Tag: CLIMATE CHANGE

Blockchain Fights Climate Change

by Blockchain News

According to a recent white paper published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the use of blockchain technology has quickly become one of the most important weapons in the battle against climate change. The report explains how blockchain technology may offer the essential infrastructure to combat climate change “at speed and scale” by increasing market transparency, building trust and ambition within climate discussions, democratizing access to climate action, and funneling more funding to project developers. Brynly Llyr, who is in charge of blockchain and digital assets at the Crypto Impact and Sustainability Accelerator (CISA) of the World Economic Forum, emphasized how important it is to investigate new technologies in order to combat climate change. She said that “global climate infrastructure, tools, and coordination technologies can all help us keep pace with our changing planetary ecosystem.” In situations like these, technology like blockchain and shared infrastructure may be of great assistance.

In its white paper, the World Economic Forum (WEF) emphasized the need of supportive legislation in order to foster digital climate innovation. According to Dana Gibber, CEO of the blockchain climate project Flowcarbon, industry experts have come to the conclusion that governments should take into consideration the different uses of blockchain technology that go beyond cryptocurrencies. Gibber stressed the significance of policymakers understanding the potential of blockchain technology by adding that “this goes beyond cryptocurrencies and encompasses what you can build on blockchain.” In doing so, Gibber drew attention to the fact that it is important for politicians to recognize the potential of blockchain technology.

In the meanwhile, the prominent cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is also lobbying for further regulatory clarity in the digital asset industry in the United States. On April 25, Coinbase initiated legal action in an effort to push the Securities and Exchange Commission to take action on its rulemaking petition, which has been outstanding since July of last year. The court action was launched in an effort to force the SEC to act. Additionally, the exchange has initiated a campaign for nonfungible tokens that advocates for crypto regulations that are more rational.

The promise of blockchain technology to tackle climate change is gaining greater recognition among business leaders; nevertheless, this potential cannot be realized without supportive and constructive regulation from politicians. As the world continues to struggle with the critical problem of climate change, the use of blockchain technology is expected to become an increasingly important part of the initiatives under way to build a more sustainable future.

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WEF Launches Coalition to Deal with Climate Change through Web3.0

by Blockchain News

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has established a Crypto Sustainability Coalition to investigate the capability of Web3 in tackling climate change.

In a statement, the WEF noted that blockchain tools would propel transparency in the worldwide carbon credits market, whereas crypto mining would trigger renewable microgrids through off-peak demand and decentralization.

Since the adoption of technologies like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchains, and cryptocurrencies in Web 3.0, members of the coalition will find out how they can boost social and environmental agendas.

The coalition also seeks regulatory clarity that enhances Web3 innovation, propels financial inclusion, and protects consumers.

Brynly Llyr, World Economic Forum’s head of blockchain and digital assets, noted:

“I am excited about the work we are expecting from the Crypto Sustainability Coalition. An important and unique aspect of web3 is that it uses technology to support and reward direct community engagement and action.”

Llyr added:

“This means we can coordinate the work of many individuals directly with one another, enabling collective action without centralized control – a powerful accelerator for grass roots action.”

The Crypto Sustainability Coalition consist of 30 partners hosted by the WEF as a public-private initiative. Its primary areas of concern include Web3’s potential for climate action, energy usage, and “on-chain” carbon credits. 

Some partners include Solana, Circle, NEAR Foundation, PlanetWatch, University of Lisbon, eToro, Crypto Council for Innovation, and Sustainable Bitcoin Standard. 

Moreover, the coalition will come up with best practices and tangible action on how Web3 technologies can positively impact communities most affected by climate change. The report noted:

“The coalition’s wider aim is to foster a broad education campaign on what Web3’s potential and capacity look like, to better inform governments on how they regulate these technologies and incentivize investment and research into their development.”

Meanwhile, a report by Chainlink Labs and Tecnalia noted that blockchain technology could help fight the climate crisis through smart contracts, Blockchain.News reported. 

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EPC Blockchain among 16 Startups Selected to Join EY Incubator

by Blockchain News

Big four accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) has selected 16 early-stage startups to join its EY Foundry Cohort 5 program to propel disruptive solutions in four areas: sustainability, new enterprise, people and wellness, and services of tomorrow.

EPC Blockchain, a Malaysian-based firm, is among those chosen, and it utilizes blockchain technology to record energy investments needed when crowdfunding energy projects. As a result, it tackles the challenge of climate change through public mitigation.

EPC Blockchain also enables small project developers to monetize carbon credits from energy projects.

From this month, EY will conduct the six-month incubator program virtually, with participants benefitting from $150,000 in Microsoft Azure credits to enhance their technology stack. 

Eight startups are from Southeast Asia, whereas the rest are from Australia. Per the announcement:

“They will gain exposure to a wealth of industry knowledge and experience, including access to EY industry insights, subject matter professionals and technology collaborators. The EY Foundry program takes no equity stake, with participating startups maintaining full ownership and control of the business.”

EY sees the partnership with startups as a stepping stone toward boosting the pipeline of entrepreneurial talent and enhancing the creation of future jobs and businesses. 

Farah Rosley, Malaysia Tax Managing Partner, Ernst & Young Tax Consultants, added:

“We are looking forward to collaborating with these disruptive technology startups to continue supporting the future of technology and business growth and improve how we service our people and help deliver greater value to our clients and the future of talent.”

Nurturing talent is emerging as a favoured strategy needed to spur innovation. For instance, Ripple, a leader in enterprise crypto and blockchain solutions, recently opened a key engineering hub in Toronto, Canada, to enhance crypto innovation and growth, Blockchain.News reported.  

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Flowcarbon Partners with Celo Blockchain to Create Carbon Market Ecosystem

by Blockchain News

Climate technology company Flowcarbon has partnered with the carbon-negative blockchain Celo Foundation to create a carbon market ecosystem, which enables carbon credits to be traded on the Celo network in the form of Flowcarbon’s Goddess of Nature token (GNT).

The carbon market ecosystem, that Flowcarbon and Celo are creating, is a platform for project developers to tokenize their carbon credits, sell tokens at GNT market prices, and achieve real-time credit on-chain.

The partners purchased at least $10 million worth of GNT, creating liquidity and making the carbon trading market more transparent, simpler, and more accessible to buyers and sellers.

Phil Fogel, co-founder of Flowcarbon stated that：

 “Celo is carbon-negative, and the value of natural resources is built into its ethos, making it the most natural foundation for building solutions to climate change on-chain. Celo’s founders, Sep, Marek, and Rene live and breathe this mission in a way that no other layer-1 ecosystem does.”

The CELO business model involving the deployment of smart contracts on mobile phones using phone numbers as public keys aims to bridge the gap between the world and the notion of transacting with cryptos.

In recent years, carbon markets have started to show their potential in delivering capital at a scale in which the industry is able to tackle issues of climate change.

According to Blockchain.News, a Singaporean exempt private company AirCarbon Pte permits corporate buyers and airlines to sell and purchase tokens subsidized by carbon offset credits. This is based on the approval of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

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Blockchain Can Improve Climate Crisis through Smart Contracts, Study Shows

by Blockchain News

As climate change is considered a desperate issue in modern times. Blockchain technology is expected to act as a stepping stone towards addressing economic complexities and interoperability when transiting to renewable energy, according to a report by Chainlink Labs and Tecnalia.

As a leading provider of open-source blockchain oracle solutions, William Herkelrath believes Chainlink Labs will help create a data-driven backend infrastructure required to tackle the climate crisis. 

The managing director at Chainlink Labs added:

“By using Chainlink to bridge some of the highest-quality climate data in the world onto blockchains for energy and climate initiatives, we can give the clean energy sector the tools it needs to expand its impact.”

Smart contracts play a significant catalyst in adopting blockchain technology because they automatically document, control, or execute legally relevant actions or events per the agreement. 

Therefore, they can offer developers the tools to create the next generation of clean energy solutions by tapping high-quality energy and climate data on-chain.

The report highlighted various use cases in which smart contracts could aid in the clean energy journey. They included using parametric energy conversion contracts, issuing carbon credits or consumer rewards, and tokenising energy commodities and project cash flows. 

Blockchain is expected to fill the void with the energy industry facing new difficulties like balancing an increasingly distributed energy grid.

Luis Elejalde, the energy, climate, and urban transition manager at Tecnalia, pointed out:

“During this period of major infrastructure and market transformation, utilities, service providers, and governments can use blockchain technology to digitize and assign value to clean energy investments and design fully automated incentive systems for participating in sustainable practices.”

Different players are joining hands to tackle the climate crisis using blockchain-powered solutions.

For instance, Lemonade, a top American insurance company, formed the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition meant to offer blockchain-enabled climate insurance to the most vulnerable farmers globally last month. 

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Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen Faces Backlash Over BTC Source Code Change Campaign

by Blockchain News

Earlier this week, Chris Larsen, the co-founder of embattled blockchain payments firm Ripple Labs Inc shared an update about his new campaign dubbed “Change the Code, Not the Climate”. He is collaborating with climate-focused bodies Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.

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Larsen’s ultimate focus of the campaign is to persuade members of the Bitcoin community to come together in a bid to change the Bitcoin source code from the high energy-consuming Proof-of-Work (PoW) to the better conservative Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol. 

While Larsen claims his motives are pure and directed toward ensuring the long-term success of the Bitcoin protocol, prominent members of the ecosystem thought otherwise, with many expressing their displeasure with his pursuits.

Ryan Selkis, the founder of data research and analytics platform, Messari, called Larsen a ‘Judas’ as he believes the billionaire Ripple founder is trying to bite the fingers that fed him.

“Chris Larsen – who in a just society would be in jail for the bad faith investor misrepresentations he and his team made regarding their XRP sales – is spending money attacking the industry that created his ill-gotten multi-billion dollar fortune. Judas,” Ryan said in a tweet.

It is not uncommon to make changes to blockchain protocols, especially open-sourced ones like the Bitcoin Network. However, to make such changes, the proposals must pass through a set of processes, one of which Larsen’s did not pass through.

“I am unable to find your Bitcoin Improvement Proposal submission, nor can I find any discussions initiated by you on the development mailing list. Please follow the process if you wish to be taken seriously,” a prominent Twitter Bitcoiner, Jameson Lopp said in a tweet tagging the brains behind the campaign, including the accounts of Greenpeace, Chris Larsen, and Michael Brune of Sierra Club.

With the backlash received, it is obvious that many may reject the proposal from Larsen if at all it makes it down to the development mailing list. This may leave the Bitcoin community with the option of advocating for the embrace of renewable energy sources to appease staunch environmentalists.

Image source: Chris Larsen

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Lemonade to Offer Blockchain-Powered Climate Insurance for Farmers in Emerging Markets

by Blockchain News

Lemonade, a top American insurance company, has revealed the formation of the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition meant to offer blockchain-enabled climate insurance to the most vulnerable farmers across the globe.

Through its nonprofit organization dubbed the Lemonade Foundation, Lemonade has partnered with other companies like Chainlink, Avalanche, DAOstack, Hannover Re, Tomorrow.io, Pula, and Etherisc as founding coalition members.

Based on the Lemonade Foundation’s objective of rendering environmental and social change through technology, the coalition is being established as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) to create and distribute parametric and instantaneous weather insurance to livestock keepers and subsistence farmers in emerging markets. 

The climate insurance will be developed on Avalanche’s proof of stake (PoS) as a stablecoin-denominated decentralized application (dapp). 

With the initial rollout expected in Africa this year, farmers will have the ability to make and receive payments using local currencies or stablecoins. 

Daniel Schreiber, a director at the Lemonade Foundation, welcomed the collaboration and stated:

“By using a DAO instead of a traditional insurance company, smart contracts instead of insurance policies, and oracles instead of claims professionals, we expect to harness the communal and decentralized aspects of web3 and real-time weather data to deliver affordable and instantaneous climate insurance to the people who need it most.”

With Africa having nearly 300 million smallholder farmers who face real climate risks, Rose Goslinga believes blockchain-powered climate insurance will come in handy in safeguarding their livelihoods.

The co-founder of Kenya-based insurtech Pula added:

“This is where the power of the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition comes in: An on-chain solution that can be immediately impactful at scale will allow farmers to finally get financially protected against the increasingly frequent risks such as drought.”

Blockchain is emerging as one of the sought-after technologies for tackling climate change. For instance, Samsung Electronics announced plans to utilize blockchain in a climate-focused reafforestation program in Madagascar earlier this year. 

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Cardano Forest to Become a Reality Atop the Achieved Funding Milestone

by Blockchain News

Cardano’s plans to become a climate-positive blockchain network are getting closer to being fulfilled as it has met the funding target for its Cardano Global Impact Challenge.

The Cardano Foundation flagged off the challenge earlier last year with a partnership from Veritree, as it sought donations from members of the public to donate ADA coins in support of the planting of 1 million trees in Mombasa, Kenya.

The challenge has been well received by the public many of whom has donated to the cause. As unveiled by Frederik Gregaard, the Chief Executive Officer of Cardano Foundation, “The #CardanoForest is 100% funded,” adding that the initiative has “reached the 1 million trees milestone.”

Many donors have a reason to join the cause. This is because the ADA tokens donated to the Cardano Forest project will be converted to 1 TREE token, an equivalent of which implies a planted tree. Depending on the subscribed tier, each ADA token can be redeemed for a TREE token at a later date that will be announced and each subscriber will get a digital certificate for the planted trees in the form of an NFT.

According to the Veritree dedicated page for the project, at least one donor contributed 100,000 ADA tokens with a number of smaller donations listed alongside. 

“We are striving to position Cardano as a leader in climate impact and this is only possible because of the Global Cardano Community; our incredible team here at @cardano Foundation; the industry group, @CardanoCnbg; and our partnership with @veritree_,” Frederik said in his Twitter thread, “The #CardanoForest will support land restoration and local ecosystem development activities in Mombasa, Kenya. All trees planted will be recorded on the Cardano blockchain for enhanced transparency and serve as public proof of land restoration activities.”

Many tech giants looking to lower their carbon footprint and one strategy to do that is by partnering with Veritree and its innovative blockchain solutions. Samsung Electronics America is also one of the biggest names to partner with Veritree as reported by Blockchain.News in the past week.

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Samsung Electronics to Use Blockchain in Climate-Focused Reafforestation Program

by Blockchain News

Samsung Electronics America has committed to the planting of 2 million Mangrove trees in Madagascar in a bid to advance its quota on the fight against climate change.

Per the tech giant’s announcement, the initiative will be handled by Veritree, a startup that specializes in using blockchain technology to track every stage involved in the tree planting process. 

The Samsung tree planting initiative is billed to be completed in the first half of this year, with the tropical trees expected to restore roughly 200 hectares of land and sequester roughly one billion pounds of Cabon dioxide (CO2) over a 25-year period. Veritree’s acclaimed tree planting role will help in deploying blockchain technology to verify and track every step of the reforestation process.

“Samsung’s sustainability journey is an ongoing and multi-faceted one. Investing in tech innovations, such as those that create efficiency improvements and minimize waste, in combination with nature-based solutions, are vital in the fight against climate change,” said Mark Newton, Head of Corporate Sustainability at Samsung Electronics America. “Drawing on our history of open collaboration, we’re teaming up with veritree for the tree-planting initiative as an added way to contribute to a better global society.”

While the cost of the project was not disclosed, the nobility of the exercise was well acclaimed. Trees are very crucial in combating climate change as they trap CO2 which are useful to plants in food manufacture. Trees remain one of the most endangered life forms as humans cut them down for use in furniture and construction. The Madagascar mangrove is one of the most deforested ecosystems in the world, thus accounting for the Samsung initiative in the region.

“Reforestation is one of the best ways to fight climate change. By collaborating with verities, eco-conscious brands like Samsung that aim to do good for our planet instead of just less harm can have accurate, ground-level data on their tree planting impact,” said Derrick Emsley, Co-Founder, and CEO of verities. “Our mission is to make it simple to incorporate nature-based solutions into any business model and we’re excited by our strategic partnership with Samsung.” 

The initiative reaffirms the suitability of blockchain technology in helping to drive accountability in relation to sustainability activities. Prior to Samsung, other tech firms including Volvo have used Blockchain in climate-related programs in the past as reported by Blockchain.News.

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Mark Cuban says he is locking $50k in tokenized carbon offsets every 10 days

by Cointelegraph

Famed billionaire and reality TV star, Mark Cuban, has revealed he is using blockchain technology to lock up carbon offsets on the Polygon network.

In a Nov. 13 tweet, the billionaire blockchain enthusiast revealed that he has been buying $50,000 worth of carbon offsets and placing them on-chain as Base Carbon Tonnes (BCT) roughly every 10 days since the launch of KlimaDAO.

BCTs are digital assets bridged onto the Polygon Network by Toucan Protocol that represent one tonne of carbon from the Verified Carbon Unit (VCU) registry. KlimaDAO, a decentralized blockchain project that aims to drive appreciation of the price of BCT and has accumulated over 9 million BCTs, told Cointelegraph that it uses Polygon since it is a Proof-of-Stake (POS) network with negligible emissions that generates a low carbon footprint.

Cuban indicated in the same twitter thread that he would be open to working with KlimaDAO to promote carbon removal perhaps over carbon offsets. He said,

“I’ve been buying 50k in offsets every 10 days or so, verifying them and putting them on chain as BCT. I would love to do the same thing and probably more with removal within KLIMA.”

Cuban’s support for KlimaDAO comes as no surprise. Klima is in his portfolio of investments. He could not be reached for comment on the extent of his involvement with Klima.

It is also not the Mavericks owner’s first foray into the blockchain-based ESG space. dClimate announced in June of this year that Mark Cuban had joined the network as an investor and strategic advisor. dClimate is the first network for decentralized climate data.

Cuban said, “I’m excited to be working with a team that is using blockchain and smart contracts to solve a pressing, real-world problem and that is building a platform to help organizations around the world build climate resilience.”

Related: Bitcoin miners look toward nuclear power for sustainable energy

Cuban appears to be leaning into blockchain solutions to address climate challenges, with two of the three environmental investments listed on the Mark Cuban Companies website focusing on distributed ledger technologies.

Last week’s COP26 climate conference in Scotland also saw the inception of a new blockchain initiative aimed at tackling climate issues.