WITHOUT NATURE THERE IS NO FUTURE

 

 

Nature, biodiversity, functioning ecosystems are our basis of life. If we lose nature, we lose our livelihood.

 

Likewise, the protection of natural areas and their CO2 sink capacity is essential to achieve the climate targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

 

Nature and biodiversity are our basis for life

 

Without nature and biodiversity, we humans cannot survive on this planet. Humans account for only 0.01% of life on earth and depend on nature and functioning ecosystems for air, water, food and a variety of raw materials.

 

However, our unsustainable economies are causing massive damage to our environment. We are responsible for 85% of the damage to wild land animals, the loss of 80% of marine mammals, 50% of plants, 41% of insect populations and 14% of fish.

 

If we continue as before, we will cause the collapse of the ecosystems surrounding us in the medium term and thus wipe ourselves out or at least massively decimate ourselves.

 

To ensure our long-term survival on this planet, we therefore urgently need to protect nature, ecosystems and existing biodiversity – effectively and to the greatest possible extent.

 

 

Source: https://www.jollygreengiant.eu/post/the-rapid-decline-of-the-natural-world-is-a-crisis-even-bigger-than-climate-change

 

Source: https://www.jollygreengiant.eu/post/the-rapid-decline-of-the-natural-world-is-a-crisis-even-bigger-than-climate-change

 

 

The great loss of forests and biodiversity

 

Every minute, an area of rainforest the size of about 3 soccer fields is cut down. Per day, this corresponds to an area of about 4'320 soccer fields. Thus, about 13 million hectares of tropical forest are lost per year. This is roughly equivalent to the area of England.

The main reason for the deforestation is mainly land reclamation for cattle breeding and agriculture. Around 80% of the cleared area is subsequently used for these purposes.

 

Every day, 137 different species of plants, animals and birds are irretrievably lost through deforestation. Every year, 50'000 species become extinct as a result of global forest loss.

 

 

Source: http://www.earthlyissues.com/deforestation.htm

 

 

The plastics problem

 

The pollution of the environment has reached gigantic proportions. The largest polluting factor in terms of quantity is plastic. Over 90% of the plastic produced cannot be recycled and ends up as waste in landfills and the environment. Plastic from household and industrial waste enters the oceans with the rivers. Additional plastic waste comes from international shipping.

 

Every year, around 8 million tons of new plastic waste end up in the oceans.

The plastic waste patch floating in the Pacific Ocean is the size of Central Europe.

 

Source: Jambeck et al., Science, UNEP, NCEAS

 

 

And every year, millions of animals die from plastic waste in the oceans. They suffocate on bags, strangle on floating net remains or starve to death because their stomachs are clogged with plastic.

 

 

Source: Greenpeace / WWF International

 

 

Two out of five albatross chicks off Hawaii die within the first six months of their lives because they eat plastic that contains no nutrients.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quelle: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

 

Plastic cannot be biodegraded. It breaks down into microplastics over time. Microplastics are ubiquitous – in the air, in drinking water, in our food. We eat 5 grams of plastic per week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: WWF International

 

 

The oxygen problem

 

A very big problem is pollution for phytoplankton in the oceans.

 

Phytoplankton (or microalgae) are the basis of marine ecosystems. They are the food for zooplankton, and this in turn feeds a variety of animals. Without phytoplankton, marine ecosystems collapse.

 

Since 1950, the plankton population has declined by more than 40% due to plastic and chemical pollution and rising ocean temperatures.

 

Photosynthetic plankton organisms, however, are responsible for 70-80% of the Earth's oxygen production. Prochlorococcus, the smallest photosynthetic organism on earth, produces up to 20% of the oxygen in our entire biosphere – more than all tropical rainforests on land combined.

 

If marine ecosystems collapse one day due to increasing pollution, we will suffocate because the oxygen content of the earth's atmosphere will no longer be sufficient for respiration. The minimum oxygen concentration in the air required for human respiration is 19.5%. Currently, about 20.95% of the air consists of oxygen.

 

 

Source: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-93284-2_5

 

 

The CO2 problem

 

Our earth's atmosphere is made up of various gases, including the so-called greenhouse gases, of which CO2 accounts for the largest share in terms of quantity. Other greenhouse gases are water vapor (including clouds), methane and tropospheric ozone.

 

Source: https://www.nautisches.com/?id=46

If the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases, more heat radiation from the sun is retained with the effect that the temperature rises – the so-called greenhouse effect or "global warming".

 

In the long term, this effect leads to an increase in the global average temperature and thus to climate change.

 

Source: https://mpimet.mpg.de/en/communication/multimedia/figures/greenhouse-effect

 

Rising temperatures affect natural ecosystems and can lead to climatic changes on a global scale, such as altering ocean currents, climate zones, and associated species extinctions.

 

Throughout the history of the earth, there have been repeated changes in the earth's atmosphere, climate, and natural ecosystems. However, the current climate change is a human-induced experiment with a potentially devastating outcome for our civilization:

 

 

"...human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future.
Within a few centuries we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years."

 

Roger Revelle and Hans Suess (1957)

Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego

 

 

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51997476_Earth's_Climate_Past_and_Future

 

 

Since 1850, 2'500 billion tons of CO2 have been emitted by human activity. Half of this in the last 30 years. We emit an additional 50 billion tons of CO2 per year. Before industrialization, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was about 280 ppm (number of particles per million). Today it is 416 ppm.

 

Volume of 1 ton of CO2 at surface temperature and pressure
Source: https://www.ctvc.co/giving-carbon-credit-where-its-due/

If we continue with our unsustainable economy, the earth's temperature will warm up by at least 4°C by the year 2100. Current climate change mitigation efforts aim to keep projected global warming in the safe climate zone below 2°C, ideally below 1.5°C by 2050 and stabilizing or reversing it there.

 

To achieve these goals, not only must current CO2 emissions from the economy be reduced, but CO2 must also be removed from the atmosphere. By 2050, at least 6-10 billion tons of CO2 per year must be removed.

 

 

Source: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/25259/chapter/1

 

 

The Climate Convention

 

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted in 1992, provides the basis for international activities to mitigate climate change.

 

The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, commits industrialized countries to quantitative greenhouse gas reduction targets and international emissions trading (mandatory offsetting).

 

The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all countries to set and implement emissions reduction targets and to subject their progress to review.

 

In order to achieve the reduction targets, the CO2 certificate mechanism was introduced. This consists of two parallel systems:

 

 

Compliance system (Compliance Carbon Market, CCM)

 

CO2 emitters (energy producers, industry, aviation, etc.) are obliged to buy CO2 emission rights (so-called Certified Emission Reduction Units, CERs also called CO2 certificates) to compensate their emissions.

 

The CO2 certificates are issued by the state and allocated or auctioned on the market.

 

Pricing acts as an incentive to reduce pollution and finance the offset through savings elsewhere (e.g., by financing climate protection projects). In 2021, the market for CO2 emission rights amounted to USD 851 billion.

 

 

Voluntary system (Voluntary Carbon Market, VCM)

 

Companies and private consumers can voluntarily offset their CO2 footprint to meet their "net zero" pledges by purchasing CO2 certificates from the voluntary scheme. These are known as Verified Emission Reduction Units (VERs). These are verified but not certified.

 

The total traded value of the voluntary CO2 market in 2021 increased significantly compared to previous years and amounted to USD 1.4 billion.

 

 

As a result of the planned regulatory measures to reduce emissions, the price for emitting a ton of CO2 will continue to rise in the coming years to further increase the incentive to reduce emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that the price of emitting a ton of CO2, i.e. a CO2 certificate, will multiply by 2050.

 

 

Removing CO2 from the atmosphere

 

In order to achieve the climate targets, in addition to reducing emissions, CO2 must also be removed from the atmosphere again ("negative emissions"). There are two ways of doing this:

 

Technical CO2 removal by Direct Air Capture (DAC), where air is passed through technical equipment that removes the CO2 accordingly. The captured CO2 can then be reused in various forms, such as synthetic fuels, or carbon bricks can be produced for permanent storage in deep repositories. The technical processes currently available are expensive and not yet available on the scale needed to extract significant amounts of CO2 from the air.

 

The second option is CO2 removal on a natural basis through forests, vegetation, humus formation (soil carbon), and the oceans.

 

The natural CO2 sequestration has the advantage that a permanent storage of CO2 in the vegetation and through the build-up of humus in the soil is possible. Also, this way allows to protect existing nature and ecosystems as well as to create new habitats for biodiversity through reforestation and renaturation of destroyed nature.

 

Protecting and restoring natural CO2 sinks thus supports the natural ecosystems and biodiversity that are the basis for our life on this planet.

 

 

The global potential of forests and natural landscapes

 

The global potential for forest areas is 4.4 billion hectares. This means that a reforestation of 0.9 billion hectares of damaged areas to new forest areas is possible. This corresponds to a sequestration potential of 205 billion tons of CO2.

 

Global forests (2019):

 

Source: Bastin et al., 2019.

 

Regions with reforestation potential (excluding existing forests, agricultural land and settlement) – gray areas are not suitable for forest:

 

Source: Bastin et al., 2019.

 

 

The sequestration of CO2 by nature – by protecting against the destruction of existing vegetation and by reforestation and renaturation of destroyed nature and wastelands – has the potential to make a significant contribution to mitigating climate change.

 

 

 

See solutions