New York, California and Hawaii are among states to have banned single-use plastic bags, though there is no federal ban.

The European Union – plans to ban single-use plastic items such as straws, forks, knives and cotton buds by 2021.

China – has announced a plan to ban non-degradable bags in all cities and towns by 2022. Single-use straws will also be banned in the restaurant industry by the end of 2020.

India – instead of a proposed nationwide ban on plastic bags, cups and straws, states are being asked to enforce existing rules on the storage, manufacture and use of some single-use plastics.

Systemic approach

As Canada’s announcement reflects, plastics bans are only part of the solution. After all, plastic is a cheap and versatile solution to many problems, and is used effectively in many applications from preserving food to saving lives in healthcare.

So to create real change, moving to a circular economy in which products don’t end up as waste will be vital.

UK charity the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative aims to help the world make this transition. It says we can do this if we:

-Eliminate all problematic and unnecessary plastic items.

-Innovate to ensure that the plastics we do need are reusable, recyclable, or compostable.

-Circulate all the plastic items we use to keep them in the economy and out of the environment.

“We need to innovate to create new materials and reuse business models,” the organization’s founder Ellen MacArthur says. “And we need improved infrastructure to ensure all plastics we use are circulated in the economy and never become waste or pollution.

“The question is not whether a circular economy for plastic is possible, but what we will do together to make it happen.”

MacArthur was speaking at the launch of a recent report on the urgent need for a circular economy in plastics, called Breaking the Plastic Wave.

It shows that, compared with a business-as-usual scenario, the circular economy has the potential to reduce the annual volume of plastics entering our oceans by 80 percentage. A circular approach could also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percentage, generate savings of $200 billion per year, and create 700,000 additional jobs by 2040.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership is working to help shape a more sustainable and inclusive world by eradicating plastic pollution.

It brings together governments, businesses and civil society to translate commitments into meaningful action at both the global and national levels.

Source: World Economic Forum

UNEP Launches a Virtual Journey Through Three Iconic Forests

25.10.2020

šuma-forest-priroda-nature-landscape-klupa-park-zelenilo-planina-predeo — Foto: Unsplash (Tokii Walkie)

Foto-ilustracija: Unsplash (Sergey Raikin)

The COVID-19 pandemic might have scotched your vacation plans this year. But you can still bound through some of the world’s most iconic landscapes in a new online journey launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

A new interactive webpage allows netizens to explore three wildlife-rich forests: the Leuser in Indonesia, the Kayah-Karen in Thailand and Myanmar, and the Gran Chaco, which courses through Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil.

Through videos, photo essays and quizzes, the website offers an intimate look at the plants and animals that call these forests home.

“The site is designed to raise awareness about the myriad of threats facing forests, from logging to farming,” says Susan Gardner, Director of UNEP’s Ecosystems Division. “As our thirst for natural resources grows, we put increased pressure on the world’s forests, which are actually very delicate ecosystems. By highlighting how forests benefit both animals and humans, we hope to help preserve them for generations to come.”

Forests cover one-third of the Earth’s surface and are home to half of land animals and plants. Along with being a haven for wildlife, they produce oxygen, purify water and lock in carbon dioxide that would otherwise flood the atmosphere and drive global warming.

Every year, the world loses 4.7 million hectares of forests, an area bigger than Denmark. Many of those trees are felled to make way for cattle farms, palm plantations and soybean fields.

The new digital journeys underline how forests support both animals and humans. For example, the Leuser, a 2.6 million-hectare tract of lowland forest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, home to everything from rhinos, to orangutans to tigers. Its eastern ranges alone also support nearly 6 million people.

“Losing forests isn’t only bad for animals,” says Gardner. “In many places, deforestation is depriving people, many of them already poor and marginalized, of food, jobs and a chance at a better life.”

The new interactive webpage is part of the Wild for Life Campaign, a global effort, led by the UNEP, to raise awareness about the threats to wild animals. It is one in a series of online journeys. Others explore savannahs, coral reefs and peatlands.

Source: UNEP

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