Tortoises that die naturally and sink to the bottom take large amounts of carbon with them into the grave and “capture” it too well. But how much? The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has assessed this “carbon capture” at a value of 2 billion dollars. The calculation assumes that 1,000 quail are killed every year. In 2022, Norway took the lives of 581 sea turtles. In a new research article, the authors correct the narrative about the torment as nature’s own caretaker and “climate contractor”. In the article, they write that anguish’s attraction to humans creates “a false hope” that the path to climate salvation goes through the great creature. – What role the whales play with regard to climate is widely discussed in the research community, says Martin Biuw, who leads the research group for marine mammals at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research. He adds: – It is far from clear how important this role actually is. In order to clarify the role of seaweed in the carbon cycle, the Institute of Marine Research is part of an international partnership to better understand the cycle. In Europe, Norce and the Institute of Marine Research are among the partners in the Horizon Europe project OceanICU, which aims to better understand the oceanic carbon cycle. Photo: Chris Holman / Chris Holman – The contribution to the quagmire is characterized by uncertainty – Quantifying the contribution to the quagmire in the large marine carbon pump is characterized by great uncertainty, says Joakim Hauge in Bellona. He clarifies: – Having said that, there is no doubt that facilitating large quail populations will contribute to large carbon storage. Norway’s greenhouse gas emissions and climate targets measured in million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents60 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents? Click for explanation of CO₂ equivalents. Norway’s climate target 23.1 million tonnes annually Go to news’s Climate Status What is Norway’s climate target? By 2030, Norway must cut at least 55 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels. The goal is to be achieved in cooperation with the EU. By 2050, 90-95 per cent of Norwegian emissions must be cut. This means that we must cut emissions at record speed. In the last ten years we have managed to cut around 5 million tonnes, in the next ten we will cut around 25 million tonnes. How will Norway reach the climate target? Norway must cut emissions in two ways, because the sources of emissions can be divided into two: Emissions subject to a quota: This are particularly emissions from industry and the oil/gas platforms. The emissions are covered by the EU’s quota system: In order to emit greenhouse gases, the industry must buy permits (quotas) in the EU at the price determined by the quota market. Steadily higher prices and fewer quotas will force emissions cuts where it is easiest to implement. Non-quota-obligatory emissions: These are greenhouse gas emissions from, among other things, transport, agriculture, waste and heating in buildings. This is called the non-quota-obligatory sector because you do not need quotas to release greenhouse gases. How Norway can cut emissions in this sector is described in the specialist report “Climate cure 2030”. The politicians decide which of the measures from the report are to be implemented. Norway can also cut non-quota-obligatory emissions by paying for emission cuts in other European countries. The government says that it plans to meet the targets without using this option, but it can be used if it becomes “strictly necessary”. For Norway, the emissions in the two sectors are roughly the same: in 2019, they released around 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each .What happens if Norway does not reach the climate target? It could be politically embarrassing. A likely solution is that Norway chooses to pay for emission cuts in other countries. Norway can also be subject to sanctions if we do not reach the targets we have agreed with the EU. Norway must regularly report cuts to the UN, in line with the targets set in the Paris Agreement. Here, no sanctions are stipulated for those who do not fulfill their obligations. Based on the premise that nothing controls behavior more than the wallet, the Chilean authorities have set up a trial scheme with “biocredits” where boaters who disturb the quail must pay a “quail tax”. The system can be compared to the European quota system where the polluter must buy “indulgences” to release greenhouse gases. The IMF says that the carbon capture means that it is a better store if the squid dies naturally, than if it “becomes fished” in line with other seafood. Photo: AP – It is more natural to bet on the quail than the rainforest In 1972, the quail became a symbol of the UN’s environmental protection declaration, and has since created friction between the world community and Norway. Norway, Japan and Iceland are the only countries in the world that still allow quail fishing. During the global catch peak around 1960, around 75,000 quail were killed each year. Today, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) estimates that there are 1.5 million whales swimming around in the world’s oceans. A hundred years ago, the figure was 4.5 million. This is how the whale transports nutrients and minerals Professor of conservation biology Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson writes about “whale fall” and the whale’s contribution to the carbon cycle in the book På naturens skuldre (2020). The book is reviewed here. An excerpt: “Rarely does something really huge come descending from above. A whale fall. Just the word is enough to make the windings of my brain tingle. For my inner gaze, I imagine how a huge mountain of meat and blubber and bones sinks slowly, majestically, down into the bodies of water. Tons of carbon, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, in the last dive of life. (…) The researchers have looked at how the large whales, such as humpback whales, sperm whales and blue whales, contribute to pumping nutrients to the parts of the sea where more is needed. These whales dive deep into the sea to collect food of various kinds – fish, squid or krill. Then they swim to the surface to breathe. The faeces are also released here, and it flows. This is how the whale transports nutrients and minerals (such as nitrogen or iron) up to the surface water. In some ocean areas, such as the Southern Ocean, phytoplankton growth is limited precisely by the supply of iron. Sperm whale faeces have an iron concentration at least ten million times higher than water. The whale’s presence results in increased phytoplankton growth, which in turn means more photosynthesis and more CO2 captured from the atmosphere – carbon that tends to sink to the ocean floor as marine snow when the short plankton life is over. A cautious estimate from the Southern Ocean suggests that the sperm whale there sends several hundred thousand tonnes of carbon out of the system and down to storage in the depths of the sea, every year. In addition, many of the large whales embark on long migrations, among the most impressive annual migrations known among mammals. The humpback whale, for example, feeds in cold, nutrient-rich waters at high latitudes, but moves to warmer, typically 124 | on nature’s shoulders less nutritious sea areas closer to the equator to calve. Most of the time, the whales do not eat while they are in the calving areas, they just feed on the blubber. But they have to pee, and the urine they pass out is rich in nitrogen, which is often in short supply in these waters (and that matters when you’re big – an Icelandic researcher estimates that the average fin whale urinates 974 liters a day…). In this way, the whales’ long journeys become part of a conveyor belt for food, from rich seas to nutrient-poor sea areas.” Within climate work, nature-based solutions come in three variants: Nature construction, nature restoration and nature conservation. Carlo Aall at Vestlandsforsking says to news that “reproducing the moth population is one of the trickiest things we can do”. He believes that there is a moral responsibility on Norway to take a leading role in the international work to restore the quail population. – For a former quail-catching superpower, facing such a measure should be more natural than the rainforest venture, he says. – Restoring nature is one of the smartest things we do Joakim Hauge, Bellona – From our perspective, there is little reason to believe that “indulgences” such as quotas or a CO2 tax on quail meat will be a particularly effective tool to ensure that quail populations can return to previous population levels. It will be far more effective to prioritize marine nature restoration, which will contribute to carbon storage from a wide range of species, and to focus on a wide range of measures to reduce pollution and degradation of marine ecosystems as a consequence of human activity. Martin Biuw, Havforskingsinstituttet – Several scientific articles have presented calculations of how much kelp can contribute by recycling nutrients through their urine, faeces and dead kelp that fell to the seabed, and in addition how much carbon they sequester in their bodies. It is currently highly uncertain how much this amounts to in the big picture, where organisms at a lower level in the food chain, such as plankton, probably contribute many times more than the algae do. Fredrik Myhre, head of the marine team in WWF – Healthy and resilient squid populations are incredibly important for life in the sea. Quails are important predators and prey in food chains, and at the same time they contribute to the spread of life-giving nutrients and the binding of carbon. In order to take better care of the moth populations in the world in the years to come, it will be important to secure the migration and grazing area for the moths. This must be done through sound spatial planning of the sea area so that human activity does not destroy the function of the quails for the sea. Caring for and restoring nature is one of the smartest things we do both to solve the nature crisis and the climate crisis. Stig Schjølset, specialist manager at Zero – There are many good reasons to build up the qualification stock in the world, but I don’t think it seems like a good idea to develop a carbon market for qualification credits. We should preserve the whales because they are important for biodiversity and ecosystems in the sea. But a larger quail population, which will help to sequester more carbon, should not result in carbon credits that replace emission cuts in other sectors. Une Bastholm, MDG – Quail are wonderful, fascinating creatures that are very valuable to nature and the ecosystem, and many quail populations are still at a very low level after being aggressively hunted for a long time. That the quagmire is also important for the climate is an example of how nature and climate are inextricably linked. Norway, for its part, should stop catching quail and we should definitely go to the fore for international measures to rebuild quail populations in the world. Ola Elvestuen, Left – All new research shows that more molluscs in the sea means more fish and more life in the sea at the same time that a healthier sea binds much larger amounts of carbon. As the historically largest whale catching nation, Norway should take a special responsibility for getting the large whale stocks back into the world’s oceans. The huge amounts of plastic pollution that are entering the sea today must be stopped, targeted work must be carried out to reduce the number of accidents where sea turtles die, and measures must be taken against noise pollution so that sea turtles are less disturbed. In Norway, the quotas for catching walleye must be so low that we are sure that the population can increase. – Norway should take a special responsibility – As the historically largest quail catching nation, Norway should take a special responsibility for the quail, says Ola Elvestuen (V). He believes that a targeted quota system based on the Chilean model will depend on the possibility of calculating the carbon values accurately, but that the climate benefits from larger stocks of quail “regardless, are so great that measures must be strengthened immediately”. A similar signal comes from the Green Party (MDG): – Norway should be at the forefront of international measures to rebuild the quail population in the world, says Une Bastholm. Leader of the ocean team in WWF, Fredrik Myhre, calls for more knowledge to be gathered about carbon storage at sea. – If we had been obliged to enter such data in the national climate calculations, we would have both known more and done more, he says. – The fact that we have so few good figures has been a sin of omission on the part of the environmental authorities for many years, he says. Town names of the type Kvalsund, Kvalvik, Kvaløy indicate that Norwegians have been trapped in quail for a long time. In 1906, the first Norwegian quail boats reached the South Shetland Islands between South America and Antarctica. In the period from the 1880s until the First World War, Norwegian quail fishing spread to all continents and oceans. The argument in Finnmark at the end of the 19th century shows that there was then an understanding for the protection of the suffering. In addition, we find protests against stench, soiling and littering. In 1939, Vestfold contributed half of the quail catchers in the world. At that time, about one in ten working westfolding whalers were whalers. In 1932, the whale oil market collapsed due to overproduction.
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Controversy over the climate benefits of the quails – news Vestland
