South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed into law a broad climate change act that will set caps for large emitters and require every town and city to publish an adaptation plan. Image for Representation.
| Photo Credit: AP

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed into law a broad climate change act that will set caps for large emitters and require every town and city to publish an adaptation plan.

The Climate Change Bill aims to enable South Africa to meet its emissions reduction commitments under the Paris climate agreement, the presidency said in a statement on Tuesday.

South Africa, which is the world’s most carbon-intensive major economy and among the top 15 greenhouse gas emitters, is on track to miss those targets because of to its heavy reliance on coal for electricity.

“This is very significant in that it’s the first time that our climate change response is directly brought into domestic law,” said Brandon Abdinor, a lawyer at South Africa’s Centre for Environmental Rights, a non-profit organisation.

“A lot of work needs to be done, but this act puts the basic architecture in place for that to happen.”

The presidency statement did not say when Ramaphosa had signed the law, which requires every province and municipality to assess climate change risks and develop a response plan.

Emissions targets will be set for each high-emitting government sector such as agriculture, transport and industry, and each relevant minister must adopt measures to achieve them.

The law also says the environment minister must allocate a carbon budget to large greenhouse gas-emitting companies, setting a limit on their emissions over a specified time.

The allocations have not yet been set, and the law does not make it an offence to exceed the limit although climate advocates had wanted this, said Abdinor. But emitters that exceed their budget are likely to have to pay a higher rate of carbon tax.

“With mandatory carbon budgets now in place, we expect to see significant emissions reductions from large companies,” Harald Winkler, an expert on climate policy at the University of Cape Town, said on X.

“Transparency in annual reporting will be key,” he added.

The bill is the latest sign that South Africa’s new government might be more aggressive on climate change and renewable energy than its predecessors.

The new energy minister has vowed to speed up the transition to renewables, but few specific plans have emerged. Funding plans to support the new bill are also unclear.

Western donors are offering billions of dollars in loans to fund the transition, but South African officials say they barely scratch the surface of the finance needed.

Oil tanker SCF Primorye, owned by Russian state shipping company Sovcomflot, transits the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey, April 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The global commercial shipping industry could cut down its carbon emissions by 47 million tonnes per year by deploying artificial intelligence for sea navigation, a study by autonomous shipping startup Orca AI showed on Tuesday.

The use of the technology could reduce the need for maneuvers and route deviation from close encounters with high-risk marine targets such as vessels, buoys and sea mammals by alerting the crew in real time, according to the report.

Why it is important?

Shipping, responsible for moving about 90% of global trade, contributes nearly 3% to the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. This share is anticipated to rise in the coming years unless stricter pollution control measures are implemented.

The International Maritime Organization aims to cut emissions by 20% by 2030, a target under threat from the ongoing Red Sea crisis.

Key Quote

“In the short term, it can lead to fewer crew members on the bridge, while those who are on the bridge will have a reduced workload and more attention to tackle complex navigational tasks, optimizing the voyage and reducing fuel and emissions,” Orca AI CEO Yarden Gross told Reuters.

“In the long term, it will open the door to fully autonomous shipping.”

Context

Global carbon dioxide shipping emissions reached an estimated 858 million tonnes in 2022, a marginal rise from the previous year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

An average of 2,976 marine incidents are reported per year, Orca AI’s study showed.

By the numbers

The reduction in route deviations could help ships shave off 38.2 million nautical miles per year from their travel, saving an average of $100,000 in fuel costs per vessel, according to Orca AI’s report.

AI could also lower close encounters by 33% in open waters, it said.

At one of Europe’s largest chemical complexes, German group Covestro is trialling the manufacture of a key product using sugar as a base material instead of oil, as the industry seeks to reduce its carbon footprint.

The pilot project involves producing “aniline”, a chemical used in making foams — used widely in mattresses and armchairs, as well as building insulation.

While large-scale, commercial production is probably years away, the experiment marks a small step in the chemical industry’s battle to slash carbon emissions as Earth faces a dire climate emergency.

Of the 100 million barrels of oil produced worldwide every day, “a quarter goes directly into the chemical industry,” said Walter Leitner, from Aachen University, which has been involved in the aniline project for a decade.

“The chemical industry needs to be completely rebuilt.”

Plastics manufacturer Covestro — a former division of chemical giant Bayer — started trials at its complex in the western city of Leverkusen at the end of 2023, after laboratory tests.

In a 100-square-metre (1,080-square-foot) room, aniline, a transparent fluid, is extracted from a 600-metre network of intertwined pipes.

Using a process developed by University of Stuttgart researchers, fermented sugar is treated with chemicals to make the product.

Aniline is used as the base ingredient for chemical MDI, which is an essential material in manufacturing foams.

Traditionally, aniline has been obtained from crude oil derivatives like naphtha and benzene, but producing it emits large quantities of carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas.

Around six million tonnes of aniline are produced globally a year, around one million tonnes of it by Covestro.

So far, the pilot project in Leverkusen produces just a tiny part of this, extracting just half a tonne of aniline a day.

Punishing energy costs

Some experts are sceptical about such an approach.

The use of plant matter in manufacturing may cut out fossil fuels but whether it can lead to carbon neutrality “is often questionable”, Jens Guenther, from Germany’s Federal Environment Agency, told AFP.

This is particularly the case when it comes to the use of “so-called cultivated biomass like maize, sugar cane and sugar beet,” he said.

Janine Korduan, from environmental NGO BUND, pointed out that industrial agriculture generates “CO2 and methane emissions through land conversion and the production of fertilisers and pesticides”, and also leads to “major losses of biodiversity and high water consumption”.

Nevertheless, Mr. Guenther said the use of plant matter in production processes would likely produce significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than using fossil fuels, although opting for waste materials rather than crops produced in large-scale farming would be preferable.

Other German companies are experimenting in the area.

Chemical giant BASF is seeking to use organic waste, agricultural products or vegetable oils to produce basic chemicals like aniline.

There are many barriers to taking such projects further, however.

These range from the availability of the necessary organic matter, which is in great demand as the green transition gathers pace, to higher costs when compared to producing such chemicals with oil.

Scaling up the process will only be justified if it leads to “significant CO2 savings” in the manufacturing process, said Thorsten Dreier, a member of Covestro’s management board who is overseeing the technology.

There will also need to be proof that money “can be made in a competitive environment, in order to finance research here”, he said.

And for Germany, a major challenge will be persuading manufacturers to set up costly new sites for processing chemicals.

The energy-intensive chemicals sector in Europe’s top economy has been facing a crisis since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine curtailed cheap Russian gas imports, sending power costs soaring.

Many companies are now more focused on shifting production to cheaper locations overseas, rather than expanding at home.

“Energy costs in Germany are currently three to four times higher than in the United States,” while a bloated bureaucracy is also weighing on industry, warned Mr. Dreier.

Allowing forests to regenerate on their own has been championed as a strategy for reducing planet-heating carbon in the atmosphere while also boosting biodiversity, the benefits ecosystems offer and even the fruitfulness of livelihoods.
| Photo Credit: Velankanni Raj B/The Hindu

Allowing forests to regenerate on their own has been championed as a strategy for reducing planet-heating carbon in the atmosphere while also boosting biodiversity, the benefits ecosystems offer and even the fruitfulness of livelihoods.

But efforts to increase global tree cover to limit climate change have skewed towards erecting plantations of fast-growing trees. The reasons are obvious: planting trees can demonstrate results a lot quicker than natural forest restoration. This is helpful if the objective is generating a lot of timber quickly or certifying carbon credits which people and firms buy to supposedly offset their emissions.

While plantations on farms and barren land can provide firewood and timber, easing the pressure on natural forests and so aiding their regeneration, ill-advised tree planting can unleash invasive species and even dispossess people of their land.

Explained | Global tropical primary forest cover continued decline in 2022: study 

For more than 200 years India has experimented with tree plantations, offering important lessons about the consequences different approaches to restoring forests have on local communities and the wider environment. This rare long-term perspective should be heeded by foresters today to prevent past mistakes being repeated.

Plantations in colonial-era India

Britain extended its influence over India and controlled much of its affairs via the East India Company from the mid-18th century onwards. Between 1857 and 1947, the Crown ruled the country directly and turned its attention to the country’s forests.

Britain needed great quantities of timber to lay railway sleepers and build ships in order to transport the cotton, rubber and tea it took from India. Through the Indian Forest Act of 1865, forests with high-yielding timber trees such as teak, sal and deodar became state property.

To maximise how much timber these forests yielded, British colonial authorities restricted the rights of local people to harvest much beyond grass and bamboo. Even cattle grazing was restricted. Indian communities retaliated by burning down some of the forests.

Meanwhile, plantations of teak (Tectona grandis), a species well adapted to India’s hot and humid climate and a source of durable and attractive timber, spread aggressively. Pristine grasslands and open scrub forest gave way to teak monocultures.

Also Read | Green washing: On amendments and the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023

Eucalyptus and other exotic trees which hadn’t evolved in India were introduced from around 1790. British foresters planted pines from Europe and North America in extensive plantations in the Himalayan region as a source of resin and introduced acacia trees from Australia for timber, fodder and fuel. One of these species, wattle (Acacia mearnsii), first introduced in 1861 with a few hundred thousand saplings, was planted in the Nilgiris district of the Western Ghats.

This area is what scientists call a biodiversity hotspot – a globally rare ecosystem replete with species. Wattle has since become invasive and taken over much of the region’s mountainous grasslands.

Similarly, pine has spread over much of the Himalayas and displaced native oak trees while teak has replaced sal, a native hardwood, in central India. Both oak and sal are valued for fuel, fodder, fertiliser, medicine and oil. Their loss, and the loss of grazing land, impoverished many.

Why It Matters | India lost 668,400 ha of forest cover in the last 30 years

Restoring forests in India today

India has pledged to restore about 21 million hectares of forest by 2030 under the Bonn Challenge. A progress report released by the government of India and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2018 claimed around 10 million hectares was under restoration.

This focus on increasing the area of land covered with trees is reflected in India’s national forest policy, which aims for trees on 33% of the country’s area. Schemes under this policy include plantations consisting of a single species such as eucalyptus or bamboo which grow fast and can increase tree cover quickly, demonstrating success according to this dubious measure.

Sometimes these trees are planted in grasslands and other ecosystems where tree cover is naturally low. The result is that afforestation harms rural and indigenous people who depend on these ecosystems for grazing and produce. The continued planting of exotic trees risks new invasive species, in a similar way to wattle 200 years ago.

There are positive case studies too. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 empowered village assemblies to manage forest areas which had once been in traditional use. Several assemblies (known as Gram Sabhas) in the Gadchiroli district of central India have restored degraded forests and managed them as a sustainable source of tendu leaves, which are used to wrap bidi (Indian tobacco). In the Kachchh grasslands of western India communities were able to restore grasslands by removing the invasive gando bawal (meaning “mad tree”) first introduced by British foresters in the late 19th century.

Future forests

The success of forest restoration efforts cannot be measured by tree cover alone. The Indian government’s definition of “forest” still encompasses plantations of a single tree species, orchards and even bamboo, which actually belongs to the grass family.

This means that biennial forest surveys cannot quantify how much natural forest has been restored, or convey the consequences of displacing native trees with competitive plantation species or identify if these exotic trees have invaded natural grasslands which have then been falsely recorded as restored forests.

Natural forest regeneration and plantations for timber and fuel should both be encouraged, but with due consideration of how other ecosystems and people will be affected. This includes carefully choosing plantation species to ensure they don’t become invasive.

The objective of increasing tree cover should be assessed in terms of its implications for forest rights, local livelihoods, biodiversity and carbon storage. Some of the best practices on restoration through communities such as Gadchiroli should be studied and scaled up.

Planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored. And reviving ecosystems in which trees are scarce is important too. Determining whether local people and the environment are benefiting is a more helpful measure of success than simply scanning a forest canopy from above.