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Tag: Pollution

  • Scientists warn of conflicts ahead of UN talks on plastic and chemicals

    Scientists warn of conflicts ahead of UN talks on plastic and chemicals

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    Newswise — An international group of 35 scientists is calling out conflicts of interest plaguing global plastic treaty negotiations and that have interfered with timely action on other health and environmental issues. They urge the implementation of strict guidelines to prevent the same problems from affecting the UN’s upcoming Science Policy Panel on chemicals. Their concerns and recommendations are outlined in a featured paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

    “From Big Tobacco to Big Oil, powerful industries use the same playbook to manufacture doubt and sow misinformation,” said co-author Bethanie Carney Almroth, a Professor at the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg. “The plastic and chemical industries already have a long history of deploying these tactics to hamper regulatory efforts. Our health and that of the planet upon which we rely, can’t afford any further subversion of efforts to reduce the widespread contamination of our air and water.”

    The group’s warning comes as countries prepare to meet next week for the third UN plastic treaty negotiation session in Nairobi. Though scientists had advised against it, the plastic and petrochemical industries were actively involved in the first round of negotiations in 2022. The paper notes that industry representatives pushed misleading statements, including the debunked claim that plastic production will help fight climate change. To date, no action has been taken to curb these conflicts of interest.  

    The scientists express concern that similar issues could arise in the development of the UN Science Policy Panel on chemicals, waste, and pollution. The UN Environment Assembly decided in 2022 to establish this Panel to support countries in their efforts to protect human and ecosystem health through scientific assessments. As the working group to create the Panel will meet Dec. 11-15, today’s paper is a call to protect its work from undue influence by companies with a vested interest in revenue-generating chemicals.    

    “Letting polluters have a say in pollution protections is the epitome of the fox guarding the henhouse,” said lead author Andreas Schäffer, a Professor at the Institute for Environmental Research, RWTH Aachen University. “Just like the tobacco industry was restricted from WHO’s work on smoking, the UN shouldn’t let the chemical industry’s hired guns dilute global guidelines for chemical and waste management.”

    The participation of industry in a UN intergovernmental science-policy body would not be unprecedented. For example, fossil fuel representatives co-authored major reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Science Policy’s Panel analogue for climate. 

    To ensure the effectiveness of the Science Policy Panel, the scientists who co-authored the paper issue the following key recommendations that should be incorporated into the process:

    • Define clear and strict conflict of interest provisions.
    • Do not confuse the undesirable conflicts of financial or political competing interests with legitimate interests or biases.
    • Install regular audits of the Panel’s work to check for conflict of interest.
    • Secure as many elements of transparency as possible.

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    Green Science Policy Institute

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  • Plastics treaty: Cut pollution at source

    Plastics treaty: Cut pollution at source

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    Newswise — The new Global Plastics Treaty must tackle the problem at source, researchers say.

    An international negotiation meeting (INC-3) in Kenya begins on Monday, aiming to further develop a legally binding treaty on plastic pollution.

    Writing in the journal Science, researchers say the treaty must prioritise “upstream” issues: cutting total production and consumption of plastics, phasing out hazardous chemicals and tackling fossil fuel subsidies.

    They highlight a “worrying” level of focus on downstream recycling and waste management – when the true solution must address the full life cycle of plastics.

    They say the treaty must be holistic – with more focus on early interventions and the people, places and ecosystems most impacted by plastic pollution.

    “Right now, simply too much attention and capital is focussed ‘downstream’ – recycling and cleaning up plastic already in the environment, in many cases just after a single use ” said Dr Mengjiao (Melissa) Wang, from Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter.

    “That is vital work, but it can only be part of the solution, and only if done in a safe, environmentally sound and socially just way.

    “Removing the mess while making more is a doomed strategy. We cannot recycle our way out.

    “An effective treaty must be holistic, covering everything from fossil fuel extraction and plastic production to recycling and removing waste that already pollutes our land and ocean.”

    Currently, “downstream” recovery and recycling receives 88% of investment money – while just 4% is directed to “upstream” reuse solutions.

    The authors say this imbalance comes from “fossil-fuel-entwined political economy of plastics”, which continues to accelerate production, consumption and waste, adding further to the triple Planetary Crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

    They say the zero draft of the treaty “disproportionately emphasises waste management investment and neglects opportunities” for more efficient and cost-effective upstream strategies like reduction, redesign and reuse.

    The researchers say the treaty should require polymer manufacturers to pay a “substantial fee pegged to the quantity of primary plastics produced”, define criteria for strong and independent Extended Producer Responsibility schemes, and ensure both public and private financing align with the zero waste hierarchy by prioritising upstream strategies. 

    An effective Plastics Treaty to close the back door for fossil fuels

    The new treaty could and should become a global mechanism, to close a key loophole left by the Paris Agreement.

    “The problem of plastic pollution is huge, and it can feel overwhelming,” said Dr Lucy Woodall, from the University of Exeter.

    “But there are opportunities and challenges at each stage of the life cycle of plastics – from fossil fuel extraction onwards.”

    Global climate governance aims to stop the burning of fossil fuels, but they  could still be extracted and used to make plastics – so the Plastics Treaty provides a not-to-be-missed opportunity to close this “back door”.

    In three letters to Science, the researchers – the majority from the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty – highlight several other points that the treaty must include.

    “One vital step is to focus on ecosystems,” said Dr Woodall.

    “Once in the environment, plastic litter can entangle and choke wildlife, and plastic objects can act as a reservoir for invasive species and concentrate other pollutants.

    “Plastics can also break down into potentially toxic micro- and nanoplastics.”

    The treaty’s zero draft used terms such as “hotspot” and “cleanup” – putting the focus on concentrations rather than the natural systems and their specific context, therefore the well-being and livelihoods of the nature and people these pollutants affect are ignored.

    “This implies that the plastics problem can be solved without considering ecosystem restoration and the disproportionate burden of plastic pollution in some ecosystems,” Dr Woodall said.

    “Vibrant ecosystems are vital for biodiversity and human health, so protecting them should be the centre of our approach.”

    ‘Chemical simplification’

    Chemicals in plastics are one of the key barriers to addressing global plastic pollution.

    Current regulations don’t require producers to track or publish information on the levels of harmful chemicals.

    The authors argue for “chemical simplification”, significantly reducing the production and use of especially hazardous chemicals, and increasing transparency and traceability along the whole supply chain, to fulfil one of the many necessary steps to ensure products can be safely and effectively recycled.

    The researchers are hopeful that an effective treaty can be agreed – but some countries are expected to resist more ambitious language and delay the process.

    “When we speak to negotiators, they give us a political ‘reality check’ about balancing ambition with getting a treaty agreed in due time,” Dr Wang said.

    “In return, our role as scientists is to provide a scientific reality check about the scale of this problem and the solutions that can actually work to bring us back to the safe operating space of the earth.

    “We need a treaty that is holistic and ambitious, tackling every stage of this problem – extraction, production, resource allocation – to stop the build-up of plastic waste and harmful chemicals in our planet’s precious ecosystems.”

    The letters published in Science are entitled: “Chemical simplification and tracking in plastics”, “Plastics treaty text must center ecosystems” and “Finance plastics reuse, redesign, and reduction”.

     

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    University of Exeter

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  • Idaho National Laboratory to play a key role in Midwest hydrogen hub

    Idaho National Laboratory to play a key role in Midwest hydrogen hub

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    Newswise — As the United States works to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, different energy sectors will require different solutions.

    Renewables and nuclear energy will help decarbonize electricity production, and the light-duty transportation sector will reduce emissions primarily by switching to electric vehicles. Natural gas will continue to displace coal-fired power plants as carbon capture and sequestration also advances.

    But other energy sectors are more difficult to decarbonize. Many industries require more than just electricity to run their processes. Some, such as steel and cement production, also need heat, while the ammonia used to make fertilizer requires hydrogen. And today’s batteries charge too slowly and are too heavy to efficiently power semitractor-trailer trucks and other heavy machines.

    To solve these challenges, experts envision an economy where carbon-free hydrogen serves as a transportation fuel, a chemical precursor, an energy storage medium and a source of high temperature heat for industry.

    Now, Idaho National Laboratory is poised to play a key role in forming a hydrogen economy. On Oct. 13, the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, LLC (MachH2) announced that it was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to develop a Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub. The MachH2 hub is one of seven hydrogen hubs planned by DOE.

    The hub will establish a supply chain for producing, storing, distributing and using hydrogen. The hub is expected to create thousands of jobs during construction and operation.

    INL researchers will lead efforts to identify potential end users, perform technoeconomic analyses, and develop and commercialize next generation hydrogen and advanced nuclear technologies for the hub.

    The supply chain starts with hydrogen produced and used across three states:  Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. MachH2 will use electrolysis technology and three main energy sources — nuclear energy, renewable energy and natural gas with carbon sequestration.

    Hydrogen can go to storage facilities or be delivered to end users that could include hydrogen-powered buses, freight trucks, and glass, chemical, fertilizer and steel manufacturing, and eventually, sustainable aviation fuel production.

    “One of the reasons we went to Michigan, Indiana and Illinois is that they are central to the nation’s freight sector,” said Seth Snyder, an INL researcher and chief commercialization officer­ for the hub. “We’re creating a hydrogen corridor, an ecosystem around hydrogen.”

    Design and buildout of the hydrogen hub is expected to start immediately, followed by construction within a year and operation of the hub within five years. Project managers estimate the seven hydrogen hubs will collectively cut 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year — roughly equivalent to the emissions from 5.5 million gasoline-powered cars — and create tens of thousands of jobs.

    The hydrogen economy is within reach

    Recent advances in carbon-free hydrogen production technologies — specifically low- and high-temperature electrolysis — have brought the idea of a hydrogen economy within reach. Much of this progress is due to investments from DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office.

    For now, nuclear and renewable hydrogen production will rely mainly on low-temperature electrolysis, a commercially available technology that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

    Federal funding for the hub is up to $1 billion, which will allow the team to evaluate how deployment and use of up-and-coming technologies such as high-temperature electrolysis — which splits high-temperature steam instead of water — and advanced nuclear reactors could improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

    “INL will continue to look at advanced nuclear applications and high-temperature electrolysis, which is more efficient, to accelerate it toward commercialization,” Snyder said.

    INL is the premier laboratory in the nation for demonstrating high temperature electrolysis. Researchers at the laboratory helped lay the groundwork for the MachH2 hub to use the technology by helping industry develop solid oxide electrolysis cells and by setting up hydrogen production test platforms for companies to demonstrate their technologies.

    The efficiency of high-temperature electrolysis is 20% to 25% higher than low temperature electrolysis. Plus, the process is carbon-free if you use the high-temperature heat and electricity supplied by a clean energy source like nuclear during times of low grid demand.

    To help mature these technologies for the MachH2 hub, INL has proposed a 4- to 10-megawatt (MW) hydrogen proving ground at its desert site.

    “We want to get high-temperature electrolysis up to speed,” Snyder said. “Now we’re demonstrating 1 megawatt systems, and we need to get it to 10 megawatt and beyond.”

    INL has also partnered with industry for low- and high-temperature hydrogen production demonstrations at three commercial nuclear power plants in the United States. Some of these systems began operation in 2023.

    These demonstration projects have helped prove technologies and reduce the technical, economic and safety risk of coupling nuclear reactors with hydrogen plants.

    Technoeconomic and life cycle analysis

    In the near term, INL, along with Argonne National Laboratory, Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, will support MachH2 by providing the technoeconomic and life cycle analyses of the hydrogen hub.

    INL’s technoeconomic analyses will include modeling the construction and operation of the various components of the hub and determining how the economics of those components fit within the marketplace. The life cycle analysis — performed by Argonne — will eventually determine the carbon dioxide emissions reductions, using operational data to confirm the calculations and predictions.

    “We are going to be spending time and resources to basically determine how the infrastructure should be operated and look for ways to incorporate technologies that INL is researching,” said Dan Wendt, an INL researcher who leads the technoeconomic analysis team. “That includes how the hub could use advanced nuclear and high-temperature electrolysis to further improve impacts and economics.”

    Certain aspects of the technoeconomic analysis will be investigated using HERON, a modeling tool set that determines optimal integrated energy system configurations and operating strategies to maximize economics. It’s a complicated question. Researchers will need to build a model capable of balancing the demands of the grid with the needs of hydrogen consumers while considering the overall economics for the entire system.

    “We want to know how these systems are going to work together to achieve the greatest impact while still being economically competitive,” Wendt said.

    The chicken or the egg?

    In the end, the hydrogen hub is a complex mixture of several different hydrogen sources and many different projects including transportation networks, storage facilities and a multitude of end users.

    By integrating these components into a single system, MachH2 “helps address the chicken and egg question,” Wendt said. “What comes first, the markets or the production capability? It gives you a foothold for helping the hydrogen economy take off.”

    “Our team can play a major role in helping inform how the MachH2 hub components can work together to ensure reliability, competitiveness and large impacts in CO2 reductions,” he said.

    The MachH2 hub represents “a transformative opportunity for the lab,” Snyder said.

    Richard Boardman, INL lead for Nuclear-Hydrogen Systems Integration, agreed.

    “As the lead lab for nuclear energy applications, INL will use its computational and testing capabilities to ensure the commercial success of hydrogen production and use by industry,” he said. “The express purpose of INL’s capabilities is to validate electrolysis stacks and integrated electrolysis modules that are capable of flexible operations.”

    To learn more about INL’s research on hydrogen, visit https://inl.gov/integrated-energy/hydrogen/.

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    Idaho National Laboratory (INL)

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  • Research highlights Africa’s hazardous air pollution as a global concern.

    Research highlights Africa’s hazardous air pollution as a global concern.

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    Newswise — A new report in Nature Geoscience has brought to light the challenge of air pollution levels in Africa and why international action is needed to combat it. 

    Over the last 50 years African nations have suffered from rapidly deteriorating air quality, making their cities some of the most polluted in the world. Particulate matter concentration levels are now five to ten levels greater than that recommended by the World Health Organisation, with the situation predicted to worsen as populations grow and industrialization accelerates.

    However, far too little has been done to try and combat the dangerous air quality with just 0.01% of global air pollution funding currently spent in Africa.

    The new perspective piece from the University of Birmingham, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, South Eastern Kenya University and the African Centre for Clean Air, published today (7 Nov) in Nature Geoscience, argues that tackling this issue requires collective efforts from African countries, regionally tailored solutions, and global collaboration.  

    Francis Pope, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Birmingham and one of the co-authors, said: “The burning of biomass fuel for cooking, heating, and lighting, the crude oil exploitation and coal mining industries, and old vehicles being shipped in from Europe are all causes for the poor air quality in African nations. This dangerous air can cause complex and sometimes deadly health issues for those breathing it in. If this wasn’t enough of a reason to tackle this issue, air pollution in Africa is not just a problem for people living on the continent, but for the wider world, limiting the ability to meet global climate targets and combat the climate emergency.”

    Multiple efforts have been made over the years to tackle air pollution, such as the signing of C40 Clean Air Declaration by ten major African cities. Initiatives to monitor air-pollution levels and collect much needed data have also begun to gather momentum.

    But there is still much to be done. The researchers argue that regional and international efforts must be coordinated to achieve real change and leverage existing knowledge on controlling and cutting air pollution.

    They call for urgent collaboration on:

    • Continuous air monitoring via a network of sensors in order to build a detailed picture of air pollution variations and track progress.
    • Investment in clean energy such as solar, hydropower and wind to meet Africa’s energy demand which is expected to double by 2040.
    • Improved solid waste management to prevent dumping and burning of waste and improve reuse, recycling, and recovery rates.
    • Investment in environmentally friendly technology to ensure African countries can grow economically whilst avoiding dirty and obsolete technology from the Global North.
    • Infrastructure improvements to curb emissions from the transport sector, improving public transport provision and adopting higher emission standards for fuel and imported vehicles.

    Co-author of the article, Dr Gabriel Okello, from the Institute for Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cambridge and the African Centre for Clean Air, said: “Air pollution is complex and multifaceted with different sources and patterns within society. Addressing it requires more ambitious, collaborative, and participatory approaches centred on involvement of stakeholders in policy, academia, business, communities to co-design and co-produce context-specific interventions. This should be catalysed by increased investment in interventions that are addressing air pollution. Africa has the opportunity to leverage the growing political will and tap into the young population to accelerate action towards the five broad suggestions in our paper.”

    Dr Andriannah Mbandi, from South Eastern Kenya University and co-author of the article, said: “The burden of air pollution unjustly rests on poorer populations, and women and children, as they most likely face higher exposure to pollutants and most probably experience more impacts. Thus, clean air actions will go some ways in redressing some of these inequalities in Africa, in addition to the benefits to health and the environment.”

    Professor Pope concludes: “There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to Africa’s air quality problems, and each region and population will have their own specific challenges to overcome. But by being proactive and doing these five actions there will be a reduction in air pollution levels, meaning healthier people and a healthier planet.”

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    University of Birmingham

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  • Is your hotel sustainable? Not if these two things are in your room, says Soneva’s founder

    Is your hotel sustainable? Not if these two things are in your room, says Soneva’s founder

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    Many hotels claim to be eco-friendly.  

    But are they?  

    A quick-and-easy test is to look for two items, said Sonu Shivdasani, founder of Soneva and Six Senses hotel brands.

    First, sustainable hotels should not have branded water of any sort, he told CNBC Travel.  

    “When you have incredible filtered water, and where the tap water is pretty pure in most countries in the world … there’s no need to have any sort of branded water,” he said.

    Not only does this reduce single-use bottles, but it’s healthier too, he said.

    “There are quite a lot of brands of water that can be quite toxic, because they’re in areas where there’s sort of chemical pollution,” he said. Plus “plastic bottles are a carcinogen. You can imagine … that plastic bottle … sitting in a store for two or three months, getting hot and roasting.”

    A better, cheaper option for hotels is to purify tap water and add electrolyte minerals, such as sodium, potassium and chloride, he said.

    Next, check for toiletries in plastic bottles, which Shivdasani called “silly.”

    “One should really buy in bulk containers, and then you refill in ceramic bottles,” he said.

    But that’s really the bare minimum, said Shivdasani, who sold Six Senses in 2012.

    He now focuses on Soneva’s three hotels: two in the Maldives and one in Thailand, plus another — Soneva Secret — set to open on a remote atoll in the northern Maldives in 2024.

    The resorts serve guests produce grown on-site, rely partly on solar energy and recycle 93% of generated waste, said Shivdasani, who was awarded the 50 Best Hotels inaugural “Icon Award” for responsible luxury tourism in September.

    ‘Ecology is economy’

    Shivdasani rejects the idea that operating sustainably is costlier.

    “Ecology is economy,” he told CNBC Travel.

    By relying more on solar power than diesel fuel, he said, Soneva resorts will save money in the long run.

    “Our bankers are very supportive of us doing it,” he said. “The payback on this investment is about four and a half years.”

    'Businesses need to make the change:' Soneva founder on environmental fees at his resorts

    By making charcoal using fallen branches, Shivdasani estimates his company saves $20,000-$30,000 per year. Plus, on-site gardens deliver about $10,000 a month of vegetables — at market prices — into each resort, he added.

    But Shivdasani doesn’t dispute that sustainability — at this level — is harder.

    “It’s certainly not easier. But it’s more interesting,” he said. “It is more difficult, but it’s certainly much, much more fulfilling.”

    A 2% environmental levy

    As the tourism industry adopts more sustainable practices, one question remains: Who pays for it?

    “Governments can create the context, but businesses need to make the change,” Shivdasani told CNBC Travel. “We can do that by making small changes to the way we do business that does not affect our profitability, but which can have a huge impact on people well beyond our shores.”

    Nearly 80% of travelers will pay at least 10% more for eco-friendly travel, despite the cost-of-living crisis, according to a Euromonitor International report published in August.

    Soneva Fushi, a resort in the Maldives where Shivdasani said he and his wife, Eva, live about half of the year.

    Source: Soneva

    Shivdasani said he decided to institute a guest environmental levy after the company measured its “scope 3” emissions.

    “I didn’t know what scope 3 CO2 emissions were,” he said. “Scopes 1 and 2 are like the light bulbs, the air-conditioning … scope three is externalities outside the property [like] guests flying in, supplies coming in.”

    Companies often fall short of reporting scope 3 emissions, said Kelvin Law, an associate professor of accounting at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University who researches corporate sustainability and financial fraud.

    “Missing one out of three reporting scopes may not seem like a big deal — but it is,” he wrote for CNA, since they account for the lion’s share of most companies’ emissions. “Leaving out scope three emissions reporting is akin to solving a jigsaw puzzle without the largest piece — the picture is never complete.”

    Shivdasani said that after Soneva determined that 85% of its carbon emissions were “scope 3” emissions, the company introduced the 2% carbon levy. That was in 2008.

    “That’s why we said we had to do something about it,” he said.

    Small changes

    The levy has generated about $12 million for The Soneva Foundation, a British charity founded in 2010.

    The revenue has been used to restore forests in Thailand, fund a 1.5 megawatt windmill in India (“giving the local community subsidized energy”) and to buy stoves in Myanmar and Darfur, Sudan.

    “The cookstoves has been a fantastic investment,” he said adding that they not only reduce CO2 emissions but also decrease firewood expenses and the risk of lung disease. The latter causes an estimated 3.2 million deaths per year, including some 230,000 children under the age of five, according to the World Health Organization.

    Moreover, the stoves have created a carbon surplus, he said.

    “We now have two million surplus carbon credits, which is worth about $20 million,” he said.

    The credits — which currently sell for $10-$15 each on the open market — are certified and then purchased by companies, such as Marks & Spencer, which use the credit to meet their own carbon reduction goals, he said.  

    The Soneva Foundation is reinvesting that money, using it to plant 1 million trees in Nepal and Mozambique each, among other projects, he added.

    “It’s a small change, but it’s had this fantastically growing impact,” he said.

    What does it take to be a five-star hotel? Here's what star ratings really mean

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  • Rivers are Life Premieres ‘Toxic Art’ Showcasing the Power of Collaboration & Creativity in Environmental Protection

    Rivers are Life Premieres ‘Toxic Art’ Showcasing the Power of Collaboration & Creativity in Environmental Protection

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    MIDLAND, Mich., October 25, 2023 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Today, in honor of World Sustainability Day, Rivers are Life unveils their latest film highlighting Appalachian Ohio’s Sunday Creek and environmental efforts made by local River Heroes John Sabraw, Guy Reifler, and Michelle Shively MacIver. Located in Southeastern Ohio, the 27-mile-long creek is severely polluted by acid mine drainage (a product of the area’s several abandoned coal mines). The film, “Toxic Art,” focuses on the collaborative effort using art and innovative technology to revitalize streams devastated by historic coal mining.

    John Sabraw is an artist, environmentalist, activist, and Professor of Art at Ohio University. When he first moved to Ohio, he was able to learn about the local environment through his environmentalist colleagues. On a trip to a local stream, John was shocked to find that these waterways were orange and full of sludge as a result of acid mine drainage and the pollutant iron oxide. 

    Sabraw learned that more than 6,650 stream miles in Central Appalachia run orange due to the impact of acid mine drainage. The Truetown Discharge, located in the Sunday Creek watershed, is the largest single acid mine drainage discharge in the state of Ohio with a flow rate of 988 gallons per minute. This amounts to approximately 2,183,065 pounds of iron oxide dumping into Sunday Creek each year, decimating aquatic habitat for seven miles. 

    After seeing the severity of this pollution firsthand, Sabraw took home a jar of sludge from the creek and, using his knowledge of iron oxides from his experience as an artist, began experimenting with turning this sludge into a pigment. He eventually joined forces with Ohio University Professor and Chair of Civil Engineering, Guy Riefler, and after years of experimentation, the pair succeeded in creating a pigment that was both environmentally and economically sustainable.

    The duo later collaborated with nonprofit regional community development organization Rural Action, as well as state and federal agencies, to create True Pigments. True Pigments is a social enterprise committed to creating socio-economic opportunities for the local community while cleaning and restoring Sunday Creek, allowing life to return to the heavily-polluted seven miles of stream.

    “When we put people together from different disciplines and different backgrounds, that is when this magic happens,” John said. “Humans have exponential potential to solve these crises and to take stewardship over a future that is going to be sustainable and joyous. I believe more than ever that that’s possible, and that’s what we have to do.”

    In June 2023, Rural Action, Ohio University, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement broke ground on the new True Pigments Acid Mine Drainage Treatment & Pigment Production Facility. Once this plant goes live, 100% of coal mine pollution will be intercepted before it reaches waterways.

    The full “Toxic Art” film, along with limited edition prints from Sabraw, are available on Rivers are Life’s platform HERE.

    Source: Rivers are Life

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  • UN-led study finds Bitcoin mining has “concerning” effects on land, water, and carbon.

    UN-led study finds Bitcoin mining has “concerning” effects on land, water, and carbon.

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    By the numbers, global bitcoin mining in 2020-2021:

    • Used 173 terawatt hours of electricity (more than most nations)
    • Emitted 86 megatons of carbon (like burning 8.5 billion pounds of coal)
    • Required 1.65 cubic kilometers of water (more than the domestic use of 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa)
    • Affected 1,870 square kilometers of land (1.4 times the size of Los Angeles)
    • Got 67% of its energy from fossil fuels, with coal contributing 45%

    Newswise — WASHINGTON — As bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have grown in market share, they’ve been criticized for their heavy carbon footprint: Cryptocurrency mining is an energy-intensive endeavor. Mining has massive water and land footprints as well, according to a new study that is the first to detail country-by-country environmental impacts of bitcoin mining. It serves as the foundation for a new United Nations (UN) report on bitcoin mining, also published today.

    The study reveals how each country’s mix of energy sources defines the environmental footprint of its bitcoin mining and highlights the top 10 countries for energy, carbon, water and land use. The work was published in Earth’s Future, which publishes interdisciplinary research on the past, present and future of our planet and its inhabitants.

    “A lot of our exciting new technologies have hidden costs we don’t realize at the onset,” said Kaveh Madani, a Director at United Nations University who led the new study. “We introduce something, it gets adopted, and only then do we realize that there are consequences.”

    Madani and his co-authors used energy, carbon, water and land use data from 2020 to 2021 to calculate country-specific environmental impacts for 76 countries known to mine bitcoin. They focused on bitcoin because it’s older, popular and more well-established/widely used than other cryptocurrencies.

    Madani said the results were “very interesting and very concerning,” in part because demand is rising so quickly. But even with more energy-efficient mining approaches, if demand continues to grow, so too will mining’s environmental footprints, he said.

    Electricity and carbon

    If bitcoin mining were a country, it would be ranked 27th in energy use globally. Overall, bitcoin mining consumed about 173 terawatt hours of electricity in the two years from January 2020 to December 2021, about 60% more than the energy used for bitcoin mining in 2018-2019, the study found. Bitcoin mining emitted about 86 megatons of carbon, largely because of the dominance of fossil fuel-based energy in bitcoin-mining countries.

    The environmental impact of bitcoin mining fluctuates along with energy supply and demand in a country. When energy is inexpensive, the profitability of mining bitcoin goes up. But when energy is expensive, the value of bitcoin must be high enough to make the cost of mining worth it to the miner, whether it’s an individual, a company or a government.

    China, the U.S. and Kazakhstan had the largest energy and carbon footprints in 2020-2021.

    Water

    Globally, bitcoin mining used 1.65 million liters (about 426,000 gallons) of water in 2020-2021, enough to fill more than 660,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. China, the U.S. and Canada had the largest water footprints. Kazakhstan and Iran, which along with the U.S. and China have suffered from water shortages, were also in the top-10 list for water footprint.

    “These are very, very worrying numbers,” Madani said. “Even hydropower, which some countries consider a clean source of renewable energy, has a huge footprint.”

    Land use

    The study analyzed land use by considering the area of land affected to produce energy for mining. The land footprint of server farms is negligible, Kaveh said. The global land use footprint of bitcoin mining is 1,870 square kilometers (722 square miles), with China’s footprint alone taking up 913 square kilometers (353 square miles). The U.S.’ land footprint is 303 square kilometers (117 square miles), and likely growing while China’s is shrinking.

    Most impacted countries

    China and the United States, which have two of the largest economies and populations in the world, take the top two spots across all environmental factors. A mix of other countries make up the other 8 spots in the top 10. Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Iran and Thailand — countries to which servers are outsourced and, in some cases, where cryptocurrency mining is subsidized by the government — appear as well. Canada, Germany and Russia have some of the largest footprints across all categories. Each country engaged in large-scale bitcoin mining affects countries around the world by their carbon emissions, Kaveh noted.

    But the benefits of bitcoin mining may not accrue to the country, or the individuals, doing the work. Cryptocurrency mining is an extractive and, by design, difficult to trace process, so geographic distribution of environmental impacts cannot be assumed to be a map of the biggest digital asset owners.

    “It’s hard to know exactly who is benefiting from this,” Madani said. “The issue now is who is suffering from this.”

    Already, some countries have potentially seen their resources impacted by cryptocurrency mining. In 2021, Iran faced blackouts. The government blamed bitcoin mining for excessively draining hydropower during a drought and periodically banned the practice.

    China in June 2021 banned bitcoin mining and transactions in the country; other countries, such as the U.S. and Kazakhstan, have taken up the slack and had their shares in bitcoin increase by 34% and 10%, respectively.

    Madani said the study is not meant to indict bitcoin or other cryptocurrency mining. “We’re getting used to these technologies, and they have hidden costs we don’t realize,” he said. “We want to inform people and industries about what these costs might be before it’s too late.”

    Notes for journalists:

    This study is published in Earth’s Future, an open-access journal. View and download a pdf of the study here. The authors’ policy-related comments do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Geophysical Union.

    This study provides the peer-reviewed data serving as a foundation for the U.N. report, “The Hidden Environmental Cost of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin Mining Impacts Climate, Water and Land,” published on the same day as this study. The report includes additional data that have not been peer-reviewed by Earth’s Future. View the U.N. press release here.

    Paper title:

    “The environmental footprint of bitcoin mining across the globe: Call for urgent action”

    Authors:

    • Sanaz Chamanara, United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
    • S. Arman Ghaffarizadeh, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
    • Kaveh Madani (corresponding author), Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    #

    AGU (www.agu.org) is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.

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  • Global demand for oil, coal and gas set to peak by 2030, energy agency IEA says

    Global demand for oil, coal and gas set to peak by 2030, energy agency IEA says

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    Wind turbines and a lignite-fired power plant photographed in in Germany.

    Jan Woitas | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

    Demand for oil, coal and natural gas is set to peak before the end of this decade, with fossil fuels’ share in the world’s energy supply dropping to 73% by the year 2030 after being “stuck for decades at around 80%,” the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

    A transformative shift in how the planet is powered is also underway, with the “phenomenal rise of clean energy technologies” like wind, solar, heat pumps and electric cars playing a crucial role, according to a statement accompanying the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2023 report.

    Energy related carbon dioxide emissions are also on course to peak by the year 2025.

    Despite these seismic shifts, the IEA says more effort is required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a key goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

    The IEA’s analysis of governments’ “current policy settings” shows the world’s energy system is on course to look very different in the next few years.

    In its statement, the Paris-based organization said it sees “almost 10 times as many electric cars on the road worldwide” in 2030, with “renewables’ share of the global electricity mix nearing 50%,” higher than the roughly 30% today.

    Among other things, heat pumps — as well as other electric heating systems — are on course to outsell boilers that use fossil fuels.

    “If countries deliver on their national energy and climate pledges on time and in full, clean energy progress would move even faster,” the IEA’s statement said.

    “However, even stronger measures would still be needed to keep alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C,” it added.

    “As things stand, demand for fossil fuels is set to remain far too high to keep within reach the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 °C,” the statement went on to say.

    In a sign of how high the stakes are, the IEA’s report said its Stated Policies Scenario was now “associated with a temperature rise of 2.4 °C in 2100 (with a 50% probability).”

    Read more about electric vehicles, batteries and chips from CNBC Pro

    Tuesday’s report reaffirms the content of an op-ed published in September 2023 that was authored by the IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol, and published in the Financial Times.

    In remarks published Tuesday, Birol sought to emphasize the huge potential for change while also highlighting the massive amount of work that still needs to be done.

    “The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable,” he said. “It’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s just a matter of ‘how soon’ — and the sooner the better for all of us,” he added.

    “Governments, companies and investors need to get behind clean energy transitions rather than hindering them,” Birol said.

    “There are immense benefits on offer, including new industrial opportunities and jobs, greater energy security, cleaner air, universal energy access and a safer climate for everyone.”

    “Taking into account the ongoing strains and volatility in traditional energy markets today, claims that oil and gas represent safe or secure choices for the world’s energy and climate future look weaker than ever,” Birol said.

    COP28 nears

    The IEA’s report comes just weeks ahead of the U.N.’s COP28 climate change summit in the United Arab Emirates.

    The shadow of the Paris Agreement, reached at COP21 in late 2015, looms large over the IEA’s report.

    The landmark accord aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.”

    The challenge is huge, and the United Nations has previously noted that 1.5 degrees Celsius is viewed as being “the upper limit” when it comes to avoiding the worst consequences of climate change.

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  • Unavoidable rise in West Antarctic Ice Sheet melting.

    Unavoidable rise in West Antarctic Ice Sheet melting.

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    Newswise — Scientists ran simulations on the UK’s national supercomputer to investigate ocean-driven melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: how much is unavoidable and must be adapted to, and how much melting the international community still has control over through reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

    Taking into account climate variability like El Niño, they found no significant difference between mid-range emissions scenarios and the most ambitious targets of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Even under a best-case scenario of 1.5°C global temperature rise, melting will increase three times faster than during the 20th century.

    The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing ice and is Antarctica’s largest contributor to sea-level rise. Previous modelling finds this loss could be driven by warming of the Southern Ocean, particularly the Amundsen Sea region. Collectively the West Antarctic Ice Sheet contains enough ice to raise global mean sea-level by up to five metres.

    Around the world millions of people live near the coast and these communities will be greatly impacted by sea level rise. A better understanding of the future changes will allow policymakers to plan ahead and adapt more readily.

    Lead author Dr Kaitlin Naughten, a researcher at the British Antarctic Survey says:

    “It looks like we’ve lost control of melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. If we wanted to preserve it in its historical state, we would have needed action on climate change decades ago. The bright side is that by recognising this situation in advance, the world will have more time to adapt to the sea level rise that’s coming. If you need to abandon or substantially re-engineer a coastal region, having 50 years lead time is going to make all the difference.”

    The team simulated four future scenarios of the 21st century, plus one historical scenario of the 20th century. The future scenarios either stabilised global temperature rise at the targets set out by the Paris Agreement, 1.5°C and 2°C, or followed standard scenarios for medium and high carbon emissions.

    All scenarios resulted in significant and widespread future warming of the Amundsen Sea and increased melting of its ice-shelves. The three lower-range scenarios followed nearly identical pathways over the 21st century. Even under the best-case scenario, warming of the Amundsen Sea sped up by about a factor of three, and melting of the floating ice shelves which stabilise the inland glaciers followed, though it did begin to flatten by the end of the century.

    The worst-case scenario had more ice shelf melting than the others, but only after 2045. The authors heed that this high fossil fuel scenario, where emissions increase rapidly, is considered unlikely to occur.

    This study presents sobering future projections of Amundsen Sea ice-shelf melting but does not undermine the importance of mitigation in limiting the impacts of climate change.

    Naughten cautions: “We must not stop working to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. What we do now will help to slow the rate of sea level rise in the long term. The slower the sea level changes, the easier it will be for governments and society to adapt to, even if it can’t be stopped.”

    Unavoidable future increase in West Antarctic ice-shelf melting over the 21st century by Kaitlin Naughten (BAS), Paul Holland (BAS), Jan De Rydt (Northumbria) is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

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  • Climate elevates toxin risk in Northern US lakes.

    Climate elevates toxin risk in Northern US lakes.

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    Newswise — Washington, DC— As climate change warms the Earth, higher-latitude regions will be at greater risk for toxins produced by algal blooms, according to new research led by Carnegie’s Anna Michalak, Julian Merder, and Gang Zhao. Their findings, published in Nature Water, identify water temperatures of 20 to 25 degrees Celsius (68 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit) as being at the greatest risk for developing dangerous levels of a common algae-produced toxin called microcystin.  

    Harmful algal blooms result when bodies of water get overloaded with nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from agriculture and other human activities. These excess nutrients can allow blue-green algae populations to grow at an out-of-control rate.

    Some blue-green algal species produce a toxin called microcystin, which can pose a serious health hazard to people and the environment, as well as pose economic risks for fishing and tourism. Microcystin affects liver function and can cause death in wild and domestic animals, including humans in rare instances. It is also classified as a potential carcinogen in cases of chronic exposure.

    “In 2014 an algal bloom in Lake Erie led to high levels of microcystin in water intakes, and residents in Ohio and Ontario were instructed not to drink tap water due to risk of exposure,” Merder cautioned.

    Merder, Michalak, and their colleagues—Carnegie’s Gang Zhao, University of Kansas’s Ted Harris, and Dimitrios Stasinopoulos and Robert Rigby of the University of Greenwich—analyzed samples taken from 2,804 U.S. lakes between 2007 and 2017. They assessed how water temperature affects the occurrence and concentration of microcystin as part of an effort to better understand the risks to water quality posed by climate change.

    Michalak’s lab has taken a leading role in understanding the intersection of climate change and water quality impairments for more than a decade. Previous work has shown that lakes worldwide are already experiencing more severe algal blooms and that nutrient pollution is being exacerbated by changes in rainfall patterns.

    “Lakes are sentinels of climate change,” Michalak said. “They hold the vast majority, 87 percent, of the liquid freshwater on the Earth’s surface, and the warming and precipitation shifts associated with climate change pose some of the greatest threats to water quality around the world and to the health of aquatic ecosystems.”

    The surface temperatures of lakes have already been warming at 0.34 degrees Celsius (0.61 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade and Merder and Michalak set out to determine what this, as well as future warming, would mean in terms of risk for elevated toxin concentrations.

    “The abundance of blue-green algae is predicted to increase due to climate change as they outcompete other species,” Merder explained. “But previous field studies came to various conclusions about what this means for microcystin concentrations.”

    To inform land and water management strategies, it was important to quantitatively tie toxin levels to water temperature, which Merder and Michalak were able to accomplish through their extensive analysis of lake water samples, revealing that water temperatures in the 20 to 25 degrees Celsius (68 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit) range were most dangerous in terms of elevated microcystin concentrations. They also found that the impact of temperature is amplified when nutrient concentrations are high.

    By incorporating information from climate models, they were able to demonstrate that areas most susceptible to high toxin concentrations will continue to move northward. In some areas, the relative risk of exceeding water quality guidelines will increase by up to 50 percent in the coming decades. Additionally, they showed that toxin hazards will decrease in a small number of regions further south, as water temperatures begin to exceed those associated with the highest risk.

    “These findings should help demonstrate the serious risk to safe water for drinking, fishing, recreation, and other societal needs in many parts of the United States and the urgency for developing management strategies to prepare,” Michalak concluded. “When we think about water sustainability in the context of global change, we need to focus on the quality of the water as much as we focus on the amount of water.”

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  • Using AI to develop hydrogen fuel cell catalysts more efficiently and economically

    Using AI to develop hydrogen fuel cell catalysts more efficiently and economically

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    Newswise — Proton exchange membrane hydrogen fuel cells (PEMFCs) used in hydrogen vehicles use expensive platinum catalysts to facilitate the oxygen reduction reaction at the anode. There are a vast number of elemental combinations and compositions that need to be explored to develop more efficient and cost-effective catalyst materials than platinum, and researchers are still doing a lot of trial and error in the lab.

    The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok Jin Yoon) announced that Dr. Donghun Kim and Dr. Sang Soo Han of the Computational Science Research Center, Dr. Jong Min Kim of the Materials Architecturing Research Center, and Prof. Hyuck Mo Lee of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST, President Kwang Hyung Lee) have presented a new artificial intelligence-based catalyst screening methodology and succeeded in developing a new catalytic material based on a ternary element-based alloy (Cu-Au-Pt) that is cheaper and performs more than twice as well as pure platinum catalysts.

    The team developed Slab Graph Convolutional Neural Network (SGCNN) artificial intelligence model to accurately predict the binding energy of adsorbates on the catalyst surface. This is not the first application of AI to materials discovery. The SGCNN model was developed by evolving the CGCNN model, which is specialized in predicting bulk properties of solid materials, to predict surface properties of catalytic materials.

    However, there is a big difference between predicting bulk properties and surface properties. When you can quickly and accurately predict the surface properties of a catalyst, you can more efficiently screen for catalysts that meet the triple bottom line of material stability, performance, and cost. In fact, when developing fuel cell anode reaction catalysts using this methodology, we were able to explore the potential of nearly 3,200 ternary candidate materials in just one day, a scale that would have taken years using the density functional theory (DFT) adsorption energy simulation calculations traditionally used to predict catalyst properties.

    The researchers developed a novel ternary (Cu-Au-Pt) alloy catalyst through experimental validation of 10 catalysts with the potential to outperform platinum catalysts out of approximately 3,200 candidate materials. The catalyst uses only 37% of the element platinum compared to pure platinum catalysts, but the kinetic current density is more than twice as high as that of pure platinum catalysts. The catalyst also exhibits excellent durability, with little degradation after 5,000 stability tests.

    “In the future, we plan to continue to build high-quality adsorption energy data and perform more sophisticated AI modeling, which will further improve the success rate of catalytic material development,” said Dr. Kim of KIST. The new methodology has the advantage of being immediately applicable not only to catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells, but also to various catalytic reactions such as water electrolysis-based hydrogen production, which is essential for the realization of the hydrogen economy. The team plans to further reduce the unit cost and improve the performance of the developed catalysts through material and system optimization.

     

    ###

    KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://eng.kist.re.kr/

    The research was supported by the Samsung Future Technology Fostering Project (SRFC-MA1801-03) of Samsung Electronics (CEO Kye-hyun Kyung) and the Materials Research Data Platform Project of the Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Jong-ho Lee), and was published in the international journal Applied Catalysis B: Environmental.

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  • Ushering in the era of light-powered ‘multi-level memories’

    Ushering in the era of light-powered ‘multi-level memories’

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    The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that has developed a new zero-dimensional and two-dimensional (2D-0D) semiconductor artificial junction material and observed the effect of a next-generation memory powered by light.

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  • Southeast Asia haze returns as peatland fires fan global warming fears

    Southeast Asia haze returns as peatland fires fan global warming fears

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    In this photo taken on October 10, 2023, a man looks at a forest fire as it approaches houses in Ogan Ilir, South Sumatra.

    Al Zulkifli | Afp | Getty Images

    With El Nino in full force, officials are bracing for the worst transboundary haze in southern Southeast Asia since before the pandemic in 2019.

    At a time when climate change is presenting an existential threat to human beings, the fear is that these seasonal haze situations will worsen as intensifying global warming renders the peatlands and forests even more combustible in the dry season.

    Southeast Asia is home to about 40% of the world’s total peatlands, and these fires and resultant emissions and toxic haze are turning out to be a serious driver of climate change.

    This further complicates the perennial transboundary haze problem for Southeast Asia, which plagued the region in the dry seasons for half a century, leading to a litany of respiratory and other health issues, deaths and economic losses in the region.

    “It’s a circular thing actually,” Helena Varkkey, associate professor of environmental politics and governance at Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, told CNBC.

    “The issue is that currently, most governments haven’t really looked at the haze and climate change as a unified issue, yet. They see it as separate issues. Something seasonal, that comes and goes, while climate change is something constant and developing,” she added.

    Despite a series of Southeast Asian agreements — including a reaffirmation of a commitment to haze-free skies by 2030 — the haze returned this year, raising questions about the effectiveness of ASEAN as an organization since many of its agreements lack enforcement mechanisms.

    Bickering in Southeast Asia

    The perennial bickering and denials among affected Southeast Asian nations is one of the unintended results.

    Even as air quality dipped to dangerous levels in parts of Peninsular Malaysia in the last few weeks, Indonesia flatly denied Malaysia’s claims that winds carried some of the hazardous haze from hotspots in Sumatra and Kalimantan over to its neighbor.

    “We continue to follow developments and there is no transboundary haze to Malaysia,” Indonesia’s Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said in a statement dated Oct 2.

    Her denial echoed past Indonesian leaders. In 2015, then Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla scolded neighboring countries for complaining about the haze.

    “For 11 months, they enjoyed nice air from Indonesia and they never thanked us,” the Jakarta Globe reported him as saying.

    Peatlands are one of the greatest allies and potentially one of the quickest wins in the fight against climate change.

    United Nations Environment Program

    Malaysian officials are undoubtedly haunted by the memory of the 2015 and 2019 transboundary haze episodes. In 2015, the last time El Nino worsened the impact of the dry season, 2.7 million hectares of forest were burned in Indonesia.

    The haze that year blanketed not just Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, but also southern Thailand and southern Philippines in September and October. School closures were effected in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore — affecting nearly four million students in Malaysia alone.

    Even though a comparatively smaller forest area combusted in Indonesia in 2019 at 1.6 million hectares, the World Bank estimated peat fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan likely cost Southeast Asia’s largest economy damages worth at least $5.2 billion, or 0.5% of its gross domestic product that year.

    People look at the airport scenery during the haze at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on October 8, 2023.

    Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

    Data from Indonesia’s environment ministry suggest more than 267,000 hectares of forests were burned until August this year, reportedly outstripping the nearly 205,000 hectares for all of 2022. Still, this year’s fires have devastated a much smaller area compared to 2015 and 2019.  

    But with the return of El Nino this year, officials are bracing for worsening fires this dry season as the number of hotspots will likely peak in September and October. The ASEAN Specialized Meteorological Centre in Singapore raised its transboundary haze alert level to its second highest for Kalimantan in July and for Sumatra in September.

    Vicious cycle in the peatlands

    The haze in southern Southeast Asia is emitted mostly from massive peatland fires in Sumatra and Borneo. Dried out peatlands — drained and cleared for mainly palm oil and pulp plantations — make them very prone to fires.

    “The waterlogged conditions of the peatlands keep the organic material from decomposing, making it a powerful carbon sink,” Varkkay and Sharon Seah, senior fellow at the Climate Change in Southeast Asia Program at ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said in an article dated Oct. 11.

    A view of burnt peatlands and fields on September 23, 2023 in Ogan Ilir, South Sumatra, Indonesia. At least six provinces in the country are battling ongoing forest fires as illegal blazes to clear land for agricultural plantation take control causing respiratory illnesses and biodiversity loss. The nation’s meteorology agency forecasted that Indonesia is likely to experience the most severe dry season since 2019 as the country enters the hottest day of this year’s El Nino-induced dry season.

    Ulet Ifansasti | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    “When drained in preparation for planting or other development activities, the organic material is exposed to the air, kick starting decomposition and the release of greenhouse gasses. When burnt, this process is accelerated, further speeding up global warming,” they added.

    According to the United Nations Environment Program, peatlands store nearly 550 billion tons of carbon — twice as much as all the world’s forests — even though peatlands cover only 3 per cent of the global land surface.

    “Peatlands are one of the greatest allies and potentially one of the quickest wins in the fight against climate change,” the UNEP said. “By conserving and restoring peatlands globally, we can reduce emissions and revive an essential ecosystem that provides many services, including their role as a natural carbon sink.”

    Sustainable palm oil

    Tying the transboundary haze problem to climate change would involve addressing the root issues of these peatland fires in Indonesia, but with Indonesia the world’s largest palm oil producer, that may not be easy.

    While Indonesia’s environment minister denied the haze has crossed beyond the borders of her country, she highlighted that 203 companies have been warned so far this year and 20 companies have been sealed off due to fire, including Malaysian subsidiaries.

    Clearly, the transboundary haze issue is a multifaceted issue involving several stakeholders. The onus does not only fall on Indonesia alone since companies from neighboring countries are also invested.

    To complement several Southeast Asian regional agreements on curtailing the transboundary haze, Singapore enacted its Transboundary Haze Pollution Act in 2014, making it an offence for companies to cause or contribute to any haze pollution in the wealthy city-state. 

    Malaysia is still making plans for similar legislation.

    A man rides his motorcycle past a wildfire on peatland at Palem Raya Regency with aerial interventions in Ogan Ilir, South Sumatra, Indonesia on September 01, 2023. Indonesia, the vast archipelago country, is often hit by forest fires which spread across the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Forest and land fires in Indonesia are an annual problem that have strained relations with neighboring countries as the smoke from the fires could blanket parts of Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand in a thick noxious haze.

    Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

    Global campaigning network Greenpeace has gone a step further.

    It has called for the development of a regional legal framework that holds companies accountable for domestic forest fires due to peatland clearance and agricultural residue burning, reported Eco-Business, a sustainability-focused publication.

    “But I think what has been perhaps maybe more powerful than law is the market,” Varkkay said. “There’s a lot of awareness about sustainable palm oil and unsustainable practices. So the market’s been pushing the big companies, at least in the eyes of the public, to make sure that they are not engaging in unsustainable practices like fire.”

    To date, there are several large global consumer companies that have in the last decade committed to using only sustainable palm oil, certified by bodies such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. However, apparently not all have fulfilled public pledges.

    With the help of the United Nations Development Program, Indonesia has also developed its own Sustainable Palm Oil Platform, a forum for all stakeholders to come together to address challenges in the development of sustainable palm oil in Indonesia.

    Evidently, with the transboundary haze and the proliferation of hotspots still an issue after half a century, there is more work to be done and perhaps a greater urgency now than before.

    “I think the challenge, or the trajectory that we should be hoping for, is for governments to understand or to communicate and to make decisions based on the fact that climate change and the transboundary haze issues are connected,” Varkkey said.

    “So wins in either one will actually contribute back to the whole societal well being. That, I think, has not really happened yet, so hopefully it will happen soon,” she added.

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  • Organic nitrogen aerosol plays a vital role in global nitrogen deposition.

    Organic nitrogen aerosol plays a vital role in global nitrogen deposition.

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    Newswise — This study, led by Dr Yumin Li of Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), was a collaboration between Professor Tzung-May Fu’s team at SUSTech and Professor Jian Zhen Yu’s team at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). The research emphasized the previously underestimated significance of atmospheric ON aerosol depositions on ecosystems. Additionally, the ecological effects of ON aerosol depositions are anticipated to increase due to global warming and the decrease in nitrogen oxide emissions from human activities.

    Atmospheric deposition of organic nitrogen (ON) plays a crucial role in the global nitrogen cycle. Surface measurements showed that 2% to 70% of the local atmospheric deposition flux of total nitrogen was organic. However, previous models have largely neglected the spatial and chemical variations of atmospheric ON, leading to inadequate assessment of its global impacts.

    The scientists from SUSTech and HKUST developed a comprehensive global model of atmospheric gaseous and particulate ON, incorporating the latest knowledge on emissions and secondary formations. Their simulated surface concentrations of atmospheric particulate ON (ONp) were highly consistent with global observations, a feat that had not been achieved previously. Additionally, their simulated atmospheric deposition flux aligned with global observations within an order of magnitude. The scientists estimated that the global atmospheric ON deposition was 26 Tg N yr-1. This majority of this deposition (23 Tg N yr-1) occurred in the form of ON aerosol and accounted for 19% of the global atmospheric total N deposition (124 Tg N yr-1). The main sources of ON aerosols were wildfires, ocean emissions, and secondary formation.

    “Our simulation showed that the deposition of ON aerosol from the atmosphere is a crucial external source of nitrogen to nitrogen-limited ecosystems worldwide, such as the boreal forests, tundras, and the Arctic Ocean,” Fu says. In a future warming climate, wildfires will likely become more frequent and intense. Climate warming will also lead to surface ocean stratification, making atmospheric ON deposition an increasingly important source of nitrogen to these ecosystems. “We need to further examine the environmental impacts of atmospheric ON aerosol and how those impacts respond to climate change.”

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  • Company drops plan for gas power plant in polluted New Jersey area

    Company drops plan for gas power plant in polluted New Jersey area

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    WOODBRIDGE, N.J. — Opponents of a natural gas-fired power plant planned for an already polluted low-income area in New Jersey celebrated Thursday after hearing the company that proposed the project no longer plans to build it, citing low energy prices.

    Competitive Power Ventures wanted to build a second plant beside one it already operates in Woodbridge, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Newark. The company previously said the expansion is needed because of growing demand for energy, pitching it as a reliable backup source for solar and wind energy when those types of power are not available.

    But in a statement Wednesday night, the Silver Spring, Maryland-based CPV said market conditions have deteriorated to the point where the project is no longer feasible.

    Company spokesman Matthew Litchfield said CPV’s agreement with PJM Interconnection, a regional power transmission organization, required it to either begin construction or terminate the agreement by Sept. 30.

    “In light of current PJM market conditions that do not support construction of the project at this time, CPV had to withdraw from the interconnection agreement,” he said.

    Litchfield said market prices for energy were too low, and that unlike many other types of generation projects, including offshore wind and nuclear power, the natural gas plant wouldn’t be subsidized by the state.

    “These prices currently do not support the construction of the project,” he said.

    The company will continue to operate its existing plant, he added. It’s evaluating uses for the adjacent land where the second power plant had been proposed.

    A wide coalition of residents from Woodbridge and surrounding low-income communities, environmental and social justice groups opposed the project, saying it would have placed an unacceptably high health burden in an area that already deals with serious pollution.

    In public hearings regarding the proposal, area residents said their children developed chronic breathing problems, including some so severe that the children had to be rushed to hospitals.

    The American Lung Association gives Middlesex County, which includes Woodbridge, a grade of “F” for ground-level ozone pollution. That type of pollution is caused by car exhaust, the burning of natural gas, and other human activities, according to the EPA. It’s known to exacerbate lung problems.

    New Jersey’s environmental justice law is designed to prevent overburdened communities from having to accept additional sources of pollution. Signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in 2020, it did not apply to the CPV proposal, which completed its air quality permit application in 2017, before the law took effect.

    “The CPV power plant scheme would have dumped air pollution into already overburdened communities, and undermined the Murphy administration’s climate goals,” said Charlie Kratovil, an organizer for Food & Water Watch. “The inspiring grassroots movement to stop this plant won a major victory for clean air, environmental justice, and our climate.”

    He noted that two other gas-fired power plants remain under consideration in the state, both proposed by government agencies in Newark and Kearny, and called on the governor “to back up his rhetoric with decisive action to stop all fossil fuel expansion projects.”

    Anjuli Ramos Busot, director of the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter, said the project would have pumped over 2 million metric tons of additional planet-warming greenhouse gases into the environment, increasing the state’s output by 2%.

    “The people won against the polluters in New Jersey,” she said. “Our state does not need more natural gas. “This is a massive victory for our communities, environmental justice, and in the fight against climate change.”

    ___

    Follow Wayne Parry on X, formerly known as Twitter, at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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  • New technology for customized air purification of toxic gases

    New technology for customized air purification of toxic gases

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    Newswise — Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in daily products such as paints, adhesives, furniture, cosmetics, and deodorants make our lives easier. However, constant exposure can cause serious health problems such as respiratory illness, headaches, dermatitis, and cancer. Natural ventilation is the most effective way to reduce VOCs in indoor air, but recently, air purifiers have become a common method to maintain indoor air quality due to the frequent extreme outdoor condition (e.g. high concentration of fine dust, heat waves, and extreme cold). Generally, air purifiers remove VOCs by adsorption using activated carbon, which has a non-polar carbon surface and a large specific surface area. This activated carbon can effectively remove non-polar substances such as toluene and benzene, but cannot remove polar substances such as ketones and aldehydes.

    The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok Jin Yoon) announced that Dr. Jiwon Lee and Dr. Youngtak Oh from the Center for Sustainable Environment Research have developed a new adsorbent technology that can efficiently adsorb amphiphilic VOCs, which have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties and are difficult to remove with existing activated carbon technology.

    The KIST research team synthesized a graphene-iron oxide heterostructure by precisely controlling the surface oxidation of graphite and iron, resulting in a high adsorption capacity for amphiphilic VOCs due to the increase of oxygen functional groups and iron oxide on the surface. This unique adsorbent showed up to 15 times better adsorption efficiency for amphiphilic VOCs than conventional activated carbon adsorbents.

    They also found that precise oxygen functional groups and iron oxides control of the adsorbent can offer flexible surface optimization freedom for a desirable nature of the pollutant. By testing four different ketones that are difficult to control with activated carbon adsorbents, the researchers found the correlation between the length of carbon chains and the adsorption efficiency; by optimizing the content of oxygen functional groups and iron oxides in the adsorbent, they were able to bring the maximum removal efficiency for the ketones. The researchers also analyzed the sub-nanometer electron transfer phenomenon between the adsorbent and VOC molecules; they found a link between the geometric shape of the pollutant and its adsorption trend for the first time. This is expected to enable the development of customized detection and control technologies for various air pollutants in our environment.

    “Unlike previous studies that focused on mere improvement of the adsorption performance and regeneration efficiency of adsorbents, we succeeded in developing a breakthrough material that exceeds the limits of existing adsorbents using accessible materials such as graphite and iron, which have high commercialization potential,” said Dr. Jiwon Lee.

     

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    KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://eng.kist.re.kr/

    The research, which was conducted as a major project of KIST (Air Environment Research Program) with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Jong-ho Lee), was published on October 1 in the Chemical Engineering Journal.

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    National Research Council of Science and Technology

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  • Commonly Used Herbicide is Harmful to Adolescent Brain Function

    Commonly Used Herbicide is Harmful to Adolescent Brain Function

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    Newswise — Herbicides are the most used class of pesticides worldwide, with uses in agriculture, homes and industry. Exposures to two of the most popular herbicides were associated with worse brain function among adolescents, according to a study led by researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego.

    In the Oct. 11, 2023 online issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, the researchers reported measuring metabolite concentrations of two commonly used herbicides — glyphosate and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) — and the insect repellent DEET in urine samples collected in 2016 from 519 adolescents, aged 11 to 17, living in the agricultural county of Pedro Moncayo, Ecuador. Researchers also assessed neurobehavioral performance in five areas: attention and inhibitory control, memory and learning, language, visuospatial processing, and social perception.

    “Many chronic diseases and mental health disorders in adolescents and young adults have increased over the last two decades worldwide, and exposure to neurotoxic contaminants in the environment could explain a part of this increase,” said senior author Jose Ricardo Suarez, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health.

    Among the findings:

    • Glyphosate, a nonselective herbicide used in many crops, including corn and soy, and for vegetation control in residential settings, was detected in 98 percent of participants.
    • 2,4-D, a broadleaf herbicide used on lawns, aquatic sites, and agricultural crops, was detected in 66 percent of participants.
    • Higher amounts of 2,4-D in urine were associated with lower neurobehavioral performance in the domains of attention and inhibitory control, memory and learning, and language.
    • Glyphosate concentration in urine was associated with lower scores in social perception only, while DEET metabolites were not associated with neurobehavioral performance.

    Following the introduction of genetically modified, glyphosate-resistant “Roundup-ready” crops in 1996 and 2,4-D resistant crops in 2014, there have been substantial increases in glyphosate and 2,4-D use, making them the most widely used herbicides in the world, wrote the authors.

    “There is considerable use of herbicides and insecticides in agricultural industries in both developed and developing nations around the world, raising exposure potential for children and adults, especially if they live in agricultural areas, but we don’t know how it impacts each stage of life,” said first author Briana Chronister, doctoral candidate in the UC San Diego – San Diego State University Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health.

    Previous studies have linked exposure to some of the most used insecticides to altered neurocognitive performance while other insecticides may also affect mood and brain development. Today, 20 percent of adolescents and 26 percent of young adults have diagnosable mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, impulsivity, aggression or learning disorders.

    The authors reported that 2,4-D was negatively associated with performance in all five neurobehavioral areas, but statistically significant associations were observed with attention and inhibitory control, memory and learning, and language. Glyphosate had a significant negative association only with social perception, a test that measures the ability to recognize emotions, while DEET metabolites were not associated with neurobehavioral alterations.

    “Hundreds of new chemicals are released into the market each year, and more than 80,000 chemicals are registered for use today,” said Suarez. “Sadly, very little is known about the safety and long-term effects on humans for most of these chemicals. Additional research is needed to truly understand the impact.”

    This research is a study within ESPINA: The Study of Secondary Exposures to Pesticides Among Children and Adolescents, a prospective cohort study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and other private funding sources. ESPINA aims to understand the effect of pesticide exposures on the development of humans from childhood thru adulthood.

    In 2022, Suarez and his team completed year 14 of follow-up of study participants with plans to evaluate whether the observed associations persist into early adulthood.

    Co-authors include: Kun Yang, Audrey R. Yang, Tuo Lin, Xin Tu, Harvey Checkoway, Jose Suarez-Torres, Sheila Gahagan, and Raeanne C. Moore, UC San Diego; Dolores Lopez-Paredes and Danilo Martinez, Fundación Cimas del Ecuador; and Dana Barr, Emory University.

    This research was funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (R01ES025792, R01ES030378, R21ES026084, U2CES026560, P30ES019776, 5T32MH122376).

    Disclosures: The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to report.

    DOI: 10.1289/EHP11383

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    University of California San Diego

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  • Saudi oil giant Aramco announces pilot project to suck CO2 out of the air, but some scientists are skeptical

    Saudi oil giant Aramco announces pilot project to suck CO2 out of the air, but some scientists are skeptical

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    Saudi Aramco said strong market conditions helped to push its second quarter net income to $48.4 billion, up from $25.5 billion a year earlier.

    Maxim Shemetov | Reuters

    Saudi oil giant Aramco on Monday announced a partnership with Siemens Energy AG to develop a small-scale direct air-capture “test unit” in an attempt to manage emissions.

    The test unit will be built in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and finished in 2024, according to a statement from Aramco on Monday.

    Direct air-capture, or DAC, works by extracting carbon dioxide that has already been emitted into the atmosphere. The extracted CO2 can then be condensed into solid stone-like formations or liquefied to be stored underground.

    DAC is the most expensive method of carbon capture, according to the International Energy Agency. It’s generally cheaper to remove CO2 at the source, before it’s emitted into the air.

    The big price tag attached to DAC along with questions of its efficacy have made some climate scientists skeptical of its viability as a long-term emissions reduction strategy.

    “From a physics point of view, we just made the problem thousands of times harder,” said Jonathan Foley who leads the climate solutions nonprofit Project Drawdown. “Imagine trying to remove 400 things out of a million and do it in the air. Then, efficiently liquefy this stuff and put it below ground. That’s a huge engineering marvel…to do it at the scale of billions of tons is science fiction right now.”

    Foley added that DAC machines themselves take a lot of energy to get running, which eats away at whatever carbon reduction they do achieve.

    But despite obstacles to scaling DAC, many companies, especially tech giants, are pouring investments into developing the technology. For example, Amazon announced last month that it would provide funding for the world’s largest deployment of DAC, and a coalition of tech companies led by Stripe has launched a public benefit company called Frontier to invest in carbon-capture startups and projects.

    Extracting carbon from the atmosphere is attractive to companies with large carbon footprints, because it would allow them to keep emitting with a reversal mechanism after the fact.

    “Fossil fuel companies would love to be able to keep emitting from fossil operations while offsetting those emissions via cost-effective direct air capture projects — that’s kind of a perfect world for them, if they can get there,” said Cara Horowitz, the executive director of UCLA’s Emmet Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

    “And even if they can’t get there, investing in the development of DAC allows them to tout efforts to achieve net-zero goals in ways that don’t involve reducing use of fossil fuels.”

    So far, experts say, the technology is unproven at scale.

    “I would love a machine like this to actually work. Wouldn’t that be great? You just turn on a machine that sucks everything out of the sky,” said Foley. “But sorry, it’s a lot easier not to emit it than it is to take it back out again. That’s just thermodynamics.”

    The DAC collaboration between Aramco and Siemens Energy is still in early phases.

    A Siemens Energy spokesperson told CNBC that once the test unit is complete next year, the companies will consider taking the technology into an official pilot phase. Only after that would they pursue scaling it commercially.

    Given DAC’s adolescence, both oil companies are invested in other clean energy technology projects.

    The spokesperson for Siemens Energy said that the company has invested in hydrogen, wind, nuclear fusion and others. Meanwhile, Aramco also has projects in hydrogen and geothermal energy.

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  • How Apple made its first ‘carbon neutral’ product

    How Apple made its first ‘carbon neutral’ product

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    Apple’s first “carbon neutral” products are versions of its smartwatch.

    Photo courtesy Apple

    In September, Apple announced its next-generation smartwatch models would all have a “carbon neutral” option, at the same price as the non-carbon neutral options, starting at $249.

    For Apple, making a product “carbon neutral” means that it changed its operations — including manufacturing, packaging and shipping — to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with making and selling its watches. It was able to drive emissions associated with a single watch down from 36.7 kg to 8.1 kg with these actions.

    In order to call its watches “carbon neutral” without being able to eliminate all of the emissions associated with making the watches, Apple bought carbon credits to compensate for the remaining 8.1 kg of emissions, or about 22% of the total footprint of making a watch.

    Apple is transparent about all of this carbon accounting in its environmental report for the watch.

    Carbon credits are certificates that individuals, businesses and corporations can purchase that represent a certain amount of greenhouse gases reduced, avoided, or removed from the atmosphere. They are a way for consumers to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions while also providing a financing mechanism to support sustainable development projects, according to a description from the United Nations.

    Depending on who you talk to, dubbing a product “carbon neutral” when the accounting requires buying carbon credits is either Apple acting responsibly and doing the best it can to contribute to climate mitigation strategies that are available right now, or an irresponsible misrepresentation of what “carbon neutral” should mean.

    The distance between those two analyses is substantial and virtually irreconcilable. It’s also a poignant indication of the distance between where climate mitigation ambitions and climate mitigation realities are right now.

    The relative effectiveness of nature-based carbon credits is contentious because some forestry carbon credits have been shown to be nullified when, for example, the forests set aside for carbon credits burn in wildfire season. But Apple and other stakeholders in the debate argue that not all carbon credits are created, monitored and stewarded with the same diligence. Apple says the quality of the carbon credits it is investing in are reputable, and that buying carbon credits for the emissions it cannot reduce is better than doing nothing.

    “If you want to be highest ambition, taking that 22% and buying high-quality, high-integrity carbon credits is the highest ambition,” Elizabeth Sturcken, managing director of the nonprofit climate advocacy organization Environmental Defense Fund, or EDF, told CNBC in a phone conversation at the end of September.

    Barbara Haya, director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at the Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California at Berkeley, said Apple deserves to be celebrated for the significant emissions reductions it achieved in changing its operations, but Haya also said she wishes Apple had avoided the term “carbon neutral” in its communications about its work.

    She argues consumers would be better served by Apple publicly bragging about its 78% emissions reductions instead of trying to tell consumers that their product is actually “carbon neutral.” Even if the carbon credits Apple buys are of the highest quality, carbon credits are, by their very nature, an accounting strategy. There are 22% of emissions that Apple could not abate, and Haya commends Apple on that transparency.

    “If you buy an Apple Watch, your emissions are not zero,” Haya told CNBC, a fact that Apple acknowledges. The way to have no environmental impact is to not generate those emissions in the first place.

    “Fossil fuels are permanently in the ground if you don’t draw them out and burn them,” Haya told CNBC.

    The Apple Watch Ultra 2 with the new Alpine Loop watch band is one of the company’s first “carbon neutral” products.

    Photo courtesy Apple

    The most important work: Reducing emissions

    The most important work Apple did in launching its “carbon neutral” watch is to drive down the emissions that are associated with making its watch, according to everyone CNBC talked to for this story.

    Here are some specific examples of how Apple has worked to reduce actual emissions associated with making its “carbon neutral” watch:

    • 30% of the materials used in making the carbon neutral watch are recycled or renewable (not including packaging or in-box accessories)
    • 100% of the suppliers that Apple buys parts and components from for the “carbon neutral” watch have agreed to Apple’s Supplier Clean Energy Program, which means suppliers have to power the production of their Apple parts with renewable energy and invest in new renewable energy projects in the areas in which they operate. To be part of the program, qualified suppliers are not permitted to take credit for the renewable energy that already exists on the electric grid in which they operate, but must instead purchase new renewable energy on the grid in which they operate for the production of Apple-related products — a requirement called “additionality.” Apple is transparent and specific about the sources of clean electricity its suppliers use in its environmental progress report: In 2022, 2% of suppliers were using onsite renewable electricity, 24% were buying renewable energy certificates, 66% were making renewable power purchases, and 9% were making direct investments in renewable energy projects.
    • 100% of the electricity used in manufacturing of the watch is matched with 100% clean electricity, which means that Apple and its manufacturers have invested in enough renewable energy to cover the electricity footprint of what is used to make the Apple “carbon neutral” watch. In some cases, if the manufacturer has not yet reached 100% renewable energy, Apple will fill the gap by making enough investment in renewable energy projects to cover the total electricity footprint of what is used to make the “carbon neutral” watch. This kind of corporate clean electricity procurement math is its own complicated accounting framework, but is standard and has significantly improved the pace of renewable energy getting on the grid.
    • More than half of the shipping of products by weight is scheduled to be done with methods other than by airplane. Traveling by plane is currently one of the most carbon intensive methods of transportation.
    • The packaging for the watch is made with 100% recycled or “responsibly sourced” wood fibers.
    • Apple is also matching the expected electricity that customers use to charge their carbon neutral watches with investments in clean energy projects. Also, Apple advises users of when the energy on the grid they are using is the most clean so they can opt to charge their device when the electric grid is being charged with the most renewable energy.

    Apple ought to be respected for these accomplishments, Sturcken at EDF told CNBC.

    Sturcken has been at EDF for almost 27 years, leading partnerships with companies such as Airbnb, FedEx, Lyft, UPS and Walmart to reduce the emissions of their supply chains. EDF does not take money from the companies it works with, and Sturcken has not worked with Apple on its “carbon neutral” watch. Broadly speaking, though, Sturcken said, Apple is doing good work in its sustainability efforts. “They’re a leader,” Sturcken said. “They have a whole team. They get it. They’re focusing on the right things, in general.”

    Any aluminum Apple Watch Series 9 with the new Sport Loop watch band is considered “carbon neutral.”

    Photo courtesy Apple

    The offset debate

    To compensate for the 22% of unabated residual emissions, Apple invests in what it deems to be high-quality carbon credits that restore grasslands, wetlands and forests.

    Apple does this via its Restore Fund, an initiative that Apple launched with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs in 2021 that invests in protecting and restoring working native forests, grasslands and wetlands. Current projects are in Brazil and Paraguay and will restore 150,000 acres of forests and protect another 100,000 acres of forests, grasslands and wetlands.

    The criticism of these kinds of forestry projects is that their climate mitigation impact is less permanent than the climate impact of releasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere to begin with.

    “Apple relies on credits from carbon dioxide removal projects that restore forest, wetlands, and grasslands. Due to natural or human-induced disturbances such as forest fires, land degradation or land-use change, carbon storage in forestry and land-use projects is likely to only be temporary, and therefore in no way comparable with not having emitted greenhouse gases in the first place,” Reena Skribbe, a sustainable development expert at the nonprofit organization NewClimate Institute, told CNBC.

    “The environmental integrity of carbon credits from carbon dioxide removals cannot be assured, thus carbon credits cannot be seen as a substitute to emission reductions,” Skribbe told CNBC.

    Apple says the carbon credits it is investing in are carefully monitored, measured and tracked.

    “We’re here to do the right work, not that easy work,” Sarah Chandler, Apple’s vice president of environment and supply chain innovation, told CNBC. “There are certainly wonderful nature-based carbon removal projects, and there are ones that are not as wonderful. And it is important to draw distinctions between the two and be very clear about the projects.”

    What makes this debate more nuanced is that carbon credits can combat deforestation, and stopping deforestation is mission critical to meeting global climate goals, Sturcken told CNBC.

    “Stopping deforestation is blaringly urgent right now,” Sturcken said. Planting new trees is helpful, “but more urgent than anything is stopping deforestation, because it takes so long for new trees to grow. And if we don’t do that, in the near term, we have a much harder road to get to a climate-stable future. So anything we can do to incentivize in a robust and high integrity way, that kind of investment by companies we should be doing.”

    So, too, says Michael Ackerman, CEO of EcoForests Asset Management, a company that coordinated forestry investment in Latin America. He said carbon markets are right now “the wild, wild west,” as other disruptive industries such as bitcoin and social media have been. And from his perspective, combating deforestation should be an ultimate priority.

    “Protecting one tree in one place does not stop another tree from being chopped down elsewhere,” Ackerman told CNBC. “However, protecting and managing swaths of forests prevents those sections of forests from being degraded and improves global carbon sequestration, enhances biodiversity, and mitigates the risk of wildfires.”

    Any one of the aluminum Apple Watch Series 9 or SE with the new Sport Loop is considered “carbon neutral” by Apple.

    Photo courtesy Apple

    Forestry protection programs in low-income countries are particularly meaningful.

    “Forest projects in areas such as South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa have greater impact on communities than projects in North America would. Communities in these countries tend to be impoverished and have high levels of unemployment,” Ackerman told CNBC. “Successful managed forest projects will provide economic stimulus to neighboring communities, by way of job creation and social assistance.”

    But the forest-preservation registries are not effectively ensuring the quality of the carbon offsets, Haya told CNBC.

    “My perspective is coming from a deep study of carbon offset quality over the last 20 years,” Haya told CNBC. “If the offset market was reliable, I might be saying something very different to you right now. But the background is that there’s excessive over-crediting throughout the offset market over so many project types over the last 20 years.”

    Haya said she wishes Apple’s marketing team had stuck with advertising the very respectable 78% emissions reductions they have achieved and left out the “carbon neutral” verbiage altogether.

    In fact, it may eventually become a legal vulnerability to call a product “carbon neutral.”

    “The evidence against the impact of carbon credits is now so overwhelmingly clear that companies and crediting intermediaries — whose business models depend on these carbon credit markets — are reluctantly starting to move away from carbon neutrality labels,” Thomas Day, who analyzes carbon market mechanisms at the NewClimate Institute, told CNBC.

    “An exodus from carbon neutrality claims has started, and companies that stay behind are increasingly exposed to legal peril and heightened consumer awareness that this is a dishonest approach,” Day told CNBC.

    For now, Apple is holding fast.

    “We do believe that there are ways to make good investments in nature-based carbon removal. And we believe that it is important to start doing that work today,” Chandler told CNBC.

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  • Smaller carbon, more comfort

    Smaller carbon, more comfort

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    Newswise — Osaka, Japan – As organizations work to reduce their energy consumption and associated carbon emissions, one area that remains to be optimized is indoor heating and cooling. In fact, HVAC – which stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning – represents, on average, about 40% of a building’s total energy use. Methods that conserve electricity while still providing a comfortable indoor environment for workers could make a significant difference in the fight against climate change.

    Now, researchers from Osaka University have demonstrated significant energy savings through the application of a new, AI-driven algorithm for controlling HVAC systems. This method does not require complex physics modelling, or even detailed previous knowledge about the building itself.

    During cold weather, it is sometimes challenging for conventional sensor-based systems to determine when the heating should be shut off. This is due to thermal interference from lighting, equipment, or even the heat produced by the workers themselves. This can lead to the HVAC being activated when it should not be, wasting energy.

    To overcome these obstacles, the researchers employed a control algorithm that worked to predict the thermodynamic response of the building based on data collected. This approach can be more effective than attempting to explicitly calculate the impact of the multitude of complex factors that might affect the temperature, such as insulation and heat generation. Thus, with enough information, ‘data driven’ approaches can often outperform even sophisticated models. Here, the HVAC control system was designed to ‘learn’ the symbolic relationships between the variables, including power consumption, based on a large dataset.

    The algorithm was able to save energy while still allowing the building occupants to work in comfort. “Our autonomous system showed significant energy savings, of 30% or more for office buildings, by leveraging the predictive power of machine learning to optimize the times the HVAC should operate.” says lead author Dafang Zhao. “Importantly, the rooms were comfortably warm despite it being winter.”

    The algorithm worked to minimize the total energy consumed, the difference between the actual and desired room temperature, and change in the rate of power output at peak demand. “Our system can be easily customized to prioritize energy conservation or temperature accuracy, depending on the needs of the situation,” adds senior author Ittetsu Taniguchi.

    To collectively achieve the goal of a carbon-neutral economy, it is highly likely that corporations will need to be at the vanguard of innovation. The researchers note that their approach may enjoy rapid adoption during times of rising energy costs, which makes their findings good for both the environment as well as company viability.

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    Osaka University

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