Supported projects

ANTWERP - Flemish industry urgently needs to become greener in order to meet climate targets, but the transition is proving difficult. Although the government is making more and more resources available, it remains unclear whether these investments will actually lead to greening.

KINSHASA - Following on from the first part of the dossier on why and how Congo's forests became the world's first lung, John Vandaele explores whether the country can effectively be the 'solution country' it claims to want to be.

ÚSTI NAD LABEM / LANDAU - The 'lithium fever' has devastated the landscape in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, among others. Europe is trying to mine its own lithium deposits in an environmentally friendly way: using geothermal energy. Germany is already experimenting with it in the Upper Rhine Valley. 

KAMPALA/DAR ES SALAAM - In 2006, British company Tullow Oil discovered oil reserves in the Albertine region in northwestern Uganda. In early 2022, Total signed an agreement with Tanzania and Uganda and Chinese state-owned CNOOC to begin construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). The project will create the largest oil-heated pipeline with a length of 1,443 kilometers between Hoima in Uganda and Tanga in Tanzania, from where crude oil will be exported. But not without consequences.

ROTTERDAM - The Port of Rotterdam claims to champion sustainability but is the reality matching its marketing?

GEORGETOWN - On behalf of US oil giant ExxonMobil, Belgian company Jan de Nul (together with partners) is building an artificial island off the coast of Guyana, South America.

RIOHACHA - The world is facing a total energy transition, and Colombia, too, is joining the momentum.

KINSHASA - Although the Amazon forest is significantly larger, the tropical forests in the Congo Basin, in the heart of Africa, are taking more CO2 out of the air today. This seems like good news, but these forests are also disappearing at a rapid pace.

AKIAK - In the fight against global warming, the Arctic is one of the most important front lines. There, the earth is warming three times faster than average.

JOKKMOKK - Sweden is trying at all costs to switch to renewable energy by 2040. But this is coming up against fierce protests from environmentalists and members of the local Sami reindeer communities who oppose the colonisation of Sapmi - the land of the Sami.

LEUVEN - The European Commission gave Leuven the prestigious Green Leaf Award 2018 for its climate policy and, in its motivation for naming the city the European Capital of Innovation in 2020, referred to 'inspiring governance models' for getting residents, businesses and knowledge institutions to participate in that policy. However, Leuven's excellent climate performance is not evident from the figures of the past decade. 

MINA DO BAROSSO - Lithium is the raw material we need en masse for batteries, including electric cars. Under Portuguese soil there is a lot of that 'white gold'.

IMIDER - Imider is a very small community, but it has been put on the map by a world record. In the southern Moroccan Atlas Mountains, under a colourful Berber flag, the world's longest sit-in protest is ongoing.

DUSHANBE - In October 2016, the authoritarian president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rachmon, pushed a pile of stones into the river Vachsh with a bulldozer. With this symbolic gesture he gave a new start to the construction of the Rogun dam which started in 1976. With 335 meters, Rogun has to become the highest dam in the world and the largest hydroelectric power plant in Central Asia. Quite a strong achievement for the poorest country in the region.

BOGOTA - Raf Custers went to the North of Colombia where he visited El Cerrejon, the site of the largest coal mine in Latin America.

FRAY BENTOS - In the last few years money has been made with raw materials. Lots of money. Everyone was after it to win and sell them or to process them in industry. The result: prices skyrocketed. Those who traded in raw materials became rich while sleeping. That credo applied to companies, and governments too believed in it.

BRUSSELS - Because of the unrest in the Ukraine and the Middle East the past year, Europe has become acutely aware of its energy dependency. Brussels presented a new European Commissioner for Energy Union, but real collaboration is still a long way off.

DESSEL - It is likely that the Belgian government will give the green light for the final underground disposal of nuclear waste before the end of the year. Cost: several billion euros. The taxpayer pays almost half of that. It remains to be seen whether the largest waste producer Electrabel will pay the rest.

KIVU - Without fuel our cars will stop moving; it is something we all know and realise. Far less of our attention is aimed at raw materials. Unrightfully so, because without raw materials cars it would not even be possible to make cars. The average car contains about a mile of copper wire, copper that is mainly looked for in Africa.

SALAR DE UYUNI - Uyuni is a backward region in the South of Bolivia. Bult the salt lake of Uyuni is rich with lithium, the commodity for the production of batteries, soon also for batteries for electrical vehicles. For this raw material a game of chess is being played between some multinational companies, the people of Uyuni and Bolivia's government.

MUMBAI - With financial support from the Fonds Pascal Decroos, Nick Meynen followed carbon credit money flowing from Belgium to India, where he discovered a desert full of mirages. Part from the fraud and abuse, he also noticed the difference in approach between Flanders and Belgium, the buyers of carbon credits.

BUDAPEST - One year ago, the Belgian government purchased two million tonnes of CO₂ emission rights from Hungary. This €26 million investment is intended to help the country meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions by 7.5 per cent by 2012 compared to 1990 levels.