University of Central Florida Researchers Unveil Breakthrough in Greenhouse Gas Recycling

August 13, 2023 / activist360

UCF researchers Richard Blair (left) and Laurene Tetard (right) are long-time collaborators and have developed new methods to produce energy and materials from the harmful greenhouse gas, methane.

In a significant step toward sustainable energy, researchers from the University of Central Florida (UCF) have innovated methods to convert the potent greenhouse gas, methane, into green energy and advanced materials.

Methane, with an impact 28 times greater than carbon dioxide over a century, is a notable contributor to global warming. Its emissions predominantly arise from energy sectors, agriculture, and landfills. Now, UCF’s groundbreaking methods might turn this environmental challenge into an opportunity, as they utilize methane for producing green energy and crafting high-performance materials for smart devices, solar cells, and biotech applications.

Behind these inventions are UFC researchers, nanotechnologist Laurene Tetard and catalysis specialist Richard Blair. Tetard is an associate professor and associate chair of UCF’s Department of Physics. He is also a researcher with the NanoScience Technology Center. Blair is a research professor at UCF’s Florida Space Institute. The two have been collaborating on research projects for the past decade.

Their pioneering technique produces hydrogen from methane without carbon gas emission. Utilizing visible light sources, like lasers or solar energy, and defect-engineered boron-rich photocatalysts, the process emphasizes the advanced potential of nanoscale materials.

Blair highlights the dual benefits: You get green hydrogen, and you remove — not really sequester — methane. You’re processing methane into just hydrogen and pure carbon that can be used for things like batteries.” Traditional methods, Blair notes, produce CO2 along with hydrogen. Their innovation not only tackles methane emissions but also transforms it into valuable hydrogen and carbon. Market applications include possible large-scale hydrogen production in solar farms and methane capture and conversion.

“Our process takes a greenhouse gas, methane and converts it into something that’s not a greenhouse gas and two things that are valuable products, hydrogen and carbon. And we’ve removed methane from the cycle.”
—Richard Blair, research professor at UCF’s Florida Space Institute

Additionally, this technology from Tetard and Blair offers the ability to manufacture carbon structures at nano and micro scales using light and a defect-engineered photocatalyst. Envisioning it as a “carbon 3D printer,” Blair notes the dream is to make high-performance carbon materials from methane.

“It took a while to get some really exciting results,” Tetard says. “In the beginning, a lot of the characterization that we tried to do was not working the way we wanted. We sat down to discuss puzzling observations so many times.”

Countries lacking significant power sources could potentially benefit, requiring only methane and sunlight to leverage the innovation. As Blair summarizes, the process takes a greenhouse menace and turns it into precious, non-polluting commodities.

Asset Managers’ Climate Pledges: Bold Promises or Mere Rhetoric?

August 6, 2023 / activist360

InfluenceMap Asset Managers and Climate Change Report: Climate analysis of the sector’s portfolios, stewardship, and policy influence, August 2023.

Despite the wave of global commitments towards achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, the recent study InfluenceMap Asset Managers and Climate Change Report: Climate analysis of the sector’s portfolios, stewardship, and policy influence by FinanceMap paints another picture. The world’s largest asset managers, controlling an astounding $72 trillion, are falling dramatically short of their ambitious climate pledges.

FinanceMap’s analysis scrutinized the strategies of 45 titan asset management firms. Their threefold criteria encompassed portfolio alignment with climate objectives, effective stewardship of their invested companies, and genuine engagement with sustainable finance policies. The results are concerning: a staggering 95% of portfolios failed to align with the imperative IEA Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario.

The research also revealed that these financial behemoths are holding nearly three times the equity value in fossil fuel enterprises compared to their ‘green’ investments. The definition of ‘green’ here leans on the EU Taxonomy and Bloomberg data. Equally alarming is the 45% dip in top-tier Stewardship asset managers since 2021, those once hailed for their groundbreaking climate stewardship practices.

Though European asset managers, such as Legal & General Investment Management, BNP Paribas, and UBS, demonstrate commendable engagement with their investee companies, their American counterparts present a grim scenario. US firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity Investments have shown declining or consistently low stewardship scores, hinting at a worrying trend in the US’s approach to environmental, social, and governance factors.

Even as these revelations come to light, the irony lies in the fact that 86% of these asset managers are members of at least one industry group that actively oppose the very sustainable finance policies needed for global decarbonization.

Daan Van Acker, FinanceMap’s Program Manager, summarizes the situation aptly: “While they may talk the talk, most asset managers are not walking the walk.”

For access to the report, readers can visit FinanceMap.org.

UN goal of ending hunger by 2030 risks failure as global food crisis worsens

July 16, 2023 / activist360

*The ‘three sisters’ are staple foods for many Native American tribes. Marilyn Angel Wynn/Getty Images*

Pandemic and war in Ukraine have pushed 122 million more people into hunger since 2019, according to new report.

By David Henry, Forests News

The number of people facing hunger in the world has risen by more than 122 million since 2019 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and weather shocks, according to a new United Nations report.

It is estimated that 691 million to 783 million people lacked sufficient food in 2022, affecting 9.2% of the global population compared with 7.9% in 2019, the year before the pandemic began, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2023 report, which is produced by five UN agencies.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) provide an annual update on the world’s progress towards ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition.

The 2023 report emphasized that the UN Sustainable Development Goal of creating a world free of hunger by 2030 risks failure if current trends continue. It is projected that almost 600 million people will be chronically undernourished at the end of the decade.

“The latest SOFI report highlights the urgent need to reverse the trends that undermine the world’s ability to achieve the goal of zero hunger by 2030,” says Éliane Ubalijoro, Chief Executive Officer of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF). “Trees, forests and agroforestry landscapes have a vital role to play in this process by helping address the interrelated challenges of biodiversity loss, climate change, food security, livelihoods and inequity.”

To help transform food systems, CIFOR-ICRAF is promoting the wide-scale adoption of agroecological approaches, including farmer-led strategies to increase tree cover and diversity across agricultural landscapes. And by providing evidence on how forests and trees contribute to people’s diets, it is raising awareness and influencing national policies to include forests and trees as part of national and local food systems.

‘’The SOFI 2023 report shows that in a world where regular crises become the new norm, increasing the resilience of agrifood systems is a priority,” says David Laborde, Director of the FAO Agrifood Economics Division (ESA). “Forestry has a key role to play in this system. The range of actions and opportunities is vast: from helping the regulation of water flows and mitigating the severity of heatwaves, to providing income diversification options and more robust integrated production systems.’’

While global hunger stabilized in 2022 alone, it continued to increase in some vulnerable countries, in particular in Africa. Seizing the opportunity provided by forests, either by rebuilding them in the Sahel region, or preserving their services in Central and Eastern Africa is part of reversing the hunger trend in these countries, Laborde says.

As it addresses five global challenges, CIFOR-ICRAF is committed to transforming food systems that are based on sustainable land management, equitable outcomes for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, as well as supply chains that rely on sound environmental practices and social inclusion.

Trees can make a major contribution to boosting the productivity of farming systems and the lives of rural communities, who provide most of the world’s food. CIFOR-ICRAF facilitates this process by helping farmers choose the right tree for the right place for the right purpose on their farms and then to manage them effectively.

“Agroecology enables farmers to grow food while preserving soil health and improving the resilience of food systems,” says Fergus Sinclair, Chief Scientist at CIFOR-ICRAF. “The world produces enough food to feed nearly twice the current population, yet millions of people are still hungry. A greater emphasis on agroecology, including reducing food loss and waste, would help policymakers tackle this worsening global food crisis.”

The 2023 SOFI report highlighted that agroecology has a role to play in ending hunger by the end of the decade while offering other benefits. At plot, farm and landscape scales, it can help increase farmers’ incomes, improve food security and nutrition, use water more efficiently and enhance nutrient recycling, as well as conserve biodiversity and provide other ecosystem services.

Agrifood systems will also need to be viewed beyond the traditional rural-urban divide, according to the UN agencies. Due to population growth, small and intermediate cities and rural towns are increasingly bridging the space between rural areas and large metropolises, creating both challenges and opportunities to ensure everyone has access to affordable healthy diets.