Liverpool Plans To Become World's First Climate Positive City by 2020

To achieve its target carbon emissions and become the world’s first climate positive city, Liverpool is relying on Blockchain technology and has chosen its partner.

Mining cryptocurrencies is an energy-intensive process as huge amounts of electricity are needed to run and cool computing systems required for mining.

It’s estimated that mining Bitcoin and Ethereum alone, the two biggest cryptocoins by market capitalization, consumes a whopping 47 terawatt-hours per year.

What’s more, this staggering energy consumption comes with a severe side-effect, that of the significant CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere.

For all its potential benefits, mining bitcoin and ethereum have an annual carbon footprint close to that of around 7 million European inhabitants.

Liverpool City to go Climate Positive by 2020

Liverpool City has a long history with “firsts” in the UK, Europe, and the world.

England’s first subscription library opened in Liverpool (The Lyceum, 1758), as did the first British art gallery (The Walker Art Gallery, 1877), or the world’s first overhead railway (1893).

Now, the city has another “first” that it wants to add to its strong track record, that of becoming the first climate positive city in the world.

Last month, Liverpool City Council announced it has partnered with the Poseidon Foundation to help it reach that goal by the end of 2020.

Upon the deal, Poseidon, which is now based in Malta, will move its operations to Liverpool where its Blockchain technology will be used to offset the city’s carbon footprint in a 12-month trial.

“Poseidon’s technology is the first of its kind to truly deliver a solution to governments, businesses, and individuals around the world to help reverse the causes of climate change and I am thrilled this agreement will bring this cutting-edge technology to our city,” said Joe Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool.

From his part, Laszlo Giricz, founder and CEO of Poseidon, thinks this partnership between his foundation and Liverpool will bypass the city’s walls to have global effects, by showing the example to follow.

“For the first time,” said Giricz, “a city will use blockchain technology to go beyond rebalancing its carbon footprint – leading the way in the fight against climate change.”

Carbon Positivity: How can Blockchain Help?

To relocate to Liverpool, the Poseidon Foundation is a newly founded not-for-profit organization that runs a blockchain-based platform to reverse climate change.

Poseidon’s innovative solution is simple, smart, and promising.

Whenever you make a climate-negative spend, Poseidon’s Stellar network calculates the product’s carbon impact (its manufacturing emissions), then adds the amount needed for carbon offset.

On behalf of the customer and via their profile on Poseidon, the difference would be automatically used to purchase the platform’s native tokens (called OCEAN).

The user then gets a notification that their purchase is carbon neutral, and the amount generated go to Ecosphere+’s forest conservation projects.

In addition, the Stellar network in itself is more eco-friendly than other Blockchain platforms like that of Bitcoin and Ethereum as it consumes a fraction of their electricity needs and generates way less carbon per transaction.

Poseidon works with individual customers, companies, and governments.

For its agreement with Liverpool, the city that aims to cut its carbon footprint 40% by 2030, Poseidon will “work with local schools, universities, and businesses to develop educational programmes around climate impact.”

When and if Liverpool reaches its target carbon emission, it’ll amount to the protection of “136 million trees or 338,000 football fields, which could create over 3,500 jobs in the Peruvian Amazon.”