Scientists Shine a Spotlight on the Overlooked Menace of Nitrogen

Photo: UNEP

Almost 80% of the air we breathe is made of nitrogen in the form of unreactive N_2. This gas stabilizes the atmosphere by ensuring that the oxygen is limited to a safe amount to sustain life on earth.

However, since the industrial revolution, reactive nitrogen has been entering into the atmosphere as a by-product of burning fossil fuels and has been discharged into the earth as nitrogen fertilizer.

Human driven flows of reactive nitrogen, which can form dangerous chemical compounds in air, water and soil, have increased more than ten times over the past 150 years, severely impacting human health. Excess nitrogen-based nutrients has also affected our planet’s biodiversity.

UN Environment and the International Nitrogen Initiative, with funding through the Global Environment Facility, are launching the International Nitrogen Management System today through a funded project called “Towards INMS”.

It will develop the evidence base to showcase the need for effective practices for global nitrogen management and highlight options to maximize the multiple benefits of better nitrogen use.

The initiative brings together the science community, the private sector and civil society and will gather and synthesize evidence that can support international policy development.

“This initiative is a big opportunity to pull together a global and critical mass of science on the nitrogen cycle. We can start a sustained process that gets science, governments, businesses and civil society working together to build common understanding, and therefore deliver real change,” said Erik Solheim, Executive Director, UN Environment.

“The investment demonstrates that we are serious in getting to grips with the world’s nitrogen cycle. One of the aims of INMS is to show how management of the global nitrogen cycle will deliver measurable benefits for oceans, climate, the atmosphere and land ecosystems. By joining up in this way, we will develop a much stronger foundation for action.”

This unique global nitrogen project reflects the critical need to build the ‘gravity of common cause’ across the nitrogen cycle.

For this to happen the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and UN Environment, along with the science community and the private sector, have come together to demonstrate the multiple benefits that a science to policy approach would bring.

United Nations and scientists bring together USD $60 million for new international management system to fight nitrogen pollution

“The earth’s vital nitrogen cycle is undergoing unprecedented change – part of a broader pattern of unsustainable pressure on our global commons such as the climate system, forests, water, land and oceans,” said Naoko Ishii, GEF CEO and Chairperson. “Today, excess nitrogen is poisoning important lakes and oceans, and it’s important that we bring all players to the table to address this issue.”

Nitrogen fertilizers sustain half the human population alive today, yet few realize its effect on the environment. From better water treatment to smart farming practices, the scientific guidance of INMS is expected to have major benefits.

The ‘Towards INMS’ project will enable improved full-chain nitrogen use efficiency; tools to quantify co-benefits of nitrogen management; regional case studies to showcase improved practices and provide investment options; and scientific evidence.

Indispensable to life on earth, reactive nitrogen is a dangerous pollutant of air, water and soil, when released in large quantities

Towards INMS is a USD $60 million project funded through the International Waters Focal Area of the Global Environment Facility, with major co-financing from the project partners, and implemented by UN Environment.

It is executed through the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council, and its’ Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, on behalf of the International Nitrogen Initiative.

Professor Mark Sutton, from the Centre of Ecology & Hydrology and Chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI) said, “Nitrogen pollution represents a huge waste of a valuable resource. In the EU alone, the fertilizer value of nitrogen losses from agriculture is around Euro 14 billion per year. This is equivalent to losing 25% of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget (or 10% of the entire EU budget) up in smoke or down the drain.”

Dr Cameron Gourley from Agriculture Victoria and Secretary of the International Nitrogen Initiative Conference being held in Melbourne said, “Nitrogen is essential for global and local food production and economic development. This kind of international collaboration is critical for us to find the right balance between food security well as taking responsibility for our environmental footprint.”

Project details can be found at https://www.thegef.org/project/targeted-research-improving-understanding-global-nitrogen-cycle-towards-establishment

Visit the website at http://www.inms.internationa

*Source: This articles was published in UNEP. Go to Original. 2016 Human Wrongs Watch

Source: https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2016/12/05/scientists-shine-a-spotlight-on-the-overlooked-menace-of-nitrogen/