Many videos from the blown-up dam of the Kakhovka reservoir in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday morning showed large amounts of water flowing away unhindered. A few hours after the explosion, the dam and hydroelectric power plant were swallowed up by the floodwaters of the dammed Dnieper River. In all likelihood, the Russian army blew up the dam to slow down the Ukrainian offensive, although Moscow denies this.
According to Ukrainian Advocate General Andriy Kostin, 17,000 people are being evacuated because of rising water levels, with another 25,000 affected on the Russian-occupied bank of the Dnieper River. EU Council President Charles Michel accused Russia of committing “a war crime” by destroying civilian infrastructure. The UN Security Council called an emergency meeting.
Blowing up the dam also increases the risk of a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, about 150 kilometers upstream. The nuclear power plant needs the water to cool the reactor units, and the falling water level at the Kakhovka reservoir poses “another threat”, Ukraine’s Energoatom atomic energy agency said. There is currently enough, officials in Kyiv assured.
My colleagues Bernhard Pötter and Viktor Funk have been observing the situation at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant for more than a year. In today’s briefing, they analyze in detail how great the danger is and what would happen if a major accident were to occur there.
What is the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex after the Kakhovka dam was blown up?
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been occupied by Russian troops almost since the beginning of the war, and technical supplies continue to be provided by Ukrainian personnel. The risk of accidents increases after the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River was blown up on Tuesday morning, some 150 kilometers downstream. Water from the reservoir is used to cool the reactors and generators that provide power at the plant. According to Ukrainian estimates, the cooling water in the nuclear power plant’s reservoir will last for several weeks. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed concern over the declining water level in the reservoir. It is monitoring the situation very closely, but for the time being there is no acute danger to the nuclear power plant.
Why is Russia occupying the nuclear power plant?
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is a pawn of Moscow’s occupiers. President Vladimir Putin made that clear just recently when he mentioned the power plant in passing after the drone attacks on Moscow – an implicit threat. The military occupation of a nuclear power plant is new; there has never been anything like it before. The UN nuclear agency IAEA has no mechanism to deal with such a situation. Russia has controlled the area around the NPP since February 2022, and Ukrainian personnel continues to ensure the plant’s operation.
Why is Zaporizhzhia so important?
The nuclear facility on the banks of the Dnipro River is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Six reactor units with a total capacity of 5700 megawatts supply about half of Ukraine’s electricity in peacetime. Currently, all six are shut down, but some still require continued cooling. Power for this is provided by just one external line, but this has already been cut seven times since the war began. The Russian occupation army stores military equipment and ammunition in the turbine houses of units 1, 2 and 4. There are a total of 15 active reactor units in the country. In addition, there is the infamous area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on the border with Belarus, which exploded in 1986 due to an operating error.
How vulnerable is the nuclear facility?
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi expressed “extreme concern about the very real risks to nuclear safety at the site” a month ago. He said the situation was becoming “unpredictable and potentially dangerous”. IAEA inspectors at the site confirmed regular artillery fire around the plant. They also noted that the families of operators forced to work at the nuclear plant by Russian occupation forces have been moved from the nearby town of Enerhodar. Shells have often struck near or on the site of the nuclear complex. The reactors and their enclosure (containments) have been spared so far. In March 2022, during the occupation by Russian troops, there was active fighting on the site around the reactors, and an office building caught fire.
How vulnerable is the plant?
Nuclear facilities are vulnerable to military force. They depend on technology and supplies functioning properly, on operating crews being able to work in an unhindered and concentrated manner, on regular inspections and safety checks, on the free exchange of data. None of this has been guaranteed for over a year in Zaporizhzhia. In response to the Russian army’s takeover of Zaporizhzhia, the IAEA has established seven criteria for the safe operation of nuclear power plants: These include physical protection of the plants, secure power and data supplies, free access for personnel, and functioning monitoring systems. This is not currently being implemented.
What can happen?
Three worst-case scenarios, in particular, would be conceivable:
How realistic are these fears?
The containment and the containers for the nuclear waste are heavily secured. Even direct artillery fire would hardly destroy the containment immediately and directly, experts say. The “HI-STORM FW” waste containers made by the US company Holtec are also massive; they have walls made of steel and 75 centimeters of concrete. They are also used in the US as long-term containers for nuclear waste and, according to the manufacturer, protect fuel rods from “natural and man-made projectiles, including the impact of an F-16 fighter jet”. According to BfS information, even if damage were to occur to the waste containers, the damage would be “at most locally or regionally limited” because the radioactivity is up to 100 times lower than in the reactor core.
Is a second ‘Chernobyl’ looming?
Even a leak of radioactivity would hardly have the effect of the Chernobyl accident, experts believe: In the 1986 ultimate MCA, the containment was blown open by an explosion of the reactor core, which then emptied its highly radioactive contents through the “chimney effect” of the fire in the reactor into the atmosphere. There, the radioactive “cloud” was formed, which passed over Ukraine, Belarus, Northern and Central Europe. Experts do not expect such a scenario in Zaporizhzhia. Besides, the wind in the area usually comes from the west. According to BfS calculations, the wind would carry the radioactive cargo in the direction of Russia and areas currently occupied by Russia.
What is the legal situation?
Russia violated international law and IAEA rules by making the plant a military target, capturing it, and forcing the operating crews to continue working. An Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions explicitly places facilities such as nuclear power plants or dams under special protection during conflicts. IAEA rules similarly require that nuclear facilities not be military targets.
What does the IAEA say?
The head of the IAEA, Grossi, has repeatedly expressed great concern and called for the situation around Zaporizhzhia to be eased. However, Grossi has not been able to push through his 7-point plan despite negotiations and visits to Kyiv and Moscow. Rotating teams of IAEA monitors have been stationed at the facility since the summer of 2022. The agency has condemned the Russian takeover of the plant and called on the Russians to withdraw from Zaporizhzhia.
However, the IAEA itself has also come under criticism. Russia is a dominant member of this UN organization and a former representative of the Russian state corporation Rosatom is IAEA Director General for Atomic Energy. A debate on the role of the state corporation Rosatom in the takeover and operation of Zaporizhzhia has not yet taken place in the IAEA. The IAEA supports the expansion of nuclear technology into new countries. In doing so, the agency supports the business model of Rosatom, which builds and operates nuclear facilities around the world and thus dominates the market.
How important is Rosatom for Europe?
The EU’s economic sanctions against Russia exclude the nuclear sector. This is because five EU countries and five NATO members depend on Russian technology for their electricity supply: Finland stopped the construction of a new reactor by a Russian consortium after the war began. But countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic produce up to half of their electricity with Russian nuclear technology and are dependent on materials and supplies for this. The new large Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Turkey, which has just been officially opened, is also being built and operated by Rosatom. with Viktor Funk
Unlike industry – and in the future also the buildings and transport sectors (ETS2) – emissions from agriculture are not subject to pricing, but continue to fall under the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), which provides for national reduction targets. However, while countries such as Croatia, Greece, France and Germany have been able to significantly reduce their agricultural emissions over the past two decades, they have increased by up to 30 percent in Ireland, Hungary and the Baltic states.
On average across the EU, therefore, there has been little change. According to the EU Commission, agriculture is currently responsible for around ten percent of all emissions. It is difficult to reduce these emissions. After all, the natural processes involved in food production cannot be replaced by alternative technologies, and emissions depend very much on regionally varying conditions.
To achieve the goal of climate neutrality, the industry must nevertheless reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The largest proportion is produced by livestock farming in the form of methane. The Commission wants to take countermeasures here, not least by extending the directive on industrial emissions, and has already drawn a lot of criticism for this. Less noticed but hardly less relevant: nitrous oxide.
Nitrous oxide is the colloquial name for dinitrogen monoxide, around 300 times more harmful to the climate than CO2 and, unlike methane, particularly persistent in the atmosphere. In 2021, it accounted for 36 percent of EU-wide agricultural emissions, according to the European Environmental Bureau.
The gas is produced primarily when microorganisms in the soil or water break down nitrogen compounds. This is a natural process and happens all the time in nature. Nevertheless, 77 percent of nitrous oxide emissions in Germany come from agriculture. And of these, in turn, almost all come from arable farming as a result of fertilization with nitrogen.
Reducing these emissions is enormously difficult and already different in principle from animal husbandry, says agricultural scientist Bernhard Osterburg of the Thünen Institute. “We don’t have to keep animals to feed ourselves. Plant production, on the other hand, has no alternative, and it won’t work without nitrogen”. This, he said, is a crucial nutrient, cannot be replaced and is also used in organic farming. “Albeit from partly different sources and thus at a different level”, Osterburg said.
In addition, emissions are strongly dependent on regional conditions as well as weather conditions and are particularly high in cold, wet soils, for example. That’s why farmers’ influence in nitrous oxide reduction is limited, says Robert Kero, environmental policy and sustainability officer at the German Farmers’ Association (DBV). “Farmers are constantly improving the efficiency of fertilization to reduce input use and thus avoid surpluses. Overall, however, we are talking about very small-scale solutions. We have to look at each step to see where a few more percent can be extracted, and that’s a Herculean task given the level of professionalization already present in the profession”.
In recent years, some reductions have already been achieved, particularly in Germany. However, emissions cannot be completely avoided. Even after 2045, there will still be significant residual emissions. That’s why it’s important to view agriculture not only as a polluter, but also as part of the solution – for example, in the storage of CO2 or the provision of biofuels, says Kero.
However, there are still opportunities to further reduce nitrous oxide emissions, and these must be exploited in view of the high greenhouse potential, says Osterburg. The first step must be to reduce the use of nitrogen, for example through more clever fertilization or digital innovations. Above all, however, overfertilization to safeguard yields is critical.
The EU Commission has also recognized this and wants to reduce the use of fertilizers by 20 percent and nutrient losses by 50 percent by 2030 as part of its farm-to-fork strategy. This is to be achieved primarily through the more environmentally and climate-friendly requirements of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), according to the Commission.
These so-called GAEC standards must be implemented on all agricultural land for which CAP funding is requested and include, among other things, buffer strips along water bodies where no fertilizers may be used or the sowing of catch crops for soil cover.
In addition, the EU member states have the option of rewarding voluntary commitment to environmental and climate protection through eco-schemes. The EU Commission expects that additional measures to reduce greenhouse gases will be taken in this way on at least 35 percent of the total arable land. In Germany at least, however, the eco-schemes have met with little interest among farmers. By the deadline at the end of May, only 60 percent of the funds available for 2023 had apparently been applied for, agrarheute magazine reported.
Last week, the German government also passed its new Fertilizer Act. Strengthening the “polluter pays principle” and improved monitoring are intended to help put an end to overfertilization and thus not only reduce emissions. With the new law, Germany also wants to finally address the nitrate limits in the groundwater of some regions, which have been exceeded for decades. Shortly after the decision, the EU Commission dropped the corresponding infringement proceedings. This also means that the threat of fines is off the table.
It is the link between the federal states, cities and municipalities, and Brussels: Representatives from local and state politics negotiate the European agenda in the Committee of the Regions. One of them is Matthias Wunderling-Weilbier. The 59-year-old is State Secretary in Lower Saxony’s Ministry for Federal and European Affairs and Regional Development. Since January, he has represented the state of Lower Saxony on the Committee of the Regions.
Wunderling-Weilbier started out as a nursing assistant and curative education nurse, studied part-time and worked on the board of the Neuerkerode Foundation. Politics runs in the family; his great-grandfather was one of the first union officials in Braunschweig, he says. Wunderling-Weilbier himself entered politics in 2006, becoming mayor of the small town of Schöningen and later district administrator in the Helmstedt district. Since 2020, he has been State Secretary.
The Committee of the Regions advises the Commission and Parliament on all decisions that have a local and regional impact. “We are practically a small Parliament”, says Wunderling-Weilbier. In fact, the 329 representatives work much like their counterparts in the EU Parliament. Wunderling-Weilbier is a member of the Socialist Group on the committee. He discusses positions first in the group, then in committee and finally in plenary.
However, the committee may only advise the EU institutions; it has no real decision-making power. Wunderling-Weilbier nevertheless has the impression that the regions’ positions are being heard in Brussels: “No one can say anymore that we don’t care what you guys in Lower Saxony have to say about it”.
His topics include, for example, the energy sector: European regulations on the one hand, electric buses in the city of Uelzen on the other. Wunderling-Weilbier sees Lower Saxony in a key role in the energy transition. “We are the number one wind power state and have the first German LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven”, says the State Secretary.
The energy turnaround can only succeed if local people also benefit from it, says Wunderling-Weilbier. “Europe must better reflect how people are involved in politics” – for example, through the representatives in the Committee of the Regions. The state of Lower Saxony also wants to expand the Ministry of Europe, as a representation of the regions’ interests to Berlin and Brussels, he adds. Jana Hemmersmeier
So far, the war in Ukraine has largely been left out of international climate negotiations. Russia traditionally keeps a low profile at all UN summits, and Ukraine, as a comparatively small player, does not play a major role. On Monday at the Interim Climate Change Conference (SB58) in Bonn, however, the conflict did come out into the open and escalated in a diplomatic sense. The delegations of many European countries left the room together with Australia and the USA.
The kick-off was a speech by Ukraine in the opening plenary of the Bonn climate conference. The Ukrainian envoy called the Russian war of aggression a genocide that had already caused four million tons of CO2. And then it got diplomatic: Russia was taking into account the emissions of the annexed regions in Ukraine in its national emissions reports, Ukraine criticized. This undermines the Paris Agreement.
Russia then came forward, calling the attack on Ukraine a necessity due to a “genocide against the population of the Donbas”. The USA, the EU, Australia and the United Kingdom reacted one after the other, calling the statements lies and propaganda and expressing solidarity with Ukraine.
Russia spoke up again. This time, the West, and in particular the US as the largest arms supplier to Ukraine, was the target of the verbal attacks, whereupon numerous delegations left the hall in protest. A short time later, the delegates returned to their seats and a new round of mutual accusations began. When it was Russia’s turn again, those who had returned shortly before stood up from their seats one more time. The chairman then closed the meeting.
The incident is now weighing heavily on negotiations in preparation for the COP28 world climate conference in Dubai in the fall, as agreements are usually reached by consensus among all countries. This was immediately expressed in Bonn during discussions for COP29 next year. The UN’s Eastern European group of states is currently negotiating who will get to be the host country – the group also includes Russia and some EU states.
After the Czech Republic withdrew its candidacy, Bulgaria remains in the running from the EU bloc. Russia will most likely block any candidacy of any EU country. Other candidates are Armenia and Azerbaijan – not exactly a conflict-free region and influenced through Russian participation. The final decision is expected to be made in Dubai. Lukas Scheid
Many videos from the blown-up dam of the Kakhovka reservoir in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday morning showed large amounts of water flowing away unhindered. A few hours after the explosion, the dam and hydroelectric power plant were swallowed up by the floodwaters of the dammed Dnieper River. In all likelihood, the Russian army blew up the dam to slow down the Ukrainian offensive, although Moscow denies this.
According to Ukrainian Advocate General Andriy Kostin, 17,000 people are being evacuated because of rising water levels, with another 25,000 affected on the Russian-occupied bank of the Dnieper River. EU Council President Charles Michel accused Russia of committing “a war crime” by destroying civilian infrastructure. The UN Security Council called an emergency meeting.
Blowing up the dam also increases the risk of a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, about 150 kilometers upstream. The nuclear power plant needs the water to cool the reactor units, and the falling water level at the Kakhovka reservoir poses “another threat”, Ukraine’s Energoatom atomic energy agency said. There is currently enough, officials in Kyiv assured.
My colleagues Bernhard Pötter and Viktor Funk have been observing the situation at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant for more than a year. In today’s briefing, they analyze in detail how great the danger is and what would happen if a major accident were to occur there.
What is the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex after the Kakhovka dam was blown up?
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been occupied by Russian troops almost since the beginning of the war, and technical supplies continue to be provided by Ukrainian personnel. The risk of accidents increases after the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River was blown up on Tuesday morning, some 150 kilometers downstream. Water from the reservoir is used to cool the reactors and generators that provide power at the plant. According to Ukrainian estimates, the cooling water in the nuclear power plant’s reservoir will last for several weeks. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed concern over the declining water level in the reservoir. It is monitoring the situation very closely, but for the time being there is no acute danger to the nuclear power plant.
Why is Russia occupying the nuclear power plant?
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is a pawn of Moscow’s occupiers. President Vladimir Putin made that clear just recently when he mentioned the power plant in passing after the drone attacks on Moscow – an implicit threat. The military occupation of a nuclear power plant is new; there has never been anything like it before. The UN nuclear agency IAEA has no mechanism to deal with such a situation. Russia has controlled the area around the NPP since February 2022, and Ukrainian personnel continues to ensure the plant’s operation.
Why is Zaporizhzhia so important?
The nuclear facility on the banks of the Dnipro River is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Six reactor units with a total capacity of 5700 megawatts supply about half of Ukraine’s electricity in peacetime. Currently, all six are shut down, but some still require continued cooling. Power for this is provided by just one external line, but this has already been cut seven times since the war began. The Russian occupation army stores military equipment and ammunition in the turbine houses of units 1, 2 and 4. There are a total of 15 active reactor units in the country. In addition, there is the infamous area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on the border with Belarus, which exploded in 1986 due to an operating error.
How vulnerable is the nuclear facility?
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi expressed “extreme concern about the very real risks to nuclear safety at the site” a month ago. He said the situation was becoming “unpredictable and potentially dangerous”. IAEA inspectors at the site confirmed regular artillery fire around the plant. They also noted that the families of operators forced to work at the nuclear plant by Russian occupation forces have been moved from the nearby town of Enerhodar. Shells have often struck near or on the site of the nuclear complex. The reactors and their enclosure (containments) have been spared so far. In March 2022, during the occupation by Russian troops, there was active fighting on the site around the reactors, and an office building caught fire.
How vulnerable is the plant?
Nuclear facilities are vulnerable to military force. They depend on technology and supplies functioning properly, on operating crews being able to work in an unhindered and concentrated manner, on regular inspections and safety checks, on the free exchange of data. None of this has been guaranteed for over a year in Zaporizhzhia. In response to the Russian army’s takeover of Zaporizhzhia, the IAEA has established seven criteria for the safe operation of nuclear power plants: These include physical protection of the plants, secure power and data supplies, free access for personnel, and functioning monitoring systems. This is not currently being implemented.
What can happen?
Three worst-case scenarios, in particular, would be conceivable:
How realistic are these fears?
The containment and the containers for the nuclear waste are heavily secured. Even direct artillery fire would hardly destroy the containment immediately and directly, experts say. The “HI-STORM FW” waste containers made by the US company Holtec are also massive; they have walls made of steel and 75 centimeters of concrete. They are also used in the US as long-term containers for nuclear waste and, according to the manufacturer, protect fuel rods from “natural and man-made projectiles, including the impact of an F-16 fighter jet”. According to BfS information, even if damage were to occur to the waste containers, the damage would be “at most locally or regionally limited” because the radioactivity is up to 100 times lower than in the reactor core.
Is a second ‘Chernobyl’ looming?
Even a leak of radioactivity would hardly have the effect of the Chernobyl accident, experts believe: In the 1986 ultimate MCA, the containment was blown open by an explosion of the reactor core, which then emptied its highly radioactive contents through the “chimney effect” of the fire in the reactor into the atmosphere. There, the radioactive “cloud” was formed, which passed over Ukraine, Belarus, Northern and Central Europe. Experts do not expect such a scenario in Zaporizhzhia. Besides, the wind in the area usually comes from the west. According to BfS calculations, the wind would carry the radioactive cargo in the direction of Russia and areas currently occupied by Russia.
What is the legal situation?
Russia violated international law and IAEA rules by making the plant a military target, capturing it, and forcing the operating crews to continue working. An Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions explicitly places facilities such as nuclear power plants or dams under special protection during conflicts. IAEA rules similarly require that nuclear facilities not be military targets.
What does the IAEA say?
The head of the IAEA, Grossi, has repeatedly expressed great concern and called for the situation around Zaporizhzhia to be eased. However, Grossi has not been able to push through his 7-point plan despite negotiations and visits to Kyiv and Moscow. Rotating teams of IAEA monitors have been stationed at the facility since the summer of 2022. The agency has condemned the Russian takeover of the plant and called on the Russians to withdraw from Zaporizhzhia.
However, the IAEA itself has also come under criticism. Russia is a dominant member of this UN organization and a former representative of the Russian state corporation Rosatom is IAEA Director General for Atomic Energy. A debate on the role of the state corporation Rosatom in the takeover and operation of Zaporizhzhia has not yet taken place in the IAEA. The IAEA supports the expansion of nuclear technology into new countries. In doing so, the agency supports the business model of Rosatom, which builds and operates nuclear facilities around the world and thus dominates the market.
How important is Rosatom for Europe?
The EU’s economic sanctions against Russia exclude the nuclear sector. This is because five EU countries and five NATO members depend on Russian technology for their electricity supply: Finland stopped the construction of a new reactor by a Russian consortium after the war began. But countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic produce up to half of their electricity with Russian nuclear technology and are dependent on materials and supplies for this. The new large Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Turkey, which has just been officially opened, is also being built and operated by Rosatom. with Viktor Funk
Unlike industry – and in the future also the buildings and transport sectors (ETS2) – emissions from agriculture are not subject to pricing, but continue to fall under the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), which provides for national reduction targets. However, while countries such as Croatia, Greece, France and Germany have been able to significantly reduce their agricultural emissions over the past two decades, they have increased by up to 30 percent in Ireland, Hungary and the Baltic states.
On average across the EU, therefore, there has been little change. According to the EU Commission, agriculture is currently responsible for around ten percent of all emissions. It is difficult to reduce these emissions. After all, the natural processes involved in food production cannot be replaced by alternative technologies, and emissions depend very much on regionally varying conditions.
To achieve the goal of climate neutrality, the industry must nevertheless reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The largest proportion is produced by livestock farming in the form of methane. The Commission wants to take countermeasures here, not least by extending the directive on industrial emissions, and has already drawn a lot of criticism for this. Less noticed but hardly less relevant: nitrous oxide.
Nitrous oxide is the colloquial name for dinitrogen monoxide, around 300 times more harmful to the climate than CO2 and, unlike methane, particularly persistent in the atmosphere. In 2021, it accounted for 36 percent of EU-wide agricultural emissions, according to the European Environmental Bureau.
The gas is produced primarily when microorganisms in the soil or water break down nitrogen compounds. This is a natural process and happens all the time in nature. Nevertheless, 77 percent of nitrous oxide emissions in Germany come from agriculture. And of these, in turn, almost all come from arable farming as a result of fertilization with nitrogen.
Reducing these emissions is enormously difficult and already different in principle from animal husbandry, says agricultural scientist Bernhard Osterburg of the Thünen Institute. “We don’t have to keep animals to feed ourselves. Plant production, on the other hand, has no alternative, and it won’t work without nitrogen”. This, he said, is a crucial nutrient, cannot be replaced and is also used in organic farming. “Albeit from partly different sources and thus at a different level”, Osterburg said.
In addition, emissions are strongly dependent on regional conditions as well as weather conditions and are particularly high in cold, wet soils, for example. That’s why farmers’ influence in nitrous oxide reduction is limited, says Robert Kero, environmental policy and sustainability officer at the German Farmers’ Association (DBV). “Farmers are constantly improving the efficiency of fertilization to reduce input use and thus avoid surpluses. Overall, however, we are talking about very small-scale solutions. We have to look at each step to see where a few more percent can be extracted, and that’s a Herculean task given the level of professionalization already present in the profession”.
In recent years, some reductions have already been achieved, particularly in Germany. However, emissions cannot be completely avoided. Even after 2045, there will still be significant residual emissions. That’s why it’s important to view agriculture not only as a polluter, but also as part of the solution – for example, in the storage of CO2 or the provision of biofuels, says Kero.
However, there are still opportunities to further reduce nitrous oxide emissions, and these must be exploited in view of the high greenhouse potential, says Osterburg. The first step must be to reduce the use of nitrogen, for example through more clever fertilization or digital innovations. Above all, however, overfertilization to safeguard yields is critical.
The EU Commission has also recognized this and wants to reduce the use of fertilizers by 20 percent and nutrient losses by 50 percent by 2030 as part of its farm-to-fork strategy. This is to be achieved primarily through the more environmentally and climate-friendly requirements of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), according to the Commission.
These so-called GAEC standards must be implemented on all agricultural land for which CAP funding is requested and include, among other things, buffer strips along water bodies where no fertilizers may be used or the sowing of catch crops for soil cover.
In addition, the EU member states have the option of rewarding voluntary commitment to environmental and climate protection through eco-schemes. The EU Commission expects that additional measures to reduce greenhouse gases will be taken in this way on at least 35 percent of the total arable land. In Germany at least, however, the eco-schemes have met with little interest among farmers. By the deadline at the end of May, only 60 percent of the funds available for 2023 had apparently been applied for, agrarheute magazine reported.
Last week, the German government also passed its new Fertilizer Act. Strengthening the “polluter pays principle” and improved monitoring are intended to help put an end to overfertilization and thus not only reduce emissions. With the new law, Germany also wants to finally address the nitrate limits in the groundwater of some regions, which have been exceeded for decades. Shortly after the decision, the EU Commission dropped the corresponding infringement proceedings. This also means that the threat of fines is off the table.
It is the link between the federal states, cities and municipalities, and Brussels: Representatives from local and state politics negotiate the European agenda in the Committee of the Regions. One of them is Matthias Wunderling-Weilbier. The 59-year-old is State Secretary in Lower Saxony’s Ministry for Federal and European Affairs and Regional Development. Since January, he has represented the state of Lower Saxony on the Committee of the Regions.
Wunderling-Weilbier started out as a nursing assistant and curative education nurse, studied part-time and worked on the board of the Neuerkerode Foundation. Politics runs in the family; his great-grandfather was one of the first union officials in Braunschweig, he says. Wunderling-Weilbier himself entered politics in 2006, becoming mayor of the small town of Schöningen and later district administrator in the Helmstedt district. Since 2020, he has been State Secretary.
The Committee of the Regions advises the Commission and Parliament on all decisions that have a local and regional impact. “We are practically a small Parliament”, says Wunderling-Weilbier. In fact, the 329 representatives work much like their counterparts in the EU Parliament. Wunderling-Weilbier is a member of the Socialist Group on the committee. He discusses positions first in the group, then in committee and finally in plenary.
However, the committee may only advise the EU institutions; it has no real decision-making power. Wunderling-Weilbier nevertheless has the impression that the regions’ positions are being heard in Brussels: “No one can say anymore that we don’t care what you guys in Lower Saxony have to say about it”.
His topics include, for example, the energy sector: European regulations on the one hand, electric buses in the city of Uelzen on the other. Wunderling-Weilbier sees Lower Saxony in a key role in the energy transition. “We are the number one wind power state and have the first German LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven”, says the State Secretary.
The energy turnaround can only succeed if local people also benefit from it, says Wunderling-Weilbier. “Europe must better reflect how people are involved in politics” – for example, through the representatives in the Committee of the Regions. The state of Lower Saxony also wants to expand the Ministry of Europe, as a representation of the regions’ interests to Berlin and Brussels, he adds. Jana Hemmersmeier
So far, the war in Ukraine has largely been left out of international climate negotiations. Russia traditionally keeps a low profile at all UN summits, and Ukraine, as a comparatively small player, does not play a major role. On Monday at the Interim Climate Change Conference (SB58) in Bonn, however, the conflict did come out into the open and escalated in a diplomatic sense. The delegations of many European countries left the room together with Australia and the USA.
The kick-off was a speech by Ukraine in the opening plenary of the Bonn climate conference. The Ukrainian envoy called the Russian war of aggression a genocide that had already caused four million tons of CO2. And then it got diplomatic: Russia was taking into account the emissions of the annexed regions in Ukraine in its national emissions reports, Ukraine criticized. This undermines the Paris Agreement.
Russia then came forward, calling the attack on Ukraine a necessity due to a “genocide against the population of the Donbas”. The USA, the EU, Australia and the United Kingdom reacted one after the other, calling the statements lies and propaganda and expressing solidarity with Ukraine.
Russia spoke up again. This time, the West, and in particular the US as the largest arms supplier to Ukraine, was the target of the verbal attacks, whereupon numerous delegations left the hall in protest. A short time later, the delegates returned to their seats and a new round of mutual accusations began. When it was Russia’s turn again, those who had returned shortly before stood up from their seats one more time. The chairman then closed the meeting.
The incident is now weighing heavily on negotiations in preparation for the COP28 world climate conference in Dubai in the fall, as agreements are usually reached by consensus among all countries. This was immediately expressed in Bonn during discussions for COP29 next year. The UN’s Eastern European group of states is currently negotiating who will get to be the host country – the group also includes Russia and some EU states.
After the Czech Republic withdrew its candidacy, Bulgaria remains in the running from the EU bloc. Russia will most likely block any candidacy of any EU country. Other candidates are Armenia and Azerbaijan – not exactly a conflict-free region and influenced through Russian participation. The final decision is expected to be made in Dubai. Lukas Scheid
