The tendency towards decay (known as entropy) destroys order and reduces everything to randomness. But a system can create order, if there’s a flow running through it. This happens with the Earth: solar energy enters in, and the Earth sheds (‘dissipates’) waste heat into space.

Individual animals and plants do this too; and, taking the Earth system as a whole, the waste excreted by one component is absorbed into another, with the result that the flows are ‘tucked in’. As James Lovelock says, the pollution of one is the meat of another.

The latest issue of Resurgence & Ecologist is out now!

When we build or manufacture things that don’t exist in Nature, the bad tendency has been to neglect the tucked-in loops, so there’s simply a lot of energy and scarce matter flowing into each process, and a degraded form of these is pumped out in the form of garbage, pollution and greenhouse gases.

But we can address this problem by introducing a circular-systems approach. A good example is industrial ecology (or industrial symbiosis), where many productive processes are networked, the waste of one becoming “the meat of another”.

Growing food

My own work is to do with food systems, and in fact there’s always a food-growing component in industrial ecology, because urban farms can absorb a lot of by-products: grey water, surplus heat (which could warm greenhouses), and compostable waste (such as hops from breweries). This is one reason why urban farming is potentially more productive than rural farming, and contributes to an ‘urban metabolism’, characterised (like the body’s metabolism) by flows and circulation.

I participated in a project as part of University College London, setting up an anaerobic digester: a bicycle-driven box collects waste from local restaurants, and the composting process reduces it to digestate and methane gas. Food is then grown using the digestate as fertiliser and cooked using the gas, and we serve it in the project’s café – so the loop is closed.

These experiments are really interesting, but we should also think critically about what we are trying to achieve, and how. Thus, in industrial ecology, we shouldn’t let the food sector be treated merely as a sink for whatever industry wants to get rid of; at the very least, let’s insist on defining its role in terms of what farming actually needs from the urban metabolism, rather than simply what it can absorb.

Also, in a broader sense, it’s a lazy solution to merely give crops a lot of inputs, because this inhibits plants’ abilities to strengthen themselves. In some amazing experiments, French peasant Pascal Poot deliberately lets his crops fend for themselves in the harshest conditions, and they develop a heritable capacity to cope.

The scientific explan­ation has to do with which genes are ‘expressed’ (switched on): if the plant doesn’t need them, they stay dormant! Also, applying fertiliser high in nitrogen – as tends to be the case with digestate from anaerobic composting – may accentuate a major form of pollution, which in turn triggers CO2 emission.

Wider ecosystems

The food issue prompts a further interesting question: if we speak of closed-loop systems, how far is it really desirable to be closed?

It’s an exciting challenge to be self-reliant. I’ve found it’s not too difficult to produce all our family’s vegetables on our own plot, while still leaving time to do other jobs.

This is achievable because a no-dig (no-till) system minimises inputs of work: by not working the soil, you encourage nat­ural balances to self-engineer, so that fertility is maintained through the free energy of self-organisation. Residues are composted back, and the deep roots of plants like Russian comfrey can replenish minerals from the rocky layer beneath the soil.

But, taken to extremes, self-reliance could lead to a survivalist model where you’re scared of everything collapsing in the world outside. NASA has expressed interest in a swimming pool turned aquaponic farm, in the US.

In a realistic context, however, we are of course entirely dependent on the wider ecosystem within which our farm is inserted, so the ‘closedness’ is merely illusory. And the danger of a survivalist version of closed loop is that we become introspective and cut ourselves off from our place in society.

The point is that a farming model of the future must be able to feed the wider population in a sustainable way – which requires a large surplus over and above the consumption of the cultivators themselves.

The Guardians

At the same time, we must hold on to what is correct about self-reliance: instead of obsessing about how to absorb waste, let’s rather think about making our systems so efficient in themselves that they hardly produce any waste; and then the real meaning of ‘efficiency’ becomes ‘maximising the capacity for self-organisation’. Perhaps the slogan we’re looking for is ‘Output lots of food, not lots of entropy’!

Thus, taking as an example a project in France, La Ferme du Bec Hellouin, it’s possible using the methods of agro-ecology to produce a sizeable surplus that can contribute to the wider society – both by marketing the produce and by spreading ecological consciousness.

We don’t yet have all the answers for a sustainable food system, but what is encouraging about today’s debates is that we are raising meaningful questions. For example, the curvy or concentric beds encouraged by agro-ecology or permaculture are intuitively much closer to Nature’s contours; but do they place an upper limit on productivity? This is an interesting question: do we still need to safeguard some mechanisation, and if so, what would it look like?

The recently released film The Guardians, directed by Xavier Beauvois, is set in rural France during the first world war, and offers an extremely interesting exploration of human relations against a background of wider socio-economic shifts.

In the early part, labour is very manual and harsh, but also necessarily cooperative, because everyone needs to collaborate. As things develop, farming is organised more as a business; fam­ilies invest in machinery, productivity is improved, but the solidarity is lost and human relations are sacrificed. So what’s the solution? Of course, the mainstream approach to mechanisation is not sustainable anyway, but is there a different way?

Sharing economy 

Perhaps part of the answer can be glimpsed in a cooperative designing farm machinery, L’Atelier Paysan. Its principles of organisation are intrinsically commons-based, peer-to-peer and open-source.

In this way, it is tapping into a sharing economy, and a more broadly sharing society, where creativity constantly circulates, as part of an iterative process of co-learning. The result is a set of constantly evolving blueprints for a new type of machinery wholly dedicated to serving agro-ecology.

The lesson is that we need a circular system, not just in material flows, but also in flows of innovation and ideas; and this in turn can help galvanise social regeneration.

This Author 

Robert Biel teaches Political Ecology at University College London (UCL), and is a practising urban farmer. He is a member of UCL’s Circular Economy Lab, and author of the open-access book Sustainable Food Systems: The Role of the City. This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. 

Image: Dennis McClung, founder and CEO of Garden Pool. © Justin Bastien.

Hundreds of thousands of badgers have been killed in Great Britain since the 1970s, accused of spreading bovine tuberculosis (bTB) to cattle. More than 30,000 were killed in 2018 alone. 

Confronted with an injustice that defies reason, one can protest and investigate. The systematic slaughter of a ‘protected’ species demands a strong foundation in science, and an awareness of the ecological consequences, as well as an emotional response. 

Any government which institutes such a campaign must answer serious questions, such as: is it legal? Is there a consensus of expert opinion? Is the thinking joined-up? What are the costs and benefits, checks and balances? Who will physically carry out the policy? And, what is public opinion?  

Failed experiments

Not one of these has been answered satisfactorily. Albert Einstein reputedly said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result”. No scientist can waste time repeating failed experiments. Likewise, George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. And here we are. 

Conventionally, to test a theory, one tries to disprove it: fail, and it is deemed ‘acceptable’, at least until disproved.

In the eighties, I spent five years testing my hypothesis that Cornwall could support the return of its national bird, the Red-billed chough Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax. When the species did return and, more critically, stayed to increase its numbers, the hypothesis was accepted. 

At that time, the poor circumstantial evidence behind the eradication of our largest surviving terrestrial carnivore appalled me, as it did many other naturalists. The more I looked into it, the more alarmed I became.  In fact, it made me a scientist. 

We formed BROCK (Badger Rights of Cornwall – Kernow) to scrutinise ministry activities. Surely only through science could this be challenged. I worked for WWF liaising between farming and conservation interests, and served on the Government’s Consultative Panel for three years while writing The Fate of the Badger, published by Batsford in 1986.

Unchecked pride

Today, the badger is still being killed officially in huge numbers: encouraging rural thugs to flout the law, claiming, “If men in suits can kill it, why can’t we?”.

So, how has this happened? A ministry scientist told me: “In my department, the top priority is to protect the Minister from any possible embarrassment”.  

He also told me that No.10 Downing Street took the decision to kill badgers. By then Mrs Thatcher had infamously claimed: “The lady’s not for turning”. Once a leader makes a decision, he or she feels compelled to defend it, even in the face of contrary evidence.

Humans dislike being corrected, admitting failure, or asking for help; we resist advice and prefer revenge to forgiveness.  All these traits are based on pride – a weakness associated with denial; at an overweening level it causes mistakes, setback and failure. The maxim, ‘Pride goes before a fall’ has its origin in the Bible: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs).  In 1813 Jane Austen wrote a novel in which the chief protagonists had to overcome pride and prejudice in order to find happiness. 

Writing at the end of Word War II, Bertrand Russell stated in his History of Western Philosophy: “The Renaissance restored human pride, but carried it to the point where it led to anarchy and disaster”.  He also observed: “When the check upon pride is removed, a further step is taken on the road to madness – the intoxication of power [my italics] … to which modern men .., are prone”. He concluded: “this intoxication is the greatest danger of our time, and [increases] the danger of vast social disaster”.

Regaining hope

Now, in the twenty-first century, wildlife has its own war.  But, as the brilliant Greta Thunberg has told us, it never tops the News agenda. There is no single villain to blame or confront; no national / party politics; and it only indirectly concerns economics.

To attack it, is to attack ourselves. As Robert Frost, the American poet wrote in 1914: “And nothing to look backward to with pride / And nothing to look forward to with hope” – which are rather my sentiments now.

Badger cull politics have become self-evident: wildlife genocide dressed up as a cull to give the impression of rational science removing unwanted animals.

The tactics were and remain shameful. Since the early 1970s, successive governments have tried gassing, snares, poison, clean-ring exclusion zones, and cage trapping.  

Strange measures to deal with a mycobacterium. So, what do humans do when faced with a difficult animal?  They reach for a gun. 

Origins of error

All these policies rested on a false premise. This self-serving political decision was based on wishful thinking. Desperate farmers and vets grabbed the idea as if it were a £50 note in the gutter. One infected badger found in Gloucestershire in 1971 ‘cast the die’.  

Perversely, much had been gained before badgers were forced centre stage. The disease had been reduced post-war to less than 0.05 percent. However, after 1971, attention became fixed on the badger, reinforced in 1980 by Lord Zuckerman’s grossly opinionated report.

Following that political decision, all was lost. One calamitous error diverted the tried and tested strategy of strict whole herd testing, and a mycobacterium seized its chance. The national incidence of bTB rose to 10 percent. 

What error? To confuse ‘infected’ with ‘infectious’ is foolish, as any medical student knows. Given how and where they feed, the route of transmission from cow to badger is obvious, but transmission the other way has never been demonstrated; it defies natural science.  But no leadership can ever admit such an expensive catastrophe.  

After so long, costs are way beyond retrieval but must run into billions. The Randomised Badger Culling Trial (1998-2017) alone cost £50m. A decade later, in one year, bTB cost £100m. Every badger killed costs us about £7,000. Compensation to farmers is colossal.

Expensive myth

These economics disregard ecological costs, notwithstanding the cruel persecution of an iconic and harmless wild species that we should be protecting and cherishing. 

Scientists know the right course to take but pride and prejudice have blinded governments – urged on by farmers – into believing a myth implanted in their minds for two generations.  

The Government still desperately paddles a lifeboat riddled with holes, going nowhere. An inability to learn from history is why, after 30 years, we were in the utterly bizarre position of being able to republish Fate, with additions, but without needing to change a single word of the first 1986 edition. 

All we seem to have learned is that it is easier to deceive people than convince them they have been deceived.

This Author

Dr Richard Meyer is a naturalist, writer and artist with a long career in wildlife conservation. He authored many books as Richard Mark Martin before The Fate of the Badger. Richard tweets @DrRichardMeyer.

Image: Steve Clark. 

In Paris this month more than 100,000 people poured into the streets to demand climate action. The city’s largest-ever climate march was taking place while across town a group of gilets jaunes – the protest group known for their hi-vis vests – were engaging in some of the worst violence of their entire three month revolt against declining wages, rising inequality and other consequences of globalisation.

The division between those demanding social justice and climate justice fits neatly with a widely-held view of the gilets jaunes as opposed to climate action. The initial protests were sparked by a rise in diesel tax, which would have cut pollution but landed the cost on drivers. This was too much for those living in poor neighbourhoods, isolated by cuts to public transport.

The narrative that this amounts to a popular rejection of efforts to fight global warming, has been amplified internationally, most prominently by US president Donald Trump. But amid the well-heeled climate marchers was a significant scattering of the distinctive vests. In the Place de la République, François Boulot walked out to address the crowd wearing his yellow gilet.

Ephemeral agora

“The social and ecological emergencies are inseparable: the fight against the end of the world and the end of the month are the same. We will not be able to operate the ecological transition without an equitable wealth redistribution,” said Boulot, who has been a prominent figure in the gilets jaunes. “How can you impose another tax on people already rummaging the bins to feed themselves?”

Rather than recoiling from climate action in the face of the gilets jaunes, France is reckoning with what fair climate policy looks like and how it is decided.

President Emmanuel Macron, the unifying object of ire for his top-down style of governing, has attempted to defuse the protests, first by dropping the tax, then, when that had no effect by convening a national ‘grand debate’ on four controversial issues: one of them the ecological transition. The series of town hall events ended on Friday.

Meanwhile, for 18 consecutive Saturdays, the gilets jaunes have occupied over 30,000 roundabouts across the country, erecting makeshift sheds in which political opinions are traded back and forth.

A week before the climate march, at one of those ephemeral agora on the Champs-Élysées, Jerôme Rodriguez watches as police wheel water cannons into the square. Two powerful jets gush on to a small crowd under the Arc de Triomphe.

Farmer’s cap

“Come on jackets! Time to go home now,” Rodriguez grins, a pair of sunglasses masking the eye he lost in the protests.

For this self-styled figurehead of the gilets, the climate issue is “not the priority”. Protestors are focused on full fridges and “dignified life”, he says.

“Eventually, when we obtain the first things, ecology will have its place, because kids talk a lot about it, and we have been told about it our whole lives. But nowadays, people aren’t concentrated on this. It’s a shame, of course. But we need to get them to live well so that we can interest them in the project,” Rodriguez says.

This is not entirely supported by data. The French Institute of National Opinion (IFOP) found 85% of lower professional categories (employees and workers) and 83% of the non-working population are worried about global warming. Young people are marginally more concerned about the issue, according to a different survey.

A group of women walk by wearing badges demanding climate justice. Meanwhile, Rodriguez, whose celebrity within the movement is obvious, is surrounded by a cluster of pensioners, an elderly woman in a motor wheelchair festooned with bags and a man wearing a farmer’s cap.

His carpet

The average age of the gilets jaunes is 45, according to recent analysis, and they are predominantly working to lower middle class and lean to the political left. For more than half of the participants, the movement represents their first political action.

If there is one thing that unites the gilets jaunes, it is the sense that responsibility for change lies with those at the top of society and government: “Plus de banquise, moins de banquiers” (More ice sheets, less bankers) is one of the many slogans associated with the movement. Macron, a former banker who has fashioned an image abroad as a defender of the Paris climate deal with his catchphrase ‘make our planet great again’, is a symbol of wasteful, hypocritical consumption at home.

“Ask Macron when he travels by plane, plus all of the cars that follow him,” Rodriguez says. “And that guy tells us: ‘Be careful’”.

“Not to mention his tableware, his bread and all of that!” another protestor Sylvain yells.

“And his carpet!” another calls out. (Macron and his wife Brigitte reportedly spent tens of thousands of euros on cutlery at the Élysée Palace and €300,000 on a new carpet.)

Building bridges

Marie-Claire, a pensioner who did not wish to give her family name, says: “You know, people who live precariously, they’ve made ecological efforts before the capitalists. Because they’ve already made efforts not to consume electricity.

“Not to consume too much water. You know, there are people who do not iron their clothes, because it costs too much electricity. I’ve known that, and my daughter does not iron her laundry. Children take a five minute shower. We were ecologists well before anyone else.”

“The real polluters, who are they?” Akli, also a pensioner, bounces back. “We forbid old cars. But we leave Ubers and big Lamborghini to circulate. The jet setters, the cargo ships, we allow them to burn heavy petrol. No one comes to ask them to burn anything else but fossil fuels.”

One manifesto has been widely circulated by the gilets jaunes, calling for among other things, increased building insulation and an aviation fuel tax. But the movement has yet to adopt a coherent programme or set of goals.

Because of this any snapshot of the gilets jaunes is bound to fail to grasp the full picture. Other prominent figures are building bridges with environmentalists.

Ecological justice

Priscillia Ludovsky, whose petition opposing fuel price hikes attracted more than one million signatures and catalysed the movement, has joined with Cyril Dion, a figurehead of the environmental movement, to urge Macron to meet a series of demands, such as a reduced VAT on organic produce and heftier taxes on polluting companies.

Mostly, the gilets jaunes shunned Macron’s Grand Debat, meaning that the two conversations, one encouraging a dialogue with established institutions and the other rejecting the president’s authority, have mostly run in parallel. Occasionally they have crossed over, with some gilets jaunes participating in the state’s fora.

Rodriguez says Macron’s forum is “just about getting more information so that he can sell us his electoral programme – which we don’t want. We can organise very well by ourselves, we can carry out debates. See, we’re debating today.”

The sense that the state is not listening has led to calls for a citizen’s referendum initiative (RIC), under which citizens would take an active role in the formulation of laws. This would, advocates say, ensure that the interests of the people are represented even as the climate crisis is addressed.

“The gilets jaunes, whether you like it or not, have succeeded where 30 years of social battles have failed: putting the question of social justice at the centre of the debate,” philosopher Pierre Dardot and sociologist Christian Laval, wrote in December: “Better, they have posed a fundamental question for humanity about the link between social justice and ecological justice.”

Far from the protests pouring cold water on the issue, suddenly, it seems all of France is talking about climate change.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.   

The Swedish mining conglomerate Boliden began shipping toxic waste from its Rönnskärs smelter to my home town, Arica, in northern Chile in the mid-1980s, when we lived under the rule of general Augusto Pinochet.

Boliden could have chosen to store the material in Sweden, and they claim that it would have been cheaper for them to do so. Instead, they shipped it halfway around the world in a deal with the now defunct Chilean mining company Promel S.A.

The terms of Boliden’s deal with Promel are unclear. Boliden claims that Promel purchased the smelter sludge from them with a view to reselling extracted products.

Deemed unsafe

However, an EU Parliamentary report on corporate human rights abuses states “it is an undisputed fact that Boliden paid Promel 10 million SEK (approx. 1 million euro) for taking care of the sludge”.

What is clear though, is that Promel ultimately failed to process the vast majority of the smelter sludge, and nearly 20,000 tonnes, containing arsenic, mercury, lead and other heavy metals, were abandoned on the outskirts of our city. The waste pile lay uncovered for years.

There is some dispute about the proximity of the waste material to residential housing at the time it was initially received by Promel, but there is agreement, at least, that as our city grew, the dump site became a playground for local children.

By 1998, the Chilean government estimated that approximately 5,000 people had been exposed to dangerous toxins, and in 2009 it identified an array of illnesses and health conditions within our community, including cancers, birth defects, high rates of miscarriage and neurological disorders.

Today, an estimated 12,000 of my fellow citizens have been affected, part of the area has been deemed unsafe for habitation and a large-scale evacuation plan has been initiated by the Chilean government.

Toxic sludge

A legal action brought against Boliden by 796 Arica residents, a fraction of those affected, is now before the appeal court in Umeå, Sweden. The case is a technical one, and the outcome may well hinge upon the residents’ ability to establish a causal link between heightened levels of arsenic in their bodies and the exported smelter sludge.

In March 2018, a District Court in Sweden concluded that the victims had failed to establish that link, although went on to find it “remarkable and negligent of Boliden to have continued the relationship with Promel after realizing any exported waste would end up in an uncovered pile in close proximity to already populated areas – despite knowing this would never be acceptable in Sweden.”

On March 27th of this year, the decision of a Swedish Appeal Court will be issued, and the victims here in Arica will finally learn the outcome of their long fight for justice in the country where their nightmare began.

The export may well have been conducted in accordance with laws in operation at the time. That is a question for the lawyers.

Whether or not Boliden wins the legal argument, however, it is difficult to see how they can win the moral one. After all, they do not contest that they chose to export toxic sludge to Chile rather than deal with it themselves.

Leaked memo

In a now infamous leaked internal memo, Lawrence Summers, chief economist to the World Bank, stated the economic case for the global waste trade: “I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that…”

Richard Denniss, chief economist to the Australia Institute, writes that “[s]ince toxic waste will inevitably make someone sick, we might as well make poor people sick, as doing so will minimize the amount of ‘foregone earnings’…[and]…[i]f it takes years for some pollutants to make us sick, why not dump pollution in countries where people don’t live long enough to get sick from the pollution?”

The trade in hazardous waste – whether conducted lawfully or otherwise – exposes impoverished communities such as ours to the risk of devastating harm. Developed countries produce 90 percent of the world’s hazardous waste and are best resourced to ensure that the waste is dealt with safely and responsibly at home.

So is it acceptable for a wealthy western corporation or consumer to look to the developing world as a site for the disposal of its effluent?

E-waste

Maybe the tide of the toxic waste trade is turning. Efforts are currently underway at the UN to draft a treaty that would enable corporations to be held accountable for any human rights abuses and environmental damage that arise within the context of their overseas operations.

The potential costs of legal liability in such circumstances may be a risk factor enough to swing the “economic logic” back in favor of domestic processing and disposal.

A proposed amendment to the Basel Convention – the international treaty that regulates the movement of hazardous materials between nation states – would render the transfer of toxic waste from the developed to the developing world unlawful.

It needs just two more states to sign for it to enter into legal force. NGOs such as the Basel Action Network continue their work to highlight, name and shame unlawful shipments, pressuring States to do more to control illegal exports.

In the meantime, states that have long been targets for the disposal of the West’s hazardous waste materials are closing their doors to imports. China no longer accepts plastic or e-waste, and Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam are also acting to stem the flow to their shores.

Dumping ground

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations in Europe, has written a letter in support of the Chilean victims which was recently presented to the Swedish Embassy in Chile along with a petition signed by 2700 residents from the affected area.

The EEB made four demands to the Swedish government: that a Swedish government representative based in Chile visit the affected site and meet victims of the environmental pollution; that the government work with the affected community in the development and delivery of an effective healthcare programme that will respond to the harms suffered;  that the government pay reparations to the community in recognition of the its role in permitting the export of the toxic waste from Sweden to Chile; and to repatriate the waste, in order that it can be adequately and safely processed in Sweden.

So where does all of this leave us, the people of Arica? Boliden no longer exports its waste and is currently constructing an underground storage facility to contain similar waste.

The storage conditions of the waste in Arica would not be considered acceptable in the West – and yet staggeringly, over 30 years after it arrived, the toxic waste is still here in Chile.

It stands as a daily affront to our community. Boliden refuses to take it back.

We did not ask for it to be brought here. We are not the West’s dumping ground.

This Author

Rodrigo Pino Vargas is a representative and campaigner on behalf of affected people in Arica. He is working with the community to establish a foundation to provide long-term legal support and healthcare for victims and their families.

Amid turbulent political times, the shaky coalition between Brexit factions within the Labour Party is given much attention.

Relevant though this may be, another strategic divide held together within Labour is far more important beyond the Brexit moment. Although it rarely plays out in the public sphere, competing strategic priorities around climate change could have a far more significant impact on Labour’s ability to deliver a transformative economic program in government.

The most striking example of this divide played out around the vote on Heathrow expansion in June 2018. Unite lobbied hard for Labour MPs to back the expansion while Labour members and MPs with roots in the climate movement felt the free vote afforded to Labour MPs a travesty.

In reality, the vote was indicative of a schism over climate that should never have been allowed to develop in the labour movement. At the time I argued the dichotomy between jobs and climate is counter-productive for both. Its time to work together heal that divide.

Environmental justice

The Green New Deal has been successful in defining mainstream debate around climate change in the US in recent months because of its power as a framework in making our response climate, economic and social crises inseparable.

In the popular imagination, there no longer needs to be a trade off between transitioning our economy from fossil fuels to renewables and a good standard of living for all.

In fact, the Green New Deal helps us understand that only through a transformative program of investment to fully decarbonise the entire economy can we secure a prosperous future for the many.

At present, Labour’s environmental policy platform The Green Transformation is a mixture of radical ambition and pragmatic compromise underpinned by a powerful justice-oriented narrative. Labour will ban fracking; create 400,000 green jobs across the country; invest £2.3bn to insulate homes; expand public transport by bringing rail back into public ownership, fare caps and electrification; ensure UK aid does not support fossil fuel projects; and promote UK Export Finance support for the energy sector towards low-carbon projects.

For all of these positives, Labour’s target of 60 percent renewables within 12 years of government pales in comparison to the need for 100 per cent renewables by 2030; they are yet to commit to banning all new fossil fuels and fully transitioning away from oil, gas & coal; there is no discussion of reigning in private finance over their support for fossil fuel companies; airport expansion is not ruled out; and, overall, the scale of investment need to upgrade energy infrastructure, guarantee a green job for all and equitably re-industrialise every part of the country is just not there.

Policy formation

The Labour Party is regularly chastised for its shortcomings on climate both within and outside the party. As outlined above, these criticisms aren’t misguided.

However, Labour is a democratic party with a mass membership. It also happens to be the only party representing the interests of the majority of our society with a strong chance of entering government at the next general election.

It is clear that the Green New Deal offers Labour a framework to translate the politics woven through The Green Transformation into a coherent policy platform advancing in tandem workers, climate and global justice.

We should also be clear that without backing from Labour, the Green New Deal stands no chance of success in the UK.

In appreciating the constraints Labour’s leadership are under when it comes to policy formation – climate in particular – we can organise from the grassroots to support them to go further. Rebecca Long-Bailey, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, called for Labour members to exert this pressure from below in February.

Pressure from members

The radical framing of The Green Transformation makes it clear there is space to push. Members have a key role to play in building support for the transformative vision of a Green New Deal.

Together we must make the common sense argument that austerity ideology must be abandoned to win popular consent for the massive levels of public investment needed to transform the UK’s economy and revitalise green industry.

This week Labour members have started to do just that. The new Labour for a Green New Deal campaign seeks to activate Labour members, supports and trade unionists to make the case for a transformative Green New Deal to deliver the shared solutions for our crises of climate, work, poverty and inequality.

Labour has over 500,000 members. If we all come together to demand a Green New Deal, the future will surely be ours.

This Author

Chris Saltmarsh is co-founder of Labour for a Green New Deal. He is also co-director of Climate Change Campaigns at People & Planet. He tweets at @chris_saltmarsh.

Around the world people’s ability to access enough fresh water to live and live well is being threatened as sources of freshwater and the species that rely on them are devastated and depleted.

Our changing climate and the growth of global population by approximately 85 million people a-year are often cited as the main causes of the world’s water crisis. But neither climate change nor population growth alone can adequately account for our present situation.

The consumption of global water supplies is doubling every 20 years, at more than twice the rate of human population growth. Experts believe we ought to see climate change as a product and intensifier of our existing water crisis, as well as a contributing cause. Right Livelihood Award Laureate and clean water advocate, Maude Barlow, explains:

Mining and water

“Major bodies of water have been destroyed from over extraction and water diversion, not climate change as we usually describe it. The destruction of watersheds and water–retentive land is causing rapidly growing desertification, which in turn warms the planet.”

A pressing question, then, is: who is responsible for this destruction, diversion and desertification?

The mining industry is a key, but often overlooked, contributor to the global water crisis as a whole and the suffering caused by it.

Though the industry may not consume as much water in absolute amounts as, say, industrial agriculture, mining is capable of polluting water bodies over vast distances. Even when a mine has closed its impacts on water may continue to worsen and spread for centuries, leaving a toxic legacy for future generations.

On World Water Day 2019 it is critical to call out the mining industry for its crimes against water and our human right to it. Two factors make this task especially urgent.

Greenwashing mining 

First, the mining industry is actively seeking to greenwash its image by, for example, ‘mapping mining to the sustainable development goals’.

This includes Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, and as we will see, the industry’s claim to anything nearing responsibility and sustainability is tenuous at best.

Second, because mining is emerging as a new and genuine threat to ‘new frontiers’ of water. In the race to extract ‘clean’, ‘green’ minerals and metals for, amongst other things, electric vehicles, mining companies want to mine the little-understood ecosystems of the deep sea.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN body, has issued 27 contracts for mineral exploration in the deep sea. These contracts encompass a combined area of more than 1.4 million km2.

Mining’s can unleash sudden and devastating impacts on water systems and communities.

Mining disasters

The recent collapse of a dam at the Corrego do Feijao Mine, Minas Gerais, Brazil, operated by Brazilian mining company Vale, has re-highlighted the deadly consequences of tailings dam disasters. The death toll has reached an estimated 186, many remain missing and hundreds have been left injured while local water sources have been devastated.

Just three years ago, also in Minas Gerais, the Vale – BHP Billiton co-owned Samarco mine also suffered a dam breach. The flood of mud and waste released killed 19 people and sent a plume of mine waste down the Doce River.

This waste turned over 500km of the Doce bright orange and, two years on, in 2017, 88.9 percent of the 18 monitoring stations along the river still found the waters of the Doce unsuitable for consumption.

When disasters like these occur, they are often painted as one-off events by the industry or the actions of a rogue company. But a recent analysis conducted by the Responsible Mining Foundation (RMI) revealed that 30 of the world’s leading mining companies scored poorly (a low average of 22 percent) when it came to preventing tailings (mine waste) risks.

Even more worryingly, 17 of these companies showed no indication of tracking, reviewing or taking action to mitigate these risks.

Despite the industry’s regular claims about advances in technology and safety, studies show that catastrophic tailings dam collapses are getting more and more common, as is the devastation to communities and waterways they cause.

Toxic footprint

Mining is also a cause of chronic pollution that can contaminate waterways for generations.

The leaking of toxic minerals or Acid Mine Drainage into groundwater systems is one common impact. In Johannesburg, for example, the water supply of a whole city is threatened by contamination caused by century-old gold mines.

The Xikrin community in Brazil, whose territory has been exploited for nickel by Mineraçao Onça Puma, owned by Vale, have reported a significant declines in the abundance of fish and other water-borne organisms since mining began.

Community members have started to manifest symptoms typical from exposure to polluted water, such as rashes and burning eyes. Although their suspicions have been disregarded by the company, they were confirmed after a 2015 study that revealed the river’s water contained a higher proportion of heavy metals than recommended by the National Environmental Council (CONAMA).The water is no longer drinkable or safe to bathe in or cook with.

The Xikrin also use the river in their rituals. These are so central to their culture that they would rather continue to bathe in a polluted river than cut ties with their ancestral customs and identity.

Digging for justice

Unable to operate safely on land, the mining industry cannot be trusted to reach into the deep sea’s fragile ecosystems for minerals and metals. Nor can companies be trusted to regulate their own activities in the name of sustainability, like extractive foxes watching the SDG hen house.

The solutions to mining’s disastrous and chronic impacts on water systems globally must be systemic in nature. As well as dramatically improved and well-enforced regulation, we need to address the fundamental drivers of ‘new’ mining- overconsumption, a one-size fits all, materialist development paradigm and an economic system that demands the extraction and commodification of ever greater quantities of minerals and metals.

Communities fighting tooth and nail to defend their sources of water, fish and spiritual well-being, know this and are increasingly calling for alternatives to ‘extractivism’. One of the best tools for holding industry to account is to ensure information flows to these communities as early in their struggles as possible and as freely as water.

Mining companies, when entering new territories, frequently mislead frontline communities by downplaying or concealing the potential risks to their lands, livelihoods and waters.

In an aim to address this, The Gaia Foundation and the global Yes to Life, No to Mining solidarity network have put together the Water is Life Toolkit.

Launched today, on World Water Day 2019, the toolkit is available in English, Spanish and French. It can be accessed online and it is designed for frontline communities and their allies. The toolkit is composed of different written, pictorial and video resources that inform communities about mining’s impacts on water and how to defend this most precious element.

More resources

Visit the toolkit here.

Read an interactive story about the toolkit and communities defending water from Colombia to Finland.

These Authors

Sara Campanales is a biologist and primatologist currently working at The Gaia Foundation. Her recent academic fieldwork has focused on the social aspects of conservation in Ecuador.  Hannibal Rhoades is Communications and Advocacy Coordinator at The Gaia Foundation, a UK-based organisation working internationally to support indigenous and local communities to revive their knowledge, livelihoods and healthy ecosystems.

Globally, for the first time ever, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. The rapid growth of cities presents serious challenges, such as pressure on freshwater supplies, the living environment and public health.

Goal 11 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals is to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.

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As well as the challenges, cities also present opportunities: housing and population density can bring efficiency gains for technological innovation to reduce resource and energy consumption. Cities can move faster than national governments; hence the new mantra: “While nations talk, cities act.”

Sustainable alternative

The London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) had this in mind when we signed up to become part of the CircE Project – an EU Interreg-funded collaboration between eight regions and cities looking at ways to overcome barriers to a circular economy.

We welcomed those European partners to our new office in London to show how the city is accelerating its transition to a circular economy.

The group visited sites such as Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Mercato Metropolitano (a food market building a sustainable food community in Southwark), and Sustainable Bankside. LWARB also hosted an evening in which pioneering London-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) such as the award-winning Chip[s] Board, Toast Ale and Library of Things presented their circular business models.

I believe that it is cities that will power a global circular economy – an approach that provides a sustainable and profitable alternative to the way our ‘linear’ economy currently works. This belief sits at the heart of everything LWARB does.

In June 2017 we published London’s Circular Economy Route Map, one of the first of its kind. Prioritising action in the built environment, food, textiles, plastics and electronic equipment sectors, the Route Map identifies a £7-billion-per-year opportunity for London in these areas alone.

Since then, other cities and countries have followed suit as the advantages of a circular economy become clearer and more pressing.

Fertile ground

In London, LWARB is establishing one of the most comprehensive circular economy programmes for a city anywhere in the world. 

London is fertile ground: four of the UK’s top ten universities are here, it is a global financial centre, and it has a thriving tech sector, amongst other advantages.

The LWARB programme is built upon three main pillars: helping circular businesses to grow through advice and funding; working with corporates to develop circular economy demonstration projects; and working with local authorities to recycle more waste.

LWRB’s Advance London programme provides investment and business support to SMEs that want to grow their circular businesses or transition to a circular business model. We have invested in several circular economy funds, and our business support team, jointly funded by the EU, has so far helped over 100 SMEs and is still only halfway through a three-year programme.

We are working with some of the most innovative enterprises in the world, which use recycled material as an input, make their products recyclable, more durable or modular, and sell products as services (leasing) or enable the sharing of excess capacity.

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The Circular London programme works with corporates to demonstrate the possibilities of the circular economy through pilot projects and create a network of circular economy practitioners to help deliver the Route Map actions.

If we can demonstrate effective and profitable circular business models and the right policy context to help them flourish, we could make a difference not just in London, but globally.

The Resource London programme is London’s waste authority and business waste support programme, a partnership between LWARB and WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme). Its objective is primarily to increase London’s recycling rate, helping to deliver the mayor’s aim that London become a zero-waste city and ensuring that by 2030 65 percent of London’s municipal waste is being recycled.

The programme works with London’s waste authorities to improve and harmonise services, but also communicates directly with Londoners through a range of behaviour-change campaigns, in order to minimise waste and make recycling the norm.

A circular economy keeps products and materials circulating within the economy at their highest value for as long as possible, an approach that is more resource-efficient and protects businesses from fluctuating commodity prices. It could provide a more stable operating environment for manufacturers, retailers and con­sumers – potentially of benefit to London post Brexit as it also creates the possibility of new revenue streams, markets and product lines.

Dynamic collaboration 

This is LWARB’s vision for London – a circular city that capitalises on these opportunities to become a more resili­ent, resource-efficient and competitive city of the future.

Through our work with stakeholders of every variety, we aim to be the lead facilitator and practitioner of circular economy in London, already home to so many exciting circular businesses across a range of sectors.

Through collaboration with businesses, consumers, policymakers and others, we know that our progressive and outward-looking city can sustain and grow one of the most open and dynamic (circular) economies in the world.

This Author

Ali Moore is communications & behaviour change manager at Resource London. This article as first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine.

I have written a new book, Elegant Simplicity. My reason for writing it is that simplicity has most of the answers to most of our questions. Simplicity is the prerequisite for sustainability, spirituality and social harmony.

Let’s begin with the question of sustainability. Consumerism clutters our homes, our lives and our workplaces. Our wardrobes are full of unworn clothes: shoes, jumpers and jackets, and much more. In our kitchens, things sit in cupboards hardly used as we hold on to them thinking that one day they will be useful – but that day rarely arrives. It is the same story on our desks: papers, files and books pile up day after day and clutter the space.

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We have become habituated to accumulate and store. Look at the attic, look at the bedroom, look at the storeroom – everywhere clutter and more clutter.

Unnecessary accumulation

All this material has to be taken from somewhere, from the Earth and from Nature. Mass extraction, mass production, mass distribution and consumption result in mass waste and mass pollution. If we are serious about sustainability, then we have to change our habit of accumulating unnecessary possessions in our homes and workplaces, and learn the art of living well with less.

If 7 billion people on this planet Earth were to accumulate, consume and then waste and pollute as we Europeans and Americans do, we would need three planets and perhaps more. But we don’t have three planets – we have only one. Therefore, living simply and making a small footprint on the Earth is a sustainability imperative.

Many of the goods we accumulate are made cheaply in China or Bangladesh. They are not only cheap, but often ugly or at least not beautiful. We buy them and soon get bored with them, so we throw them away and the landfills get crammed full.

Simplicity requires elegance and beauty. Whatever we have should be beautiful, useful and durable at the same time. I call it the ‘BUD’ principle of elegant simplicity.

The Shakers set a superb example of this principle. My mother used to say: “Have few things, but have beautiful things, so that you can cherish them, use them and wear them with pleasure.” This traditional wisdom is common sense, but sadly such common sense is no longer common. Therefore, I have to write a book about it!

Spiritual fulfilment 

Simplicity is a prerequisite for spirituality. For our personal wellbeing, we need to have time for ourselves so that we can meditate, do yoga or tai chi, read poetry or books of spiritual teaching, and be at ease within ourselves.

In order to acquire gadgets and other possessions, we have to work hard to earn money, then we have to work hard to shop around and spend money, and then we have to work hard to look after the stuff we have accumulated.

Then we complain that we have no time for ourselves, for our spiritual wellbeing, for imaginative work like reading or writing poetry, for painting or gardening, for music, for walking. Cluttered homes create cluttered minds.

If we live simply, we will need less money, we will need to work less, and our time will be liberated from drudgery and boring routine. Then we can pursue the path of spiritual fulfilment, focus on personal wellbeing and on the development of arts and the imagination. Then we can have time and space for friendship and for love. It is a beautiful paradox – mat­erial minimalism maximises spiritual wellbeing.

Simplicity is also a prerequisite for social justice. If a few of us have too much, others have too little. So we need to live simply so that others may simply live.

Social inequality

Some of the clutter we accumulate is called luxuries: more than one house, more than one car, more than one computer; in other words, more of everything. Then some of us go for even greater extravagances: a private yacht, a private jet, and so on.

Such inequality represents injustice and creates envy and social discord. I have known a few people with such lux­uries and they are no happier than those who have a much simpler lifestyle.

Happiness does not lie in the possession of things: happiness lies in contentment of the heart. When we know that enough is enough, we always have enough; and when we don’t know enough is enough, however much we have, it is never enough.

When I speak of simplicity I don’t mean a life of deprivation, hair-shirt living or hardship. I believe in a good life, in beautiful things, in arts and crafts, and in sufficiency. I believe in joy and celebration.

This is why I put the word ‘elegant’ before ‘simplicity’. Simplicity is and should be elegant. We all need and should have a comfortable and pleasant life. But at the moment our complicated lives are no longer comfortable.

Discovering genius

We are sacrificing comfort for the sake of convenience, and the pursuit of convenience has led us astray. If we are blessed with wealth, we can use it for philanthropy – for caring for the Earth and her people.

Living simply requires attention, awareness and mindfulness. E.F. Schumacher said that any fool can make things complicated but it requires a genius to make things simple. And we all have that innate genius within us.

The only thing we need to do is to pay attention and discover our genius to live well and live simply.

This Author

Elegant Simplicity by Satish Kumar will be published by New Society Publishers in spring 2019. This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. 

Satish Kumar will give a talk on Elegant Simplicity at the October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester St, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AL at 6.30pm on 23 May 2019. Tickets £10. 

Charcoal and other solid biomass fuels are still used in 70 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa, killing over 4 million people annually and depleting forests, in turn reducing rainfall and contributing to climate change and other impacts.

Fortunately, it’s not too late for Sub-Saharan Africa to avert a charcoal-induced public health and environmental catastrophe, and in the process strengthen its clean energy independence and economic growth.  

Charcoal is used mainly for cooking by the urban and peri-urban poor; firewood is used by rural populations. Urbanization – at its highest in Sub-Saharan Africa and projected to double there in the next 25 years– overwhelmingly drives charcoal’s rising demand in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is skyrocketing at an annual average of 2.55 percent from 2010 to 2015 with more than half of global population growth expected in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050.

Environmental impacts

Global firewood use is expected to plateau over the next 20 years while charcoal will continue to rise, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

The use of charcoal and other biomass is estimated to kill 4.3 million annually– mainly women and children exposed to smoke from cooking charcoal indoors, causing acute respiratory illnesses, cataracts, heart disease and cancer. 

Added to this, Charcoal production severely impacts tropical forest ecosystem services (e.g., shade, soil and water retention, water regulation, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat) and reduces overall ecosystem resilience.

Over-harvesting of select species for charcoal depletes plant diversity and subsequently diminishes faunal abundance and biodiversity dependent on forest ecosystems.

GHG emissions from producing charcoal in tropical ecosystems are estimated at 103.7 M tons of CO2equivalent (roughly a quarter of total tropical deforestation emissions) and significantly more when counting emissions from use. Charcoal is a top driver of tropical forest loss in the last two decades– with the greatest footprint in Africa.

Energy sources

Firewood and charcoal will remain top energy sources in Sub-Saharan Africa without a swift transition to cleaner, renewable energy.

With Sub-Saharan Africa expected to increase demand for biomass fuels by 40 percent by 2040 under business-as-usual, it is hard to imagine how the world will achieve a switch to 70-85 percent renewables by 2040 as recommended by the International Panel on Climate Change.

Yet without alternative energy sources, simple solutions such as charcoal bans enacted in Malawi, Kenya, and Chad have forced poor households dependent on charcoal to burn furniture, cow dung and even their own homes for energy.

Besides being the only energy source available in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, charcoal is a key income source in rural areasand rivals major economic sectors in many Sub-Saharan Africa countries. 

For countries like Uganda to start resembling Wakanda, they will need to find ways to both dramatically ramp up renewable energies and make existing charcoal value chains more sustainable. 

Improving business-as-usual

Traditional charcoal production methods used in Sub-Saharan Africa typically yield 15-20 percent or less in dry weight and take eight days to produce in industrial kilns. 

Improved methods can achieve 40-60 percent yields and only take 15 minutes to two hours to produce, potentially helping reduce deforestation and GHG emissions. 

Improved cookstoves (ICS) can vastly improve per-unit efficiency over conventional stoves by improved designs and materials.

But ICS have had limited adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa, despite decades of promotional campaigns and distribution – roughly 53 million stoves and fuels between 2010 and 2015.

Research suggests barriers to long-term adoption of new technologies to tackle relate to cultural behaviors, income and literacy levels. 

Solar power

With 90 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s total estimated power capacity, solar has abundant potential to provide Sub-Saharan Africa with clean, renewable energy.

Moreover, the lifetime cost of a solar cooking system is comparable to that of charcoal and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and dropping rapidly with technology improvements.

As the majority of PV upfront costs are invested in batteries, users need financing schemes such as pay-as-you-go meters charging daily rates comparable to charcoal costs. 

Solar water heating provides a cheap and technologically-simple alternative to charcoal. Switching from charcoal-heated water to solar-heated water for bathing is one of the simplest and most cost-effective renewable energy technologies.

Equally importantly, residential solar water heaters can be constructed and installed cheaply using local materials.

Electricity and gas

Direct electricity access via a grid significantly reduces costs for electric cookers, as users don’t have to pay for batteries (assuming reliable access). Zambian residents have been found to prefer e-cookers as they cook quicker, produce less fumes and can be left alone to cook.

Though access to electricity has risen 160 percent across Sub-Saharan Africa from 1990 to 2016, many countries will require significant grid expansion for electricity access to become the norm.

Or there’s gas. A mixture of propane and butane, LPG is versatile, portable, often less expensive per month than charcoal, and produces less pollution than kerosene, charcoal or wood.

LPG is increasingly seen as a viable, modern fuel to replace charcoal. When given the choice, women often choose LPG over charcoal or other biomass. 

As the African LPG market is small and sparse, increasing LPG adoption would require awareness campaigns, safety regulations and enforcement, and public subsidies to support the initial switch. 

Green pioneers

Moving on from charcoal in Sub-Saharan Africa will require innovative energy sources and means of delivery.

For example, Rwandan entrepreneurs are marketing organic waste-based briquettes and wood pellet-fired cookstoves to replace charcoal. 

In Kenya and Tanzania, pay-as-you-go fuel companies install an LPG stove, cylinder, and meter, and then accept mobile payments enabling consumers to purchase as little as a day’s worth of LPG, for $0.50, at a time, with automatic delivery of new gas when fuel levels run low.

Improved equipment

An essential first step towards improving existing charcoal value chains is to revise market regulations to define sustainable sources and methods for charcoal production.

For example, since 2002 Ghana’s Energy Commission has instituted guidelines on sustainable charcoal production, whereby only approved sources (sawmill residues or plantations established for charcoal production) may export charcoal.

Additionally, programs will need to train traditional charcoal producers to employ efficient methods, develop awareness and disseminate efficient cookstoves, such as under Ghana’s Sustainable Energy Action Plan.

Given the weak adoption of improved cookstoves to date, user-centered design is essential to map types of charcoal users and pinpoint where and what kinds of interventions are most needed.

Despite rapidly falling costs and swiftly increasing installed capacity for charcoal alternatives such as solar PV in Sub-Saharan Africa, government policies are critical to promote these alternatives to their full potential.

Government support

At a minimum, governments looking to raise revenues through import taxes should avoid taxing imports of materials and parts needed for solar or LPG, which would undercut the price advantage of these energy systems over charcoal. 

More proactively, governments can help by disseminatinginformation and security to buyers of alternative energy systems. This can include testing equipment to make sure it meets standards (like the Energy Star efficiency certification program in the U.S.) and awareness campaigns to inform buyers what to look for in systems and how to use them.

To help users avoid upfront costs for charcoal alternatives, governments can also support development of mobile money financing schemes, or at a minimum, explicitly make them legal. 

Identification and mapping of charcoal users will facilitate adoption of alternatives to power clean cookstoves either via grid or off-grid electricity access. 

Raising awareness

Charcoal-use reduction awareness and behavior change communications focused in urban areas, food vendors, and catering facilities have been found successful in encouraging adoption of charcoal alternatives. 

Such programs need to assess potential economic and social barriers to large-scale market diffusion, such as payback times, technical complexity and public awareness and trust in the technology. To avoid forming cultural barriers of charcoal alternatives as being seen as inferior, programs should avoid only targeting such energy systems to poorer classes.

Though currently the charcoal business-as-usual outlook isn’t pretty for Sub-Saharan Africa, hope is not lost.

Solar power and other charcoal alternatives can help reduce deforestation, damage to women’s health, and mitigate climate change, with support from governments, civil society and private sector entrepreneurs via the methods outlined above.

This Author 

John Costenbader is a climate change and natural resource governance specialist with DAI who advises governments, civil society and the private sector on environmental law, policy and program issues.

Britain and Italy are squaring off to host the UN’s 2020 climate change summit – a key moment where countries will be expected to ramp up their commitments under the Paris Agreement. 

However, both countries face significant domestic uncertainties that year, with the strong possibility of early general elections and economic and political problems.

In the UK, it’s not yet clear if the country will have left the European Union by then, be in the middle of a transition or even still locked in negotiations over leaving the bloc.

Government priorities

In Italy, current public opinion polls predict a full-out win for the right-wing League party, which now shares power with the populist 5 Star Movement.

Luca Bergamaschi, an energy and climate change expert at the think-tanks E3G and Italian Institute for International Affairs, said: “New elections before the Cop26 are important because they can change a government’s priorities. Having a Cop26 potentially guided by the League raises strong doubts about whether Italy could guide a meeting which is very, very important.”

While the UK government may still be consumed by Brexit or its fallout, Jennifer Tollmann, a policy advisor also at E3G, says that Britain has “the diplomatic network to pull off the significant outreach that will be required of the Cop26 presidency. It has consistently driven the climate agenda within Europe and there are numerous cities that could host it.”

The government has also made an effort to show leadership in recent years. It partnered with Canada in 2017 to form an anti-coal alliance, started the process of strengthening its 2050 climate goals last year, and is now co-chairing talks on climate resilience for a special UN summit in September.

The annual Cop summits rotate between five regional groups. Britain and Italy sit with other Western European countries, the US, Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

Diplomatic muscle

Both countries confirmed their bids during the Cop24 summit in Poland in December. The UK also wrote a letter to the regional group in February.

The group is now under pressure to choose a host at a June UN meeting in Bonn, ahead of the secretary-general’s September summit.

That New York meeting is meant to begin pushing countries to strengthen their commitments for tackling climate change up to 2030 and come out with plans for 2050, as the Paris Agreement calls on them to do by 2020. Cop26 will be the final stage for those changes – requiring heavy diplomatic muscle from its presidency.

UK energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry said in a statement to the UN’s climate change secretariat in January that: “Cop26 in 2020 will be a pivotal moment to encourage and take stock of global ambition and prepare the ground for further action. 

“It is for that reason that the UK expressed interest in hosting Cop26, continuing to show our global leadership in climate action. However, we note the interest of other countries and will engage with them on this matter.”

Regional disagreement

Italy first floated the idea of hosting under the previous Democratic Party-led government early last year.

The country’s environment ministry is now run by the 5 Star Movement, which tends to advocate for stronger environmental and climate change measures.

The League has largely stayed out of environmental policy since the coalition government took over a year ago, except in supporting a controversial gas pipeline and other infrastructure projects. However, its European Parliament members – including now-party leader and interior minister Matteo Salvini – voted against ratifying the Paris accord in 2016.

A fight is also brewing over where the summit would be held in Italy.

The northern region of Lombardy, which includes Milan, wrote a letter to the government asking to be considered, even though environment minister Sergio Costa has mentioned his home city of Naples, the newspaper Il Denaro reported in February. Milan hosted the Cop9 in 2003, and was the Democratic Party’s preferred location.

The regional group is expected to decide on the winner later this year, either at talks in Bonn or at the Cop25 summit in Chile.

This Author

Sara Stefanini is Climate Home News’ senior reporter, covering Brexit and broader stories. She is also a freelance writer, contributing to the Financial Times and other organisations. This Article first appeared on Climate Home.