Today, MEPs will vote on Green proposals to introduce a new EU-wide independent and neutral surveillance body in response to the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal. The plan has already been passed by the Environment Committee on which I sit.

The proposed ‘EU market surveillance agency’ would have the power to test vehicle emissions in the laboratory as well as monitoring them under real driving conditions, and publish its findings, making sure any breaches of the rules are brought into the open.

They wouldn’t be in charge of fines or punishments – that power would remain with the European Commission – but having an independent and transparent agency would make sure that problems are spotted and force EU governments and the Commission to take swift and decisive action.

The scandal implicated most major car manufacturers in a concerted, deliberate and criminal effort to commit emissions fraud.

Manufacturers employed so-called ‘defeat devices’ to trick laboratory tests into thinking their cars produced much lower levels of nitrogen oxide emissions.

Nitrogen oxides react in the atmosphere to form nitrogen dioxide; an air pollutant that is toxic to human health.

The Dieselgate inquiry committee’s report into the scandal is clear that both member states and the EU Commission are guilty of maladministration and are not sufficiently impartial to avoid a similar scandal happening again. It is obviously not enough, in that case, to merely ask our national governments and the Commission to do better next time.

European citizens have twice been the victim of Dieselgate; through their exposure to toxic fumes and the complete contempt for their consumer rights.

An independent agency ensures that the law, which is unambiguous in its prohibition of ‘defeat devices’ and its requirement that emission limits be met on the road as well as in the laboratory, is properly enforced and doesn’t bend to commercial pressures.

Dieselgate was a problem of too little Europe – not too much!

The greatest opposition we face is from Tory MEPs

The UK Conservative MEPs are the biggest opponents of not just the creation of an independent oversight body but of the Dieselgate report itself, which excoriates their friends in the car industry. The inquiry’s Tory rapporteur even tried to water down its findings.

But we should not be surprised by this. In fact, taken with the UK Government’s promise of a bonfire of regulations, Tory opposition to these safeguarding measures offer an alarming insight into what kind of (lack of) protections the British public can expect outside of the EU.

Despite publishing some of the details of the so-called Great Repeal Bill, the legislation intended to transfer EU laws onto the UK statute books post-Brexit, the Government has failed to commit to maintaining vital EU air quality laws.

Indeed speaking to House of Commons environment committee in January, Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom indicated that about a third of the EU’s 800 laws on the environment might be too difficult to transpose.

The failure to commit to keeping air quality laws is symptomatic of a disturbing indifference to an air pollution crisis responsible for the preventable deaths of equivalent to 50,000 people in Britain every year.

Even if Theresa May did, finally, commit to the EU clean air directives then, post-Brexit, the cynical amongst us would draw your attention to the complete absence of any body to enforce the regulations – regulations that the government is only being forced to acknowledge now thanks to EU oversight.

The UK Government’s repeated air pollution failures

Earlier this year, the European Commission was forced to send a final warning to the UK for failing to address repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas including, London, Birmingham and my constituency of the South East.

The notice was served only months after environmental lawyers ClientEarth won its second court case against the government for its failure to set out a credible plan to deal with illegal air pollution across the UK.

It couldn’t be clearer that Conservative politicians left to their own devices will, at best, ignore the air quality crisis and, at worst, advocate on behalf of those responsible for worsening it rather than its victims – the very British citizens it claims to be standing up for.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying a deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year, is a cautionary glimpse of what we might expect from a Conservative Party free of the auspices of the EU.

Inside the EU, the Tories can be held accountable for their failures

As a member of the European Union, Theresa May’s administration is being held to account for failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU air quality laws the UK itself helped to set. The bare minimum.

Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs. The government even readily acknowledges that it is EU law that has been the main driver of any positive air quality action in the UK.

The Prime Minister’s plan, as much as one exists, for an extreme Brexit puts all these safeguards at risk. Should they be maintained via the Great Repeal Bill, Theresa May plans to invoke the ancient, arbitrary powers of Britain’s most infamous an despotic Tudor monarch, Henry VIII, which would give her the ability to later repeal them later at her whim without parliamentary scrutiny.

It seems Britain is faced with three likely extreme Brexit air pollution scenarios, under which the Tory government:

• omits air quality laws from the Great Repeal Bill;
• includes air quality laws in the Great Repeal Bill but (lacking the oversight of the European Court of Justice and the Commission) they remain unenforced; or
• includes air quality laws in the Great Repeal Bill, but later repeal them without scrutiny.

Time for a new Clean Air Act!

The other question is what happens in the EU after Brexit. There the news may be somewhat better. The UK has repeatedly sought to block and undermine European environmental legislation.

With our government and right-wing MEPs out of the picture, it’s all the more likely that EU air quality laws will be strengthened and enforced. It’s just too bad that UK citizens may no longer be in a position to benefit.

That’s why I’m fighting for Britain to maintain the closest possible relationship with our European Neighbours via membership of the Single Market so that we might maintain these vital safeguards.

I’m also calling on Theresa May to enshrine in UK law a new Clean Air Act that to ensure strong, effective protection of our citizens’ health from air pollution.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

The fourth largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto, claims to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and positions its QMM mine in Southeast Madagascar as a model for the industry. But is this story all it seems?

Extracting ilmenite from 6,000 hectares of mineral rich sands along unique littoral forests, QMM claims it has rehabilitated over 1000 hectares, provided jobs, initiated new livelihoods, and has promised a net positive biodiversity impact (NPI) for the region. In 2009 its highly promoted environmental conservation programme earned the company a green accolade.

However, this story is somewhat dissonant from the accounts of local communities and international activists who have challenged the company’s claims and commitments around social and environmental benefits and sustainable development.

For example, see this account of a Villager in Antsoto: “We are really suffering now because we had to stop cultivating on the hills. We moved our cultivation into the dunes, but it’s so sandy there that growing anything is difficult. Plus they took our land and did not even compensate us. They said they would, but they never did.”

Sinking arc?

Environmental compliance of Rio Tinto’s QMM mine in Madagascar looks increasingly shaky. So much so, the independent Biodiversity Committee to QMM resigned in October last year, claiming the current position of Rio Tinto “produced an untenable level of reputational risk” to its members.

The committee was set up in 2003 to provide guidance on the QMM Biodiversity Action Plan. It counts international experts, including representatives from Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International, Conservation International, Kew and Missouri Botanical Gardens, amongst its advisers.

These individuals state in their resignation letter to Rio Tinto that they are now deeply uncomfortable with “the fact that mention of the environment is totally absent from the five stated corporate priorities of Rio Tinto.” Moreover they express a “lack of confidence that adequate long-term resourcing and capacity will be provided for the biodiversity program at QMM.”

They are not alone in questioning the company’s real environmental and social commitments [1]. Over the last few years, researchers have challenged both QMM’s claims of net positive biodiversity impact and a flawed Offsetting programme.

Failed compensation stories have been shared by local people since the first displacement of villagers, and concerns have also been raised about the infringement of mining boundaries [2] and encroachment into buffer zones and waterways.

Crossing the line

The breaching of boundaries is of particular concern. An 80 metre legal boundary is set by national law [3] in Madagascar to create a buffer zone for environmentally sensitive areas, for example to protect waterways.

Google Earth images demonstrate that where QMM is operating its Mandena site, the company has breached the legal limits of this ‘buffer’ and introduced an artificially extended landmass where forest and lake were originally situated.

It is unclear if this infringement has occurred to increase access to the mineral deposit or to correct a miscalculation. 2016 images suggest the extended land mass has enabled the mine to dredge close to the original waterline of the lake.

The extension of the mining operations into the 80 metre buffer zone raises a number of questions, not least how national laws were ignored or renegotiated.

Also, whether the new man made buffer is robust enough to protect the water table, which is particularly fragile due to seasonal flooding; whether dredging close to the original waterline has unseen impacts e.g., if toxic waste in tailings, a by product of the extraction process is now more likely to leach into the lake and water system where local people fish.

The glow of whiter than white

Ilmenite is a mineral extracted to create titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an industrial whitener used in everything from paint to toothpaste. In country research by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology), reports that 23 million tonnes of heavy metal concentrate (HMC) are processed by QMM to deliver approx. 750,000 tonnes of ilmenite annually, over a projected 40-year operation.

The presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and thorium, occurs naturally in the mineral sands in Madagascar. In the rich ilmenite deposit that QMM is dredging, Zircon and Monazite are present as by-products in the extraction process.

Both Zircon and Monazite contain radionuclides and together concentrate up the uranium-238 and thorium-232 content, thereby increasing the NORM. For example, when Monazite is separated from ilmenite it contains between 5-7% thorium (Th232) and between 0.1-0.3% Uranium (U238).

The high quantity of mineral sands being exploited in the QMM operation further increases the NORM and gamma dose rate in the vicinity of mining operations. The elevated levels of NORM may therefore increase the emission of radiation and are cause for concern.

The INSTN report estimates the highest hourly whole body dose of gamma-radiation to workers exposed to the various intermediate and final products is 23.56 microsieverts per hour. In which case, assuming a 40-hour working week, a worker would exceed the annual dose limit in the UK of 20 millisieverts (msv) in around 1,000 hours or 25 weeks.

More importantly thorium is an alpha emitter so inhaled dust may be a significant radiological hazard, which has not been dealt with in the INSTN’s paper.

The INSTN study also fails to consider adequately all the significant radiation exposure pathways that are typically associated with mineral sands mining operations. In particular whether QMM’s monitoring and management methods are effective in tackling and closing down these pathways.

For example, Thorium is a principle radioactive component of Monazite, and can leach from tailings into water bodies and farmlands. Such NORM-bearing leachate can be taken up by fish, making them radioactively contaminated, and affect the public who buy and eat the fish from local markets. The waterways adjacent to the QMM mine are used for fishing and also feed into the nearest town, Tolagnaro, to provide drinking water.

The full rehabilitation of the mine site and tailings is a further concern. Long-term presence of thorium residue in tailings can take thousands of years to disperse and present a low-level radiation hazard. The sandy soil of the southeast coastline makes the area hard to restore.

As the QMM mine is slow to rehabilitate its dredging pathways, and its environmental commitments now appear to be under question, this aspect of rehabilitation also presents an important aspect of enquiry.

Same old story

Currently heading the Chambres des Mines, a national body coordinating the interests of extractives in Madagascar, Rio Tinto would be expected to set a good example and demonstrate industry standards, not least to secure Madagascar’s membership to the EITA.

In this, it is reasonable to demand the company accounts for how and why QMM has renegotiated or flouted national laws in extending their mining operations into the environmental buffer zone, and how it is managing the mine’s radioactivity risks.

However, QMM’s track record on communications and building trust with the local community has been notoriously poor and the local Antanosy people have complained and publicly protested about QMM’s failed CSR promises, like Ilay, from Ambinanimbe:

“Since people felt betrayed they no longer trust anything QMM says or wants to implement … People are sad about the whole situation but they feel powerless …”

Continued stories of abuse, such as the buffer zone infringement and communities carrying the costs of QMM’s Biodiversity Offsetting, suggest lessons have still not been learnt. Such failures do not substantiate QMM’s social licence to operate or bring Rio Tinto any closer to delivering the ‘model mine’ it wants to write into the history books.

No oversight, no recourse

The recent resignation of the Biodiversity Committee, just three years after the dissolution of QMM’s Independent Advisory Panel (IAP), will deepen concerns over the lack of oversight of QMM operations. Indeed, if Madagascar is to protect its people and unique biodiversity from the ‘resource curse’ it requires more robust monitoring of the extractives sector, both nationally and internationally.

With a Government still largely in disarray following almost five years of political crisis (2009-2014), local institutions lack the capacity and wherewithal for monitoring and regulating foreign extractives projects. A weak civil society and insufficient consultation around the country’s new mining code has disenfranchised communities who live under an increasing threat of land grabs, as described by one Public Officer in Andasibe:

“It seems clear to me that people no longer have the right to secure their land. Why is it so easy for big companies to obtain the right to use the land, while people who live in these areas do not have possibilities to secure their rights?”

Inadequate legal frameworks to protect citizens’ rights, and allegations of corruption on other environmental issues, such as illegal rosewood trafficking, suggest the administration is failing Malagasy citizens. In this context, local people have little recourse when powerful, international corporations fail in their obligations and negatively affect their livelihoods and health.

Scripting alternative narratives

This year the UN Human Rights rapporteur to Madagascar has appealed to the Malagasy Government to address these failings; most particularly that revisions to the Mining Code meet human rights standards.

He calls on Madagascar to become a fully compliant member of the EITA, with “citizen access to courts to ensure that environmental laws are being enforced”, and requiring that citizens are not criminalised or otherwise prevented “in the exercise of “their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

He particularly calls on businesses and other organisations that work in in Madagascar to “respect communities’ rights of information, participation and remedy.” If the Malagasy Government and corporations such as Rio Tinto can adopt these recommendations there may yet be some hope of protecting local people and their environment.

This story is far from over. Whatever happens, foreign companies like Rio Tinto operating in Madagascar need to talk less about their tales of success, and listen more to the realities experienced by local communities. And they must be answerable for the damage they cause.

Malagasy citizens need support in righting wrongs, and in writing a more sustainable and fairer narrative for the island’s future.

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications practitioner and a Director of the Andrew Lees Trust a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in Madagascar in 1994. She lived and worked in the South of Madagascar for over six years, developing the Trust’s social and environmental programmes and has followed the evolution of Rio Tinto’s QMM project for over 20 years.

Public event: The Andrew Lees Trust is co-organising an event on April 8th 2017 at Friends of The Earth in London to debate questions and challenges around Biodiversity Offsetting, with testimony from Malagasy community representatives. For more information see here.

References

1. Seagle, C., 2012.Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (2), pp. 447-477.

2. ‘Je veux mon part de terre’, Film by En Quete Productions, Fred Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle

3. Malagasy National Law on Buffer Zones: Arrêté interministériel nº4355/97.

The fourth largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto, claims to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and positions its QMM mine in Southeast Madagascar as a model for the industry. But is this story all it seems?

Extracting ilmenite from 6,000 hectares of mineral rich sands along unique littoral forests, QMM claims it has rehabilitated over 1000 hectares, provided jobs, initiated new livelihoods, and has promised a net positive biodiversity impact (NPI) for the region. In 2009 its highly promoted environmental conservation programme earned the company a green accolade.

However, this story is somewhat dissonant from the accounts of local communities and international activists who have challenged the company’s claims and commitments around social and environmental benefits and sustainable development.

For example, see this account of a Villager in Antsoto: “We are really suffering now because we had to stop cultivating on the hills. We moved our cultivation into the dunes, but it’s so sandy there that growing anything is difficult. Plus they took our land and did not even compensate us. They said they would, but they never did.”

Sinking arc?

Environmental compliance of Rio Tinto’s QMM mine in Madagascar looks increasingly shaky. So much so, the independent Biodiversity Committee to QMM resigned in October last year, claiming the current position of Rio Tinto “produced an untenable level of reputational risk” to its members.

The committee was set up in 2003 to provide guidance on the QMM Biodiversity Action Plan. It counts international experts, including representatives from Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International, Conservation International, Kew and Missouri Botanical Gardens, amongst its advisers.

These individuals state in their resignation letter to Rio Tinto that they are now deeply uncomfortable with “the fact that mention of the environment is totally absent from the five stated corporate priorities of Rio Tinto.” Moreover they express a “lack of confidence that adequate long-term resourcing and capacity will be provided for the biodiversity program at QMM.”

They are not alone in questioning the company’s real environmental and social commitments [1]. Over the last few years, researchers have challenged both QMM’s claims of net positive biodiversity impact and a flawed Offsetting programme.

Failed compensation stories have been shared by local people since the first displacement of villagers, and concerns have also been raised about the infringement of mining boundaries [2] and encroachment into buffer zones and waterways.

Crossing the line

The breaching of boundaries is of particular concern. An 80 metre legal boundary is set by national law [3] in Madagascar to create a buffer zone for environmentally sensitive areas, for example to protect waterways.

Google Earth images demonstrate that where QMM is operating its Mandena site, the company has breached the legal limits of this ‘buffer’ and introduced an artificially extended landmass where forest and lake were originally situated.

It is unclear if this infringement has occurred to increase access to the mineral deposit or to correct a miscalculation. 2016 images suggest the extended land mass has enabled the mine to dredge close to the original waterline of the lake.

The extension of the mining operations into the 80 metre buffer zone raises a number of questions, not least how national laws were ignored or renegotiated.

Also, whether the new man made buffer is robust enough to protect the water table, which is particularly fragile due to seasonal flooding; whether dredging close to the original waterline has unseen impacts e.g., if toxic waste in tailings, a by product of the extraction process is now more likely to leach into the lake and water system where local people fish.

The glow of whiter than white

Ilmenite is a mineral extracted to create titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an industrial whitener used in everything from paint to toothpaste. In country research by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology), reports that 23 million tonnes of heavy metal concentrate (HMC) are processed by QMM to deliver approx. 750,000 tonnes of ilmenite annually, over a projected 40-year operation.

The presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and thorium, occurs naturally in the mineral sands in Madagascar. In the rich ilmenite deposit that QMM is dredging, Zircon and Monazite are present as by-products in the extraction process.

Both Zircon and Monazite contain radionuclides and together concentrate up the uranium-238 and thorium-232 content, thereby increasing the NORM. For example, when Monazite is separated from ilmenite it contains between 5-7% thorium (Th232) and between 0.1-0.3% Uranium (U238).

The high quantity of mineral sands being exploited in the QMM operation further increases the NORM and gamma dose rate in the vicinity of mining operations. The elevated levels of NORM may therefore increase the emission of radiation and are cause for concern.

The INSTN report estimates the highest hourly whole body dose of gamma-radiation to workers exposed to the various intermediate and final products is 23.56 microsieverts per hour. In which case, assuming a 40-hour working week, a worker would exceed the annual dose limit in the UK of 20 millisieverts (msv) in around 1,000 hours or 25 weeks.

More importantly thorium is an alpha emitter so inhaled dust may be a significant radiological hazard, which has not been dealt with in the INSTN’s paper.

The INSTN study also fails to consider adequately all the significant radiation exposure pathways that are typically associated with mineral sands mining operations. In particular whether QMM’s monitoring and management methods are effective in tackling and closing down these pathways.

For example, Thorium is a principle radioactive component of Monazite, and can leach from tailings into water bodies and farmlands. Such NORM-bearing leachate can be taken up by fish, making them radioactively contaminated, and affect the public who buy and eat the fish from local markets. The waterways adjacent to the QMM mine are used for fishing and also feed into the nearest town, Tolagnaro, to provide drinking water.

The full rehabilitation of the mine site and tailings is a further concern. Long-term presence of thorium residue in tailings can take thousands of years to disperse and present a low-level radiation hazard. The sandy soil of the southeast coastline makes the area hard to restore.

As the QMM mine is slow to rehabilitate its dredging pathways, and its environmental commitments now appear to be under question, this aspect of rehabilitation also presents an important aspect of enquiry.

Same old story

Currently heading the Chambres des Mines, a national body coordinating the interests of extractives in Madagascar, Rio Tinto would be expected to set a good example and demonstrate industry standards, not least to secure Madagascar’s membership to the EITA.

In this, it is reasonable to demand the company accounts for how and why QMM has renegotiated or flouted national laws in extending their mining operations into the environmental buffer zone, and how it is managing the mine’s radioactivity risks.

However, QMM’s track record on communications and building trust with the local community has been notoriously poor and the local Antanosy people have complained and publicly protested about QMM’s failed CSR promises, like Ilay, from Ambinanimbe:

“Since people felt betrayed they no longer trust anything QMM says or wants to implement … People are sad about the whole situation but they feel powerless …”

Continued stories of abuse, such as the buffer zone infringement and communities carrying the costs of QMM’s Biodiversity Offsetting, suggest lessons have still not been learnt. Such failures do not substantiate QMM’s social licence to operate or bring Rio Tinto any closer to delivering the ‘model mine’ it wants to write into the history books.

No oversight, no recourse

The recent resignation of the Biodiversity Committee, just three years after the dissolution of QMM’s Independent Advisory Panel (IAP), will deepen concerns over the lack of oversight of QMM operations. Indeed, if Madagascar is to protect its people and unique biodiversity from the ‘resource curse’ it requires more robust monitoring of the extractives sector, both nationally and internationally.

With a Government still largely in disarray following almost five years of political crisis (2009-2014), local institutions lack the capacity and wherewithal for monitoring and regulating foreign extractives projects. A weak civil society and insufficient consultation around the country’s new mining code has disenfranchised communities who live under an increasing threat of land grabs, as described by one Public Officer in Andasibe:

“It seems clear to me that people no longer have the right to secure their land. Why is it so easy for big companies to obtain the right to use the land, while people who live in these areas do not have possibilities to secure their rights?”

Inadequate legal frameworks to protect citizens’ rights, and allegations of corruption on other environmental issues, such as illegal rosewood trafficking, suggest the administration is failing Malagasy citizens. In this context, local people have little recourse when powerful, international corporations fail in their obligations and negatively affect their livelihoods and health.

Scripting alternative narratives

This year the UN Human Rights rapporteur to Madagascar has appealed to the Malagasy Government to address these failings; most particularly that revisions to the Mining Code meet human rights standards.

He calls on Madagascar to become a fully compliant member of the EITA, with “citizen access to courts to ensure that environmental laws are being enforced”, and requiring that citizens are not criminalised or otherwise prevented “in the exercise of “their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

He particularly calls on businesses and other organisations that work in in Madagascar to “respect communities’ rights of information, participation and remedy.” If the Malagasy Government and corporations such as Rio Tinto can adopt these recommendations there may yet be some hope of protecting local people and their environment.

This story is far from over. Whatever happens, foreign companies like Rio Tinto operating in Madagascar need to talk less about their tales of success, and listen more to the realities experienced by local communities. And they must be answerable for the damage they cause.

Malagasy citizens need support in righting wrongs, and in writing a more sustainable and fairer narrative for the island’s future.

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications practitioner and a Director of the Andrew Lees Trust a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in Madagascar in 1994. She lived and worked in the South of Madagascar for over six years, developing the Trust’s social and environmental programmes and has followed the evolution of Rio Tinto’s QMM project for over 20 years.

Public event: The Andrew Lees Trust is co-organising an event on April 8th 2017 at Friends of The Earth in London to debate questions and challenges around Biodiversity Offsetting, with testimony from Malagasy community representatives. For more information see here.

References

1. Seagle, C., 2012.Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (2), pp. 447-477.

2. ‘Je veux mon part de terre’, Film by En Quete Productions, Fred Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle

3. Malagasy National Law on Buffer Zones: Arrêté interministériel nº4355/97.

The fourth largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto, claims to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and positions its QMM mine in Southeast Madagascar as a model for the industry. But is this story all it seems?

Extracting ilmenite from 6,000 hectares of mineral rich sands along unique littoral forests, QMM claims it has rehabilitated over 1000 hectares, provided jobs, initiated new livelihoods, and has promised a net positive biodiversity impact (NPI) for the region. In 2009 its highly promoted environmental conservation programme earned the company a green accolade.

However, this story is somewhat dissonant from the accounts of local communities and international activists who have challenged the company’s claims and commitments around social and environmental benefits and sustainable development.

For example, see this account of a Villager in Antsoto: “We are really suffering now because we had to stop cultivating on the hills. We moved our cultivation into the dunes, but it’s so sandy there that growing anything is difficult. Plus they took our land and did not even compensate us. They said they would, but they never did.”

Sinking arc?

Environmental compliance of Rio Tinto’s QMM mine in Madagascar looks increasingly shaky. So much so, the independent Biodiversity Committee to QMM resigned in October last year, claiming the current position of Rio Tinto “produced an untenable level of reputational risk” to its members.

The committee was set up in 2003 to provide guidance on the QMM Biodiversity Action Plan. It counts international experts, including representatives from Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International, Conservation International, Kew and Missouri Botanical Gardens, amongst its advisers.

These individuals state in their resignation letter to Rio Tinto that they are now deeply uncomfortable with “the fact that mention of the environment is totally absent from the five stated corporate priorities of Rio Tinto.” Moreover they express a “lack of confidence that adequate long-term resourcing and capacity will be provided for the biodiversity program at QMM.”

They are not alone in questioning the company’s real environmental and social commitments [1]. Over the last few years, researchers have challenged both QMM’s claims of net positive biodiversity impact and a flawed Offsetting programme.

Failed compensation stories have been shared by local people since the first displacement of villagers, and concerns have also been raised about the infringement of mining boundaries [2] and encroachment into buffer zones and waterways.

Crossing the line

The breaching of boundaries is of particular concern. An 80 metre legal boundary is set by national law [3] in Madagascar to create a buffer zone for environmentally sensitive areas, for example to protect waterways.

Google Earth images demonstrate that where QMM is operating its Mandena site, the company has breached the legal limits of this ‘buffer’ and introduced an artificially extended landmass where forest and lake were originally situated.

It is unclear if this infringement has occurred to increase access to the mineral deposit or to correct a miscalculation. 2016 images suggest the extended land mass has enabled the mine to dredge close to the original waterline of the lake.

The extension of the mining operations into the 80 metre buffer zone raises a number of questions, not least how national laws were ignored or renegotiated.

Also, whether the new man made buffer is robust enough to protect the water table, which is particularly fragile due to seasonal flooding; whether dredging close to the original waterline has unseen impacts e.g., if toxic waste in tailings, a by product of the extraction process is now more likely to leach into the lake and water system where local people fish.

The glow of whiter than white

Ilmenite is a mineral extracted to create titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an industrial whitener used in everything from paint to toothpaste. In country research by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology), reports that 23 million tonnes of heavy metal concentrate (HMC) are processed by QMM to deliver approx. 750,000 tonnes of ilmenite annually, over a projected 40-year operation.

The presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and thorium, occurs naturally in the mineral sands in Madagascar. In the rich ilmenite deposit that QMM is dredging, Zircon and Monazite are present as by-products in the extraction process.

Both Zircon and Monazite contain radionuclides and together concentrate up the uranium-238 and thorium-232 content, thereby increasing the NORM. For example, when Monazite is separated from ilmenite it contains between 5-7% thorium (Th232) and between 0.1-0.3% Uranium (U238).

The high quantity of mineral sands being exploited in the QMM operation further increases the NORM and gamma dose rate in the vicinity of mining operations. The elevated levels of NORM may therefore increase the emission of radiation and are cause for concern.

The INSTN report estimates the highest hourly whole body dose of gamma-radiation to workers exposed to the various intermediate and final products is 23.56 microsieverts per hour. In which case, assuming a 40-hour working week, a worker would exceed the annual dose limit in the UK of 20 millisieverts (msv) in around 1,000 hours or 25 weeks.

More importantly thorium is an alpha emitter so inhaled dust may be a significant radiological hazard, which has not been dealt with in the INSTN’s paper.

The INSTN study also fails to consider adequately all the significant radiation exposure pathways that are typically associated with mineral sands mining operations. In particular whether QMM’s monitoring and management methods are effective in tackling and closing down these pathways.

For example, Thorium is a principle radioactive component of Monazite, and can leach from tailings into water bodies and farmlands. Such NORM-bearing leachate can be taken up by fish, making them radioactively contaminated, and affect the public who buy and eat the fish from local markets. The waterways adjacent to the QMM mine are used for fishing and also feed into the nearest town, Tolagnaro, to provide drinking water.

The full rehabilitation of the mine site and tailings is a further concern. Long-term presence of thorium residue in tailings can take thousands of years to disperse and present a low-level radiation hazard. The sandy soil of the southeast coastline makes the area hard to restore.

As the QMM mine is slow to rehabilitate its dredging pathways, and its environmental commitments now appear to be under question, this aspect of rehabilitation also presents an important aspect of enquiry.

Same old story

Currently heading the Chambres des Mines, a national body coordinating the interests of extractives in Madagascar, Rio Tinto would be expected to set a good example and demonstrate industry standards, not least to secure Madagascar’s membership to the EITA.

In this, it is reasonable to demand the company accounts for how and why QMM has renegotiated or flouted national laws in extending their mining operations into the environmental buffer zone, and how it is managing the mine’s radioactivity risks.

However, QMM’s track record on communications and building trust with the local community has been notoriously poor and the local Antanosy people have complained and publicly protested about QMM’s failed CSR promises, like Ilay, from Ambinanimbe:

“Since people felt betrayed they no longer trust anything QMM says or wants to implement … People are sad about the whole situation but they feel powerless …”

Continued stories of abuse, such as the buffer zone infringement and communities carrying the costs of QMM’s Biodiversity Offsetting, suggest lessons have still not been learnt. Such failures do not substantiate QMM’s social licence to operate or bring Rio Tinto any closer to delivering the ‘model mine’ it wants to write into the history books.

No oversight, no recourse

The recent resignation of the Biodiversity Committee, just three years after the dissolution of QMM’s Independent Advisory Panel (IAP), will deepen concerns over the lack of oversight of QMM operations. Indeed, if Madagascar is to protect its people and unique biodiversity from the ‘resource curse’ it requires more robust monitoring of the extractives sector, both nationally and internationally.

With a Government still largely in disarray following almost five years of political crisis (2009-2014), local institutions lack the capacity and wherewithal for monitoring and regulating foreign extractives projects. A weak civil society and insufficient consultation around the country’s new mining code has disenfranchised communities who live under an increasing threat of land grabs, as described by one Public Officer in Andasibe:

“It seems clear to me that people no longer have the right to secure their land. Why is it so easy for big companies to obtain the right to use the land, while people who live in these areas do not have possibilities to secure their rights?”

Inadequate legal frameworks to protect citizens’ rights, and allegations of corruption on other environmental issues, such as illegal rosewood trafficking, suggest the administration is failing Malagasy citizens. In this context, local people have little recourse when powerful, international corporations fail in their obligations and negatively affect their livelihoods and health.

Scripting alternative narratives

This year the UN Human Rights rapporteur to Madagascar has appealed to the Malagasy Government to address these failings; most particularly that revisions to the Mining Code meet human rights standards.

He calls on Madagascar to become a fully compliant member of the EITA, with “citizen access to courts to ensure that environmental laws are being enforced”, and requiring that citizens are not criminalised or otherwise prevented “in the exercise of “their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

He particularly calls on businesses and other organisations that work in in Madagascar to “respect communities’ rights of information, participation and remedy.” If the Malagasy Government and corporations such as Rio Tinto can adopt these recommendations there may yet be some hope of protecting local people and their environment.

This story is far from over. Whatever happens, foreign companies like Rio Tinto operating in Madagascar need to talk less about their tales of success, and listen more to the realities experienced by local communities. And they must be answerable for the damage they cause.

Malagasy citizens need support in righting wrongs, and in writing a more sustainable and fairer narrative for the island’s future.

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications practitioner and a Director of the Andrew Lees Trust a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in Madagascar in 1994. She lived and worked in the South of Madagascar for over six years, developing the Trust’s social and environmental programmes and has followed the evolution of Rio Tinto’s QMM project for over 20 years.

Public event: The Andrew Lees Trust is co-organising an event on April 8th 2017 at Friends of The Earth in London to debate questions and challenges around Biodiversity Offsetting, with testimony from Malagasy community representatives. For more information see here.

References

1. Seagle, C., 2012.Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (2), pp. 447-477.

2. ‘Je veux mon part de terre’, Film by En Quete Productions, Fred Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle

3. Malagasy National Law on Buffer Zones: Arrêté interministériel nº4355/97.

The fourth largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto, claims to be a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and positions its QMM mine in Southeast Madagascar as a model for the industry. But is this story all it seems?

Extracting ilmenite from 6,000 hectares of mineral rich sands along unique littoral forests, QMM claims it has rehabilitated over 1000 hectares, provided jobs, initiated new livelihoods, and has promised a net positive biodiversity impact (NPI) for the region. In 2009 its highly promoted environmental conservation programme earned the company a green accolade.

However, this story is somewhat dissonant from the accounts of local communities and international activists who have challenged the company’s claims and commitments around social and environmental benefits and sustainable development.

For example, see this account of a Villager in Antsoto: “We are really suffering now because we had to stop cultivating on the hills. We moved our cultivation into the dunes, but it’s so sandy there that growing anything is difficult. Plus they took our land and did not even compensate us. They said they would, but they never did.”

Sinking arc?

Environmental compliance of Rio Tinto’s QMM mine in Madagascar looks increasingly shaky. So much so, the independent Biodiversity Committee to QMM resigned in October last year, claiming the current position of Rio Tinto “produced an untenable level of reputational risk” to its members.

The committee was set up in 2003 to provide guidance on the QMM Biodiversity Action Plan. It counts international experts, including representatives from Fauna & Flora International, Birdlife International, Conservation International, Kew and Missouri Botanical Gardens, amongst its advisers.

These individuals state in their resignation letter to Rio Tinto that they are now deeply uncomfortable with “the fact that mention of the environment is totally absent from the five stated corporate priorities of Rio Tinto.” Moreover they express a “lack of confidence that adequate long-term resourcing and capacity will be provided for the biodiversity program at QMM.”

They are not alone in questioning the company’s real environmental and social commitments [1]. Over the last few years, researchers have challenged both QMM’s claims of net positive biodiversity impact and a flawed Offsetting programme.

Failed compensation stories have been shared by local people since the first displacement of villagers, and concerns have also been raised about the infringement of mining boundaries [2] and encroachment into buffer zones and waterways.

Crossing the line

The breaching of boundaries is of particular concern. An 80 metre legal boundary is set by national law [3] in Madagascar to create a buffer zone for environmentally sensitive areas, for example to protect waterways.

Google Earth images demonstrate that where QMM is operating its Mandena site, the company has breached the legal limits of this ‘buffer’ and introduced an artificially extended landmass where forest and lake were originally situated.

It is unclear if this infringement has occurred to increase access to the mineral deposit or to correct a miscalculation. 2016 images suggest the extended land mass has enabled the mine to dredge close to the original waterline of the lake.

The extension of the mining operations into the 80 metre buffer zone raises a number of questions, not least how national laws were ignored or renegotiated.

Also, whether the new man made buffer is robust enough to protect the water table, which is particularly fragile due to seasonal flooding; whether dredging close to the original waterline has unseen impacts e.g., if toxic waste in tailings, a by product of the extraction process is now more likely to leach into the lake and water system where local people fish.

The glow of whiter than white

Ilmenite is a mineral extracted to create titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an industrial whitener used in everything from paint to toothpaste. In country research by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology), reports that 23 million tonnes of heavy metal concentrate (HMC) are processed by QMM to deliver approx. 750,000 tonnes of ilmenite annually, over a projected 40-year operation.

The presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) such as uranium and thorium, occurs naturally in the mineral sands in Madagascar. In the rich ilmenite deposit that QMM is dredging, Zircon and Monazite are present as by-products in the extraction process.

Both Zircon and Monazite contain radionuclides and together concentrate up the uranium-238 and thorium-232 content, thereby increasing the NORM. For example, when Monazite is separated from ilmenite it contains between 5-7% thorium (Th232) and between 0.1-0.3% Uranium (U238).

The high quantity of mineral sands being exploited in the QMM operation further increases the NORM and gamma dose rate in the vicinity of mining operations. The elevated levels of NORM may therefore increase the emission of radiation and are cause for concern.

The INSTN report estimates the highest hourly whole body dose of gamma-radiation to workers exposed to the various intermediate and final products is 23.56 microsieverts per hour. In which case, assuming a 40-hour working week, a worker would exceed the annual dose limit in the UK of 20 millisieverts (msv) in around 1,000 hours or 25 weeks.

More importantly thorium is an alpha emitter so inhaled dust may be a significant radiological hazard, which has not been dealt with in the INSTN’s paper.

The INSTN study also fails to consider adequately all the significant radiation exposure pathways that are typically associated with mineral sands mining operations. In particular whether QMM’s monitoring and management methods are effective in tackling and closing down these pathways.

For example, Thorium is a principle radioactive component of Monazite, and can leach from tailings into water bodies and farmlands. Such NORM-bearing leachate can be taken up by fish, making them radioactively contaminated, and affect the public who buy and eat the fish from local markets. The waterways adjacent to the QMM mine are used for fishing and also feed into the nearest town, Tolagnaro, to provide drinking water.

The full rehabilitation of the mine site and tailings is a further concern. Long-term presence of thorium residue in tailings can take thousands of years to disperse and present a low-level radiation hazard. The sandy soil of the southeast coastline makes the area hard to restore.

As the QMM mine is slow to rehabilitate its dredging pathways, and its environmental commitments now appear to be under question, this aspect of rehabilitation also presents an important aspect of enquiry.

Same old story

Currently heading the Chambres des Mines, a national body coordinating the interests of extractives in Madagascar, Rio Tinto would be expected to set a good example and demonstrate industry standards, not least to secure Madagascar’s membership to the EITA.

In this, it is reasonable to demand the company accounts for how and why QMM has renegotiated or flouted national laws in extending their mining operations into the environmental buffer zone, and how it is managing the mine’s radioactivity risks.

However, QMM’s track record on communications and building trust with the local community has been notoriously poor and the local Antanosy people have complained and publicly protested about QMM’s failed CSR promises, like Ilay, from Ambinanimbe:

“Since people felt betrayed they no longer trust anything QMM says or wants to implement … People are sad about the whole situation but they feel powerless …”

Continued stories of abuse, such as the buffer zone infringement and communities carrying the costs of QMM’s Biodiversity Offsetting, suggest lessons have still not been learnt. Such failures do not substantiate QMM’s social licence to operate or bring Rio Tinto any closer to delivering the ‘model mine’ it wants to write into the history books.

No oversight, no recourse

The recent resignation of the Biodiversity Committee, just three years after the dissolution of QMM’s Independent Advisory Panel (IAP), will deepen concerns over the lack of oversight of QMM operations. Indeed, if Madagascar is to protect its people and unique biodiversity from the ‘resource curse’ it requires more robust monitoring of the extractives sector, both nationally and internationally.

With a Government still largely in disarray following almost five years of political crisis (2009-2014), local institutions lack the capacity and wherewithal for monitoring and regulating foreign extractives projects. A weak civil society and insufficient consultation around the country’s new mining code has disenfranchised communities who live under an increasing threat of land grabs, as described by one Public Officer in Andasibe:

“It seems clear to me that people no longer have the right to secure their land. Why is it so easy for big companies to obtain the right to use the land, while people who live in these areas do not have possibilities to secure their rights?”

Inadequate legal frameworks to protect citizens’ rights, and allegations of corruption on other environmental issues, such as illegal rosewood trafficking, suggest the administration is failing Malagasy citizens. In this context, local people have little recourse when powerful, international corporations fail in their obligations and negatively affect their livelihoods and health.

Scripting alternative narratives

This year the UN Human Rights rapporteur to Madagascar has appealed to the Malagasy Government to address these failings; most particularly that revisions to the Mining Code meet human rights standards.

He calls on Madagascar to become a fully compliant member of the EITA, with “citizen access to courts to ensure that environmental laws are being enforced”, and requiring that citizens are not criminalised or otherwise prevented “in the exercise of “their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

He particularly calls on businesses and other organisations that work in in Madagascar to “respect communities’ rights of information, participation and remedy.” If the Malagasy Government and corporations such as Rio Tinto can adopt these recommendations there may yet be some hope of protecting local people and their environment.

This story is far from over. Whatever happens, foreign companies like Rio Tinto operating in Madagascar need to talk less about their tales of success, and listen more to the realities experienced by local communities. And they must be answerable for the damage they cause.

Malagasy citizens need support in righting wrongs, and in writing a more sustainable and fairer narrative for the island’s future.

Yvonne Orengo is an independent communications practitioner and a Director of the Andrew Lees Trust a British charity set up following the death of its namesake in Madagascar in 1994. She lived and worked in the South of Madagascar for over six years, developing the Trust’s social and environmental programmes and has followed the evolution of Rio Tinto’s QMM project for over 20 years.

Public event: The Andrew Lees Trust is co-organising an event on April 8th 2017 at Friends of The Earth in London to debate questions and challenges around Biodiversity Offsetting, with testimony from Malagasy community representatives. For more information see here.

References

1. Seagle, C., 2012.Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (2), pp. 447-477.

2. ‘Je veux mon part de terre’, Film by En Quete Productions, Fred Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle

3. Malagasy National Law on Buffer Zones: Arrêté interministériel nº4355/97.

Storytelling is a powerful tool. It frames, provokes, consoles, inspires and informs. The problem comes when we believe one story as truth: we cease to imagine other possibilities; we lose sight of vision and we stop believing that a good outcome is achievable. 

The Green Party is choosing to reclaim and rewrite the current story. At their party conference in Liverpool over the weekend, co-leaders Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley offered two very different angles on the events from 2016, but went on to conclude “It’s easy to only tell a one-sided story. Cynics want us to think we can’t win, and so we give up hope.”

But in these days hope, imagination and truth-telling are the urgent antidotes we need to the stories of ‘inevitable doom’ that we hear.

Former climate negotiator-turned-activist Yeb Sano declared at the conference “It’s a great time to be alive – we get to find the courage and political will to turn things around.” But to summon up that courage, we need to feel hope, heart and possibility. And that’s why we need a new story.

Sano followed up on Twitter: “If we go beyond point of no return when we stop caring for each other, that is the most dangerous tipping point we must avoid.” Caring for each other, and injecting heart into leadership and our global narrative sounds simplistic and idealistic. But I think it’s the lack of those things that’s driving inequality and consuming our planet. Could our current predicament really be about our inability to care?

Author Ben Okri suggests “the left needs a new story to enchant the age and open up the future.”

Effective Political Opposition Needs to Stand for Something

I’ve recently been enchanted by the romantic age in art and science. The poet Percy Shelley conjures Okri and the Greens when he talked about ‘balloonomania’ which spread after the birth of balloon flight in the 1800s: “The balloon has not yet received the perfection of which it is surely capable of…it would seem a mere toy, a feather, in comparison with the splendid anticipations of the philosophical chemist.”

That anticipation and philosophical dreaming is what we need. Our global course has not yet been set. It has not become what it is surely capable of. If we had an effective political opposition in the UK, it wouldn’t be enough for them to simply oppose government. They would need to stand for something; to present a bold vision of what could be, and then anchor it with policy as a route to get there.

I’m reading Richard Holmes’ The Age of Wonder, and will stick with the balloon theme for a moment (balloons were also an early symbol of vision and dreaming). Early ballooner Windham Sadler lamented how “England, the seat of science and literature, has remained satisfied with gazing on the casual experiments of foreign aeronauts.” He thought England was not adequately demonstrating its usual leadership, courage and discovery in the development of balloon-powered flight.

But what if we also heard that accusation as a call to where we are now? Are we satisfied as we gaze on and watch the casual experiments of distant politicians, or as we feel the planet struggle under ever-increasing growth? What might be possible if we stood up and harnessed that science and literature we have in us, plus the hospitality, entrepreneurship, creativity, compassion, innovation, and multiple other strengths?

New Alliances of Ambitious People

Carole Dieschbourg, Minister for the Environment in Luxembourg, called for “new alliances of ambitious people”. She touches on two pieces here that I heard in various ways at the conference, first – the need for collaboration and to build progressive alliances. We need to overcome differences, unite voices and find common ground from which we can reimagine a route to common good. And second – the vacuum that is opening up in the wake of Brexit and Trump. Not long ago, that vacuum was filled with voices of protest and opposition – either literal opposition from political parties, or voices of the people through artists. The vacuum is getting filled with nationalism, but we could choose to fill it with local and global leadership and alliances that channel ambition, anger and energy into vision and voice. 

Lucas stressed ‪that the Greens “aren’t afraid to occupy difficult ground, or be afraid of how people feel.” Feelings are messy and vulnerable. Feelings have become so removed from political leadership that I had to double check I’d heard right. And then I felt excitement and hope. I was listening to a party seeking out the spaces for us to come together, to create a new vision and make it reality. After all, we are “yearning to be drawn together, to belong” said Lucas. Hope thrives when we connect. At the conference, I felt the glue that could help people do just that.

The party conference was running alongside the Global Greens and European Greens congress, and so I heard from other Green movements. I heard first hand the devastation that comes in Peru and Bolivia when politics gets corrupted, when consumerism replaces traditional beliefs, and when young people abandon their ancestral ways for the lure of big companies. 

Choosing Hope And Engagement Feels Radical

Metiria Turei, co-leader of the New Zealand Green Party, said: “‪Whatever culture we Greens come from in the world, we come from a counterculture.” This rang true – if the pulse of current culture is fear, protectionism, misinformation, uncertainty, then to go against that culture by choosing hope, engagement, and the non-inevitability of doom feels subversive and radical.

I felt voices, ideas and energy bubbling up at the conference. How do we encourage and direct these? I think we need to be proud about voting with our hearts and vision, rather than tactically with our heads. I think we need to encourage osmosis between politics and all other spheres of human strength and creativity. And I think we need to start small whilst we dream big – to have one conversation at a time, which turn into “a long-term commitment to change” as Lucas says. We can’t know how to act now if we don’t know where we’re going. The Greens are providing the idealism, vision and heart that we’re all hungry for.

For more information http://greens2017.org/ and https://www.greenparty.org.uk/

This Author

Elizabeth Wainwright is the Ecologist’s Nature Editor. She spends her time between Devon and London, and loves wild spaces which she incorporates into her systems coaching work. She also co-leads the global community development charity CHGN. 

www.elizabethjaynewainwright.com 

Contact elizabeth@elizabethjaynewainwright.com    

Our energy system is on the cusp of a huge digital transformation that will enable integration of renewable energy sources at a large scale.

Part of this transformation will be the introduction of dynamic energy pricing – that is, pricing that responds to the supply and demand of energy.

At present, our system relies on sources of energy that can be easily turned up to meet peaks in demand. We can’t turn the sun or wind up and down when we need them, so we have to rely on carbon fuelled generation as a constant back up.

However, if we could find ways to level out the peaks and troughs in energy demand, rather than responding to them, we could take some of the pressure off the system. And if we can manage the demand better, we can make better use of the renewable, more variable, energy sources we have available.

A way to do this is to incentivise customers to use less when supply is low or demand is high – to nudge people to use their tumble driers at times of low energy demand, or cheap to charge electric cars when the wind is blowing.

For truly responsive time-of-use tariffs, suppliers need an accurate measure of demand, and householders need to know when energy is cheap or expensive via visible price signals. Smart meters play a key part in making both of these happen.

Dynamic time-of-use tariffs aren’t possible without smart meters

So I was very interested to read questions in David Toke’s recent Ecologist article about whether smart meters will be able to support flexible pricing. Smart meters are being installed in every home and small business in Britain as part of a national upgrade to our energy infrastructure.

They’re replacing the analogue meters that haven’t changed much since the 1880s, showing us in real time what we’re spending on energy and connecting our homes to a more intelligent grid.

Every smart meter installed as part of Britain’s rollout will be able to support flexible pricing. What’s more, dynamic time-of-use tariffs aren’t possible without them. Flexible demand management and pricing needs half-hourly energy readings. Only a connected, digital system based on smart technology can provide this.

Some energy suppliers, both large and small, are already offering time-of-use tariffs to their smart meter customers. As the smart meter rollout progresses, other suppliers will be able to provide similar and even more dynamic tariffs.

But flexible tariffs are really just the beginning of a smarter energy system. As more households become connected, the market for technologies that will help people take advantage of these new pricing strictures will pick up pace too.

Appliances responding to power supply moment by moment

Over the next decade, people will be able to connect smart appliances that can switch on or off automatically in response to demand and supply. Again, smart meters are central to these developments.

By connecting to the Home Area Network (HAN), the smart meter’s communication system, appliances could receive alerts from suppliers when demand is low or high. This could, with the customer’s permission, enable devices to be switched on or off automatically.

So when the sun is shining, high energy use items like electric vehicles and storage heaters could be set to charge automatically. Or customers could choose to receive prompts to turn their washing machine on, or avoid using their dishwasher, depending on the demand on the system, and the price of energy.

Equally, smart meters will make it simpler and more attractive for people to generate their own energy at home. By using microgeneration technology connected to the smart meter’s HAN, along with storage batteries, it will be easy for householders to decide when to use the energy they are generating through their solar panels or turbine, and when to store it or export it to the grid.

Smart technology is already enabling innovative projects for communities who want to be more self-sufficient when it comes to energy – harnessing renewable energy sources using price signals. Households in Bethesda in Wales are already using smart meters to purchase the power generated by a local hydro scheme, at half the usual price – directly benefiting from renewable energy.

Smart meters are already changing the way that consumers use energy day to day – more than eight in ten people with smart meters have taken action to cut down their energy use. And flexible pricing will only build on that behaviour change.

Peer to peer energy trading?

In addition to these changes in the day to day use of energy, smart meters have the potential to create a huge transformation in the energy market as a whole. In a recent paper for Smart Energy GB, Dr Jeff Hardy of University College London lays out some of the emerging innovations that smart meter data is making possible.

Firstly, he identifies the opportunities to expand peer-to-peer energy trading. A connected network will make it easier for individuals and communities to generate and trade energy locally – encouraging more small scale, sustainable energy generation.

Secondly, he foresees the development of energy service companies, which provide holistic packages to power or heat homes, rather than just selling units of energy. Meaning people might sign up to a contract for a ‘warm home’, which could include energy efficiency updates, as well as the supply of energy.

And finally, he sees third party control becoming more common. Meaning people can sign up to services to be switched to the best tariffs immediately. This will force competition and greater innovation in the market – including more innovative, flexible tariffs.

The smart meters being rolled out to households across Britain are an essential part of a smarter and greener future where consumers have more power over the energy they use at home, through the real-time information on their energy use, and where they can play their part in balancing the demand on the system, through flexible pricing and renewable energy.

Article this is responding to: ‘Green groups must denounce the sham ‘smart meter’ scandal‘ by David Toke.

Claire Maugham is Director of Policy and Communications at Smart Energy GB. Smart Energy GB is the voice of the smart meter rollout. Its task is to help everyone in Great Britain understand smart meters, the national rollout and how to use their new meters to get their gas and electricity under control. Its national campaign is reaching all households and microbusinesses in England, Scotland and Wales.

For more information visit smartenergyGB.org.

  This week has seen Carbon Brief publish analyses of the Department of Energy, Business and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) energy use. The subsequent news reports have been focused on the UK’s collapsing coal industry and the consequent impact on the environment. It has been reported that the use of coal fell by a record 50% in 2016, principally as a result of increased domestic carbon taxes. The result, a drop in carbon emissions to 19^th century lows. To provide some perspective, UK windfarms generated more power than coal in 2016 – a real feat for the renewable energy industry. However, even with the decline it has been suggested that carbon emissions were still 381 million tonnes.

As more gas and coal plants are decommissioned, the reliance on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power is increasing. Energy storage technology will play a crucial role in the management of the demand for energy supplies in the UK and will contribute vastly to the reduction of the UK’s carbon emissions.

Store it or lose it

 Fundamentally, countries worldwide are actively making steps towards creating more energy efficient and yet cleaner cities. The UK is placing energy storage at the heart of its new Modern Industrial Strategy, due to its potential to support smart energy systems and the automotive sector. As the energy industry moves away from carbon-heavy production, the twin-approach of renewable energy and storage will be critical for delivering on the demand while securing the future of UK energy.

Energy storage has a central role to play in creating a new, evolved UK energy system and will make a significant contribution to decarbonising our energy supply as a whole. Falling costs of battery technology and the new opportunities opening up in this market mean that there is an ever-growing business case for investment in this area.

Storage systems can fulfil multiple roles within the energy market. Energy can be stored when prices are low and used on site when they are high to save consumers and businesses money on their bills. Given the potential of energy storage to stabilise energy supply during periods of high and low demand, suppliers and consumers would be ill-advised to ignore its significance.

Storage enables more renewable energy sources to be integrated into the UK’s overall power supply. This is in addition to helping to balance energy supply and demand more effectively and increasing energy security for an evolving power network.

The National Grid has made a significant move towards a future that embraces energy storage. By committing to support battery storage on a large scale, the increased investment will mean a reliable source of real-time energy to balance the entire grid.

Coupled with storage is the development of ‘microgrids’ across the UK. These mini-grids are a cost effective solution for rural areas where a lower population can justify the provision of electricity through a local distribution grid. Microgrids will mean that energy storage technology will become more crucial than ever in harnessing and utilising renewable energy for off-grid areas.

 Advancing renewables with batteries

 In the UK recently, a village in South Yorkshire recently announced that it is running a trial of solar technology that relies on smart batteries to store the renewable energy that is produced. This technology will allow the community to run on solar power 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

That said, energy storage is not a new concept. Large scale pumped hydro storage has been part of the UK’s energy system for many years. In fact, 3.523GW of electricity storage projects are currently operational of which the majority are pumped hydro. But, the introduction of lithium-ion batteries, coupled with falling costs and increased funding for research and development, means that the technology now has the potential to increase the UK’s capacity for energy storage.

In the past year, the consumption of natural gas rose by 12.5 per cent due to the increased need for electricity generation at the expense of coal. Consumption of bioenergy and waste rose by 7.4 per cent. Renewable energy is clearly on the rise but it’s about more than just harnessing the energy. Effective storage is just as imperative.  

By adding powerful cost-effective batteries to the grid, it is not only strengthened but can add value for both investors and consumers.

In the past, batteries have been too weak or too expensive. As a result, they didn’t last long enough to earn the revenue needed to pay off their initial investment value. Now, we have significantly more powerful batteries that are increasingly efficient. At the same time, the costs have fallen to a point where the technology is far more commercially viable.

When used alongside the grid, these batteries need to perform even faster. To meet the demands of the grid, batteries are now able to respond in less than one second to supply and demand peaks. 

As these technologies continue to prove their value, the industry will scale quickly. Looking at just how this technology has developed in the past five years, it’s clear that greater efficiency and performance improvements are imminent.

 As part of the Paris Agreement, towards the end of 2016 the UK pledged to play its part in keeping the global temperatures well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and energy storage will be essential to achieving this target in 2017, by facilitating further renewables as part of the energy mix.

In addition, our journey towards a more connected and smarter future our energy requirements will continue to develop, storage will help to create a smart grid that can ensure energy is always available when and where it’s needed. Investment in energy storage will help the UK tackle the negative effects of climate change, and continue to boost its use of renewable sources for maximum impact.

This Author

Ian Larive is Investment Director, Low Carbon

The triggering of Article 50 earlier this week starts a new phase in the arguments about Brexit. The various negotiations that are now going to take place will in a big way determine what sort of country the UK becomes – and even whether it continues to exist at all.

Several different types of future are possible. The ones already on the political agenda are easy to outline:

(1) The UK does a deal with Trump’s America to become effectively the 51^st state – lowering environmental, labour, and corporate standards in order to get a deal done.

(2) The UK pursues the fantasy of ‘Empire 2.0′ but finds that Australia, Canada, India, Nigeria and the rest have all found different places in world trade that don’t require them to link back to Britain.

(3) The UK has a deal with the EU that creates a ‘soft Brexit’ that divides the Tory Party and ends up not changing much except for costing money and cutting Britain out of influencing the decision-making.

(4) The UK gets no deal at all. The subsequent public revolt, and Parliament or a new referendum, ends up choosing not to go ahead with Brexit. Loss of face for Theresa May and cries of anger from the hard Right but sighs of relief from many other people.

(5) England and Wales go ahead with Brexit but Scotland breaks away and Northern Ireland joins up with the Irish Republic, staying in the EU.

Those are the options being talked about now. But we have written a new report Brexit Trade published by Molly Scott Cato, a Green Member of the European Parliament, that puts forward a different alternative: an ‘alternative Brexit’.

We have assumed in our report that Brexit does go ahead and asked how it could be made a success if we face up to the reality that any trade deals done by the UK with larger economic blocs are bound to be one-sided once we are no longer negotiating as part of the EU. In these circumstances, the rational response is to see if the UK’s dependence on international trade can be reduced.

This in turn would depend on developing a UK economy with greater national self-reliance, deliberately building up economic sectors which can make substitutes for goods that would otherwise be imported.

This of course is what many Greens, Transition activists and others have argued for over many years: a less globalised, more localised, economy, based on thriving local communities; one that would reduce the power of unaccountable multinational corporations and make “taking back control” of the economy realistically possible.

Like most things, this would be a matter of balance. Of course we don’t advocate eliminating imports altogether. But it would involve abandoning the dogma that maximising international trade is necessarily a good thing, and recognising that globalisation needs to be tamed – in some ways democratised and in some ways reversed.

Our report sets this out, including the implications for the environment and migration, and the wider context of the arguments about neoliberalism and populism. We want to add a new flavour, a new colour, to the Brexit debate. Why not read our report for yourself: Brexit Trade

These Authors

Victor is a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), and used to be a Green member of the London Assembly. Rupert chairs the Green House think-tank and was Green Party candidate for Cambridge at the 2015 general election.

Green House think-tank

http://www.greenhousethinktank.org/

When asked to name one of the great wildlife habitats of the world it is unlikely that many people would choose a series of woods and bogs by the M3 in Surrey.

But while herds of wildebeest might not sweep majestically through Camberley, the Thames Basin Heaths area (see map, right) does hold important numbers of birds such as woodlarks, Dartford warblers and nightjars, making it one of the most significant wildlife habitats in southern England.

However, the local MP for Surrey Heath, Michael Gove, is apparently not too impressed. The former British justice secretary and leading Brexit campaigner sees withdrawal from the EU as an opportunity to get rid of the very legislation which protects these birds.

For Gove, European environmental law “massively increases the cost and the regulatory burden for housing development”.

The presence of these species in his constituency has led the heaths to be designated a ‘Special Protection Area’ under the EU Birds Directive. Some parts of the heaths hold ecosystems which are deemed to be of such importance that they are classed as ‘Special Areas of Conservation’ under the EU Habitats Directive.

Natura 2000 sites must remain sacrosanct!

These areas form part of Natura 2000, a network of protected sites covering 18% of the European Union. It is the largest coordinated network of its type in the world. Many of these areas are not nature reserves or national parks, but areas of land in private ownership, making them vulnerable to exploitation.

European legislation recognises that wildlife is no respecter of national boundaries and that a community-wide effort is necessary to ensure the protection of vulnerable flora and fauna.

The Habitats Directive obliges governments to preserve Natura 2000 sites. Under Article 6.3, any project or plan taking place in one of these sites must be assessed to ensure it does not adversely affect the integrity of the scheme.

In the case of the Thames Basin Heaths this means that no property can be built within a 400m buffer zone of the special protection area, and all housing developments within 5km must include provision for a “suitable alternative natural green space“ – an area of open ground which people can use for recreation.

The aim is to prevent the heaths becoming overwhelmed with people and dogs, which is particularly important for species such as nightjars which nest on the ground and are vulnerable to disturbance.

But Gove has sided with the property developers. For him, these regulations are too great a burden. Some of what he says is fair: there is undoubtedly a need for more housing in the area – and it is equally true that providing ‘alternative green space’ requires thought and expenditure on the part of the developers, which may ultimately be passed on to the purchasers.

There’s no escaping the fact that environmental law can create a tension between construction and conservation.

However these EU directives exist to protect important areas from exactly these pressures. In many cases the legislation does not prevent development, but instead requires developers to think about how damage can be mitigated and, in some cases, habitat improved.

The RSPB cites a number of benefits to this approach, including the proven economic and health benefits of having sites rich in wildlife close to home.

The great repeal of environmental law

Despite David Davis’ promise that environmental protections will remain in place when the UK leaves the EU, wildlife protection after Brexit faces an uncertain future. The Great Repeal Bill is intended to incorporate existing European legislation into UK law, giving parliament the power to “amend, repeal or improve” laws at a later date.

However the environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, has indicated that only about two-thirds of existing environmental law will be transposed into UK law, leaving groups such as the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust concerned about what will happen to the remainder.

The UK has a long history of proactive environmental legislation. Back in the 1950s, a backbench MP named Tufton Beamish introduced a private members bill which eventually passed into law as the Protection of Birds Act 1954. This was the forerunner of the Birds Directive and laid the foundations for the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which became the key source of domestic legal protection for UK plants and animals.

Speaking in the House of Lords in support of the bill, Beamish observed:

“Town and country, farmers and naturalists, we are all in it together. Provided there is unstinted cooperation between all ministers whose responsibilities touch on any aspect of this many-sided subject, there will be no problem in proving that good husbandry and higher material standards of living are consistent with careful protection of our wildlife and our countryside.”

As Britain leaves the EU, we must remember this ideal. If Andrea Leadsom really does want to ensure that we are “the first generation to leave our environment better than we found it” then we will need a robust legislative framework.

Laws which ensure our ecosystems are protected and improved should be celebrated – not treated as burdensome red tape.

Jeremy Robson is Principal Lecturer, College of Business Law & Social Sciences, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.