scholarly journals A strong mitigation scenario maintains climate neutrality of northern peatlands

One Earth ◽  
2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunjing Qiu ◽  
Philippe Ciais ◽  
Dan Zhu ◽  
Bertrand Guenet ◽  
Jinfeng Chang ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Agustin del Prado ◽  
Pablo Manzano ◽  
Guillermo Pardo

Abstract Recent calls advocate that a huge reduction in the consumption of animal products (including dairy) is essential to mitigate climate change and stabilise global warming below the 1.5 and 2°C targets. The Paris Agreement states that to stabilise temperatures we must reach a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the second half of this century. Consequently, many countries have adopted overall GHG reduction targets (e.g. EU, at least 40% by 2030 compared to 1990). However, using conventional metric-equivalent emissions (CO2-e GWP100) as the basis to account for emissions does not result in capturing the effect on atmospheric warming of changing emission rates from short-lived GHG (e.g. methane: CH4), which are the main source of GHG emissions by small ruminants. This shortcoming could be solved by using warming-equivalent emissions (CO2-we, GWP*), which can accurately link annual GHG emission rates to its warming effect in the atmosphere. In our study, using this GWP* methodology and different modelling approaches, we first examined the historical (1990–2018) contribution of European dairy small ruminant systems to additional atmosphere warming levels and then studied different emission target scenarios for 2100. These scenarios allow us to envision the necessary reduction of GHG emissions from Europe's dairy small ruminants to achieve a stable impact on global temperatures, i.e. to be climatically neutral. Our analysis showed that, using this type of approach, the whole European sheep and goat dairy sector seems not to have contributed to additional warming in the period 1990–2018. Considering each subsector separately, increases in dairy goat production has led to some level of additional warming into the atmosphere, but these have been compensated by larger emission reductions in the dairy sheep sector. The estimations of warming for future scenarios suggest that to achieve climate neutrality, understood as not adding additional warming to the atmosphere, modest GHG reductions of sheep and goat GHG would be required (e.g. via feed additives). This reduction would be even lower if potential soil organic carbon (SOC) from associated pastures is considered.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3437
Author(s):  
Andreas Rosenstiel ◽  
Nathalie Monnerie ◽  
Jürgen Dersch ◽  
Martin Roeb ◽  
Robert Pitz-Paal ◽  
...  

Global trade of green hydrogen will probably become a vital factor in reaching climate neutrality. The sunbelt of the Earth has a great potential for large-scale hydrogen production. One promising pathway to solar hydrogen is to use economically priced electricity from photovoltaics (PV) for electrochemical water splitting. However, storing electricity with batteries is still expensive and without storage only a small operating capacity of electrolyser systems can be reached. Combining PV with concentrated solar power (CSP) and thermal energy storage (TES) seems a good pathway to reach more electrolyser full load hours and thereby lower levelized costs of hydrogen (LCOH). This work introduces an energy system model for finding cost-optimal designs of such PV/CSP hybrid hydrogen production plants based on a global optimization algorithm. The model includes an operational strategy which improves the interplay between PV and CSP part, allowing also to store PV surplus electricity as heat. An exemplary study for stand-alone hydrogen production with an alkaline electrolyser (AEL) system is carried out. Three different locations with different solar resources are considered, regarding the total installed costs (TIC) to obtain realistic LCOH values. The study shows that a combination of PV and CSP is an auspicious concept for large-scale solar hydrogen production, leading to lower costs than using one of the technologies on its own. For today’s PV and CSP costs, minimum levelized costs of hydrogen of 4.04 USD/kg were determined for a plant located in Ouarzazate (Morocco). Considering the foreseen decrease in PV and CSP costs until 2030, cuts the LCOH to 3.09 USD/kg while still a combination of PV and CSP is the most economic system.


1993 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 749-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel T. Roulet ◽  
R. Ash ◽  
W. Quinton ◽  
Tim Moore

2021 ◽  

Social real estate does not only shape the balance sheets of social economy enterprises, but also the concerns and agendas of boards, management and real estate managers. This book addresses aspects of financing, real estate management, the organisation of real estate portfolios, real estate valuation and the life cycle of buildings, plus the numerous legal problems associated with social real estate. It presents current technical concepts of energy efficiency, climate neutrality and the digital maturity of real estate in a practical manner, along with concepts for economically viable neighbourhood models and warnings against political cost drivers in the construction of social real estate. With contributions by Michael Amann, Maximilian Bergdolt, Hartmut Clausen, Oliver Errichiello, Harald Frei, Alfred Gangel, Bernd Halfar, Ingrid Hastedt, Jens Hesselbach, Mark Junge, Joel B. Münch, Markus Neubauer, Aleksandar Nikolic, George Salden, Bertram Schultze, Hubert Soyer, Hans von Gehlen, Niklas Wiesweg and Michael Winter.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koffi Dodji Noumonvi ◽  
Joshua L. Ratcliffe ◽  
Mats Öquist ◽  
Mats B. Nilsson ◽  
Matthias Peichl

<p>Northern peatlands cover a small fraction of the earth’s land surface, and yet they are one of the most important natural sources of atmospheric methane. With climate change causing rising temperatures, changes in water balance and increased growing season length, peatland contribution to atmospheric methane concentration is likely to increase, justifying the increased attention given to northern peatland methane dynamics. Northern peatlands often occur as heterogeneous complexes characterized by hydromorphologically distinct features from < 1 m² to tens of km², with differing physical, hydrological and chemical properties. The more commonly understood small-scale variation between hummocks, lawns and hollows has been well explored using chamber measurements. Single tower eddy covariance measurements, with a typical 95% flux footprint of < 0.5 km², have been used to assess the ecosystem scale methane exchange. However, how representative single tower flux measurements are of an entire mire complex is not well understood. To address this knowledge gap, the present study takes advantage of a network of four eddy covariance towers located less than 3 km apart at four mires within a typical boreal mire complex in northern Sweden. The variation of methane fluxes and its drivers between the four sites will be explored at different temporal scales, i.e. half-hourly, daily and at a growing-season scale.</p>


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunjing Qiu ◽  
Dan Zhu ◽  
Philippe Ciais ◽  
Bertrand Guenet ◽  
Shushi Peng ◽  
...  

Abstract. The importance of northern peatlands in the global carbon cycle has recently been recognized, especially for long-term changes. Yet, the complex interactions between climate and peatland hydrology, carbon storage and area dynamics make it challenging to represent these systems in land surface models. This study describes how peatland are included as an independent sub-grid hydrological soil unit (HSU) into the ORCHIDEE-MICT land surface model. The peatland soil column in this tile is characterized by multi-layered vertical water and carbon transport, and peat-specific hydrological properties. A cost-efficient TOPMODEL approach is implemented to simulate the dynamics of peatland area, calibrated by present-day wetland areas that are regularly inundated or subject to shallow water tables. The model is tested across a range of northern peatland sites and for gridded simulations over the Northern Hemisphere (> 30° N). Simulated northern peatland area (3.9 million km2), peat carbon stock (463 PgC) and peat depth are generally consistent with observed estimates of peatland area (3.4–4.0 million km2), peat carbon (270–540 PgC) and data compilations of peat core depths. Our results show that both net primary production (NPP) and heterotrophic respiration (HR) of northern peatlands increased over the past century in response to CO2 and climate change. NPP increased more rapidly than HR, and thus net ecosystem production (NEP) exhibited a positive trend, contributing a cumulative carbon storage of 11.13 Pg C since 1901, most of it being realized after the 1950s.


Federalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 141-156
Author(s):  
A. V. Stetsenko ◽  
V. B. Uvarov

The problem of climate change is a global challenge of the XXI century for all mankind. However, despite the adoption of the Paris climate agreement, which is designed to synchronize the actions of various countries, individual countries or groups of countries are taking the path of obtaining unilateral preferences under the pretext of fulfilling the obligations stipulated in the agreement. The article analyzes the challenges and risks that Russia may face in the absence of its own greenhouse gas regulation systems against the background of the declared and implemented in a number of countries policy of achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions. Ways to fully utilize the potential absorption capacity of Russian forests and other ecosystems in relation to the goals of the Paris climate agreement are considered. We are talking about potential effects for the Russian economy in the form of domestic investment in forest projects to absorb CO2, while increasing the competitiveness of Russian export products in the context of the introduction of protectionist measures by individual countries under the pretext of fighting for “climate neutrality”.


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