Climate change - A verting catastrophe | DW Documentary

foreign s have always been a source of awe and beauty Danny Arnold and his friend are extreme Mountaineers here on a quest for the ultimate thrill they're scaling the pits palu at nearly 4 000 meters above sea level you hammer in your ax and hear the tension a cracking and hissing sound as it breaks into the ice blocks it's just awesome but a growing number of scientists are saying that Adventures like this might soon become impossible global warming is melting the glaciers [Music] visit Turkey woman ten years ago you had far more days during the winter when you could really go climbing over the course of a range of trips to Africa Asia and Europe over the last few years we monitored the impact of climate change torrential rain and floods devastating droughts and the ominous threat of permafrost Thor 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 global community of the United Nations these efforts are probably 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 merely a memory we live in critical times if we do not respond to Nature's warnings we will find ourselves at the brink of a human-made heat age [Music] [Music] the world's coldest regions are among the absolute hot spots of climate change the Arctic the Antarctic Alaska and the vast permafrost regions of Russia [Music] foreign [Music] trained as a mathematician but what he observed here in the Far East of Russia prompted him to change course and turn climate activist he's now dedicated his life to preserving the Frozen layer of soil under the Earth's surface here by the banks of the Colima River in the Republic of Saka in Siberia he's collecting evidence that the permafrost is no longer permanent the ground has warmed up by three degrees Celsius causing the top layer of the ice to melt and a growing number of rare fossils to resurface so it's a piece of that Mama swag not the biggest one but average size plenty so here was in the PlayStation the consistent here was huge and don't ever square kilometers around one Mammoth and it was for 40 000 years and will never hear only square kilometer now lay around 600 skeletons so every once in a while there everywhere you look the hill slopes are sliding down into the river the result of permafrost melt zimoff has dubbed the plant's affected zombies due to the soil they grow in having been in deep freeze for 40 000 years and therefore devoid of life and soon this vegetation will disappear again in the water what's already happening here on the banks of this River and soon will occur in large parts of Russia could Spell dramatic change to the climate the amount of biomass lying dormant in the permafrost is immense if the carbon dioxide and methane accumulated in the ground were to escape into the atmosphere the pace of climate change would increase dramatically [Music] so these are roots of grasses which grew here maybe around 40 000 years ago and the problem that is a huge storage of carbon and take all these little roots and put them on the one side of the balance and on the other side of the bones put all the above ground vegetation of the planet so basically all trees and shrubs of the planet you will see that these tiny little Roots wait more and if parafrost will start to degrade everywhere all these will become available for microbes to eat and they will very soon convert into greenhouse gases CO2 methane that's ice pure ice out there and you see when uh this ice is melting the water is mixing with this soil and creating the smart flows which are chilling down the throat and the gradations happen very rapidly here so it's a two combination of both lots of carbon and lots of ice and that's to give you a very rapid carbon bomb a self-perpetuating vicious cycle in which global warming releases a growing quantity of greenhouse gases leading to ever higher temperatures a process that will eventually be impossible to stop so we have to cut emissions in Germany the situation poses an additional challenge the brookdorf power plant has already gathered Moss since it was shut down at the end of 2021 as part of Germany's nuclear phase-out the expansion of renewable energy sources is still on two smaller scale at the same time there's been a rise in energy generation from coal oil and gas meaning more instead of less CO2 methane and nitrous oxide Global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise in 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic began there was a slight decline but by 2030 if we fail to cut emissions we'll be looking at a figure of 55 billion tons and by the end of the century the Earth would heat up by almost three degrees with alarming consequences [Music] preventing that scenario requires us to expel a maximum of 25 gigatons into the atmosphere by 2030 and that means slashing emissions of CO2 and all greenhouse gases a 50 reduction foreign ER has been tracking the environmental policies of the biggest emitters a task that led to Growing frustration over the years with governments doing a lot of talking but taking precious little action there are signs however of a slight reversal the International Community has actually been getting serious about phasing out coal oil and gas the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015 but we're now seeing a growing number of countries setting themselves the goal of becoming climate neutral by cutting emissions to zero Heights scientists at the new climate Institute in Cologne Germany have divided the required measures into three categories the first category is the most optimistic one with a very high likelihood of climate goals being met including a significant increase in renewable energies this would require emission Savings of 30 gigatons by 2030 so the experts tax adjustments so that you if there's a mission intensive Goods coming to illustrate what that entails we'll use a soccer stadium as a scaled down model the Allianz Arena home to Bayern Munich once a year a new Turf is rolled out across the stadium the job for those trying to save the climate is to ensure that everything is green the task at hand is to cover the entire pitch in order to actually remove those 30 gigatons is this even possible [Music] now to the source of the issue [Music] Norway is famed for its abundance of lakes fjords rivers and streams an almost inexhaustible supply of energy for society if you store The Source in reservoirs as the Norwegians do here at the tunstad power plant in southern Norway Gautier home opens the gate to another world inside a rocky Hillside he'll be showing 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 plunge to a depths of 440 meters capacity here is 320 megawatts it is 100 times a normal wind turbine I feel quite big one one of the biggest 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 a subsea cable that enables both countries to relay or receive clean green energy as circumstances demand when there is a lot of more energy than German use they can send it to us and we can stop our own machines and save our water to for the future when the wind is not blowing in in Germany we can produce and send it back so in that way it worked we're working together to to get the best out of it the direct power link between water-rich Norway and Windswept Germany went online in May 2021 nodlink runs between tonstad where the power lines have an audible Buzz to Vista in Northern Germany where the 1400 megawatts have more of a hum in theory this balance of production and demand would work inside Germany too were it not for legal objections delaying the planned zood link extension of the project down to the south of the country as a result stiff breezes in the north have led to wires overheating and turbines having to be temporarily shut down a waste of energy with valuable green electricity Lost In The Wind with nordlink at least there's no such profligacy what we're doing here is connecting German wind energy with Norwegian hydropower in the process making the system far 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 the expansion of Renewables even if it's just a first step until now the transition's been mostly about electricity we now have 50 Renewables in our grid but they only constitute 10 percent of total energy needs so with 90 to cover over the next 25 years it's time to speed up going back to the greenhouse gas Cuts needed by 2030 what does the first and least challenging category of measures comprise and how would they help [Music] again increased Renewables production less call-based power in China reductions in India and fewer fluorinated greenhouse gases these are relatively simple measures that could be implemented quickly and together they'd mean cutting around 3.7 gigatons our soccer stadium example is showing its first patches of green a 3.7 gigaton drop in greenhouse gases is a good 12 of the 30 gigatons that need to go by 2030. global inequality and Injustice are being exacerbated by the omnipresent effects of climate change while the rich Northern Hemisphere continues to pollute the air those bearing the burden are primarily towards the South mostly around the equator in countries such as Indonesia Village by the Indian Ocean is called pantai bahagia rising sea levels and torrential downpours have left the happy Beach as the name translates to sinking into the water and this is during the dry season over half of the children here have already been taken out of school parents say conditions in The Damp and foul-smelling classrooms are unacceptable [Applause] [Music] used to be a pupil himself at the elementary school and is now doing his best under trying conditions to Brave the elements with his lessons he tells us about the first time his classroom was flooded in 2013. it's extremely difficult for all of us here we often have to send the pupils home because when the tide comes in they're sitting on water up to their legs regular classes are impossible leaving teachers unable to keep up to schedule in five or six years time reckons the teacher the entire school will be submerged then there'll be nobody left here okay but how will the world be faring in three decades from now in 2050 well at that time there will be the most extreme conditions of of the weather forward with our 17 000 Islands a lot of coasts and that will be eaten up by the Sea so life will not be the same as here there's a lot of illnesses there will be plagues and the economic growth of the world and the whole world will be disturbed by horizontal strife one against the other because fighting for food water Maybe arrowser that would be the very sad picture in 2050. fans become in to live in people will leave the instantly in order to survive climate migration is already with us and this is just the beginning [Music] several zones of the earth will become literally uninhabitable because it's too hot there's flooding or the soil is not farmable Davey are struggling when they're talking about people on the Move in the millions then we're talking about people in their billions by the middle of this Century Millions more people are expected to flee their homes not because of War conflict or persecution but because of the climate the world seems to be heading towards a deeply worrying future [Music] it's not just in the likes of Alaska and Russia that we need to prepare for permafrost melting away and no longer holding the soil together the European Alps are also affected permafrost expert Michael from Munich's Technical university has assembled a team of scientists for a research project today they're flying up to inspect a place of acute interest the landing spot chosen on the Hawthorn Mountain straddling the border between Austria and Germany is so small that the helicopter cannot touch down properly right next to the summit is a crevice that has widened rapidly since 2014 increasing the risk of Rock Falls the view from above reveals the full extent of the danger with several hundred thousand tons of rock threatening to Cascade their way down into the valley thank you conducting the measurements here at an altitude of just under 2 600 meters is a risky undertaking what could happen if the summit collapses doesn't bear thinking about it this rock Mass has a total volume of 260 000 cubic meters which is a lot it's moved 30 centimeters since we began taking measurements in 2014 and currently the rate is a few millimeters per month defamations are so strong and can change so quickly that it won't be long until it all comes flying down potentially even this year or next year the mountains start to give way when the permafrost is no longer able to hold them together and not just here in Central Europe [Music] the Alpine idle is literally crumbling and the repercussions are something that residents are well aware of in the village of Bondo in southeast Switzerland it's time to say goodbye to the house she's lived in her entire life today it's being demolished when he hits my house and shower when I look at my house well it's gradually dying it does make me feel sad but we're prepared for it in in the summer of 2017 a massive Landslide starting on the pits changalo Mountain brought 3 million cubic meters of rock crashing down into the valley I suddenly heard this huge noise and as I looked up to the mountain I saw these big chunks of rock falling down it looked like lava because it was so slow and Silent ice water and soils this footage was captured by the security camera of a carpenter's shop the landslide left eight hikers dead and the village partly destroyed another disaster resulting from climate change [Music] there used to be houses here now there's just a massive Rubble Elvira zales's home was flooded with debris and is now in a prohibited area of the village where nobody is allowed to live [Music] had to leave her home Village after the disaster and has since been living with her son in a neighboring Village she shows us photos of her beloved 345 year old family home bought by her great grandfather um initially I was deeply saddened I cried an awful lot and I was very happy that I could be there at the demolition it's like with people you don't let people die alone and I didn't want to let my house die alone either [Music] and the danger is far from over for the residents of Bondo with a further 3 million cubic meters of scree threatening to descend on the Village from pitschengalo at any time summing up the situation in Bondo and neighboring Villages is a sign that's been attached to the side of a house the mountain has a fever the impact of climate change on Siberia and the Far East of Russia cannot be compared equally to that in Africa or southeast Asia but here too the number of people under threat is increasing every year and for those affected directly like an old friend of Nikita zimov it means another livelihood destroyed here Leonid nalotov has been living a secluded existence here for over three decades the nearest town is some 80 kilometers away and he'd been faring just fine for all of those years a Fisher by trade he had a monopoly on the large lake directly behind his home of all the different species of fish it contained the salmon-like white fish was the most lucrative earning him over five euros per kilo with an average specimen weighing some 15 kilos but the days of Plenty are now over because his Lake no longer exists [Music] it used to stretch 15 kilometers but it 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 the rising temperatures however caused the once permanent ice to melt away eventually the dam broke the breach occurred just a few weeks ago during yet another hot summer [Music] it's a massive loss for me the water's gone my lake is dried out and all my fish have vanished they were my income and now I've lost everything for all those 30 years I had been afraid that something might happen which is why I did my best to reinforce the dam with shrubs and bushes I'd hoped it wouldn't happen that soon the fisherman was far from the only one to have underestimated the pace at which the climate is already changing now there's no time to lose for researchers governments and Industry to take action [Music] s Greendale launched to make Europe the first climate neutral continent by 2050 is a step in the right direction [Music] in the past one major argument against climate protection in Germany was that nobody else was doing anything but that doesn't wash anymore China has now declared its willingness to go climate neutrals and phase out coal oil and gas as has the U.S together 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 car oil and gas certain major players in the global climate game have been dragging their heels including Germany in recent years but as former Chancellor Angela Merkel found out honesty is sometimes defined not in Parliament but by the courts in April 2021 the German government was given a very public wake-up call when the country's constitutional Court issued a historic ruling requiring legislators to significantly improve climate protection measures in another landmark ruling in the Netherlands just one month later a court ordered oil multinational shell to drastically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions two cases with the potential to set a global precedent of Courts serving as Environmental Policy Watchdogs vital progress on the climate protection front at the 11th Hour foreign ER Danny Arnold is embarking on a very precarious descent today in the Canton of ban in Switzerland to explore the plan Mart Glacier from the inside deep in this crevasse he finds spectacular Rock and Ice formations not many people have ever been down here [Music] [Music] the ice is thousands of years old and still solid and stable enough for Dany to hack his ax into enabling him to get to the very bottom it's a steep and dangerous Ascent back out a unique experience not least because it might not be possible in the foreseeable future it makes you think if you bear in mind that researchers say that none of this will be here anymore in 90 years time no more glaciers that's pretty tragic isn't it thank you [Music] this is the Alex Glacier likewise in the Swiss Alps over 20 kilometers long and in Parts nearly one kilometer thick E from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has been investigating this massive natural wonder well at least this monster as he calls it survive in a close future we can't really do anything because now the glacier is reacting to the shift in the climate to the increase of temperature that we had in from the 90s so it means that even if we don't whatever happened in the future in terms of climate the glacier will keep retreat by at least five kilometers and what would happen if temperatures were actually to rise by 4 degrees as experts now predict Guillaume Juve has calculated that by the end of the century the allech glacier would then have almost completely disappeared so if we I mean if we assume that this climate scenario is Right will occur it's most likely that there will be very little ice by 2100 in the energy it's obvious that here in this landscape there will be no more ice no longer ice at the end of the century [Music] [Music] further up we visit the Concordia Alpine Hut [Music] for the last few years it's been run by Christophe Saga and his family he's come up here today to get it ready for the summer season foreign it 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 hostels in Europe it's the most beautiful place in the world to work I know other Alpine Huts that are lovely but to me this is just the most amazing place to work in but the alech is in long-term grave and seemingly terminal Danger Kristoff Saga goes down a few steep Steps From The Hut to point out the indications that the largest glacier in the Alps is retreating was originally built on this spot in 1877. back then the glacier reached roughly to where we're standing at so in the course of 140 years everything further down has melted it's retreated about 150 meters 150 meters in 140 years a meter or so a year [Music] the ice is melting at a growing Pace sometimes two sometimes three meters a year [Music] even this giant of Iglesias days are numbered global warming is likely to affect most of the towns and cities in Siberia and in Russia's Far East about 25 million people in all how serious is the impact of the permafrost melting measurements taken by the global terrestrial Network for permafrost give us an idea in 1996 the permafrost melted to a depth of 45 centimeters in the summer by 2017 the figure was 87 centimeters twice as deep in just 20 years [Music] this poses a danger to both people and infrastructure pipelines for district heating natural gas and oil are particularly affected Greenpeace is estimated that leaks in pipelines caused by the ground underneath subsiding are leading to about one percent of oil being lost that oil some 5 million tons of it each year seeps into the ground [Music] residents of the Arctic city of chesky and the Russian Republic of Saka are among those witnessing this rapid transformation temperatures are rising inexorably asphalt on the streets has begun to buckle and several buildings are showing signs that the ground they were once built on is no longer so solid and has started to sink on the Colima river is also home to the scientist and climate activist Nikita zimov even though temperatures here dropped to minus 60 degrees Celsius in the winter the continuing erosion of the permafrost soil is relentless this is especially Apparent at the former Water Treatment Plant like all the buildings here it was erected on tall pillars [Music] it's been only two years since the Earth began to subside here now the crater is already 10 meters deep [Music] as soon as it starts it's going very rough so when I was here a week ago there were some those two points were still in the air and now we came to the already Co-op down and there is a huge Niche going underneath the purple so where this ice has been eroded and eventually all that soap will collapse also so this process kind of growing and it's I know centimeters a day maybe tens of centimeters a day with a hot day so we have serious build in the perm Forest Area and now with climate getting warm my pen Frost is also getting warmer and with degradation it looks like that so all the infrastructure in the next few decades will probably go up with considerable effort it certainly is possible to secure individual buildings but the idea of completely saving Russia's East appears to be a losing battle foreign the early signs of a heat age are on the horizon [Music] in central Germany cast in vitian is fighting to preserve the last remaining Wetlands of the minsterland region intensive farming and draining have already destroyed 95 of Germany's marshes the biologist and climate activist wants to see the re-irrigation of these unique ecosystems [Music] everything that ends up in a raised bog like this is conserved acidic conditions and the absence of oxygen mean there's no degradation and that's what makes the box so valuable for climate protection they store endless amounts of carbon and do not release any of it bogs grow by just one millimeter per year the fener more has had six thousand years to store vast quantities of carbon when it comes into contact with oxygen as a result of draining that peatland likewise becomes a carbon bomb in similar style to the Russian permafrost advice if potent heat lens only cover three percent of the earth's land surface but contain 30 of our carbon reserves we're talking on a scale that if it does all now decompose and enters the air as CO2 then will have a massive climate problem a problem while climate Champions like Kirsten vitian are determined to restore those precious peatlands some of the remaining natural paradises on the planet are under increasingly brutal assault the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo [Music] [Music] much of this jungle is located in swamps and wetlands deforestation here means a two-fold carbon dioxide disaster slash and burn practices arrive here the primary reason for the wanton destruction is our enormous demand for palm oil it's used as a diesel fuel additive and is found in countless products in our supermarkets everything from Cosmetics to cooking oil soups and candy Indonesia is by far the world's biggest supplier of palm oil its land covered in plantations as far as the eye can see and Beyond oh among them are those belonging to Muhammad Raji he started out only a few years ago with just two hectares rapid profits enabled him to buy more land and grow more trees his continually growing business Empire now stretches to 300 hectares there are many perennial crops but I've not found one that makes more money than palm oil and more money means more deforestation almost 11 000 kilometers away from Borneo researchers are working on a way out algae and yeast strains are the secret weapons that the synthetic biotechnology research department at Munich's Technical University they can be used in a huge range of products says Professor Thomas Brook robust Building Blocks made of carbon food biofuels and indeed also which is something of a scientific sensation synthetic palm oil and there is colossal demand from industry for the palm oil substitute the researchers now want to rapidly scale up production from a thousand liters to 10 or even a hundred thousand liters together with his doctoral student puke has decoded a yeast strain with unique characteristics the yeast cells can turn 90 of their Mass into an oil with a quality that is identical to that of natural palm oil this is here we have the liquid fraction and the solid fraction which looks similar to purified palm oil the big difference is that our process is completely independent of farming activity and climate conditions plus we don't need to clear any rainforest unlike with large-scale palm oil production so our product is 100 sustainable and also commercially competitive with the palm oil already available foreign the fruits of the trees that produced the treasured oil weigh up to 50 kilos per bunch roji has harvests of up to a thousand tons per month and no shortage of buyers demand seems to be insatiable the Munich researchers don't want to destroy jobs in Indonesia their aim is to set up laboratories on the ground and cooperate with local farmers the response so far has been encouragingly positive foreign this is a new invention that's faster and simpler than our farming method and with huge profits there are so many advantages in terms of efficiency profitability and prosperity for everyone of course every palm oil producer is going to be interested what we do here in Germany has a major 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 extra emissions somewhere else so our Behavior matters back to our Stadium analogy and the model of calculating greenhouse gas reductions we're now at the end of category number two devised by the climate experts [Music] second category measures are where we already know how they work but require a further step which means following those that are already making progress first speeding up the expansion of Renewables and stopping deforestation and expanding electromobility implementing all of that would save us a further 12 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions so those reductions from the first category are now joined by a variety of measures together adding up to 12 gigatons almost half of the target Rising temperatures can as seen in the Alps lead to water shortages even results at high altitudes now often rely on artificial snow which is extremely water and energy intensive to create almost every village in the Alps is dependent on tourism and therefore on snow and keeping winter sports enthusiasts happy takes absolute priority The Show Must Go On while it still can whatever the cost the increasing scarcity of water originating from high altitude sources is a harbinger of potential desertification in parts of the Alps melt water is an especially short supply in Upper Bavaria in the past the water level in Lake walshen had to be deliberately reduced the precautionary measure was due to a risk of flooding from the vast amount of melt water in the spring there used to be so much that we had to make room for it in the lake but for a while now there's been much less the lake can absorb it so we don't need to reduce the water level [Applause] for centuries farmers in Switzerland's engadine mountains have been relying on melt water to irrigate their fields but melt water has become a finite resource is among those who've become dependent on Rainwater now in the summer his Meadow is completely parched due to excessively dry weather as I see saying here Turkish as you can see it says withered as hay nothing's grown since May the grass should be knee-deep at this time of year and the cows will soon be coming home from the mountain pastures his cows are for now still grazing at an elevation of 1900 meters but there too it's far too dry [Applause] [Music] the cows aren't getting enough to drink in summer 2018 the well that normally keeps them supplied had almost completely dried up every drop is appreciated [Music] checks on the cattle regularly he fears for the future of his Alpine pasture it happened here at night we've got 90 cows and their calves and the water here isn't enough for even one single case foreign clouds are gathering it looks like it might rain but no it's yet another desperately dry day the farmer has to rely on an alternative source of water right now this is the only way of ensuring a water supply on the pastures the helicopter delivers 700 liters ago it takes several trips to fill up the well at a total cost of 1 300 Euros it's only enough for four to five days there's not enough water for the animals to drink or for The Meadows down in the valley that provide animal fodder in the winter [Music] um we aren't going to have enough animal feed for the coming winter so either we can buy some which is very expensive or we reduce our cattle stock price has already had to slaughter some of his animals [Music] and there are profound changes underway across the Alps here in Austria teams of Specialists are on constant duty to prevent Mountain hillsides from sliding down prolonged periods of drought and excessive heat frequently result in devastating forest fires as seen here in Italy's Piedmont region climate change sometimes a shortage of water sometimes far too much the Indonesian island of java being a prime example the forests of mountainous regions helped to store rainwater but their falling victim to increasingly intensive logging leaving rainwater to flow unhindered into the valleys sometimes the water sweeps away everything in its path this footage is from 2017 and 2018. thank you [Music] [Music] local experts estimate that by mid-century climate change will have forced 40 million people to flee their homes in Indonesia alone farmers who can no longer till their fields slum dwellers whose tin roofed Huts have sunk into the sea and the residents of small communities like pantai bahagia for them too it's only a question of time until they'll be forced to flee from the rising Waters around 1 000 people were buried in the cemetery on the edge of the village called happy Beach for some there will be no resting in Eternal peace foreign [Music] temperatures are rising everywhere not least in urban areas thanks also to more air conditioning for homes and offices and this is where experts from aachen Technical University come in one of their pilot projects is this kitchen Studio the energy saving technology is visible once you literally look behind the facade the entire building is enveloped in a fabric that keeps the sun's Rays at Bay take just one step back and it becomes practically invisible again from the inside it's an experiment that has paid off for kitchen designer Susanna olowsky lower cooling costs in the summer and lower greenhouse gas emissions this is an excellent example albeit on a very small scale with a moderate amount of glazing but still this textile facade surrounding the building can alone save around 1.4 tons of CO2 per year in the building's climate control for a while now it's not just been fashionable Fabrics that have been woven by the machines of the University's Institute of textile technology they also make sustainable products that can help to save the climate research on the textile facades is an interdisciplinary undertaking here at this co-working space in a former Church in aachen Architects work alongside civil environmental and climate engineers and even ophthalmologists and the results of their joint efforts are hugely promising classes proportion of glazing which is already highly transparent and we can save up to 78 in cooling energy and reduce 60 or 65 percent of total energy consumption with an additional textile for sale it sounds like Tomorrow's World and sometimes looks like it too at this parking garage in bielefeld the Innovative facades from aachen improve both the building's climate footprint and its aesthetic appeal we're now already in the third and final category of potential greenhouse gas reductions proposed by the new climate Institute in Cologne this involves particularly challenging measures that have rarely been implemented to date among them lower greenhouse gas emissions in the cooling of buildings as seen just now as well as reductions in industry and in farming [Music] Economist Atma edenhofer co-director of the potstamp institute for climate impact research accompanied by his colleague Herman Lotsa campan on the right the agricultural Economist wants to see massive reductions in the farming sector food production is responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions in Germany for example people eat an average of 1.2 kilos of meat per week further reducing that figure to around a quarter of current meat consumption would have massive dividends 300 grams per week is a quarter of the current amount so we'd still be eating meat maybe only once or twice a week but it would go a long way toward reducing emissions according to climate specialist Nicholas hoonah the implementation of all three measures belonging to the final category could cut an additional 3.3 gigatons all added together that would make around 20 gigatons but some way short of the 30 gigatons required so game over it would seem despite all those efforts more is not possible with conventional means so what now [Music] if we carry on regardless by the end of the century we'll reach a temperature increase of a little under three degrees Celsius that would be a disastrous climate change and an unmanageable situation implementing the measures in all three categories could mean a reduction of 20 gigatons by 2030. leading to a temperature rise of 1.8 degrees by the end of the century while that would unfortunately not be quite enough to hit 1.5 degrees it's still a huge 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 rainfall a year in August and September during the rest of the year people have to walk considerable distances to find water or dig deep older people who live here say water used to flow abundantly through the mayobula and into the lagona river before discharging into Lake Chad but those days are gone due to continually decreasing rainfall [Laughter] Cameroon is suffering from devastating drought as is neighboring Chad the lake that lent its name to the latter country is the sole natural source of water in the region from the un's migration organization has spent years touring the Sahel region [Music] in the sparse shade of a fragile looking tree he speaks with Muhammad Ibrahim he's a herder and tells the visitor about the terrible ordeal his family suffered before finally arriving at Lake Chad climate change has a huge impact on us herders if there's no rain no plants grow and without green plans to eat our animals die so herders like me are hit very hard by this they all depended on this sauce you can realize that this lake is unique it's just a fresh water Within a married area so so many livelihoods dependent on this lecture if the lectured disappears it will be a serious environmental catastrophe because without the lecture we can hardly talk about a living atmosphere in the lectured region together the group sets out to inspect the livestock which are right now being herded a few kilometers away by Mohammed ibrahim's son along the way the small Caravan of cars passes through one of the countless dried up depressions in the land numbering in the tens of thousands they used to be a part of Lake Chad but within the space of just a few years the lake has shrunk at an almost unfathomable rate [Music] in 1963 Lake Chad covered an area of 25 000 square kilometers by 2007 it was just 2 500 square kilometers more than 90 percent smaller a trend that's set to continue [Music] millions of people in central Africa have already left the increasingly arid region and headed south while some try to go further north to Europe almost 40 million people still live on the sinking shores of the lake Chad were to completely dry up more than 50 million people would probably become climate refugees Muhammad Ibrahim and his extended family already come under the category of Environmental migrants oh yeah I had a lot of animals 60 to 70 but there's no water anywhere and nothing grows anymore all of the camos except for five have died we were first in Niger then in Nigeria and now we're in Chad it's been no better here either and will soon have to move on to wherever there's still water in the south I don't know Lake Chad Remains The Source of Life for millions of people but as it continues to shrink water is becoming an ever scarcer and more valuable resource and so are arable land and the fish in the lake as Lake Chad gets smaller competition for these resources will become increasingly bitter even now fishermen in the region face dwindling stocks of carp Nile perch and tilapia but there are projects that give Reason for Hope such as here in neighboring Sudan we were present when a local Fair Trade Organization was paid a visit by its funding partner ecosia a green online search engine based in Berlin pre-planting officer Katarina is a fan of the sustainable approach taken by Martin Bergkamp for years his small NGO has been helping women in Sudan to grow acacious checked regularly Harmony seedlings have been planted and how many have survived 400 000 seedlings were planted in 2021 a number scheduled to almost double in 2022 90 of the trees have weathered the conditions a minor miracle the women often have to carry the water from very far away at temperatures in excess of 40 degrees celsius half of the precious commodity is for their families the other half for their trees the project involves 400 women in total Drive their Roots several dozen meters deep to reach the groundwater their survival specialists in a very hostile environment and they also provide a natural product that yields a decent profit yeah The Acacia Senegal variety has the big advantage of starting to produce gum after a short number of years and this Gum arabic means that each tree is then worth four or five euros which can increase over time as the trees produce more so it's a tree that generates a continuous income parts of Sudan are bone dry often with little or no vegetation in sight but suddenly that changes dramatically as we reach the village of shagra home to some 20 000 acacias a veritable Forest of trees planted here by Nadia Ibrahim Muhammad was seemingly inexhaustible energy and the help of other local women he shows us how to make Cuts in the bark of the trees so that they release the sap that hardens into the valuable raw material Gum arabic is used in a wide variety of food products including Coca-Cola firstly the acacias give us the gum which means a regular income second they stabilize the soil third they prevent the desert spreading further fourth they protect all the vegetation in our region and fish because the acacias are so strong and can survive here they provide shade too okay one single seedling in itself doesn't mean much but in their Millions the budding trees mean hope for Sudan and should the scale increase to the billions they could even help to alleviate our climate problem thank you Nadia Ibrahim Mohammed and other local women from the village of shagra know the importance of the trees for the Sahel region most of their children are now able to go to school thanks to the profits from the prized gum and with a little luck they'll go on to enjoy further education or training and find a job [Laughter] our team spent three years traveling the world investigating climate change our immediate Focus was on the appalling consequences of unabated global warming the increasing frequency of minor and major catastrophes the growing threat to people on the ground and the associated rise in people fleeing their homelands we also talk to those who are actively combating 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 turned his successful company into a non-profit operation since then instead of going to investors any excess income is channeled towards new trees for every 50 search queries on its website ecosia has committed to planting a new seedling in one of 35 countries primarily around the equator they now number over 175 million yeah it'd be great for us as a team to have planted a few billion trees by 2013. the really important thing is to prompt a big rethink in society not just no longer pumping out CO2 into the air but also giving some serious thought to how we can repair what we've destroyed over the past few decades sometimes even if only occasionally you might think climate change and the surrounding debate was merely a transitory specter Take January 2018 when it seemed that winter was finally back to how it used to be on Glacier 3000 in Switzerland [Music] fabulous conditions for skiing and tobogganing perfectly crisp snow and happy ski lift operators and vacationing families from around the world [Music] in Spring 2018 the mood was positively euphoric also among scientists A team led by glacier expert Matthias horse from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich visits the mountains twice a year once in Spring and again in Autumn when the next season begins [Music] they investigate how much fresh snowfall there was in Winter and the sickness of the snow cover over the ice or snow there's been the better the condition of the glacier on this day the 25th of April 2018 it was in better shape than it had been for quite a while [Applause] more than five meters of thick snow fell in winter [Music] you've measured the snow water equivalent but seven glaciers across Switzerland our figures showed that in 2018 snow cover was well above average the snow wasn't quite as deep everywhere in Switzerland as there was here but it does look like there was perhaps as much as 50 more than in a normal year would be bad we [Music] on the more colorful front of climate change fatalism is no better than naive But Blind ignorance say researchers Visionaries and others who think out of the box some ideas might seem to be on the Fantastical Side Pies in the sky and sometimes loud ones at that [Music] pushed above the Danish German border is part of an attempt by hamburg-based Sky sails to harness wind power where it's available in almost unlimited quantities far above the ground kite drags a rope up into the air to a height of around 700 meters in the process powering an electricity generator at the end of the cycle the paraglider is pulled back down to ground with a minimal energy outlay and the game of Yoyo begins afresh green power from the wind in abundance high altitude wind gives us more energy and a steadier Supply than wind near the ground or at the height of a normal Wind Farm instead of being slowed down by trees buildings or mountains it can move freely and that's why we have a far greater physical potential to harvest [Music] double wind speed and eight times the energy yield the kite operators work with smaller devices like this to replace climate damaging diesel generators but there are plans for a much larger kite producing over one megawatt of power this is particularly suitable for being used out at Sea offshore in larger wind farms as a large-scale power plant and these are this kite can be mounted on a small floating pontoon without the need for expensive foundations the kites built by Sky Sails are an enthralling way to produce more green power in the long term as one component of Germany's energy transition in this crucial decade they're one of many ideas bordering on science fiction from geoengineering technical intervention on a planetary scale cirrus clouds at high altitude are akin to a dome with heat trapped underneath if you destroy them with chemicals the heat can escape from the atmosphere into space or conversely you produce more clouds but at low altitudes via turbines on thousands of ships with the fleecy clouds serving as shade providers foreign s really assume gigantic Dimensions space shuttles distribute sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere like a big volcanic eruption the dust will then cool the Earth instead of sulfur other climate fixes plan to use trillions of miniature Shields to block the sun together forming a giant stationary parasol skyborne geoengineering on an unprecedented scale is an incredibly costly and risky concept critics say that manipulating the clouds for example could throw the world's climate completely into disarray but with time being of the essence every option deserves to be considered one idea is to remove the harmful greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere as is being attempted by switzerland-based climb Works failing to meet emissions goals despite progress leaves us limited options says the team [Music] in around 2050 we'll have to actively remove around 10 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year and we don't have many options there are biological options like reforestation or the possibility of deploying machines which would increase CO2 removal by a thousand fold the climb Works pilot Venture was installed on the grounds of a waste to energy power plant that's because filtering greenhouse gases from the air via these enormous collectors requires a lot of energy and for the concept to make sense that energy has to be renewable [Music] CO2 molecules are filtered out of the air and then liquefied users of the 900 tons produced annually like the nearby industrial Greenhouse are only a drop in the ocean climb works is thinking in completely different dimensions several million tons per year which is why the company has signed Cooperative deals with the energy experts in Norway for example [Music] this is the slipener oil and gas drilling platform for a quarter of a century its Norwegian operators have been experimenting here with the injection of CO2 into the ground deep below the seabed and now they're venturing into a new dimension special ships will soon be calling at the major ports of Northern Europe to pick up liquefied CO2 mainly from polluting Industries such as steel and cement production from there the material will be transported to the coastal town of UE Garden [Music] 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 instead of capturing them afterwards and there's the argument that the greenhouse gas could damage 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 is likewise a strong backer of the Polar light project carbon capture and storage or CCs is probably the most feasible concept currently emerging from the worlds of geoengineering according to current estimates the Norwegian continental shelf can absorb 80 gigatons of CO2 the same amount as Europe's entire greenhouse gas emissions for the next hundred years the first ships are set to dock here as early as January 2024. so right now we're at the Northern Lights receiving terminal this is where we will receive CO2 from all over Europe this is dejected where we will take the CO2 the ships will dock we will take one and a half million tons of CO2 per year and store it here temporarily before it's pumped offshore and injected in a deep Reservoir subsea the North Sea [Music] from Oya Garden the liquid CO2 will be pumped through a 100 kilometer long Pipeline and then injected into a porous layer of sandstone 2 600 meters under the seabed a 75 meter thick layer of shale prevents leakage despite all of these efforts it's unlikely that they will succeed in lowering our greenhouse gas production to a tolerable level by 2030. so 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 from the subsurface in the North Sea having done oil and gas Explorations there for more than 50 years now we take that experience all the knowledge that has been developed on the geology and apply that now to CO2 storage we have experts in the field who have evaluated the subsurface who say that because of the primary the secondary seal that we have in place because of the geological structures this is absolutely safe even if capturing and storing greenhouse gases were to work however it's not a silver bullet solution any realistic hope depends on further research and further reductions everywhere is the one and a half degrees Target still feasible we can't give in we are not allowed to give in we have to to fight this and do the best that we can for the 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 absolutely have to keep on going [Music] the indications of an impending heat age can be found everywhere as our individuals determined to take action however unconventional in Russia's Far East climate Champion Nikita zimov has fenced off around 20 square kilometers of the large tracts of land he's bought this is where he plans to realize his vision of a better and colder World a project of Mammoth proportions wants to use a plethora 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 to plan there will eventually be 5 000 omnivores here the climate ecologist wants to prompt a natural Marvel in the winter and his animals have already begun as they trample down the Mounds of snow the cold can penetrate the soil unhindered [Music] the scientist shows us how his pleistocene Park as it's called is working deep underground over the course of several weeks he carved out a private permafrost tunnel system that serves as one long scientific Laboratory high quality sensors and countless soil sample evaluations show above all one thing how vital it is to compress the masses of snow above with the help of his four-legged Associates it's horses bison Yaks it's the horses Yaks bison reindeer that dig through the snow in the winter because they have to reach their food and when they trample down the snow instead of one meter of snow we have 10 to 15 centimeters of really dense snow instead of a thick winter jacket you just have a thin fleece thick winter jacket you get like a tiny tiny fleece some sensors some sensors show that in places where there were no animals the ground temperature in March dropped to minus 10 degrees at a depth of half a meter but in the park where our animals trampled the snow the temperature dropped down to minus 24 degrees so this is a huge 14 degrees difference [Applause] thank you that will definitely help this will definitely help humanity is wavering between a horrible future scenario and an extremely horrible future we have to fight it's not a question of defeating climate change or global warming the point is simply to what extent we are able to save human existence the Visionary who came out of the cold and wants to return to it may never succeed in his mission to save the world with huge herds of animals but what he has already achieved is a growing number of people realizing the devastating effects of further permafrost melt and the resulting release of more greenhouse gases [Music] our trip to the Republic of sakhar then takes us to the capital Yakutsk y's group of researchers from Prague is being hosted by The Institute of Applied Ecology of the north they've just returned from a crater carved into the permafrost where they discovered bones belonging to extinct prehistoric animals the site where the fossilized remains were found was named the batagaika crater but locals call it the gateway to the underworld it's easy to see why [Music] in the 1960s a small section of forest was cleared to make way for a new Road the permafrost originally beneath the trees began eroding at first the resulting hole was just a few meters deep ER on average the mega crater is between 40 and 60 meters deep and in some places it's 100 meters it's 1.5 kilometers long and about one kilometer wide right now but it's hard to determine exactly how wide it is because it's expanding so quickly these kinds of catastrophic events could become increasingly common and not just in residential areas but anywhere in the wild wherever there are oil pipelines and natural gas facilities our entire infrastructure could be impacted in September 2018 Glacier expert Matthias Huss and his team paid another visit to Switzerland's glacier 3000. in April he'd been highly encouraged by the enormous amounts of snow and now the scale of the threat from climate change if we invest anything less than maximum effort is already apparent here the glacier there crossing is dying all the snow that should be covering it is gone in the space of just one summer there was just an incredible snow cup five meters deep the snow was thick and compact just think about it five meters of snow three thousand meters above sea level has melted in the course of a summer we wouldn't have thought that was possible five meters of snow plus 1.3 meters of glacial ice all gone an ongoing and unrelenting loss Matthias hoos is watching his beloved glaciers die it's nothing less than a catastrophe [Music] thank you [Music] [Music]

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 101,550

Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2022, documentary 2023, documentary, climate change, green energy, carbon dioxide, Sudan, Indonesia, Europe

Id: pEt6-jA2UE4

Length: 85min 57sec (5157 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2023