The UK will host key United Nations climate talks in Glasgow in late 2020, the Government has said.

The meeting is the most important round of UN talks since the global Paris Agreement to tackle climate change was secured in two weeks of negotiations in the French capital in 2015.

News that the UK had won formal international backing to host the “Cop26” meeting has been welcomed by campaigners, who urged the Government to take a lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Confidence

As joint hosts with Italy, the UK will host the “Cop26” meeting, which is due to be in Europe next November, while Italy will host a “pre-Cop” event in the run-up to the talks.

The UK has been officially backed by the group of countries responsible for nominating the 2020 host, and the nomination is set to be formally accepted at December’s Cop25 summit in Chile, the Government said.

Next year’s talks mark the full adoption of the Paris Agreement and the date by which countries are expected to come forward with stronger emissions cuts to meet the goals of the deal.

Plans submitted so far by countries are putting the world on a pathway towards more than 3C of warming, though the Paris Agreement commits them to curb temperatures to 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, said: “The UK has just received a huge vote of confidence from our international partners.

Leadership

“We’re poised to host the next major global climate negotiations, in partnership with Italy.

“Over 30,000 delegates from around the world will come together to commit to ambitious action to tackle climate change.

“We’re ready to bring the world together to make sure we leave our precious environment in a better state for our children.”

Claire Perry, UK nominated president for Cop26, said: “In 2020, world leaders will come together to discuss how to tackle climate change on a global scale – and where better to do so than Glasgow, one of the UK’s most sustainable cities with a great track record for hosting high-profile international events.”

Roseanna Cunningham, the Scottish Government climate change secretary, said: “It is right that this conference should come to Scotland given our leadership in climate action.

Targets

“Scotland was one of the first countries in the world to acknowledge the global climate emergency and the Scottish Government has introduced the toughest targets in the UK to ensure our action matches the scale of our climate ambitions.”

The backing to host the event comes after the UK strengthened its legal goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with a new target to reach “net zero” emissions by mid-century becoming law in the summer.

But concerns have been raised, including by the Government’s own advisory Climate Change Committee, that the UK is off track to meet its targets and significantly more action is needed to cut emissions from homes, power generation, transport and agriculture.

Dr Kat Kramer, Christian Aid’s global climate lead, backed the news that the “historic” meeting was taking place in the UK.

She said: “For it to be a success, the UK needs to walk the talk and increase its own near-term targets reducing its emissions rapidly and radically.

Strikes

“The UK further needs to develop a holistic plan to achieve its own legally-binding goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.”

And she said: “Internationally, the UK needs to make sure that it is doing its fair share to support developing countries through finance and providing them with sustainable technologies like wind and solar.”

Clara Goldsmith, director of The Climate Coalition, which consists of groups ranging from the National Trust to WWF and Islamic Relief, said: “Over the next 18 months, the world’s eyes will be on us just as widespread public pressure to act on climate change grows – this is the perfect opportunity for the UK Government to put its money where its mouth is.”

The announcement comes ahead of a summit in New York when UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres will urge leaders to boost ambition and speed up action to curb the emissions driving rising global temperatures.

Global climate “strikes” will be held on Friday September 20, ahead of the summit, with workers and protesters supporting young people walking out of lessons and lectures to call for urgent action to tackle the climate crisis.

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

Why are we here? Who are we? What is our place in the world? People have been asking questions such as these for centuries.

Looking outside, we see trees in summer foliage moving in the breeze. Behind them, buildings and a soft grey sky. The harsh hum of traffic, the cries of birds.

The world is a patchwork – of grassland, of concrete, of vast oceans, of uncountable and tiny things, of huge masses. Everything is interconnected through flows of materials, creation and decay, and now, the symptoms of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change.

Struggles

The climate crisis is recognised by the majority of citizens and scientists worldwide to be the result of human activity. The rampant extraction and burning of fossil fuels is center stage, triggering protests and public dialogue.

Meanwhile, headlines on atmospheric CO2 stand alongside those on socio-political unrest, human rights, ecosystem destruction or conservation, healthcare, international politics and market dynamics.

It is no coincidence that the most prominent narratives feature hierarchy and exertion of power in some form.

We will only make lasting headway in tackling climate change if, alongside the need for decarbonisation, we acknowledge that the climate emergency is an issue of wider socio-ecological injustice and violence.

The triggers and impacts of climate change are related to or the same as those in other struggles where domination is exerted over an ‘other’. To face up to one, we must face up to them all.

Extraction

Whether or not you think you’re impacted (you are), we are all living in what bell hooks calls a “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”.

This system is in direct opposition to human freedoms, and to the Earth, which is borderless, interwoven and finite; it can only ‘give’ so much. Yet the system demands more.

Colonial European nations, institutions and men took land, other cultures and women as things to be conquered and ‘tamed’. In many cases, they still do.

Patriarchy, racism, heteronormativity and other interlocking structures of oppression are experienced and present today in numerous ways, for instance through the gender pay gap, the objectification of female bodies, disregard of migrants’ rights, exploitative working conditions, persecution of the LGBTQ+ community, and by silencing certain voices.

Narrow views towards the ‘other’ are often closely correlated with contempt for the environment. We are now seeing relentless extraction of resources, and the annexing of land for building, for monoculture agriculture and plantations, for industry, consumerism and ‘growth’.

Catastrophic

The lack of care and empathy in the socio-political system extends to the appropriation of the environment.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, writes: “I look east and the hills before me are a ragged range of clear-cut forests.

“To the south I see an estuary dammed and diked so that salmon may no longer pass. On the western horizon, a bottom-dragging trawler scrapes up the ocean floor. And far away to the north, the earth is torn open for oil.”

This story has long been familiar the world over. The 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm acknowledged that a capitalist, consumerist society is working directly against the ecological needs of the planet.

More recently, the IPCC Report on 1.5 degrees warned that we have only twelve years in which to prevent catastrophic warming and ecosystem collapse.

Re(turn)

The IPCC’s Land report, to be released in August, will demonstrate the stress already being placed on the very soil beneath our feet. The growth so valued by the capitalist system is not compatible with tackling climate change or caring for the planet that feeds us.

We have come so far from where we should be; from the root of everything.

Yet there are still many places where people honour our deep connection to the Earth and to each other. Kimmerer asks, “what happens…when allegiance lies with winds and waters that know no boundaries, that cannot be bought or sold?

The boundaries of what I honor are bigger than the republic. Let us pledge reciprocity with the living world.”

These teachings chime with those honoured by indigenous peoples the world over, and it is to such thinking that we must [re]turn.

Madness

The historically marginalised are among the most skilled environmental protectors. Long before white Europeans colonized and appropriated land around the world, indigenous peoples were living in harmony with nature.

As much as 40 percent of the world’s ecologically-intact ecosystems are under indigenous stewardship, and indigenous communities protect over 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity.

Learning from those who respect natural limits and who practice sustainable, regenerative agriculture must be a key tenet of the system going forwards.

Many civil society organisations are already acting to ensure that indigenous and community rights are strengthened and protected, enabling them to continue with their crucial work as stewards of biodiverse, carbon-rich ecosystems.

However, in nothing short of madness given the challenges that we face, countless projects focussed on economic growth still ride roughshod over those rights and nature.

Knowledge

There is also a lack of critical media conversation. Recent Extinction Rebellion and ‘Fridays for Future’ protests have achieved airtime, but talk is not going far enough.

Our institutions, including those that produce or fund the media, are stuck in the stagnant status quo. New ways of seeing society are critiqued as unrealistic, and people are dissuaded by an apparent lack of alternatives. Anyone who challenges “the norm” is labelled ‘extreme’, when challenging the status quo should be the status quo.

So what do we need for transformative change?

Number one, it will take abandoning competition and ‘growth’ as the aim, in favour of collective governance and renewal.

It will take re-prioritising indigenous knowledge and ways of understanding the world.

Interwoven

It will take understanding and acting-upon the message that every human being has the right to freedom (of movement, of speech, of choice, of protest), and the right to be protected from visible and invisible violence.

It will take the empowerment and election of women, people of colour, indigenous and other politically underrepresented groups, including into climate decision-making bodies. Enabling these groups to share their deep knowledge and disproportionate experience of climate impacts will protect all of us.

It will take shifting from a position where humans ‘possess’ nature, to a mutually beneficial relationship with the natural world.

The wellbeing of ecosystems must be respected, and defended where necessary through law, as is already taking place in some countries. When we respect nature, we are more likely to be acting in ways that are sustainable, equitable and just.

We must work to dismantle all structures of oppression, and to heal the assumed division between people and nature. All of us depend on this planet, and we can only save ourselves if we also save our neighbours, our waters, our soils and biodiversity. We must break down the barriers and see ourselves as part of one interwoven whole.

This Article

This article has been written by members of the UK Youth Climate Coalition.

Workers are being urged to support school climate change strikes later this month by taking 30 minutes of action.

The TUC Congress voted to call for “workday campaign action” to coincide with the global action on September 20.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner told the conference in Brighton: “As trade unionists we’re at the centre of the debate on just transitioning energy generation, our auto industry from the combustion engine to hybrid, full battery and hydrogen, and our ceramics, steel and construction industries from heavy pollutants to sustainable long-term low-carbon producers.

Proud

“How proud can we be of our children, knowing it’s their future at stake, taking to the streets, just as they did in 2010 in the fight against austerity, to demand the urgent action that is desperately needed.

“As trade unionists, as socialists seeking that better, fairer world, it’s our duty to stand proudly alongside them in this fight.

“If we don’t, we’ll be seen as irrelevant – not as allies in their fight and not an integral part of their future.”

University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said: “The trade union movement is sending a clear message today that it is up to the challenge of fighting the climate crisis and building a stronger and greener economy.

Prosperous

“Climate change is a trade union issue and our planet’s future is at risk. The work done by Greta Thunberg and school students around the world has been inspirational and now it’s time for the rest of us to catch up.”

Jake Woodier from the UK Student Climate Network said: “We’re delighted to see the trade union movement making big strides forward in its response to the climate crisis.

“We’re calling for ambitious and bold solutions to the crisis like a Green New Deal to create millions of well-paid, secure and unionised jobs, massive investment in marginalised communities and a just transition for those in today’s high emissions sectors.

“Working together, we can secure a just and prosperous world for all.”

This Author

Alan Jones is a reporter with PA.

Historic gardens fighting against an invasive caterpillar that destroys formal box planting may have a new ally in the form of jackdaws, the National Trust has said.

The box tree moth is a destructive pest of the plant.

The insect is a native of East Asia and first turned up in the UK in 2008, with its larvae reported in private gardens in the home counties by 2011.

Patrolling

Its caterpillars feed voraciously on box plants under a blanket of pale, fine webbing that can cover infected plants.

Historic gardens such as Ham House in Richmond, London, where box forms a key part of the formal planting, have been badly hit by the bug, as have domestic back gardens, particularly in the south-east of England.

But the National Trust, which looks after the 17th century Ham estate, said jackdaws have been feasting on the caterpillars, alleviating fears that the insects are unpalatable to native predators.

Ham House’s kitchen garden was badly damaged during the first life cycle of the caterpillars – which can strip hedge of its leaves before attacking the wood and causing the plant to die – in the spring.

But with the help of around 10 jackdaws – a type of small black crow – regularly patrolling the hedges and picking off the insects, the box has partly rejuvenated, the Trust said.

Plucking

The birds returned to the box hedges in August as the next cycle of caterpillars emerged.

Gardeners at the estate, which has been managed organically for more than a decade, are now exploring ways to encourage jackdaws and other birds into the garden, such as looking at the way they prune the hedges.

There is almost two-thirds of a mile of box running through the Ham estate, including in the walled kitchen garden and the cherry garden, with its formal box parterre filled with lavender, box cones and dwarf hedging.

Rosie Fyles, head gardener at the National Trust’s Ham House, said: “We first noticed jackdaws plucking caterpillars from the box hedges in May, which was fantastic to see, but I thought it might be a one-off.

Hedges

“Box hedging is an iconic part of the garden at Ham, and with so much of it, the threat of damage from the caterpillar was huge. So we were thrilled when the birds returned in August for the next life cycle.

“We had wondered if the caterpillars would be unpleasant or even poisonous to native birds – but the jackdaws have clearly developed a taste for them. It’s early days, but it’s a really encouraging sign that there may be a homegrown solution yet.”

She added that the jackdaws were most effective on hedges which had been partially stripped of leaves by the caterpillars and contain bigger holes.

“We’re now looking at ways to prune the hedges in a more open style, that allows increased air flow and gives the birds easier access to the caterpillars.”

Insecticides

Elsewhere, the Royal Horticultural Society says there have been reports of birds such as tits feeding on the caterpillars in some locations, but it is not yet clear if the predators will be able to reduce box tree moth numbers.

Starlings have also been witnessed targeting infected box hedges.

If birds do have a taste for the caterpillars, it could help reduce the work load for professional and amateur gardeners, who have been advised, where practical, to remove the caterpillars by hand.

Other options include pheromone traps, nematodes or insecticides – but these require forceful spraying and should not be done when plants are in flower due to the threat to pollinating insects, the Royal Horticultural Society said.

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

A documentary called New Fire was released promoting ‘advanced’ nuclear power concepts last year. The heroes of the film were young entrepreneurs Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie, founders of a start-up called Transatomic Power that was developing a ‘Waste-Annihilating Molten-Salt Reactor’.

Problems arose during the long gestation of New Fire. Transatomic Power gave up on its plan to use nuclear waste as reactor fuel after its theoretical calculations were proven to be false, and the waste-annihilating reactor was reinvented as a waste-producing, uranium-fuelled reactor.

Worse was to come: just before the release of New Fire, Transatomic Power went broke and collapsed altogether. An epic fail.

Reactor

The Australian parliament’s ‘inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy‘ is shaping up to be another epic fail. The conservative chair of the inquiry claims that “new technologies in the field are leading to cleaner, safer and more efficient energy production.”

But the ‘advanced’ nuclear power sector isn’t advanced and it isn’t advancing.

The next ‘advanced’ reactor to commence operation will be Russia’s floating nuclear power plant, designed to help exploit fossil fuel reserves in the Arctic ‒ fossil fuel reserves that are more accessible because of climate change. That isn’t ‘advanced’ ‒ it is dystopian.

Russia’s enthusiastic pursuit of nuclear-powered icebreaker ships (nine such ships are planned by 2035) is closely connected to its agenda of establishing military and economic control of the Northern Sea Route ‒ a route that owes its existence to climate change.

China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) says the purpose of its partly-built ACPR50S demonstration reactor is to develop floating nuclear power plants for oilfield exploitation in the Bohai Sea and deep-water oil and gas development in the South China Sea.

God-awful

‘Advanced’ nuclear reactors are advancing climate change. Another example comes from Canada, where one potential application of small reactors is providing power and heat for the extraction of hydrocarbons from tar sands.

Some ‘advanced’ reactors could theoretically consume more nuclear waste than they produce. That sounds great ‒ until you dig into the detail.

An article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ‒ co-authored by Allison Macfarlane, a former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission ‒ states that “molten salt reactors and sodium-cooled fast reactors – due to the unusual chemical compositions of their fuels – will actually exacerbate spent fuel storage and disposal issues.”

The subclass of sodium-cooled fast reactors called ‘integral fast reactors’ (IFRs) could theoretically gobble up nuclear waste and convert it into low-carbon electricity, using a process called pyroprocessing.

But an IFR R&D program in Idaho has left a god-awful mess that the Department of Energy (DOE) is struggling to deal with. This saga is detailed in a 2017 article and a longer report by the Union of Concerned Scientists’ senior scientist Dr. Edwin Lyman, drawing on documents obtained under Freedom of Information legislation.

Breeder

Dr. Lyman writes: “Pyroprocessing has taken one potentially difficult form of nuclear waste and converted it into multiple challenging forms of nuclear waste. DOE has spent hundreds of millions of dollars only to magnify, rather than simplify, the waste problem. … 

The FOIA documents we obtained have revealed yet another DOE tale of vast sums of public money being wasted on an unproven technology that has fallen far short of the unrealistic projections that DOE used to sell the project”.

Some ‘advanced’ reactors could theoretically consume more fissile (explosive) nuclear material than they produce. Instead of contributing to weapons proliferation risks and problems, they could contribute to the resolution of those problems.

That sounds great ‒ until you dig into the detail. After Russia’s floating nuclear plant, the next ‘advanced’ reactor to commence operation may be the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) in India.

Weapons

The PFBR has a blanket with thorium and uranium to breed fissile uranium-233 and plutonium respectively ‒ in other words, it will be ideal for weapons production.

India plans to use fast breeder reactors (a.k.a. fast neutron reactors) to produce weapon-grade plutonium for use as the initial ‘driver’ fuel in thorium reactors.

As John Carlson, the former Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office, has repeatedly noted, those plans are highly problematic with respect to weapons proliferation and security.

There’s nothing “cleaner, safer and more efficient” about India’s ‘advanced’ reactor program. On the contrary, it is dangerous and it fans regional tensions and proliferation concerns in South Asia ‒ all the more so since India refuses to allow International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards inspections of its ‘advanced’ nuclear power program.

And if those regional tensions boil over into nuclear warfare, catastrophic climate change will likely result. Fossil fuels provide the surest route to catastrophic climate change; nuclear warfare provides the quickest route.

Reactors

The ‘advanced’ nuclear power sector isn’t advanced ‒ it is dystopian. And it isn’t advancing ‒ it is regressing.

The Russian government recently clawed back US$4 billion from Rosatom’s budget by postponing its fast neutron reactor program; specifically, by putting on hold plans for what would have been the only gigawatt-scale fast neutron reactor anywhere in the world.

France recently abandoned plans for a demonstration fast reactor. Pursuit of fast reactor technology is no longer a priority in France according to the World Nuclear Association.

And funding is tight because of yet another failing project: a 100-megawatt materials testing reactor that is 500 percent over-budget (and counting) and eight years behind schedule (and counting).

Other fast reactor projects have collapsed in recent years. TerraPower abandoned its plan for a prototype fast reactor in China last year due to restrictions placed on nuclear trade with China by the Trump administration, and requests for US government funding have reportedly received a negative reception.

The US and UK governments have both considered using GE Hitachi’s ‘PRISM’ fast reactor technology to process surplus plutonium stocks ‒ but both governments have rejected the proposal.

Failed

Fast reactors and other ‘advanced’ concepts are sometimes called Generation IV concepts.

But fast reactors have been around since the dawn of the nuclear age. They are best described as failed Generation I technology ‒ “demonstrably failed technology” in the words of Allison Macfarlane.

The number of operating fast reactors reached double figures in the 1980s but has steadily fallen and will remain in single figures for the foreseeable future.

Currently, just five fast reactors are operating ‒ all of them described by the World Nuclear Association as experimental or demonstration reactors.

Modular

As discussed previously in The Ecologist, most of the handful of small modular reactors (SMRs) under construction are over-budget and behind schedule; there are disturbing connections between SMRs, weapons proliferation and militarism more generally; and about half of the SMRs under construction are intended to be used to facilitate the exploitation of fossil fuel reserves.

SMRs aren’t leading to “cleaner, safer and more efficient energy production”. And SMRs aren’t advancing ‒ projects are falling over left, right and centre:

• Babcock & Wilcox abandoned its mPower SMR project in the US despite receiving government funding of US$111 million.
• Westinghouse sharply reduced its investment in SMRs after failing to secure US government funding.
• China is building a demonstration high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) but it is behind schedule and over-budget and plans for additional HTGRs at the same site have been “dropped” according to the World Nuclear Association.
• MidAmerican Energy gave up on its plans for SMRs in Iowa after failing to secure legislation that would force rate-payers to part-pay construction costs.
• Rolls-Royce sharply reduced its SMR investment in the UK to “a handful of salaries” and is threatening to abandon its R&D altogether unless massive subsidies are provided by the British government.

Zombie reactors

Fast reactors are demonstrably failed technology. SMRs have failed previously and are in the process of failing yet again. What else is there in the ‘advanced’ nuclear sector?

Fusion? At best, it is decades away and most likely it will forever remain decades away. Two articles in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Dr. Daniel Jassby ‒ a fusion scientist ‒ comprehensively debunk all of the rhetoric spouted by fusion enthusiasts.

Thorium? There are no fundamental differences between thorium and uranium, so building a thorium fuel cycle from scratch to replace the uranium fuel cycle would be absurd ‒ and it won’t happen.

High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) including the pebble-bed modular reactor sub-type? This zombie concept refuses to die even as  one after another country embarks on R&D, fails, and gives up. As mentioned, China is building a prototype but has dropped plans for further HTGRs.

Paper reactors

Claims that new nuclear technologies are leading to “cleaner, safer and more efficient energy production” could only be justified with reference to concepts that exist only as designs on paper.

As a nuclear industry insider quipped: “We know that the paper-moderated, ink-cooled reactor is the safest of all. All kinds of unexpected problems may occur after a project has been launched.”

There’s nothing that can be said about ‘advanced’ reactor rhetoric that wasn’t said by Admiral Hyman Rickover ‒ a pioneer of the US nuclear program ‒ all the way back in 1953.

“An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose (‘omnibus reactor’). (7) Very little development is required. It will use mostly off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now.

“On the other hand, a practical reactor plant can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It is requiring an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. Corrosion, in particular, is a problem. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of the engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated.”

This Author

Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and editor of the Nuclear Monitor newsletter.

A new short film follows the journey of Juvenal Huari Castilla who travelled to the Amazon to log the rainforest. It’s a personal story of growth and transformation. 

This three-minute mini-doc shows that, despite the challenges, it is possible to reverse the damaging impact that people are having on the planet.

The film was named a finalist in the Conservation Optimism Film Festival last week, as part of their 2019 summit to share ideas and solutions for more empowering conservation.

Root causes

The short film is set in the Manu Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Peruvian Amazon and one of the world’s most important protected areas. It’s a biodiversity hotspot and home to uncontacted indigenous people, yet the destruction of the rainforest through illegal logging is widespread and uncontrolled.

Juvenal tells his story while sitting in a lush tropical forest, an area he’d once been hired to destroy. Despite having been logged to create farmland, scientists have proven that today the biodiversity value of the forest has, in some areas, reached 87 percent of what you would expect to find in primary forest.

Thanks to long-term protection and natural regeneration, biodiversity has bounced back and nature has been given a second chance to thrive. 

For the past twelve years, Juvenal has been working with researchers from the Crees Foundation to conserve this forest and its wild creatures. Through his reconnection with nature, the film suggests people are hardwired to love the natural world, even though they are responsible for its destruction. 

By subtly drawing attention to the root causes of destructive practices in Manu, namely the lack of alternative job opportunities, it challenges simple definitions of what’s good or bad, right or wrong. Given the right circumstances – a second chance – we all have the capacity to care for our natural world. In fact, the film suggests, we all innately do.

We interviewed filmmaker, Eilidh Munro, to discover what inspired her to create the documentary:

Q: What’s it like to work in one of the most biodiverse places on Earth? 

As a wildlife or conservation filmmaker I don’t think there is a more incredible place to work. Every day brings new opportunities to experience the natural world, whether that’s waking up to the booms and crashes of a tropical thunderstorm, walking underneath a troop of monkeys or spotting the sci-fi-esque victim of the cordyceps fungus.

It’s also an incredibly challenging place to work and live, with a daily battle to keep lenses dry and mould-free. However, despite being the most biodiverse place in the world, the rainforest certainly doesn’t give away its secrets easily. You need patience, resilience – and a bit of good luck doesn’t go amiss! 

Q: What are the threats facing this region of the Amazon? 

Manu is home to a number of indigenous communities and endemic wildlife found nowhere else on Earth. However, this area is increasingly being opened up to the outside world, with a lack of control methods being put in place to limit the impacts that people are having on this globally important area.

Slash and burn agriculture, illegal logging, gold mining and cocaine trafficking are existing industries in Madre de Dios – and the emergence of new roads which connect this rainforest region to cities, such as Cusco and Puerto Maldonado, are quickly increasing the pressure on natural resources, ecology and indigenous cultures. 

Q: What motivated you to create a film that highlights a positive story? 

The forest this short is filmed in, the Crees Reserve, was once cleared for agriculture – a story which is being repeated across the Amazon at an alarming rate.

The fact that 87 percent of all biodiversity has returned to this place is such an incredibly hopeful case study and shows that there is potential for other damaged rainforests to recover, given the chance.

In a time when it can be easy to feel defeated by environmental issues, this is something I don’t think the majority of people realise is possible. 

It’s also very easy to demonise the people who are directly involved with deforestation: loggers, hunters, miners… However, the majority of people working on the ground in these industries are most likely escaping poverty elsewhere.

Juvenal’s story is personal to his own experience and testament to his openness to different world views, however it also inspired me to challenge people’s preconceptions of what makes a ‘Conservationist’, and to show how increased opportunities can change a person’s – and the environment’s – fate. 

Q: What role do films have in making an impact to help conservation? 

Stories have the power to speak to people on an emotional level – and that is what inspires change, not logic or information, so I think film has an incredibly powerful role to play in conservation.

There are huge opportunities for researchers and filmmakers to collaborate to better communicate the threats and opportunities surrounding climate change and environmental issues.

Arguably, the majority of these films are talking to a similar audience who are, on the whole, already engaged with these issues. Perhaps, to achieve greater impact, more could be done to communicate with hard-to-reach, cynical audiences who have a different world view to the one broadly targeted. 

Q: How have you been establishing a career as an independent filmmaker? 

After building up my filming and photography portfolio whilst working in marketing, I started working as Digital Content Creator in the Peruvian Amazon for the Crees Foundation, based in the Manu Biosphere Reserve.

During this time, I made a short documentary for Crees about spider monkey feeding behaviour that’s rarely caught on camera. 

I later applied for funding through the Scientific Exploration Society to return to Manu to create an independent documentary about a road which is being built through the Reserve.

This gave me the opportunity to create a 25 minute film, Voices on the Road, after running a successful crowdfunder campaign that was generously match funded through IUCN NL. The documentary will be released very soon and I can’t wait to see how audiences respond to it.  

This Author

Bethan John is a freelance multimedia journalist specialising in biodiversity conservation and social justice.

Forests are some of the most incredible places on Earth—teeming with life, filtering our drinking water, and providing us with a number of outdoor recreation opportunities.

Trees are also the most effective means to capture and store carbon, making them our frontline defence against climate breakdown. Now, landmark research by Crowther Lab in Switzerland has quantified how global forest restoration could help us address the climate crisis.

The results are astounding. The researchers conclude that the restoration of Earth’s forests could capture two-thirds of man-made carbon emissions. The researchers called for planting 1.2 trillion trees to capture this potential.

Natural solutions

Of course, there’s no substitute for immediate cuts to greenhouse gas emissions—the kind that can only be achieved via massive reductions in the use of coal, oil and gas and their rapid replacement with low-carbon options, such as solar and wind. 

Additionally, not all areas that could be forested should be forested, and this new research should appropriately be treated as an assessment of the global potential of our lands to support new tree cover, rather than a concrete roadmap for where and under what circumstances to expand forestlands. 

However, this research does highlight that we cede an important tool in the fight against climate change if we don’t prioritise natural climate solutions and act collectively to conserve, restore and expand forests and other natural ecosystems that sequester and store carbon. 

A global reforestation action plan requires governments around the world to back policies and programmes to support these efforts.

Critically, policies and programmes that work against these goals, such as misguided subsidy schemes in the European Union that incentivise the conversion of power stations to run on wood from forests—so-called “biomass”—are counterproductive and imperil our ability to avert the world consequences of climate change. 

Pellet manufacturing

Burning forest biomass for energy emits large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), which persists in the atmosphere for decades or longer, even under the best-case scenario in which logged trees are immediately replaced with saplings (there’s no requirement that the mature trees be replaced with saplings at all).

The large new demand for wood created by support for biomass energy also results in more intensive and extensive logging of forests, thus depleting the very ecosystems that we depend on for sequestering and storing carbon. 

According to the Crowther Lab study, more than half of the locations with the potential to restore continuous tree cover are in just six countries, the top three being Russia, the US and Canada. Unfortunately, these are countries where forests are under major threat, including as harvesting grounds for forest biomass to burn for electricity. 

The US Southeast boasts some of the most precious and diverse forest ecosystems in the world. It’s also ground zero for wood pellet manufacturing and export to Europe and increasingly emerging markets in East Asia.

Year after year, a company called Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet manufacturer, sources trees from mature hardwood forests. These trees are ground up and pressed into wood pellets and then exported via ships around the world to become fuel in power stations. 

Dirty energy

The top markets for this dirty energy are in the European Union, where companies like Drax Power in the United Kingdom and Ørsted in Denmark, receive lucrative subsidies to burn biomass.

These energy giants don’t have to count smokestack emissions in quotas and policymakers can claim emissions reductions despite exacerbating issues of air pollution and pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told us that limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C requires cutting global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and reaching net zero emissions worldwide by 2050.

They also told us that every half degree difference above and beyond 1.5°C represents disproportionate additional climate-related suffering. Indeed, no effort should be spared to meet this goal.

The massive climate mitigation potential of a global reforestation agenda places in stark relief the choice between a future in which we prioritise maximising carbon storage by forests vs. one where forests are harvested and burnt for energy. 

Zero-emission technologies

The fact is that reliance on energy produced from forest biomass is incompatible with the aim of phasing out carbon emissions.

Policies that promote the use of forest biomass as fuel must be scrapped immediately and biomass subsidies redirected to genuine zero-emission energy technologies.

In parallel, bold conservation agendas to keep existing natural forests intact and dramatically expand forested lands must be a priority of all governments seeking to address the climate emergency. The time to act—and plant trees—is now.

This Author

Sasha Stashwick is senior advocate with the Climate & Clean Energy program at the Natural Resources Defence Council, a US-based NGO working on international environmental issues. 

There is plenty the EU can do to save and protect the Amazon rainforest – and much of that begins at home.

The infernos still tearing their way through large swathes of the Amazon are transforming the most fertile and biologically diverse land in the world into a charred, desolate landscape.

In the first eight months of this year, the total number of fires increased by 82 percent compared with last year. In August, a group of farmers in Para state had, in a show of solidarity with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, reportedly declared a “day of fire”. A total of 26,000 fires were recorded that month.

Mercosur

The blame for the fires has been squarely placed on the shoulders of Brazil’s new far-right president, who is a conspiracy theorist and climate change denier, notoriously pro-agribusiness and ranchers, and rabidly opposed to the indigenous peoples of the rainforest.

However, the rest of the world cannot absolve itself of responsibility that easily. While Bolsonaro is responsible for the accelerated devastation of the Amazon, the rainforest has been under attack for decades.

Since 1970, nearly 800,000 km² of Amazonian rainforest has been cleared, which is an area larger than France and about the same size as Turkey. Although forest loss to date has been due to human activity, scientists fear we may soon reach a tipping point when tree loss starts to feed on itself, destroying much of the ecosystem.

The vast majority of the deforestation in Brazil and other Amazon states has been due to the clearing of land for cattle rearing to feed the world’s voracious appetite for beef and leather.

For its part, the EU imports 120,000 tonnes a year of Brazilian beef, and this figure would balloon under a free trade deal recently agreed with the Mercosur bloc (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay).

Sustainable

Another major cause of deforestation in the Amazon is soy production, which is intensifying in light of the current US-Sino trade war. Although China is the world’s largest importer of soybeans, the EU is the world’s premier importer of soymeal and the second largest importer of soybeans, according to ‘Who is paying the bill?’, a major new report commissioned by the EEB, on the externalities of EU policies.

“These vast flows of animal feedstocks (soybeans and soymeal) being imported into the EU have significant implications for land use in exporting countries, principally in South America, as vast tracts of land are given over to soy monocultures,” the report explains.

“The area planted with soybeans in South America is continuously growing with the combined soybean area of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia expanding two-and-half times between 1988 and 2008, from 17 million hectares to 42 million hectares.”

“Ironically, despite Europe’s significant contribution to deforestation in the Amazon and other forested areas, this is not counted when the EU is measuring its sustainability,” notes Patrizia Heidegger, director for global policies and sustainability at the EEB.

“This enables us to ignore our footprint in the outside world, look at the growing forest cover in Europe and believe we are becoming more sustainable.”

Flames

Unless something dramatic changes, this spells devastation for the Amazon and other rainforests around the world, including the unique flora and fauna they host, not to mention the indigenous peoples who live there and act as custodians of these forests.

The European Union can save the Amazon, and other rainforests, by halting the import of goods produced on land that was formerly forest. An alliance of 26 leading NGOs has urged the EU to pass legislation that will guarantee that all products sold in Europe are free from deforestation and human rights abuses.

“The EU is in a rare position to act for the Amazon by using its unique market leverage,” said Hannah Mowat, campaigns coordinator at Fern, a Brussels-based organisation dedicated to protecting forests and the rights of people depending on them, which is a member of the EEB network.

“Forget the unaccepted €20 million offer from the G7, let’s talk about the €6 billion euro leverage we have, which is what the EU spends on importing rainforest-destroying products like soy or beef,” insists Nick Meynen, policy officer for environmental and economic justice at the EEB.

“Rather than ratifying the EU-Mercosur trade deal that would fan the flames only further, erect new trade tariffs based on the carbon emissions associated with the import of products such as soy, leather or beef.”

Evolve

Another option would be to divert the equivalent of some or all of these funds to finance the restoration and preservation of the rainforest.

“Beyond Mercosur, all trade deals between EU and the outside world must include safeguards to protect biodiversity and contribute to our climate targets,” says Célia Nyssens, agriculture policy officer at the EEB.

Renegotiating harmful trade deals is not enough. We also need to tackle damaging lifestyles.

Margarita Mediavilla is professor of system dynamics and senior scientist with LOCOMOTION, an EU-backed project which is modelling scenarios for the transition towards a carbon-neutral and sustainable future.

She observes: “As long as our dietary patterns continue to evolve towards more meat products, the pressure to gain land from rainforests worldwide will increase.”

Transition

“There is no way around the fact that we have to reduce our consumption of animal products,” insist Nyssens. “We need to transform the way we produce and consume meat and dairy.”

The only way to reduce our pressure on rainforests is to phase out industrial livestock farming, which relies on imported protein crops like soya to feed animals. 

This will inevitably lead to lower livestock numbers in Europe. In order to reduce the pressure on land resources so as to protect forests and natural ecosystems, people need to eat fewer animal proteins and more plant proteins.

“The LOCOMOTION model will include the global picture of land competition among uses: energy, food, urban, natural spaces and forests,” explains Mediavilla. “This module will enable us to explore how dietary changes would influence climate change mitigation.”

Many will regard such lifestyle changes as sacrifices, but reducing meat consumption will actually improve our health and wellbeing. In addition, well-managed pastures can help us achieve our climate and biodiversity objectives, explains Nyssens.

“The key is to help our farmers transition to this new system through government support and consumer choices,” she adds.

This Author

Khaled Diab is an award-winning journalist and the author of two books, Islam for the Politically Incorrrect(2017) and Intimate Enemies(2014). He is a senior communications officer at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). Follow him on Twitter: @DiabolicalIdea

This article was first published at Meta, the news channel of the European Environmental Bureau and is republished exclusively with The Ecologist.

Police officers intervened yesterday after a group of protesters blocked a road outside of one of the world’s largest arms fairs.

Around 200 protesters have held a seventh consecutive day of protest outside the Excel exhibition centre in East London in protest against the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair, which is set to open next week.

Shortly after 2.40pm on Sunday, a group of protesters from groups including Campaign Against Arms Trade and Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants blocked one of the roads near the exhibition centre, prompting officers from the Metropolitan Police to surround the demonstrators.

Exhibition

Officers were seen surrounding the activists as they stood in the road and physically moving two of the protesters from the highway, but no arrests were made.

Over the last week of protest, which is thought to have involved around 2,000 people, 113 people have been arrested for offences including aggravated trespass and obstruction of the highway.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told the PA news agency: “The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) proportionately responds to any protest activity, balancing the rights of those protesting, with the rights of others to go about their normal business unaffected.

“While the MPS always aims to work with organisers to facilitate the right to protests, we also have a duty to minimise disruption so that other members of the public and local community can go about their day-to-day lives.”

Activists have called for the end of the arms fair, which officially opens on Tuesday, and have blocked equipment from entering the exhibition centre.

Prevent

Sam Bjorn, from Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, told PA: “The arms companies arriving in London right now are not only fuelling conflicts around the world that are forcing people to flee, they are also selling the equipment that is militarising our borders and is killing people as they seek safety.

“We are here to defend the right of all people to seek sanctuary, or a better life, without fear of violence, detention and racist borders. We’re here to say that migrants and refugees are welcome, arms dealers and oppressive regimes are not.”

The four-day event is supported by the Ministry of Defence and includes the dealing of equipment such as warships, tanks and weaponry as part of one of the largest arms fairs in the world.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has told DSEI organisers that he would try and prevent the return of the event to east London in future years, in a letter seen by The Independent.

This Author

Jess Glass is a reporter with  PA.

Mighty oaks, a “twisted conifer” and a sycamore growing on top of a castle are among the contenders vying to be named England’s Tree of the Year 2019.

Ten trees have been shortlisted, and now members of the public are being invited to vote for their top specimen.

Old oaks dominate the finalists in the competition run by the Woodland Trust.

Celebrating

They include Liverpool’s Allerton Oak in Calderstones Park, which may have been growing since the times of the Norman Conquest; the Isle of Wight’s Dragon Tree, which a myth claims was once a dragon slain by a Crusading knight; and Fallen Tree in London’s Richmond Park, which has continued to grow after falling over in a storm.

Along with the oaks, a London plane which is almost as tall as Nelson’s Column; an ancient yew; a sycamore that has been growing on a castle’s walls for 200 years; and a naturally twisted Scots pine have also made it on to the list.

The Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year competition runs in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with a public vote in each country selecting a champion to go forward to the 2020 European Tree of the Year contest.

The awards aim to raise awareness of the importance of trees, and also provide a £1,000 tree care award for each winner, which could be spent on work to benefit the tree’s health, signage, or a community celebration.

Adam Cormack, head of campaigning at the Woodland Trust, said: “The Tree of the Year competition is all about highlighting and celebrating the nation’s most remarkable and special trees.

Favourite

“We have a fantastic number of ancient and veteran trees and many notable urban trees. Trees across the country are constantly under threat of felling due to inappropriate developments.

“The Tree of the Year competition is all about helping to raise the profile of trees in order to offer them better protection.

“All of our shortlisted trees look amazing and each of them has a wonderful story to tell. We’re sure that the public will show their passion and get behind their favourite.”

The awards are being supported by the People’s Postcode Lottery and by horticulturalist and TV personality David Domoney, who said: “The Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year celebrates the marvel and beauty of trees in our country.

“They are such an important part of our cities and countryside, not only for their beauty, but also for the health benefits they offer to all living creatures.”

People can find out more about the shortlist and vote for their favourite tree at woodlandtrust.org.uk/treeoftheyear from 9am on Monday September 9 until voting closes at noon on September 27.

The 10 shortlisted trees are:

– Allerton Oak, Liverpool, Merseyside

Standing in Calderstones Park in Allerton, which is mentioned in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book of 1086, it is possible this ancient tree was already growing by then, and, according to legend, the local court would meet under its branches in medieval times as they had no courthouse.

– Dragon Tree, Brighstone, Isle of Wight

This oak has huge snaking boughs, one of which forms a bridge over the brook below. It is thought it took on its unique shape after it was blown down in a storm and managed to re-root, though legend suggests it was a dragon slain by a knight before turning to wood.

– Kingley Vale Great Yew, Chichester, West Sussex

Tis tree is one of the yews that have graced the South Downs for thousands of years, and are some of the oldest living things in the UK. Its large, arching boughs form an impressive canopy.

– Addison’s Oak, Bristol

This tree was planted to commemorate the launch of Bristol’s city-wide public housing scheme by Dr Christopher Addison MP, who was responsible for the 1919 Housing and Town Planning Act which led to the first council houses to be built to provide “homes fit for heroes” returning from the First World War.

– Fallen Tree, Richmond Park, south-west London

Blown over in a storm, this oak clung on to life with its last remaining roots and has flourished in an unusual position. All of its branches grow from one side of the trunk, each reaching up like a small tree, and its bark has been worn smooth by children using it as a climbing frame over the years.

– London Plane, Bryanston, Dorset

The central of three trees at Bryanston School, this specimen stands nearly 164ft (50m) tall, just a little shorter than Nelson’s Column, making it the tallest broadleaf tree in the UK and one of the tallest in Europe. The tree’s height was confirmed in 2015 when school pupils – with the help of professional climbing equipment – scaled it to measure it.

– Twisted, Thetford, Norfolk

This Scots pine has, as it has grown, bent round in a loop. It is thought that the tree, in a small area of woodland south of Thetford, has performed this feat entirely naturally, bent down by wind or snow and then reaching towards the light once the pressure was lifted.

– North Circular Cork Oak, London

The last surviving cork oak from a plantation planted by the Cork Manufacturing Company more than a century ago, this tree flourishes at a major junction on London’s North Circular road despite being surrounded by retail warehouses and buffeted by road pollution, showing how nature and trees can thrive even in adverse urban environments.

– The Colchester Castle Sycamore, Colchester, Essex

The story of this sycamore, growing on top of Colchester Castle’s south-east tower for around 200 years, is that it was planted by the mayor’s daughter to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. It had to be removed in 1985 for wall repairs but it survived and was put back into its original position in 1987.

– The Drive Oak, Gloucester, Gloucestershire

This tree has guarded the entrance to Wick Court farm for hundreds of years and may have been there when Elizabeth I came from Berkeley Castle having been reprimanded for killing too many stags. Now children come to stay from inner-city primary schools, and study the oak as part of a bird survey.