greed for power and profit plummeted and entire continent into chaos and violence. this is the journey back into the history of slavery. our documentary series slavery routes starts march 10th on d w. this is d w news and these are our top stories the u.s. house of representatives has narrowly passed a $1.00 trillion dollar pandemic aid package individuals will get one off cash payments and billions will go to struggling sectors of american society president joe biden is calling on the senate to act fast to make it law. myanmar state t.v. says the country's ambassador to the united nations has been fired in an emotional

appeal to the international community. to announce to the army to which deposed the civilian government security forces have stepped up their crackdown against opponents of the military regime. scuffles of broken out hundreds joins in lockdown protests in the hours capital dublin violence flared as police tried to stop demonstrators reaching a central park the irish government has extended lockdown restrictions on until april 5th $1000.00 cases surged after the rules were eased in art and before christmas. you're watching the news you can follow us on instagram and twitter or visit our website d.w. dot com. greenhouse gases trash and heavy metals we humans are really hard.

but many industries have been rethinking how they work and science is lending that hand. today we take a look at a few funded projects that are hoping to reduce c o 2 emissions poor eliminate them in time a. welcome to this edition of tomorrow today the science show on. this record we accompany a german research it the united arab emirates. the arab country in the arabian gulf was long known for its high energy consumption. but now it's not as attractions and glitzy megaprojects may be a thing of the past the country's oil wealth is drawing up and the climate crisis

is growing ever more. could. come to the rescue. greenhouses near abu dhabi in the united arab emirates the plants here can only survive in this arid environment because they're watered by an expensive irrigation system and protected from. climate change is already having a major impact here. genetically modified plants that are better adapted to the heat be part of the solution and even help slow down climate change. in his experiments germiston to car from university has found a way to get tobacco plants to absorb more c o 2 which could help pull the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere.

he's collaborating with mohamed nasim a biologist who works in votes pork and abu dhabi so exciting to meet you. they have weekly meetings from one greenhouse to the next thousands of kilometers apart. they're hoping to modify plants to bind more c o 2 and boost their yeo's that would be especially helpful in desert countries like the united arab emirates. you've used. the desert as a real threat and just a few kilometers away from the university the government wants all professors to make a contribution to the fight against global warming. and on lies stood it's abundantly clear that the amount of fertile land is shrinking as a god it is seeing carbon fixation is very important so that we can feed just as

many people with less land and. the scientists are hoping to supercharge plants to make them better at absorbing c o 2 during photosynthesis leaves consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen using the enzyme rw biscoe but it's not a faster efficient process so up to 50 percent of their conversion efficiency is lost. to a standard car and his colleague elaine of and sort of are modulating the plant's metabolism to make it easier for their leaves to bind c o 2. they're working with bacteria and synthetic enzymes which are introduced into the plant cells the. slow down for the response process in which c o 2 is released instead of stored a synthetic metabolic cycle will also give the process a boost. to

things into the plants the synthetic cycle enables them to fix to much better and it's quicker and a larger quantity is stored. the other has to do with photo restoration c o 2 is lost in this process and i can block this undesirable cycle by changing the mix of enzymes so that c o 2 is either not released or is immediately recycled recycling 'd so far these climate friendly plants only exist in the laboratory but thomas donned a car and his doctoral student. to have developed a computer model that shows what their super charged plants might one day be able to do. by passing photo respiration and modulating the metabolic network will keep carbon dioxide inside the plants instead of releasing it into the atmosphere plants modified this way could bind 5

times as much c o 2. and supply in mathematical terms the model works that's a really important result that has come up with in her calculations. and that means that i can perfectly augmented blocking of c o 2 transport with the synthetic cycles. and. these computer simulations are being put to the test in abu dhabi the university greenhouses growing tomatoes and. will their supercharged plants have a higher yield and bind more c o 2. genetically modified plants are permitted in the united arab emirates under highly controlled conditions. one day supercharged plants might be grown in secure greenhouses and the technology might also be used in other applications. trees for example could be enhanced to store more c

o 2. algae that grows in the flooded sand pits near cement factories could be modified to bind more smokestack emissions. and golden rice which already boosts vitamin e. might also become more climate friendly. this is an important moment in time where the c o 2 imbalance is still unstable years where new conditions have not yet been established the 1st ice free polar caps like the thawing of permafrost is that is why we need to research fully reversible and mild climate mitigation strategies so that we know which way to go when things get critical in say 10 years' time. the scientists hope that green genetic engineering could help boost crop yields and at the same time we do c o 2 emissions. if their

research pays off supercharged crops could help solve 2 of our biggest problems. global hunger and global warming. pulling greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere is one solution. but eliminating emissions would be even better. the steel industry is one of the dirtiest industries in the world the blast furnace is that he said with coal are a big part of the problem. might hydrogen be a green a solution a german still produce it is best. that it could. be called is germany's biggest steel producer and also its biggest c.e.o. to produce its factories pump out around $20000000.00 tonnes of carbon dioxide

a year amounting to almost 3 percent of total c o 2 emissions in germany and the furnace is they used to play a big role in that. the theory is this is a blast furnace one with a conventional design that normally uses iron ore and coke as an additive will be. the 100 meter tall furnace is filled much like a pepper grinder a fan blows in hot air and coal dust at the bottom line occurs naturally in oxidized form so the oxygen has to be extracted to obtain the pure metal that's where the coke or carbon comes in. the byproduct is carbon dioxide. as the gas rises the crude pig iron melts and flows to the bottom. to do sport based company wants to reduce those c

o 2 emissions and eventually eliminate them. they're carrying out tests to see if hydrogen could be used in the furnace instead of carbon. currently completing the initial phase 1st you have to figure out a good way to get the hydrogen deep into the furnace office if. it's a tricky process because hydrogen is a highly reactive element when it's combined with oxygen it forms a highly combustible gas oxy hydrogen every 2 hours the steel workers tap off the fresh. samples of centerville a bar a tree on site where the quality of the iron and other raw materials is checked. so hydrogen technique is also new territory for the engineers here. and of course have us for being part of this transformation is a huge challenge it's not as easy as people might think that 1st if we're now

injecting hydrogen into the furnace that means our tests also have to be changed of the composition of the gases different and we might have to change other parameters to. see. in the labs trial fantasy's the engineers carry out test runs with a variety of additives and gases. painted a huge amount of hydrogen which is also a major challenge. these blue cylinders supply just one of the furnace is 28 injection also ols after that that's why at the moment we have 2 trucks delivering the hydrogen to us in rotation multiply that by 28 and you can see we have a crazy number of deliveries here it's not feasible over the long term which is why we're laying a pipeline. 130 kilometers south of duisburg is a company that knows all about pipelines and that's also investing in hydrogen

production the shell rhineland refinery is the largest refinery in germany. shell is now building the world's largest electrolysis plant here on site the facility would use electricity from renewable sources to produce green hydrogen. the coronavirus pandemic has slowed down construction work somewhat. but the water pipes are already in place. see if you are with it might just be water but it has to travel 700 meters we had to use some pipe rack with stainless steel it has to be heated to prevent freeze. it's not just an ordinary pipe. life. now it's on to the next stage the refinery director is coming to the site to see how things are going. he's

already making plans for the future. because we're a couple support from fin mayor of us in this project has a capacity of 10 megawatts it's a start and we can learn from it we want to get the technology up and running to see if it's scalable to 100 megawatts or more what we learn will help us move the technology forward and that's what makes it so fascinating because i want this particular thought it's awful so you know. shell hopes that one day it might be able to export its green hydrogen. the steelworks induced also a promising customer they also have big plans installed. by 2050 at the latest to some quick ones to use no coke at all in its furnace is. for that they'll need an all new blast furnace one that will be fed with iron ore pellets and hot hydrogen. instead of dirty c o 2 the byproduct would be h 2 o.

water in the form of steam. and they want the furnace to be powered with thermal energy source from green electricity. they've already seen some promising results. suffer through here. this is what we've already managed is to ship the conversion of the hydrogen deep inside the furnace interior then the hydrogen doesn't just combust but extracts the oxygen from the iron ore leaving us with workable pig iron in the end. pig iron produced with this method is higher in quantity too when coke is used the pig iron. contains unwanted by products like sulfur and phosphorus which have to be removed but that's not the case with hydrogen it's a truly clean fuel. germany did it in 2020.

that they tested it almost 20 years ago. but the ban on plastic bags hasn't made much of a difference that yes. alternatives made from natural jute haven't caught on. now a scientist in bangladesh may have found a solution for that. this is a market at the edge of the bangladeshi capital dhaka. the fish section is very busy as all those. many species are on sale at the stalls. and everywhere single use plastic bags everybody uses the.

reverse thrust genger has been selling fish here for 10 years. he knows that plastic bags are bad for the environment but he says his customers should take responsibility. but on the back of either. these bags are everywhere and that's why we use them if we could get different ones we would use them people who shop at the market should bring their own bags or baskets but nobody does them i said. right beside the market is a lake it's very polluted and plastic trash is everywhere. disposable plastic bags have been banned in bangladesh since 2002 but the

authorities don't enforce the ban. one reason is the lack of alternatives that are slight and cheap and easy to use as regular bags made of polyethylene. eco friendly bags are available for sale but they are rarely used bangladesh is the 3rd biggest producer of jute in the world. the abundance of this resource inspired scientists mubarak ahmed khan to develop a biodegradable polymer derived from jud fibers and then bags made out of it. when i lived. in bangladesh called the golden 5 because that's why the prime minister gave up product the name gone back. day it's recyclable if you dissolve in

water you can dry it and make something new with it. the tsunami back went through a long period of development and testing before to change its present form. if a bag is burnt it doesn't release dangerous chemicals the way polyethylene does. waste you are the source materials for the backs they look as if they're made of regular plastic but they're not. like that i'm not the least. first if we beach brought you to tell it's white you know should a. cinema star if they put it in then we extract cellulose from it but it may soon . be processed the cellulose to make it water soluble. to get the leather not money

. then we out of binding agent what it is at them like the binding addict and that yields the solution you don't mr get at the solution. a solution to that solution we produce the bags we use various methods to make them. conscious the manufacturing process is entirely natural unlike that for bags made from other plants such as manya for the peel of sugarcane. our bags are completely biodegradable compostable and water soluble water but are also dependable we can produce bags that last as long as customers need them all to. the pollution of the sea the land and the air is a big topic right now. to learn from our bags are a good environmentally friendly alternative to put our money finally back. the

government back to pilot project to manufacture them proved a success. the challenge now is to develop large capacity machines and scale of production so that so now the bags can be made available across the country. and now it's time for your questions this time we've got one from south america. here hello my name is gary and i'm from columbia i have a question for tomorrow. why is plankton imposing for a. dealer my good question. let's take a look at seawater one teaspoonful contains up to a 1000000 organisms viruses fundi bacteria tiny algae and other creatures. all organisms carried along by the current

a cast as plankton even large ones like jellyfish but most are so small you need a microscope to see them. it's quite beautiful and when they multiply a lot you can even see that from space. plankton are extremely important for the global ecosystem here are 3 reasons why number one breathing without plankton we couldn't breathe phytoplankton that is plant like plankton a photosynthetic there fueled by light energy from the sun and give off oxygen in the process the way trees do too but all in a fight a plankton release a lot more oxygen than trees do photosynthesis also involves the consumption of carbon dioxide so phytoplankton help combat climate change by pulling c o 2 from the environment number 2 eating plankton

a key to the global food chain phytoplankton a region by 00 plankton that is tiny animals eat tiny plants fish and other larger aquatic creatures eat plants and even some of the biggest animals eat it like some species of whale. sounds a lot of what we eat was reared on plankton without them the entire food chain would collapse. which brings us to number 3 building plankton are also the source of raw materials what do these buildings have in common lightstone. it's formed from the shells of dead microorganisms that gather on the sea floor. over a mill. and years also the deadliest cemented together into rock one cubic centimeter of chalk a kind of limestone is made up of hundreds of millions of tiny shelves. just think how many there must be here. plants and maybe very small but sometimes it's the

little things that play a very big role. by the way the amount of plankton changes seasonally and in response to other factors . but in some regions there's been a massive decline in. the us and experts what can we do to protect plankton. to inform the atmosphere was the biggest fasher is reducing atmospheric carbon emissions. the 2nd aspect is related to fish or ice the larger creatures plankton and fish are important for the mineral nutrients cycle. through for. if you take those creatures out of the system by overfishing for example then you also change the mineral

nutrient cycles. then ended. that also has a direct impact on phytoplankton because they need mineral nutrients to grow to vaccinate people on their own. in town as plankton research changed over time. through our hearts more investment in form land we used to base our approach to the oceans and what we knew about land ecosystems. at 1st scientists focused primarily on how mineral nutrients are distributed in the ocean and how phytoplankton respond to these nutrients of these and they are. that's your money gets in but we're. and now we're discovering that the many interactions among the plankton might be more important. then that's the direction research is now going in. looking at the interactions which species are

her together how they are distributed and that kind of thing. you gotta know i didn't just use it in cats and the data shows that these interactions are very important one of the most important involves predation. grazing pressure from plain text book if we look at these types of interactions in detail then of course rediscover completely new facets of trying to ecology. and. facet or for plant to inequality a typical example diatonic. and this month with the 1st ishtar sergio's have examined the robustness of their salissa find cell walls and which animals eat such creatures and how the structure of these shells offers protection from various predators. there shouldn't. be

too. if outlet is read why are they right and. if you have a science question you'd like us to answer. send your name as a video text voicemail if we featured on the show you'll get a little surprise from us as a thank you come on just ask. for more science stories check out our website d.w. dot com slash science or look for us on twitter. that's all for now thanks for joining us on tomorrow today. we'll be back next week with another edition until then up. i.

don't need the way of norway it wants to fight climate change by storing carbon dioxide emissions in the ocean floor. problem solved. the project promises to be a lucrative business. but critics of the technology fear it mean compliment and are calling for a return to natural feeling to storage. attractive

. flawless. fake. them these beauties are 100 percent digital they don't have to put on airs or watch the way they have followers on instagram and represent the biggest fashion labels are destroy avatar the ideal models. 16. different. islands. here women are in charge. of the archipelago has a patriarchal system for centuries. old where forms of society.

women move differently. what they do with their powers. and how sustainable is this culture planes of the rango starts more takes on t.w. . play the oil company a cleaner what is doing something extraordinary on the slightly gas platform in the north sea it pumps millions of tons of carbon dioxide on to the sea that the greenhouse gas that threatens to warm the planet is simply bunkered away and it clean no one has plans to syquest it even more carbon dioxide just toward its potential in the north sea is large enough to have.