New public polling published today (Thursday, 21 February 2019) by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) reveals that less than a quarter of people would support weakening limits on earthquakes caused by fracking. More than twice as many people support the rules as they stand.

More than half of all respondents to a survey commissioned by CPRE believe that the government should prioritise the concerns of the general public when making decisions on whether or not to weaken regulations, while just one person in 25 believes that the views of the fracking industry should take precedent.

Despite these overwhelming public concerns, just 13 percent of respondents feel the government is listening to the public on the issue of fracking; more than half (51%) believe they are being ignored. The government’s own data, published earlier this month, shows that support for fracking is the lowest it has been.

Industry lobbying

The poll, which was carried out by YouGov on the behalf of the countryside charity, follows a series of calls from fracking companies for the government to loosen regulations that force them to stop fracking if it causes earthquakes with a magnitude of 0.5 or above.

In response to demands from industry, the government has said that it does not intend to review earthquake regulations, stating: ‘We set these regulations in consultation with industry and we have no plans to review them.’ However, despite these comments, there have been more recent reports that a review is on the horizon [5] with fresh calls from industry that included a direct plea to the Prime Minister [6].

Tom Fyans, deputy chief executive at CPRE, said: “The public has made it abundently clear that they do not want earthquake regulations to be weakened. But given that they don’t believe that the government is listening to their concerns over fracking – at a time when we are facing the unprecedented threat of climate change – it is imperative that action is taken to restore public faith.

“If the government rolls over on this latest bout of industry lobbying and relaxes these standards to make way for more fracking – which exist to protect the public, our countryside and environment – it will only ramp up public opposition to new heights.

“At a time when government proposals threaten to impose fast-tracked fracking over communities’ heads, it is crucial that it reassures the public that it is taking their concerns seriously.”

CPRE believes the government must reassure the public by issuing a definitive statement confirming that it will not weaken regulations that pause fracking when it causes earthquakes with a magnitude of 0.5 or above.

This Article

This article is based on a press release from  the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

New public polling published today (Thursday, 21 February 2019) by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) reveals that less than a quarter of people would support weakening limits on earthquakes caused by fracking. More than twice as many people support the rules as they stand.

More than half of all respondents to a survey commissioned by CPRE believe that the government should prioritise the concerns of the general public when making decisions on whether or not to weaken regulations, while just one person in 25 believes that the views of the fracking industry should take precedent.

Despite these overwhelming public concerns, just 13 percent of respondents feel the government is listening to the public on the issue of fracking; more than half (51%) believe they are being ignored. The government’s own data, published earlier this month, shows that support for fracking is the lowest it has been.

Industry lobbying

The poll, which was carried out by YouGov on the behalf of the countryside charity, follows a series of calls from fracking companies for the government to loosen regulations that force them to stop fracking if it causes earthquakes with a magnitude of 0.5 or above.

In response to demands from industry, the government has said that it does not intend to review earthquake regulations, stating: ‘We set these regulations in consultation with industry and we have no plans to review them.’ However, despite these comments, there have been more recent reports that a review is on the horizon [5] with fresh calls from industry that included a direct plea to the Prime Minister [6].

Tom Fyans, deputy chief executive at CPRE, said: “The public has made it abundently clear that they do not want earthquake regulations to be weakened. But given that they don’t believe that the government is listening to their concerns over fracking – at a time when we are facing the unprecedented threat of climate change – it is imperative that action is taken to restore public faith.

“If the government rolls over on this latest bout of industry lobbying and relaxes these standards to make way for more fracking – which exist to protect the public, our countryside and environment – it will only ramp up public opposition to new heights.

“At a time when government proposals threaten to impose fast-tracked fracking over communities’ heads, it is crucial that it reassures the public that it is taking their concerns seriously.”

CPRE believes the government must reassure the public by issuing a definitive statement confirming that it will not weaken regulations that pause fracking when it causes earthquakes with a magnitude of 0.5 or above.

This Article

This article is based on a press release from  the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

MPs are set to debate four post-Brexit trade deals tomorrow (Thursday, 21 January 2019) in a move likely to launch formal trade negotiations with the USA and Britain’s application to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. 

But campaigners have warned MPs that the debate shows the almost complete lack of power which they will have to guide, scrutinise or stop trade deals after Brexit.

The debate follows a government consultation on the deals which provoked what is believed to be the biggest public response in history, with 600,000 individuals and organisations expressing concerns about the impact the deal could have.

Meaningless

Food standards, the NHS and the introduction of ‘corporate court’ systems which could lead to the British government getting sued in secret tribunals by some of the biggest companies on the planet were of particular concern.

Campaigners are warning that the government has failed to put into practice any framework for replacing the current scrutiny and accountability mechanisms which exist in the EU for dealing with trade deals. In effect, this hands the government very substantial powers to make sweeping social and economic changes outside of normal parliamentary processes.

The Trump administration has already made clear that any trade deal with the US would need to substantially alter British food standards and increase medicine prices.

Nick Dearden, of Global Justice Now, said: “This debate simply highlights the woeful lack of democracy governing Britain’s post-Brexit trade policy.

Following a pretty meaningless public consultation, which nonetheless showed how concerned we all are about the government’s trade plans, the Secretary of State is expecting to simply start negotiating these deals in six weeks’ time.

Final deal

“Neither parliament nor the public are allowed to stop Liam Fox negotiating away our food standards or our public services. This must change before it’s too late.”

David Lawrence, of the Trade Justice Movement, said: “Liam Fox has again demonstrated that he does not take Parliamentary oversight of trade deals seriously – despite his previous promise, that MPs will be given ‘the opportunity to consider… the Government’s approach to negotiations and the potential implications of any agreements’.

“Trade deals with places like the US could have massive impacts on social rights, the environment, food and health standards in the UK. The current process for agreeing trade agreements give MPs very little say.

“Thursday’s debate could be the only chance for MPs to debate these deals, and does not offer any assurances that MPs will be able to influence negotiations, access texts or get a meaningful vote on the deals.”

Jean Blaylock, of War on Want, said: “We know the Secretary of State has a lot riding on doing a deal with the US but we don’t know what he is prepared to offer to get it. Thursday’s debate may be the only chance to find out.

“But more than that, it may be the only chance for parliament to have any say before an eventual deal is implemented. Trade officials can start negotiations, do the deal behind closed doors, finish and sign it, and parliament isn’t even guaranteed a vote on the final deal.”

This article

This article is based on a press release from War on Want.

The toxic heavy metal mercury can find its way into the blood of unborn babies through the placenta by “camouflaging” itself as an amino acid.

This finding was the outcome of research carried out by a team from Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences and the Medical University of Vienna (both Austria).

In contrast, little is known about placental transport of iron, an essential element that is often found in insufficient quantities in expectant mothers and their unborn foetuses.

Mother

Based on the methods used and experience gained in the mercury study, the inter-university team is now looking at this transport process in a new project, which is also being supported by NÖ Forschungs- und Bildungsges.m.b.H. (NFB).

Facilitating the exchange of metabolites, nutrients and gases between mother and foetus is one of the most important functions of the placenta. It is vital that harmful substances in the mother’s blood do not threaten the life of the unborn child.

The placenta is effective at blocking cadmium and lead, but the protective mechanism fails to stop mercury. This toxic heavy metal is transported from the mother’s blood stream into the foetus’s circulatory system with astonishing efficiency.

Until now, it was not clear how this happens, but now a team of physicians from Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences in Krems (KL Krems) and the Medical University of Vienna (MUV) has verified the reasons.

“Essentially, the cause is very simple,” explains Prof. Claudia Gundacker, who headed the research team. “Mercury is present in the blood in a form that is structurally similar to an amino acid which the placenta absorbs from the mother’s blood.

Newborns

“So the mercury ‘disguises’ itself and deceives the system.” In fact, mercury, including the neurotoxicant methylmercury, bonds easily with amino acids like cysteine, which contains sulphur. This compound of mercury and cysteine is similar to the amino acid methionine, which is taken up by the placenta using a specific mechanism known as system L.

Using cell cultures that are very similar to the placenta in the in vivo situation, Prof. Gundacker’s team showed for the first time that system L transports methylmercury like an amino acid. This also explains an earlier finding that foetuses have a higher concentration of mercury in their blood than the mothers. In effect, the placental transport mechanisms pump mercury into the unborn child’s bloodstream.

The findings, which have been published in the journal Toxicology and the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, confirm that the methods used by the team are suitable for analysing the placenta’s transport mechanisms.

All the more reason, then, to use these methods for further studies. Prof. Hans Salzer of KL Krems said: “Now we are also looking at the uptake of iron into the placenta.

“In contrast to mercury, foetuses need iron. But unfortunately, iron deficiency is common among pregnant women and newborns, even in highly developed countries. We can only address this problem effectively if we have a better understanding of how it is transported.”

Staggering

This is the focus of a project that the group has recently launched. The next aim is to identify the proteins responsible for iron transport in the placenta and test their function using cell cultures. The team will also establish precisely where these proteins occur in the placenta.

Then, the focus will switch to examining the relationship between the activity of the proteins in the placenta and the iron levels of mother-child pairs. The researchers have access to 100 data sets from healthy, non-anaemic mother-child-pairs, which will enable them to produce comprehensive results.

In view of the placenta’s importance for the health of unborn children and expectant mothers, the gaps in our understanding of its transport methods are staggering. However, the KL Krems-MUV team is now rapidly filling in these blanks thanks to its international expertise and its methods, which are now firmly established.

This Article

This article is based on a press release from University Hospital Tulln, Austria. Image courtesy of nursingschoolsnearme.com.

Thousands of women across the world – from the UK, the USA and Australia, to Kenya, South Africa and Nepal – will be gathering to sing for the trees in celebration of International Women’s Day, Friday 8 March.

The “mass of gentle activism” includes 53 events in parks, forests and gardens in 14 countries across the globe and is part of a campaign being spearheaded by global women-led reforestation movement, TreeSisters.

The events will raise awareness of the crucial role trees play in mitigating climate change, as well as the vital role women are playing in the restoration of the world’s forests.

Dynamic change

TreeSisters, a UK registered charity, had so far funded the planting of more than three million trees in the tropics – increasing the capacity for reforestation to provide up to 50 percent of our global warming solution over the next 50 crucial years.

Pollyanna Darling, a spokesperson for TreeSisters, is leading the Sing for the Trees campaign. She said: “On International Women’s Day we want to honour the remarkable role trees play in mitigating climate change and sustaining a healthy planet.

“Trees restore life in so many ways. They provide clean air, oxygen and food, boost our health and wellbeing, sequester carbon, filter pollution from the air, minimise flood damage, prevent soil erosion, seed rainfall, nourish our rivers and oceans, provide a bountiful habitat for wildlife, and countless other benefits.

“With the theme of International Women’s Day being to build a gender-balanced world, we also want to honour the important role women play in bringing a feminine response to climate change.”

She added: “Our care for living systems and capacity to rally together to create dynamic change in the world, inspiring others by example, really matter at this time. We influence our children, our extended families and our communities. The world needs women to raise their voices and singing for trees is a beautiful, nourishing way to do that.”

Primary allies

Details of Sing for the Trees activities happening in the UK and across the globe can be found on the TreeSisters Facebook events page, with more being added every day.

Events in the UK include an appearance in Stroud by renowned singer and song maker Liz Terry ; with singing in Ceredigion, Wales led by Jenny Smith, programme director of TreeSisters; and another in Great Malvern coordinated by Susan Hale, author of Sacred Space Sacred Sound and founder of the annual global event Earth Day-Sing for the Trees.

TreeSisters are encouraging women worldwide to take a leadership role, raise their voices and set up their own Sing for the Trees events on 8 or 9 March, whether in an organised way, or more informally.  The charity is also inviting women to use the opportunity to take some restorative time out in nature from their typically busy, care-giving lives.

Clare Dubois, founder and CEO of TreeSisters, said: “Women tend to give a lot, taking little time for ourselves and our energy can get very depleted. Singing opens our hearts and gives us energy, joy and hope, something we really need right now as we face climate change.

“Trees are a huge hope and are primary allies for us all. Singing for the trees is a way of coming into connection with the forests we love, and with others – for the sheer fun of it. This International Women’s Day, we invite you to step into leadership and coordinate a Sing for the Trees event for your community. You’re not alone, we’re doing it together all around the world.”

This Article

This article is based on a press release from Sing for the Trees. If you would like to coordinate a Sing for the Trees event for your local community, TreeSisters would love to support you. The charity has a resource of songs, a coordinator’s kit and a support group for coordinators. To find out more, sign up to the TreeSisters online community platform, TreeSisters Nest: http://bit.ly/TSNestjoin. Once you’ve joined, locate the Sing for the Trees Group.

Shipping specialists from around the world are shuttering themselves in the International Maritime Organization’s central London headquarters this week to thrash out a number of issues surrounding the threat of pollution to the climate and oceans from the global shipping industry.

This is an industry that for most of us remains unseen, but which we depend on for bringing us stuff from all over the planet.

At this meeting, the elegantly titled “PPR6”, delegations will be tasked with designing a ban on the use and carriage of heavy fuel oil, as fuel, from Arctic waters, and the identification of measures which will reduce emissions of black carbon from the burning of fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel

Many member states of the IMO – the UN body that regulates shipping – already voiced clear support for the ban at the IMO in April 2018. 

Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and the United States, along with Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand, proposed the ban on the use and carriage as fuel of HFO by ships operating in the Arctic, as the simplest approach to reducing the risks associated with HFO.

Their proposal was supported by Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Ireland, Japan, the League of Arab States, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.

These progressive stances are being met with some leaps of faith and innovation from some leading shipping players. This is notable for an industry that traditionally tends to move at a near glacial pace, and happy to stay quiet during international climate negotiations.

A clearer picture is emerging – of the climate impacts from global shipping, the health risks to cruise ship passengers and crews from fossil fuel pollution, and the dodges used by the cruise industry to get away with dirty practices.

Filthier

It seems impossible to “get away from it all”, when the air on board your ship is filthier than the world’s most polluted cities. And the polluters won’t get away with it for much longer.

The shipping sector is changing – it has gone the tentative floating of zero emission concepts, to full speed ahead, with some commentators referring to a “gold rush” mentality in the quest for cleaner shipping fuels.

Perhaps shipping industry leaders are finally taking inspiration from Lampedusa’s The Leopard: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”. They could even end up demanding more progressive regulations from policymakers.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Sweden’s shipping sector is preparing to end the use of fossil fuels domestically by 2045. This follows recent claims from shipping giant Maersk that it is aiming for a zero co2 emission target by 2050 – followed by Engine manufacturer MAN Energy Solutions saying this is “technically possible”, but citing a 2030 as a target.

Elsewhere, Norway’s Arctic cruise operator Hurtigruten is building hybrid vessels, and the country is experimenting with hydrogen-powered ferries.

Warming

Stena Line, one of the largest ferry operators, has been experimenting with methanol and battery-powered propulsion. Iceland is due to get its first battery-powered car ferry. Back in October 2018, The Economist reported that “Wind-powered ships are making a comeback”.

All of this is a good thing – the sooner that shipping companies veer away from heavy fuel oil, the better. HFO is a dirty and polluting fossil fuel that powers ships throughout our seas and oceans – accounting for 80 percent of marine fuel used worldwide.

Around 75 percent of marine fuel currently carried in the Arctic is HFO; over half by vessels flagged to non-Arctic states – countries that have little if any connection to the Arctic.

Already banned in Antarctic waters and in the waters around Svalbard, HFO is also a greater source of harmful emissions of air pollutants, such as sulphur oxide, and particulate matter, including black carbon, than alternative fuels such as distillate fuel and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Ice melts

When emitted and deposited on Arctic snow or ice, the climate warming effect of black carbon is up to five times more than when emitted at lower latitudes, such as in the tropics – just this week there’s been a spill of HFO in the Solomon Islands.

In addition, if HFO is spilled in cold polar waters, it emulsifies, proving almost impossible to clean up, and breaks down very slowly. A HFO spill would have long-term devastating effects on Arctic indigenous communities, livelihoods and the marine ecosystems they depend upon.

Banning it removes this problem – and any potential costs in doing must be handled at a policy level, without passing costs onto communities. 

Climate change is already fuelling temperature rises in the Arctic that are double the increases further south. Changes in the Arctic don’t stay in the Arctic – they resonate further south.

As the Arctic warms, the sea ice melts and opens up new shipping channels, larger cargo vessels, such as container ships carrying consumer goods could divert to Arctic waters in search of shorter journey times, as an alternative to the Suez Canal and the Straits of Malacca.

Back-pedalled

In September 2018, the first commercial container ship – owned by Maersk – crossed the Northern Sea Route, from Vladivostok to Bremerhaven.

While this crossing was something of an experiment – and Maersk maintained that it did not use HFO, a full commercial rollout of container ships crossing the Arctic would greatly increase the volumes of black carbon emitted in Arctic waters, as well as the risks of HFO spills.

As this week’s meeting opened in London, IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim said that “with future vessel traffic in Arctic waters projected to rise, the associated risk of an accidental oil spill into Arctic waters may also increase. It is therefore imperative that the [IMO] takes robust action to reduce the risks to the Arctic marine environment associated with the use and carriage of heavy fuel oil as fuel by ships”.

Yet a couple of Arctic nations are fence-sitting on the HFO issue: Canada and Russia. Canada was initially enthusiastic – with Justin Trudeau’s government co-signing an agreement with the Obama Administration for a “phase-down” of the fuel from their respective Arctic waters in late 2016.

Since then, Canada has back-pedalled, and made much of its IMO proposal to assess the impact of such a ban on Arctic communities. What Canada has so far failed to mention its submissions to the IMO, is that there is widespread, well documented support from indigenous Arctic communities from Canada, the US and Greenland.

Positive change

Russia has considered a ban on use of HFO in the Arctic as a “last resort”. However, one of the biggest users of HFO in the Arctic, Russian state-owned shipping company Sovcomflot has spoken openly about the need to move away from oil-based fuels, and marine bunker fuel supplier Gazpromneft expects to halt fuel oil use from 2025.

Significantly, in August 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto made a joint statement on the need to move to cleaner ships’ fuels in the Arctic.

The outcomes from this week’s IMO meeting will spawn no great headlines, no grand speeches from heads of state. IMO member states already agreed, back in April 2018, to move forward on an Arctic HFO ban, and recognized the need to reduce the impact in the Arctic of shipping’s black carbon emissions over five years ago.

But what happens this week is critical to addressing the threats to the Arctic, rather than just talking about them. Banning of the the world’s dirtiest fuel from what remains one of the Earth’s remaining pristine environments should be a no-brainer – hardly challenging when compared with the task of reversing climate change globally.

Banning HFO use in the Arctic is a quick and simple step in the right direction – alternative fuel options are available, and non-fossil fuel forms of propulsion are on the horizon. The global environment, and this planet’s climate is under severe pressure.

Real, positive change is required across the board, from everyone on the planet. Even with the new-found enthusiasm within the shipping industry, there is much work in negating the impact of shipping on our health, and the health of the planet. Ensuring the Arctic is protected from oil spills and black carbon pollution from heavy fuel is one these ways – it’s achievable, and within our grasp.

This Author

Dave Walsh is an advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance, which campaigns for a ban on the use and carriage of heavy fuel from Arctic shipping.

Most of the laws which protect our environment come from Europe. In order to plug some of the gaps which Brexit will create – if it happens – the government has promised to bring in a new Environment Bill.

Although that is not yet ready, the Conservatives feel under pressure to be seen to be doing something, and so the government recently published a Draft Environment Bill. The draft and responses to it will provide the basis for the bill itself, although the timing for that is unclear.

Draft bills don’t have to go through the whole parliamentary process that real bills have, which normally entails scope for amendments in both the Commons and the Lords.

Principles

In this case, instead, the ‘pre-legislative scrutiny’ consists of a joint inquiry by two committees of MPs: the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment Select Committee.

There are many aspects of the Draft Bill which worry environmentalists and others. For instance, and very importantly: the Draft proposes setting up a new Office for Environmental Protection, but there are concerns about its independence from government and the adequacy of its resources and powers to enforce the laws.

However in this short article we will come from a different angle: the unsatisfactory way in which the government is proposing to deal with the “environmental principles” it lists, principles inherited from EU law.

The principles themselves are generally agreed to be sound: for example polluters should pay for the pollution they create, action should be taken to prevent environmental damage, and we should be cautious when we don’t have all the evidence relevant to making a decision (“the precautionary principle”).

What is worrying about the Draft Bill is principally the limits it imposes on the application of these principles, which are its own principles, set out in Clause 2 on the first page of the Bill.

Green taxation

The principles are to be “proportionately applied”. What this would probably mean in practice is that they won’t be applied at all if they cost the Treasury or business money.

 The principles are also to be something for government to “have regard to”: another get-out clause which implies actually applying the principles only when there is nothing else government wants to do which conflicts with them, such as building new motorways and runways.

The principles — especially the preventative principle and the precautionary principle, which keep us safe — need instead to be duties, unavoidable, sacrosanct.

Similarly concerning is the exclusion of “taxation, spending or the allocation of resources within government” from the scope of the principles.

This is effectively the Treasury opting out of having the principles applying to anything it does, and appears to ignore the ongoing debate about “green taxation”, and even apparently rules out any idea of how environmental considerations might impact on the allocation of public expenditure for example, for flood defences.

Policy

Even stranger than what is in the bill itself is one comment in the official “explanatory notes”.

Paragraph 52 states  that “it may be inappropriate to consider the environmental principles in an area of policy that changes or is novel”.

It is obviously precisely in such cases that a consideration of environmental principles, and especially the precautionary principle, is required.

However, perhaps the worst limitation of all comes later in the Draft Bill. We find that the new Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) is going to be responsible for applying the environmental principles only to “environmental law”, which is a far more limited category.

This, it would seem, exclude the full range of government policy – the planning system for example, or transport, or economic policy, energy, infrastructure, agriculture.

It is also worth noting that, crucially, emissions of greenhouse gases are explicitly excluded from the remit of the OEP, a strange limitation in view of the enormous impact of anthropogenic dangerous climate change across the environment.

This is only a Draft Bill. There is plenty of time and opportunity to improve on it, and several of the environment NGOs are hard at work trying to do that. But if they don’t succeed, the environment really will join the list of the casualties of Brexit.

These authors

Victor Anderson is a research fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), and used to be a Green member of the London Assembly. Rupert Read is a reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia.. The terms of reference for the inquiry are online.

Brexit puts new pressure on Ireland to find and develop its own oil and gas supplies and reduce its reliance on British imports, the country’s offshore hydrocarbons industry argues.

Ireland imports all of its oil and around a third of its natural gas – mostly from the UK – and the gas imports are set to rise as the country’s offshore Corrib reserve runs out over the next 12 years, according to the Irish Offshore Operators’ Association (IOOA).

Now, uncertainty around Britain’s future relationship with the EU is adding urgency to the industry’s calls for drilling and infrastructure projects that can bolster Ireland’s energy independence.

Geopolitical uncertainty

“Ireland’s geographical location at the edge of Europe makes us extremely vulnerable to any potential disruption to energy supplies,” Pat Shannon, the IOOA’s chairman, told Climate Home News.

“Brexit increases energy security concerns, and post-Brexit, Ireland will not have a direct connection to the main EU energy infrastructure.”

The association published a report in January highlighting Ireland’s reliance on foreign oil and gas. It noted that even its biggest supplier, Britain, depends increasingly on imports from the European Union, Norway and Russia.

A disruption in these energy supplies would be costly for Ireland, the report warned. A year-long interruption of Russian gas to Europe would push up the country’s gas prices by 23 percent and electricity prices by 15%, while a total blackout would cost around €850m per day.

“Developing indigenous oil and gas would provide greater security of supply for Ireland in the context of global geopolitical uncertainty, including Brexit,” Shannon said.

Oil and gas

The industry association has been discussing these risks with Ireland’s local and national governments and other stakeholders since Britain’s June 2016 referendum.

Oil and gas explorers will “likely” drill at least one new well in the deep Irish waters this year, with more being prepared for 2020 and 2021, Shannon said.

“Irrespective of the manner in which the UK departs from the European Union, IOOA believes it is vitally important for Ireland to secure its own indigenous energy supply as we transition to a low-carbon economy,” he said.

Along with supply security, Shannon points to one more upside to developing homegrown oil and gas: lower carbon dioxide emissions. Gas-fired power emits 67% less CO2 than peat and 61% less than coal, while oil emits 33% less than peat and 20% less than coal, according to the IOOA report.

That said, peat and coal only accounted for a combined 13 percent of Ireland’s total energy use in 2017, while oil and gas dominated with 78 percent.

Chasing the dragon

New investment in domestic oil and gas would also put Dublin in an awkward position, after lawmakers voted last summer to make the country the first to fully divest its sovereign wealth fund from fossil fuels.

A cross-party parliamentary committee is now debating recommendations for broad new policies to tackle climate change, as the country struggles to limit its emissions.

The Irish Green Party’s leader, Eamon Ryan, dismissed the claims that the country needs domestic oil and gas.

“This industry is like an addict, it just wants one last fix, and it will tell you anything and do anything and try anything to get that fix,” Ryan, a former energy and natural resources minister, told CHN.

“They’re chasing the dragon, they’re chasing the wrong way. We should be using Irish waters to develop offshore wind farms… that’s what has to change to take the climate seriously, and Brexit is not going to change that one way or the other.”

Cheaper technology

Brexit is not expected to immediately disrupt Ireland’s oil, gas or electricity trade with its neighbour, even if it’s a hard, no-deal departure on 29 March.

The World Trade Organization does not apply trade tariffs to primary energy, and Britain and Ireland also have bilateral agreements on their gas trade outside any EU arrangements, noted Paul Deane, an energy research fellow at University College Cork.

Nonetheless, Brexit has “refocused attention” on Ireland’s import reliance, Deane said. Wind and other renewables are growing, but gas still covers about half the power demand.

Brexit uncertainty is one factor that helped revive plans for the stalled Shannon liquefied natural gas import terminal on Ireland’s west coast, when a US equity firm stepped in to buy it for €1bn last year.

The project’s prospects are also boosted by the availability of new, cheaper technology to receive cargoes offshore rather than onshore, but its future now depends on the outcome of a legal challenge from environmental groups.

The High Court is expected to decide on Friday whether the new owner can start building, or has to apply for new planning permits, or must drop the project entirely.

Projects like this require swift decisions aimed at bolstering the country’s energy security, the offshore operators’ association argues.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

We all saw the headlines on Friday 15th February 2019: in more than 60 locations around the UK an estimated 20,000 young people went on strike from school to protest the UK government’s inaction over the climate breakdown.

The national news coverage was impressive and important, but tended to lack the personal and has not challenged the ‘youth mob’ narratives that I have seen circulating.

There are several questions that need to be explored. What were the individual motivations to ditch the classroom? Was it just a free pass to party? How long had this growing hum of youth disquiet remained unobserved? How deep does it run?

Protest

I wish to give some tentative answers to these questions. I am a youth environmental activist with the UK Youth Climate Coalition, and for this protest I went down with a film team to document the Bristol protest with the University of Bristol TV.

With microphone in hand, I was justified in prodding and poking people’s environmental positions, an exercise which so often gets me in trouble at family parties. Here are my key takeaways.

1. Do not underestimate young people.

I had spoken to the event organiser earlier in the week – a 14 year old girl – and she told me that she was expecting about 30-40 people to attend.

As the clock hit 11am, there was an influx of young people literally running across the College Green, until there were between 1,000 and 2,000 bodies crowded around Bristol city council’s entrance singing ‘climate change has got to go’.

I was aware that from 11am onwards the strike was going to have various speakers, a staged ‘die-in’, and then at 1pm the official demands of the UK Student Climate Network would be read out.

Almost none of this happened. This was not through a lack of organisation, but instead because the chanting was sustained and overwhelming.

Young people adorned in school uniform started mounting the ramp to the council building, wet head to toe from marching around in the pond in front.

Several hours after the planned end to the strike, I could still hear the distant thud of chanting and marching as the protestors were taking their strike mobile. And how did the field look after the thousand strong protest left? Chalk art on the pavement and not a piece of litter in sight.

The demand for change was visceral. This was not exclusive to Bristol. Other UKYCC activists were dispersed around the country.

One at the London strikes told us how, completely unplanned, the protestors took over Westminster bridge.  They had claimed buses, were mounting traffic lights and police were brought in on horseback to counter it. In Oxford, George Monbiot spoke and a march began.

2. Apathy is dead.

In jest, I opened many questions provocatively with ‘so you’re here to skip school?’. I was met with reproach. 15-year old Aaron said:”‘I’m not here to skip.

“I saw the strike and researched it further. I didn’t quite realise the impact climate change is having and will have on this world… I’m here because young people need to group together and be heard.”

10-year old Matilda protested that she was here for the polar bears – yep, it’s still a talking point – and the melting ice-caps jeopardising animal well-being.

There was not one respondent who didn’t speak with conviction, a clear sign to me that perhaps apathy is no longer a currency that young people can afford.

Most youth were defiant that the government was gambling their future away without their consent. This lack of agency seemed to be central to the energy behind the protests; attendance seemed to be an exercise of ‘reclaiming’.

I am a young person who shares these frustrations of agency, and sharing a communal space to feel this together reduced me to tears. Never in my life as a campaigner have I felt such a shared sense of urgency and never have I felt more optimistic that change is coming, and it has a fresh wrinkle-free face.

3. We won’t stop.

If the length and passion of the protest itself is anything to go by then I predict this protest to happen every month for the next year, minimum.

‘Empowered’ was a common response when I asked people how they were feeling. Empowerment is notably contagious, so it is likely that these strikes will only grow in numbers.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year old activist who sparked the protests by launching the #FridaysForFuture campaign has been on strike for the past 26 weeks – that’s half a year. As one homemade sign at the strikes read – “we’re with you Greta” – so don’t expect this to be a one-time strike.

This week’s strikes are being reported as a ‘rehearsal’ for the global school strikes for climate that will happen on the 15th March 2019, so watch this space.

4. The voting age needs to be lowered to 16

This is one of the protestors key demands, and I have to admit I was a little skeptical when I first heard it. When I was 16 – not too long ago – I was more concerned with Justin Bieber’s haircut that an impending climate breakdown.

But as I said, the sense of urgency now is too grand for young people to remain apolitical.

One 16-year-old I met was adamant for his stake in politics. Ben said: “They think we don’t understand voter responsibility, but the majority of the demographic here today are 15 to 18. That proves that young people know what they’re going on about. We need to break this stereotype.”

I found this profoundly powerful: how is it possible that the age demographic that will be most affected by climate breakdown is currently denied entry into the conversation? Where is the democracy?

I leave feeling both deeply concerned, but also deeply inspired. I have been to many, many, protests, but none have had the texture and dignity of this.

This Author

Katie Hodgetts is an activist and campaigner for the UK Youth Climate Coalition and is on twitter at @katiehodgettssx 

When you make sixty thousand tons of toxic waste per day and you need to store it safely till the end of times, you do what the sun does to desert dwellers: you make a mirage. You fool people into believing that a solution is in sight.

That’s exactly what China’s government does in Ecuador, by investing in the massive Mirador mining project.

The mega-mine has estimated reserves of 5 million tons of copper, 700 tons of silver and 90 tons of gold. Digging it up leads to toxic waste than needs storage behind a dam.

Toxic cascade

Since 2007, experts say that present and proposed construction of dams to hold all the waste will inevitable collapse, as it recently did in Brazil with 100s of deaths as a first consequence.

In 2014, alternative plans were put forward and accepted by the Ecuadorian Government, but the risk remains extremely high. That is the opinion of Dr Steven Emerman, Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the World Mine Tailings Failure Database, who visited the site in November 2018.

A dam failure would amount to more than 100 deaths, major loss of fish or wildlife habitat and extreme losses affecting critical infrastructure or services.

Imagine a tsunami of toxic waste, hundreds of millions of metric tons, containing mercury, arsenic, cyanide, acid and heavy metals cascading through the steeply inclined river system to reach the Amazon River.

This will be a veritable nightmare of pollution and destruction. The speed of the toxic cascade is impressive. If the collapse occurred at a moment of high rainfall it would travel 88 kilometers in five hours.

Dam disaster

Ecuador’s first open pit mega-mine happens to be located in a hotbed of biodiversity: the Cordillera del Condor. If the Chinese state companies succeed, it will become one of the largest mine’s humanity has ever created.

The companies involved are the Tongling Non-Ferrous Metals Group joined and the China Railway Construction Corporation.

Dr Emerman noted that the first dam under construction was being built in a manner which did not comply with the Environmental Impact Study of 2014 and was being built at a “critical” angle, in engineering terms at the “edge of collapse”. This dam will be 63 meters tall.

The second dam in planning is to be 260 meters tall. The agreed plan is to build this dam with slopes which are steeper than generally used, thus creating a greater danger of collapse.

There are many ways how a dam disaster can be triggered. The dams could collapse from overtopping in flood conditions. Neither of the dams take a Probable Maximum Flood into account. Nor do they consider the Probable Maximum Earthquake.

The contents stored behind the 260-meter-tall dam will be “wet” by nature and therefore more susceptible to liquefaction. Building the foundations from what is known as “weak material” doesn’t help either.

Court case

Three of us are bringing a case before the Ecuadorian courts. Our lawyer Julio Prieto will give the legal standing and details, Dr Emerman will provide scientific evidence and this author will represent Nature itself.

The Ecuadorian Constitution is unique in giving rights for nature, meaning that anyone can go to court in the name of nature. We will use the precautionary principle in relation to grave threats to those constitutionally agreed Rights of Nature. 

We will ask for an injunction to halt the construction and to require a full review of the design and construction by an independent international panel of experts.

These Author

David Dene and Julio Prieto are United Nations’ experts in harmony with nature. Julio Prieto is also an Ecuadorean lawyer who became famous for representing 30,000 Indigenous people in Ecuador impacted by Chevron’s toxic oil waste and is also the author of a book about Rights of Nature for the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court. Dr Steven Emerman is the owner of Malach Consulting, the environmental compiler and vice-chair of the board of directors of the World Mine Tailings Failure Database and an expert on the Mirador Mine tailings facilities.

More background on the Mirador Mine conflict in the Atlas of Environmental Justice (Spanish).