Living within 50 metres of a major road in may increase your risk of developing lung cancer by up to 10 percent, a new report written by King’s College London has found. The report was released by a coalition of fifteen health and environment NGOs, including ClientEarth, the British Lung Foundation, and the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change which represents 650,000 health professionals in the NHS.

The levels of recorded roadside air pollution stunt lung growth in children by  approximately 14 percent in Oxford, 13 percent in London, 8 percent in Birmingham, 5 percent in Bristol, 5 percent in Liverpool, 3 percent in Nottingham, and 4 percent in Southampton. One third (33 percent) of Londoners – around 3 million people – are estimated to live near a busy road. 

The new research shows an increased risk of cardiac arrest, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and  bronchitis as well as reduced lung function in children. 

Reducing emissions 

Ahead of the General Election on 12 December, the group is calling for all political parties to commit to adopting a legally-binding target to meet World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for particulate matter pollution by 2030 and take steps to immediately reduce illegal air pollution across the UK.

The existing UK legal limits for particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) are still more than double the WHO guideline levels.

To date, none of the political parties have explicitly committed to meet the guidelines by 2030. The fear is that without a clear deadline and timetable, many more people will die and face debilitating health conditions. 

The group are also urging the introduction of a national network of Clean Air Zones across the UK.

London’s own clean air zone, the Ultra Low Emissions Zone, launched earlier this year has already had an impact on reducing air pollution, with levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) falling by 29 percent. 

Lung cancer

This is the first time that such a wide range of health conditions and cities have been analysed in one report, with the research comparing 13 different health outcomes including heart disease, lung cancer, strokes and bronchitis across 13 cities in the UK and Poland.

Previous research has tended to concentrate on deaths or hospital admissions, but this report also includes symptoms that affect a larger number of people such as chest infections (‘acute bronchitis’) and reduced lung function in children.

The report shows that cutting air pollution by one-fifth would reduce the number of lung cancer cases by 7.6 percent in London, 6.4 percent in Birmingham, 5.9 percent in Bristol, 5.3 percent in Liverpool, 5.6 percent in Manchester, 6.7 percent in Nottingham, 6 percent in Oxford and 5.9 percent in Southampton. 

Living near a busy road can trigger bronchitic symptoms amongst children with asthma. If pollution was reduced by one-fifth, there would be 3,865 fewer cases of children with bronchitic symptoms every year in London, 328 in Birmingham, 94 in Bristol, 85 in Liverpool, 85 in Manchester, 134 in Nottingham, 38 in Oxford and 69 in Southampton. 

‘Deeply worrying’

Andrea Lee, clean air campaigns and policy manager at ClientEarth, said: “Toxic air puts an unfair burden on people’s lives. The good news is that solutions are available. The UK’s first clean air zone in London is already having an impact. But much more needs to be done to help people across the country move to cleaner forms of transport.

“To better protect people’s health, the next UK Government also needs to raise the bar by making a binding commitment to meet stricter WHO guidelines by 2030.

“If politicians were not already convinced by the abundant evidence that air pollution seriously harms our health, could this new research be the tipping point?” 

The call is being echoed by parents and leading health professionals who are warning of the “unsustainable burden on the NHS” of air pollution. A group of parents from across the country affected by air pollution, the Clean Air Parents’ Network, are writing to general election candidates asking them to commit to urgent action to protect children’s health as well as meeting WHO targets and setting up Clean Air Zones in the most polluted towns and cities. 

Lucy Harbor, mum, and founder of Clean Air 4 Schools, who lives in North London, said: “These findings are deeply worrying, as me and my family live by the A10 and my kids go to a school on a busy main road. Sadly, this report confirms many of my worst fears – that where we live and go to school could seriously be affecting our health.

“We are these statistics – one of my  children was hospitalised with pneumonia and has had asthma. That my children’s lung growth could be stunted by 12.5 percent makes me seriously question whether enough is being done to urgently bring pollution levels down on main roads in London.”

Unsustainable burden

Dr Sandy Robertson, Emergency Medicine Registrar at the Homerton University Hospital London and Council Member of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, said: “It’s clear to see the effect of air pollution on the demand for emergency care in A&E waiting rooms. This study from Kings College quantifies the staggering scale of that link.

“Children in London are 4.2 percent more likely to be hospitalised by asthma on days of high pollution – resulting in an extra 74 child admissions.

Air pollution is not only an individual tragedy for those whose health suffers, it is also an unsustainable burden on our NHS. But we can make a difference. In the lead up to this General Election, it’s essential that all political parties commit to supporting a legally binding target to meet WHO air quality limits by 2030.”

Dr Rob Hughes, Senior Fellow at the Clean Air Fund, said: “Air pollution makes us, and especially our children, sick from cradle to grave, but is often invisible.

“This impressive research makes this public health crisis – which affects people all across the UK – visible, and shows the urgency with which all political parties must prioritise cleaning up our air.”

This Author

Marianne Brooker in The Ecologist’s content editor. This article is based on a press release from King’s College London. 

Social movements were organising their opposition to COP25 – in which those most affected by climate violence would be sidelined – even before the popular mobilisation started in Chile and Sebastián Piñera suspended the talks. 

A gathering in Chile in September brought together frontline defenders to discuss the climate crisis, a just energy transition from the mining extractivist model that is killing Chileans and people all over the global South.

Now, following the brutal repression of the uprising and Piñera’s attempts to avoid scrutiny, their analysis is more important than ever.

In the declaration that follows, Latin American climate justice movements and their allies state their opposition to the neoliberal extractivist model, and propose a justice-oriented approach to solving the climate crisis that will not sacrifice the peoples of the global South.

Declaration 

The ‘Regional Gathering: Climate crisis, energy transition and mining extractivism in Latin America’ was held from September 26 to 28 in Santiago, Chile.

Faced with the undeniable climate crisis and the false solutions proposed by multilateral spaces that have been co-opted by the transnational business sector and supported by governments, the meeting was organised by the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA), the Observatory of Mining Conflicts of Latin America (OCMAL) together with War on Want and Mining Watch Canada.

We consider:

That national and transnational companies and governments, mainly of the industrialised North, are those truly responsible for environmental breakdown due to their extractive activities in search of capitalist accumulation and the promotion of consumerism.

That the current discourse around the climate crisis places the blame on individual responsibility, thereby distracting the attention from those most responsible.

That the peoples, communities and organisations that resist these extractive activities – in defence of life, water and territories – are stigmatised, repressed, criminalised and murdered.

That companies and extractivist governments are the ones who commit true criminal acts against all forms of life, violating Human Rights and the Rights of Nature.

That mining extractivism in all its phases causes ecocide and ethnocide in the different territories where it operates. 

That hidden behind the discourse of the ‘energy transition’ is a program of economic growth for the Global North which threatens to exponentially increase sacrifice zones under the auspices of guaranteeing the supply of minerals for so-called ‘green’ technologies. This will come at the cost of the exploitation of our territories and communities, all while intensifying the ecological crisis. 

That the recent panic surrounding the climate crisis in the Global North can only ever be understood in the context of the struggles present in our urban and rural communities of the Global South, who have been resisting the intersecting social and ecological crises since the inception of colonialism. This panic cannot impose false solutions or reproduce extractivism.

That the climate crisis, as part of an ecological crisis, is a condition of the capitalist world development model.

We denounce:

Any attempt by mining companies to benefit from the climate crisis using deceptive initiatives such as: “inclusive tailings”, and the ‘adoption’ of environmental liabilities, Responsible Mining, Green Mining, Sustainable Mining, Ecological Mining, Clean Mining, Climate Smart Mining, Future Smart Mining, offsetting mechanisms for social and environmental damages, Green Economy and any other concept that seeks to wash its image or perpetuate impunity.

The actions of governments and corporations that dismember, divide, privatise, auction-off  and commercialise nature and our territories to turn them into resources, merchandise or environmental services. 

Visions of a transition which reproduce extractivist capitalism, including those focused on the nationalisation of minerals and oil and do not guarantee structural changes.

Any appropriation of local knowledge, expertise and wisdom by mining companies and governments to encourage extractive activities.

That extractivist companies, in addition to exploiting the environment, also engage in widespread corruption, eliminating trust in public institutions and the functioning of the judicial system.

That to date, the COPs have failed to provide real solutions to address climate injustice and inequality caused by predatory extractivism. Instead they have, under the pressure of Northern countries, made decisions in the interests of the economic model which is responsible for the ecological and climate crisis.

We recognise:

That the strength to face this crisis lies with young people, women, communities and organisations, movements and territories. 

That our anti-capitalist struggle is also a decolonial, anti-patriarchal and anti-racist struggle.

That the true knowledge-keepers of territories are those who have historically inhabited them.

That nature is a subject of rights and recognition of this is a global necessity. 

The self-determination of peoples to resist and say “no” to the invasion of mining companies in their territories.

We will fight

So that ecological justice emerges from the territories where the processes to protect life, water, ecosystems and Mother Earth are increasingly threatened and impacted by predatory extractivist capitalism.

To strengthen and respect the autonomy of communities and their organisations to define solutions in the framework of justice and equity based on nature, the planet and humanity.

For the respect of the Indigenous peoples, peasants and other communities, who are the guardians of their territories. 

To cease the auctioning of mining and oil concessions in our territories.  

Alongside frontline resistance to mega-mining and processes which seek mining-bans.

To ensure that mining companies which have benefited from the looting of nature are fully liable for mine-closure processes, and that integral repair of the territory arises from collective and participatory processes led by affected communities.

So that environmental catastrophes, pollution, murders and any other violation in territories affected by mining companies are recognised for what they are: crimes. It is urgent to develop binding policies and mechanisms to confront the generalised impunity enjoyed by companies, their owners, their executives and their financial centres.

To strengthen organisations and movements that fight in defence of the territories.

To develop regional solidarity and agreements to ensure food, energy and economic sovereignty.

To defend water in all its states as a source of life.

To sow, celebrate and strengthen territories free of mining.

Signatories:

Asamblea en Defensa del Elki (Chile/Elqui)
Acción Ecológica (Ecuador/Quito)
Asamblea por el Agua del Guasco Alto (Chile/Huasco)
Belén dice NO a la minería (Chile/Arica)
CENSAT Agua Viva (Colombia/Bogotá)
Centro de Documentación e Información Bolivia (CEDIB) (Bolivia/Cochabamba)
Centro de Investigación sobre Inversión y Comercio (CEICOM) (El Salvador/ San Salvador)
Centro Ecológico Churque (Chile/Santiago/Lo Barnechea)
Codemaa (Chile/Atacama)
Comunidad Indígena Diaguita Patay Co (Chile/Huasco)
CooperAcción (Perú/Lima)
Coordinadora Penco-Lirquén (Chile/Penco-Lirquén)
Coordinadora por la Defensa del Río Loa y la Madre Tierra (Chile/Calama)
Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN) (Argentina/Buenos Aires)
London Mining Network (Reino Unido/Londres)
Mega Comunal de Turismo Monte Patria y Limarí (Chile/Monte Patria – Limarí)
Mining Watch Canada (Canadá/Ottawa)
Observatorio de Conflictos Mineros en América Latina (OCMAL) (Chile/Santiago)
Observatorio Conflictos Mineros de Zacatecas (OCMZAC) (México/Zacatecas)
Observatorio de Ecología Política de Venezuela (OEPV) (Venezuela/Caracas)
Observatorio Latinoamericano de Conflictos Ambientales (OLCA) (Chile/Santiago)
Observatorio Plurinacional de Salares Andinos (OPSA) (Chile/Atacama)
Putaendo Resiste (Chile/Putaendo)
Red de Afectados por la Vale (Brasil/Minas Gerais, Brumadinho)
Red de Mujeres El Loa (Chile/Calama)
War on Want (Reino Unido/Londres)

Click here to read the original version in Spanish.

Tens of thousands of children across the UK have bunked off school on Friday as part of a global climate strike, campaigners said.

The international movement, Fridays For Future, which was started by teenage activist Greta Thunberg in 2018, encourages pupils to protest against governments’ lack of action on climate change by not attending school on Fridays.

Around 120 demonstrations are being staged around the UK, as well as over 3,000 worldwide in 150 countries.

Skyrocket

The protests come following a cross-party leaders’ debate on climate change that was broadcast on Channel 4 on Thursday evening.

Activists say it is vital that the environment is pushed to the top of the political agenda.

Jake Woodier, campaigner with the UK Student Climate Network, said: “The idea is to make sure that there is enough pressure on the electorate and to highlight that this is not any ordinary election, it’s a climate election.

“Over the past year young people have been taking to the streets on a monthly basis to highlight the urgent need for action on the climate crisis.

“This has seen public concern skyrocket, and it’s essential that this concern translates at the ballot box in December.

Idiots

“We’ve got incredibly limited time to address the climate crisis and the next government will be in charge for five vital years that we can’t afford to lose.”

Hundreds of young people gathered in Parliament Square in central London on Friday morning.

Among them was 12-year-old Niamh, who travelled from Guildford to attend the demonstration with her brother Finn, 10, and father Simon.

Speaking to the PA news agency, she said: “It’s not fair. It’s going to affect my generation who won’t know what a polar bear is.

“If we’re off school it will make a difference. I think the government is doing a bit but we’re being idiots about it.”

Democracy

Simon, 43, added: “I think it’s good to get them involved and be socially aware, to get involved to fix this for everyone. “If we don’t, we’re buggered.”

Similar protests are taking place in other UK cities such as Cambridge, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

The UK Student Climate network says that although the majority of attendees are young people there are an increasing number of adults at Fridays For Future events.

Gwen, 48, from north London, said: “They [the kids] need to be empowered. They need to know they can make a difference. They need to know that they can change the world for the better.”

Her son Tariq, 12, said: “We’re here because we want democracy and [the Government] to give us a Citizens’ Assembly and to end climate change.

Moral

“They are the ones with the power to give us what we want. His friend Tom, 13, added: “It’s important stuff.”

The young activists were joined at Westminster by other groups and chanted “where the **** is the government?”

When asked about the language used, Gwen said: “They’re going to be exposed to it at some point – I’d rather it was at a protest march.”

Activists in London plan to unfurl a 30-metre long banner with a “message to the electorate” on Westminster Bridge on Friday afternoon.

Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said that youth demonstrators were the “moral conscience not just of their generation but the whole of our society”.

Debate

“These young people are walking out of school to teach us a big lesson on what it means to be responsible adults,” he said.

“Because there’s no running away from a nature and climate emergency that’s erupting all around us.

“Whoever’s going to be the UK’s next prime minister must realise the gravity of the situation and be willing to take the radical action needed to address it.”

During the Channel 4 debate Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s leader Adam Price and Green co-leader Sian Berry discussed their party’s plans for climate action.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Brexit Party’s Nigel Farage declined to take part in the debate.

Scared

Their absence was represented by two circular ice sculptures engraved with maps of the world which stood melting on stage throughout the hour-long programme.

The Conservatives have complained to Ofcom about the sculpture.

Tory minister Michael Gove also posted a video on Twitter, saying he asked to take part in the debate but was refused.

Mr Gove, a former environment secretary, said that the snub was a “denial of debate” and that the other parties were “running scared of debating the Conservatives”.

This Author

Mike Bedigan is a reporter for PA.

Massive Attack are teaming up with climate scientists to map the carbon footprint of the band while they are on tour.

Data from the Bristol-based group’s forthcoming tour schedule – including band travel and audience transportation – will be collected and analysed in a joint collaboration with the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre.

In a statement, Massive Attack said: “For some time, despite taking consistent steps to reduce the environmental impact associated with an internationally touring music group, we’ve been concerned and preoccupied with the carbon footprint of our schedules and the wider impact of our sector overall.

Impact

“This concern has deepened with each new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the universal acceptance of the climate and biodiversity emergency.

“Any unilateral statement or protest we make alone as one band will not make a meaningful difference. In pursuing systemic change, there is no substitute for collective action.

“In contribution to this action, we’re announcing the commission of the renowned Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester – a body that brings together scientists, economists, engineers and social scientists to research options to mitigate global warming – to map thoroughly the carbon footprint of band tour cycles, and to present options that can be implemented quickly to begin a meaningful reduction of impact.”

Dr Chris Jones, research fellow at Tyndall, said: “Every industry has varying degrees of carbon impact to address and we need partnerships like this one to look at reducing carbon emissions across the board.

Industry

“It’s more effective to have a sustained process of emissions reductions across the sector than for individual artists (to) quit live performances. It will likely mean a major shift in how things are done now, involving not just the band but the rest of the business and the audience.”

Last week, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said the band will not launch a globe-trotting tour for their latest album because of environmental concerns.

Massive Attack star Robert “3D” Del Naja wrote in the Guardian that they have “discussed ending touring altogether – an important option that deserves consideration”.

“In reality, however, an entire international roster of acts would need to stop touring to achieve the required impact,” he added. “In a major employment industry with hundreds of acts, this isn’t about to happen.”

This Author

 Kim Pilling is a reporter with PA.

Cattle farming is the main driver of illegal land seizures on Reserves and Indigenous territories in Brazil’s Amazon, fuelling deforestation and trampling on the rights of Indigenous and traditional people living there, Amnesty International has said in a new report. 

The 29-page report – Fence off and bring cattle: Illegal cattle farming in Brazil’s Amazon – was released as Amnesty, alongside Indigenous leaders from the Amazon, presented a petition with more than 162,000 signatures to Brazilian authorities calling on them to stop illegal seizures of protected land in the Amazon.

Richard Pearshouse, Amnesty International’s Head of Crisis and Environment, said: “Illegal cattle ranching is the main driver of Amazon deforestation. It poses a very real threat, not only to the human rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples who live there, but also to the entire planet’s ecosystem.”

Criminal activity

Pearshouse continued: “While the Bolsonaro administration slashes environmental protections at the Federal level, some state authorities are effectively enabling the illegal cattle farming which destroys protected areas of the rainforest.

“The public has a right to know about cattle ranching in protected areas – after all, this is criminal activity. Brazilian authorities must make this information publicly available and take meaningful steps to end illegal cattle farming in protected areas.”

Around two-thirds of the areas of the Amazon deforested between 1988 and 2014 have been fenced off, burned and converted to grazing pasture – almost 500,000 km2, a total land area equivalent to five times the size of Portugal. Amnesty’s report documents how some state authorities are effectively enabling cattle farming in protected areas.

Amnesty visited five protected areas in Brazil’s Amazon throughout 2019: the Karipuna and Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous territories and the Rio Ouro Preto and Rio Jacy-Paraná Reserves (in Rondônia state), and the Manoki Indigenous territory (in Mato Grosso state).

Reserves are areas designated for the protection of the environment, the livelihoods and culture of its traditional populations including the sustainable use of its natural resources. Along with Indigenous territories, they are protected under Brazilian law and international treaties.

Land seizure

Official data, satellite imagery and site visits by Amnesty show how illegal land seizures, by and large linked to cattle ranching, are on the rise in all five of these areas.

Cattle farmers and grileiros –private individuals who illegally seize land – follow a broad pattern to convert tropical rainforest into pasture in Brazil’s Amazon. Plots of land in the forest are identified, trees are cut down and cleared, and then fires are lit (often repeatedly in the same area), before grass is planted and cattle then introduced.

New roads being cut and the appearance of campsites in the protected forest are among the warning signs that this process has begun. Amnesty documented how these activities have been rife in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous territory in Rondônia, much of which overlaps with the Pacaás Novos National Park, where a federal environmental agent said more than 40km of new roads had appeared since 2017.

Another tell-tale sign that illegal farmers and grileiros are trying to seize land is the fencing off and burning down of large areas of the forest. Amnesty witnessed and recorded drone footage of this happening in Manoki Indigenous territory in Mato Grosso on 23 August 2019.

A Manoki leader told Amnesty it was part of intensified efforts by ranchers to destroy protected forest and convert the land to cow pasture. Amnesty observed cattle grazing in at least six different locations in Manoki territory.

Violence

Amnesty analysed remote sensing burn data and satellite imagery across the five territories and a clear pattern emerged. In multiple cases, satellite imagery captured land being burned adjacent to areas with cattle visibly roaming freely within protected areas. In some cases, probable paths from cattle moving through recently burned areas were visible.

Indigenous and traditional residents in four of the five protected areas told Amnesty International how these new invasions have often been accompanied by violence, threats and intimidation. At the fifth site, Rio Jacy-Paraná reserve, virtually all the original inhabitants have now been forcibly evicted from the reserve and are afraid to return because armed invaders involved in cattle farming now live on their land.

Government agencies with the mandate to protect the reserves have also been targeted. An environmental agent near Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau territory told Amnesty International: “We were surrounded by invaders. Thirty-two men, mostly hooded, arrived by foot behind us, with bottles of gas … There was a lot of shouting, threats, calling us ‘thugs’.”

The tense standoff lasted over an hour before the assailants left, but several weeks later they began sending the environmental agents audio messages with threats of violence.

In some cases, including in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous territory, the threat of armed violence against Indigenous peoples and environmental protection workers has been so severe that the armed forces and federal police have had to intervene.

Indigenous territories

Amnesty’s research revealed that, not only has the Bolsonaro administration cut funding to and otherwise undermined environmental and Indigenous protection agencies, but some state agencies are effectively enabling cattle ranching in protected areas.

State laws require state animal health control agencies to visit and register farms and track cattle movements.

Amnesty filed Freedom of Information (FOI) requests with state authorities in both Rondônia and Mato Grosso to access data on the number of cattle grazing in protected areas and on cattle movement.

Rondônia’s animal health control agency responded with incomplete data. Despite receiving five different FOI requests, Mato Grosso authorities declined to share any data at all.

The data that Amnesty obtained for Rondônia shows that there were over 295,000 cattle in Indigenous territories and environmentally protected areas in that state in November 2018.

This Author

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. This article is based on a press release from Amnesty International. 

Image: Amnesty International. 

The world’s fifteen largest asset managers command $37 trillion in assets under management, giving them huge influence over the global economy. But they are collectively failing to drive forward the transition needed to support international climate targets, finds a new report by InfluenceMap. 

These institutions manage portfolios containing a fifth of the total value of world capital markets, but the UK-based think tank reveals that their investments in sectors of crucial importance to climate change are significantly at odds with the rapid transition to a low-carbon economy needed to support the Paris Agreement goal of “keeping global warming well below 2°C while aiming for 1.5°C”.

Thomas O’Neill, research director of InfluenceMap, said: “If global asset managers wish to support the Paris Agreement and remain invested in the automotive, power and fossil fuel industries then they must engage robustly with companies in these sectors to accelerate their switch to low carbon technologies and ensure their policy lobbying supports climate targets.”

Pernicious lobbying 

Christiana Figueres, founding partner at Global Optimism, and former executive secretary at UNFCCC, said: “The asset management industry is only starting to be aligned with the Paris Agreement. In the face of the climate emergency, it is critical for investors to show companies the path to follow.”

‘Asset Managers and Climate Change’ is the first study to analyze the nature of asset managers’ engagement with companies on climate, highlighting the fact that the global leaders’ shareholdings and relationships give them huge leverage to drive corporate action to support the Paris Agreement.

Companies’ climate engagement performance is closely reflected in their record of voting on shareholder resolutions designed to support the Paris targets. BlackRock and Capital Group voted against 90 percent  of resolutions in 2018 while other US asset managers voted against the majority.

The report also highlights five smaller US and UK asset managers “who appear to be doing the ‘heavy lifting’ for the entire industry”, for example, filing 20 percent of all climate resolutions in 2018: Trillium Asset Management (which filed seven resolutions); Hermes Investment Management; Sarasin & Partners; Walden Asset Management; and Zevin Asset Management.

Fiona Reynolds, CEO of the Principles for Responsible Investment, said: “InfluenceMap is providing an invaluable knowledge base to investors, policy makers and civil society in exposing the pernicious negative climate lobbying activities of many business groups. We are pleased to see their analysis now extending to investors’ portfolio alignment with the Paris Agreement and corporate engagement programs on climate.”

Public benchmark

Reynolds continued: “Investors have a key role to play in addressing climate change and they need to use all the tools at their disposal. While there are many climate leaders in the investment community, there are also many laggards. 

“This new work by InfluenceMap will become another significant reference point in the finance sector to help track and inform decisions around institutional investment strategies and good governance in responding to the climate challenge.”

The study is the first output from InfluenceMap’s FinanceMap project, which aims to provide a public benchmark on how well the asset management sector is performing on climate change.

The project notes growing demands for radical action to address the climate emergency from both the public and institutional investors, notably the Climate Action 100+ investor engagement process which is prioritising the transformation of corporate business models and lobbying on climate.

FinanceMap analysed 50,000 listed funds managed by 150 financial groups and identified $8.2 trillion of holdings in four key industrial sectors: oil & gas; coal mining; automotive; and electric power.

Portfolio misalignment

It identified 850 companies held by these financial groups, assessed their production plans and compared them with the transition to low-carbon technologies that is consistent with limiting global warming to 1.75°, using the International Energy Agency’s Below 2 Degrees Scenario (B2DS).

It found that the equity portfolios of the top 15 asset management groups were misaligned with this goal, with a deviation of between minus 16 percent and minus 21 percent from a portfolio of investments aligned with the Paris target. This implies they are overweight in companies deploying brown technologies, and underweight in those deploying green in four key sectors: automotive, oil & gas, electric power and coal production, which represent roughly 10 percent of global equity markets.

The report notes that the portfolio misalignment reflects the fact that these asset managers are “universal owners” investing in the entire market, and recognises that divestment or significant underweighting of certain sectors may be difficult, especially given the current widespread use of index-driven portfolio allocation.

Forceful engagement with the companies in these sectors to hasten their transition to low carbon technologies must occur if the finance sector wishes to align its portfolios with climate goals. The majority of companies in these sectors are very far from aligning their business models to meet the goals of Paris.

Binding policy

The portfolio analysis reveals that “despite an almost continuous drumbeat of commitments and pledges from the world’s automakers to electrify their fleets” the automotive sector is the one which is furthest away from alignment with the Paris Agreement.

In 2018 the world’s automakers produced 96 million vehicles across all platforms, of which 1.4 percent were electric (EVs).  FinanceMap’s analysis suggests this will evolve by 2024 to 101 million vehicles in total, of which 4.2 million (4.2 parent) will be electric.  However, the IEA’s B2DS scenario requires at least 9.2 million EVs by 2024, illustrating the sector’s very significant misalignment with a 1.75°C pathway. 

In the US, industry lobbying has prevented Obama-era efficiency standards being implemented and, at a global level, the industry has strongly opposed binding policy to achieve a transition to electric vehicles in line with the Paris Agreement.

This sector-wide lag in EV uptake by the automakers and their lobbying to delay EV regulations illustrates the difficulties investors will have in using portfolio allocation alone to drive climate goals in finance – hence the focus on changing company behavior by engagement.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from InfluenceMap. 

Visitors might begin experiencing shortness of breath after one or two minutes inside artist Michael Pinsky’s Pollution Pods, but there’s nothing dangerous in the air in the pods.

Safe perfume blends and fog machines imitate the air quality of some of the world’s most polluted cities – London, Beijing, São Paulo, New Delhi – as well as one of the most pristine environments on earth, Tautra in Norway. 

Outside the pods, however, air pollution has been declared a public health priority by the World Health Organization (WHO).  Largely caused by the same burning of fossil fuels that is driving climate change, polluted air is poisoning nine out of ten of us and killing over seven million of us prematurely every year. Children are especially vulnerable: 600,000 children die prematurelyevery year from air pollution related diseases.

Air pollution 

As part of the BreatheLife Campaign, which mobilizes governments and communities to reduce the impact of air pollution on our health & climate, this viscerally powerful art installation will be installed at the COP25 climate summit.

Negotiators, observers and world leaders attending the summit will be encouraged to walk through the pods, which are being brought to Madrid by Cape Farewell, WHO, Clean Air Fund and Ministry of Ecological Transition, Spain.

Pinsky, said: “In the Pollution Pods, I have tried to distil the whole bodily sense of being in each place.  For instance, being in São Paulo seems like a sanctuary compared to New Delhi, until your eyes start to water from the sensation of ethanol, whilst Tautra is unlike any air you’ll have ever breathed before, it is so pure.”  

Visitors to the Pollution Pods at COP25 will experience the sensation of air pollution for a few minutes, but breathing toxic air is the reality for millions of people every day of their lives. 

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO said: “We need to agree unequivocally on the need for a world free of air pollution. We need all countries and cities to commit to meeting WHO air quality guidelines.”

Climate change

Throughout the life course, exposure to air pollution is a major risk for chronic heart and respiratory disease and can inhibit proper brain and lung development in children. 

A study by the Lancet showed that four million cases of childhood asthma every year, including 240,000 in the United States, could be caused by air pollution resulting from traffic fumes.   

Dr Maria Neira, WHO director of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, said: “The true cost of climate change is felt in our hospitals and in our lungs. The health burden of polluting energy sources is now so high, that moving to cleaner and more sustainable choices for energy supply, transport and food systems effectively pays for itself. When health is taken into account, climate change mitigation is an opportunity, not a cost”.

Teresa Ribera, Minister for the Ecological Transition of Spain, said: “Air pollution and climate change are the two sides of the same coin. The symbolic installation of the Pollution Pods at COP25 should remind everybody that we are negotiating for cleaner environments, cutting emissions and gaining better health for all.”

Jane Burston, Executive Director, Clean Air Fund, said: “The Clean Air Fund has projects in all four of the cities represented in the Pollution Pods. Air pollution has a terrible impact on people’s health in these cities and many more around the world – but the positive side is that reducing pollution can simultaneously tackle climate change and will save millions of dollars in healthcare costs and increase productivity.”  

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Theresa Simon & Partners, working with Michael Pinksy. 

Climate change is taking centre stage in the election as party leaders face questions about how they will tackle the issue in a TV debate on Thursday night.

Parties will vie for the votes of those concerned about the environment in what, despite subjects such as Brexit and the NHS, has been dubbed by some as “the climate election”.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Brexit Party’s Nigel Farage look set to snub the hour-long Emergency On Planet Earth debate on Channel 4 News.

Protests

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s leader Adam Price and Green co-leader Sian Berry (pictured) have agreed to take part.

Asked on Wednesday whether a Conservative minister, such as former environment secretary Michael Gove, could attend the Channel 4 debate instead of Mr Johnson, a spokeswoman for Channel 4 News said: “Michael Gove is not the party leader.”

Invitations to Mr Johnson and Mr Farage remained open, the programme said.

December’s General Election comes at the end of a year marked by mass protests and rising public concern over the climate and wildlife crises.

Despite this, the issue garnered only a brief mention in a head-to-head TV debate between Mr Johnson and Mr Corbyn earlier in the campaign.

Meat

A poll taken shortly before the election was called revealed the majority of people said climate change would influence how they voted.

Almost two-thirds agreed politicians were not talking about the issue enough in the run-up to the next national vote, the survey for environmental lawyers ClientEarth found.

The first leaders debate on climate change takes place in the wake of the latest warnings from UN experts of rising levels of climate-warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the need for swift and dramatic cuts in emissions to avoid the most dangerous impacts of global warming.

Leaders are likely to face questions over the level of ambition and feasibility in their plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the UK to zero overall, and the date they have pledged to achieve it by.

Presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy said leaders would be grilled on how people’s lives will have to change – whether it would involve giving up red meat, going on holiday or ending fast fashion.

Fairer

Plans to phase out petrol and diesel vehicles, cut the carbon from heating homes, plant trees and protect wildlife are also among the subjects they could be quizzed on.

Mr Guru-Murthy said: “This debate has been called for by hundreds of thousands of people from all sorts of different walks of life.”

He urged Mr Johnson, who has said he does not want to debate Ms Sturgeon because she cannot become prime minister, to change his mind, promising him he would get a fair hearing.

Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK, which backed a public petition to secure the debate, said: “The climate and nature emergency is a top concern for UK voters and an issue our politicians will have to put at the heart of their economic strategy for the foreseeable future.

“They must seize this opportunity for a greener and fairer future. The public will be looking to see who among the party leaders understands the gravity of the situation and has the policies and conviction to tackle it.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

Criminal charges have been dropped against climate change protesters who were arrested under a police order that was later ruled to be unlawful.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said 105 cases were being discontinued against Extinction Rebellion (XR) supporters who were detained during the action in October.

More than 1,800 people were arrested during the XR Autumn Uprising protest, which saw locations around central London, City Airport and the Tube network targeted.

Unlawful

Police initially made use of public order legislation, a section 14 order, to restrict the action to Trafalgar Square, and after repeated breaches went further, effectively banning XR protests from the capital.

High Court judges ruled that the effective ban was unlawful, paving the way for compensation claims against the Metropolitan Police.

The CPS said that 73 people charged with breaching the section 14 order, 24 charged with a breach and highway obstruction, and eight charged with stand-along highway obstruction would face no further action.

So far this year, policing protests by XR has cost the Metropolitan Police £40 million, nearly three times the annual budget of its Violent Crime Taskforce.

Raj Chada from law firm Hodge Jones and Allen said: “From the moment that the High Court ruled the Met Police’s ban was unlawful, this was an obvious consequence.

Demonstrations

“The CPS have dithered and delayed before bowing to the inevitable and only caused more anxiety and expense to our clients. “Anyone affected by this should contact us about a potential action against the police.”

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “Following careful consideration and further legal advice, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has decided it will not appeal the judgment in relation to conditions imposed on Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’.

“The MPS remains disappointed by the judgment, but of course respects the decision of the court. We have previously stated public order legislation needs updating.

“This case is the first time the legislation has been tested in such unique circumstances. It has highlighted that policing demonstrations like these within the existing legal framework can be challenging.

“The MPS will continue to carefully consider and review the use of this legislation during future demonstrations.”

This Author

Margaret Davis is the PA crime correspondent.

Labour is pledging to plant two billion trees by 2040 and create 10 new national parks as part of its plans to tackle the climate crisis.

Jeremy Corbyn is to commit on Wednesday to spending £3.7 billion in capital investment for the planting programme and habitat restoration if he wins the election.

Friends of the Earth welcomed the planting plan as “by far the most ambitious” of all the parties’ tree pledges, which are aimed at capturing atmospheric carbon to offset emissions. Corbyn attended a climate emergency rally in Falmouth, Cornwall, yesterday (pictured).

Nature recovery

Labour wants the 10 new protected parks to be added to the 15 existing ones during its first term if Mr Corbyn triumphs in the December 12 General Election.

Candidates include the Malvern Hills, Chiltern Hills, Lincolnshire Wolds, the North and South Pennines, coastal Suffolk and Dorset, the Cotswolds and Wessex.

Environmental degradation, potential for carbon sequestration and biodiversity net gain would be among the criteria for the areas to get the status.

Labour estimates the programmes would help create 20,000 of the one million green jobs it has pledged as part of a “green industrial revolution”.

While the plans focus solely on England, Labour wants to work with the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure “nature recovery networks” are extended across the UK.

Ambitious

Launching the “plan for nature” in Southampton, Mr Corbyn will try to paint Labour as the party for the environment in what he calls the “last chance” election to tackle the emergency.

“We’ll expand and restore our habitats and plant trees so that we can create natural solutions to bring down emissions and allow our wildlife to flourish,” the Labour leader is expected to say.

“Labour created the first national parks, and we’ll create 10 more, giving people the access to the green spaces so vital for our collective wellbeing and mental health.”

The Liberal Democrats have pledged to plant 60 million trees a year, equating to up to 1.2 billion by 2040, while the Tories have pledged half that.

Commenting on Labour’s announcement, Friends of the Earth tree campaigner Guy Shrubsole said: “This is by far the most ambitious tree-planting pledge we’ve seen from a political party.

Farmlands

“Tree cover in the UK needs to double as part of the fight against climate breakdown and this means adding three billion new trees, and fast.

“If sustained, Labour’s promised tree-planting rates would achieve this by 2050. While parties have been racing to make bigger trees pledges, it’s crucial to remember that trees will only help fix the climate crisis if emissions cuts happen at the same time.”

Labour said £1.2 billion from its green transformation fund would be spent on restoring natural habitats including woodland, grasslands, meadows, peat bogs and salt marshes in England.

A further £2.5 billion from the fund would be available for tree planting in national parks and in the National Forest as well as in publicly owned land such as parks and schools and in farmlands.

This Author

Sam Blewett is the PA political correspondent. Image:  Joe Giddens/PA Wire