Climate change campaigners will block major London roads during rush hour, in an attempt to put pressure on the Government over air quality.

Extinction Rebellion Lewisham are planning to “swarm” roads in the south east of the city as commuters head to work on Friday.

The group have said that drivers heading towards central London on Friday morning will be disrupted on the A205 South Circular in Catford, on the A21 at Lewisham station, and on the A2 in Deptford, between 7.30am and 9am.

Crisis

They have said that traffic will be blocked for up to seven minutes at a time, as they protest against air pollution in the borough.

In November London Mayor Sadiq Khan called Lewisham’s air quality a “health crisis”. The death of a nine-year-old child who lived in the area is to be re-examined at an inquest, to determine whether it was linked to air pollution.

Ella Kissi-Debrah, who lived near the South Circular Road in Lewisham, died in 2013 after having an asthma attack. She had been having seizures for three years.

Lorna Greenwood, nine months pregnant and a mother of two, will be taking part in Friday’s action. She said: “Air pollution is an environmental and health crisis across the UK.

Trains

“The aim is not to make life harder for ordinary people, we’ve all got jobs too and we know how annoying this is. It’s about forcing our politicians to confront the truth that our children are literally dying to breathe.”

This is the latest in a series of actions by Extinction Rebellion, who brought parts of central London to a standstill in April.

Protesters in Parliament Square, Waterloo Bridge, Oxford Circus and Marble Arch led to road closures and traffic gridlock for ten days.

More than 1,000 people were arrested after campaigners glued themselves to DLR trains and parked a boat in the middle of Oxford Circus.

This Author

Caitlin Doherty is a reporter for the Press Association.

Ed Miliband has insisted the government must show leadership on climate change action and not just on setting targets.

The Labour former energy secretary welcomed moves by the UK to aim to cut emissions to “net zero” by 2050, with legislation to guarantee this target in law.

But he cautioned the government must back this up with the right policies, including bringing forward the date to phase out new petrol and diesel vehicles.

Targets

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Miliband also welcomed the five-year review mechanism before adding: “It may well be we need to bring forward the net zero date from 2050. That may well not be the original intention of the review mechanism but it may be necessary.

“Can I, however, ask the Secretary of State to recognise that in its advice the Climate Change Committee said very specifically that as well as setting the target itself, the government must put in place the policies to meet the target.

“That means, as they said, a 2030 cut-off date for new petrol and diesel vehicles – not 2040. A proper decarbonisation plan for our 27 million homes, which we don’t have.

“And an end to what I believe is now economically illiterate, which is a moratorium on onshore wind given it is now our cheapest fuel available. So can the secretary of state assure us that henceforth that there’ll be leadership not just on targets but also on action?”

Business Secretary Greg Clark, in his reply, said: “We are not credited simply with leadership in terms of legislation and targets but with achievements.

Progress

“We are, of the major industrialised countries, the world’s leader in decarbonising our economy at the same time as growing that economy, and that is something that I think we should be proud of.”

Lib Dem climate change spokeswoman Wera Hobhouse said: “The Liberal Democrats are setting out more ambitious targets to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, together with clear interim targets to make sure we don’t kick the can down the road.”

She added: “Today’s announcement is somewhat in contradiction with other Government policies on, for example, fracking, fossil fuel, and withdrawal from the European Union, which undermines international cooperation.”

Mr Clark said he was “disappointed” with Ms Hobhouse’s remarks, and said the timetable of reaching net zero by 2050 is correct for the UK. He said it is “always possible” to review this progress and said in five years’ time, there will be an assessment of the progress made so far.

Plaid Cymru MP Ben Lake (Ceredigion) asked Mr Clark whether the Government would review policies on fracking and fossil fuels to make sure they comply with the emissions targets.

Recommendation

Mr Clark replied: “The Climate Change Committee that advises not just the House, but the country on this, do recognise that there will be the need for a transition and gas and oil will be required in that.

“In that context, and recognising the jobs that are generated by them and the exports that are generated by them, it seems to me we should do that as efficiently and with the best deployment of technology as we possibly can.”

Former Green party leader Caroline Lucas said: “The committee recommended that the emission reduction effort needs to be done here at home, not outsourced to poorer countries.

“Carbon offsetting basically slows decarbonisation, it deprives poorer countries of the low-hanging fruit that they need in order to meet their own reduction targets. Will you review the decision to rely on dodgy loopholes and make sure that the domestic action is all done here at home?”

Mr Clark replied: “The Climate Change Act includes the use of credits, that was part of the legislation passed, and the Climate Change Committee have not recommended that we should repeal that part of the act, that is not their recommendation, just that we should not aim to make use of them.

“And we agree with their recommendation, we support it, we accept it, we agree with it precisely, so we won’t be making use of them.”

This Author

Richard Wheeler and Josh Thomas are members of the political staff of the Press Association.

The exiting European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said the bloc should keep its policy to cut emissions to 40 percent of their 1990 level by 2030.

Junker said, speaking at a Politico Europe event: “To fix new goals again and again doesn’t make sense. Let’s focus on delivering what we already agreed.”

The EU has committed to review its climate plan by the end of 2020, like all Paris Agreement signatories. The 2030 target is the central pillar of the EU’s commitment.

Political priorities

UN chief Antonio Guterres has called on leaders to update their pledges a year ahead of time and bring them to a summit he has organised for 23 September.

EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete has said current policies have the bloc on track to beat its 2030 target, meaning the EU “would be in a position” to increase its Paris goal.

But Juncker said: “The objectives are clear: climate neutral in 2050, in the midway steps to be taken by 2030. It’s up to the member states to put these into reality.”

Climate change and Guterres’ summit are on the agenda for a European Council meeting next week – Juncker’s last as commission chief. It will be the last chance for leaders to discuss adopting new goals for 2030 and 2050 before Guterres’ meeting.

Juncker said the council would “take climate change inside the cortège of political priorities”.

Growing pressure

The commission’s official policy is to revise its 2050 goal, setting a new mark of net zero. Juncker backed this target, which has not been adopted by member states.

In May, an 8-country coalition comprising France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg signed a paper calling on the EU to hike its ambition to carbon neutrality by 2050.

On Tuesday, the UK stepped ahead of all other major economies by committing to end its contribution to warming by the middle of the century.

Absent from the appeal were Germany, Poland and Italy. But Angela Merkel, whose Christian Democrat party is now under growing pressure from the Greens, has since asked her cabinet to explore how to go net zero by 2050 at a domestic level.

In November, Cañete described Europe’s targets as “clearly not sufficient to meet the long-term temperature goals of the Paris Agreement”.

Climate neutral

Cañete said: “This is why going climate neutral is necessary, possible and in Europe’s interest.”

Juncker and Cañete are in the final months of their term at the head of the EU’s executive body. A new commission will be confirmed in the autumn.

This Author

Natalie Sauer reports for Climate Home News. She has contributed to a variety of international outlets, including Politico Europe, AFP and The Ecologist. This story was first published on Climate Home. 

Image: European People’s Party, Flickr. 

The centre-right cabinet of the world’s third largest economy has approved a bill setting “a carbon-neutral society as the final goal, and seek[ing] to realise it at the earliest possible time in the latter half of this century”. 

The strategy builds upon a 2016 pledge to slash emissions by 80 percent by 2050 on the base of 2010 levels, and sets out to innovate in areas such as hydrogen and carbon dioxide capture and utilization.

It commits to commercializing carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technology by 2023, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) used in coal-fired power generation by 2030. It also aims to slash production costs of hydrogen to less than one-tenth by 2050.

Disruptive innovation

But the plan was criticised for not tackling the country’s coal dependency. The fuel powered 33 percent of the country’s electricity in 2015, according to data from the World Bank, while Japanese banks and development agencies are financing coal-fired power plants from Vietnam to Indonesia.

In Japan, 30 new coal-fired power plants are either at the stage of planning or construction.

Green groups said the legislation was unambitious. Yuri Okubo, a senior researcher at the Renewable Energy Institute, said that so-called “‘disruptive innovation’ [is] often used as an excuse to avoid the implementation of reduction measures by technologies that can be used immediately,”  

Okubo warned that Japan risked becoming a “CCS, CCU, and hydrogen society. If Japan still aims to [receive] a quarter of its power source from coal by 2030 and does not revise its low renewable energy target, Japan will not be seen as taking a serious stance on tackling climate change” .

This Author

Natalie Sauer reports for Climate Home News. She has contributed to a variety of international outlets, including Politico Europe, AFP and The Ecologist. This article was first published on Climate Home. 

The American chestnut tree was attacked by the fungal pathogen (Cryphonectria parasitica) about a century ago, driving it to functional extinction.

Now, scientists at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) claim to have created, through biotechnology, a resistant American chestnut variety.

They aim to petition the required regulatory agencies (USDA, FDA, EPA) for deregulation of their genetically engineered chestnut in the near future, with the stated goal of “restoring” the species to nature.  

Forest ecosystems

If it is deregulated, the GE chestnut would be the first GE forest tree species to be planted out in forests with the deliberate intention of spreading freely. Monitoring or reversing their spread, once released, would likely be impossible.

Performing valid risk assessments of the potential impacts of GE American chestnut on forests, wildlife, water, soils, pollinators or people, is hampered by our lack of knowledge about both the ecology of the American chestnut and forest ecosystems.  

Furthermore, since American chestnuts can live for more than 200 years, risk factors may change over the tree’s lifetime in unpredictable ways. 

Critically, the choices we make about the GE American chestnut will set a precedent for the future use of biotechnology on other forest tree species and even more broadly, on the use of biotechnology, including new technologies such as gene editing, gene drives etc as “tools for conservation”. 

It is therefore critical that we carefully evaluate the case of the GE American chestnut. Towards that end, we recently published “Biotechnology for Forest Health? The Test Case of the Genetically Engineered American Chestnut”.

Biotechnology in conservation

Our paper was inspired by previous experience with a 2018 National Academy of Sciences study group on “The Potential of Biotechnology to Address Forest Health”. 

The case for using genetically engineered American chestnut for species restoration featured within the NAS study group.  Similarly, GE chestnut has also been featured in other contexts where the potential for using biotechnology in conservation has been evaluated.  

For example, it is presented as a “case study” in the International Union for Conservation of Nature 2019 report “Genetic Frontiers for Conservation: An assessment of synthetic biology and biodiversity conservation”.

We felt compelled to clearly articulate and share our reasons for opposing the GE American chestnut.

Perfect tree

The American chestnut is a much beloved and iconic“perfect tree”. It was once a dominant species along the eastern USA and into Canada.  Prolific nuts reliably provided nutritious and delicious food, and fodder for livestock.

The wood is rot resistant, easy to work with and pleasing to the eye was prized by the timber industry.  

Cryphonectria, “the blight”, was a catastrophe – for the forests and wildlife, and for the human economies, especially those of rural Appalachia, where the seasonal nut harvest was key source of income, and sustenance. 

Restoring the American chestnut is a long-held dream for some people, even as our collective memory of chestnut-filled forests grows dim with the passage of time.  

The American Chestnut Foundation has worked to implement a breeding program that would hybridize American chestnut with the naturally blight resistant Asian chestnut, and then backcross to produce a blight resistance tree that nonetheless preserved the growth characteristics of the American chestnut. 

Hundreds of thousands of hours of painstaking work across many years has gone into this breeding program – a long process that has slowly progressed, albeit with some setbacks along the way. 

Engineering resistance 

The SUNY ESF scientists claim that genetic engineering will provide a faster solution. 

After experimenting with various genes and combinations of genes, they have settled on using a gene sequence derived from wheat that causes the tree to produce an enzyme, oxalate oxidase, (aka OxO) (Nelson et al., 2014).  This enzyme inhibits the spread of the fungus once established, making it less lethal to the tree.  

OxO is not uncommon in nature, and has been experimented with in a variety of common crops. In their promotional materials, the scientists are careful to highlight that OxO is common, and that the gene comes from ordinary wheat – conjuring images of saving the chestnut with nothing more dangerous than a tasty slice of buttered toast. 

But will the OxO trait really enable restoration of the species?  This is highly unlikely.  

First of all, engineering resistance to fungal pathogens in general has proven extremely challenging.  Biotechnologists have long struggled to do so with familiar common crops with which, unlike forest tree species, we have plenty of prior experience. 

New defenses

In spite of many, many efforts, only a single fungal pathogen resistant crop is commercially available (the Simplot potato, resistant to late blight).  The problem is that fungi are very good at finding new ways to evade plant defenses.

There is a virtual arms race going on between plants, evolving new defenses, and fungal pathogens, evolving new ways around those defenses. Hence making durable effective resistance is extremely difficult.  

As well, when plants invest in defending against a pathogen, their growth is often stunted or otherwise compromised and they can become more susceptible to other pathogens or stresses they encounter (Collinge et al., 2010).

SUNY ESF’s OxO engineered chestnut trees appear to be resistant to the blight – but only young trees in controlled lab and field trial conditions have been tested. The oldest trees tested to date are only about 15 years old – other more recently developed lines are even younger. 

Yet chestnuts can live for over two hundred years during which time they may experience many diverse conditions – weather extremes, insects and pathogens etc. that could affect the expression of the OxO trait, or other characteristics of the trees.

Unlikely restoration 

We cannot reasonably assume long term durable blight resistance in natural forests based on extrapolation from results on very young trees under controlled and laboratory conditions.  

Even the SUNY scientist most involved with developing the OxO engineered chestnuts, William Powell, openly acknowledges that long term stable resistance to Cryphonectria, based on the OxO trait alone, is unlikely to succeed.  

Powell stated: “Eventually we hope to fortify American chestnuts with many different genes that confer resistance in distinct ways. Then, even if the fungus evolves new weapons against one of the engineered defenses, the trees will not be helpless.”

Another pathogen, Phytophthora cinnamomi, (aka root rot or ink disease) had been killing off American chestnuts in the southern part of their range even before Cryphonectria arrived.  

That pathogen is meanwhile spreading northwards under a warming climate. Scientists agree that restoration of the chestnut would require stacking of multiple traits including for resistance to Phytophthora. The OxO trait alone will not restore American chestnuts.   

Public relations 

So why claim otherwise?  Why rush the GE chestnut into regulatory review when even its own creators recognize it cannot fulfill the goal of species restoration?  

Because the OxO engineered chestnut – using “nothing but a wheat gene” to “restore a beloved iconic species” – is being used as a public relations tool for winning over public opinion toward GE trees more generally, and for the use of biotechnology as a “tool of conservation”.

This is a strategy that biotechnology industry proponents expect will soften public opposition and open up the potential for commercializing a wide array of GE trees.

The GE American chestnut is in fact very explicitly referred to in terms of its value for public relations, and as a “test case”.  

For example, Maud Hinchee, former chief technology officer at tree biotechnology company, ArborGen, and formerly from Monsanto, stated: “We like to support projects that we think might not have commercial value but have huge value to society, like rescuing the chestnut.  It allows the public to see the use of the technology and understand the benefits and risks in something they care about. Chestnuts are a noble cause.”

Test case

Scott Wallinger of paper company MeadWestvaco (now Westrock) stated back in 2005: “This pathway [promoting the GE chestnut as forest restoration] can begin to provide the public with a much more personal sense of the value of forest biotechnology and receptivity to other aspects of genetic engineering.”

The Forest Health Initiative which funds the SUNY ESF GE chestnut project states their aim is to: “Advance the country’s understanding and the role of biotechnology to address some of today’s most pressing forest health challenges. The initiative will initially focus on a “test species” and an icon of eastern US forests–the American chestnut.”

And even the American Chestnut Foundation stated: “If SUNY ESF is successful in obtaining regulatory approval for its transgenic blight resistant American chestnut trees, then that would pave the way for broader use of transgenic trees in the landscape.”

What “broader use of transgenic trees” can we foresee?  A review of the literature on forest biotechnology reveals that most tree biotechnology research is focused not on addressing “forest health” for the public good, but on ways to engineer trees for commercial and industrial processes and profitability.  

Forest health

A review of forest biotechnology published in 2018 states: “Genetic engineering of trees to improve productivity, wood quality and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses has been the primary goal of the forest biotechnology community for decades.

“Examples include novel methods for lignin modification, solutions for long-standing problems related to pathogen resistance, modifications to flowering onset and fertility and drought and freeze tolerance.” (Chang et al., 2018)

Most efforts to address “forest health” are focused on species of commercial interest, which are often grown in industrial monoculture plantations, and therefore more vulnerable to a variety of pests, pathogens and health threats.

For example, there has been considerable research focussed on engineering resistance to insect pests in commercially important species such as pine, poplar and eucalyptus (Balestrazzi et al., 2006).

Meanwhile, with increasing awareness of the dangers inherent to using fossil fuels, burning wood is heavily subsidized (alongside solar panels and wind turbines) as renewable energy, and falsely accounted as “carbon neutral”.

Biofuels

Efforts to convert wood into liquid transportation fuels have so far largely failed to attain commercial scale in spite of massive investments.

Turning trees into biofuels, bioplastics etc. largely depends not only on genetically engineering specific characteristics into the trees, but also on engineering microbes that produce enzymes needed to break down, access and ferment the sugars in wood.  

A 2017 review, titled Biotechnology for bioenergy dedicated trees: meeting future energy needs points to eucalyptus, pine, poplar and willow as the species of most commercial interest, with biotechnology research focused on enhanced growth and yield, altered wood properties, side adaptability and stress tolerance, and the alteration of lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose for effective biorefinery conversion to cellulosic biofuels (Al-Ahmad, 2018).

In sum, there is much riding on winning over public opinion on GE trees.     

This is why such entities as Duke Energy, ArborGen and Monsanto, as well as various multinational timber corporations, are among those funding or promoting the GE chestnut.

Idealism and integrity

The Forest Health Initiative, which receives funding from some of the above, and in turn has provided large grants to the SUNY ESF research, stated: “Biotech trees will find their place in this world, providing fiber, fuel, and even sustainable comfort food (e.g. biotech chestnuts roasting on an open fire).

“This is an industry to watch as it evolves toward responsible use and takes its place in the pipeline of sustainable biotech products.” 

Enthusiasm for GE American chestnuts has so far been underwhelming. Recently, board members of the Massachusetts/Rhode Island chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, Lois Breault-Melican and her husband, Denis M. Melican resigned in protest against the organizations’ embrace of SUNY ESF’s GE American chestnut. 

The couple had worked for over 16 years on backcross breeding of resistant American chestnuts.  

Breault-Melican stated: “We are unwilling to lift a finger, donate a nickel or spend one minute of our time assisting the development of genetically engineered trees or using the American chestnut to promote biotechnology in forests as any kind of benefit to the environment.

“The GE American chestnut is draining the idealism and integrity from TACF.”

Global protests 

Indeed, public opinion has long been solidly opposed to GE trees in general, and remains a significant barrier to their release.

A number of protests have taken place around the world where GE trees have been tested.  Women from social movements in Brazil including the MST (landless worker’s movement), cause the destruction of GE tree seedlings belonging to Futuragene in Brazil in 2016. 

The Campaign to Stop GE Trees was founded in 2014 and has both national and international presence.

When ArborGen sought to field test their GE eucalyptus in the US, several organizations filed a legal suit challenging the planned field trials in 2010.

And when the USDA issued a draft Environmental Impact Statement recommending approving deregulation of ArborGen’s GE eucalyptus in 2017, over 284,000 people signed onto or submitted their own comments opposing deregulation of the GE eucalyptus. To date, no final EIS has been issued by USDA and the petition for deregulation appears to be languishing.

Slippery slope

Forest certification bodies including Forest Stewardship Council, the Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative have banned the use of GE trees and their products. The 2008 decision IX/5 (1) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties from 2008 recommended a precautionary approach to GE trees.

GE tree proponents claim that regulatory processes can ensure safety, and complain that they are overly burdensome.  But experience with common GE crops demonstrates that standard regulatory reviews, as exemplified by the escape and invasion of GE creeping bentgrass, do not preclude serious harms.

In the case of the GE American chestnut, uncontained spread is in fact intentional.  

Hence there will be no way to prevent contamination of remaining pure American chestnuts, or hybrid chestnut orchards. Nor will it be possible to prevent the spread of GE chestnuts across territorial boundaries.    

The GE American chestnut is meant to launch us down the slippery slope of tree biotechnology.  

Underlying drivers

In the wings, and waiting to follow in that newly forged path are a host of other GE forest tree species, engineered for commercial industrial purposes.

Meanwhile, natural forests are rapidly declining, even as climate science dictates that protecting and restoring forests is a crucial part of regaining carbon balance.  

Yet logging, even of the precious remaining old growth forests, continues largely unabated, often subsidized with public funding. Replacing real forests with tree plantations, and then referring to them as “planted forests”, conceals the fact that tree plantations are more akin to corn fields than forests.  

They often displace natural forests and rural communities, are monocultures lacking biodiversity, doused with herbicides and agrichemicals, rapidly drain fresh water sources, and are designated for fast growth and short rotation mechanical harvesting. 

Debates about forest health, and the potential for biotechnology to provide solutions are irrelevant when underlying drivers of forest demise are not addressed. 

If we are seriously concerned about protecting forest health, then reigning in those underlying drivers of forest destruction is the real solution – not genetically engineering trees or replacing diverse natural forests with industrial plantations.      

These Authors 

Rachel Smolker is codirector of Biofuelwatch where she works to raise awareness of the impacts of large scale bioenergy, the bioeconomy and biotechnology.  Her work has spanned from local grassroots organizing to participation in the United Nations conventions on climate and biodiversity. She is on the steering committee of the Campaign to Stop GE Trees, and is a board member of the Global Forest Coalition. 

Anne Petermann is the co-Founder and Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and the co-founder and Coordinator of the international Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees. She has presented concerns about GE trees at UN climate, biodiversity and forest conferences, and to community and grassroots groups on six continents.  

The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) is calling for the creation of a clear and urgent Climate Emergency Action Plan, more ambitious targets, and funding and support for training programmes that will help the UK to roll out solutions at the scale and speed required.

CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain project coordinator, Paul Allen, responded to the UK’s commitment to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and said: “Early, effective action on climate change is vital – we cannot afford to wait.

“A target date of 2040 or earlier would show real global leadership whilst taking responsibility for our historic emissions and helping deliver climate justice.”

Political will 

Allen continued: “Given the urgency of the environmental crisis and the dire consequences if the world doesn’t reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with much of the reduction needed in the next 11 years, the UK has a global responsibility to be bold and ambitious.

“CAT is calling on the UK and devolved governments to create a Climate Emergency Action Plan targeting 2040 at the latest, detailing how this will be achieved, and including binding, ambitious interim targets.

“This plan must cover all emissions, including those from imported goods as well as international aviation and shipping, and should not rely on offsetting emissions.

“The solutions to the crisis already exist. CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research project has shown how we could achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions using technology available today.

“What’s needed is the political and social will to make change happen. We need strong government policy and financial support to achieve the transition.

Radical plan

“By powering down energy demand from buildings and transport, powering up our clean energy supplies through investment in renewables, and by transforming diets and land-use, we can balance supply and demand and reach net-zero emissions.

“What’s more, we can do this in ways that improve public health, alleviate fuel poverty, restore habitats, and provide more wild space for nature to flourish, whilst creating over a million green jobs.

“The Committee on Climate Change has highlighted that a lack of skills in low and zero carbon solutions is one of the key barriers to change.

“CAT’s Graduate School of the Environment and associated training courses provide many of the essential skills, with over 1,500 people having graduated with degrees in sustainable solutions and thousands more having been trained through our renewable energy installers courses.

“These skills need to be made available to many more people as we scale up our response to the climate emergency.

“We can turn this around – but we need a radical climate emergency action plan, and we need to start now.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the Centre for Alternative Technology. 

Theresa May’s announcement that the UK is to set a legally binding target to end its contribution to climate change by 2050 has been met with a mixed reaction.

The Government will lay out legislation in Parliament on Wednesday to set a new target to cut emissions to “net zero” by the middle of the century. But while some climate change figures welcomed the move, others gave a more cautious assessment.

Lord Deben, chairman of the Government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change, praised the “major commitment” and said he was looking forward to cross-party consensus on the issue.

Loophole

“This step will send a strong signal to other countries to follow suit – and will help to drive the global effort to tackle climate change required by the Paris Agreement,” he said.

Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of business group the CBI, said UK companies were “squarely behind” the commitment and called it the “right response to the global climate crisis”.

But she urged the Government to ensure the legislation was followed by long-term policies to support decarbonisation across the economy.

“Some sectors will need clear pathways to enable investment in low-carbon technologies, and it is vital that there is cross-Government coordination on the policies and regulation needed to deliver a clean future,” she said.

Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, said it was a “big moment” for the climate, but added there were “questions to be asked about (the) offsetting loophole”, seemingly in reference to the plan’s allowance for international carbon credits which allow the UK to pay to offset its emissions elsewhere in the world.

Future

Craig Bennett, UK chief executive of Friends of the Earth, said Mrs May’s premiership had been “characterised by chronic inaction on climate breakdown” and 2050 is “still too slow to address catastrophic climate change”.

He said: “It is disappointing that the Government has ignored its climate advisers’ recommendation to exclude carbon offsets – as well as caving into Treasury pressure to review the target in five years’ time.

“Fiddling the figures would put a huge dent in our ability to avoid catastrophic climate change – and the Government’s credibility for taking this issue seriously. Having declared a climate emergency, Parliament must act to close these loopholes.

“2050 is still too slow to address catastrophic climate change, the UK can and must go faster. The next prime minister must legislate to end our contribution to climate breakdown earlier, put carbon-cutting at the centre of policy-making and pull the plug on plans for more roads, runways and fracking. It’s now time to build the carbon-free future that science requires and the public are so loudly demanding.”

Gareth Redmond King, head of climate change at the environmental charity WWF, said the announcement was a “crucial first step”.

Death sentence

He added: “If we want future generations to live on a viable planet where the mass extinctions we’re witnessing halt, food security is ensured and coastal regions are safe, then Government must accelerate policies and commit resource to slashing emissions, heat our homes with clean energy and make climate action a priority across all departments.”

He said the speed in developing innovative technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines in the past decade should provide hope the UK could go faster and reach net zero by 2045.

Meanwhile, shadow energy secretary Rebecca Long Bailey raised concerns over how the commitment would be put into practice.

“While this announcement is welcome in theory, in practice it comes from a Conservative government that is off track to meet existing climate targets, that has no plans for legislation or investment needed to cut emissions, and that has dismantled the UK renewable energy sector while pushing fracking,” she said.

Extinction Rebellion, the protest group that brought parts of London to a standstill with demonstrations in April, said Mrs May’s 2050 target was a “death sentence”. “People are already dying and this will only get worse with far off dates,” the group said.

Commitment

“Were we to put our minds to it and do what is required to mobilise society to address the threat with the seriousness it deserves, the UK could embrace transformative change and decarbonise in years not decades.

“We welcome that the Prime Minister is finally talking about the emergency. This is a testament to the public pressure – including the more than 1,000 people willingly arrested for this cause – that is forcing politicians to confront the existential reality of the climate and ecological emergency. But it is not nearly enough.”

Environment analyst Tom Burke said there was “quite a gap” emerging between announcements on climate change and the implementation of policies. He told BBC Breakfast: “The reality is it’s what you do, not what you say, that matters.

“There’s been quite a gap, in a way, emerging recently between what the Government has said it wants to do on climate change and the fact that the policies aren’t in place to deliver on the existing budgets, let alone the carbon budgets we’ll need if we’re to meet this new commitment.”

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This report is based on copy provided by the Press Association.

A group of thirty artists, performers and activists arrived at the National Portrait Gallery to disrupt the announcement ceremony of the BP Portrait Award this week.

While some of the group linked arms in doorways and chained themselves to gates to prevent party guests from entering the building, others handed out a fake awards programme that challenged BP’s long-standing sponsorship of the award.

You can read the fake programme here.

Live art

Meanwhile, a group of portrait artists and cartoonists created live artwork outside the gallery.

Some of the artwork depicted activists from West Papua, Mexico, Samoa, and the US Gulf Coast who are fighting back against BP and the oil industry’s pollution, corruption, and climate devastation.

Other pieces showed the BP executives who bear responsibility for these impacts – including those who were guests at tonight’s award ceremony.

The protesters succeeded in preventing entrance to the gallery for thirty minutes, creating a large queue of guests.

Protesters were then able to speak to the guests, hand out fake programmes and showcase the live rebel art display, as well as reading out quotes from the environmental defenders featured in the portraits.

Defiant singing

At the main entrance security guards attempted to roughly drag protesters away from the gates, but the activists succeeded in attaching themselves to and blocking the entranceway.

The second front entrance was also blocked by a team of activists, while at the rear of the building four protesters linked themselves together at the bottom of the entrance ramp.

After half an hour with all three pedestrian entrances blocked, the gallery decided to take unusual measures to get guests into the party.

Guests were directed to clamber awkwardly over a wall with assistance from security to enter the gallery, creating a long slow-moving queue along the street.

At 7.30pm, having achieved their goal of delaying the start of the award party, the protesters removed themselves from the doorways and gathered to sing songs of defiance before departing.

Creative action

This action followed the unprecedented news that one of the judges of this year’s Portrait Award – leading artist Gary Hume – has publicly called for the gallery to end its relationship with BP.

His call was echoed this morning by eight former exhibitors in the BP Portrait Award exhibition, including two former award winners, in a letter to Director Nicholas Cullinan.

Earlier this year, the gallery turned down a £1 million grant from the Sackler family on ethical grounds, due to their links with the opioid crisis.

Campaigners point out that this shows that the gallery can make ethical funding decisions when it chooses to do so.

BP or not BP? are the creative action group behind today’s protest. They have staged more than 50 rebel performances at BP-sponsored arts institutions.

Veneer of respectability

Sarah Horne, a member of the group, said: “The climate crisis is unfolding at terrifying speed. Those who have done least to cause the problem are worst hit, while oil companies like BP continue to rake in massive profits while actively making the problem worse.

“BP spends tens of millions every year lobbying against climate action and blocking clean energy alternatives, while pushing for access to yet more oil and gas that we cannot afford to burn.

“The National Portrait Gallery needs to stop giving this destructive and irresponsible company a veneer of respectability it does not deserve.”

Benny Wenda is an Indigenous leader from West Papua, a nation under brutal occupation by the Indonesian government and where BP runs a major gas extraction project. 

A print of Benny Wenda’s portrait (by the artist Dale Grimshaw) was one of the images displayed by the protesters outside the gallery today.

Illegal occupation

Mr Wenda said: “BP need to admit that they’re operating in the middle of a genocide. BP, you can’t just say that you’re only in West Papua for business.

“If you continue to work with this illegal occupation, then you’re part of the problem. You fund the illegal Indonesian government. They misuse your funds to buy guns and equipment to kill my people.

“You take our raw materials, make money, and give some of it to the occupier. We West Papuans see none of the benefits. Whether it’s human rights violations or global warming, BP’s actions directly impact my people.”

Another of today’s protesters, Deborah Locke, said: “We are sorry to cause disruption to guests at the Portrait Award this evening. We know that most of the people attending this event were not involved in the gallery’s decision to promote BP.

“But in the face of the climate emergency, and BP’s ongoing complicity in human rights abuses, we feel this is a step we have to take.

“We hope that guests at this event will understand the importance of these issues and bear with us.”

This Author

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. This article is based on a press release from BP or not BP? 

Image: Mark Kerrison.

UN Environment published an unusually stark critique of carbon offsetting on Monday. On Tuesday, the article was taken down, following queries by Climate Home News.

In the original article, archived by the Wayback Machine, a climate specialist at the UN organisation warned against considering carbon offsets as “our get-out-jail-free card”.

Niklas Hagelberg wrote: “The era of carbon offsets is drawing to a close. Buying carbon credits in exchange for a clean conscience while you carry on flying, buying diesel cars and powering your home with fossil fuels is no longer acceptable or widely accepted.”

Conflicting messages

Since 2008, UN Environment has claimed to be climate neutral, based on buying carbon credits from a scheme administered by UN Climate Change.

While not indicating any change to that policy, the commentary appeared to attack the underlying concept of polluters paying others to cut emissions on their behalf.

Contacted by Climate Home News, Hagelberg blamed the editing process for introducing some “conflicting messages” to his original text and said a revised version would be published shortly.

Hagelberg continued: “This is a web story not an official position paper. However [UN Environment] does see offsets as an intermediate solution.”

At time of publication, spokespersons at UN Environment and UN Climate Change had not responded to requests for comment.

Carbon credits 

At issue is a system set up under the Kyoto Protocol to allow rich countries to gain carbon credits by investing in emission reduction projects in the developing world. 

UN Climate Change has since repurposed it as a voluntary mechanism for businesses, organisations and individuals to offset some of their carbon footprint.

Last August, UN Climate Change came under fire for releasing a video promoting carbon offsets as an easy remedy to climate change.

Entitled “keep calm and offset”, the advertisement appeared to suggest that viewers could lead a carbon-heavy lifestyle as long as they offset their emissions. It was taken down after a backlash.

Carbon offsets have long been a controversial proposition to tackle the climate crisis. At the last UN climate summit in December, negotiators were unable to reach consensus on whether and how to continue Kyoto-era offset schemes under the Paris Agreement. Talks resume in Bonn, Germany this month.

Problematic tool 

In parallel, the International Civil Aviation Organization is considering what types of carbon credits can be used by airlines to offset their emissions growth.

Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based campaign group for cleaner transport, urged UN Environment to restore the article “in the interest of effective climate policy”.

Campaigner  Andrew Murphy said: “With the aviation sector targeting offsetting as its get-out-of-jail-card for climate action, this piece threw some necessary cold water on what is an extremely problematic climate tool.”

This Author 

Natalie Sauer reports for Climate Home News. She has contributed to a variety of international outlets, including Politico Europe, AFP and The Ecologist. This article was first published by Climate Home News. 

Agblobashie, a slum in Ghana’s capital, is plagued by electronic waste from more industrialized nations. The health of local people suffers as a result.

Those smartphones everyone rushes out to buy, the old ones people casually toss in the rubbish bin – they have to go somewhere.

Why have humans become so addicted to throwing things out that no longer function as opposed to repairing them, and, more importantly, how can they keep discarded electronics from poisoning those who live on the other side of the world? 

Industrial pollution

We’ve grown accustomed to convenience. The price of purchasing new electronic devices often costs far less than simply replacing them — I recently discovered this while trying to repair a 15-year-old TV where the parts necessary to fix the gadget were no longer manufactured.

Many people living in industrialized nations take for granted the fact they can replace a broken computer or shattered iPhone the moment their contract permits. Few give pause to reflect upon the way such behavior impacts others. 

The citizens of Accra, Ghana would probably beg to differ with such wanton disposal. The Korle Lagoon in the city ranks as one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth.

This lake regularly floods, impacting the poor living in the vicinity most. Even though the city’s waste management department cleans the water daily, they only can keep up with 60 percent of the refuge entering the waterway, and the rest flows into the sea. 

Several industries in the region also contribute to high levels of pollution. But the fact remains that a huge portion of the waste clogging Ghana’s waterways stems from foreign sources. 

Colonial legacy

According to research, seven million people perish every year due to air pollution, with the nations of Ghana, Nigeria and India most impacted.

The e-dumping site in Agblobashie is a primary source of this pollution, along with vehicle exhausts and particulates from fires which provide the major source of heat and cooking fuel for many in the region. 

Humans can reduce the amount of electronic waste they produce, but few take measures to recycle their gadgets properly. Upgrading has become the new normal, and people willingly wait in line for hours to upgrade their devices.

But the very devices so many casually toss in the rubbish contain a ton of toxic chemicals which leach into soil and waterways when discarded.

What happens in Agblobashie boils down to a matter of racism, imperialism and the incessant human battle over vital resources. 

Dioxins

Many electronic components carry little cash value — plastic has grown so ubiquitous, the folks at Lego probably could function fine on ocean waste alone — wiring, especially copper wiring, remains a rich source of revenue.

While techniques exist to harvesting this wire from old gadgets, the impoverished people living in the region cannot afford such technology. Therefore, they continue to remove the insulation from this wiring by burning it.

Burning wire insulation releases toxic dioxins into the air. Dioxins do exist everywhere in the environment but proliferate in areas where backyard burning reigns supreme such as in Agblobashie.

Anyone who has ever stood downwind of a traditional paper mill has inhaled the nauseating aroma emitted by the toxin. 

Dioxins find a home in human and animal fat, and they nest there for quite some time. Dioxins remain in the body anywhere from 7-11 years, and they accumulate in the food chain as well. Those who regularly consume animal products can raise the levels of dioxins in their bodies significantly. 

Virtual reality

Many people in Ghana recognize the extent of the problem, and they take measures to address the issue of e-trash.

Two game designers have created a virtual reality game aimed at educating the populace about the safe handling of discarded electronics.

The plan holds promise, as virtual reality is quickly becoming a very popular method of teaching consumers about their health outcomes and environmental impact, due to its easy-to-digest format in a digitally-focused world. In addition, there’s also a Facebook group dedicated to cleaning up Agblobashie.

Most Americans pay little heed to the amount of trash they produce. Municipalities typically charge a flat fee for waste disposal, meaning few pay attention to what they toss in the rubbish.

And around the globe, scrappers – people who eke out an existence from the discarded remains of others – process said waste and remove usable components such as wiring. These people provide a valuable service that few respect. They deserve the tools necessary to do such work without putting their health and the health of the planet at risk.

Dumping ground

As the world’s wealthiest nations continue to turn countries such as Ghana into their personal dumping grounds, investing in the infrastructure for letting people process refuge safely seems more than fair. 

Technology has made life easier for many, but that need not mean others should suffer for their privilege.

This Author 

​​​​​​​Kate Harveston is a vegan health and sustainability writer and the editor of women’s wellness blog, So Well, So Woman.