A decentralized and efficient fight to climate change

This is my first article inside a topic that reflects my job field, my passion and my life mission (one of many): I'm an energy and climate change adaptation expert. This premise was necessary because since 3 years I get involved in crypto community, and this article reflects my recent experience, as you'll read.

First, the state of art.

The climate menace for human beings

One of simplest explanation about why people and governments are so unfit to face the climate crisis could be summed up by this meme:

It's up to next generations

Let's list main scientific evidences and projections:

• few years ago the vast majority of scientists agreed about the reality of a dramatic climate change, few disagreed;

• since 2014, more or less, all scientists effectively involved and peer reviewed in climate and atmosphere disciplines agree about the reality of a dramatic climate change that is taking place;

• few years ago the vast majority of scientists agreed about the cause of this dramatic climate change, mankind activities, and few disagreed;

• nowadays may be all scientists agree about the cause of this dramatic climate change, mankind activities, and is very difficult to find some scientists, always coming from other disciplines, that try to disagree;

Let's list actual effects of climate change:

• we are facing a massive extinction of species all over the world, caused by many pressures, climate change is one of this, all pressures derive directly or indirectly from human beings activities;

• extreme events (draughts, floodings, heavy precipitations, land destruction) are the main consequence and statistically sensible to a correlation with what we define the climate crisis;

• water scarcity is worsening all over the world, food stocks and the fight to hunger reached great goals in last 20 years, thanks to FAO and governments efforts. About food stocks, the future could not be so bright like recent times;

• we are unable to invert the exponential rise of CO2 gas emissions, it's still exponential (source:IPPC):

Let's focus on big facts:

• most important ocean currents, the planetary highways for energy distribution, are stopping, diverting, disappearing;

• arctic ice melting is taking to surface an astonishing amount of methane fixed in permafrost and in submerged ecosystems, and it started in recent years to release a potential climate bomb in the atmosphere;

• Amazon rainforest, faicing the biggest destruction of human history, could become a net releaser of Co2 rather than a strong fixer of Co2, above all through fires, soil fixed carbon destruction and so on;

• acidification of sea water could affect the largest carbon removal system of earth, oceans.

And now worst scenarios:

• fortunately few scientist are considering low probability of a fast (exponential) rise of the climate crisis that will be able to blow up human civilization in the short period (so called Permian extinction or similar);

• all recent measurements, unfortunately, confirm that worst temperature scenarios are verifying and accelerating.

Now that we firmly trust in a possible catastrophe, which could start affecting our generations, we can introduce good news and positive revolutions.

Science efficacy without politics

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is one of largest scientific tanks in the world. It was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to team up and share analysis and reports about climate change. Unfortunately, since the Kyoto Protocol (1997) the heavy hand of governments entered the final reports of IPCC, influencing and changing the sound of final results. For example, in the final reports of Kyoto Protocol there was ah hypothesis about actions to enhance if measurements confirmed a 1°C degree increase in earth average temperature respect of pre-industrial age. These actions included a sudden stop in Green House Gases (GHG) emissions as an emergency measure. We reached the 1°C increase in 2015, 6 years ago. Governments review of the final report removed any content about emergency measures.

The peer review of scientific publications is the pillar of a complex process where the single step is based on trust of editors, but the long chain of articles and editing process in many years is "trustless" in the blockchain meaning. Scientific method is able to avoid bullshits almost immediately and to correct its way in the long period.

Now imagine that scientific research as a blockchain where every researcher is an account, every editor is a node and the accounts themselves are editors when required. We have a massive process of verification that led to this evidences only because widely accepted, among others:

• the apple falls down under gravity force;

• Earth has an ecliptic orbit around the Sun, and not the opposite;

• life is based on informations contained in DNA and RNA;

• if energy increase in atmosphere you could have a storm.

Now imagine that the evolution of scientific knowledge is just like the software which regulate the blockchain. In blockchains you have many changes of software that emerge form a voting system, so it is very similar to peer reviewing, citations and collaborations process which compose scientific verification process. The only difference regards the time-shift in which different scientific approaches condition real life.

Some scientific branches are strongly conditioned by market actors, medical and pharmaceutical sectors for example. But no one can create a so heavy time-shift between scientific results and real life as governments.

Decentralized actions

All regulations and the most part of actions against climate crisis are led by governments, here same samples:

• financial and taxation incentives for renewable energies;

• highly regulated carbon trade markets;

• climate change policies, in general.

Governments have to balance so many pressures that the final result is only a wide time-shift, and among others we can list well known economic and financial interests, like industrial sectors revamping and employing policies, polls competition against deniers, electoral sponsors and stakeholders.

The final results is that, if we imagine a blockchain as a comparison, governments are super nodes which most of times rule differently from voting system, if voting system is only directed to fight the climate crisis.

The greatest evidence of these governmental super nodes are incentives (direct and undirect) to fossil fuels.

The government as super nodes are visible when we speak about actions. Nowadays all economic actors wait for government legislation, incentives, regulation to decide which industrial and financial policy they'll adopt in carbon trade market, about renewable energies development and so on. This is an higly inefficient system because of the impressive time-shift between scientific evidences and actions.

These delays are a negative bomb in public opinion. The sensation of powerlessness is widely spread. We have to fight against our bad behaviours, the high consumption of good and services which are excessive in most cases, highlighted in everyday life by the high production of wastes and the short term use of what we buy, and may be the day after we forget. Plus, if we look to how governments acts, we have a confirm that the fight to climate crisis is powerless.

The inefficiency of this system has to be widely discussed, and I'll do in other articles concentrated on the results of governmental incentives (frankly very positive in some cases, like renewable energies development, but because there are no alternatives). This inefficiency emerges clearly when we find out some small, but well designed different projects.

And so let's to try to find something different.

Nori project and NORI token power a long list of actions in agriculture, to promote, enanche and verify more sustainable techniques that preserve soli carbon content and, above all, increase this content with an effective carbon removal.

The Moss project adopted the MCO2 token to save rainforest and avoid a big loss of carbon removal potential and a release of stocked carbon through fires and soil destruction. First traded only inside Brazil, now available on Uniswap, the MC02 token is based non ERC20 technical standard. 3 main actions are nowadays sustained by Moss project, both to avoid forest destruction and to preserve the existing.

All this projects are based on voluntary adoption of carbon credits. Official markets of carbon credits (like EU ETS) had been a real disaster for years, with decreasing values and some cases double counting of removals. Recently in 2020 official markets registered an increase in stock values, after 15 years of credits launch. This official markets had a noble goal: to increase the cost of carbon emissions and favourite the decrease of emissions by the adoption of best technologies. Unfortunately they worked slowly and only in some parts of the world.

Voluntary adoption is the key point:

• if governments manipulate IPCC final results, the impact on public opinion about the emergency is lowered;

• if the impact on public opinion is lowered voluntary systems are obstacled;

• on the contrary, if science give us an efficient message, with low interferences, impact on public opinion is huge and voluntary systems can go to the moon.

Conclusions

If we imagine scientific research as a blockchain, without manipulation of governments we could have a strong message on public opinion and an efficient system to project the fight against climate crisis. If the impact on public opinion is huge, then voluntary systems can go to the moon. Voluntary systems are already based on the tokenization of carbon stocks, and the high value generated could speed up the fight against climate crisis.

This is a first brainstorming about a complex matrix of relations and interests and I will go in deeper analysis in next articles.

Please give me all negative or positive responses in comments below.

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