Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, March 2024
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.
News
Publish date: February 14, 2022
News
14th of February 2022
The climate crisis is one of the most important and urgent challenges of our generation. The IPCC Special Report on a global warming of 1.5 degrees shows clearly that the next 10 years are crucial in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Amongst other sectors, heavy industry faces great challenges to transform and align with international and European climate targets and immediate action is therefore necessary. The European Green Deal aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the European Union by 55 percent in 2030 and to reach net zero in 2050. Of these emissions, 18 percent originates from the production of basic materials like steel, cement, lime, ferro-alloys, aluminium and chemicals (ammonia, methanol, ethylene and propylene).
A substantial part of the European basic materials production happens in industrial clusters in north-western Europe. The ARRRA (Antwerp-Rotterdam-Rhine-Ruhr Area) cluster produces 40 percent of all chemicals in Europe. Steel and cement companies also show a high degree of integration in this region. The mutual interdependence of companies operating in the cluster translates into common needs and comparable emission reduction challenges. To act on climate change, fulfil their societal role and stay competitive in the future, companies in the ARRRA cluster must comply with the net-zero and circularity objectives of the European Green Deal. Given its highly interconnected nature, the cluster needs a renewed joint strategy towards net-zero emissions in 2050 (or 2045, as is the ambition of the German federal government) for all sectors. The cross-border nature of some of these industries calls for cross-border government efforts to decarbonise.
This letter, signed by a large group of civil society and private sector stakeholders from the Netherlands, Belgium and North-Rhine Westphalia, calls on the national and regional governments of the Netherlands, Belgium, Flanders, Wallonia, Germany, and North Rhine-Westphalia to accelerate and deepen their collaboration on industrial transformation planning. We call for a common vision and strategy to realise a CO2 transport and storage infrastructure that accelerates industrial decarbonisation and structural emission reductions. This is an integral part of infrastructure for climate neutrality, besides an enlarged electric grid and hydrogen pipelines. Governments need to take the lead in foreseeing the cross-border infrastructure needed to make the large-scale emission reductions possible. As society relies on industry to decarbonise, the companies rely on the government to ensure the enabling infrastructure. This is both an infrastructural and a climate policy challenge, both a private and a public matter.
While this letter focusses on Carbon Capture and Storage as a part of the solution, the signatories acknowledge that companies have a portfolio obligation in the transformation towards net zero emissions. In such an ‘and-and’ approach, measures that decarbonise production processes, such as energy efficiency, electrification with renewable energy and circular production processes should be prioritised. At the same time, they recognise that the development of Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) for long-lived, (repairable, reusable) and recyclable products and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) are additional solutions to reach the 2030 and 2050 climate targets. An industrial transformation plan requires actions in all these domains, coupled with a finance strategy and plans to realise the required infrastructure.
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In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has told the United Nations atomic energy watchdog that Russia plans to restart Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, currently occupied by Russian troops and technicians, fueling worries about a serious nuclear accident on the front lines of a grinding military conflict.
Wednesday, April 10, 2024 | Brussels, Belgium – Today, the European Parliament approved the newly revised Construction Products regulation (CPR)...