Can “Biochar” make a country carbon Neutral?

Hemantha Withanage

Executive Director, Centre for Environmental Justice

Several patent applications have been made for industrial charcoal use in soil and for “Pyrolysis” for charcoal production. Industrial Charcoal or “Biochar” is one of the solutions sug­gested by the corporations to mitigate climate change. The promoters suggest “biochar” is similar to the “Terra Preta” a mixture of charcoal and varieties of bio­mass developed by the Central Amazo­nians thousands of years ago.

These “biochar” producers suggest that this is the “silver bullet” for reducing glob­al greenhouse gases thereby mitigating climate change. This has been already proposed to the UNFCCC and for clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Sev­eral African governments also proposed this in order to promote private sector involvement in climate Mitigation.

The Maldivian Government is targeting to become the first Carbon Natural na­tion by developing three small islands producing waste into “Biochar”. The com­pany involved in this business is Carbon Gold, a UK based entity.

However, many environmentalists dis­agree with this approach and suggest not including “biochar” in climate miti­gation proposals. One argument is that industrial “Biocharcoal” is not close to “Terra Preta”. New science has so far not unveiled the techniques used by the ancient people to produce it. If the new companies granted patents, those will ensure that any future profits from the technology will go to companies, not communities. According to the FOEI and other groups, given that successful strat­egies for combining charcoal with di­verse biomass in soils were developed by indigenous peoples, ‘biochar’ patenting raises serious concerns over bio piracy. The inclusion of soils in carbon markets, just like the inclusion of forests in carbon trading will increase corporate control over vital resources and the exclusion of smallholder farmers, rural communities and indigenous peoples.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has perpetuated, rather than re­duced fossil fuel burning by permitting industries to purchase “rights to pollute” and further delaying the social and eco­nomic changes which are essential for addressing climate change. The climate impacts of fossil fuel burning are irre­versible, yet so-called ‘soil carbon sinks’ are highly uncertain and impermanent.

“Biochar” producers suggest production of gigatones on “biochar” will reduce the CO2 into pre industrial levels. How­ever environmentalists state that it will require millions of hectares of lands to convert into biomass production which will be mostly monoculture plantations which are already problematic. This is not different from the controversial “Agro­fuel” production. A UNEP report found that industrial charcoal release most of its carbon content in 30 years time, al­though the “Biochar” producers suggest that this carbon will remain in soil for thousands of years.

There is no consistent evidence that charcoal can be relied upon to make soil more fertile. Industrial charcoal produc­tion at the expense of organic matter needed for making humus could have the opposite results.

Combinations of charcoal with fossil fuel-based fertilizers made from scrub­bing coal power plant flue gases are be­ing marketed as ‘biochar’, and those will help to perpetuate fossil fuel burning as well as emissions of nitrous oxide, a pow­erful greenhouse gas. According to the experts the process for making charcoal and energy (pyrolysis) can result in dan­gerous soil and air pollution.

Using waste for composting is the best solution for carbon minimization. How­ever, turning waste into “biochar”, perhaps will be better than burning them. How­ever, carbon in waste is not the problem for climate change. The biggest problem is burning fossil fuel. However “biochar” is not an alternative to fossil fuel. There are many scientific uncertainties over “biochar”. It is not a proven technology for making a country carbon neutral.

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Coal, renewables and the CO2 meter

How Sri Lanka is increasing its Carbon emission?

Hemantha Withanage,
Centre for Environmental Justice

Sri Lanka is already building a Chinese funded 900 Megawatt coal power plant in the Western coast of the island and plans are being made to build a joint venture 1000MW coal power plant with India’s National Thermal Power Corporation in the Eastern coast. Meanwhile, India and Sri Lanka will be linked with a 100MW energy supply cable under the Asian Development Bank funds. India, China and Australia are eyeing to sell their coal to Sri Lanka.

Australia is also planning to sell a 300 MW Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) power plant. Although LNG is cleaner, there is no single LNG power plant in Sri Lanka.

Solar power is the most expensive energy in the country. Some poor families in the remote areas, who have obtained solar energy, pay Rs. 70,000 in a 2 year period to light 3 bulbs and a B/W Television. Government has no tariff reductions for these renewable yet.

Mini-hydro plants’ estimated generation capacity would be 97.7 MW. However some mini-hydro power plants are more harmful to the Environment. Total Hydropower generation by the big reservoirs is around 1207 MW. However this is vulnerable to the climate change.

According to the sources Sri Lanka’s next best natural resource after the hydro power is wind power because of the Monsoon winds across the country. Sri Lankan government is planning to build the country’s second wind power plant, which is expected to generate 10MW of power. The country’s first wind power plant established in Hambantota which is generating about 3MW is not a very successful one.

Sri Lanka, is in a long debate on coal versus best alternatives. Coal power plant originally proposed in Trincomalee in 1985 was then moved to Mawella, Negombo and Norochocholai.

According to some CEB sources, present Coal power plant, financed by the Chinese government, is very costly. A unit of this coal power will be around 40 rupees. According to the sources CEB will only pay Rs. 18 while the balance would be subsidized by the government. The plant does not install the best available technology.

300 MW plant will require 2640 MT of coal daily. As we have indicated many times the 900 W coal power plant will burn 7920 MT daily. Each tonne of Coal produces 7186 pounds of CO2 assuming that 98% of the coal combustion happens. So the Norochcholai Coal plant will emit 28456 tonnes CO2 daily. This calculations show that 900 MW Coal plant will result Sri Lanka increase CO2 to 0.5 tonnes per capita.

Proposed total coal power generation capacity of Sri Lanka is around 3300 MW. According to the above calculations Sri Lanka will emit 2 tonnes per capita CO2 annually. Chinese and Indians financed coal power plants alone will increase Sri Lanka’s contribution to 1 tonnes per capita CO2.To put this in context, national average emissions in UK is 10 tonnes per capita. The UK government has pledged to cut emissions by 20% before 2012, to around 8 tonnes per capita. This forms part of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global climate change.

It is estimated that the sustainable CO2 emission quota per capita for each of 6 billion global inhabitants is 2 tonnes per annum. This means once Sri Lanka produces coal energy using 3300 MW coal plants, we will reach the sustainable level of CO2 emissions.

According to the Energy Forum Sri Lanka’s CO2 emissions have increased by 230% over the last 20 years: the world’s third highest rate. Therefore there is no doubt that the government must seriously review its policies, targets and plans for establishing 3300 MW of coal power plants in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately that is not the case.

The authorities argue that Sri Lanka can still increase its CO2 emissions, since we only emit 600 kg which is far below the proposed sustainable level. However once we reach the CO2 level only with Coal power there is no provision for other development.

Despite the CO2 emission Coal prices have also increased several times parallel to the oil prices. Those who debated for the Coal power argued that Coal energy will be the cheapest for the country. Since we do not have our own coal beds, we are unable to control the prices.

Sri Lanka still depends, for 70% of energy from Biomass. We also had many wind mills introduced 3 decades ago to draw water. The potential for wind, solar and wave energy is enormous in Sri Lanka. However, the coal and diesel lobby in Sri Lanka does not allow making our energy sustainable.

Your Planet Needs You! Unite to Combat Climate Change

Hemantha Withanage,
Executive Director/ Environmental Scientist
Centre for Environmental Justice

It is not yet another day. This year on World Environment Day, people around the world will join together to show their unity to combat climate change. World Environment Day (WED) was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.

Every monsoon season, in the past decade, we have seen more and more natural disasters. During other times we face severe droughts, mosquito menace, coastal erosion, heat waves which are somehow linked to climate change. IPCC findings, published in 2004, clearly shows that increase of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in the atmosphere as the reason for climate change. This includes, CO2, Methane, NO2, CFC and even water vapour. The main cause for climate change is burning fossil fuel, mainly by the developed nations, since the industrial era began. The world is debating since the RIO conference held in 1992, but with no emission reductions yet. Once again they will meet in Copenhagen in December 2009 for making some crucial decisions.

It is estimated that the temperature rise will be 2 – 5 degrees Centigrade at the end of the century. Some believe of a more severe temperature increase and 40 cm sea level rise by 2080. Some assessments state that the rise of average temperature by 4-5 degrees Centigrade will raise the sea level by 3-5 meters which leads to break up of ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica. Greenpeace says the breakdown of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) alone contains enough ice to increase the sea level by 5 meters and if all ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melt entirely, the sea level will rise by 70 metres. Although the countries except the United States signed the Kyoto protocol, which agreed to reduce 5.2% of CO2 emissions of the 1990 levels, none of the countries have fulfilled this obligation yet.

The world cannot be saved by the bodies appointed for saving it unless we all unite. This year's theme ‘Your Planet needs You! Unite to combat climate change' – is a topic that shows the value of every individual’s responsibility to protect the planet.

Sri Lanka has made less contributions to climate change. Although, our GDP is high enough to become a middle income country, we are still an agrarian society. However, we need to understand that the current development paradigm is not climate friendly. Most developed countries followed the thinking ‘develop today and conserve later.’ However the environmental disasters, including climate change, have shown that this is a failed approach.

Today we are facing three major crises, i.e. food crisis, climate crisis and financial crisis. At the end humanity is in a serious crisis. Some economists believe that the world will recover from the financial crisis. However, there is no easy solution for the food crisis and the climate crisis.

As Mahatma Gandhi once mentioned, “there are enough resources for the people’s needs but not for people’s greed.” The countries in the north have already exceeded their fair share in their resources utilization. They also have exceeded the use of the environmental space. The developed countries, representing less than one fifth of the world’s population, have emitted almost three quarters of all historical emissions. On a per person basis, they are responsible for more than ten times the historical emissions of developing countries. They owe the people in the south a huge ecological debt and emission debt. This is true for the wealthy minority in our own societies. They are not yet ready to pay this debt.

Unfortunately, the poor majority in the world suffers most from both the food crisis and the climate crisis. According to Greenpeace more than 120 million people will become climate refugees by the end of the century in India and Bangladesh alone. According to Oxfam, a charity organization, the world will require 50- 140 billion USD a year for the poorer countries to adapt to climate change.

So, it is clear that if we are to save the world, those who consume more and those who owe us need to pay their debts. Honouring these obligations is not only necessary but it is also the basis of a fair and effective solution to climate change. Those who benefited most in the course of causing climate change must compensate those who contributed least to it but bear its adverse effects.

Public perceptions show that people in Sri Lanka, who engage in nature based livelihoods, are already suffering from climate change. I wonder whether there are any statistics in Sri Lanka produced by the authorities since climate change is a very new subject for many of them. However, we cannot ignore climate change anymore as it is already causing impacts.

If we are to promote a carbon neutral economy we still have the opportunity and time for it. It is not advisable to wait for the government agencies to show the red flag on climate change. Every individual has the responsibility to act on climate change. To give few advises: - Use less energy consuming items, Use public transport or bicycles to save fuel where possible, Reduce the use of plastics. It is true that although 80% plastic can be recyclable, only 20% is recycled today. Plant a tree. Stop burning waste. Help recycling. Talk to your friends on climate change.

The authorities need a more dynamic approach on climate change. Sri Lanka’s coal lobby is not climate friendly. Although wind energy, solar energy are climate friendly, Sri Lanka’s authorities have a phobia in promoting them. Authorities still have a learning exercise on climate change. But, we should not underestimate the climate impacts to Sri Lanka as we are an island in the Bay of Bengal.

Cyclone ‘Nargiz’ attacked Burma killing more than 23,000 people and left around 40,000 homeless in 2007. Cyclone ‘Sidr’ killed over 4,000 people in Bangladesh in the same year. Therefore it is advisable for everyone to learn how to face severe weather conditions, floods and droughts, cyclones, sea level rise, or facing increased mosquito menace. Farmers need to learn how to adapt to droughts or delayed rainfall. Fishermen need to adapt to less catches, rough seas or less fish due to degradation of corals. It is not too late to include climate adaptation to the school curricula. We do not have to wait for such disasters to happen like hurricane ‘Katrina’, ‘Rita’ in the United States or cyclone ‘Nargiz’ in Burma. Only you can make this change.

Garo People

Hemantha Withanage

It was my dream to see “Garo people” when I saw the book entitled “Stolen Forest” written by environmental writer Philip Gain which shown the destruction of the “Sal Forest” they live. I had a rare opportunity to meet the “Garo people” live in Modhupur, about hundred kilometers away from Dhaka. I was with the Friends of the Earth Asia Pacific regional members and the friends from the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association.

Garo people have a Tibet- Burmese origin. Some believes they have come from Garo province in Meghalaya, in India and settled in the Sal Forest in Bangladesh centuries ago. They have own culture and living style. Garo people believe them as the “children of the forests”.

The “Sal Forest” now being reduced to a small area since the forest has been encroached by various agencies and elites. They grow Banana, Pineapple and Papaya for commercial purposes and apply agro-chemicals as promoted by an ADB funded project. Unfortunately they have lost the original life style. The authorities take them to the courts if they try to engage in their original activities. Garo people now look for support to reclaim their rights over the forest. It’s clear case how local indigenous people push into a development debacle.