Indonesia president warns of forest fires as hot spots detected

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Monday local authorities should get prepared for potential forest fires later this year as hot spots had been detected on the island of Sumatra.

The Southeast Asian country has suffered some of the biggest tropical forest fires outside the Amazon and Congo in recent years, putting at risk endangered animals like orangutans and tigers and sending choking haze across the region.

“Ninety-nine percent of forest fires are perpetrated by humans, whether intentional or out of negligence,” Jokowi, as the president is widely know, said in a virtual meeting with officials.

Farmers often used fire as a cheap land clearing method, the president said, calling on local governments to get forest fire containment infrastructure ready.

Jokowi said Sumatra is facing a rising risk of forest fires this month and warned that the Kalimantan region on Borneo island, as well as Sulawesi island, could also start seeing forest fires in May to July, with the peak expected in the August to September period.

The president said the fires could cause considerable financial losses and “not to mention the damage to our ecology and ecosystem.”

Fires, sometimes set to clear land for palm oil plantations in the world’s top producer of the commodity, were the most damaging in years in 2015, with the World Bank estimating they caused $16.1 billion of damage.

Meanwhile, fires in 2019 caused total damage and economic loss amounting to at least $5.2 billion, equal to 0.5% of gross domestic product, the World Bank said. (reut.rs/3qJCnwH)

State news agency Antara, citing a meteorology official, reported that number of hot spots in Riau province on Sumatra island has jumped to 63 as of Monday, from nine a day earlier.

($1 = 14,110.0000 rupiah)
Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Writing by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Ed Davies

Tunisian power struggle risks street escalation


By Tarek Amara, Angus McDowall

TUNIS (Reuters) - A standoff over a cabinet reshuffle in Tunisia has accelerated a power struggle between the president, prime minister and parliament speaker that threatens to spill over into street protests by rival blocs and bring down the government.


FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators attend a protest to mark the anniversary of a prominent activist's death and against allegations of police abuse, in Tunis, Tunisia February 6, 2021. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo

The dispute has been building since a 2019 election delivered a fragmented parliament and a political outsider as president, creating a constant state of political turmoil in the only country to emerge with an intact democracy from the “Arab Spring” revolts a decade ago.

It has come to a head as Tunisia attempts to navigate the economic havoc wrought by COVID-19, while facing the biggest protests for years and public debt levels that have spooked capital markets needed to finance the state budget.

If the government falls, appointing a new one could take weeks, further delaying fiscal reforms needed to win financing.

“Today the revolution faces its most severe crisis and the solution is dialogue leading to change in the constitution, the political system, the electoral system,” said Zouhair Maghzaoui, head of the Chaab political party, which has backed President Kais Saied in his dispute with Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi.

Saied has vowed not to swear in four ministers nominated in a reshuffle by Mechichi, saying each has a possible conflict of interest.

Mechichi, who took office last summer, is backed by Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, head of the moderate Islamist Ennahda, the only major political party to have weathered Tunisia’s first decade of democracy.


The 2011 revolution jettisoned autocracy, but many Tunisians have been disillusioned by a bad economy. Meanwhile, a power sharing system established in a 2014 constitution has led to constant squabbling between presidents, prime ministers and parliamentary leaders.

Both parliament and the president are required to approve a prime minister, who has most executive powers while the president oversees defence and foreign affairs.

A constitutional court, envisaged to resolve disputes between rival branches of the state, has not been formed yet because none of those in power can agree on judges they trust to be impartial.

Saied wants a presidential system with only a minor role for political parties. Ghannouchi and his allies want a more clearly parliamentary system.

“The president wants to be the main player... he wants a puppet prime minister,” said Sadok Jabnoun, a senior official in jailed media mogul Nabil Karoui’s Heart of Tunisia party and a supporter of Mechichi.

RIVAL PROTESTS

Recent protests against inequality and police abuses have mostly directed anger at Mechichi and Ghannouchi.

However, Ghannouchi’s Ennahda has called for its own members to demonstrate on Saturday to “protect democracy” and oppose Saied’s rejection of Mechichi’s reshuffle.

Other parties with opposing views have also called for demonstrations.

The spectre of rival protests recalls the extreme polarisation that gripped Tunisia in 2013 and 2014 before Ennahda and a group of secular parties averted violence by agreeing to share power.

Saied, a political outsider, won the 2019 presidential election run-off vote in a landslide that, analysts say, he saw as a strong personal mandate and a rejection of the parties that dominate parliament.

Meanwhile the parliamentary election left a chamber in which no party had more than a quarter of votes, making it all but impossible for a government to gain stable majority backing.

“I am not ready to back down from my principles,” Saied said of the dispute, adding that the presidency was not a mere post office to uncritically receive decisions sent by prime ministers.

Baloch protesters end sit-in after Pakistani prime minister's pledge to meet them


By Umar Farooq
FEBRUARY 22, 2021




ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Protesters calling for an end to enforced disappearances in Pakistan’s Balochistan province ended a week long sit-in in the capital on Monday, after an assurance that Prime Minister Imran Khan will meet them next month.

Balochistan, where separatist militants have waged an insurgency against the state that has grown in profile as ally China develops mining there, has long been plagued by enforced disappearances. Families say men are picked up by the security forces, disappear often for years, and are sometimes found dead, with no official explanation.

“We don’t have any big hopes from this government, but the way they have reassured us, we also have decided to give them a chance,” Sammi Baloch, who has been searching for her father Deen Muhammad since 2009, told Reuters.

She and other families have protested across Pakistan for years to little avail.

The Islamabad protesters - 10 families of missing men and around a hundred supporters - said they will return if assurances are not met.

Security officials say many of Balochistan’s so-called disappeared have links to the separatists. But actual court punishments have been rare.

Pakistan’s military and human rights ministry did not respond to requests for comment for this story, including questions about specific family members sought by the protesters.

For one week, protesters held up photos of missing relatives under the watchful eyes of police surrounding them.

Among them was 60-year-old Baz Khatoon, who clutched a stack of news reports and court filings about her son, Rashid Hussain Brohi. She believes he was detained in Dubai in December 2018, was flown to Pakistan six months later, and then vanished without a trace.

Khatoon said her son moved to Dubai to be safe in 2017 after three male relatives, including his father, had turned up dead after being taken away by security forces over the years.

After Brohi was detained, Amnesty International and U.N. bodies looking into disappearances called on the Emirati authorities not to deport him to Pakistan for fear he would be killed there.

Brohi’s mother has obtained a copy of an Emirati travel document showing Brohi’s Emirati visa was cancelled in June, 2019, and that he left two days later on a flight to a small airport in Balochistan. The UAE government media office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Pakistani news channels reported that he was brought back to Pakistan and charged with sending funds to gunmen responsible for a 2018 attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi. But Khatoon said she has been given no official explanation of his whereabouts.

“Just tell us our kids are safe, put them in jail, we don’t have any problem with that,” Khatoon said.

“If they were in jail at least we would know they are safe, at least I could take some food there for my son, or a blanket to keep him warm, or a change of clothes.”

Balochistan: Families of abducted Baloch end their sit-in after PM promises to meet them – Balochwarna News

Farmers fight back: Making animal feed from a locust plague



By Baz Ratner

LAIKIPIA (Reuters) - Kenya is battling some of the worst locust plagues in decades, but start-up The Bug Picture hopes to transform the pests into profits and bring “hope to the hopeless” whose crops and livelihoods are being destroyed by the insects.

Unusual weather patterns exacerbated by climate change have created ideal conditions for surging locust numbers, which have destroyed crops and grazing grounds across East Africa and the Horn.

Scientists say warmer seas are creating more rain, waking dormant eggs, and cyclones that disperse the swarms are getting stronger and more frequent.

The Bug Picture is working with communities around the area of Laikipia, Isiolo and Samburu in central Kenya to harvest the insects and mill them, turning them into protein-rich animal feed and organic fertilizer for farms.

“We are trying to create hope in a hopeless situation, and help these communities alter their perspective to see these insects as a seasonal crop that can be harvested and sold for money,” said Laura Stanford, founder of The Bug Picture.

In central Kenya’s Laikipia, clouds of locusts are devouring crops and other vegetation. The Bug Picture is targeting swarms of 5 hectares or less in inhabited areas not suitable for spraying.

Swarms can travel up to 150 km (93 miles) a day and can contain between 40-80 million locusts per square kilometre.

“They destroy all the crops when they get into the farms. Sometimes they are so many, you cannot tell them apart, which are crops and which are locusts,” said farmer Joseph Mejia.

The Bug Picture pays Mejia and his neighbours 50 Kenyan shillings ($0.4566) per kilogram of the insects. Between Feb. 1-18, the project oversaw the harvest of 1.3 tons of locusts, according to Stanford, who said she was inspired by a project in Pakistan, overseen by the state-run Pakistan Agricultural Research Council.

The locusts are collected at night by torchlight when they are resting on shrubs and trees.

“The community ... are collecting locusts, once they (are collected) they are weighed and paid,” said Albert Lemasulani, a field coordinator with the start-up.

The insects are crushed and dried, then milled and processed into powder, which is used in animal feed or an organic fertiliser.

VIDEO

https://www.reuters.com/video/?videoId=OVE0QD46R&jwsource=em

Reporting by Baz Ratner; Writing by Omar Mohammed; Editing by Katharine Houreld and Raissa Kasolowsky

Boeing 747 cargo plane drops engine parts in Netherlands, investigation launched

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - An incident involving a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane that dropped engine parts after a mid-air explosion and fire over the southern Netherlands on Saturday is under investigation, the Dutch Safety Board said.

The Longtail Aviation cargo plane, flight 5504, scattered small metal parts over the Dutch town of Meerssen, causing damage and injuring a woman shortly after take-off, Maastricht Airport spokeswoman Hella Hendriks said.

The Bermuda-registered plane, which was headed from Maastricht to New York, was powered by Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines, a smaller version of those on a United Airlines Boeing 777 involved in an incident in Denver, also on Saturday.

After that incident, Boeing recommended airlines suspend operations of certain older versions of its 777 airliner powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines, variants currently flown by five airlines.


U.S. regulators announced extra inspections and Japan suspended their use while considering further action.

In the Dutch incident, witnesses heard one or two explosions shortly after take-off and the pilot was informed by air traffic control that an engine was on fire, Hendriks said.

“The photos indicate they were parts of engine blade, but that’s being investigated,” she said. “Several cars were damaged and bits hit several houses. Pieces were found across the residential neighbourhood on roofs, gardens and streets.”

Longtail Aviation said it was “too early to speculate as to what may have been the cause of the problem” and that it was working with Dutch, Belgian, Bermuda and UK authorities looking into the incident.

Dozens of pieces fell, Hendriks said, measuring around 5 centimetres wide and up to 25 centimetres long. The aircraft landed safely at Liege airport in Belgium, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) south of the Dutch border.

Boeing referred questions to Dutch authorities.

“Our investigation is still in a preliminary phase, it is too early to draw conclusions,” a spokeswoman for the Dutch Safety Board said on Monday.

Europe’s EASA aviation regulator said on Monday that it was aware of the Pratt & Whitney jet engine incidents, and was requesting information on the causes to determine what action may be needed.

'No other option': Deadly India floods bare conflicts from hydropower boom

By Alasdair Pal

RAINI, India (Reuters) - Growing up in a remote tribal village high in the Indian Himalayas, Kundan Singh loved to play on a field by the sparkling Rishiganga river

FILE PHOTO: Kundan Singh, 48, poses for a picture near his home after a flash flood swept down a mountain valley destroying dams and bridges, in Raini village in the northern state of Uttarakhand, India, February 11, 2021. Picture taken February 11, 2021. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

The 48-year-old recalls afternoons there competing in sports tournaments, surrounded by forests of pine.

Fifteen years ago, bulldozers descended on Raini village to build a dam, part of a push by India to increase hydroelectric power. The field was lost, and villagers have been in conflict with the Rishiganga Hydropower Project ever since.

The dam was swept away two weeks ago in a flash flood that also smashed bridges and another hydroelectric power station in the Dhauliganga river valley of Uttarakhand state, leaving over 200 feared dead.

Whatever the role of climate change, which is rapidly heating the world’s highest mountains, experts say rampant construction is adding to the burden weighing on rural communities across the Himalayas.

This building boom is creating conflict across the region, as shown by interviews with nearly two dozen Raini villagers, legal and technical documents, satellite imagery and photographs, and correspondence with local officials, some of it not previously reported.

“We wrote letters, we protested, we went to court, we did everything,” Singh said. “But no one heard us.”

JOBS DIDN’T COME

The 150 villagers are members of the Bhutia tribe of historically nomadic shepherds from Tibet, some of whom settled in India after a 1962 war with China closed the border.

Granted protected status with government quotas for jobs and education, many nonetheless live in poverty in the mountainous state, labouring on roads and construction sites, weaving woollen rugs and growing potatoes and pulses on small plots around a bend in the river.

Villagers were initially enthusiastic at the prospect of a power plant that promised jobs, according to court documents, the project’s impact assessment and minutes of a 2006 meeting between village leaders and representatives of the dam.

But the jobs did not come, Singh and other locals said. Those who managed to find work on the dam clashed with the owners over unpaid wages and alleged construction violations, according to court documents.

A paint company from Punjab controlled the dam during initial construction. It has not filed accounts since 2015, and its current directors could not be reached for comment. The project entered bankruptcy before being bought by the Kundan Group in 2018, and finally started operations last year. Executives at the conglomerate did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

As India seeks to nearly double its hydropower capacity by 2030, construction of dams in the region is increasingly leading to disagreements between plant owners and locals, said Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, which has studied the conflicts.

“It happens with many projects,” he said. “People want to resist and oppose, but project developers… will always make promises of employment and development.”

In the Alaknanda basin, a cluster of streams that feeds the Ganges river – worshipped as a god by many Hindus – six hydroelectric dams have been constructed, according to Thakkar’s nonprofit. Eight more, including the Tapovan dam that was severely damaged in the Feb. 7 floods, are under construction, while a further 24 have been proposed.

A spokeswoman for India’s power ministry said the country has strict measures in place regarding the planning of hydropower projects and the rights of local people are always considered.

MUDDY BANKNOTES, RUBBLE

During the dam’s construction, blasts from explosives were frequent, according to interviews with about 20 residents and court documents.

The use of explosives in construction in the region was criticised after devastating floods in Uttarakhand in 2013, dubbed a “Himalayan tsunami” that claimed some 6,000 lives.

In 2019, Singh and his brother took a two-day bus journey to meet with lawyer Abhijay Negi, who recalled them arriving with a bundle of muddy banknotes collected from other residents as payment.

“Please help us save our village,” Singh told him.

Negi helped the men file a case against the Kundan Group unit operating the dam, alleging construction had left behind loose rubble and rocks, according to photographs and diagrams submitted as evidence.

Uttarakhand’s top court ruled there was evidence of “substantial damage” to the area that suggested explosives were being used for illegal mining, though it did not rule on when the damage occurred. The court ordered a local investigation, but it is not clear if this has happened and officials involved could not be reached.

High up on the mountain, almost all the Raini residents survived the floods. But Singh said the disaster has left many dreaming of escape.

“Many want to leave, but I will stay because I have no other option,” he said. “I will stay because of poverty.”

Blackwater founder Erik Prince accused of helping evade U.N. Libya sanctions


By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Erik Prince, the private security executive and supporter of former U.S. President Donald Trump, “at the very least” helped evade an arms embargo on Libya, according to excerpts from a United Nations report seen by Reuters.



FILE PHOTO: Erik Prince arrives for the New York Young Republican Club Gala at The Yale Club of New York City in Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., November 7, 2019. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo

Independent U.N. sanctions monitors accused Prince of proposing a private military operation - known as ‘Project Opus’ - to Libya’s eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar in April 2019 and helping procure three aircraft for it.

Matthew Schwartz, a lawyer for Prince, denied the accusations in the annual U.N. report, which was submitted on Thursday to the Security Council Libya sanctions committee and is due to be made public next month.

“Mr. Prince had no involvement in any alleged military operation in Libya in 2019, or at any other time,” Schwartz said in a statement. “He did not provide weapons, personnel, or military equipment to anyone in Libya.”

The U.N. monitors wrote in the report that they had “identified that Erik Prince made a proposal for the operation to Khalifa Haftar in Cairo, Egypt on, or about, 14 April 2019.” Haftar was in Cairo at the time to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“Mr. Prince was not in Egypt at any point in 2019 – as travel records confirm – and has never met or spoken to Mr. Haftar. This alleged meeting is fiction and never took place,” Schwartz said.

The report described Prince’s proposal as “a well-funded private military company operation” designed to provide Haftar with armed assault helicopters, intelligence surveillance aircraft, maritime interdiction, drones, and cyber, intelligence and targeting capabilities.

“The Project Opus plan also included a component to kidnap or terminate individuals regarded as high value targets in Libya,” the monitors wrote.

Libya initially descended into chaos after the NATO-backed overthrow of leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 when the U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo. The country has been divided since 2014 between the internationally recognized government in its west and Haftar’s eastern-based forces.

PROJECT FAILURES

The U.N. monitors reported that the air and maritime component of ‘Project Opus’ had to be aborted in June 2019 after Haftar was unimpressed with the aircraft procured for the operations and “made threats against the team management.”

A South African team leader evacuated 20 private military operatives to Malta on inflatable boats, the monitors said.

“Project Opus private military operatives were deployed to Libya for a second time in April and May 2020 in order to locate and destroy high value targets,” said the U.N. monitors, but the operation again had to be aborted due to security concerns.

The rival Libyan administrations agreed a ceasefire in October, but have not pulled back their forces. Haftar is supported by the United Arab Emirates and Russia, while the government is backed by Turkey. Egypt had backed Haftar, but Sisi last week offered his country’s support to Libya’s interim government.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded an end to foreign interference in Libya.

Prince - the brother of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos - founded the private security firm Blackwater and was a pioneer in private military contracting after U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003.

Blackwater sparked international outrage in 2007 when its employees shot and killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. One of the employees was convicted of murder in December 2018 and three others were convicted of manslaughter. Trump pardoned the four men in December last year.


Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Sonya Hepinstall

Violence against civilians surges in Afghanistan after peace talks: UN report


By Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Charlotte Greenfield

KABUL (Reuters) - Civilian casualties in Afghanistan escalated sharply after peace talks began last year, the United Nations said in a report released on Tuesday, calling for a ceasefire as negotiators met for the first time after weeks of inaction.

U.S.-brokered peace talks began in September but progress has since slowed and violence has risen with uncertainty over whether international forces will pull out troops by May as originally planned.

Civilian casualties were 8,820 in 2020, according to the United Nations’ mission to Afghanistan’s (UNAMA) annual report. That was 15% lower than the previous year, but the report’s authors noted with alarm a sharp uptick and historically high civilian casualties in the final three months of 2020, when peace talks began.

Last year “could have been the year of peace in Afghanistan. Instead, thousands of Afghan civilians perished,” said Deborah Lyons, head of UNAMA, reiterating calls for a ceasefire which has been repeatedly rejected by the Taliban. “Parties refusing to consider a ceasefire must recognise the devastating consequences.”

The Taliban on Tuesday issued a response critical of the report, saying “the concerns, precise information and accurate details that were shared by us have not been taken into account.”

The report said that for the first time since records began, deaths and injuries had escalated in the final three months of the year from the previous three months. Casualties for the fourth quarter were up 45% compared with the same period in 2019.

The majority of were ascribed to non-government actors, predominately the insurgent Taliban, and more than one-fifth were attributed to government forces.

A government spokesman did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Both sides said on Twitter their chief negotiators met in Doha, the venue for talks, on Monday evening, adding that teams would continue work on an agenda.

After a monthlong break over the new year period, negotiators returned to Doha briefly before many senior members of the Taliban left to hold meetings in Russia and Iran. Mujahid said they would hold further meetings soon.

Zabihullah said that the lull was only a break and the Taliban were committed to talks, with further meetings expected in coming days.

India's endangered lion prides conquer disease to roam free

ABHAYA SRIVASTAVA (AFP) 

Three years after a deadly virus struck India's endangered Asiatic lions in their last remaining natural habitat, conservationists are hunting for new homes to help booming prides roam free.

The majestic big cats, slightly smaller than their African cousins and with a fold of skin along their bellies, were once found widely across southwest Asia.

Hunting and human encroachment saw the population plunge to just 20 by 1913, and the lions are now found only in a wildlife sanctuary in India's western Gujarat state.

Hunting and human encroachment saw the Asiatic lion population plunge to just 20 by 1913
SAM PANTHAKY, AFP

Following years of concerted government efforts, the lion population in Gir National Park has swelled to nearly 700, according to an official census last year.

But just three years ago, the conservation success looked to be in danger when several lions started to die in one part of the 1,400 square kilometre (545 square mile) forest.

The canine distemper virus -- a highly infectious disease -- was detected among dozens of the royal beasts, killing at least 11 of them.

"We picked all the lions from the area and isolated them," Dushyant Vasavada, the park's chief conservator of forests, told AFP.

Authorities imported special vaccines from overseas and each animal was given three doses each, followed by a booster shot.

Cattle and dogs living near the park were also inoculated as suspected carriers of the virus.

"We vaccinated the lions in captivity and successfully controlled the disease and no new outbreak has been observed," Vasavada said, adding that park rangers were still closely monitoring their health.

- 'Very thrilling experience' -

SAM PANTHAKY, AFP

Lions are a source of pride for India, particularly in Gujarat's Saurashtra region, where man and beast coexist.

A cattle-rearing tribe lives among the animals in the sanctuary, and it is not uncommon to see a pride of lions crossing a highway in the region as motorists wait and watch.

The king of the jungle is also a major tourist attraction, along with leopards, panthers and other big cats found in the sanctuary.

Around 550,000 people visit Gir National Park each year
SAM PANTHAKY, AFP

Around 550,000 people visit the park each year, riding in open-top jeeps as they try to spot the predators prowling among pale yellow deciduous trees.

"It is a very thrilling experience to see the lions from close in the wild," said forest guide Dinesh Sadiya.

But the 2018 virus outbreak was a reminder that the steady growth in the animal's population cannot be taken for granted.

- New habitats -

The lions have low genetic diversity due to their small population size
SAM PANTHAKY, AFP

The lions have low genetic diversity due to their small population size, making them more vulnerable to epidemics.

A 1993 outbreak of canine distemper virus in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park killed a third of its 3,000 lions.

Wildlife biologist Ravi Chellam said that outbreak underscored the need to move a few prides to other sites nearby.

"Translocation is a risk mitigation strategy akin to us getting health or life insurance," he told AFP.

The sanctuary is now too small for its steadily growing lion population
SAM PANTHAKY, AFP

"If something happens to the population in Gir, there is always going to be an additional free-ranging population of wild lions available."

Chellam said the sanctuary was also now too small for its steadily growing lion population.


"There are far more lions than what Gir can hold... these animals are not static, they are constantly moving outside and interacting with domestic animals and people," he added.

Efforts to move some lions to other states have been mired in legal wrangles with the state government, which wants to keep the animals in Gujarat.

Authorities have instead proposed finding new homes for some lions in other parts of the state.

In the meantime, rangers keep a close watch on the wandering lions -- which sometimes stray into villages and kill livestock -- with the help of dozens of imported radio collars.

"If a lion has not moved for 48 hours we can alert our staff," said Mohan Ram, the park's deputy conservator of forests.

The tracking collars are fitted around a lion's neck, helping rangers monitor their health and movements, reduce road and rail accidents, and lessen human-wildlife conflict.



Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/india-s-endangered-lion-prides-conquer-disease-to-roam-free/article/585919#ixzz6nHWi9R5w

Plastic waste on course to reach 1.34 billion tons by 2030

BY TIM SANDLE FEB 21, 2021 IN ENVIRONMENT
Plastic is the much-maligned detritus of modern living. It is the broken toy, the used carrier bag and the surgical face mask polluting our streets, streams and oceans. Yet plastic can become a force for good as a valuable re-usable commodity.

With climate change back on the U.S. government’s agenda, President Joe Biden is in the best position possible to deliver a killer punch in the fight against global warming; by shifting focus away from carbon emissions and other green gestures to plastics, says Haggai Alon is the founder and chief executive of brand protection and authentication company Security Matters. Alon has recently produced a White Paper titled New Plastic Economic Order: Regulate the entire value chain, not just the product, which calls for a transition to a new regulatory approach over plastics.

Digital Journal caught up with Alon to understand why plastic and plastic waste leaves a huge carbon footprint on the world.

Digital Journal: What is the cost and impact of plastic waste?

Haggai Alon: A 2019 report from the Center for International Environmental Law warned that if plastic production stayed on its current trajectory, greenhouse gas emissions from plastic could reach 1.34 billion tons per year by 2030, equivalent to the emissions produced by 300 new 500MW coal-fired power plants. And in data compiled by the International Energy Agency, plastic and other petrochemicals were shown to account for 14 percent of global oil use today. If the trend continues, they will drive half of the world’s oil demand growth by 2050.

These are staggering figures and the band-aid approach of carbon offsetting is simply not enough to heal the wound we are creating. We need a radical new approach and Biden must lead the way, becoming a beacon for real change.

DJ: How is this issue addressed?

Alon: This is a multi-task challenge because the soaring demand for plastic is not balanced in any way by the collection and use of old plastics. Thankfully, America has two great advantages at her disposal; the financial markets and IT power.

Carbon credit was invented in order to motivate companies to decarbonize, but it doesn’t work anymore; it has become a financial game between big players and, in many ways, carbon credit and carbon credit offsetting are more of an obstacle to change because people are simply buying guilt pleasure mileage rather than solving the problems we face. This is why the carbon credit system has to change, and the first critical step in doing this is to transform carbon credit to plastic credit in order to motivate those who collect, sort and recycle plastic. As the world’s biggest economy, America has to take the lead. She has to set the example.

Once this decision is taken, and to avoid duplicating the mistake of the carbon credit offsetting niche market, plastic credit needs to be taken to the financial markets. Why? Because financial markets, once they begin trading plastic credit, based on recycled plastic content and plastic recycling activities, will create a tangible commercial value that will fall under the auspices of SEC regulation, further pumping financial motivation into recycling.

DJ: Will incentives help?

Alon: Right now, there is no motivation to recycle. There is no motivation to use plastic recycled content. And regulation won’t help. When there is no connection between recycled plastic and the financial markets, it doesn’t matter how much you regulate or how many quotas you specify or what incentives you offer; it will not catch up with demand. The challenge here is not plastic waste, it’s not even smart sorting. The big challenge is finding a way to meet the soaring demand for plastic that doesn’t increase environmental damage.
In December, the Center for Biological Diversity and more than 550 other environmental advocacy groups released a draft plastics strategy called the Presidential Plastics Action Plan, and called on Biden to adopt it. The plan includes suspending and denying permits for all new or expanded plastic production facilities.

DJ: Is this achievable?

Alon: For me, this is an unrealistic goal. Plastic is here to stay. It’s no longer a question of controlling demand, but of creating an equilibrium within this soaring demand whereby we generate a larger percentage of that demand for recycled plastic content. Whoever thinks we are going to live in a world without plastic is dreaming. When you have rates of poverty, of any equation, alternatives to plastic are simply not feasible because they are often more expensive.

The anomaly of the plastic problem is that unwanted plastic is collected, usually with a great amount of effort, it is then sorted and never used again. There is no demand for recycled plastic, and there is no demand because there is no data on the plastic. This is the second step of the plastic revolution; establishing the data that will serve circularity and sustainable economic models.

In my company, we call this IT data the ‘new gold’. It is the ability to mark, track and authenticate plastic using molecular sequence – a kind of chemical barcode that enables all of the data to be collected from the point of production as a raw material through to a recycled product. Plastic degrades after the first use, along with every other material, except gold. That’s why the data is important because manufacturers will need to balance recycled plastic with virgin material and other additives. It’s doable but you need the data in order to rebalance the substrate.

DJ: What can the U.S. do to lead the way?

Alon: Right now, America has three major plus points when it comes to managing the challenge of plastic waste: its financial markets; its IT and AI power; and a new president committed to tackling climate change. To this end, Biden has appointed two climate czars; White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, who will be working to rebuild goodwill with other countries following the actions of the previous administration. It’s a task that would be made a whole lot easier for Kerry should Biden be the first to stand-up and adopt a truly innovative solution to the world’s plastic problem.