Global carbon emissions will rise to a new record level in 2018 – making the chances of reaching a target to keep temperature increases to 1.5 or 2C “weaker and weaker every year, every month” – the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

Fatih Birol told a conference in Paris that data for the first nine months of the years was already pointing to a record increase in carbon emissions.

A United Nations report last week said society would have to make deep changes to how it consumes energy, travels and builds, to meet a lower global warming target.

Weaker and weaker

Global emissions would need to peak soon after 2020 and decline sharply afterwards in order to keep temperature rise within 1.5C or 2C, said a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Sorry, I have very bad news. My numbers are giving me some despair,” Birol told the conference at the Polish embassy in Paris on Wednesday.

Poland will host United Nations COP24 talks in December, which will lay out a “rule book” to implement a historic accord reached in Paris in 2015. That agreement set goals to phase out fossil fuel use this century, shift towards cleaner energies and help limit a rise in temperatures.

“Looking at data for the first nine months of this year, emissions this year will increase once again … global emissions will reach a record historical high,” Birol said.

“Therefore the chances of reaching such ambitious targets in my view, are becoming weaker and weaker every year, every month,” he said.

Aspirational limit

While renewables have been growing strongly, their growth isn’t large enough to reverse CO2 emissions trends, Birol said.

“We need more renewables in all end-uses – including more bioenergy – more energy efficiency and a range of other technologies and fuel sources to correct this course,” he said on Twitter.

Referring to the IPCC report released earlier this month, Birol underscored the “critical role of bioenergy to limit global temperature rises.”

The share of bioenergy in total renewables consumption globally is about 50% today – as much as hydro, wind, solar and all other renewables combined, the IEA said in a report published earlier this month.

In transport, the IPCC’s integrated assessment indicates that biofuels will need to rise 260% by 2030 and 750% by 2050 in order to keep global warming within the 1.5C aspirational limit of the Paris Agreement.

Bioenergy is “the overlooked giant of the renewable energy field,” Birol said.

This Article 

This article was originally published on Euractiv and also appeared on Climate Home.

Have you ever wondered how many toxins you’re exposed to every day in your city? A new guide reveals the hidden dangers that lurk in our cities – uncovering some shocking statistics.

Is Your House Killing You?, an interactive guide from Good Move, looks at the number of landfill sites, active power stations, CO2 emissions, air pollution rates and annual average daily flow of traffic, to reveal the most toxic cities across the UK.

Shockingly, Leeds is the most toxic city to live in. Statistics from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy reveal that Leeds has one of the highest rates of carbon emissions, producing an astonishing 4,000kt per year.

Carbon emissions

Cardiff is the most congested city, with the Department for Transport revealing an annual average daily traffic flow of 34,017 vehicles across major roads. However, statistics from SUEZ show that Cardiff also boasts the highest percentage of waste recycled, with an impressive 58.1 percent.

Newcastle is the least toxic city, with no active power stations, no sewage treatment plants and only one electrical substation and landfill site. The city also boasts a low rate of carbon emissions, producing only 1,335kt per year.

Birmingham recycles only 24.4 percent of waste, while Nottingham boasts the lowest carbon emissions with only 1,222 kt – almost nine times less than Central London.

The full top 10 cities in order of most toxic to least toxic can be viewed below:

1. Leeds

2. Glasgow

3. Birmingham

4. London & Manchester

6. Bristol

7. Cardiff

8. Nottingham & Liverpool

10. Newcastle

The comprehensive guide also looks at the chemicals that are concealed in common household furniture and products, revealing the most dangerous toxins hidden in your home.

This Author

Marianne Brooker is a contributing editor for The Ecologist. This story is based on a press release from Blueclaw. You can view the guide here. 

Aid projects designed to help some of the poorest people in the world and mitigate climate change have been harmed by the dramatic fall in the value of the pound since the Brexit referendum.

Programmes aimed at alleviating poverty in the Congo Basin region and supporting refugees in Uganda have both had to be scaled back, according to UK government documents.

UK support for programmes mitigating climate change have also been hit. The World Bank’s Forest Investment Program, a fund to encourage reforestation, faced an “unrealised currency loss of $37.26million” last year due to the fluctuation of the pound.

Policy institutes

NGOs say they have had to balance their currency losses with income from other sources.

Claire Godfrey from Bond, the network that represents UK international development NGOs, told Unearthed that the current uncertainty “hits the most vulnerable and poorest people the hardest”.

She said: “Delivering aid and development programmes needs a level of predictability and currency volatility affects predictability, long-term planning and therefore sustainability…

“Donors and NGOs are going to have to do some contingency planning to ensure that the currency fluctuations we are seeing post-Brexit do not have such a harmful impact on programming.”

Pete Clutton-Brock, policy advisor with the environmental organisation E3G, said the uncertainty around Brexit posed a risk for UK development funding and climate finance. He urged the Department for International Development (Dfid) to “consider options for hedging against such volatility as a matter of urgency.”

The news comes as MPs on the International Development Committee heard evidence from policy institutes, including E3G, on ways UK aid money can be used to mitigate climate change.

Dramatic fall

For years, the relative strength of the pound meant organisations working with the Department for International Development budgeted in sterling. But fears about the impact of Brexit on the British economy have seen the value of the pound fall dramatically since the June 2016 referendum, leaving some aid projects under-funded.

Annual reviews of aid projects published by Dfid show that several programmes have been affected by the fluctuation of the pound since the referendum.

I fear Dfid will lose the ability to leverage the most out of the aid budget and contribute to UK soft power

A project aimed at reducing deforestation and “improving the livelihoods of forest dependent communities” in the Congo Basin region has had to “scale back on activities to align with the new value of sterling”.

Shortfalls or surplus

The latest review of a £45m programme providing “emergency life-saving assistance to the large influxes of refugees arriving in Uganda” warned that a “weaker pound would mean fewer beneficiaries will be reached and therefore less impact”.

An effort to “improve water security and climate resilience for poor people” around the world has also been caught out by the fall in the value of sterling, with the project’s annual review stating that partners on the programme may have to “reduce operational budgets” due to currency uncertainty.

Unearthed approached several major aid organisations receiving Dfid funding to ask if their projects had been affected by the fluctuation of the pound. These included the German organisation GIZ, which works on the Water Security Programme, and Rainforest Foundation UK, which works on the Congo Basin project.

All said they had found ways of insulating themselves from such uncertainty, by diversifying their donors and getting funding in a mix of currencies. But such options aren’t open to smaller NGOs, which carry out work on the ground.

Joseph English, a communications officer with Unicef, which receives Dfid funding, told Unearthed: “Any fluctuation in currency markets can cause revaluations of funds held by Unicef country offices or funds in support of Unicef programmes, and can lead to resource shortfalls or surplus.

“Unicef works to monitor currency fluctuations and assess their possible impact on local programme costs, and broaden funding pools and consider changes to programmes to mitigate any possible disruption due to revaluations and fluctuations.”

0.7% commitment

David Hulme, executive director of the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester, told Unearthed he feared Brexit could reduce the ‘soft power’ derived from the UK’s aid programme.

“In the short term, any fall in the value of the pound will affect many aid programmes, but the longer term consequences of our declining global influence could be even more profound.

“With Brexit likely to further erode both the value of the pound and reduce the UK’s credentials for international cooperation, I fear that Dfid will lose the ability to leverage the most out of the aid budget and to contribute to UK soft power.  This could have very real consequences for millions of people still living in poverty.”

In March 2015, David Cameron’s government passed a bill to enshrine in law the UK’s commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on aid.

At the time of publication, Dfid were yet to provide a comment.  

The World Bank did not respond to a request for comment.

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

Hundreds of thousands of marine creatures are killed every year after becoming accidentally tangled in fishing lines and nets.

Unlike fish, marine mammals need to surface to breathe, so if they get entangled they drown. ‘Bycatch’, as it is known, is one of the most disturbing issues associated with commercial fishing and one of the biggest threats to a number of iconic species. 

Modern fishing gear, which is extremely strong and often can’t be seen, is very efficient at catching pretty much anything in its path. As the WWF puts it, ‘where there is fishing, there is bycatch’.

Slow progress

At least 300,000 dolphins, porpoises, and whales, 300,000 seabirds and 250,000 turtles fall victim to bycatch every year. It is the single largest immediate threat to cetaceans and some marine species are now in such a precarious position they could face extinction unless things change quickly. However, bycatch is largely avoidable.

There are at least 130 bycatch reduction agreements, regulations and legislations worldwide. But progress has been far too slow, and many fishermen are less than enthusiastic about embracing them.

A major hurdle to reducing bycatch to date has been the quality of available technology. Devices such as the acoustic ‘pinger’ – which can reduce the number of dolphins, whales and porpoises caught in nets by up to 95 percent – have existed for decades, but until recently the majority were expensive and impractical.

After 25 years working in the fishing industry and feeling appalled by the state of our oceans, I set out to find a solution. 

In 2016, I set up Fishtek Marine with my brother, Ben – an environmental engineer. Our mission is to pioneer new marine conservation technology and rapidly improve conservation efforts as a result. We knew we needed to develop products that would work for fishermen and the environment in order to stand any chance of making a difference. 

Expanding reach 

After rapid growth over the last two years, the multi-award winning Fishtek Marine is now crowdfunding, via Triodos Bank, to raise £900,000 of new investment.

Our aim is to expand the reach of the products we have already developed and to invest in developing new ones that could have even more of a positive conservation impact (e.g. SharkGuard, OrcaGuard, Turtle NetLights and Ropeless fishing).

Initially we developed the Banana Pinger, designed to be both effective and affordable. It is robust (able to withstand the harsh conditions of offshore fishing), and easy to attach to the net.

The devices can be fitted to gillnets – a wall or curtain of netting that hangs in the water  and can be four or five meters high and run for tens of kilometres. When porpoises or dolphins are foraging on the seabed they can’t see these nets and so they swim into them, get tangled up and die.

Dolphins and porpoises use echolocation to communicate and detect prey so pingers work by sending out a “randomised frequency sound sweep” every five seconds, which alerts them to the net’s presence, enabling them to avoid it.

Rapid expansion  

By providing a good quality, effective device, our aim is to make it attractive for fishermen to use pingers and to encourage legislators to pick up the pace on strengthening enforcement and implement new laws.

In January 2022, a new law under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) will require any country exporting fish to the US to have marine mammal protections equivalent to those in the US — including measures against bycatch. The law could influence fishing standards in exporting countries including Canada, Chile, China, Japan, and Mexico, with the potential to significantly shake up the industry. 

In many fisheries, we believe our technology offers the most effective way for fishers to comply with the new law, taking us from a relatively niche market to a potentially massive global market in couple of years, with the added advantage of huge conservation gain.

By raising £900,000 of equity through Triodos Bank’s crowdfunding platform, our ambition is to grow the business to £10 million turnover within five years, while making a significant difference to marine conservation. 

The money will be invested in the sales and marketing of existing products, as well as funding the development, testing and marketing of four new products that will be launched over the next three years.

Shark bycatch

While pingers help protect animals that use echolocation, a different solution is needed to deter sharks. 

A quarter of chondrichthyans (shark, ray and chimaeras species) are threatened, according to the Red List criteria of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Bycatch is a major cause of this threat, with many shark populations declining dramatically as a result of being caught on hooks in the high value tuna and bill fish longline fishery. 

Our team used the striking difference between sharks and tuna and bill fish: their acute sensitivity to electrical fields. We set about designing and trialling the SharkGuard, a device that creates an electric field which temporarily deters the sharks from the baited hooks. It is powered by a single AA battery and can be mass produced. The SharkGuard when fully commercialised could potentially save hundreds of thousands of sharks every year.

We’re working to make commercial fishing more sustainable, but if we’re going to make a real conservation gain we have to have more than just a few hundred devices out there.

By definition anything that is successful in terms of global marine conservation has to be effective, practical, have significant commercial uptake, and be produced and distributed in large quantities. Fishtek Marine is stepping up to the mark!

This Author 

Pete Kibel did a first degree at Oxford University and a Masters in Fisheries at Plymouth. He has worked for over 20 years in fisheries in the UK, Australia, Southern Africa and India. Pete is co-founder and MD of Fishtek Marine.

American agrochemical giant Monsanto paid a public-affairs consultancy up to €200,000 to set up a ‘grassroots farmers’ operation across Europe to oppose a prospective EU ban on glyphosate, Unearthed has learned. Glyphosate is a key ingredient in Monsanto’s signature Roundup weedkiller.

Dublin-based political firm Red Flag Consulting led the pro-glyphosate campaign, quietly launching a wide-reaching PR operation and enlisting the support of thousands of farmers from stands at agricultural fairs in “the eight most important EU countries.”

In contemporaneous reviews seen by Unearthed, sales representatives working at the booths said that their job involved distributing “truth-clarification materials” about glyphosate, and gathering contact information and signatures.

Extremely active

In recent promotional literature Red Flag describes how it “won the single-biggest regulatory and public affairs campaign in the European Union,” using “non-traditional allies” in an attempt to change the positions of eight countries in the EU.

“Red Flag leveraged these efforts on identified targets through media and direct engagement to ultimately change votes in a key committee in Brussels to bring about a win for our client,” one brochure says. The firm would not confirm whether these claims referred to the Monsanto work.

The firm’s campaign was run in tandem with a US consultancy, Lincoln Strategy, that worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

While Monsanto mostly uses Fleishman Hillard for its PR work in Brussels, Unearthed has established that they accepted an approach from Red Flag to orchestrate the influence drive, which was run at arm’s length from the firm.

Red Flag’s other big spending clients include US biotech company Anitox, which has been described as “extremely active” in its support of glyphosate in the EU, and British American Tobacco, according to the EU transparency register.

Voices heard

“Monsanto must have been desperate to use these methods,” Green Belgium MEP Bart Staes told Unearthed.

“If you know your product is safe, you don’t have to use such methods. It really is a scandal. Sadly, this is fully in line with Monsanto’s behaviour throughout the whole glyphosate [relicensing] campaign.”

A spokesperson for Monsanto confirmed to Unearthed that it –  along with a ”coalition of users and manufacturers of glyphosate and other plant protection products” – supported the Red Flag project.

“Thousands of farmers across Europe have supported this initiative and made their voices heard in support of maintaining access to this vital for modern and sustainable agriculture,” the spokesperson added.

Agriculture et Liberte

Red Flag’s contribution to the campaign involved setting up operations such as Agriculture et Liberte in France, described by industry insiders as “a grassroots farming coalition.”

The firm’s CEO, Karl Brophy, said this was not a lobbying exercise.

Instead he told Unearthed Red Flag provided “factual information about the science on glyphosate” to farmers and other individuals who “elected to be educated” and who then “made their concerns known in their own voices and by their own volition.”

Reference to Agriculture et Liberte’s industry support can be found in a bulletin point at the bottom of their website.

But there is no mention of Red Flag – or its industry funding – on the group’s twitter account, which describes itself as “a group of French farmers who have come together to protect our way of life and livelihoods,” nor in its press coverage.

Spin agents

Unearthed has identified similar entities in six other EU countries that appear to be the localised branding in Red Flag’s ‘freedom to farm’ campaign. 

It includes the names Free to Farm in the UK, Liberta di coltivare in Italy, Raum für Landwirtschaft in Germany, Libertad para consultar in Spain, Wolsnosc Dla Farm in Poland and Vrijheid om te Boeren in the Netherlands.

These outfits – which are often registered to Red Flag’s Dublin address and an email account belonging to a Lincoln Strategy staffer – have appeared or are due to appear at 33 events since the start of 2017.

Brophy told Unearthed he does “not recognise a number of the groups you appear to be referring to,” but declined to elaborate. There had been no attempt to conceal the involvement of Red Flag or Lincoln Strategy, he said.

“Monsanto wants it to appear as though farmers are independently speaking out to support continued use of this chemical, when in reality these ‘farmer’ groups are actually little more than pawns in a public relations campaign drawn up by its hired spin agents,” said Carey Gillam, investigative journalist and author of Whitewash, which details Monsanto’s history and the rise of glyphosate herbicides.

Genuine citizens

“It has used these tactics in countries around the world to try to sway public opinion in support of its products, to downplay risks to human health and the environment, and to pressure and harass scientists and lawmakers who Monsanto perceives as a threat. It is well past time that these secrets are exposed.”

Red Flag ran the campaigns with assistance from Lincoln Strategy, whose northern Europe director Daisy Odabasi was quoted as representing Agriculture et Liberte in one newspaper article.

Unlike Red Flag, Lincoln does not have an EU transparency listing. Lincoln’s staff email accounts were used in Red Flag’s campaign as part of its role “providing logistical and operational support to the project.”

A Lincoln spokesperson said all of the firm’s campaigns – including its work in support of clean coal –  “rely solely on sharing information with genuine citizens and encouraging them to make their voices heard on topics that are important to them.”

Health concerns

The effects of glyphosate on farmers and gardeners who come into contact with it have been contentious ever since the World Health Organisation’s agency on cancer labelled the substance “probably carcinogenic” in 2015.

In August, a US court ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to a groundskeeper who claimed he contracted Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma from using Roundup, a landmark decision that could trigger an avalanche of similar verdicts in further cases.

Health concerns were at the heart of the EU’s apparent reticence to reauthorise glyphosate, although reports from regulatory agencies claimed that the chemical was safe.

Ultimately while the pesticides industry did not succeed in renewing glyphosate’s 15-year license in Europe – it was cut down to five years – a complete ban was averted.

In a lengthy statement supplied to UK news outlet The Independent, Brophy said: “Red Flag is an agency with a number of clients in the food and agriculture sectors and a wide network of contacts in the agricultural community.

Ban glyphosate

“We worked to bring a number of our clients and contacts together in order to help those people who would be most affected by a potential glyphosate ban – the  farmers who produce Europe’s food.”

He added: “We are grateful to several clients for supporting the project.  But it was the farmers who stood to lose most if an activist-led campaign to ban glyphosate – flying in the face of science, the position of all relevant EU regulatory agencies and the position of the European Commission – was successful.  And it was the farmers who responded to the threat.

“Last November, a very large majority of European Union countries voted to re-authorise glyphosate.

“We’re proud to have played a small part in providing the information that was used by many committed individuals to stand up for their livelihoods, their communities and for the future of Europe’s food supply.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

American agrochemical giant Monsanto paid a public-affairs consultancy up to €200,000 to set up a ‘grassroots farmers’ operation across Europe to oppose a prospective EU ban on glyphosate, Unearthed has learned. Glyphosate is a key ingredient in Monsanto’s signature Roundup weedkiller.

Dublin-based political firm Red Flag Consulting led the pro-glyphosate campaign, quietly launching a wide-reaching PR operation and enlisting the support of thousands of farmers from stands at agricultural fairs in “the eight most important EU countries.”

In contemporaneous reviews seen by Unearthed, sales representatives working at the booths said that their job involved distributing “truth-clarification materials” about glyphosate, and gathering contact information and signatures.

Extremely active

In recent promotional literature Red Flag describes how it “won the single-biggest regulatory and public affairs campaign in the European Union,” using “non-traditional allies” in an attempt to change the positions of eight countries in the EU.

“Red Flag leveraged these efforts on identified targets through media and direct engagement to ultimately change votes in a key committee in Brussels to bring about a win for our client,” one brochure says. The firm would not confirm whether these claims referred to the Monsanto work.

The firm’s campaign was run in tandem with a US consultancy, Lincoln Strategy, that worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

While Monsanto mostly uses Fleishman Hillard for its PR work in Brussels, Unearthed has established that they accepted an approach from Red Flag to orchestrate the influence drive, which was run at arm’s length from the firm.

Red Flag’s other big spending clients include US biotech company Anitox, which has been described as “extremely active” in its support of glyphosate in the EU, and British American Tobacco, according to the EU transparency register.

Voices heard

“Monsanto must have been desperate to use these methods,” Green Belgium MEP Bart Staes told Unearthed.

“If you know your product is safe, you don’t have to use such methods. It really is a scandal. Sadly, this is fully in line with Monsanto’s behaviour throughout the whole glyphosate [relicensing] campaign.”

A spokesperson for Monsanto confirmed to Unearthed that it –  along with a ”coalition of users and manufacturers of glyphosate and other plant protection products” – supported the Red Flag project.

“Thousands of farmers across Europe have supported this initiative and made their voices heard in support of maintaining access to this vital for modern and sustainable agriculture,” the spokesperson added.

Agriculture et Liberte

Red Flag’s contribution to the campaign involved setting up operations such as Agriculture et Liberte in France, described by industry insiders as “a grassroots farming coalition.”

The firm’s CEO, Karl Brophy, said this was not a lobbying exercise.

Instead he told Unearthed Red Flag provided “factual information about the science on glyphosate” to farmers and other individuals who “elected to be educated” and who then “made their concerns known in their own voices and by their own volition.”

Reference to Agriculture et Liberte’s industry support can be found in a bulletin point at the bottom of their website.

But there is no mention of Red Flag – or its industry funding – on the group’s twitter account, which describes itself as “a group of French farmers who have come together to protect our way of life and livelihoods,” nor in its press coverage.

Spin agents

Unearthed has identified similar entities in six other EU countries that appear to be the localised branding in Red Flag’s ‘freedom to farm’ campaign. 

It includes the names Free to Farm in the UK, Liberta di coltivare in Italy, Raum für Landwirtschaft in Germany, Libertad para consultar in Spain, Wolsnosc Dla Farm in Poland and Vrijheid om te Boeren in the Netherlands.

These outfits – which are often registered to Red Flag’s Dublin address and an email account belonging to a Lincoln Strategy staffer – have appeared or are due to appear at 33 events since the start of 2017.

Brophy told Unearthed he does “not recognise a number of the groups you appear to be referring to,” but declined to elaborate. There had been no attempt to conceal the involvement of Red Flag or Lincoln Strategy, he said.

“Monsanto wants it to appear as though farmers are independently speaking out to support continued use of this chemical, when in reality these ‘farmer’ groups are actually little more than pawns in a public relations campaign drawn up by its hired spin agents,” said Carey Gillam, investigative journalist and author of Whitewash, which details Monsanto’s history and the rise of glyphosate herbicides.

Genuine citizens

“It has used these tactics in countries around the world to try to sway public opinion in support of its products, to downplay risks to human health and the environment, and to pressure and harass scientists and lawmakers who Monsanto perceives as a threat. It is well past time that these secrets are exposed.”

Red Flag ran the campaigns with assistance from Lincoln Strategy, whose northern Europe director Daisy Odabasi was quoted as representing Agriculture et Liberte in one newspaper article.

Unlike Red Flag, Lincoln does not have an EU transparency listing. Lincoln’s staff email accounts were used in Red Flag’s campaign as part of its role “providing logistical and operational support to the project.”

A Lincoln spokesperson said all of the firm’s campaigns – including its work in support of clean coal –  “rely solely on sharing information with genuine citizens and encouraging them to make their voices heard on topics that are important to them.”

Health concerns

The effects of glyphosate on farmers and gardeners who come into contact with it have been contentious ever since the World Health Organisation’s agency on cancer labelled the substance “probably carcinogenic” in 2015.

In August, a US court ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to a groundskeeper who claimed he contracted Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma from using Roundup, a landmark decision that could trigger an avalanche of similar verdicts in further cases.

Health concerns were at the heart of the EU’s apparent reticence to reauthorise glyphosate, although reports from regulatory agencies claimed that the chemical was safe.

Ultimately while the pesticides industry did not succeed in renewing glyphosate’s 15-year license in Europe – it was cut down to five years – a complete ban was averted.

In a lengthy statement supplied to UK news outlet The Independent, Brophy said: “Red Flag is an agency with a number of clients in the food and agriculture sectors and a wide network of contacts in the agricultural community.

Ban glyphosate

“We worked to bring a number of our clients and contacts together in order to help those people who would be most affected by a potential glyphosate ban – the  farmers who produce Europe’s food.”

He added: “We are grateful to several clients for supporting the project.  But it was the farmers who stood to lose most if an activist-led campaign to ban glyphosate – flying in the face of science, the position of all relevant EU regulatory agencies and the position of the European Commission – was successful.  And it was the farmers who responded to the threat.

“Last November, a very large majority of European Union countries voted to re-authorise glyphosate.

“We’re proud to have played a small part in providing the information that was used by many committed individuals to stand up for their livelihoods, their communities and for the future of Europe’s food supply.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

American agrochemical giant Monsanto paid a public-affairs consultancy up to €200,000 to set up a ‘grassroots farmers’ operation across Europe to oppose a prospective EU ban on glyphosate, Unearthed has learned. Glyphosate is a key ingredient in Monsanto’s signature Roundup weedkiller.

Dublin-based political firm Red Flag Consulting led the pro-glyphosate campaign, quietly launching a wide-reaching PR operation and enlisting the support of thousands of farmers from stands at agricultural fairs in “the eight most important EU countries.”

In contemporaneous reviews seen by Unearthed, sales representatives working at the booths said that their job involved distributing “truth-clarification materials” about glyphosate, and gathering contact information and signatures.

Extremely active

In recent promotional literature Red Flag describes how it “won the single-biggest regulatory and public affairs campaign in the European Union,” using “non-traditional allies” in an attempt to change the positions of eight countries in the EU.

“Red Flag leveraged these efforts on identified targets through media and direct engagement to ultimately change votes in a key committee in Brussels to bring about a win for our client,” one brochure says. The firm would not confirm whether these claims referred to the Monsanto work.

The firm’s campaign was run in tandem with a US consultancy, Lincoln Strategy, that worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

While Monsanto mostly uses Fleishman Hillard for its PR work in Brussels, Unearthed has established that they accepted an approach from Red Flag to orchestrate the influence drive, which was run at arm’s length from the firm.

Red Flag’s other big spending clients include US biotech company Anitox, which has been described as “extremely active” in its support of glyphosate in the EU, and British American Tobacco, according to the EU transparency register.

Voices heard

“Monsanto must have been desperate to use these methods,” Green Belgium MEP Bart Staes told Unearthed.

“If you know your product is safe, you don’t have to use such methods. It really is a scandal. Sadly, this is fully in line with Monsanto’s behaviour throughout the whole glyphosate [relicensing] campaign.”

A spokesperson for Monsanto confirmed to Unearthed that it –  along with a ”coalition of users and manufacturers of glyphosate and other plant protection products” – supported the Red Flag project.

“Thousands of farmers across Europe have supported this initiative and made their voices heard in support of maintaining access to this vital for modern and sustainable agriculture,” the spokesperson added.

Agriculture et Liberte

Red Flag’s contribution to the campaign involved setting up operations such as Agriculture et Liberte in France, described by industry insiders as “a grassroots farming coalition.”

The firm’s CEO, Karl Brophy, said this was not a lobbying exercise.

Instead he told Unearthed Red Flag provided “factual information about the science on glyphosate” to farmers and other individuals who “elected to be educated” and who then “made their concerns known in their own voices and by their own volition.”

Reference to Agriculture et Liberte’s industry support can be found in a bulletin point at the bottom of their website.

But there is no mention of Red Flag – or its industry funding – on the group’s twitter account, which describes itself as “a group of French farmers who have come together to protect our way of life and livelihoods,” nor in its press coverage.

Spin agents

Unearthed has identified similar entities in six other EU countries that appear to be the localised branding in Red Flag’s ‘freedom to farm’ campaign. 

It includes the names Free to Farm in the UK, Liberta di coltivare in Italy, Raum für Landwirtschaft in Germany, Libertad para consultar in Spain, Wolsnosc Dla Farm in Poland and Vrijheid om te Boeren in the Netherlands.

These outfits – which are often registered to Red Flag’s Dublin address and an email account belonging to a Lincoln Strategy staffer – have appeared or are due to appear at 33 events since the start of 2017.

Brophy told Unearthed he does “not recognise a number of the groups you appear to be referring to,” but declined to elaborate. There had been no attempt to conceal the involvement of Red Flag or Lincoln Strategy, he said.

“Monsanto wants it to appear as though farmers are independently speaking out to support continued use of this chemical, when in reality these ‘farmer’ groups are actually little more than pawns in a public relations campaign drawn up by its hired spin agents,” said Carey Gillam, investigative journalist and author of Whitewash, which details Monsanto’s history and the rise of glyphosate herbicides.

Genuine citizens

“It has used these tactics in countries around the world to try to sway public opinion in support of its products, to downplay risks to human health and the environment, and to pressure and harass scientists and lawmakers who Monsanto perceives as a threat. It is well past time that these secrets are exposed.”

Red Flag ran the campaigns with assistance from Lincoln Strategy, whose northern Europe director Daisy Odabasi was quoted as representing Agriculture et Liberte in one newspaper article.

Unlike Red Flag, Lincoln does not have an EU transparency listing. Lincoln’s staff email accounts were used in Red Flag’s campaign as part of its role “providing logistical and operational support to the project.”

A Lincoln spokesperson said all of the firm’s campaigns – including its work in support of clean coal –  “rely solely on sharing information with genuine citizens and encouraging them to make their voices heard on topics that are important to them.”

Health concerns

The effects of glyphosate on farmers and gardeners who come into contact with it have been contentious ever since the World Health Organisation’s agency on cancer labelled the substance “probably carcinogenic” in 2015.

In August, a US court ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to a groundskeeper who claimed he contracted Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma from using Roundup, a landmark decision that could trigger an avalanche of similar verdicts in further cases.

Health concerns were at the heart of the EU’s apparent reticence to reauthorise glyphosate, although reports from regulatory agencies claimed that the chemical was safe.

Ultimately while the pesticides industry did not succeed in renewing glyphosate’s 15-year license in Europe – it was cut down to five years – a complete ban was averted.

In a lengthy statement supplied to UK news outlet The Independent, Brophy said: “Red Flag is an agency with a number of clients in the food and agriculture sectors and a wide network of contacts in the agricultural community.

Ban glyphosate

“We worked to bring a number of our clients and contacts together in order to help those people who would be most affected by a potential glyphosate ban – the  farmers who produce Europe’s food.”

He added: “We are grateful to several clients for supporting the project.  But it was the farmers who stood to lose most if an activist-led campaign to ban glyphosate – flying in the face of science, the position of all relevant EU regulatory agencies and the position of the European Commission – was successful.  And it was the farmers who responded to the threat.

“Last November, a very large majority of European Union countries voted to re-authorise glyphosate.

“We’re proud to have played a small part in providing the information that was used by many committed individuals to stand up for their livelihoods, their communities and for the future of Europe’s food supply.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

American agrochemical giant Monsanto paid a public-affairs consultancy up to €200,000 to set up a ‘grassroots farmers’ operation across Europe to oppose a prospective EU ban on glyphosate, Unearthed has learned. Glyphosate is a key ingredient in Monsanto’s signature Roundup weedkiller.

Dublin-based political firm Red Flag Consulting led the pro-glyphosate campaign, quietly launching a wide-reaching PR operation and enlisting the support of thousands of farmers from stands at agricultural fairs in “the eight most important EU countries.”

In contemporaneous reviews seen by Unearthed, sales representatives working at the booths said that their job involved distributing “truth-clarification materials” about glyphosate, and gathering contact information and signatures.

Extremely active

In recent promotional literature Red Flag describes how it “won the single-biggest regulatory and public affairs campaign in the European Union,” using “non-traditional allies” in an attempt to change the positions of eight countries in the EU.

“Red Flag leveraged these efforts on identified targets through media and direct engagement to ultimately change votes in a key committee in Brussels to bring about a win for our client,” one brochure says. The firm would not confirm whether these claims referred to the Monsanto work.

The firm’s campaign was run in tandem with a US consultancy, Lincoln Strategy, that worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

While Monsanto mostly uses Fleishman Hillard for its PR work in Brussels, Unearthed has established that they accepted an approach from Red Flag to orchestrate the influence drive, which was run at arm’s length from the firm.

Red Flag’s other big spending clients include US biotech company Anitox, which has been described as “extremely active” in its support of glyphosate in the EU, and British American Tobacco, according to the EU transparency register.

Voices heard

“Monsanto must have been desperate to use these methods,” Green Belgium MEP Bart Staes told Unearthed.

“If you know your product is safe, you don’t have to use such methods. It really is a scandal. Sadly, this is fully in line with Monsanto’s behaviour throughout the whole glyphosate [relicensing] campaign.”

A spokesperson for Monsanto confirmed to Unearthed that it –  along with a ”coalition of users and manufacturers of glyphosate and other plant protection products” – supported the Red Flag project.

“Thousands of farmers across Europe have supported this initiative and made their voices heard in support of maintaining access to this vital for modern and sustainable agriculture,” the spokesperson added.

Agriculture et Liberte

Red Flag’s contribution to the campaign involved setting up operations such as Agriculture et Liberte in France, described by industry insiders as “a grassroots farming coalition.”

The firm’s CEO, Karl Brophy, said this was not a lobbying exercise.

Instead he told Unearthed Red Flag provided “factual information about the science on glyphosate” to farmers and other individuals who “elected to be educated” and who then “made their concerns known in their own voices and by their own volition.”

Reference to Agriculture et Liberte’s industry support can be found in a bulletin point at the bottom of their website.

But there is no mention of Red Flag – or its industry funding – on the group’s twitter account, which describes itself as “a group of French farmers who have come together to protect our way of life and livelihoods,” nor in its press coverage.

Spin agents

Unearthed has identified similar entities in six other EU countries that appear to be the localised branding in Red Flag’s ‘freedom to farm’ campaign. 

It includes the names Free to Farm in the UK, Liberta di coltivare in Italy, Raum für Landwirtschaft in Germany, Libertad para consultar in Spain, Wolsnosc Dla Farm in Poland and Vrijheid om te Boeren in the Netherlands.

These outfits – which are often registered to Red Flag’s Dublin address and an email account belonging to a Lincoln Strategy staffer – have appeared or are due to appear at 33 events since the start of 2017.

Brophy told Unearthed he does “not recognise a number of the groups you appear to be referring to,” but declined to elaborate. There had been no attempt to conceal the involvement of Red Flag or Lincoln Strategy, he said.

“Monsanto wants it to appear as though farmers are independently speaking out to support continued use of this chemical, when in reality these ‘farmer’ groups are actually little more than pawns in a public relations campaign drawn up by its hired spin agents,” said Carey Gillam, investigative journalist and author of Whitewash, which details Monsanto’s history and the rise of glyphosate herbicides.

Genuine citizens

“It has used these tactics in countries around the world to try to sway public opinion in support of its products, to downplay risks to human health and the environment, and to pressure and harass scientists and lawmakers who Monsanto perceives as a threat. It is well past time that these secrets are exposed.”

Red Flag ran the campaigns with assistance from Lincoln Strategy, whose northern Europe director Daisy Odabasi was quoted as representing Agriculture et Liberte in one newspaper article.

Unlike Red Flag, Lincoln does not have an EU transparency listing. Lincoln’s staff email accounts were used in Red Flag’s campaign as part of its role “providing logistical and operational support to the project.”

A Lincoln spokesperson said all of the firm’s campaigns – including its work in support of clean coal –  “rely solely on sharing information with genuine citizens and encouraging them to make their voices heard on topics that are important to them.”

Health concerns

The effects of glyphosate on farmers and gardeners who come into contact with it have been contentious ever since the World Health Organisation’s agency on cancer labelled the substance “probably carcinogenic” in 2015.

In August, a US court ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to a groundskeeper who claimed he contracted Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma from using Roundup, a landmark decision that could trigger an avalanche of similar verdicts in further cases.

Health concerns were at the heart of the EU’s apparent reticence to reauthorise glyphosate, although reports from regulatory agencies claimed that the chemical was safe.

Ultimately while the pesticides industry did not succeed in renewing glyphosate’s 15-year license in Europe – it was cut down to five years – a complete ban was averted.

In a lengthy statement supplied to UK news outlet The Independent, Brophy said: “Red Flag is an agency with a number of clients in the food and agriculture sectors and a wide network of contacts in the agricultural community.

Ban glyphosate

“We worked to bring a number of our clients and contacts together in order to help those people who would be most affected by a potential glyphosate ban – the  farmers who produce Europe’s food.”

He added: “We are grateful to several clients for supporting the project.  But it was the farmers who stood to lose most if an activist-led campaign to ban glyphosate – flying in the face of science, the position of all relevant EU regulatory agencies and the position of the European Commission – was successful.  And it was the farmers who responded to the threat.

“Last November, a very large majority of European Union countries voted to re-authorise glyphosate.

“We’re proud to have played a small part in providing the information that was used by many committed individuals to stand up for their livelihoods, their communities and for the future of Europe’s food supply.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

Concentrations of PCBs could lead to the disappearance of half of the world’s populations of killer whales from the most heavily contaminated areas, within a period of just 30-50 years, according to a new study published by Science.

Killer whales – Oscines orca – form the last link in a long food chain and are among the mammals with the highest level of PCBs – polychlorinated biphenyls – in their tissue.

Researchers have measured values as high as 1300 milligrams per kilo in the blubber of killer whales. For comparison, a large number of studies show that animals with PCB levels as low as 50 milligrams per kilo of tissue may show signs of infertility and severe impacts on the immune system.

Declining population 

Together with colleagues from a range of international universities and research institutions, researchers from ZSL (Zoological Society of London) and Aarhus University have documented that the number of killer whales is rapidly declining in 10 out of the 19 killer whale populations investigated.

The species may disappear entirely from several areas within a few decades.

Killer whales are particularly threatened in heavily contaminated areas like the waters near Brazil, the Strait of Gibraltar and around the UK. Around the British Isles, the researchers estimate that the remaining population counts less than 10 killer whales. Also along the east coast of Greenland, killer whales are effected due to the high consumption of sea mammals like seals.

Dr Paul Jepson from ZSL’s Institute of Zoology, co-author and killer whale expert said: “This suggests that the efforts have not been effective enough to avoid the accumulation of PCBs in high trophic level species that live as long as the killer whale does. There is therefore an urgent need for further initiatives than those under the Stockholm Convention.”

The killer whale is one of the most widespread mammals on Earth and is found in all of the world’s oceans from pole to pole. But today, only the populations living in the least polluted areas possess a large number of individuals. 

Food chain 

Overfishing and man-made noise may also affect the health of the animals, but PCBs particularly can have a dramatic effect on the reproduction and immune system of the killer whales.

Killer whales whose diet includes, among other items, seals and large fish such as tuna and sharks critical accumulate PCBs and other pollutants stored at successive levels of the food chain. It is these populations of killer whales that have the highest PCB concentrations and it is these populations that are at the highest risk of population collapse.

Killer whales that primarily feed on small-sized fish such as herring and mackerel have a significantly lower content of PCBs and are thus at lower risk of effects.

PCBs have been used around the world since the 1930s. More than one million tonnes of PCBs were produced and used in, among other things, electrical components and plastics. Together with DDT and other organic pesticides – PCBs have spread around the global oceans.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, PCBs were banned in several countries and in 2004, through the Stockholm Convention, more than 90 countries have committed themselves to phase out and dispose of the large stocks of PCBs.

Research team 

PCBs are only slowly decomposed in the environment. Moreover, PCBs are passed down from the mother orca to its offspring through the mother’s fat-rich milk. This means that the hazardous substances remain in the bodies of the animals, instead of being released into the environment where they eventually deposit or degrade.

Professor Rune Dietz from the Department of Bioscience and Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, who initiated the killer whale studies and is co-author of the article, said: “We know that PCBs deform the reproductive organs of animals such as polar bears. It was therefore only natural to examine the impact of PCBs on the scarce populations of killer whales around the world.” 

The research group, which includes participants from the United States, Canada, England, Greenland, Iceland and Denmark, reviewed all the existing literature and compared all data with their own most recent results. This provided information about PCB levels in more than 350 individual killer whales around the globe – the largest number of killer whales ever studied.

Applying models, the researchers then predicted the effects of PCBs on the number of offspring as well as on the immune system and mortality of the killer whale over a period of 100 years.

Jean-Pierre Desforges, a postdoc from Aarhus University, who led the investigations, said: “The findings are surprising. We see that over half of the studied killer whales populations around the globe are severely affected by PCBs.”

Global scale 

The effects result in fewer and fewer animals over time in these populations. The situation is worst in the oceans around Brazil, the Strait of Gibraltar, the northeast Pacific and around the UK. Here, the models show that the populations have virtually been halved during the half century where PCBs have been present.

Ailsa Hall, who together with Bernie McConnell developed the models used by Sea Mammal Research Unit in Scotland, said: “In these areas, we rarely observe newborn killer whales.”

Jean-Pierre Desforges added: “As the effects have been recognized for more than 50 years, it is frightening to see that the models predict a high risk of population collapse in these areas within a period of 30-40 years.”

A female killer whale may live for 60-70 years, and although the world took its first steps to phase out PCBs more than 40 years ago, killer whales still have high levels of PCBs in their bodies.

In the oceans around the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Alaska and the Antarctic, the prospects are not so gloomy. Here, killer whale populations grow, and the models predict that they will continue to do so throughout the next century.

This Author 

Brendan Montague is the editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). 

NHS patients are being let down by a global health innovation system which fails to deliver the treatments they need at prices that government can afford, according to a new report led by Professor Mariana Mazzucato, director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), in collaboration with STOPAIDS, Global Justice Now and Just Treatment.

The report, The People’s Prescription: Re-imagining health innovation to deliver public value, warns that health innovation is being hampered by a drive for profit and calls for a major overhaul of the system to ensure that more drugs and treatments are developed for critical health needs.

Crucially it addresses both the rate and the direction of innovation.

‘Fundamentally broken’

Although innovation in health is vital for the development of drugs used by the NHS and healthcare systems around the world, the report finds that the current system for developing drugs incentivises high prices and delivers short-term returns to shareholders, rather than focusing on riskier, longer-term research which leads to critically needed therapeutic advances.

The authors warn that the high prices of medicines are causing severe patient access problems worldwide with damaging consequences for health and wellbeing.

The solution is not as simple as demanding lower prices but to understand how the characteristics of the system must be overhauled, from the dynamics of patents which are hurting transparency and collaboration to the ways in which corporate governance hurt innovation.

With the system ‘fundamentally broken’, the report maps out fault lines and recommends new concrete policy actions to deliver public value for the greatest health need.

Last year, NHS England spent £1bn on medicines that had received public investment, while spending on drugs is rising at five times the rate its budget is rising.

Corporate profits

Key points include:

• Research and development priorities are not determined by public health needs. The system ignores diseases – such as tuberculosis – that are most prevalent in developing countries. Meanwhile, more than half of approved medicines in recent years offered no additional health benefits.
• The number of new drugs approved against research and development (R & D) spend has declined from around 40 drugs per $1bn of R & D in the 1950s to less than 0.65 drugs per $1bn spend this century, representing a huge drop in innovation and productivity.
• Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly focused on maximising short-term financial returns to shareholders, rather than funding health advances in the public interest. The 19 pharmaceutical companies included in the S&P 500 Index in January 2017 (and listed 2006-15) spent $297bn on repurchasing their own shares between 2007-16—61% of their combined R&D expenditures in this period. 

Professor Mariana Mazzucato said: “The diagnosis looks bleak for the health innovation system; it’s expensive and unproductive and requires a complete transformation. We have a situation now where the NHS is a huge buyer of drugs and the UK government is a significant investor in the development of new treatments, yet big pharmaceutical companies are calling the shots.

“In the year of the 70th anniversary of the NHS, this is an ideal time to take stock and rethink the system with a move towards a model that prioritises long-term public value above short-term corporate profits.”

Huge savings 

As an immediate policy action, the report calls on governments to pursue their legal right to procure affordable generic versions of patented medicines if companies refuse to drop their prices to levels affordable to national health systems such as the NHS. These legal rights are known as Flexibilities within the World Trade Organisation’s TRIPS rules (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights).

This could mean huge savings for the NHS. For example, evidence shows that the prices the UK pays for some cancer medicines could be reduced by between 75 percent and 99.6 percent if they could be procured as generics.

Intellectual property rules should also be reformed to make vital medicines more affordable and open to innovation, with patents only issued to truly innovative technology.

Long-term recommendations include:

• A mission-oriented approach to improving health outcomes, where governments can set the direction of health innovation by focusing the energy of state, civil society and the private sector on clearly articulated public health goals.
• Changing how corporate governance works; rethinking the role of the public sector and improving the structure of the private sector.
• Better deals through conditionality; governments should be able to negotiate better deals as the main investors in new treatments, instead of rewards being disproportionately shared with the private sector.

Strategic decisions

Conditionality would also prevent the public from paying twice for medicines. A treatment for prostate cancer – Abiraterone – was discovered by the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR), which receives 38 percent of its funding from charities and the UK Medical Research Council, and 14 percent from other government funding.

The NHS then spent £172 million on the drug between 2014 and 2016, following five years of negotiations when the price was set just below NICE’s upper limit of acceptable costs. By the end of 2017, Johnson & Johnson had made around £1.9 billion in sales and the ICR had earned just £137 million.

Mission-oriented research and innovation involves strategic decision making in both governments and business through purpose-led missions.

This approach focuses on problem-specific challenges, which many different sectors interact to solve. The focus on problems, and new types of collaborations between public and private actors to solve them, creates the potential for greater spillovers than a sectoral approach.

It was this approach that put a man on the moon, and lay behind the creation of the internet and entire new sectors like biotechnology.

Alternative systems

Heidi Chow, Senior Campaigns Manager, Global Justice Now, said: “A pharmaceutical industry that makes billions in profits without providing the affordable medicines that people need is one of the scandals of our time. It’s easy to feel that there is no alternative, but in fact there are a whole host of alternatives that are already working in a number of countries.

“It is time to scale up what’s working, and drop what’s not so that people here in the UK and around the world can access the effective treatments they need.”

Saoirse Fitzpatrick, Senior Advocacy Adviser, STOPAIDS, added: “We have to face the reality that our current system for developing medicines is not matching people’s health needs.

“If we carry on with business as usual then we are going to end up bankrupting patients and health services with high priced drugs and wasting precious financial resources on copycat medicines which do nothing but add to the pharmaceutical industry’s profits.

“We know there are other models out there, we need governments to work from this evidence base and build an alternative system for health innovation that gives us the medicines people need at prices we can all afford.”

Public health 

Diarmaid McDonald, Lead organiser, from Just Treatment, said: “NHS patients, like those who lead Just Treatment, have had their access to vital medicines delayed or denied because of the unaffordable prices charged by the industry. Sadly these high prices are not going away – they lie at the heart of our current medical innovation system.

“Until governments follow the recommendations in this report and set about creating a pharmaceutical system that puts patients and public health at its core, our health and our health systems will continue to suffer as pharmaceutical profits continue to soar.”

The report was produced with further support from King’s College London, Drugs for Neglected Diseases, Knowledge Ecology International, I-MAK, Medicines Law & Policy, Open Society Foundations, European Public Health Alliance, Innogen, Médecins Sans Frontières, Access Campaign and independent researcher Christine Berry.

This Author

Marianne Brooker is a contributing editor for The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Global Justice Now.