What Chinese Fertilizers Can Tell Us About Ukraine
The production and use of inorganic fertilizers is an important but often overlooked source of CO2 emissions, and an important contributor to climate change, which is related to the rapid growth of ammonia produced on the basis of coal, which has been increasing steadily since the early1980s.
Theproduction and use of inorganic fertilizers is an important but oftenoverlooked source of CO2 emissions, and an important contributor toclimate change, which is related to the rapid growth of ammonia produced on thebasis of coal, which has been increasing steadily since the early1980s. China’sgrowing production of coal-based ammonia and nitrogen fertilizer has been animportant driver in this rise, with important global climate consequences. Thispaper analyzes the global geopolitical impacts of this situation as a basis to ask a number of questionsrelevant for Ukraine’s future energy an agricultural choices in the context ofa world marked by the imperative of decarbonization.
Author’s bio
Margarita Balmaceda is Professor ofDiplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University and, concurrently, an Associate at the Harvard UkrainianResearch Institute (HURI). Usingher Ukrainian, Russian, Hungarian and German skills, she has conductedextensive research in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, and Hungarywith the goal of studying energy and resource politics and relationships from“inside” and looking at the goals and interests of local stakeholders. Herresearch analyzes the connections between natural resources, technology,international relationships and political development, with a special expertisein energy-industrial chains such as steel and fertilizers in Ukraine, theformer USSR and the EU.
Her latest book, RussianEnergy Chains: the Remaking of Technopolitics from Siberia to Ukraine to the European Union (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press 2021),received the Marshall D. Shulman Book Prize for anoutstanding monograph dealing with the international relations of the formerSoviet Union and the Ed A. Hewett Book Prize for an outstanding monograph onthe political economy of Russia, Eurasia and/or Eastern Europe.
She 2022-2023 as aFulbright fellowship in at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) inPotsdam, Germany learning about the technological side of her new book project,The Last Frontier of Decarbonization: Hidden Industrial Carbon betweenGeopolitics and Climate Change (under contract with ColumbiaUniversity Press). Her education includesa Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University, Post-doctoral training atHarvard University, and ongoing training on metallurgical technology throughcourses at the World Steel University.