Climate change - Averting catastrophe | DW Documentary

Foreigners have always been a source of wonder and beauty. Danny Arnold and his friend are extreme mountaineers here in search of the ultimate thrill. They are climbing palu wells almost 4,000 meters above sea level. You stab your ax and hear the crunch and hiss of breaking through ice blocks is simply incredible, but a growing number of scientists say adventures like this could soon become impossible global warming is melting glaciers visit Turkey woman ten ago years you had many more days during the winter when you could actually climb over the course of a series of trips to Africa, Asia and Europe in recent years we have monitored the impact of

climate

change

, torrential rains and floods, devastating droughts and the ominous threat of Thor permafrost, but hope is not lost thanks to an unprecedented number of people working to combat

climate

change

, from researchers around the planet to industry leaders and the United Nations global community, these efforts are likely to be too late for particular regions, our mountains, for example, have less snow, less ice and fewer glaciers.

The European Alps as we know them now will soon be simply a memory We live in critical times If we do not respond to nature's warnings we will find ourselves on the brink of an era of man-made heat The coldest regions of the world are among the coldest hot spots of climate change the Arctic Antarctic Alaska and the vast permafrost regions of Russia trained as a mathematician abroad, but what he observed here in Russia's Far East prompted him to change course and become a climate activist. He has now dedicated his life to preserving the Frozen. layer of soil beneath the Earth's surface here on the banks of the Colima River in the Saka Republic of Siberia is gathering evidence that the permafrost is no longer permanent the ground has warmed three degrees Celsius causing the top layer of ice to melt and a growing number of rare fossils are resurfacing, so it's a piece of that mom's loot, not the biggest, but average size, so here it was on PlayStation, the consistent here was huge and you never squared miles around of a mammoth and it was for 40,000 years and I will never hear just one square kilometer now there are about 600 skeletons, so from time to time, wherever you look, the slopes of the hills slide towards the river as a result of the melting of the permafrost Zimoff has dubbed those affected by the plant zombies because of the soil. they grow after having been frozen for 40,000 years and therefore lifeless and soon this vegetation will disappear back into the water.

What is already happening here on the banks of this river and will soon happen across much of Russia could mean dramatic change. For the climate, the amount of latent biomass in permafrost is immense. If carbon dioxide and methane built up in the soil were to escape into the atmosphere, the rate of climate change would increase dramatically, so these are roots of grasses that grew here maybe around 40,000 years ago and the problem is a huge one. carbon storage and take all these little roots and put them on one side of the scale and on the other side of the bones put all the aerial vegetation on the planet, so basically all the trees. and bushes on the planet, you will see that these little roots wait longer and if the parafrost starts to degrade everywhere, all of this will be available for microbes to eat and very soon they will become greenhouse gases, CO2, methane, which is ice, pure ice out there and You see, when this ice is melting, the water mixes with this soil and creates smart flows that cool down the throat and the gradations happen very quickly here, so it's a double combination of a lot carbon and a lot of ice, and that is giving us a very fast carbon bomb, a self-perpetuating vicious cycle in which global warming releases an increasing amount of greenhouse gases, leading to ever-increasing temperatures. higher, a process that will eventually be impossible to stop, so we have to reduce emissions in Germany, the situation poses an additional challenge: the Brookdorf power plant has already faced Moss since its closure at the end of 2021 as part of the phasing out of nuclear energy in Germany.

The expansion of renewable energy sources is still taking place on two smaller scales, at the same time as there has been an increase in energy. Generation from coal, oil and gas means more rather than less CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. Global greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase in 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic began, there was a slight decrease, but by 2030, if we do not manage to reduce emissions, we will be if we look at the figure of 55 billion tons, At the end of the century the Earth would warm almost three degrees with alarming consequences. Preventing this scenario requires expelling a maximum of 25 gigatonnes into the atmosphere between now and 2030 and that means drastically reducing CO2 emissions and all greenhouse gases. 50 foreign ER has been following the environmental policies of the largest emitters, a task that led to growing frustration over the years with governments talking a lot but taking very little action;

However, there are signs of a slight reversal. In fact, the international community has been getting serious about phasing out coal, oil and gas. The Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015, but we are now seeing a growing number of countries setting the goal of becoming climate neutral by reducing emissions to zero. Heights scientists at The new Climate Institute in Cologne, Germany, have divided the necessary measures into three categories. The first category is the most optimistic, with a very high probability that climate goals will be met, including a significant increase in renewable energy, which would require emissions savings of 30 gigatonnes by 2030.

So experts make adjustments taxes so that, if there is an intensive mission. The products come to illustrate what that implies. We will use a football stadium as a reduced model. The Allianz Arena, home of Bayern Munich, once a year a new grass is implemented around the world. stadium the job of those trying to save the climate is to ensure everything is green the task at hand is to cover the entire field to eliminate those 30 gigatonnes is this possible now? Its abundance of lakes, fjords, rivers and streams is a nearly inexhaustible supply of energy for society if the Source is stored in reservoirs as the Norwegians do here at the Tunstad power station in southern Norway.

Gautier's house opens the door to another world within a rocky slope. They will show us how the country manages to produce more energy than it consumes with the help of 1,600 hydroelectric facilities. The Tunstead facility alone generates enough energy to power the homes of a city of one and a half million people. Its waters sink to the depths. Of 440 meters capacity here is 320 megawatts, it is 100 times a normal wind turbine. It seems quite big to me, one of the largest in Norway and where does all that surplus energy go, first to this substation not far from the plant and from there to Germany via an undersea cable that allows both countries to transmit or receive clean green energy, as circumstances demand, when there is much more energy than that used by Germany, they can send it to us and we can stop our own machines and save water for the future when the wind does not blow in Germany, we can produce it and send it back, that's how it worked , we are working together to make the most of it.

The direct electrical link between water-rich Norway and windswept Germany came online in May. 2021 nodlink runs between Tonstad, where power lines emit an audible hum, to Vista in northern Germany, where the 1,400 megawatts emit more hum. In theory, this balance between production and demand would also work within Germany if it were not for legal objections delaying the planned zood. As a result, the extension of the project link to the south of the country, strong breezes in the north have caused the cables to overheat and the turbines to temporarily shut down. A waste of energy with valuable green electricity Lost In The Wind with nordlink at least there is no such waste, what we are doing here is connecting German wind power with Norwegian hydropower in the process, making the system much more robust and reaping the benefits of both energy sources.

Nordink is a European showcase project and a boost for Germany's energy transition and expansion. of renewables, even if it is just a first step, so far the transition has mainly focused on electricity, we now have 50 renewables in our network, but they only make up 10 percent of the total energy needs, so with 90 to cover in the next 25 years it's time to accelerate. Returning to greenhouse gases Cuts needed by 2030 What does the first, least challenging category of measures comprise and how would they help increase renewable energy production again, less call-based energy in China, reductions in India and fewer gases fluorinated greenhouse gases, are they relatively simple measures? that could be implemented quickly and together they would mean cutting around 3.7 gigatonnes our football stadium example is showing its first green patches a 3.7 gigatonne drop in greenhouse gases is a good 12 of the 30 gigatonnes that They must be eliminated by 2030.

Global inequality and injustice are exacerbated by the pervasive effects of climate change, while the rich northern hemisphere continues to pollute the air, those bearing the burden are mainly found in the south, mainly around the equator in countries such as Indonesia. The village next to the Indian Ocean is called pantai bahagia rising. Sea levels and torrential rains have left the beach happy, as its name translates as sinking into the water, and this is during the dry season, more than half of the children here have already been taken out of school. Parents say conditions in classrooms are damp and smelly. are unacceptable - he himself was a primary school pupil and is now doing his best in difficult conditions to brave the elements with his lessons - he tells us about the first time his classroom flooded in 2013.

It is extremely difficult for everyone us here. We often have to send students home because when the tide comes in they sit up to their legs in water. Regular classes are impossible and teachers cannot keep up with the schedule. Within five or six years, the teacher estimates that the entire school will be ready. submerged then there will be no one left here, that's fine, but how will the world be in three decades, in 2050? Well, at that time there will be the most extreme weather conditions ahead with our 17,000 islands, many coasts and it will be devoured by the Sea then life will not be the same since here there are many diseases there will be plagues and the economic growth of the world and the whole world will be disturbed by horizontal fights against each other because fighting for food water Maybe Arrowser, that would be a very sad scenario in 2050.

Fanatics will become living in people will abandon the instant to survive the climate. Migration is already with us and this is just the beginning. Several areas of the earth will become literally uninhabitable. because it is too hot there are floods or the soil is not arable Davey is struggling when they talk about people on the Move in the millions, so we are talking about people in the billions by the middle of this century. Millions more people are expected to do so. flee their homes not because of war or persecution but because of the climate - the world seems to be heading towards a deeply worrying future - it is not only in countries like Alaska and Russia where we must prepare for the permafrost to melt and no longer hold the soil along with the European Alps is also affected Permafrost expert Michael from the Technical University of Munich has today assembled a team of scientists for a research project and they will fly to inspect a place of great interest: the chosen landing site in the Hawthorn Mountain, straddling the Austrian-German border is so small that the helicopter cannot land properly.

Right next to the summit is a crack that has widened rapidly since 2014, increasing the risk of rockfalls. The view from above reveals the full extent of the danger with several hundred thousand tonnes of rock threatening to cascade into the valley. Thank you, taking measurements here at an altitude of just under 2,600 meters is a risky task. What could happen if the summit collapses? It's not worth thinking about. This rock mass has a total volume. Of 260,000 cubic meters, which is a lot, it has moved 30 centimeters since we startedmeasure in 2014 and currently the rate is a few millimeters per month the smears are so strong and can change so quickly that it won't be long until everything comes flying potentially even this year or next, the mountains begin to give way when the permafrost no longer able to hold them together and not just here in Central Europe, the Alpine idling is literally falling apart and the repercussions are something residents are all too aware of.

In the town of Bondo in southeast Switzerland it's time to say goodbye. to the house he has lived in all his life today is being demolished when he hits my house and I take a shower when I look at my house well, it is gradually dying, it makes me feel sad, but We are ready for it in the summer of 2017, A massive landslide that started in the pits of Changalo Mountain brought 3 million cubic meters of rock crashing into the valley. Suddenly I heard this huge noise and as I looked up the mountain I saw these big pieces of rock falling it looked like lava because it was very slow and silent icy water and dirt these images were captured by the security camera of a carpentry shop the landslide left eight hikers dead and the town partially destroyed another disaster resulting from climate change there used to be houses here now there is only huge rubble.

Elvira Zales's house was flooded with debris and is now in a prohibited area of ​​the town where no one is allowed to live. She had to leave her home after the disaster and has since been living with her son in a neighboring town. She shows us photos of her beloved 345-year-old family home purchased by her great-grandfather. Initially I was deeply saddened, I cried a lot and was very happy to be able to be there. The demolition is like with people, they don't let themselves die alone and I didn't want to let my house die alone either and the danger is far from over for the residents of Bondo with another 3 million cubic meters of scree that threatens to come down to the town from pitschengalo at any time summarizing the situation in Bondo and neighboring villages is a sign stuck on the side of a house the mountain has fever the impact of climate change in Siberia and the Far East of Russia cannot be compared to Africa or Southeast Asia , but here too the number of people threatened increases every year and for those directly affected, like an old friend of Nikita zimov, it means that another means of life is destroyed here.

Leonid Nalotov has led an isolated existence here for three decades, the nearest city is about 80 kilometers away, and he had done well all those years. A fisherman by trade, he had a monopoly on the large lake directly behind his house, on all the different species of fish it contained. The salmon-like white fish was the most lucrative, fetching more than five euros per kilo and an average specimen weighed about 15 kilos, but Plenty's days are gone because his lake no longer exists, it used to extend 15 kilometers, but it was has been reduced to a handful of ponds and pools.

Originally the permafrost had frozen and solidified a natural dam separating the lake from a river, however, rising temperatures caused the once-permanent ice to eventually melt the dam. The breach happened just a few weeks ago during another hot summer it's a huge loss for me, my water ran out, my lake dried up and all my fish were gone, they were my income and now I've lost everything for those 30 years. I was afraid that something might happen, that's why I did it. I did my best to reinforce the dam with bushes and bushes I hoped it would not happen that soon the fisherman was not the only one who had underestimated the rate at which the climate is already changing now there is no time to waste for researchers governments and industry will take action Greendale's launch to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 is a step in the right direction in the past a major argument against climate protection in Germany was that no one else was doing anything but that no longer works China It has now declared its willingness to adopt a climate-neutral stance and phase out coal, oil and gas, as has the United States, along with the EU.

These countries cover a large part of the global market, so the rest of the world has to join them. The question is no longer Whether we phase out oil and gas for cars, certain major players in the global climate game have been dragging their feet, including Germany, in recent years, but as former Chancellor Angela Merkel discovered, honesty sometimes is not defined in Parliament but in the courts in April 2021. The government received a very public wake-up call when the country's Constitutional Court issued a landmark ruling requiring lawmakers to significantly improve climate protection measures in another landmark ruling In the Netherlands, just a month later, a court ordered the multinational oil company Shell to drastically reduce its greenhouse gases. issues two cases with the potential to set a global precedent for courts acting as environmental policy watchdogs vital progress on the climate protection front in the 11th hour foreign emergency room Danny Arnold embarks today on a very precarious descent in the canton of Ban in Switzerland to explore the Mart Glacier plan from the inside, deep in this crevasse, find spectacular rock and ice formations.

Not many people have been down here. The ice is thousands of years old and is still solid and stable enough that Dany can cut the ax out of it to get to it. To the bottom it is a steep and dangerous climb. Getting back up is a unique experience, not least because it may not be possible in the foreseeable future. It makes you wonder when you consider that researchers say none of this will be here again in 90 years. It's time there were no more glaciers, that's quite tragic, isn't it? Thank you, this is the Alex Glacier, which is also located in the Swiss Alps and is more than 20 kilometers long and in some parts almost a kilometer thick.

E from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has been investigating this enormous natural phenomenon. I wonder if at least this monster, as he calls it, will survive in the near future. We can't really do anything because now the glacier is reacting to the change in climate, to the increase in temperature that we had since the 90s, which means that even if we don't do what will happen in the future in terms of climate, the glacier will continue going back at least five kilometers and what would happen if temperatures increased by 4 degrees as experts now predict?

Guillaume Juve calculates that by the end of the century, the Allech glacier would have almost completely disappeared, so if we assume that this climate scenario is correct, it is most likely that there will be very little ice by 2100 in energy, it is obvious that here in this landscape There will be no more ice at the end of the century. Higher up we visited the Concordia alpine refuge a few years ago. It is run by Christophe Saga and his family. Today he has come here to prepare you for the summer season. abroad can accommodate 155 guests alpine hikers, skiers and glacier enthusiasts from all over the world thanks to its panoramic views the Concordia hut is one of the most popular alpine lodges in Europe it is the most beautiful place in the world to work I know other alpine huts They are lovely but to me this is just the most amazing place to work but the alech is in a long term grave and apparently in terminal danger.

Kristoff Saga descends steep steps from The Hut to point out signs that the largest glacier in the Alps is retreating, originally built on this site in 1877. Back then, the glacier reached roughly as far as we are, so in Over the course of 140 years everything below has melted, it has receded about 150 meters in 140 years per meter. Approximately per year the ice melts at an increasing rate sometimes two to three meters per year even this giant of Iglesias days are numbered global warming will probably affect most towns and cities in Siberia and the Russian Far East about 25 million people In total, how serious is the impact of melting permafrost?

Measurements taken by the Global Earth Network for permafrost give us an idea: in 1996, permafrost melted to a depth of 45 centimeters in the summer, in 2017 the figure was 87 centimeters, double the depth in just a few years. 20 years this represents a danger for both people and infrastructure. Pipelines for district heating, natural gas and oil are especially affected. Greenpeace estimates that pipeline leaks caused by ground subsidence cause the loss of around one percent of oil, or about 5 million oil. tons of it every year leach into the ground. Residents of the Arctic city of Chesky and the Russian Republic of Saka are among those witnessing this rapid transformation.

Temperatures are rising inexorably. The asphalt on the streets has begun to buckle and several buildings show signs of the ground. where they were built is no longer as solid and has begun to sink into the Colima River. It is also the home of scientist and climate activist Nikita Zimov. Although temperatures here dropped to -60 degrees Celsius in winter, the continued erosion of the permafrost soil is relentless. This is especially evident at the former water treatment plant as all the buildings here were built on tall pillars. It has only been two years since that the earth started to sink here now the crater is already 10 meters deep as soon as it starts it goes very hard so when I was here a week ago there were some of those two points still in the air and now we come to the cooperative that I was already down and there is a huge niche under the purple, where this ice has eroded and Over time, all that soap will collapse too, so this process will grow and I know it's centimeters per day, maybe tens of centimeters per day on a hot day so we have a significant build up in the permanent forest area and now with the weather getting warmer my pen is freezing. also with warming and degradation it seems so, so the entire infrastructure in the coming decades will probably improve with considerable effort, it is certainly possible to protect individual buildings, but the idea of ​​​​completely saving eastern Russia seems to be a battle lost abroad.

The first signs of an era of heat are on the horizon in central Germany. In Vitian they fight to preserve the last wetlands in the Minsterland region. Intensive farming and drainage have already destroyed 95 of Germany's marshes. The biologist and climate activist wants to see recovery. irrigation of these unique ecosystems everything that ends up in a raised bog like this is preserved in acidic conditions and the absence of oxygen means there is no degradation and that is what makes the box so valuable for climate protection: they store quantities infinite amounts of carbon and release nothing. of its peat bogs grow only one millimeter per year, the barrier has had more than six thousand years to store large amounts of carbon when it comes into contact with oxygen as a result of the drainage of these peat bogs, and it also becomes a carbon bomb similar to permafrost.

Russian. Tip: If powerful heat lenses only cover three percent of the Earth's surface but contain 30 percent of our carbon reserves, we are talking on a scale that if everything now breaks down and enters the air as CO2, then there will be a climate problem massive. While climate champions like Kirsten Vitian are determined to restore those precious peatlands, some of the planet's remaining natural paradises are under increasingly brutal attack. The Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, much of this rainforest is located in swamps and wetlands. Deforestation here means two Carbon dioxide disaster slash-and-burn practices come here.

The main reason for this senseless destruction is our huge demand for palm oil. It is used as an additive to diesel fuel and is found in countless products in our supermarkets, from cosmetics to cooking oil, soups and candy. Indonesia is by far the largest supplier of palm oil in the world and its lands are covered in plantations as far as the eye can see. Among them are those belonging to Muhammad Raji, who started just a few years ago with just two hectares. The rapid profits allowed him to buy more land and grow more trees. His ever-growing business empire now extends to 300 hectares.

There are many perennial crops but I have not found any that generate more money than palm oil and more money means more deforestation. almost 11,000 kilometers from Borneo Researchers are working to find a solution: strains of algae and yeast are the secret weapons used by the synthetic biotechnology research department at the Technical University of Munich. They can be used in a wide range of products, saysProfessor Thomas Brook. Robust building blocks made of carbon, food biofuels and in fact also synthetic palm oil which is a kind of scientific sensation and there is a colossal demand from the industry for a palm oil substitute, researchers now want to increase quickly production from a thousand liters to 10 or even a hundred thousand liters together with his PhD student.

Decoded a strain of yeast with unique characteristics, yeast cells can convert 90% of their mass into an oil with a quality identical to that of natural palm oil. Here we have the liquid fraction and the solid fraction which looks like purified palm oil. The big difference is that our process is completely independent of agricultural activity and climatic conditions, in addition we do not need to cut down any tropical forest unlike large-scale palm oil production, so our product is 100% sustainable and also commercially competitive with palm oil already available. abroad the fruits of the trees that produce the precious oil weigh up to 50 kilos per bunch roji has harvests of up to a thousand tons per month and there is no shortage of buyers the demand seems insatiable the Munich researchers do not want to destroy jobs in Indonesia their objective is to establish laboratories on the ground and cooperate with local farmers.

The response so far has been encouragingly positive abroad. This is a new invention that is faster and simpler than our farming method and with huge profits, there are many advantages in terms of efficiency, profitability and prosperity for all, of course all palm oil farmers will be interested. What we do here in Germany has a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. In other countries we consume a lot of imported meat and palm oil, and all of these activities mean deforestation or additional emissions elsewhere, so our behavior matters. Let's go back to our stadium analogy and the model for calculating greenhouse gas reductions.

We are now at the end of category number two devised by climate experts. The second category measures are where we already know how they work. but they require a further step, which means following those who are already making progress, first accelerating the expansion of renewable energy and stopping deforestation and expanding electromobility. Implementing all of this would save us another 12 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions, so those reductions in the first category are now joined by a series of measures that add up to 12 gigatons, almost half of the goal. Rising temperatures, as seen in the Alps, can lead to water shortages, even at high altitudes now often relying on artificial snow, which requires a lot of water and energy to create almost all villages in the Alps depend on the tourism and therefore snow, and keeping winter sports fans happy is an absolute priority.

The show must go on while it still can, whatever the cost, the increasing scarcity of water from high-altitude sources is a harbinger of possible desertification in some parts of the Alps. Meltwater is especially scarce in Upper Bavaria in the Last year the water level in Lake Walshen had to be deliberately reduced. The precautionary measure was due to the risk of flooding due to the large amount of meltwater in the spring. Before there was so much that we had to leave room for it in the lake, but for some time now the lake has been much less than it can absorb. so that we do not need to reduce the water level For centuries farmers in the Engadine mountains of Switzerland have relied on meltwater to irrigate their fields, but meltwater has become a finite resource is among those that have become dependent on rainwater now in the In summer, their meadow is completely dry due to the excessively dry climate, as I see it says here in Turkish, as you can see, it says withered like hay, nothing has grown since May, the grass should knee-deep at this time of year and the cows will soon return home. of the mountain pastures their cows still graze for the moment at an altitude of 1900 meters, but it is also too dry there the cows do not drink enough in the summer of 2018 the well that normally supplies them had almost completely dried up until the last straw It is appreciated that you periodically check the livestock.

He fears for the future of his alpine pastures. This happened here at night. We have 90 cows and their calves and the water here is not enough for even one case. It seems that strange clouds are forming. It may rain, but no, it's another terribly dry day. The farmer has to rely on an alternative source of water at this time. This is the only way to guarantee the water supply in the pastures. The helicopter delivered 700 liters ago. It takes several trips to fill it. The well, with a total cost of 1,300 euros, is only enough for four or five days.

There is not enough water for the animals to drink or for the valley grasslands that provide fodder for the animals in winter. Well, we won't have it. enough animal feed for next winter, so we can either buy some, which is very expensive, or we reduce the price of our livestock. It has already had to sacrifice some of its animals and profound changes are taking place in the Alps, here in Austria, teams of specialists are underway. The constant duty to prevent the mountainsides from sliding down. Prolonged periods of drought and excessive heat frequently result in devastating wildfires, as seen here in the Italian region of Piedmont.

Climate change is sometimes a shortage of water, sometimes too much. The Indonesian island of Java is an excellent example. Forests in mountainous regions helped store rainwater, but as they fall victim to increasingly intensive logging, rainwater flows freely into the valleys. Sometimes, water destroys everything in its path. This video is from 2017 and 2018. Thanks, Local experts estimate that by the middle of the 21st century Climate change will have forced 40 million people to flee their homes, in Indonesia alone, farmers who can no longer cultivate their fields For them, too, it is just a matter of time until they are forced to flee the rising waters.

Around 1,000 people were buried in the cemetery on the outskirts of the town called Happy Beach, for some there will be no rest in eternal peace. Abroad, temperatures are rising everywhere, even to a lesser extent. in urban areas thanks also to more air conditioning in homes and offices and this is where the experts from the Technical University of Aachen come in one of their pilot projects: this kitchen study the energy-saving technology is visible when you literally look behind From the façade, the entire building is wrapped in a fabric that keeps the sun's rays at bay. Take a step back and become practically invisible from the inside.

It is an experiment that has paid off for kitchen designer Susanna Olowsky. Lower costs of cooling in summer and lower greenhouse gas emissions this is an excellent example, although on a very small scale with a moderate amount of glazing, but still this textile façade surrounding the building can alone save around 1.4 tons of CO2 per year in the climate control of the building for some time, not only are the fabrics that have been woven by the machines of the University Institute of Textile Technology fashionable, they also manufacture sustainable products that can help save the climate. Research on textile facades is an interdisciplinary task here in this co-working space in a former church in Aachen.

Architects work alongside civilians. Environmental and climate engineers and even ophthalmologists and the results of their joint efforts are enormously promising classes. The proportion of glazing that is already very transparent and we can save up to 78 percent in cooling energy and reduce 60 or 65 percent of total energy consumption with an additional textile. for sale sounds like the world of tomorrow and sometimes it also seems that way in this bielefeld car park the innovative facades of Aachen improve both the climate footprint of the building and its aesthetic appeal we are already in the third and final category of possible greenhouse gas reductions proposed by the new Cologne Climate Institute, these are particularly demanding measures that have rarely been implemented to date, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the cooling of buildings, as seen recently , as well as the reduction of industry and agriculture Economist Atma Edenhofer Co-director of the Potstamp Institute for Climate Impact Research, accompanied by her colleague Herman Lotsa Campan, the right-wing agricultural economist wants to see massive reductions in the agricultural sector.

Food production is responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. In Germany, for example, people eat an average. From 1.2 kilos of meat per week, reducing that figure further to around a quarter of current meat consumption would have huge dividends. 300 grams per week is a quarter of the current amount, so we would still eat meat perhaps only once or twice a week, but according to climate specialist Nicholas Hoonah, it would go a long way to reducing emissions. Implementing the three measures belonging to the final category could reduce an additional 3.3 gigatonnes in total, which would be around 20 gigatonnes, but well below the 30 gigatonnes needed.

So, despite all those efforts, it seems that the game is over. It is not possible to do more with conventional means. So what happens if we move forward regardless? By the end of the century we will reach a temperature increase of just under three degrees Celsius, which would be a disaster. climate change and an uncontrollable situation, the implementation of measures in all three categories could mean a reduction of 20 gigatonnes by 2030, leading to a temperature increase of 1.8 degrees by the end of the century, although unfortunately that would not be enough to reach 1.5 degrees. It is still a great improvement and a very important step forward here along the bed of the mayobula river there are signs of despair everywhere the north of Cameroon receives only two months of rain a year in August and September during the rest of the year the people You have to walk considerable distances to find water or dig deep.

Older people who live here say that water used to flow abundantly through the mayobula and into the Lagunana River before flowing into Lake Chad, but those days are gone due to the continued decline in rainfall. Cameroon is also suffering from a devastating drought. Neighboring Chad, the lake that lent its name to the latter country, is the only natural source of water in the region. The United Nations migration organization has spent years traveling through the Sahel region in the scant shade of a fragile-looking tree. Talk to Muhammad Ibrahim. He is a shepherd and tells the visitor about the ordeal his family suffered before finally arriving at Lake Chad.

Climate change has a great impact on us herders, if it does not rain, plants do not grow and without green plans to eat, our animals die, so shepherds like me are greatly affected. With this everyone depended on this sauce, you can realize that this lake is unique, it is just fresh water within a married area, which is why so many livelihoods depend on this conference, if the conference disappears, it will be a serious environmental

catastrophe

because without the conference we can hardly speak of a lively atmosphere in the region where the conference was held. Together, the group goes out to inspect the cattle that are currently being herded a few kilometers away by Mohammed Ibrahim's son, while the small caravan of cars passes through one of the countless dry forests.

Tens of thousands of depressions in the territory used to be part of Lake Chad, but in the space of a few years the lake has shrunk at an almost unfathomable rate. In 1963, Lake Chad covered an area of ​​25,000 square kilometers. In 2007 it was only 2,500 square kilometers, more than 90 percent less, a trend that will continue. Millions of people in central Africa have already left this increasingly arid region and headed south, while some are trying to go further north towards Europe. Almost 40 million people are still alive. on the sinking shores of Lake Chad, if they dried completely, more than 50 million people would likely become climate refugees.

Muhammad Ibrahim and his extended family already fall into the category of environmental migrants. Oh yes, I had a lot of animals, 60 to 70, but there is no water anywhere and nothing grows anymore. All the camouflages, except five, have died. First we were in Niger, then in Nigeria and now we are in Chad. HereIt hasn't gone any better either and soon we will have to move to where there is still water. the south I don't know Lake Chad remains the source of life for millions of people, but as it continues to decline, water is becoming an increasingly scarce and valuable resource, just like arable land and fish in the lake as Lake Chad becomes smaller.

The competition for these resources will become increasingly bitter, even now the region's fishermen face a decline in carp, Nile perch and tilapia populations, but there are projects that give reason for hope, such as here in neighboring Sudan where We were present when a local Fair Trade organization received a Visit payment from its financial partner ecosia, an online eco-friendly search engine based in Berlin. Katarina has been a fan of the sustainable approach adopted by Martin Bergkamp for years. Her small NGO helps women in Sudan grow acacia trees. Harmony seedlings are checked periodically. They were planted and how many have survived. 400,000 seedlings were planted in 2021.

A number that is predicted to almost double in 2022. 90 of the trees have withstood the conditions. A small miracle. Women often have to carry water from far away at temperatures above 40ºC. degrees Celsius, half of the precious good is for their families and the other half for their trees. A total of 400 women participate in the project. They expel their roots several tens of meters deep to reach groundwater, their survival specialists in a very hostile environment and also provide a natural product. That produces a decent profit, yes. The Acacia Senegal variety has the great advantage of starting to produce gum after a short number of years and this gum arabic means that each tree is worth four or five euros, which can increase over time as the trees produce more.

Therefore, it is a tree that generates continuous income. Some parts of Sudan are completely dry, often with little or no vegetation in sight, but suddenly that changes dramatically when we arrive at the village of Shagra, home to some 20,000 acacia trees, a veritable forest of trees planted here by Nadia. Ibrahim Muhammad had a seemingly inexhaustible energy and with the help of other local women he shows us how to make cuts in the bark of the trees to release the sap that hardens and becomes the valuable raw material. Gum Arabic is used in a wide variety of food products. including Coca-Cola, firstly, acacias give us rubber, which means a regular income, secondly, they stabilize the soil, thirdly, they prevent the desert from spreading further, fourthly, they protect all the vegetation in our region and they fish, because the acacias are very strong and can survive here.

Providing shade is fine, a single seedling in itself doesn't mean much, but in millions, the budding trees mean hope for Sudan and if the scale increases to billions, they could even help alleviate our climate problem. Thank you Nadia Ibrahim Mohammed and other locals. The women of the village of Shagra know the importance of trees for the Sahel region. Most of your children can now go to school thanks to the benefits of precious gum and, with a little luck, they will be able to enjoy higher education or train and find a job our team spent three years traveling the world researching change climate our immediate focus was the dire consequences of continued global warming the increasing frequency of minor and major

catastrophe

s the growing threat to people on the ground and the associated increase in the number of people fleeing their home countries we also spoke to those actively fighting against climate change and refuse to see it as a lost cause.

Among them is Christian Coyle, the founder of ecosia. Some would call him an idealist. Since then, his successful business has become a nonprofit operation. Instead of going to investors, any excess income is funneled into new trees. For every 50 search queries on its website, Ecosia has committed to planting a new seedling in one of 35 countries mainly around the equator; Now they number more than 175 million. Yes, it'd be great. For us, as a team, to have planted a few billion trees by 2013. What is really important is to drive a big rethink in society, not only about not pumping more CO2 into the air, but also about seriously thinking about how we can repair what that we have destroyed in recent decades, sometimes, if only occasionally, one might think that climate change and the surrounding debate were simply a transitory specter.

Take January 2018, for example, when it seemed like winter was finally back to what it used to be at the fabulous Glacier 3000 in Switzerland. Perfectly fresh skiing and snow sledding conditions and happy lift operators and vacationing families from all over the world in the spring of 2018, the atmosphere was positively euphoric among the scientists too. A team led by glacier expert Matthias Horse from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich visits the mountains once a year in spring and again in autumn when the next season begins, investigating how much fresh snow there was in winter and the sicker the snow layer on the ice or snow, the better the condition of the glacier will be on this day April 25, 2018.

It was in better condition than it had been for quite some time. In winter, more than five meters of thick snow fell. You have measured the water equivalent of snow, but seven glaciers in Switzerland. Our figures show that in 2018 the snow cover was well above average. It wasn't as deep everywhere in Switzerland as it is here, but it seems there were maybe up to 50 more than in a normal year. It would be bad if we were on the most colorful front of climate change. Fatalism is no better than naive. But Blind Ignorance says that to visionary researchers and others who think outside the box, some ideas may seem fantastic.

Feet in the sky and sometimes noisy, pushed over the Danish-German border is part of an attempt by Hamburg-based Sky Sails. To harness wind energy, where it is available in almost unlimited quantities, high above the ground, the kite drags a string into the air to a height of about 700 metres, in the process powering an electricity generator at the end of the cycle, the paraglider is pulled down to the ground with a minimum expenditure of energy and the Yoyo game begins again green energy from the wind in abundance the wind at high altitude gives us more energy and a more constant supply than the wind near the ground or at altitude of a normal wind farm instead of being slowed down by trees, buildings or mountains, it can move freely and that is why we have a much greater physical potential to harvest twice the wind speed and eight times the energy yield.

Kite operators are working on smaller devices like this to replace climate-damaging diesel generators, but there are plans for a much larger kite that produces more than a megawatt of power, it is particularly suitable for use in the high seas. sea ​​into larger wind farms such as a large scale power plant and this kite can be mounted on a small floating pontoon without the need for expensive foundations The kites built by Sky Sails are an exciting way to produce more green energy in the long term as a component of Germany's energy transition in this crucial decade. They are one of the many ideas that border on science fiction of geoengineering technical intervention on a planetary scale.

Cirrus clouds at high altitudes are similar to a dome with heat trapped underneath, if you destroy them with chemicals, the heat can escape from the atmosphere into space or, conversely, more clouds are produced, but at low altitudes through turbines on thousands of ships with the woolly clouds serving. as shade providers aliens actually assume gigantic dimensions space shuttles distribute sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere like a large volcanic eruption dust will cool the Earth instead of sulfur other climate solutions plan to use trillions of miniature shields to block the sun together forming A giant Aerial geoengineering with stationary sunshades on an unprecedented scale is an incredibly expensive and risky concept.

Critics say that manipulating clouds, for example, could completely disorganize the world's climate, but since time is of the essence, all options are worth considering. One idea is to remove harmful greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere, as Swiss company Climbing is trying to do. Works are failing to meet emissions targets despite progress, leaving us with limited options, the team says, around 2050. we will need to actively remove around 10 gigatonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. year and we do not have many options, there are biological options such as reforestation or the possibility of implementing machines that would increase the elimination of CO2 a thousand times.

The pilot of the Venture ascent work was installed on the grounds of a waste energy generation plant, this is because the filtering of greenhouse gases from the air through these huge collectors requires a lot of energy and for the concept makes sense, energy has to be renewable. CO2 molecules are filtered from the air and then liquefied. The users of the 900 tons produced annually, such as the nearby industrial greenhouse. are just a drop in the ocean, the ascent works think in completely different dimensions, several million tons a year, which is why the company has signed cooperation agreements with energy experts in Norway, for example, this is the platform of Slipener oil and gas drilling for a quarter of the For a century, its Norwegian operators have been experimenting here with injecting CO2 deep into the seabed and are now venturing into a new dimension.

Soon, special ships will call at the main ports in northern Europe to collect mainly liquefied CO2. from polluting industries such as steel and cement production, from there the material will be transported to the coastal city of UE Garden. This will be the terminal for Norway's new CO2 receiving facility. Critics say it would be better to prevent emissions in the first place rather than capture them. After and there is an argument that greenhouse gases could harm the sensitive underwater ecosystems in Norway itself, there are few opponents, the country's Parliament approved the idea with a large majority, while the government also strongly supports the Polar Light project carbon capture and storage. o CC is probably the most feasible concept currently emerging in the geoengineering world, according to current estimates the Norwegian continental shelf can absorb 80 gigatonnes of CO2, the same amount as all of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions over the years.

Next hundred years the first ships are ready to dock here already in January 2024. So right now we are at the Northern Lights receiving terminal, this is where we will receive CO2 from all over Europe. This is down, where we will take the CO2, the ships will dock, it will take a year and a half. million tonnes of CO2 per year and store it here temporarily before being pumped offshore and injected into a deep underwater reservoir in the North Sea from Oya Garden, the liquid CO2 will be pumped through a 100 kilometer long pipeline and then It will be injected into a porous layer of sandstone 2 At 600 meters below the seabed, a 75-meter-thick layer of shale prevents leaks.

Despite all these efforts, it is unlikely that they will succeed in reducing our greenhouse gas production to a tolerable level by 2030. Therefore, an additional plan is to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. an essential step also in the eyes of the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change the risks appear to be manageable we have experience in the subsoil of the North Sea having carried out oil and gas exploration there for more than 50 years now we take advantage of that experience all knowledge that has been developed about geology and applying it now to CO2 storage we have experts in the field who have evaluated the subsurface and they say that because of the primary and secondary seal that we have due to the geological structures, this is absolutely safe even if the capture and greenhouse gas storage will work, however, it is not a miracle solution, any realistic hope depends on more research and more reductions everywhere, the one and a half degree goal is still feasible, we cannot give in, we cannot It allows us to give in.

We have to fight this and do the best we can for the future and for our children. The next five or six years will be decisive. Well, we'll really have to pick up the pace. We have to move forward. Signs of an impending era of heat can be found everywhere, as our individuals are determined to take action, however unconventional, in the Russian Far East. Climate champion Nikita Zimov has fenced off about 20 square kilometers of the large tracts of land he hasbought. This is where he plans to realize his vision of a better, colder world. A project of gigantic proportions, he wants to use a large number of animals to create an ecosystem corresponding to that last scene in the prehistoric Pleistocene era.

He already has a hundred animals grazing here, reindeer. bison horses elk musk oxen sheep and even a small herd of yaks, if everything goes according to plan, in the end there will be 5,000 omnivores here. The climate ecologist wants to create a natural wonder in the winter and his animals have already started trampling the piles of snow. The cold can penetrate to the ground without obstacles. The scientist shows us how his so-called Pleistocene park works at great depth for several weeks. Over the course of several weeks he created a private system of permafrost tunnels that serves as a large scientific laboratory.

High-quality sensors and countless evaluations of soil samples show above all a The important thing is to compress the snow masses above with the help of their four-legged companions: horses, bison, yaks, horses, yaks, the bison, the reindeer, which in winter dig in the snow because they have to reach their food and when they trample it under the snow instead of a meter of snow we have 10 to 15 centimeters of very dense snow instead of a thick jacket of winter you only have a thin thick wool winter jacket that looks like a tiny little wool some sensors some sensors show that in places where there were no animals, the soil temperature in March dropped to -10 degrees at a depth of half a meter, but in The park where our animals stomped through the snow dropped to -24 degrees, so this is a huge 14 degree difference, thank you. this will definitely help this will definitely help humanity is oscillating between a horrible future scenario and an extremely horrible future that we have to fight against it is not about defeating climate change or global warming the question is simply to what extent we can save human existence the The visionary who came out of the cold and wants to return may never succeed in his mission to save the world with huge herds of animals, but what he has already achieved is that an increasing number of people realize the effects devastating effects of further melting of permafrost and the resulting release of more greenhouse gases our journey to the Sakhar Republic then takes us to the capital Yakutsk The Prague group of researchers is housed at the northern Institute of Applied Ecology They have just returning from a crater excavated in the permafrost where they discovered bones belonging to extinct prehistoric animals the site where fossilized remains were found was named Batagaika Crater but locals call it the gateway to the underworld it is easy to understand why in the 1960s a small section of forest was cleared to make way for a new road, the permafrost originally beneath the trees began to erode at first, the resulting hole was only a few meters deep.

ER, on average, the mega crater is 40 to 60 meters deep and in some places it is 100 meters, 1.5 kilometers long and about a kilometer. wide right now, but it's hard to determine exactly how wide it is because it's expanding so quickly, these types of catastrophic events could become increasingly common and not just in residential areas but anywhere in the wild where there are pipelines and installations. natural gas, all our infrastructure. could be affected in September 2018. Glacier expert Matthias Huss and his team made another visit to Switzerland's 3000 glacier. In April he was very encouraged by the enormous amounts of snow and now by the magnitude of the threat of climate change if we invest less than the maximum effort it is already evident here the glacier there the crossing is dying all the snow that should cover it disappeared in The space of just one summer there was just an incredible snow cap five meters deep the snow was thick and compact just think about it five meters of snow three thousand meters above sea level have melted in the course of a summer that did not We would have thought it was possible five meters of snow plus 1.3 meters of glacial ice, all of this in a continuous and relentless loss Matthias hoos is watching his beloved glaciers die is nothing less than a catastrophe thank you