The demise of the Horse Chestnut tree – Armageddon or Scaremongering?

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Conkers under threat… The trees could be wiped out in 15 years… FOREIGN invaders could see the end of British conker trees which are facing extinction… Conkers under threat as vicious European bug spreads across the nation…Diseased horse chestnut trees must be cut down to save others…

These are just a few of the alarm-raising headlines that have appeared in the popular press over the last few years. Yes, there are arboreal problems. While many of the horse chestnut trees are being weakened by various pests/pathogens – leaf mining moth, Guignardia leaf blotch, wood rotting fungi and horse chestnut scale insect  – only the rapidly-spreading bleeding canker, a bacterial disease caused by the Gram negative Pseudomonas syringae pv  aesculi, can kill outright when it infects trees.

In 2007 thousands of horse chestnut trees surveyed across Britain exhibited symptoms of bleeding canker: bleeding, gummy liquid oozing from cracks in the bark located on the main stem and branches, dead vascular tissue under the outer bark, dieback of young shoots and larger branches, leaf discolouration, and premature leaf drop sometimes leading to tree death.

Now considered to be widespread across Britain, bleeding canker is having a major impact on both urban and rural landscapes. Unfortunately, at present little can be done to prevent a tree from becoming infected and there is no known cure for the disease which has already infected over 50 per cent of the horse chestnuts in Britain. Does this mean we should be panicking, felling all affected trees and bracing ourselves for life in a landscape with no horse chestnuts?

Instead of taking all the piercing, high-pitched headlines seriously, it might now be time to carefully listen to some of the experts, the scientists and caretakers who are on the frontline of bleeding canker research and horse chestnut preservation and hear what they think.

Listen to the experts

Stephen Woodward, a Professor at the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen and Editor-in-Chief of Forest Pathology, says, “I get rather worried by stupid headlines like these. This is not a battle between foreign and native, between good and evil. The horse chestnut is just as much a foreigner as the bacteria. And neither one of them is good or evil.”

As Woodward points out, contrary to widespread opinion, the deciduous broadleaved horse chestnut – now a familiar feature in many British settings – is not even a native of the British landscape. It is, in fact, an alien. Indigenous to Greece and the central Balkan Peninsula, it is believed to have been introduced into Western Europe from Turkey around 1576.  Eventually reaching England in the late 16th or 17th century (and there is some debate about the date), it was planted almost exclusively for its ornamental value and rapidly became naturalized.

While classified as threatened or likely to be extinct across most of its native range, outside its native range it seems to be doing better – quite a bit better. The National Woodland Inventory of Woodland Trees estimates there are 470,000 horse chestnut trees in Great Britain with most of them found in non-woodland sites.

Fortunately, these numbers do not scream ‘immediate annihilation’ or ‘instant destruction’.  In reality, many, if not most, of the horse chestnuts in Britain are probably not even accounted for in any national tree census, since they are commonly planted or self-sown and flourishing along streets and grand avenues, in parks, public and private gardens, golf courses and hedges. 

Removing affected trees could be counter-productive

For the many horse chestnuts still standing, it is now necessary to find a cure for bleeding canker. Woodward’s primary interests lie in how host trees respond to infection, with a view to finding provenances and individual genotypes that may be less susceptible to pathogens and could be used in the repopulation of some of our forests and woodlands. He observes that “since some trees will almost certainly survive and possibly help us figure out how to solve the problem, removing affected trees can be unnecessary and counter-productive in some cases.

“Each case should be considered in isolation: How is the tree responding to the infection? Is the tree vigorous? Is it a threat? Could this tree be used for further research? What will it hit if it fell? If we want to solve this problem, we have to look at this from a scientific standpoint and not from a whipped-up-inaccurate-scare-mongering-scenario where trees could be felled willy-nilly.”

The general advice according to Joan Webber, the Principal Pathologist and Head of the Tree Health Research Group at Forest Research, is that “unless there is a pressing reason to remove trees affected with bleeding canker, they should be left in place and monitored and any severely diseased branches removed as necessary, particularly where they represent a health or safety risk.”

This is especially important since Webber and her colleagues have found that “it is not an immediate death sentence for a tree if it gets infected. There is no reason to panic just yet. While the disease is definitely spreading, some trees appear to recover from episodes of disease, and some never develop any symptoms at all despite being exposed to the pathogen.”

Sarah Green, a forest pathologist, who has studied the bacterium for seven years, suggests “removing an infected tree (in Britain) will not stop the disease from spreading as it is already fairly ubiquitous.” Furthermore, since Pseudomonas syringae pv. aesculi is able to survive independently for extended periods in soil and water, and can tolerate lengthy periods of freezing at very low temperatures, eliminating infected trees will not eliminate the disease vector.

There may be a natural resistence to the pathogen

Green and her colleagues believe that while many trees died when the bacterium first spread across the country, trees do appear to survive following infection, with varying levels of symptoms and, although this has never been fully studied, there may be a natural resistance to the pathogen already present in the horse chestnut population in Britain.

Essentially, like Webber and Woodward, Green’s advice is “to leave any living, infected tree that poses no public risk standing as there is a good chance the tree may survive for years displaying a certain level of symptoms but still with a generally full crown.”

Alan Cathersides, National Landscape Adviser at the conservation body Historic England, also agrees with Webber and says, “to make sure the horse chestnut is part of our future, the possibility of propagating disease-resistant varieties of horse chestnuts must be studied.”

Cathersides estimates that 90% of the registered historic landscapes in Britain contain horse chestnuts and while they are not an historic part of the ancient woodlands, according to Cathersides, “if the horse chestnuts disappear it would be a tragedy for historic designed landscaped areas.” 

In fact, so worried were Historic England (previously English Heritage) that they contributed towards a Forest Research project to study the possibility of propagating disease-resistant varieties of horse chestnuts. 

Cathersides continues, “In order to do this, of course, it is necessary that large-scale felling of all infected trees not be undertaken and that any decision to fell any tree is only taken after the detail of the site and level of infection is fully understood and appropriate consultation has been undertaken.

“The potential benefits of any trees not infected or better able to withstand infections should be considered since they could be the very key to saving the horse chestnut from decimation. Except for obviously dangerously sick trees it is more important to spend time and money on getting a fuller understanding of the pathogen with the hope of finding a way to reduce/stop its spread or control it than to cut down every tree which displays the first signs of disease.”

We need long-term scientific studies of the problem

 Robert Jackson, a Professor of Molecular Microbiology at the University of Reading and a senior editor at Molecular Plant Pathology, echoes these views. Jackson, who is working to search for ways to kill the bacteria – possibly using a phage or virus to destroy it, says “one of the main stumbling blocks to finding a solution to the horse chestnut problem is that long-term scientific studies are needed and that takes funding and, unfortunately, very few grants are given to tree research for long-term studies.”

Looking at the newspaper headlines and listening to the experts it would seem that two very different scenarios are being painted here.

So who should we listen to?

Whilst everyone seems to agree that some horse chestnuts are obviously being decimated by and dying from bleeding canker disease, it is not an automatic and immediate death sentence for all horse chestnut trees since there are signs that some infected trees appear to be surviving for many years or even recovering after being attacked.

Furthermore, ridding the landscape of affected trees and not using them for valuable research could very well be counterproductive if we want to find a cure for bleeding canker disease. In addition, time and money might be better spent on necessary research rather than on eliminating non-dangerously affected trees.

Quite simply, horse chestnut Armageddon is not looming on the horizon as some headlines and an assortment of popular news articles would have us believe. And fortunately for us, this gloriously beautiful valuable tree – an alien that has given much to the British landscape – is not headed for immediate extinction, just as long as we follow the expert’s advice.

This Author

Dawn Starin is an anthropologist. Her articles have appeared in both peer-reviewed journals and in popular publications as varied as Al Jazeera, the Ecologist, The Humanist, New Internationalist, New Statesman, The New York Times, Philosophy Now, and Scientific American amongst others.

 

 

 

 

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WITNESS: Marine biology at the top of the world

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The Arctic can be a strangely calm place. Standing on deck on a research ship off the coast of Svalbard, the sea is flat like glass. Dark, mist-covered mountains mark the horizon. I watch as a grey-coloured fulmar gull skims past us, its belly reflected in the water. These elegant birds have been our constant companions, hunting for scraps in our wake.

I’m a guest of Knut Sunnanå, chief scientist aboard the Helmer Hansen, a research trawler in the far northern Barents Sea. I’ve come to see how the Norwegians are managing fishing in the face of some huge changes brought about by climate change. The melting Arctic has opened-up new fishing grounds for Norwegian trawlers. As the cod migrate north, so can the boats.

Norway has some of the world’s best fisheries management. It’s something that helped the Norwegian cod and haddock fisheries win Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification as sustainable and well-managed fisheries. In fact, in MSC assessments, Norway is consistently the highest scoring nation for its management. Standing on the Helmer Hanssen, it’s easy to see why.

The ship is a 63m converted prawn trawler, part laboratory and part university. There’s even a tiny lecture theatre built into the cramped accommodation deck. The crew is a mixture of fishermen, PhD and Master’s students. Each has a different role in finding out about Svalbard’s delicate, changing ecosystems and the fish that rely on them.

We are conducting an ocean transect: a series of short mid-water and bottom trawls using small, modified trawl nets, at set points around the Svalbard archipelago. Below decks in the first of three labs, students sort the tiny catch. A dozen large fish are followed by a few dozen smaller ones and a selection of rocks, hermit crabs and starfish. A strange collection of tiny dark ‘blobs’ brings interest and for the first time the students fail to identify a species. “It’s clearly alive,” says Sunnanå, “either a creature or collection of creatures”. It’s carefully preserved and recorded for identification back on land and there’s palpable excitement at finding a species none of them yet know.

A deck above, an even smaller trawl is taking place. “Plankton scientists will tell you their subject isn’t sexy like whales and sharks, but it’s the most important,” says Sunnanå. “Arctic food webs are small, the relationships between species are tight, and plankton underpins everything. You can draw a line with each change having clear consequences for the species that eat it, further up the food chain.”

In the plankton sample brought aboard we see sea-angels, beautiful inch-long, semi-transparent creatures that swim up to the glass with wing-like fins.

They’re followed by the CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth), a strange device originally developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. It looks more suited to a Mars mission than a mission to the bottom of the sea. My guide points at the screen as the CTD drops 193 metres, to hover a few metres off the seabed. As it sinks, it samples the water, testing salinity, temperature, pH and CO2. These last two are important for our beautiful zooplankton. Too acidic or too much CO2 and these creatures will be in trouble. Sometimes the front line in climate change is tiny, delicate and surprisingly beautiful. 

By testing ocean salinity and temperature Sunnanå’s team can also see where the water came from. In this area more often than not, that means the Atlantic. The Gulf Stream used to flow to the west of Svalbard at a rate of 11.5 million tonnes of water every second, but the Arctic is changing. Now the stream splits, running to the east and bathing Svalbard with warm Atlantic waters.

“We’re also seeing mackerel for the first time around Svalbard…” says Sunnanå “…and the return of blue shell mussels – a species that hasn’t grown here for 2,000 years.” And with the warm water come plankton.

The Atlantic plankton moving northwards with the warm water have far less fat than their northern cousins. Three times less. And these diet plankton are a real problem for the seabirds like the fulmars I was admiring earlier from the deck. Low fat plankton means smaller birds and chicks maturing later. In short, fulmars are in trouble.

The water’s plankton content is also hugely important for Sunnanå. For him, it provides a measure of the changes happening as well as an indication of how strong the cod stocks will be.

“We are mostly concerned with the fact things are changing and can change very quickly. Although we have a long-term trend that is quite clear, the big changes also take place in just a few years. And on some occasions, there can be a substantial lack of food in the system, probably due to some mismatch during the spring time… or predators.”

And there’s the irony. Those predators eating Sunnanå’s Atlantic plankton include Atlantic cod, increasingly found further and further north. While the warming seas and Atlantic plankton spell trouble for fulmars, they’re great news for the Atlantic cod. These fish, beloved by Brits for our fish and chips, are thriving in the Barents Sea with 80cm to metre-long specimens now commonplace.

Good fisheries management is often about having a system to monitor changes and adapt to them quickly to protect stocks, ecosystems and livelihoods. With the rapid, and increasing pace of change in this part of the Arctic, it’s of some comfort to see that Norway’s science is still driving its decisions.

This Author

James Simpson works for the Marine Stewardship Council in the UK

WITNESS is our new Blog series, which invites contributors to explore the ecological and social impact of issues currently on their radar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Development Threat to Welsh National Parks

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In late March, the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff was forced to postpone a debate on opening up National Parks to developers thanks to a show of strength from Plaid Cymru… plus people power.

Campaigners from Save Our Rivers, the Snowdonia Society and the Betws Anglers* got wind that a key document forming the basis of discussion had been unavailable to the public and petitioned Plaid Cymru, which demanded the postponement.

There is a shift occurring in the stewardship of the UK’s National Parks; a move towards legislating for greater freedom to plunder the Parks’ natural resources for financial gain; conservation of natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage taking a back seat.

The postponed Welsh debate ‘Review of National Parks and AONBs’ could result in stripping National Parks of key conservation safeguards, the Sandford and Silkin Principles.

In 1974, Lord Sandford a National Park committee chair talked of… “where irreconcilable conflicts exist between conservation and public enjoyment, then conservation interest should take priority”

In 1949, another pillar of National Park status was promulgated by Lewis Silkin Minister of Town and Country Planning: “Major developments should not take place in these designated areas, except in exceptional circumstances,” with developments assessed by need, including national considerations, and the impact on local economy; the cost and scope for developing elsewhere; and any detrimental effect on the environment, and extent to which that could be moderated.

The contested and unpublished report which could steamroll these protections is the Future Landscapes Wales (FLW) programme, established by Carl Sargeant (former Labour Minister for Natural Resources) in response to the ‘Review of Designated Landscapes in Wales’ led by Professor Terry Marsden.

The Marsden Report (2015) was detailed with close to 70 recommendations based on evidence gathered through public consultation. These recommendations didn’t chime with Labour policy objectives. However, rather than responding to them, Carl Sargeant AM, convened the FLW process ‘to take forward the spirit of the recommendations in a collaborative process’.

The subsequent Future Landscapes Wales report – led by Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, who has made no secret of his antipathy to National Parks as a designation in Wales – caused a commotion when it was leaked in April because of the dearth of discussion on any conservation purposes of National Parks.

The report talks of a new purpose for National Parks and AONBs (Areas of Natural Beauty) to enable the natural resources of these areas ‘to be managed in ways which create enhanced social wellbeing and economic prosperity for all who live in, use or enjoy these special areas’.

Missing is any safeguard for natural beauty and biodiversity, with the clear risk that both may be either diluted or trashed. Equally the report offers no commitment to the role of National Park Authorities as planning authorities manage sustainability.

Labour currently holds 29 of the 60 Assembly seats, so passing the recommendations of the report is highly likely unless campaigners can lobby successfully for amendments to the FLW report, inclusion of the Sandford Principle chief among them, before its final publication.

They fear that otherwise the land faces exploitation: of major free flowing rivers for example. Over the last five years feed-in tariffs (renewable energy production subsidies) have driven a surge of new ‘run-of-river’ hydropower developments in Snowdonia.

The vast majority involve building new concrete weirs across otherwise pristine rivers, then diverting 50%-100% of the water down a plastic pipeline.  At the bottom of the run the water goes through a turbine and back into the river. This leaves long sections of river depleted of the natural flow ‒ commonly a kilometre or more.

In general the schemes fail the Silkin Principle as they are trivial in terms of generating useful quantities of energy.  Two hundred and fifty run-of-river hydro projects have been permitted by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) over the last five years with a combined capacity at 15MW ‒ equivalent to just two of the latest generation offshore wind turbines such as the 8MW units at the Burbo Bank wind farm extension. 

When NRW inspected hydro schemes in Snowdonia in 2015 it found that more than 15% were deliberately abstracting more water than they were permitted, taking too much at critical times over the summer. 

According to the Snowdonia Society, schemes near Llanberis broke multiple conditions of their planning permission, trashing the river corridor with machinery, felling mature trees without permission and causing a major pollution incident as large quantities of silt were washed out into fragile designated SSSI ecosystems.  

The energy company RWE is at the forefront of more recent applications and the appointment of Jeremy Smith, Welsh Development Manager at RWE, to the Future Landscapes Wales working group has proved both controversial and troubling.

The recent applications are within designated sites either SSSIs or SACs (Special Areas of Conservation) which campaign groups are finding increasingly unacceptable.

Dan Yates of Save Our Rivers told the Ecologist: “This is something we feel extremely strongly about. This has all happened quite quickly, we assumed that the report would be published in full and there would be a period in which Assembly Members and the public would be able to read and discuss its contents. It all stinks of something being rushed through under the radar.”

John Harold, Director Snowdonia Society, agreed that the situation was parlous, but was upbeat: “We hope the FLW report will now be redrafted to re-confirm conservation as the primary purpose of National Parks. Based on the response from Assembly Members so far we are confident that sense will prevail.  

“We’re sure Assembly Members will embrace National Parks as the crown jewels of Wales. Vast numbers of people ‒ both locals and visitors ‒ rely on access to high-quality landscapes for their physical and mental wellbeing and many make their living from outdoor activities in National Parks and AONBs.”

This is the Snowdonia Society’s clear focus in their 50th year of working to protect and enhance Snowdonia. It is one of the leading groups calling for the conservation purpose of National Parks in Wales to be ring-fenced so that rather than being just a name badge, useful for marketing purposes, National Parks actually offer practical protection for the special qualities for which they were originally designated. 

UK National Parks have Category V classification according to the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Protected Landscapes system.  That category translates as a commitment to conservation purposes. 

 

*The main groups fighting to save the National Parks’ integrity are the AFNP Cymru (Alliance for National Parks Wales) consisting of  Brecon Beacons National Park Society, the Friends of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, the Snowdonia Society, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, BMC Wales and the National Association for AONBs in Wales. Several other groups are involved.

 

This Author

Jan Goodey is a regular contributor to the Ecologist

 

 

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Corbyn’s green vision wins: leaked manifesto promises huge environmental gains

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At first sight it looks too good to be true. Labour’s leaked manifesto could almost have been written by environmental campaigners and promises a far greener Britain than that we currently inhabit.

And if you compare it to the Britian that the Conservative Party has planned for us if it wins the election, with EU environmental regulations and the twin nature directives stripped away, and even the Climate Change Act under threat, Labour’s vision of the UK’s future just looks all the brighter and greener.

Of course it’s not quite that simple. Among the very positive green promises lurk several less welcome items such as a commitment to expanding aviation provision, controversial port expansion, and support for expensive, locally unpopular high speed rail projects including HS2.

It’s regrettable that there is no clear promise to drop new nuclear power stations. But the commitment to “support further nuclear projects” looks deliberately vague and leaves lots of wriggle-room. There are plenty of decommissioning projects coming up which will need government support, or maybe projects to make isotopes for medical use, or scientific research.

Taken in the round, the vision is overwhelmingly positive and has to earn at least nine out of ten. The biggest problem: so far it’s only a draft. Items may still be dropped or watered down in the final version. And the commitments made are so numerous that there may not be time to put them all into effect in a single term of office.

Certainly Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters will be delighted to see that his inspiring environmental vision has won out – so far at any rate – against his detractors, matching previous promises made in The Ecologist.

From here on quotes excerpted from the manifesto are presented in plain type with no further comment.

Sustainable energy

The first missions set by a Labour Government will be to ensure that 60% of the UK’s energy comes from low or renewable sources by 2030. …

Labour’s energy policy is built on three simple principles: take energy back into public ownership to deliver renewable energy, affordability for consumers, and democratic control.

The new public system will include three key elements:

  • Central government control of the natural monopolies of the transmission and distribution grids, and of responsibility for the policy and information functions of the regulator.
  • At least one publicly owned energy company in every region of the UK, that is a locally run, democratically accountable energy supplier, working to tackle fuel poverty, return profits to customers via reduced tariffs, support community energy projects and have drive larger energy companies to lower their prices in the area.
  • A new Local Energy Task Force will provide help and advice for local people and businesses to start up Community Energy Cooperatives.


Energy efficiency in 4 million homes

Labour will insulate four million homes as an infrastructure priority to help those who suffer in cold homes each winter. This will cut emissions, drive growth, improve health, increase energy security, save on bills and reduce fuel poverty and excess winter deaths.

Homeowners will be offered 0% loans to improve their property, and we will introduce revenue neutral stamp duty incentives to encourage a good energy efficiency standard at the point of sale.

For renters, Labour will improve upon Landlord Energy Efficiency regulations and re-establish the Landlord Energy Saving Allowance to encourage the uptake of efficiency measures.

A Labour government will legislate to enforce the highest modern standards for ‘zero carbon’ buildings that generate as much energy on site as they use in heating, hot water and lighting. The technology is there.

Fracking ban, no promise of new nuclear

Labour will ban fracking. To allow fracking would lock us into an energy infrastructure based on fossil fuels, long after the point in 2030 when the Committee on Climate Change says gas in the UK must sharply decline.

Emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage will help to smooth the transition to cleaner fuels and will help to protect existing jobs as part of the future energy mix.

The UK is the world’s oldest nuclear industry, and nuclear will continue to be part of the UK energy supply. We will support further nuclear projects and protect nuclear workers’ jobs and pensions. There are considerable opportunities for nuclear power and decommissioning both internationally and domestically.

  • To ensure security of energy supply and ‘keep the lights on’
  • To ensure energy costs are affordable for consumers and businesses
  • To ensure we meet our climate change targets and transition to a low carbon economy

The UK energy system is outdated, expensive and polluting. Privatisation has failed to deliver an energy system that delivers for people, businesses or our environment.

One-in-ten households are in fuel poverty, yet according to the Competition Markets Authority customers are overcharged an enormous £2 billion every year. Labour understands that many people don’t have time to shop around, they just want reliable and affordable energy.

So the next Labour Government will introduce an immediate emergency price cap to ensure that the average duel fuel household energy bill remains below £1,000 per year, while we transition to a fairer system for bill payers.

Climate change

Tackling climate change is non-negotiable, yet recent years have seen a failure to progress towards our targets. A Labour Government will put us back on track to meet the targets in the Climate Change Act and the Paris Agreement.

Building a clean economy of the future is the most important thing we must do for our children, our grandchildren and future generations.

The low carbon economy is one of the UK’s fastest growing sectors, creating jobs and providing investment across each region. It employed an estimated 447,000 employees in the UK in 2015 and saw over £77 billion in turnover. With backing from a Labour government these sectors can secure dominant shares of global export markets.

Corporate governance – a duty of environmental care

At present directors owe a duty to promote the company for the benefit of the shareholders, and must only have regard to employees, suppliers, the environment etc.

Labour proposes to amend the Companies Act 2006 so that directors owe a duty directly to these groups and will consult on who the duty will be owed to. We want long-term growth and stability not short-term profits.

The next Labour government will use the leverage of the £200 billion national and local government spends in the private sector to upgrade our economy, create good local jobs and reduce inequality. This will include requiring best practice from firms government does business with on:

  • paying tax
  • workers’ rights
  • equal opportunities
  • environmental protection
  • training and apprenticeships
  • paying suppliers on time; and
  • boardroom excess, by moving to a 20:1 limit on the gap between the lowest and highest paid for government contract.


Brexit – EU environmental laws will be safe in our hands!

Currently the UK buys and sells energy tariff free from Europe, an arrangement which saves families and businesses money and helps balance the power grid.

As part of the Brexit negotiations Labour will prioritise maintaining access to the internal energy market and will retain access to Euratom, to allow continued trade of fissile material, access to and collaboration over research vital to our nuclear industry.

We will drop the Conservatives’ Great Repeal Bill, replacing it with an EU Rights and Protections Bill that will ensure there is no detrimental change to workers’ rights, equality law, consumer rights or environmental protections as a result of Brexit.

Throughout the Brexit process, we will make sure that all EU-derived laws – including workplace laws, consumer rights and environmental protections – are fully protected without qualifications, limitations or sunset clauses.

We will work with trade unions, businesses and stakeholders to ensure there is a consensus on this vital issue. A Labour approach to Brexit will ensure there can be no rolling back of key rights and protections and that the UK does not lag behind Europe in workplace protections and environmental standards in future.

The EU has had a huge impact in securing workplace protections and environmental safeguards. But we all know that for many Brexiteers in the Tory Party, this was why they wanted to Leave – to tear up regulations and weaken hard-fought rights and protections.

A Labour Government will never consider these rights a burden or accept the weakening of workers’ rights, consumer rights or environmental protections.

Housing and planning

We will prioritise brownfield sites, and protect the green belt. We will start work on a new generation of New Towns to build the homes we need and avoid urban sprawl.

Labour will extend the provision of legal aid entitlement to judicial review. A Labour government will consult on establishing an environmental tribunal.

It is through the planning system that communities can shape the kinds of high streets, homes and amenities that they want. But under the Conservatives, planning has been ender-resourced and disempowered, with democratic planning authorities unable to stand up to big developers.

As a result, planning decisions have become too influenced by narrow economic considerations, with developers’ profit taking precedence over community priorities.

A Labour government will properly resource and bolster planning authorities with fuller powers to put people and communities at the heart of planning. We will update compulsory purchase powers to make them more effective as a tool to drive regeneration and unlock planned development.

Food and farming

The Conservatives have failed to provide a clear, ambitious or sustainable vision for the future of the farming, food and fishing industries.

We will expand the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure suppliers and consumers get a fair deal

We will reconfigure funds for farming and fishing to support smaller traders, local economies, community benefits and sustainable practices

Labour will invest in a modern, integrated, accessible transport system that is reliable and affordable. …

Transport – big upgades to a publicly owned railway

A different system is possible. A Labour government will prioritise public service over private profit. And we will start by bringing our railways back into public ownership, as franchises expire. A Labour government will introduce a Public Ownership of the Railways Bill to repeal the Railways Act 1993 under which the Conservatives privatised our railways. …

A publicly owned railway system can be the backbone of our plans for integrated transport. It will be built on the platform of Network Rail, already in public ownership, and consider establishing a new public rolling stock company.

A Labour government will complete the HS2 high speed rail line from London through Birmingham to Leeds and Manchester, and then into Scotland, consulting with communities affected about the optimal route. …

A Labour government will link HS2 with other new investments, such as Crossrail of the North. To harness the economic potential of new technologies and science we will complete the Science Vale transport arc, from Oxford to Cambridge through Milton Keynes.

To prepare for global new trade arrangements, we will study the feasibility of port development in Southampton and Avonmouth as well as Liverpool, Hull and Immingham.

In London, to ensure our capital continues to prosper, we will build Crossrail 2 and devolve responsibilities for running the commuter train lines to the Transport for London authority.

We will invest in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, too, working with devolved administrations through the National Infrastructure Commission.

Our plans for will encourage and enable people to get out of their cars, for better health and a cleaner environment.

Across the country we will enable the creation of municipal bus companies, publicly run for passengers not profit.

We will introduce regulations to designate and protect routes of critical community value, including those that serve local schools hospitals and isolated settlements in rural areas.

We will better regulate the licensed taxi and private carriage hire sectors in the knowledge that new technologies, consumer service and public safety all require the competitive playing field between these sectors to be levelled.

Upgrading cycleways – but also roads, ports, airports

We will invite the National Infrastructure Commission to recommend the next stages for developing and upgrading the National Cycle Network.

We will continue to upgrade our highways and improve road works at known bottlenecks. The A1 North, the Severn Bridge and the A30 provide essential connections and require our urgent consideration.

We will refocus the roads building and maintenance programmes on road safety, connecting our communities, feeding public transport hubs and realising untapped economic potential.

Our rail freight programme on a publicly owned railway will leave our roads freer and our air cleaner.

Labour supports the expansion of aviation capacity and we will continue to support the work of the Airports Commission.

Environmental protection

Investing in our environment is investing in our future. We will defend and extend existing environmental protections.

We will champion sustainable farming, food and fishing by investing in and promoting skills, technology, market access and innovation.

The Conservatives broke their promise to be the ‘greenest government ever’. They have allowed fracking in national parks, evaded their responsibilities on air quality, and cut the funding for flood defences. The future of our farming, food and fishing industries hangs in the balance, to be used as negotiating leverage in Brexit negotiations.

Only a Labour government will prioritise a sustainable, long term future for our farming, fishing and food industries, invest in rural and coastal communities and guarantee the protection and advancement of environmental standards.

The Conservatives threatened bonfire of red tape, as part of Brexit, is a threat to our environmental protections and to the quality of our lives. Their record on combating climate change and environmental damage has been one of inaction and broken promises.

The balance needs resetting: our air is killing us, our farms face an uncertain future, our fish stocks are collapsing, our oceans are used as dumping grounds, our forests, Green Belt, National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest are all under threat.

Labour will introduce a new Clean Air Act to deal with the Tory legacy of illegal air quality.

We will establish Blue Belts in the seas and oceans surrounding our island.

We will set guiding targets for plastic bottle deposit schemes, working with food manufacturers and retailers to reduce waste.

We will protect our bees by prohibiting neonicotinoids.

We will work with farmers and foresters to plant a million trees of native species to promote biodiversity and better flood management.

Unlike the Conservatives who attempted to privatise them, Labour will keep our forests in public hands.

Animal welfare

Animals in our food chain need protection. Domestic animals require stronger protection from cruelty. Wild animals need a sustainable ecosystem.

Our stewardship of the environment needs to be founded on sound principle and based on scientific assessment.

Labour’s vision is for the UK to lead the world with high animal welfare standards in the wild, in farming and with domestic animals.

We will cease the badger cull which spreads Bovine TB.

We will use reconfigured funding streams to promote cruelty free animal husbandry and consult on ways to ensure better enforcement of agreed standards.

We will prohibit the third party sale of puppies, introduce a total ban on ivory trading, and support the ban on wild animals in circuses.

Labour banned fox hunting, Theresa May opposed it. Only a Labour government will maintain the ban.

Democratic and constitutional reform

As we change our constitutional relationship with Europe we must also adjust our own arrangements. Just as many felt that power was too centralised and unaccountable in Brussels, so many feel that about Westminster.

A Labour government will establish a constitutional convention to examine and advise reform of the way Britain works at a fundamental level.

We will consult on its form and terms of reference but our aim is clear: we will invite recommendations to check the privileges of the elite and give power back to the people.

This is about where power and sovereignty lies – in politics, the economy, the justice system, and in our communities.

Labour will establish a Constitutional Convention to take forward the debate about a new constitutional settlement for the entire UK, with England as much as a priority as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Convention will look at extending democracy locally, regionally and nationally.

Our fundamental belief is that the second chamber should be democratically elected. In the interim period we will seek to end the hereditary principle and reduce the size of the current House of Lords as part of a wider package of constitutional reform to address the growing democratic deficit across Britain.

Multilateral nuclear disarmament

Labour supports the renewal of the Trident submarine system. But any prime minister should be extremely cautious about ordering the use of weapons of mass destruction which would result in the indiscriminate killing of millions of innocent civilians.

As a nuclear armed power, our country has a responsibility to fulfil our international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Labour will lead multilateral efforts with international partners and the UN to create a nuclear free world.

International development

We fully support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed by the international community as a global agenda for poverty eradication and environmental protection. Labour will develop a cross-government strategy for ensuring the SDGs are implemented, and report annually to Parliament on our performance.

Jobs in global supply chains can be of enormous importance to working people across the Global South, but human rights abuses and exploitation of lower environmental standards and workers’ rights is too common.

Labour is committed to ensuring respect for human rights, workers’ rights and environmental sustainability in the operations of British businesses around the world, and we will work to tighten the rules governing corporate accountability for abuses in global supply chains. 

 

 

Oliver Tickell is contributing editor at The Ecologist.

Read the full leaked draft mainfesto here.

 

404016

The Conflicting Interests of Climate Negotiations: Who’s really running the show?

Leave a reply

From the 8th to the 18th of May 2017 the former German capital city of Bonn is the scene of an international climate conference, organised by the UNFCCC – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This so-called inter-session will prepare for the upcoming COP23 in November, which will also take place in Bonn and will be presided over by Fiji.

An important preliminary session for the upcoming COP23 this  climate conference addresses the more pragmatic issues of implementing the historic Paris agreement of 2015 that saw for the first time in history all 195 participating countries recognising the existence of climate change and agreeing to mitigate environmentally unsustainable practices in order to combat it.

However, since the COP 22 in 2016 in Marrakesh, Morocco, several environmental agencies and other non-party stakeholders have been raising questions on the involvement of corporate businesses and the fossil fuel industry in climate negotiations, both in national policies and during international conferences.

In the lead-up to the Bonn conference, the international think-tank Corporate Accountability International (CAI) released a report on the involvement of more than 250 Business and Industry Non-Governmental Organizations (BINGOs) that are currently admitted to the climate talks. Many of these BINGOs represent corporations that have consistently used their presence at the UNFCCC to weaken policy rather than strengthen it.

Fossil fuel lobbyists are in the same rooms as the delegates  

The World Coal Association, for example, is aggressively promoting a coal-centred agenda and lobbying in the very rooms where delegates discuss policy options to avert climate disaster.

Other lobby groups at the UNFCCC meetings include The Business Council of Australia (representing companies like BHP Billiton, BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and RioTinto) which has opposed the Australian carbon tax and has denounced curbing global warming as ‘unrealistic’.

The European group FuelsZero is also present (consisting of BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and Lukoil, a.o.) and has publicly stated that: “The EU has already done enough” regarding to climate change mitigation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also been actively undermining the Clean Power Plan in the U.S., with use of its strong links to Exonn Mobill, Chevron, and Peabody Energy, among others.

CAI’s report unfolds a long list of parties with mixed interests and recommends two main steps for governments and the UNFCCC to rebalance their climate policies: firstly, to determine a clear and universal definition of what it means to have a conflict-of-interest – distinction between the common good and private interest is an often blurred line. Secondly, the CAI urges governments to create a stringent, transparent process for admission into climate negotiations, to make sure that those allowed to participate are motivated by public rather than private interests.

The culmination of the report and mounting doubt during past climate summits has led to what Tomasz Chruszczow, the Chairman of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation at the UNFCCC, labelled a “small revolution, setting the precedent for a monument of transparency and openness in the climate negotiations”, specifically: the first-ever UNFCCC session on conflicts of interest within climate negotiations.

The first session of this kind took place this week on Tuesday the 9th of May, with one of the panellists (rather ironically) being  Norine Kennedy, representative of a U.S. BINGO.

The heated climate debates currently taking place in Bonn are setting a precedent for a more open and transparent methodology for future climate actions. However, these changes have also brought to light the seriousness of conflicting interests within the hundreds of lobby groups rooted in the fossil fuel industry.

 “We don’t have any standards yet to prove how the implementation of the Paris agreement should be done, and who should be doing it, therefore we need a track-record of parties with mixed interests,” stated the Climate Justice Network in Bonn this week.

 Pascoe Sabido from the Corporate Europe Observatory added: “We have a huge crisis ahead of us, and need to transfer our energy system to a more renewable and sustainable system. This means huge ambition, ambition we’re not seeing now. Those responsible for this crisis, namely oil and gas companies, are not allowing us to move forward and we have to realise that.”

“Those polluting should not be writing the environmental policies.”

Among the few countries that disagree with the investigation on conflict-of-interest, Norway and Australia spoke up. “It would be contra-productive to keep certain parties out of the negotiations,” said the Norway delegate. The Australian delegation believes that “In transitioning the global economy, it is not the government money that will get us where we need to go, so business needs to be involved.” Curiously, both countries still largely depend on the fossil fuel industry for their economies, with Norway relying heavily on its oil reserves while Australia is one of the largest coal exporters in the world.

A precedent for dealing with conflict of interest

The demands for more transparency during international negotiations are not a new occurrence, rather they have a very successful precedent in the global tobacco treaty of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The treaty’s key provision, Article 5.3, and the guidelines for its implementation help to protect against classic industry interference tactics from the tobacco industry during negotiations. The treaty makes sure that partnerships, financial relationships, revolving door cases, and industry participation are excluded in the policymaking process. This way, the treaty is effectively keeping the tobacco industry lobby groups out of the negotiations.

These provisions have been recognized by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan as the single largest catalyst of progress in a treaty that could save 200 million lives by 2050 when fully implemented.

“It is not impossible to ban the polluters of policy,” stated the WHO delegate during the conflict-of-interest talks in Bonn.

The meetings in Bonn are also the first – and possibly also the last – climate negotiations for the Trump administration whose State Department is now led by former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Speaking of conflicting of interests…

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a regular contributor to the Ecologist. He is a tropical biologist who has previously worked in Australia, Costa Rica, Austria and Belgium and is currently studying the processes that drive biodiversity in the Black Forest in Germany. Arthur writes articles on sustainable development, forest ecology, conservation biology and climate change and together with a group of young biologists he founded LonelyCreatures  – an organisation that highlights the plight of endangered species across Europe

*This article was also published by opendemocracy.org

 

404014

Mexico’s expiring oil and Trump’s wall: the future is solar

Leave a reply

What do you do if you are running out of oil, and your neighbour’s President, who has plenty of oil, seems to hate you?

The answer is that you develop a renewable-powered economy as fast as you can.

That Mexico’s proved oil reserves have declined by more than a third since 2013 is very bad news for the Mexican economy. The country will run dry in less than nine years if there are no new discoveries.

Better news is that going renewable fast, including in transport where most oil is used, is eminently feasible in the current world. A great global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy is under way, much faster than most people think.

As a consequence, those choosing to stay addicted to fossil fuels, even if they have a lot of them, are heading for trouble. This is because they are entering a time where much oil, gas and coal will end up un-needed, whether they like it or not.

An economy going renewable fast like the one I advocate for Mexico can show a fossil-mired economy – like the one President Trump hopes for – where the future lies. Mexico can match Trump’s ignorance with inspiration.

An example: Mexico could build its own wall, made of solar panels. Such a wall, 6 metres high along the full length of the border, would generate well over 2 gigawatts of electricity. It would be a glittering money-maker, making a mockery of Trump’s uneconomic coal mines and the fading debt factories that are his shale gas and shale oil regions.

Renewables outpacing fossil fuels across the world

Trump fears Mexican migrants, though they contribute so much to his economy. If he and his tribe stay in power and get their carbonaceous way, Mexico would be welcoming skilled American migrants, attracted to its clean-energy industries as America’s shrivel.

A Mexico going renewable fast would be far from alone. Middle East oil producers are intent on the same. Dubai wants all roofs solar by 2030. Abu Dhabi intends to be exporting no more oil within fifty years.

City governments worldwide see what is coming. More than a thousand target 100% renewable power, some like Canberra as soon as 2020. So do more than 80 of the biggest global corporations, in Google’s case as soon as 2017.

New global renewable power generation capacity exceeded new fossil fuel capacity for the second year running in 2016. This is because solar and wind are cheaper than any other form of generation in many markets already, sometimes by a wide margin.

Plunging battery and electric vehicle costs ensure this megatrend will spread, displacing fossil fuels not just in the electricity sector but in transport.

Going with the smart money …

Investors increasingly understand what is coming, and are beginning to move their money accordingly.

Some big energy companies are seeing the writing on the wall. Much of the utility industry has already embarked on 180 degree U-turns in business model, switching from fossil-fuel supply to decentralised renewables.

The oil and gas industry, clocking up trillions in debt in dogged pursuit of their status quo, cannot be far behind. Even at $50 oil, the oil majors can’t cover their costs. Some say American shale will help save them. But of the three main oil-producing shale belts, production has already peaked in two against industry expectations.

Meanwhile, the clean energy technologies race ahead, surprising even their most ardent supporters – like me – with the speed of their cost reductions. Some Silicon Valley gurus now expect that by 2030 all new energy will be solar and wind, and all new vehicles will be electric.

What we are witnessing is a total system change. It has happened before, in not much more than a decade, when the horseless carriage replaced the horse-drawn carriage.

And this system change is capable in principle of changing the face of civilisation: much for the better. Renewables have so many social advantages over fossil fuels, from the bottom of the energy ladder to the top.

Mexico can be a pace-setting leader in this global transition. In fact, it has no choice. 

 

 

Dr Jeremy Leggett is a British green-energy entrepreneur, author and advocate who is founding director of Solarcentury, one of the most respected international solar companies; founder and Chairman of SolarAid, a charity set up with 5% of Solarcentury’s annual profits; and Chairman of CarbonTracker, a financial sector think-tank warning of carbon fuel asset-stranding risk to the capital markets.

This article was originally published on on Energiahoy, with some editing from the Spanish.

 

404013

Brazil: Amazon’s Indians, rainforest under attack

Leave a reply

A recent violent attack on a group of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest of northern Brazil is seen by environmentalists as a symptom of a new climate of hostility towards such groups, fuelled by conservative congressmen’s attempts to undermine land rights.

As indigenous reserves, which occupy 23% of the greater Amazon region, are spaces where most of the rainforest is still intact, this represents a growing threat to the forest’s future – and therefore could impact on climate change.

The attack, by farmers armed with guns, knives and machetes in the northern state of Maranhão left up to 13 Gamela Indians in hospital with bullet and knife wounds.

The Gamela, who number about 1,200 people, have been occupying cattle farms established on what they claim is their traditional land. In the disputed areas, forest has been cleared and replaced with cattle pasture.

Rainforest preservation

The attack is part of a disturbing trend in Brazil that indirectly threatens the preservation of large areas of the Amazon rainforest.

Satellite maps produced by ISA, an environmental NGO, clearly show the relation between indigenous areas and the preservation of the forest. The Indians preserve the forest because they need its natural resources.

A 2014 study by Imazon, another Brazilian NGO, showed that in the Amazon region indigenous reserves accounted for under 2% of deforestation, while privately-owned areas accounted for 59%. Even in government-run conservation areas it was 27%, because of the frequency of illegal invasions by loggers and farmers.

But by October 2016, satellite images from INPE, the Brazil Space Research Institute, that is responsible for monitoring the Amazon region, showed that deforestation in indigenous reserves had almost tripled, mainly due to illegal logging and invasions. INPE detected an overall increase of almost 30% in deforestation for the region.

A study carried out in 2015 by IPAM, an NGO set up after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to produce scientific knowledge about the Amazon  – found that the indigenous areas, estimated to contain 13 billion tonnes of carbon, will have avoided 431 million tonnes of carbon emissions between 2006 and 2020.

In addition to their role in absorbing carbon and their low rates of deforestation, indigenous areas have a healthy effect on their surrounding areas, according to IPAM researcher Paulo Moutinho. He says: “Forests maintained by the Indians function like natural air conditioning and as climate regulators of the region they are in.”

Yet in spite of the obvious advantages of respecting indigenous areas, not just for their inhabitants but for the whole of Brazil and for the global climate, government and politicians seem more interested in clearing the forest for agricultural and mining projects.

Sonia Guajajara, a co-ordinator at the Network of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil (APIB), says: “Although the whole world is discussing the reduction of deforestation to contain global warming, and Brazil has presented targets for reducing illegal deforestation, we are not even managing to do this. It is very worrying.”

She blames the relaxation of environmental laws, the advance of agribusiness, the building of dams that lead to deforestation of large surrounding areas, and the government’s development policies, as well as an increase in illegal logging in the reserves.

Reducing land rights

In order to free more land for cattle ranchers and soy producers, the powerful landowners’ lobby, which now dominates both the congress and the government, has tabled 189 bills aimed at reducing the land rights and autonomy of indigenous and other traditional communities. Other proposed bills will also relax environmental legislation.

A parliamentary committee of inquiry dominated by the rural lobby has also accused anthropologists and missionaries who work with indigenous groups of being in the pay of foreign interests, and has proposed that Brazil’s Indian affairs agency, Funai, should be closed down.

A peaceful demonstration by more than 3,000 indigenous people from all over Brazil in front of the congress building in Brasilia on 24 April was met with teargas and rubber bullets, and the demonstrators were prevented from entering the Senate to take part in a public hearing.

Funai’s budget has been cut by 44% as part of the government’s austerity programme.

The Minister of Justice, who is responsible for Funai, is reported to have held over 100 meetings with farmers and producers, but none with representatives of Brazil`s indigenous people, who number about 900,000 out of a total population of just over 200 million. The 252 groups speak over 150 languages.

The Amazon contains not only the largest indigenous community, the 50,000 strong Ticuna, but also small groups of ‘isolated’ Indians, who still shun contact with the outside world.

One of Funai’s tasks is to protect these groups from the advance of loggers and miners, but the cuts have led it to close most of its forward posts in the region, leaving up to 5,000 isolated Indians on Brazil’s border with Peru at the mercy of invaders.

 

 

Jan Rocha is a freelance journalist living in Brazil and is a former correspondent there for the BBC World Service and The Guardian. She now writes for Climate News Network where this article was originally published (CC BY-ND).

 

404000

The Conflicting Interests of Climate Negotiations: Who’s really running the show?

Leave a reply

From the 8th to the 18th of May 2017 the former German capital city of Bonn is the scene of an international climate conference, organised by the UNFCCC – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This so-called inter-session will prepare for the upcoming COP23 in November, which will also take place in Bonn and will be presided over by Fiji.

An important preliminary session for the upcoming COP23 this  climate conference addresses the more pragmatic issues of implementing the historic Paris agreement of 2015 that saw for the first time in history all 195 participating countries recognising the existence of climate change and agreeing to mitigate environmentally unsustainable practices in order to combat it.

However, since the COP 22 in 2016 in Marrakesh, Morocco, several environmental agencies and other non-party stakeholders have been raising questions on the involvement of corporate businesses and the fossil fuel industry in climate negotiations, both in national policies and during international conferences.

In the lead-up to the Bonn conference, the international think-tank Corporate Accountability International (CAI) released a report on the involvement of more than 250 Business and Industry Non-Governmental Organizations (BINGOs) that are currently admitted to the climate talks. Many of these BINGOs represent corporations that have consistently used their presence at the UNFCCC to weaken policy rather than strengthen it.

Fossil fuel lobbyists are in the same rooms as the delegates  

The World Coal Association, for example, is aggressively promoting a coal-centred agenda and lobbying in the very rooms where delegates discuss policy options to avert climate disaster.

Other lobby groups at the UNFCCC meetings include The Business Council of Australia (representing companies like BHP Billiton, BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and RioTinto) which has opposed the Australian carbon tax and has denounced curbing global warming as ‘unrealistic’.

The European group FuelsZero is also present (consisting of BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and Lukoil, a.o.) and has publicly stated that: “The EU has already done enough” regarding to climate change mitigation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also been actively undermining the Clean Power Plan in the U.S., with use of its strong links to Exonn Mobill, Chevron, and Peabody Energy, among others.

CAI’s report unfolds a long list of parties with mixed interests and recommends two main steps for governments and the UNFCCC to rebalance their climate policies: firstly, to determine a clear and universal definition of what it means to have a conflict-of-interest – distinction between the common good and private interest is an often blurred line. Secondly, the CAI urges governments to create a stringent, transparent process for admission into climate negotiations, to make sure that those allowed to participate are motivated by public rather than private interests.

The culmination of the report and mounting doubt during past climate summits has led to what Tomasz Chruszczow, the Chairman of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation at the UNFCCC, labelled a “small revolution, setting the precedent for a monument of transparency and openness in the climate negotiations”, specifically: the first-ever UNFCCC session on conflicts of interest within climate negotiations.

The first session of this kind took place this week on Tuesday the 9th of May, with one of the panellists (rather ironically) being  Norine Kennedy, representative of a U.S. BINGO.

The heated climate debates currently taking place in Bonn are setting a precedent for a more open and transparent methodology for future climate actions. However, these changes have also brought to light the seriousness of conflicting interests within the hundreds of lobby groups rooted in the fossil fuel industry.

 “We don’t have any standards yet to prove how the implementation of the Paris agreement should be done, and who should be doing it, therefore we need a track-record of parties with mixed interests,” stated the Climate Justice Network in Bonn this week.

 Pascoe Sabido from the Corporate Europe Observatory added: “We have a huge crisis ahead of us, and need to transfer our energy system to a more renewable and sustainable system. This means huge ambition, ambition we’re not seeing now. Those responsible for this crisis, namely oil and gas companies, are not allowing us to move forward and we have to realise that.”

“Those polluting should not be writing the environmental policies.”

Among the few countries that disagree with the investigation on conflict-of-interest, Norway and Australia spoke up. “It would be contra-productive to keep certain parties out of the negotiations,” said the Norway delegate. The Australian delegation believes that “In transitioning the global economy, it is not the government money that will get us where we need to go, so business needs to be involved.” Curiously, both countries still largely depend on the fossil fuel industry for their economies, with Norway relying heavily on its oil reserves while Australia is one of the largest coal exporters in the world.

A precedent for dealing with conflict of interest

The demands for more transparency during international negotiations are not a new occurrence, rather they have a very successful precedent in the global tobacco treaty of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The treaty’s key provision, Article 5.3, and the guidelines for its implementation help to protect against classic industry interference tactics from the tobacco industry during negotiations. The treaty makes sure that partnerships, financial relationships, revolving door cases, and industry participation are excluded in the policymaking process. This way, the treaty is effectively keeping the tobacco industry lobby groups out of the negotiations.

These provisions have been recognized by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan as the single largest catalyst of progress in a treaty that could save 200 million lives by 2050 when fully implemented.

“It is not impossible to ban the polluters of policy,” stated the WHO delegate during the conflict-of-interest talks in Bonn.

The meetings in Bonn are also the first – and possibly also the last – climate negotiations for the Trump administration whose State Department is now led by former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Speaking of conflicting of interests…

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a regular contributor to the Ecologist. He is a tropical biologist who has previously worked in Australia, Costa Rica, Austria and Belgium and is currently studying the processes that drive biodiversity in the Black Forest in Germany. Arthur writes articles on sustainable development, forest ecology, conservation biology and climate change and together with a group of young biologists he founded LonelyCreatures  – an organisation that highlights the plight of endangered species across Europe

 

404014

Mexico’s expiring oil and Trump’s wall: the future is solar

Leave a reply

What do you do if you are running out of oil, and your neighbour’s President, who has plenty of oil, seems to hate you?

The answer is that you develop a renewable-powered economy as fast as you can.

That Mexico’s proved oil reserves have declined by more than a third since 2013 is very bad news for the Mexican economy. The country will run dry in less than nine years if there are no new discoveries.

Better news is that going renewable fast, including in transport where most oil is used, is eminently feasible in the current world. A great global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy is under way, much faster than most people think.

As a consequence, those choosing to stay addicted to fossil fuels, even if they have a lot of them, are heading for trouble. This is because they are entering a time where much oil, gas and coal will end up un-needed, whether they like it or not.

An economy going renewable fast like the one I advocate for Mexico can show a fossil-mired economy – like the one President Trump hopes for – where the future lies. Mexico can match Trump’s ignorance with inspiration.

An example: Mexico could build its own wall, made of solar panels. Such a wall, 6 metres high along the full length of the border, would generate well over 2 gigawatts of electricity. It would be a glittering money-maker, making a mockery of Trump’s uneconomic coal mines and the fading debt factories that are his shale gas and shale oil regions.

Renewables outpacing fossil fuels across the world

Trump fears Mexican migrants, though they contribute so much to his economy. If he and his tribe stay in power and get their carbonaceous way, Mexico would be welcoming skilled American migrants, attracted to its clean-energy industries as America’s shrivel.

A Mexico going renewable fast would be far from alone. Middle East oil producers are intent on the same. Dubai wants all roofs solar by 2030. Abu Dhabi intends to be exporting no more oil within fifty years.

City governments worldwide see what is coming. More than a thousand target 100% renewable power, some like Canberra as soon as 2020. So do more than 80 of the biggest global corporations, in Google’s case as soon as 2017.

New global renewable power generation capacity exceeded new fossil fuel capacity for the second year running in 2016. This is because solar and wind are cheaper than any other form of generation in many markets already, sometimes by a wide margin.

Plunging battery and electric vehicle costs ensure this megatrend will spread, displacing fossil fuels not just in the electricity sector but in transport.

Going with the smart money …

Investors increasingly understand what is coming, and are beginning to move their money accordingly.

Some big energy companies are seeing the writing on the wall. Much of the utility industry has already embarked on 180 degree U-turns in business model, switching from fossil-fuel supply to decentralised renewables.

The oil and gas industry, clocking up trillions in debt in dogged pursuit of their status quo, cannot be far behind. Even at $50 oil, the oil majors can’t cover their costs. Some say American shale will help save them. But of the three main oil-producing shale belts, production has already peaked in two against industry expectations.

Meanwhile, the clean energy technologies race ahead, surprising even their most ardent supporters – like me – with the speed of their cost reductions. Some Silicon Valley gurus now expect that by 2030 all new energy will be solar and wind, and all new vehicles will be electric.

What we are witnessing is a total system change. It has happened before, in not much more than a decade, when the horseless carriage replaced the horse-drawn carriage.

And this system change is capable in principle of changing the face of civilisation: much for the better. Renewables have so many social advantages over fossil fuels, from the bottom of the energy ladder to the top.

Mexico can be a pace-setting leader in this global transition. In fact, it has no choice. 

 

 

Dr Jeremy Leggett is a British green-energy entrepreneur, author and advocate who is founding director of Solarcentury, one of the most respected international solar companies; founder and Chairman of SolarAid, a charity set up with 5% of Solarcentury’s annual profits; and Chairman of CarbonTracker, a financial sector think-tank warning of carbon fuel asset-stranding risk to the capital markets.

This article was originally published on on Energiahoy, with some editing from the Spanish.

 

404013

Brazil: Amazon’s Indians, rainforest under attack

Leave a reply

A recent violent attack on a group of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest of northern Brazil is seen by environmentalists as a symptom of a new climate of hostility towards such groups, fuelled by conservative congressmen’s attempts to undermine land rights.

As indigenous reserves, which occupy 23% of the greater Amazon region, are spaces where most of the rainforest is still intact, this represents a growing threat to the forest’s future – and therefore could impact on climate change.

The attack, by farmers armed with guns, knives and machetes in the northern state of Maranhão left up to 13 Gamela Indians in hospital with bullet and knife wounds.

The Gamela, who number about 1,200 people, have been occupying cattle farms established on what they claim is their traditional land. In the disputed areas, forest has been cleared and replaced with cattle pasture.

Rainforest preservation

The attack is part of a disturbing trend in Brazil that indirectly threatens the preservation of large areas of the Amazon rainforest.

Satellite maps produced by ISA, an environmental NGO, clearly show the relation between indigenous areas and the preservation of the forest. The Indians preserve the forest because they need its natural resources.

A 2014 study by Imazon, another Brazilian NGO, showed that in the Amazon region indigenous reserves accounted for under 2% of deforestation, while privately-owned areas accounted for 59%. Even in government-run conservation areas it was 27%, because of the frequency of illegal invasions by loggers and farmers.

But by October 2016, satellite images from INPE, the Brazil Space Research Institute, that is responsible for monitoring the Amazon region, showed that deforestation in indigenous reserves had almost tripled, mainly due to illegal logging and invasions. INPE detected an overall increase of almost 30% in deforestation for the region.

A study carried out in 2015 by IPAM, an NGO set up after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to produce scientific knowledge about the Amazon  – found that the indigenous areas, estimated to contain 13 billion tonnes of carbon, will have avoided 431 million tonnes of carbon emissions between 2006 and 2020.

In addition to their role in absorbing carbon and their low rates of deforestation, indigenous areas have a healthy effect on their surrounding areas, according to IPAM researcher Paulo Moutinho. He says: “Forests maintained by the Indians function like natural air conditioning and as climate regulators of the region they are in.”

Yet in spite of the obvious advantages of respecting indigenous areas, not just for their inhabitants but for the whole of Brazil and for the global climate, government and politicians seem more interested in clearing the forest for agricultural and mining projects.

Sonia Guajajara, a co-ordinator at the Network of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil (APIB), says: “Although the whole world is discussing the reduction of deforestation to contain global warming, and Brazil has presented targets for reducing illegal deforestation, we are not even managing to do this. It is very worrying.”

She blames the relaxation of environmental laws, the advance of agribusiness, the building of dams that lead to deforestation of large surrounding areas, and the government’s development policies, as well as an increase in illegal logging in the reserves.

Reducing land rights

In order to free more land for cattle ranchers and soy producers, the powerful landowners’ lobby, which now dominates both the congress and the government, has tabled 189 bills aimed at reducing the land rights and autonomy of indigenous and other traditional communities. Other proposed bills will also relax environmental legislation.

A parliamentary committee of inquiry dominated by the rural lobby has also accused anthropologists and missionaries who work with indigenous groups of being in the pay of foreign interests, and has proposed that Brazil’s Indian affairs agency, Funai, should be closed down.

A peaceful demonstration by more than 3,000 indigenous people from all over Brazil in front of the congress building in Brasilia on 24 April was met with teargas and rubber bullets, and the demonstrators were prevented from entering the Senate to take part in a public hearing.

Funai’s budget has been cut by 44% as part of the government’s austerity programme.

The Minister of Justice, who is responsible for Funai, is reported to have held over 100 meetings with farmers and producers, but none with representatives of Brazil`s indigenous people, who number about 900,000 out of a total population of just over 200 million. The 252 groups speak over 150 languages.

The Amazon contains not only the largest indigenous community, the 50,000 strong Ticuna, but also small groups of ‘isolated’ Indians, who still shun contact with the outside world.

One of Funai’s tasks is to protect these groups from the advance of loggers and miners, but the cuts have led it to close most of its forward posts in the region, leaving up to 5,000 isolated Indians on Brazil’s border with Peru at the mercy of invaders.

 

 

Jan Rocha is a freelance journalist living in Brazil and is a former correspondent there for the BBC World Service and The Guardian. She now writes for Climate News Network where this article was originally published (CC BY-ND).

 

404000