Green Planet

Pandemic and climate change: The search for new models of sustainable development

Published

2 years ago

July 18, 2021

Giancarlo Elia Valori

Is there a correlation between the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change?

Apparently not. The virus is supposed to weaken with high temperatures and – unlike winter months when people stay indoors more (a situation that favours infections) – in the summer people tend to stay more outdoors or in constantly ventilated rooms and therefore be less exposed to viral aggression.

A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that a mild climate should inhibit the virus vitality, but the spread of cases in the southern hemisphere shows that this pathogen is more resistant to heat than “traditional” influenza viruses.

Now, with the so-called “Delta variant”, the number of infections seems to be rising throughout Europe, a sign that the virus maintains its aggressiveness even at high temperatures.

In fact, according to many experts and scholars, the pandemic that has caused a global crisis can be related to climate change insofar as the latter is connected to the increase in pollution rates caused by the disproportionate use of non-renewable energy sources (first and foremost, oil and coal).

Air pollution, in turn, causes damage to the respiratory system, especially in the weakest subjects who account for 90% of Covid-19 victims. The said damage can be considered co-responsible for the lethal consequences of the flu syndrome.

In August 2020, the scholars who participated in the Congress on the relationship between “climate, weather and environmental factors and the Covid-19 pandemic”, organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), came to the conclusion that the pandemic “reflects the state of tension between man and nature”.

According to many of the researchers who participated in the WMO Congress, the most severe consequences of the Covid-19 infection occurred in patients exposed more frequently to the air polluted by carbon dioxide.

Although unanimous scientific consensus has not been reached on the possible interrelations between the pandemic and climate change, authoritative studies show that the average rise in global temperatures increases the ability of the virus to spread, also due to the increase in rainfall and the average humidity rate since the latter factors stimulate virus viability and resistance.

According to the “Fifth Assessment Report” of the (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the average increase in temperature and rainfall has altered the distribution and spread of pathogenic vectors. These factors, connected to the increased mobility of the population and to changes in the habitat of some animal species (such as bats) caused by man, can be considered co-responsible for the speed with which the Covid-19 virus has spread in all continents, particularly in areas where there are higher levels of industrialization and air pollution by CO2.

Due to the impact of the pandemic on industrial production and on the global economy, the pollution rate has, in general, decreased, also because the abrupt slowdown imposed on production and consumption has actually contributed to the decrease of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere which, in China alone, in the first four months of 2020 decreased by 10.3%, while worldwide the decrease was 5.8%.

Now, thanks to the success of the vaccination campaign that in Europe is reaching acceptable levels for collective security, many countries, including Italy, are preparing – with a new productive impetus – the recovery of the economy, disrupted by the pandemic effects. As highlighted in the works of the recent G20 in Venice, this recovery shall start from a new commitment to energy production with renewable sources and with the progressive and marked decrease in the use of polluting sources, such as oil and coal.

As seen above, the pandemic has caused at least one positive side-effect, i.e. the decrease in carbon emissions into the atmosphere. This may be the opportunity for a new “energy renaissance”, destined to last over time and to make production models more consistent with the environment and, as a result, with public health.

The protagonists of this paradigm shift in industrial production will be renewable energy sources, including marine energy and hydrogen.

In August last year, as part of the ambitious development program called “European Green Deal”, the European Union launched a real “Hydrogen Strategy” in which it is stressed that “clean” hydrogen (i.e. the one extracted from water through electrolysis) must be an integral part of the ecological transition envisaged and funded by the “Recovery Plan”, with the aim – in the very short term – to produce, by 2024, 6 GW per year of “green” energy from hydrogen electrolysis.

China is also moving concretely in this direction, thanks not only to the commitment made by President Xi Jinping, also at the G20, to drastically reduce carbon emissions by 2030 in compliance with the Paris Agreement of 2012, but also to the work of the very young Minister, Lu Hao, who heads a Department that includes six previous Ministries and is at the forefront in the strategy of ecological conversion of the entire Chinese production system.

This strategy envisages the widest use of energy produced by wave motion and sea currents. It is in this context that Minister Lu Hao has ordered the creation, in Shenzhen, of the “National Ocean Technology Centre” (NOTC), a centre for the study and development of advanced technologies for the production of “green” energy from tides – abundant and clean energy that can be widely used for hydrogen production. The latter, in fact, requires large amounts of electricity that, when produced with the use of traditional systems, such as oil or coal, does not contribute to improve environmental conditions.

With the use of marine energy to activate the electrolytic cells necessary to “separate” hydrogen from oxygen, a “virtuous” production cycle can be created by extracting hydrogen from water with energy supplied “at zero kilometre” from water itself.

Electrical currents from the sea can be produced with energy converters; with energy extractors from the tides; with thermal converters that exploit the differences in temperature at various depths, as well as with tools that can exploit even the differences in salinity.

With these technology and equipment huge amounts of energy can be extracted without causing any damage to the environment or to sea flora and fauna and CO2 emissions into the atmosphere will be reduced by billions of tons.

This is not science fiction but a tangible reality: every ocean has a stable potential overabundance of energy that can be extracted from waves, currents and tides – energy at lower costs than those of the other renewables.

Even the Mediterranean is to be considered an excellent potential source of marine energy.

In Ravenna ENI has already put into operation the “Inertial Wave Converter”, a wave energy converter designed to extract 50 Gigawatts from the cyclic motion of waves, currents and tides.

Together with Scandinavia, Italy is the European leader in the research and practical application of these technologies and their use in the production of hydrogen through electrolysis, with a pilot project in the Strait of Messina.

Worldwide, with China in the forefront, there are currently over fifty active projects for research and production of clean energy from sea water, part of which is dedicated to the future production of green hydrogen. In short, these projects are all dedicated to rebuild a relationship between man and nature that, far from dreaming of a “pleasurable degrowth”, i.e. a sustainable negative growth, aims to achieve a development model that is consistent with the needs of production, but also with the inescapable need for “turning green”.

We are coming out of a very severe health and economic crisis caused by a pandemic which – as authoritative scientific research and studies claim – has been made more widespread and lethal by climate change and environmental pollution.

If, as we can foresee, a new pandemic breaks out in a few years, it will be good for the world to be prepared, having made the ecosystem healthier and cleaner in view of hindering the spread of new viruses with a global prevention strategy, also at environmental and climate levels.

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Giancarlo Elia Valori

Advisory Board Co-chair Honoris Causa Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr. Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “International World Group”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France. “

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Green Planet

Climate Smart Agriculture Can Help Balochistan bounce back

Published

2 weeks ago

May 16, 2023

Rida Ejaz

Climate change brings disaster to the province Balochistan, which is an arid region located in west of Pakistan. The drought-stricken region struggling to increase its agricultural productivity, faced a backlash due to catastrophic floods. The predominantly agriculture-based territory reached the dead zone as farmers had stopped farming, shepherds kept their animal numbers low, which put people’s lives on stake, as it increased food insecurity. This highlighted the need to start a policy debate for climate smart agriculture.

Climate smart agriculture is an approach that is making the planet prosperous again. It is an ambition to increase the integration of food security with enhance resilience in productivity. It is a sustainable agriculture practice that promotes soil health, water management, and biodiversity conservation with economic benefits. Its practices like, cover/tunnel farming, drip irrigation, crop livestock systems can help Balochistan to go green and integrated again. These practices can sequester carbon in soil and can fight the impacts of climate change more efficiently.

Climate change is affecting the province in various ways. The region of Balochistan is characterized by extreme aridity, with annual precipitation levels below average, causing severe droughts, which is leading to a catastrophic impact on the province’s agriculture and livestock.

Flash floods in Balochistan becomes the new common during the monsoon season as a result of heavy rainfall, with the most significant in 2022. These floods have a detrimental impact on the environment, causing soil erosion, depletion, and the loss of fertile topsoil. The soil is already deficient in minerals and cannot endure further depletion, requiring several hundred years to recover and cannot support agricultural growth.

In an interview with wealthPk, Dr. Hanif-ur-Rehman AP from university of Turbat said, that high efficiency irrigation system (HEIS) can play an efficient role in climate effected regions like Turbat, Makran, Kech where farmers had traditionally cultivated the crops for source of income. The use of drip, rain guns, Centre pivot, and sprinkler have the ability to bring back the lush green pastures that have turned barren.

Climate smart agriculture could not only fetch the lost agriculture but also increase the productivity rate by making the rest of the region green. Balochistan accounts for only 6% of cultivable land for agriculture which not only failed to meet food security needs but also added little in Pakistan’s 25% agriculture GDP.

Balochistan people despite having less literacy are very conducive to cultivating lands with new cultivation techniques. In late 1990s and 2000s when the entire western part of the province was severely hit by droughts, people brought the techniques of less resilient tunnel farming to moist the soil. They grow crops beneath protective plastic tunnels. This technique helps them cope with their immediate needs but it fails to produce yield on a massive scale. Cultivation in proper climate resilient tunnels usually requires 10 to 20 acres of area or economically 3 acres feasible, and the tunnels are created by using steel pipes, or aluminum pipes that support plantations that are usually 3 to 12 feet in height and 5-10 feet wide.

The drip irrigation technique also has enormous potential for minimizing production costs by moderating the input use of water, fertilizers and pesticides. Drip irrigation keeps the field capacity constant by enabling the crops to easily take in water and nutrients, which result in uniform growth of plants and enhances the quality that produces well. Drip irrigation distributes water through a network of valves, pipes, emitters, and tubing that can save 50-70% of irrigation water which can not only resolve the water scarcity issue of Balochistan, it also can produce efficient, extensive production of crops such as apples, cherries, tomatoes, and citrus.

The province also needs to move towards an integrated crop-livestock system (ICLS), which is sustainable, productive, and climate resilient compared to intensive specialized systems. ICLS have increased over time in arid regions but still, Balochistan lags behind due to lack of skills by producers, lack of investment, lack of sustainable awareness and market competition. Livestock production is the largest sector of the province’s economy. It is nearly impossible to have a dream of economic development for the rural masses without prior attention to Livestock and crop management.

After floods, the crops fields are destroyed due to which livestock become the main source of food for many rural households that make the rural farming through livestock less practicable. It can only be enhanced by administration policies through capital funding, educational services and markets to subsistence farmers.

CSA is a method that includes several elements entrenched in local settings rather than a collection of practices that can be used everywhere. CSA requires the adoption of technologies and policies, and it refers to behaviors both on and off the farm.

According to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) of the United Nation 2023 report, Local farmers are the foremost holders of knowledge about their environment, agro-ecosystems, crops, livestock, and climatic patterns. Therefore, the adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture should be aligned with the local farmers’ knowledge, needs, and priorities. . Farmers of Balochistan have shown a keen interest in drip irrigation, tunnel farming technique but the high cost of imported pipes, emitters, plantation of aluminum tunnels from china has become their hindrance.

Mainstreaming CSA in Balochistan requires critical stocktaking and promising practices by financial and institutional enablers that can create an initial baseline for discussion and investment from the globe. If the government of Balochistan supports the farmers through public funding or by joint ventures with farmers for covering the startup costs, the techniques can be very useful not for food security but also for economic benefits on a constant level. According to a report on Climate smart practices, the CS techniques could not only help to save water up to 50-70%, reduce the fertilizer use by 45%, increase yield up to 100-150%, reduce the production cost by 35%, but could also mature the crops with better quality for uneven topography.

Green Planet

Human History and the Wonder of the Horse

Published

2 weeks ago

May 12, 2023

Dr. Arshad M. Khan

Imagine a person accustomed to traveling at 3 to 4 mph, who discovers a means (the horse) to speed up to 5 times that pace with occasional thrilling bursts doubling even that.

At 15 mph, it is then not unreasonable to assume a 1000 mile range for a week on horseback allowing for breaks and sleep at night. It must have expanded enormously the horizons of those early Kazakhs who first domesticated the horse some 6000 years ago.

If the Kazakhs roamed west, the Mongols, a few thousand years later, roamed back and began a vast empire that eventually included all of China. Ties with Russia were close but as a hegemon, until a few centuries later when the Russians threw off the yoke.

As Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping shake hands forging a new treaty, China is once again a more powerful economy, the largest in the world, while Russia’s is more akin in size to Italy’s.

If the horse made the vast Central Asian steppes explorable, its remarkable navigational skills ensured the rider would eventually be able to return home.

Apparently horses are sensitive to the earth’s magnetic field, and not unlike homing pigeons can find their way home. Confirmatory tests have shown that when magnets are slung over their withers, they get completely lost. Observers have also noted that, in pasture. they tend to stand north-south aligned with the earth’s magnetic field.

Up until the advent of the internal combustion engine, horses were used for all kinds of transportation. Where the rail line ended, horses took over. They hauled freight in covered wagons; pulled stagecoaches in the Wild West and elegant carriages in Europe; they were a cowboy’s bread and butter, and personal transportation for anyone who could afford one; horses in the cavalry delivered the punch generals were seeking in battle; in racing, they provided thrills for the audience and excitement for punters — such is true also today, and with all the special attention given to the triple crown races, the casual observer might forget the weekly calendar of racing events across the country.

Horses for courses is a common saying for they are bred for speed in short races and stamina for long steeplechases like the famous Grand National in England.

Hark back to the wagon drivers of old, when on lonely long journeys the driver could talk to his horses — like dogs they are able to understand and develop quite a vocabulary of human words plus silent signals from the reins and legs of the riders.

And pity the poor trucker now and his lonely cross-country trips — not much to say to a noisy diesel engine! The only chance to talk he gets is when he takes a break to eat, rest and sometimes sleep at truck stops along the way.

With all that horses did for humans, one can wonder what they got out of it. Apparently they form close bonds with their owners, and as with dogs, the feelings are mutual.

Green Planet

Race to zero in Asia and the Pacific: Our hopes in the climate fight

Published

3 weeks ago

May 10, 2023

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes for grim reading: Every fraction of a degree of warming comes with escalated threats, from deadly heatwaves to severe hurricanes and droughts, affecting all economies and communities. It is a reality that the people of Asia and the Pacific know only too well. “The worst April heatwaves in Asian history” last month was just a taste of the worsening climate impacts we will continue to face in the years to come.

Our latest report highlights that the sea level is creeping up in parts of the region at a slightly higher rate than the global mean, leaving low-lying atolls at existential threat. Annual socioeconomic loss due to climate change is mounting and likely to double in the worst-case climate scenario. Inequity is yet another threat as climate change sweeps across the region. Asia and the Pacific already accounts for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions and the share is growing.

But there is another picture of hope in our region: 39 countries have committed to carbon neutrality and net zero between 2050 and 2060. The cost of renewable energy is falling almost everywhere, with installed capacity growing more than three-fold in the past decade. Electric vehicles are entering the market en masse as countries such as China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Thailand have made electric mobility a priority.

This momentum needs to accelerate like a bullet train. Because nothing short of a breakthrough in hard-to-abate sectors will give us a good chance of stopping catastrophic global warming.

Accelerating a just and inclusive energy transition

The recent energy crisis has kicked renewable energy into a new phase of even faster growth thanks to its energy security benefits. There is opportunity now to leverage this momentum and turn it into a revolutionary moment.

Cross-border electricity grids can be the game changer. ESCAP has simulated different scenarios for grid connectivity and scaling up renewables. It shows that a green power corridor, cross-border power grid integration utilizing renewables, can help to remove the last hurdles of the transition. We are working with countries to chart a path to improved regional power grid connectivity through cooperation.

Achieving low-carbon mobility and logistics

The exceptional growth of electric vehicles has proved that electric mobility is a smart investment. And it is one that will help stave off carbon dioxide emissions from transport, which has stubbornly increased almost by 2 per cent annually the past two decades.

Through the Regional Cooperation Mechanism on Low Carbon Transport, we are working with the public and private sector to lock in the changeover to low-carbon mobility, clean energy technologies and logistics. This is complemented by peer learning and experience sharing under the Asia-Pacific Initiative on Electric Mobility to accelerate the penetration of electric vehicles and upgrading public transport fleets.

Building low-carbon industries through climate-smart trade and investment

The net zero transition is not complete without decarbonizing the industrial sector. The region accounts for nearly three quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing and construction.

Binding climate considerations in regional trade agreements can be a powerful tool. While climate-related provisions have entered regional trade agreements involving Asian and Pacific economies, they offer few concrete and binding commitments. To unlock further benefits, they will need to be broader in scope, deeper in stringency and more precise in obligations.

As foreign investment goes green, it should also go where it is needed the most. It has not been the case for any of the least developed countries and small island developing States in the region.

Financing the transition

The transition can be only possible by investing in low- and zero-emission technologies and industries. Current domestic and international financial flows fall well short of the needed amount. The issuance of green, social and sustainability bonds is rapidly growing, reaching $210 billion in 2021 but were dominated by developed and a few developing countries. Both public and private financial institutions need to be incentivized to invest in new green technologies and make the uptake of such technologies less risky.

Linking actions and elevating ambitions

The code red to go green is ever so clear. Every government needs to raise their stake in this crisis. Every business needs to transform. Every individual needs to act. A journey to net zero should accelerate with a fresh look at our shared purpose.

At ESCAP, we are working to bring together the pieces and build the missing links at the regional level to support the net-zero transition work at the national level. The upcoming Commission session will bring countries together for the first time in an intergovernmental setting – to identify common accelerators for climate action and to chart a more ambitious pathway. This is the start of an arduous journey that requires cooperation, understanding and determination. And I believe we have what it takes to get there together.