SDG 13: Climate action

BirdEyes views the world - and the Waddensea - through the eyes of birds. For example: red knots and bar-tailed godwits can show us how climate change is affecting their remote arctic breeding grounds.

The study focuses on threats to the Wadden region and the effectiveness of nature protection - by following six species of migratory birds. Professor Theunis Piersma explains: ‘It is inspiring to see how the birds are able to adapt. They can do this because they observe the world well.’

BirdEyes is a science and creative centre that uses information from tiny transmitters, loggers and other technology on the backs and legs of birds. By cleverly combining such data with other sources of information, and by using new ways to tell stories, BirdEyes strives to open up a new knowledge network.

Read more about the study
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A group of marine scientists from around the world, led by Per Palsbøll from the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), looked to the past in order to understand how the long-term impacts from today’s global warming might impact baleen whale populations.

Perhaps the most worrisome observation in the study was what Dr. Andrea Cabrera, the first author of the study, emphasized: 'Our study suggests that the large-scale oceanic changes set in motion by global warming persisted for many thousands of years after temperatures stabilized. It is a warning from the past as to what the current global warming may already have started'.

Wheat is a key source of nutrition for people across the globe, providing 20% of calories and protein for 3.4 billion people worldwide. But rising temperatures may affect wheat harvests: the yield is likely to increase at high latitudes and decrease in low latitudes, meaning that prices for the grain are likely to change unevenly and increase in much of the Global South, enhancing existing inequalities. To assess the consequences, an international team which includes University of Groningen professor of Climate and Environmental Change Richard Bintanja has developed a new climate-wheat-economic ensemble modeling approach.

European Union consumers are 'exporting' negative environmental impacts, whilst keeping the bulk of economic benefits linked to consuming goods and services. These results are part of a study published in Nature Sustainability.

Klaus Hubacek, Professor at ESRIG and one of the study's authors, focuses on the interactions between human and environmental systems in his research. He explains how the EU can reduce environmental pressures and impacts associated with over-consumption: ‘This could be done in a number of ways, including changing how people travel or their dietary choices, and by creating new EU trade policies that lower environmental pressures and impacts associated with goods and services.’

Using nature as inspiration, chemists from the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry are developing truly sustainable paints and coatings.

Paint from acacia trees

In today's water-based paints, the binding agent is still made from non-renewable resources. Hanneke Siebe is working on changing that, by creating binding agents made from gum arabic, derived from acacia trees.

Coatings from woody plants

Organic chemists from the University of Groningen and AkzoNobel developed a process that can turn woody plant biomass into a high-quality coating using light, oxygen and UV light.

Nature’s mysteries are a source of inspiration for Professor Marleen Kamperman . She wants to make and market new adhesive materials, based on design principles from nature, such as spider silk and mussel glue.

'Everytime we want to make something new, we ask ourselves: how would nature solve this?', she explains. Sustainability is an important part of her research, such as nature's ability to degrade and recycle.

Some of the possible applications of her materials are: glues for the lungs for people with severe COPD, water-resistant glue for underwater renewable energy solutions and glue to secure algae to ropes for cultivation.

The chemical industry faces the challenge of replacing fossil-based building blocks with green alternatives. Plant biomass is an interesting source of carbon-based molecules. It is also underused, because about 25 percent of all plant biomass is in the form of lignin, a biopolymer that, so far, can only be used as a solid fuel. A team of scientists, including ‘enzyme engineer’ professor Marco Fraaije from Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology (GBB), has now developed an enzyme that can put a lignin monomer to use in chemical synthesis.

The resulting molecule can be used in fragrances but can also serve as a starting compound for a range of other compounds, such as vanillin, polymers, fine chemicals, or epoxy resins.

Action to protect the planet against the impact of climate change will fall short unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the global food system, which now make up a third of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The largest emission increase within food supply chains is triggered by beef and dairy consumption in rapidly developing countries, such as China and India. To mitigate climate change, consumers should be encouraged to choose less emission-intensive food products.

‘A global shift in diets, including reducing excessive intake of red meat and improving shares of plant-based protein – will not only reduce emissions but avoid health risks such as obesity and cardiovascular disease’, says Klaus Hubacek, Professor in Science, Technology and Society at ESRIG.

To reduce carbon emissions, behavioural changes are important. But some habits, such as flying, are hard to break. In these cases, technical solutions could make a difference. Jingxiu Xie combines her knowledge of catalysis and chemical engineering to produce kerosene from carbon dioxide.

There are already ways to create synthetic kerosene, but Xie wants to use waste gases from major carbon dioxide emitters as a starting point. This would make the production of synthetic kerosene truly sustainable.

A bacterium that can grow on a mixture of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and hydrogen can be persuaded to produce various useful products, such as amino acids, milk proteins, and building blocks for pharmaceuticals.

The bacterium Cupriavidus necator was originally isolated from soil near the German town of Göttingen and was, so far, famous for its ability to produce bioplastics. Now Sandy Schmidt, a biochemist at the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy (GRIP), wants to grow this bacterium in a bioreactor that is fed waste gases from factories, to turn carbon dioxide into valuable molecules.

By tweaking the bacterium’s metabolic pathways, it is possible to overproduce, for example, the amino acid lysine, an important component of animal feed. ‘And we are conducting research for a company that wants to make vegan cheese,’ says Schmidt. ‘For this, our bacterium must make milk proteins.’

Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) is an environmentally-friendly solvent that forms under relatively high pressure and temperature. It is neither a liquid nor a gas but has properties of both. Supercritical CO₂ can be used in various ways within industry, for example to separate or dissolve substances. This green process technology saves raw materials, water and energy - and helps companies to develop new and sustainable products in environmentally-friendly ways, such as adhesives and recyclable foams, to replace unsustainable products like polyurethane.

How can small companies deploy supercritical CO₂ for the environmentally-friendly production of sustainable chemical products? This question is central to the four-year project being conducted by the University of Groningen, Hanze University of Applied Sciences and seven companies. Professor Francesco Picchioni from the University of Groningen is an internationally-renowned researcher of scCO₂ and is one of the initiators of the project.