This year will go down with 1979 (Three Mile Island), 1986 (Chernobyl) and 2011 (Fukushima) as one of the nuclear industry’s worst ever ‒ and there’s still another six months to go. Two of the industry’s worst-ever years have been in the past decade. There will be many more bad years ahead as the trickle of closures of ageing reactors becomes a flood ‒ the International Energy Agency expects almost 200 reactor closures between 2014 and 2040. The likelihood of reactor start-ups matching closures over that time period has become vanishingly small.

In January, the World Nuclear Association anticipated 18 power reactor start-ups this year. The projection has been revised down to 14 and even that seems more than a stretch. There has only been one reactor start-up in the first half of the year according to the IAEA’s Power Reactor Information System, and two permanent reactor closures.

The number of power reactors under construction is on a downward trajectory ‒ 59 reactors are under construction as of May 2017, the first time since 2010 that the number has fallen below 60.

Pro-nuclear journalist Fred Pearce wrote on May 15: “Is the nuclear power industry in its death throes? Even some nuclear enthusiasts believe so. With the exception of China, most nations are moving away from nuclear ‒ existing power plants across the United States are being shut early; new reactor designs are falling foul of regulators, and public support remains in free fall. Now come the bankruptcies. … The industry is in crisis. It looks ever more like a 20th century industrial dinosaur, unloved by investors, the public, and policymakers alike. The crisis could prove terminal.”

Pro-nuclear lobby groups are warning about nuclear power’s “rapidly accelerating crisis“, a “crisis that threatens the death of nuclear energy in the West“, and noting that “the industry is on life support in the United States and other developed economies“.

USA: The most dramatic story this year has been the bankruptcy filing of US nuclear giant Westinghouse on March 29. Westinghouse’s parent company Toshiba states that there is “substantial doubt” about Toshiba’s “ability to continue as a going concern”. These nuclear industry giants have been brought to their knees by cost overruns ‒ estimated at US$13 billion ‒ building four AP1000 power reactors in the U.S.

The nuclear debate in the US is firmly centred on attempts to extend the lifespan of ageing, uneconomic reactors with state bailouts. Financial bailouts by state governments in New York and Illinois are propping up ageing reactors, but a proposed bailout in Ohio is meeting stiff opposition. The fate of Westinghouse and its partially-built AP1000 reactors are much discussed, but there is no further discussion about new reactors ‒ other than to note that they won’t happen.

Six reactors have been shut down over the past five years in the US, and another handful will likely close in the next five years. So how far and fast will nuclear fall? Exelon ‒ the leading nuclear power plant operator in the US ‒ claims that “economic and policy challenges threaten to close about half of America’s reactors” in the next two decades. According to pro-nuclear lobby group ‘Environmental Progress‘, almost one-quarter of US reactors are at high risk of closure by 2030, and almost three-quarters are at medium to high risk. In May, the US Energy Information Administration released an analysis projecting nuclear’s share of the nation’s electricity generating capacity will drop from 20 percent to 11 percent by 2050.

There are different views about how far and fast nuclear will fall in the US ‒ but fall it will. And there is no dispute that many plants are losing money. More than half of the country’s reactors are losing money, racking up losses totalling about US$2.9 billion a year according to a recent analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. And a separate Bloomberg report found that expanding state aid to money-losing reactors across the eastern US may leave consumers on the hook for as much as US$3.9 billion a year in higher power bills.

Japan: Fukushima clean-up and compensation cost estimates have doubled and doubled again and now stand at US$191 billion (€167 billion). An analysis by the Japan Institute for Economic Research estimates that the total costs for decommissioning, decontamination and compensation could be far higher at US$443‒620 billion (€389‒544 billion).

Only five reactors are operating in Japan as of July 2017, compared to 54 before the March 2011 Fukushima disaster. The prospects for new reactors are bleak. Japan has given up on its Monju fast breeder reactor ‒ successive governments wasted US$10.6 billion (€9.3 billion) on Monju and decommissioning will cost another US$2.7 billion (€2.3 billion).

As mentioned, Toshiba is facing an existential crisis due to the crippling debts of its subsidiary Westinghouse. Toshiba announced on May 15 that it expects to report a consolidated net loss of US$8.4 billion (€7.4 billion) for the 2016‒2017 financial year which ended March 31.

Hitachi is backing away from its plan to build two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors in Wylfa, Wales. Hitachi recently said that if it cannot attract partners to invest in the project before construction is due to start in 2019, the project will be suspended.

Hitachi recently booked a massive loss on a failed investment in laser enrichment technology in the US. A 12 May 2017 statement said the company had posted an impairment loss on affiliated companies’ common stock of US$1.66 billion (€1.46 billion) for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2017, and “the major factor” was Hitachi’s exit from the laser enrichment project. Last year a commentator opined that “the way to make a small fortune in the uranium enrichment business in the U.S. is to start with a large one.”

France: The French nuclear industry is in its “worst situation ever” according to former EDF director Gérard Magnin. France has 58 operable reactors and just one under construction.

French EPR reactors under construction in France and Finland are three times over budget ‒ the combined cost overruns for the two reactors amount to about US$14.5 billion (€12.7 billion).

Bloomberg noted in April 2015 that Areva’s EPR export ambitions are “in tatters“. Now Areva itself is in tatters and is in the process of a government-led restructure and another taxpayer-funded bailout. On March 1, Areva posted a €665 million net loss for 2016. Losses in the preceding five years exceeded €10 billion.

In February, EDF released its financial figures for 2016: earnings and income fell and EDF’s debt remained steady at €37.4 billion. EDF plans to sell €10 billion of assets by 2020 to rein in its debt, and to sack up to 7,000 staff. The French government provided EDF with €3 billion in extra capital in 2016 and will contribute €3 billion towards a €4 billion capital raising this year. On March 8, shares in EDF hit an all-time low a day after the €4 billion capital raising was launched; the share price fell to €7.78, less than one-tenth of the high a decade ago.

Costs of between €50 billion and €100 billion will need to be spent by 2030 to meet new safety requirements for reactors in France and to extend their operating lives beyond 40 years.

EDF has set aside €23 billion to cover reactor decommissioning and waste management costs in France ‒ just less than half of the €54 billion that EDF estimates will be required. A recent report by the French National Assembly’s Commission for Sustainable Development and Regional Development concluded that there is “obvious under-provisioning” and that decommissioning and waste management will take longer, be more challenging and cost much more than EDF anticipates.

In 2015, concerns about the integrity of some EPR pressure vessels were revealed, prompting investigations that are still ongoing. Last year, the scandal was magnified when the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) announced that Areva had informed it of “irregularities in components produced at its Creusot Forge plant.” The problems concern documents attesting to the quality of parts manufactured at the site. At least 400 of the 10,000 quality documents reviewed by Areva contained anomalies. Work at the Creusot Forge foundry was suspended in the wake of the scandal and Areva is awaiting ASN approval to restart the foundry.

French Environment and Energy Minister Nicolas Hulot said on June 12 that the Government plans to close some nuclear reactors to reduce nuclear’s share of the country’s power mix. “We are going to close some nuclear reactors and it won’t be just a symbolic move,” he said.

India: Nuclear power accounts for just 3.4 percent of electricity supply in India and that figure will not rise significantly, if at all. In May, India’s Cabinet approved a plan to build 10 indigenous pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWR). That decision can be read as an acknowledgement that plans for six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors and six French EPR reactors are unlikely to eventuate.

The plan for 10 new PHWRs faces major challenges. Suvrat Raju and M.V. Ramana noted: “[N]uclear power will continue to be an expensive and relatively minor source of electricity for the foreseeable future. … The announcement about building 10 PHWRs fits a pattern, often seen with the current government, where it trumpets a routine decision to bolster its “bold” credentials. Most of the plants that were recently approved have been in the pipeline for years. Nevertheless, there is good reason to be sceptical of these plans given that similar plans to build large numbers of reactors have failed to meet their targets, often falling far short.”

South Africa: An extraordinary High Court judgement on April 26 ruled that much of South Africa’s nuclear new-build program is without legal foundation. The High Court set aside the Ministerial determination that South Africa required 9.6 gigawatts (GW) of new nuclear capacity, and found that numerous bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements were unconstitutional and unlawful. President Jacob Zuma is trying to revive the nuclear program, but it will most likely be shelved when Zuma leaves office in 2019 (if he isn’t removed earlier). Energy Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said on June 21 that South Africa will review its nuclear plans as part of its response to economic recession.

South Korea: South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in said on June 19 that his government will halt plans to build new nuclear power plants and will not extend the lifespan of existing plants beyond 40 years. President Moon said: “We will completely re-examine the existing policies on nuclear power. We will scrap the nuclear-centred polices and move toward a nuclear-free era. We will eliminate all plans to build new nuclear plants.”

Since the presidential election on May 9, the ageing Kori-1 reactor has been permanently shut down, work on two partially-built reactors (Shin Kori 5 and 6) has been suspended pending a review, and work on two planned reactors (Shin-Hanul 3 and 4) has been stopped.

Taiwan: Taiwan’s Cabinet reiterated on June 12 the government’s resolve to phase out nuclear power. The government remains committed to the goal of decommissioning the three operational nuclear power plants as scheduled and making Taiwan nuclear-free by 2025, Cabinet spokesperson Hsu Kuo-yung said.

UK: Tim Yeo, a former Conservative politician and now a nuclear industry lobbyist with New Nuclear Watch Europe, said the compounding problems facing nuclear developers in the UK “add up to something of a crisis for the UK’s nuclear new-build programme.” The lobby group noted delays with the EPR reactor in Flamanville, France and the possibility that those delays would flow on to the two planned EPR reactors at Hinkley Point; the lack of investors for the proposed Advanced Boiling Water Reactors at Wylfa; the acknowledgement by the NuGen consortium that the plan for three AP1000 reactors at Moorside faces a “significant funding gap”; and the fact that the Hualong One technology which China General Nuclear Power Corporation hopes to deploy at Bradwell in Essex has yet to undergo its generic design assessment.

The only reactor project with any momentum in the UK is Hinkley Point, based on the French EPR reactor design. The head of one of Britain’s top utilities said on June 19 that Hinkley Point is likely to be the only nuclear project to go ahead in the UK. Alistair Phillips-Davies, chief executive officer of SSE, an energy supplier and former investor in new nuclear plants, said: “The bottom line in nuclear is that it looks like only Hinkley Point will get built and Flamanville needs to go well for that to happen.”

There is growing pressure for the obscenely expensive Hinkley Point project to be cancelled. The UK National Audit Office report released a damning report on June 23. The Audit Office said: “The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s deal for Hinkley Point C has locked consumers into a risky and expensive project with uncertain strategic and economic benefits … Today’s report finds that the Department has not sufficiently considered the costs and risks of its deal for consumers. … Delays have pushed back the nuclear power plant’s construction, and the expected cost of top-up payments under the Hinkley Point C’s contract for difference has increased from £6 billion to £30 billion.”

Writing in the Financial Times on May 26, Neil Collins said: “EDF, of course, is the contractor for that white elephant in the nuclear room, Hinkley Point. If this unproven design ever gets built and produces electricity, the UK consumer will be obliged to pay over twice the current market price for the output. … The UK’s energy market is in an unholy mess … Scrapping Hinkley Point would not solve all of [the problems], but it would be a start.”

And on it goes. Hinkley Point is one of the “great spending dinosaurs of the political dark ages” according to The Guardian. It is a “white elephant” according to an editorial in The Times.

EDF said on June 26 that it is conducting a “a full review of the costs and schedule of the Hinkley Point C project” and the results will be disclosed “soon”. On July 3, EDF announced that the estimated cost has risen by €2.5 billion (to €23.2 billion, or €30.4 billion including finance costs). In 2007, EDF was boasting that Britons would be using electricity from Hinkley to cook their Christmas turkeys in December 2017. But in its latest announcement, EDF pushes back the 2025 start-up dates for the two Hinkley reactors by 9‒15 months.

Former Ecologist editor, Oliver Tickell and Ian Fairlie wrote an obituary for Britain’s nuclear renaissance in The Ecologist on May 18. They concluded: “[T]he prospects for new nuclear power in the UK have never been gloomier. The only way new nuclear power stations will ever be built in the UK is with massive political and financial commitment from government. That commitment is clearly absent. So yes, this finally looks like the end of the UK’s ‘nuclear renaissance’.”

Switzerland: Voters in Switzerland supported a May 21 referendum on a package of energy policy measures including a ban on new nuclear power reactors. Thus Switzerland has opted for a gradual nuclear phase out and all reactors will probably be closed by the early 2030s, if not earlier.

Germany will close its last reactor much sooner than Switzerland, in 2022.

Sweden: Unit 1 of the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in Sweden has been permanently shut down. It was to be shut down on June 29, but an abnormal event on June 17 led to an automatic shut down and the reactor will not be restarted. Unit 2 at the same plant was permanently shut down in 2015. Ringhals 1 and 2 are expected to be shut down in 2019‒2020, after which Sweden will have just six operating power reactors.

Russia: Rosatom deputy general director Vyacheslav Pershukov said in mid-June that the world market for the construction of new nuclear power plants is shrinking, and the possibilities for building new large reactors abroad are almost exhausted. He said Rosatom expects to be able to find customers for new reactors until 2020‒2025 but “it will be hard to continue.”

China: With 36 power reactors and another 22 under construction, China is the only country with a significant nuclear expansion program. However nuclear growth could take a big hit in the event of economic downturn. And nuclear growth could be derailed by a serious accident, which is all the more likely because of China’s inadequate nuclear safety standards, inadequate regulation, lack of transparency, repression of whistleblowers, world’s worst insurance and liability arrangements, security risks, and widespread corruption.

This Author

Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and editor of the Nuclear Monitor newsletter, where this article was originally published. Nuclear Monitor, published 20 times a year, has been publishing deeply researched, often critical articles on all aspects of the nuclear cycle since 1978. A must-read for all those who work on this issue!

The dust over Hamburg, the venue of this year´s G20 summit, is slowly settling, though it will take a while until the wounds, which uncontrolled riots have made in some parts of the city, will heal. Outside the conference centre, it was burning cars, broken glass and cobblestone-throwing criminals who dominated the news. Inside the conference center it was the chapter on energy and climate, which was the biggest conflict zone among heads of states.

According to insiders, the climate chapter was the most controversial part of the key document, the G20 communiqué, and an agreement was only reached after a long night of negotiations that went right down to the wire. It was the French President Emmanuelle Macron who fought until the last minute for the best language that would demonstrate the willingness to advance climate action that 19 plus one world leaders would eventually commit to.

So: is it in the end a good outcome for climate protection, will the outcome get us closer to keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius and thus preventing mankind from continuing on a course that can only trigger the worst impacts of climate change?

The question cannot be answered without looking at the developments of climate diplomacy over the few months, especially the June announcement of President Trump that he intends withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement. Though he had already expressed his intent to exit from the agreement during the election campaign, the formal announcement still shook the international community.

The Paris Agreement not only reflects the broadest commitment for international climate action, the world has ever seen, it is also a symbol of unprecedented multilateralism to cooperate for the sake of the most vulnerable countries and for the welfare of future generations – and thus a symbol of hope and peace. While leaders from all over the world quickly came out with statements in support of the Paris Agreement, backed by an overwhelming wave of support from civil society and the business community, it still remained unclear, how they would act at the G20 summit, where the German presidency had bravely put the issue high on the agenda.

Taking this difficult political context into account, it is no small achievement by Merkel as this year’s G20 chair to have brought about a consensus between the 20 leaders of the largest industrialized countries and emerging economies, which can be spelt out as “agreeing to disagree”. With the support of other progressive heads of states, she managed to conserve the unity of the group while clearly isolating Trump´s position on climate in the communiqué. In the text itself this was expressed by dedicating one paragraph in the energy and climate chapter to the US, stating that the G20 leaders “take note of the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Paris Agreement”. This stands in stark contrast to the following paragraph, where the other nations stressed that the Paris Agreement is “irreversible”. The world is going in one direction, irrespective of the US.

Environmental groups are quite aligned in acknowledging the G19 pro-climate coalition as a success. “The world has passed the Trump test on climate”, Christoph Bals, Policy Director at the German NGO Germanwatch said. “The G19 held the line today, defending the Paris Agreement against Trump’s backward decision to withdraw”, said Jennifer Morgan, CEO of Greenpeace International, but finishing the sentence by saying “that is not enough”. Environmentalists expected – and will continue to push for – more ambition from the world´s leading economies, which are all in all responsible for about 80% of global GHG emissions.

At least – and this is also perceived as a significant step forward – the G19 agreed on an energy and climate action plan in the annex of the communiqué. It identifies issues that need to be addressed for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and provides a list of G20 action items for future cooperation. In the action plan, G19 leaders committed to the global energy transition by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. Implicitly, this means that the energy transition will have to lead to net zero GHG emissions in the energy sector until then. Further, the G19 leaders recognized the important role of developing long-term strategies, which should be submitted by 2020 and which should guide national planning and policy making, mainstreaming climate action, and incentivizing investment flows from brown to green and driving technological innovation.

The call for countries “to initiate sharing good practices and experiences on domestic mitigation and adaptation policies, including domestic economic and market-based instruments as well as emission to value approaches” can be seen as setting the agenda on these issues. It should mark the beginning of a G20 process for mutual exchange on carbon pricing – which, given the circumstances – represents a step forward.

In addition, important results were achieved under the finance track – both within the Green Finance Study Group and the business-lead Task Force on Climate related Financial Risk Disclosure, which will help reorient private capital flows and business strategies towards a new sustainable direction.

It is now up to the national leaders to swiftly engineer the implementation of the Paris Agreement and to raise climate ambition. And the recent weeks since Trump’s announcement to quit the Paris Agreement have demonstrated: It´s the local governments, the cities and mayors, the people who demand clean air and a healthy environment, but also businesses seeking new opportunities, who are standing strong behind global climate action and are pressuring their governments to do more.

This Author

Katrin Riegger leads the Communications Department of the European Climate Foundation (ECF) in Germany. Prior to this, she worked  for a German environmental organization and as a journalist. Katrin studied at the University of Cologne and at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, and holds a Masters’ degree in Political Science

The dust over Hamburg, the venue of this year´s G20 summit, is slowly settling, though it will take a while until the wounds, which uncontrolled riots have made in some parts of the city, will heal. Outside the conference centre, it was burning cars, broken glass and cobblestone-throwing criminals who dominated the news. Inside the conference center it was the chapter on energy and climate, which was the biggest conflict zone among heads of states.

According to insiders, the climate chapter was the most controversial part of the key document, the G20 communiqué, and an agreement was only reached after a long night of negotiations that went right down to the wire. It was the French President Emmanuelle Macron who fought until the last minute for the best language that would demonstrate the willingness to advance climate action that 19 plus one world leaders would eventually commit to.

So: is it in the end a good outcome for climate protection, will the outcome get us closer to keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius and thus preventing mankind from continuing on a course that can only trigger the worst impacts of climate change?

The question cannot be answered without looking at the developments of climate diplomacy over the few months, especially the June announcement of President Trump that he intends withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement. Though he had already expressed his intent to exit from the agreement during the election campaign, the formal announcement still shook the international community.

The Paris Agreement not only reflects the broadest commitment for international climate action, the world has ever seen, it is also a symbol of unprecedented multilateralism to cooperate for the sake of the most vulnerable countries and for the welfare of future generations – and thus a symbol of hope and peace. While leaders from all over the world quickly came out with statements in support of the Paris Agreement, backed by an overwhelming wave of support from civil society and the business community, it still remained unclear, how they would act at the G20 summit, where the German presidency had bravely put the issue high on the agenda.

Taking this difficult political context into account, it is no small achievement by Merkel as this year’s G20 chair to have brought about a consensus between the 20 leaders of the largest industrialized countries and emerging economies, which can be spelt out as “agreeing to disagree”. With the support of other progressive heads of states, she managed to conserve the unity of the group while clearly isolating Trump´s position on climate in the communiqué. In the text itself this was expressed by dedicating one paragraph in the energy and climate chapter to the US, stating that the G20 leaders “take note of the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Paris Agreement”. This stands in stark contrast to the following paragraph, where the other nations stressed that the Paris Agreement is “irreversible”. The world is going in one direction, irrespective of the US.

Environmental groups are quite aligned in acknowledging the G19 pro-climate coalition as a success. “The world has passed the Trump test on climate”, Christoph Bals, Policy Director at the German NGO Germanwatch said. “The G19 held the line today, defending the Paris Agreement against Trump’s backward decision to withdraw”, said Jennifer Morgan, CEO of Greenpeace International, but finishing the sentence by saying “that is not enough”. Environmentalists expected – and will continue to push for – more ambition from the world´s leading economies, which are all in all responsible for about 80% of global GHG emissions.

At least – and this is also perceived as a significant step forward – the G19 agreed on an energy and climate action plan in the annex of the communiqué. It identifies issues that need to be addressed for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and provides a list of G20 action items for future cooperation. In the action plan, G19 leaders committed to the global energy transition by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. Implicitly, this means that the energy transition will have to lead to net zero GHG emissions in the energy sector until then. Further, the G19 leaders recognized the important role of developing long-term strategies, which should be submitted by 2020 and which should guide national planning and policy making, mainstreaming climate action, and incentivizing investment flows from brown to green and driving technological innovation.

The call for countries “to initiate sharing good practices and experiences on domestic mitigation and adaptation policies, including domestic economic and market-based instruments as well as emission to value approaches” can be seen as setting the agenda on these issues. It should mark the beginning of a G20 process for mutual exchange on carbon pricing – which, given the circumstances – represents a step forward.

In addition, important results were achieved under the finance track – both within the Green Finance Study Group and the business-lead Task Force on Climate related Financial Risk Disclosure, which will help reorient private capital flows and business strategies towards a new sustainable direction.

It is now up to the national leaders to swiftly engineer the implementation of the Paris Agreement and to raise climate ambition. And the recent weeks since Trump’s announcement to quit the Paris Agreement have demonstrated: It´s the local governments, the cities and mayors, the people who demand clean air and a healthy environment, but also businesses seeking new opportunities, who are standing strong behind global climate action and are pressuring their governments to do more.

This Author

Katrin Riegger leads the Communications Department of the European Climate Foundation (ECF) in Germany. Prior to this, she worked  for a German environmental organization and as a journalist. Katrin studied at the University of Cologne and at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, and holds a Masters’ degree in Political Science

The dust over Hamburg, the venue of this year´s G20 summit, is slowly settling, though it will take a while until the wounds, which uncontrolled riots have made in some parts of the city, will heal. Outside the conference centre, it was burning cars, broken glass and cobblestone-throwing criminals who dominated the news. Inside the conference center it was the chapter on energy and climate, which was the biggest conflict zone among heads of states.

According to insiders, the climate chapter was the most controversial part of the key document, the G20 communiqué, and an agreement was only reached after a long night of negotiations that went right down to the wire. It was the French President Emmanuelle Macron who fought until the last minute for the best language that would demonstrate the willingness to advance climate action that 19 plus one world leaders would eventually commit to.

So: is it in the end a good outcome for climate protection, will the outcome get us closer to keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius and thus preventing mankind from continuing on a course that can only trigger the worst impacts of climate change?

The question cannot be answered without looking at the developments of climate diplomacy over the few months, especially the June announcement of President Trump that he intends withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement. Though he had already expressed his intent to exit from the agreement during the election campaign, the formal announcement still shook the international community.

The Paris Agreement not only reflects the broadest commitment for international climate action, the world has ever seen, it is also a symbol of unprecedented multilateralism to cooperate for the sake of the most vulnerable countries and for the welfare of future generations – and thus a symbol of hope and peace. While leaders from all over the world quickly came out with statements in support of the Paris Agreement, backed by an overwhelming wave of support from civil society and the business community, it still remained unclear, how they would act at the G20 summit, where the German presidency had bravely put the issue high on the agenda.

Taking this difficult political context into account, it is no small achievement by Merkel as this year’s G20 chair to have brought about a consensus between the 20 leaders of the largest industrialized countries and emerging economies, which can be spelt out as “agreeing to disagree”. With the support of other progressive heads of states, she managed to conserve the unity of the group while clearly isolating Trump´s position on climate in the communiqué. In the text itself this was expressed by dedicating one paragraph in the energy and climate chapter to the US, stating that the G20 leaders “take note of the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Paris Agreement”. This stands in stark contrast to the following paragraph, where the other nations stressed that the Paris Agreement is “irreversible”. The world is going in one direction, irrespective of the US.

Environmental groups are quite aligned in acknowledging the G19 pro-climate coalition as a success. “The world has passed the Trump test on climate”, Christoph Bals, Policy Director at the German NGO Germanwatch said. “The G19 held the line today, defending the Paris Agreement against Trump’s backward decision to withdraw”, said Jennifer Morgan, CEO of Greenpeace International, but finishing the sentence by saying “that is not enough”. Environmentalists expected – and will continue to push for – more ambition from the world´s leading economies, which are all in all responsible for about 80% of global GHG emissions.

At least – and this is also perceived as a significant step forward – the G19 agreed on an energy and climate action plan in the annex of the communiqué. It identifies issues that need to be addressed for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and provides a list of G20 action items for future cooperation. In the action plan, G19 leaders committed to the global energy transition by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. Implicitly, this means that the energy transition will have to lead to net zero GHG emissions in the energy sector until then. Further, the G19 leaders recognized the important role of developing long-term strategies, which should be submitted by 2020 and which should guide national planning and policy making, mainstreaming climate action, and incentivizing investment flows from brown to green and driving technological innovation.

The call for countries “to initiate sharing good practices and experiences on domestic mitigation and adaptation policies, including domestic economic and market-based instruments as well as emission to value approaches” can be seen as setting the agenda on these issues. It should mark the beginning of a G20 process for mutual exchange on carbon pricing – which, given the circumstances – represents a step forward.

In addition, important results were achieved under the finance track – both within the Green Finance Study Group and the business-lead Task Force on Climate related Financial Risk Disclosure, which will help reorient private capital flows and business strategies towards a new sustainable direction.

It is now up to the national leaders to swiftly engineer the implementation of the Paris Agreement and to raise climate ambition. And the recent weeks since Trump’s announcement to quit the Paris Agreement have demonstrated: It´s the local governments, the cities and mayors, the people who demand clean air and a healthy environment, but also businesses seeking new opportunities, who are standing strong behind global climate action and are pressuring their governments to do more.

This Author

Katrin Riegger leads the Communications Department of the European Climate Foundation (ECF) in Germany. Prior to this, she worked  for a German environmental organization and as a journalist. Katrin studied at the University of Cologne and at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, and holds a Masters’ degree in Political Science

The other week, Ravi – a community forest watcher –  picked up the phone and called in his latest sighting. He had spotted a breeding pair of Indian grey wolves inside the Kalpavalli Community Conservation Area (KCCA).

The KCCA is an area of 9,000 acres restored, protected and conserved as a biodiversity reserve by some of India’s most impoverished communities in the state of Andhra Pradesh in Southern India. The conserved land is village common land, which serves as a zone of multiple-uses – it is where people and wildlife co-exist side-by-side. Rural community members access a variety of non-timber forest produce including thatch grass and fodder, while large carnivores like wolves, leopards, hyenas and sloth bears share the same space.

The KCCA is an experiment in regeneration and community-led conservation started over 20 years ago and has today become an example of coexistence. The project started with restoring degraded common lands to improve soil fertility, boost the local watershed and empower rural communities. In the early 1990s, following months of community mobilisation, a plot of hundred acres in the hills surrounding Mustikovilla Village was chosen by the Boya Community for restoration. Within the year, soil salinity reduced and spurred the grasses and shrubs to bounce back. Shepherds from the neighbouring village of Shapuram trespassed onto this slow-flourishing piece of land. They grazed their sheep and goats and cut a few saplings much to the annoyance of the people from Mustikovilla. A minor altercation ensued and the erring shepherds were fined a few hundred rupees.

This incident led to the people of Shapuram to approach the Timbaktu Collective to initiate their own restoration efforts on the common lands of their village. Over the years, this concept has spread to other villages and today over 2,000 members from 10 villages have pooled together resources to protect common lands in their villages. Collectively, they protect the resources of 9,000 acres of land.

For the first decade, the project focussed on improving the watersheds within the conservation area – slowing down rainwater, reducing erosion, and planting native shrubs, grasses and trees – which were critical to restoring riparian habitat. This process was spearheaded by the time volunteered by community members and in addition small grants were raised to offer basic support. Another important component was educating the youth and children on the importance of protecting the upstream watershed.

Over the past five years, we at Timbaktu Collective have noticed the increase in the diversity and abundance of wildlife in these areas. This has encouraged us to engage the service of a full-time wildlife conservation team. Our conservation approach blends wildlife conservation with the idea of improving people’s access to water, fodder and other non-timber forest produce.

Our approach, which has been to catalyse nature conservation and give importance to wildlife within the framework of a “development” organisation, is still uncommon in India. Although the majority of India’s wildlife is outside traditional protected areas like National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries most existing approaches to conservation are still based on these models of “Fortress Conservation”. This dominant approach creates government-owned inviolate spaces which excludes local communities and where management decisions are taken unilaterally by centralised agencies. In contrast, the model of conservation at the Timbaktu Collective is a bottom-up approach. For example, the conservation area doesn’t have a physical fence but instead works on social fencing which is founded on communication, trust and strong social interconnections at the village level. Regular community mobilisation takes place alongside training programmes and focused conservation education.

Our model is also one of the few, which focuses on protecting savannah ecosystems which are accorded little legal protection thereby leaving them out of mainstream conservation. Grasslands in India continue to be treated and termed as “wastelands” to be exploited for industrial purposes. This leaves the communities and wildlife which depend on these grasslands vulnerable. For example, the Indian grey wolf, a keystone species of the grassland is fast losing habitat and a prey base.

Our region the Anantapur District has one of the highest densities of sheep and goat in the country, all of whom depend on healthy savannahs. The shepherds are mostly nomadic and thereby get ignored by any census methods so although they are contributors to the region’s economy this is not reflected on the balance sheet. In addition, they remain largely a nameless people who do not constitute a captive vote bank.

We argue that it is equally important for both wildlife conservationist and traditional “Social Development” organisations to look for collaborative opportunities, which focus on people’s rights and empowerment as well as the wellbeing of the wildlife and environment.

Unfortunately, most conservation organisations have struggled to find the trust and rapport with local communities as they are seen as prioritising wildlife over people. In addition, a majority of conservation groups in India focus far too much on data collection and research and less on community building and empowerment, which are the real drivers of conservation.

The distinction between research and conservation should be clearer so that we’re able to prioritise the limited conservation funding and capacity in the right channels. The important role of science and research in wildlife conservation cannot be denied but the tendency to confuse these investigations with actual conservation action is all too often in countries like India. The other aspect of this argument is the underrepresentation and regard for traditional wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge in the conservation sphere. Ignoring this has dual impacts – first, it loses a valuable management tool and secondly, it continues to alienate communities, who have lived on these lands for generations.

Our driving line at the Timbatku Collective is “Life We Celebrate You”. Now, we have extended this to different forms of life such as that of the breeding wolves. Our work at Timbaktu Collective has taken on a new dimension. It is our plea to other social workers and conservationists alike to take the steps to collaborate and find new opportunities to regenerate fractured communities and wild spaces.

This Author

Siddharth Rao is a conservation biologist and the Director for Ecology at the Timbaktu Collective (www.timbaktu.org). His work focuses on environmental justice, large carnivore biology, community based conservation and conservation outreach and education. He also co-leads the Adavi Trust, (www.adavi.org).

The 2017 Lush Spring Prize for regeneration was co-ordinated by Ethical Consumer (www.ethicalconsumer.org). For more on the launch of the prize which will become an annual event see here: http://bit.ly/2hXlLTa

*The Ecologist has a content sharing collaboration with Lush ethical cosmetics

More than half of the people on Earth live in cities, and that number is growing, so it is especially important to understand how biodiversity patterns occur in our man-made environments.

As an ecologist specializing in urban systems, I spend a lot of time investigating biodiversity in parks, residential areas and abandoned zones in and around the city of Baltimore.

My main interests are seeing how urban dwellers invest in biodiversity, which species persist in cities and what kinds of biodiversity can thrive in green spaces.

In spite of the substantial environmental changes that humans have caused in cities, research shows that they still contain many forms of life. And we can develop and maintain habitat to support them.

Human impacts

Human activities such as farming and building roads disturb the environment. This changes habitats, causes plants and animals to move and alters biodiversity patterns.

In cities many of these shifts are obvious. Cats and coyotes are now the top predators in many urban areas, perhaps replacing species that dominated before these areas were settled. Humans have introduced exotic species such as tree of heaven, and pests such as the emerald ash borer. And our living patterns have promoted eruptive growth of some species, such as white-tailed deer.

It is common to assume that few other species remain in disturbed urban environments. But in fact, there are many pockets of biodiversity in and around cities, such as frogs living in stormwater detention ponds and trees in restored streamside forests. Landscapes that people create in and around their homes support many ornamental herbaceous and woody plant species.

Our research group works to understand the relationship between people and urban biodiversity patterns. The most prominent feature of the urban environment is that it is fragmented into many small zones. Human activity creates more patches of smaller size and greater edge lengths between types of habitats than we would expect to see in undisturbed areas.

This benefits species that thrive at edges, like white-tailed deer and nuisance vines, but harms others that require larger interior habitats, such as certain birds.

As human activities create a more fragmented environment, it becomes increasingly important to create linkages between natural areas, such as preserved forests, to maintain populations and their biodiversity.

Humans also modify dispersal patterns. We place preferred plants in our yards and gardens, transplant wild shrubs from forests to suburban yards and trap nuisance animals such as beavers and relocate them to forests.

 Work from our research group has successfully related people’s management practices to understand how species are gained or lost from one location to the next. This concept, which we call “species turnover,” is a major way in which biodiversity increases in cities. Where people make many different types of choices, we have found that the trees people manage change a lot. This tells us that what one person sees as valuable differs from another’s, which increase biodiversity in these areas. In “ignored” or less managed areas, such as vacant land, we see a less diverse mix of species on average.

How past actions influence the present

Ecologists can also understand biodiversity in cities by studying how humans have altered and then abandoned some areas, and how plants and animals have responded. Such human legacies are profound in old cities like Baltimore.

Our research group has studied these impacts on patches of land where buildings once stood. There are more than 14,000 vacant lots in Baltimore where houses have been razed, which adds up to a lot of habitat.

We have found that buildings’ footprints have very different soils from the areas around them that once were backyards. Footprint soils are compact and comprise mainly building rubble, while backyards have healthier soils. Although these habitats are close together, they support different plant communities. Plants growing on building footprints tend to be similar, while there is very high species turnover in former back yards.

Helping urban ecosystems thrive

Every species has traits, such as a plant’s nitrogen fixation rate and flower color. These characteristics support the services that the species can offer – for example, providing habitat for songbirds. As cities move toward more green practices, knowing about species’ traits can help planners choose which plants, animals, birds and insects to support.

In West Baltimore, my research group has cleared and seeded vacant lots with different mixes of native plants that reflect different traits to learn which species combinations can confer the most ecosystem services. In urban areas, valuable ecosystem services include supporting bees and other pollinators and improving soil quality.

We have found that native plant species can become established and persist even on poor urban soils. Working with local high school students, we have carried out pollinator surveys over two years, which show that these plants support more abundant and more diverse communities of pollinators, including bumblebees and butterflies.

Over the next five to 10 years, we plan to expand this work across 65 plots on vacant land so that we can understand the full range of ecosystem services that native plants provide.

Residents who live near our research plots are happy to see areas that were unmanaged and largely neglected turn green. Even small “pocket parks” can brighten communities.

We have many other questions about urban biodiversity. How do city dwellers living in cities think about biodiversity? What traits of different animals and plants do people find attractive, and do those traits provide desirable ecosystem services? By analyzing these issues, we can learn more about which animals and plants do the most to enhance city life and how we can help them thrive here.

This Author

Christopher Swan is Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

*This article is shared with the Ecologist by www.theconversation.com

‘Look and see’ was the gentle instruction that Berry gave to his young daughter, Mary, as he shared with her the world around them. In 1965, when she was seven years old, Berry returned his family home to Kentucky after living in California, Europe and New York, turning away from the literary and academic path chosen by many American writers to farm, as five generations of his family had done before him. He, with his wife Tanya, began a life of farming, writing and teaching and, in the last half century, he has seen Henry County, like many rural communities across America, become a place of quiet ideological struggle.

In the span of a generation, the agrarian virtues of simplicity, land stewardship, sustainable farming, local economies and rootedness to place have been replaced by a capital-intensive model of industrial agriculture characterised by machine labour, chemical fertilisers, soil erosion and debt – all of which have frayed the fabric of rural communities.

Filmed across four seasons in the farming cycle, Look and See blends observational scenes of farming life, interviews with farmers and community members with beautiful footage of the surrounding landscape interspersed with stills from Kentucky photographer, poet and writer friend James Baker Hall, and archive coverage of Berry speaking at the Agriculture for a Small Planet Symposium on July 1^st 1974. It was Berry’s talk at this event that led indirectly to the establishment of the Tilth Alliance – to build an ecologically sound, economically viable and socially equitable food system – and a conference on Alternative Agriculture in Ellensberg, Washington the following November.

In Berry’s poetry collection A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, he coins the military phrase ‘for the sake of the objective’ to describe a kind of war waged on America’s land by the industrialisation of farming, and this served as something of a lodestar for Look and See‘s director, Laura Dunn, who uses Berry’s narration of his poem in the film: ‘I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective/the planners planned at blank desks set in rows./I visited the loud factories where the machines were made/that would drive ever forward toward the objective./I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies;/I saw the poisoned river-the mountain cast into the valley;/I came to the city that nobody recognized because it looked like every other city.‘

It was in 1974, 12 years after publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and four years after the first Earth Day, that the US Department of Agriculture’s promotion of the industrialisation of farming, advocated by the then Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, drastically changed federal agriculture policy and led to the demise of small, family-run and community-based farms. This policy, based on mass mechanisation of farming and profit-led, changed the profile of American farming forever.

Previously an agrarian nation, with a commitment and attachment to the land – where 45% of the population farmed – today in America that figure is just 4%, and the number of farms has more than halved with 5.65m farms becoming just 2.17m. As Berry notes, all the traditional standards of farming have been replaced by technology ‘whose only standard is profit’ and a rise in soil erosion, toxicity and polluted rivers.

In 1977, disturbed that technology had made the relationship between people and land increasingly irrelevant, Berry wrote his classic work The Unsettling of America, eloquently arguing that good farming is a cultural development and spiritual discipline, while agribusiness takes it out of its cultural context and away from communities. As a result, and even more so today, he argued that America is estranged from the land, its intimate knowledge, love and care for it. For Berry, the words of W B Yeat’s poem The Second Coming were ringing true: ‘the centre cannot hold’.

For Steve Smith, Berry’s son-in-law, it was this book and Eliot Coleman’s 1989 publication, The New Organic Grower, which contributed to his own farming ethos. A contributor to the film, Smith is pragmatic but hopeful and believes that, ‘with a little bit of care, the land will respond’, as he and Mary continue to farm in a way that is sustainable, while also running the Berry Center, custodians for their three daughters and the generations to come.

Described by the New York Times in 1988 as the ‘prophet of rural America’, Look and See pays tribute to Wendell Berry’s philosophy and lifetime commitment to the land, but it is his poetry that may first bring many of us this increasingly relevant conversation captured so lyrically in Laura Dunn’s new film.

Look and See is directed by Laura Dunn, produced by Robert Redford and Terrence Malick and released in the United States in July.

The Unsettling of America, A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems and other works by Wendell Berry are published by Counterpoint Press.

This Author

Harriet Griffey is Cultural Editor at The Ecologist and also editorial consultant to One Hand Clapping magazine.

The ocean covers over seventy percent of our planet, generates over fifty percent of the oxygen, regulates climate and provides food and jobs for hundreds of millions of people. It is truly the source of life. Current changes to its systems and cycles spread far beyond the deep onto land, generating concerns for the future.

These concerns were expressed at the first United Nations Ocean Conference – which brought together governments, stakeholders, businesses, and civil society representatives worldwide to “reverse the decline in the health of our ocean for people, planet and prosperity.” 

Co-hosted by countries Sweden and Fiji, the conference took place in June this year at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. More than 6,000 people participated and over 1,300 voluntary commitments to conserve and sustainably use our oceans were made.

Issues discussed ranged from overfishing to climate change, to plastic and noise pollution, to deep-sea mining and high seas governance. The coming together to protect and conserve our shared ocean was a truly inspiring and momentous occasion.

Most participants spoke on their work to advance Sustainable Development Goal 14: to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. 

A new paradigm for ocean governance

We at the Earth Law Center (ELC) saw the ocean conference as an opportunity to begin building support for a new paradigm for ocean governance: one that focuses on the ocean’s own well-being and is guided by principles of sustainability, ecosystem health, precaution and interconnectedness.

The Earth Law Center has a long record of working on ocean and coastal issues, and as a result, has experienced firsthand the need to promote a new way forward. Despite international laws and agreements designed to sustain and protect the ocean, marine biodiversity and health is in decline.

This is because current ocean law and policy is largely based on economics, rather than science and the rule of law. We treat the ocean as an infinite ‘resource’, with value derived from human use and utility, when in fact, it is a finite entity with its own limits and intrinsic worth.

Environmental laws have become a result of negotiation, allowing industry to continue to pollute and degrade natural ecosystems with the false assumption that activities that support conservation are costs to our economy. As a result, current ocean law and policy largely focuses on the impacts to humans, rather than the impacts to the ocean or the Earth as a whole.

Take for example the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) was enacted in the United States in 1976 to “prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, increase long- term economic and social benefits and to ensure a safe and sustainable supply of seafood.”

The MSA at first glance, appears to aim for the conservation and restoration of fish populations, but we are still seeing fisheries collapse; in 2016 NOAA identified nine percent of US stocks on the overfishing list and 16 percent on the overfished list. A further look at the MSA reveals why we cannot fully prevent overfishing.

A stated purpose of the MSA is “to provide for the preparation and implementation… of fishery management plans which will achieve and maintain, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery,” where optimum is defined as the “amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the nation.”

As a result, fishing quotas are based on “maximum sustainable yield,” which is a theoretical level of harvest that will allow fish populations to replenish themselves. This is why we are getting into trouble. We are basing the management of our activities on sole benefit to ourselves, and on a metric which is known to be “devilishly hard to predict accurately” and that does not take into account other factors affecting fish mortality – other predators, natural events, pollutants, and so on.

Rather than aiming to prevent collapse, why not shift our approach towards aiming to maintain healthy and thriving populations? This is where a holistic and ocean-rights based approach provides a means to an end.

Rather than asking ourselves what level of fishing provides the greatest benefit to us, we start asking what level of fishing provides the greatest benefit to the whole of the Earth community; all systems, species and ecosystems. We shift our approach to ensure the basic needs of all species are fulfilled, now and into the future.

Though not specifically calling for the adoption of ocean-rights based governance, countries and participants at the conference called for the change that an ocean-based approach would provide.

Papua New Guinea recognized the need for a paradigm shift and called on the UN to adopt a ‘Call for Action’ which takes seriously our “collective duty and responsibility” to halt the decline of the health of the oceans and seas.

China reaffirmed the need to “preserve the harmony between man and nature, treating man and nature as equals” and to “achieve development without damaging the environment.”

Belgium, expressed the need to base development on a “holistic and system approach” and reminded us that “we do not possess the ocean.”

The UN Chief António Guterres urged governments and stakeholders alike to “put aside short-term gain” in order to protect the ocean, which “represents the lifeblood of our planet.”

The conference ended with an “intergovernmentally agreed upon declaration in the form of a ‘Call for Action’ to support the implementation of Goal 14.” Though the document does not list adopting holistic and rights-based governance as a measure to conserve and sustainably use the ocean, ELC will continue to garner support and promote this approach within the United Nations and International Treaty Law.

The paradigm ELC is promoting is inherently logical. Human welfare is tied to the welfare of the Earth. Because of this, “development must be based on ‘ecological foundations’ that recognize the integral processes of the biosphere and the need for harmony and balance among all elements of the system.”

Implementing Rights of Nature legislation allows for such a basis, by recognizing that rights originate from existence and that humans are a part of the Earth, not above it. Such is the rule of law. Since we are not above the Earth, our laws should not place us as so. Our laws must respect natural laws. 

We are reversing the tide

By adopting the rights of nature, and in this case the ocean, into our governance systems, we become better stewards, ensuring that our activities do not violate the ocean’s rights to life, to health, to be free of pollution and to continue its vital cycles.