In her monthly Expert Take column, international tax attorney and CPA Selva Ozelli covers the intersection between emerging technologies and sustainability, providing the latest developments in tax, AML/CFT regulations and legal issues affecting cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
In June, the United Nations held its event “Stockholm+50: A Healthy Planet for Prosperity for All: Our Responsibility, Our Opportunity”, focused on the implementation of its Decade of Action to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, the 2030 Agenda , the Paris Agreement, and the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework, as well as to foster a green recovery from COVID-19. The event took place 50 years after the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, giving world leaders an opportunity to reflect on five decades of environmental action focused on addressing climate crises, nature and carbon dioxide pollution of the Earth.
My art show “Reef Dwellers” was a partner event at Stockholm+50. It celebrated the role the oceans play in everyday life and sought to inspire action to protect reefs, which occupy just 0.1% of the world’s sea surface despite being home to more than 25% of marine biodiversity.
The oceans act as large natural reservoirs of carbon, absorbent 25% of current annual CO2 emissions and is home to 80% of all life while providing half of the planet’s oxygen. According to To the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
“More than 90 percent of the warming that has occurred on Earth over the past 50 years has occurred in the ocean.”
The rate at which the oceans are warming is equivalent five Hiroshima atomic bombs falling on them every second.
How does blockchain influence the preservation of reefs and the salvation of the ocean?
Future Thinkers has border several important solutions on how blockchain can help protect the environment.
1. Supply chains
Blockchain technology is being used to improve fish traceability to help stop illegal and unsustainable fishing practices. Fishcoin is a blockchain-based seafood traceability project that “incentivizes supply chain stakeholders to share data from the point of harvest to the point of consumption” to help create a cleaner seafood industry. open, transparent and responsible.
2. Recycling | 3. Environmental treaties
Plastic pollution is a global ecological crisis. In a historic move on March 2, the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to create a landmark international treaty to end plastic pollution. According to the UN, the effort could It results in an 80% reduction in the volume of plastics entering the oceans by 2040, a 55% reduction in virgin plastic production, and a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. It could also save governments $70 billion by 2040 and create an additional 700,000 jobs, mostly in the Global South.
One project that addresses the issue of plastic pollution is Diatom DAO, which has proposed a tokenized framework for plastic disposal credits. Its goal is to harness the capabilities of decentralized finance (DeFi) to build a reliable, verifiable, and efficient plastic disposal supply chain that increases recycling, reduces usage, finances high-leverage disposal projects, establishes new circularity channels. and drive innovation in new materials
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the ocean has viewed a 30% increase in its acidity thanks to the absorption of carbon dioxide. Capture seeks to use solar-powered floating plants to extract CO2 from the ocean, while Toucan Protocol is building the infrastructure for a carbon market to finance world-class climate solutions in an effort to accelerate the transition to net zero carbon according to the Paris Agreement.
5. Non-profit organizations
OceanDrop is a charitable non-fungible token project of the Open Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing open source technology for climate action. Revenues from NFT sales, which are linked to carbon offsets, support a pilot project aimed at expanding the marine protected areas of Cocos Island and Costa Rica.
Crypto Coral Tribe is an NFT project that directs 50% of its revenue to marine and wildlife conservation initiatives. Its goal is to form a creative hub that harnesses art and technology to help restore the natural world. It hopes to plant 3,000 corals around the world through its network of marine conservation partners, including Coral Guardian, Coral Triangle Center and the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund.
6. Carbon tax | 7. Change of incentives
US President Joe Biden entered office with a plan to get Americans off fossil fuels and demonstrated that intent with a regulatory agenda that included carbon taxes. However, the Supreme Court and Russia’s war in Ukraine upended their climate plans.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Jungle OzelliEsq., CPA, is an international tax attorney and certified public accountant who writes frequently on tax, legal and accounting topics for Tax Notes, Bloomberg BNA, other publications and the OECD.