Climate change mitigation needs innovation

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain is facing a plethora of climate challenges. The rising summer temperatures for instance frequently exceed 40 degrees, this is made worse by heat variability conditions wherein urban areas are hotter by 2-5 degrees than rural counterparts. Similarly rising sea levels at the rate of 3.2 mm per year is yet another issue that is compounded by salt water intrusion into freshwater aquifers. This has a direct adverse impact on water security and agricultural yield. In response, Bahrain has effectively taken many initiatives to ensure that the nation is able to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060 and cut greenhouse gases by 30% by 2035.

However, Bahrain's climate change mitigation and adaption strategies need a sharper innovative edge to ensure that the ambitious targets are achieved before time. In this regard, as an archipelago, Bahrain must leverage its greatest asset in the form of the Arabian Gulf to ensure climate resilience. Here, instead of traditional tree planting Bahrain can adopt Drone Assisted Precision Seeding for mangroves and seagrass meadows. This can help the nation enable the coastal habitats to sequester 10 times more carbon than terrestrial forest besides having the added advantage of these habitats acting as natural storm surge barriers.

Additionally, Deep Sea fed Water Air-conditioning (SWAC) can be used to pump cold water from the deeper trenches of the Gulf to drive coastal district cooling networks. This eliminates up to 90% of the electricity used by traditional air conditioning systems in major seafront developments. Yet another innovation that Bahrain can utilise in a mainstream manner is Restorative Artificial Reef Architecture (RARA). In this initiative 3D-printed, low-carbon concrete structures are used to rebuild degraded coral systems. These artificial reefs dissipate wave energy to prevent coastal erosion while restoring marine biodiversity.

In order to achieve climate goals, Bahrain must ensure that carbon capture, storage and utilisation must make quantum progress in a very short period. To ensure this, the nation can explore turning the captured carbon from petrochemical refining into an economic asset. This can be done through Mineral Carbonation for Construction (MCC). In this regard the captured industrial carbon is injected into industrial waste or concrete manufacturing. This permanently locks the carbon away while producing high-strength, sustainable building blocks for real estate projects. Additionally, Microalgae Carbon Bio-Fixation (MCB) can be used whereby vertical bioreactor farms are constructed near industrial zones that have specialized microalgae strains which consume flue-gas CO2 at rapid rates, creating a biomass that can be processed into biofuels, organic animal feed, or bioplastics.

Bahrain's fight against climate change needs an innovative edge.

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Daily Tribune)