“Outrage as hundreds of seals are secretly slaughtered by Britain’s fish farming industry” was the front page headline in the Daily Mirror on the 20th April this year.

The annual commercial seal cull in Canada is rightly the subject of huge international concern, but it will come as a nasty shock to many people that hundreds of seals are also shot every year along Britain’s coastline, albeit for other reasons.

According to Scottish government data, 205 seals were legally killed under license in 2014 in Scotland; 80 to protect marine fish farms and 125 to protect wild fisheries.

However the true numbers killed across the UK could be far higher, according to wildlife campaigners, since the Scottish government’s figures relate only to those kills reported under the licensing scheme, and kills are not recorded for the rest of the UK.

Back in 1978, the Labour Government of Prime Minister Jim Callaghan planned a massive seal cull in Scotland. Large numbers of marksmen were brought in from Norway to undertake the cull and over 6,000 seals around Orkney were put on the target list. This resulted in a huge public outcry and following high profile campaigns from Greenpeace and other environmental groups it was called off.

Since this time, the number of grey seals is estimated to have doubled to around 112,000 (three quarters of the global population), there are also thought to be around 37,000 common or harbour seals around the UK coastline.

However common seal numbers have plummeted by over a third in the last decade, with ecological changes and a shortage of wild fish thought to be key factors contributing to the decline.

Seals persecuted to protect salmon?

Adult seals eat a varied diet of fish and shellfish and do not only target prime fish stocks such as salmon and cod. Many fisherman and fish farmers claim they regularly raid their nets and could cause long term decline in fish stocks, but this is a highly controversial and a hotly disputed claim.

The Scottish salmon farming industry produces over 155,000 tonnes of fish a year and serves a critical economic need across the highlands and islands of Scotland. It employs thousands of people and generated exports valued in excess of £500 million in 2014.

The wild salmon netting industry and salmon angling sectors also contribute a further £100 million to the Scottish economy and remain important employers and revenue generators in rural communities.

Few question the importance of these sectors to the Scottish economy, but concerns remain that seals are being persecuted to protect them.

In response, the RSPCA has been working closely with industry over the last decade to improve animal welfare standards for salmon and trout under it Freedom Foods Scheme. Today 90% of farmed Scottish salmon are produced to the Freedom Foods standard – amounting to over 240 million fish in 2014.

Non-lethal protection the first option

The RSPCA welfare standards place a heavy emphasis on the need for management methods aimed at preventing stock predation, such as acoustic devices to deter seals, nets that are weighted to prevent seal incursion and good management techniques, such as the speedy removal of dead fish.

Only where other methods have demonstrably failed to prevent predation can seals be shot under the standards, and the farmers are required to justify any such incidents to Freedom Foods on a case by case basis.

However all these preventative measures do have limitations. In some areas acoustic devices can only be used sparingly due to their potential negative impact on local cetacean populations. Anti-seal nets are also limited by currents and tides and can lead to the drowning of sea birds, dolphins and seals.

And of course the RSCPCA Freedom Foods standards only apply to salmon aquaculture facilities, and not to capture fisheries.

In Scotland seal-shooting now requires a licence, but …

The Scottish Government has significantly increased the protection for seals with the introduction of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, which for the first time, makes it an offence to shoot seals without a licence at any time, unless to alleviate suffering.

There has reportedly been a 50% decline in the number of seals being shot around the Scottish coast, since the Act and new licensing system came into force. However the Scottish Government continues to issue licences to shoot seals to protect fish stocks and these are given to salmon farmers, salmon nets men and salmon angling organisations.

A total of 53 licenses were issued in 2014 alone, permitting the killing of over 1,000 individual seals (albeit that according to license returns, 205 were actually shot).

The licence holders are not monitored by any Government official when they are shooting seals and many wildlife protection campaigners question the accuracy of the license return figures published by the Government.

There is also no closed season for seal shooting, which can result in heavily pregnant seals being shot. Lactating mothers can also be shot, leaving their pups to suffer a slow painful death from starvation.

Shooting seals may not be the cheapest option after all

Many wildlife campaigners also claim that salmon farms are often unwilling to deploy effective predator exclusion methods in view of the expense – shooting seals, they say, is cheaper.

The Scottish Government has also found itself at a centre of a debate over freedom of information as it seeks to prevent the disclosure of information detailing where seals have been killed, in view of what it believes is a threat to the personal safety of the facility managers and marksmen involved from direct action protestors.

Another aspect of seal shooting which is causing growing concern is its impact on tourism. Marksmen will generally kill seals in isolated areas away from the public eye, but in some cases shot seals are turning up on Scotland’s beautiful beaches.

And that could become a serious problem for Scotland’s reputation as a haven for wildlife – which attracts millions of tourists every year from across the UK and around the world.

As public awareness and concern grows, direct action groups such as Sea Shepherd and the Hunt Saboteurs Association are taking to the shores of Scotland in an attempt to stop the shooting of seals by intervening between the marksmen and the animals.

This summer is likely to see a number of protests across Scotland against the shooting of seals and increased media interest as a result of the interventions of activists.

Applying the RSPCA approach to wild salmon fisheries

Ultimately it might be our willingness to pay more for seal friendly products that will be the key driver in bringing an end to the shooting of seals. RSPCA Freedom Foods has proved that consumers are willing to pay more for meat and fish products with higher animal welfare standards.

Freedom Foods certification has significantly reduced the number of seals shot by salmon farms and although more needs to done to reduce this figure further, the RSPCA deserves credit for its work with the salmon farming industry and food retail sector in this area.

The key challenge going forward will be to develop a similar animal welfare certification scheme aimed at also bringing about significant reductions in the number of seals shot by salmon netters and angling organisations.

This in my view would be the best outcome to protect both the future of the Scottish salmon farming, fishing and angling industry and our precious seals.

Dominic Dyer is Policy Advisor at the Born Free Foundation, which recently merged with Care for the Wild.

Numerous reports comment on the water crisis that is escalating across Libya as consumption outpaces production. Some have noted the environmental context in regional water scarcity due to climate change.

But what they ignore is the fact that the complex national irrigation system that had been carefully built and maintained over decades to overcome this problem was targeted and disrupted by NATO.

During the 2011 military invasion, press reports surfaced, mostly citing pro-rebel sources, claiming that pro-Gaddafi loyalists had shut down the water supply system as a mechanism to win the war and punish civilians.

This is a lie.

But truth, after all, is the first casualty of war – especially for mainstream media journos who can’t be bothered to fact-check the claims of people they interview in war zones, while under pressure from editors to produce copy that doesn’t rock too many boats.

Critical water installations bombed – then blamed on Gaddafi

It was in fact NATO which debilitated Libya’s water supply by targeting critical state-owned water installations, including a water-pipe factory in Brega.

The factory, one of just two in the country (the other one being in Gaddafi’s home-town of Sirte), manufactured pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipes for the Great Manmade River (GMR) project, an ingenious irrigation system transporting water from aquifers beneath Libya’s southern desert to about 70% of the population.

On 18th July, a rebel commander boasted that some of Gaddafi’s troops had holed up in industrial facilities in Brega, but that rebels had blocked their access to water: “Their food and water supplies are cut and they now will not be able to sleep.”

In other words, the rebels, not Gaddafi loyalists, had sabotaged the GMR water pipeline into Brega. On 22nd July, NATO followed up by bombing the Brega water-pipes factory on the pretext that it was a Gaddafi “military storage” facility concealing rocket launchers.

“Major parts of the plant have been damaged”, said Abdel-Hakim el-Shwehdy, head of the company running the project. “There could be major setback for the future projects.”

Legitimate military target left untouched in the attack

When asked to provide concrete evidence of Gaddafi loyalists firing from inside the water-pipe factory, NATO officials failed to answer. Instead, NATO satellite images shown to journalists confirm that a BM-21 rocket launcher identified near the facility days earlier, remained perfectly intact the day after the NATO attack.

Earlier, NATO forces had already bombed water facilities in Sirte, killing several “employees of the state water utility who were working during the attack.”

By August, UNICEF reported that the conflict had “put the Great Manmade River Authority, the primary distributor of potable water in Libya, at risk of failing to meet the country’s water needs.”

The same month, Agence France Presse reported that the GMR “could be crippled by the lack of spare parts and chemicals” – reinforced by NATO’s destruction of water installations critical to the GMR in Sirte and Brega.

The GMR is now “struggling to keep reservoirs at a level that can provide a sustainable supply”, UN officials said. “If the project were to fail, agencies fear a massive humanitarian emergency.”

Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF Libya’s head of office, warned that the city faced “an absolute worst-case scenario” that “could turn into an unprecedented health epidemic” without resumption of water supplies.

Stratfor email: ‘So much shit doesn’t add up here’

While pro-rebel sources attempted to blame Gaddafi loyalists for the disruption of Libya’s water supply, leaked emails from the US intelligence contractor Stratfor, which publicly endorsed these sources, show that the firm privately doubted its own claims.

“So much shit doesn’t add up here”, wrote Bayless Parsley, Stratfor’s Middle East analyst, in an email to executives. “I am pretty much not confident in ANY of the sources … If anything, just need to be very clear how contradictory all the information is on this project … a lot of the conclusions drawn from it are not really air tight.”

But the private US intelligence firm, which has played a key role in liaising with senior Pentagon officials in facilitating military intelligence operations, was keenly aware of what the shutdown of the GMR would mean for Libya’s population:

“Since the first phase of the ‘river’s’ construction in 1991, Libya’s population has doubled. Remove that river and, well, there would likely be a very rapid natural correction back to normal carrying capacities.”

“How often do Libyans bathe? You’d have drinking water for a month if you skipped a shower”, joked Kevin Stech, a Stratfor research director. “Seriously. Cut the baths and the showers and your well water should suffice for drinking and less-than-optional hygiene.”

The truth – government officials were trying to keep water flowing

Meanwhile, UNICEF confirmed that Libyan government officials were not sabotaging water facilities, but in fact working closely with a UN technical team to “facilitate an assessment of water wells, review urgent response options and identify alternatives for water sources.”

Nevertheless, by September, UNICEF reported that the disruption to the GMR had left 4 million Libyans without potable water.

The GMR remains disrupted to this day, and Libya’s national water crisis continues to escalate.

The deliberate destruction of a nation’s water infrastructure, with the knowledge that doing so would result in massive deaths of the population as a direct consequence, is not simply a war crime, but potentially a genocidal strategy.

It raises serious questions about the conventional mythology of a clean, humanitarian war in Libya – questions that mainstream journalists appear to be uninterested in, or unable to ask.

Nafeez Ahmed PhD is an investigative journalist, international security scholar and bestselling author who tracks what he calls the ‘crisis of civilization.’ He is a winner of the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian reporting on the intersection of global ecological, energy and economic crises with regional geopolitics and conflicts. As well as writing for The Ecologist, he has also written for The Independent, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Scotsman, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, Prospect, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, New Internationalist. His work on the root causes and covert operations linked to international terrorism officially contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest.

See also Nafeez Ahmed’s blog: nafeezahmed.com/.

“Outrage as hundreds of seals are secretly slaughtered by Britain’s fish farming industry” was the front page headline in the Daily Mirror on the 20th April this year.

The annual commercial seal cull in Canada is rightly the subject of huge international concern, but it will come as a nasty shock to many people that hundreds of seals are also shot every year along Britain’s coastline, albeit for other reasons.

According to Scottish government data, 205 seals were legally killed under license in 2014 in Scotland; 80 to protect marine fish farms and 125 to protect wild fisheries.

However the true numbers killed across the UK could be far higher, according to wildlife campaigners, since the Scottish government’s figures relate only to those kills reported under the licensing scheme, and kills are not recorded for the rest of the UK.

Back in 1978, the Labour Government of Prime Minister Jim Callaghan planned a massive seal cull in Scotland. Large numbers of marksmen were brought in from Norway to undertake the cull and over 6,000 seals around Orkney were put on the target list. This resulted in a huge public outcry and following high profile campaigns from Greenpeace and other environmental groups it was called off.

Since this time, the number of grey seals is estimated to have doubled to around 112,000 (three quarters of the global population), there are also thought to be around 37,000 common or harbour seals around the UK coastline.

However common seal numbers have plummeted by over a third in the last decade, with ecological changes and a shortage of wild fish thought to be key factors contributing to the decline.

Seals persecuted to protect salmon?

Adult seals eat a varied diet of fish and shellfish and do not only target prime fish stocks such as salmon and cod. Many fisherman and fish farmers claim they regularly raid their nets and could cause long term decline in fish stocks, but this is a highly controversial and a hotly disputed claim.

The Scottish salmon farming industry produces over 155,000 tonnes of fish a year and serves a critical economic need across the highlands and islands of Scotland. It employs thousands of people and generated exports valued in excess of £500 million in 2014.

The wild salmon netting industry and salmon angling sectors also contribute a further £100 million to the Scottish economy and remain important employers and revenue generators in rural communities.

Few question the importance of these sectors to the Scottish economy, but concerns remain that seals are being persecuted to protect them.

In response, the RSPCA has been working closely with industry over the last decade to improve animal welfare standards for salmon and trout under it Freedom Foods Scheme. Today 90% of farmed Scottish salmon are produced to the Freedom Foods standard – amounting to over 240 million fish in 2014.

Non-lethal protection the first option

The RSPCA welfare standards place a heavy emphasis on the need for management methods aimed at preventing stock predation, such as acoustic devices to deter seals, nets that are weighted to prevent seal incursion and good management techniques, such as the speedy removal of dead fish.

Only where other methods have demonstrably failed to prevent predation can seals be shot under the standards, and the farmers are required to justify any such incidents to Freedom Foods on a case by case basis.

However all these preventative measures do have limitations. In some areas acoustic devices can only be used sparingly due to their potential negative impact on local cetacean populations. Anti-seal nets are also limited by currents and tides and can lead to the drowning of sea birds, dolphins and seals.

And of course the RSCPCA Freedom Foods standards only apply to salmon aquaculture facilities, and not to capture fisheries.

In Scotland seal-shooting now requires a licence, but …

The Scottish Government has significantly increased the protection for seals with the introduction of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, which for the first time, makes it an offence to shoot seals without a licence at any time, unless to alleviate suffering.

There has reportedly been a 50% decline in the number of seals being shot around the Scottish coast, since the Act and new licensing system came into force. However the Scottish Government continues to issue licences to shoot seals to protect fish stocks and these are given to salmon farmers, salmon nets men and salmon angling organisations.

A total of 53 licenses were issued in 2014 alone, permitting the killing of over 1,000 individual seals (albeit that according to license returns, 205 were actually shot).

The licence holders are not monitored by any Government official when they are shooting seals and many wildlife protection campaigners question the accuracy of the license return figures published by the Government.

There is also no closed season for seal shooting, which can result in heavily pregnant seals being shot. Lactating mothers can also be shot, leaving their pups to suffer a slow painful death from starvation.

Shooting seals may not be the cheapest option after all

Many wildlife campaigners also claim that salmon farms are often unwilling to deploy effective predator exclusion methods in view of the expense – shooting seals, they say, is cheaper.

The Scottish Government has also found itself at a centre of a debate over freedom of information as it seeks to prevent the disclosure of information detailing where seals have been killed, in view of what it believes is a threat to the personal safety of the facility managers and marksmen involved from direct action protestors.

Another aspect of seal shooting which is causing growing concern is its impact on tourism. Marksmen will generally kill seals in isolated areas away from the public eye, but in some cases shot seals are turning up on Scotland’s beautiful beaches.

And that could become a serious problem for Scotland’s reputation as a haven for wildlife – which attracts millions of tourists every year from across the UK and around the world.

As public awareness and concern grows, direct action groups such as Sea Shepherd and the Hunt Saboteurs Association are taking to the shores of Scotland in an attempt to stop the shooting of seals by intervening between the marksmen and the animals.

This summer is likely to see a number of protests across Scotland against the shooting of seals and increased media interest as a result of the interventions of activists.

Applying the RSPCA approach to wild salmon fisheries

Ultimately it might be our willingness to pay more for seal friendly products that will be the key driver in bringing an end to the shooting of seals. RSPCA Freedom Foods has proved that consumers are willing to pay more for meat and fish products with higher animal welfare standards.

Freedom Foods certification has significantly reduced the number of seals shot by salmon farms and although more needs to done to reduce this figure further, the RSPCA deserves credit for its work with the salmon farming industry and food retail sector in this area.

The key challenge going forward will be to develop a similar animal welfare certification scheme aimed at also bringing about significant reductions in the number of seals shot by salmon netters and angling organisations.

This in my view would be the best outcome to protect both the future of the Scottish salmon farming, fishing and angling industry and our precious seals.

Dominic Dyer is Policy Advisor at the Born Free Foundation, which recently merged with Care for the Wild.

“Outrage as hundreds of seals are secretly slaughtered by Britain’s fish farming industry” was the front page headline in the Daily Mirror on the 20th April this year.

The annual commercial seal cull in Canada is rightly the subject of huge international concern, but it will come as a nasty shock to many people that hundreds of seals are also shot every year along Britain’s coastline, albeit for other reasons.

According to Scottish government data, 205 seals were legally killed under license in 2014 in Scotland; 80 to protect marine fish farms and 125 to protect wild fisheries.

However the true numbers killed across the UK could be far higher, according to wildlife campaigners, since the Scottish government’s figures relate only to those kills reported under the licensing scheme, and kills are not recorded for the rest of the UK.

Back in 1978, the Labour Government of Prime Minister Jim Callaghan planned a massive seal cull in Scotland. Large numbers of marksmen were brought in from Norway to undertake the cull and over 6,000 seals around Orkney were put on the target list. This resulted in a huge public outcry and following high profile campaigns from Greenpeace and other environmental groups it was called off.

Since this time, the number of grey seals is estimated to have doubled to around 112,000 (three quarters of the global population), there are also thought to be around 37,000 common or harbour seals around the UK coastline.

However common seal numbers have plummeted by over a third in the last decade, with ecological changes and a shortage of wild fish thought to be key factors contributing to the decline.

Seals persecuted to protect salmon?

Adult seals eat a varied diet of fish and shellfish and do not only target prime fish stocks such as salmon and cod. Many fisherman and fish farmers claim they regularly raid their nets and could cause long term decline in fish stocks, but this is a highly controversial and a hotly disputed claim.

The Scottish salmon farming industry produces over 155,000 tonnes of fish a year and serves a critical economic need across the highlands and islands of Scotland. It employs thousands of people and generated exports valued in excess of £500 million in 2014.

The wild salmon netting industry and salmon angling sectors also contribute a further £100 million to the Scottish economy and remain important employers and revenue generators in rural communities.

Few question the importance of these sectors to the Scottish economy, but concerns remain that seals are being persecuted to protect them.

In response, the RSPCA has been working closely with industry over the last decade to improve animal welfare standards for salmon and trout under it Freedom Foods Scheme. Today 90% of farmed Scottish salmon are produced to the Freedom Foods standard – amounting to over 240 million fish in 2014.

Non-lethal protection the first option

The RSPCA welfare standards place a heavy emphasis on the need for management methods aimed at preventing stock predation, such as acoustic devices to deter seals, nets that are weighted to prevent seal incursion and good management techniques, such as the speedy removal of dead fish.

Only where other methods have demonstrably failed to prevent predation can seals be shot under the standards, and the farmers are required to justify any such incidents to Freedom Foods on a case by case basis.

However all these preventative measures do have limitations. In some areas acoustic devices can only be used sparingly due to their potential negative impact on local cetacean populations. Anti-seal nets are also limited by currents and tides and can lead to the drowning of sea birds, dolphins and seals.

And of course the RSCPCA Freedom Foods standards only apply to salmon aquaculture facilities, and not to capture fisheries.

In Scotland seal-shooting now requires a licence, but …

The Scottish Government has significantly increased the protection for seals with the introduction of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, which for the first time, makes it an offence to shoot seals without a licence at any time, unless to alleviate suffering.

There has reportedly been a 50% decline in the number of seals being shot around the Scottish coast, since the Act and new licensing system came into force. However the Scottish Government continues to issue licences to shoot seals to protect fish stocks and these are given to salmon farmers, salmon nets men and salmon angling organisations.

A total of 53 licenses were issued in 2014 alone, permitting the killing of over 1,000 individual seals (albeit that according to license returns, 205 were actually shot).

The licence holders are not monitored by any Government official when they are shooting seals and many wildlife protection campaigners question the accuracy of the license return figures published by the Government.

There is also no closed season for seal shooting, which can result in heavily pregnant seals being shot. Lactating mothers can also be shot, leaving their pups to suffer a slow painful death from starvation.

Shooting seals may not be the cheapest option after all

Many wildlife campaigners also claim that salmon farms are often unwilling to deploy effective predator exclusion methods in view of the expense – shooting seals, they say, is cheaper.

The Scottish Government has also found itself at a centre of a debate over freedom of information as it seeks to prevent the disclosure of information detailing where seals have been killed, in view of what it believes is a threat to the personal safety of the facility managers and marksmen involved from direct action protestors.

Another aspect of seal shooting which is causing growing concern is its impact on tourism. Marksmen will generally kill seals in isolated areas away from the public eye, but in some cases shot seals are turning up on Scotland’s beautiful beaches.

And that could become a serious problem for Scotland’s reputation as a haven for wildlife – which attracts millions of tourists every year from across the UK and around the world.

As public awareness and concern grows, direct action groups such as Sea Shepherd and the Hunt Saboteurs Association are taking to the shores of Scotland in an attempt to stop the shooting of seals by intervening between the marksmen and the animals.

This summer is likely to see a number of protests across Scotland against the shooting of seals and increased media interest as a result of the interventions of activists.

Applying the RSPCA approach to wild salmon fisheries

Ultimately it might be our willingness to pay more for seal friendly products that will be the key driver in bringing an end to the shooting of seals. RSPCA Freedom Foods has proved that consumers are willing to pay more for meat and fish products with higher animal welfare standards.

Freedom Foods certification has significantly reduced the number of seals shot by salmon farms and although more needs to done to reduce this figure further, the RSPCA deserves credit for its work with the salmon farming industry and food retail sector in this area.

The key challenge going forward will be to develop a similar animal welfare certification scheme aimed at also bringing about significant reductions in the number of seals shot by salmon netters and angling organisations.

This in my view would be the best outcome to protect both the future of the Scottish salmon farming, fishing and angling industry and our precious seals.

Dominic Dyer is Policy Advisor at the Born Free Foundation, which recently merged with Care for the Wild.

Correspondence between Prince Charles and ministers released today under a Freedom of Information order secured by The Guardian after a 10-year legal battle contains a shocking surprise.

Many see Charles as the ‘Green Prince’, always ready to stand up for environmental causes – such as his opposition to genetically modified food and crops, and his concerns over climate change.

But these concerns did not extend to badgers. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, dated 24th February 2005, he firmly set out the case for introducing a badger cull in short order.

Dear Prime Minister …

“We discussed at some length the agricultural situation. The most pressing and urgent problem is, without doubt, the rising number of TB cases in cattle. As I think I mentioned, TB is affecting some 5,000 farms each year, 20,000 head of cattle are being slaughtered and the cost to the taxpayer is £100 million annually.

“As you know, all the evidence is that TB is caused and spread by badgers. You said you were aware of the recent study in the Republic of Ireland which proved that badger culling is effective in ridding cattle of TB – in Donegal, for instance, by the fifth year of the trial there was a 96 per cent reduction of cattle infection in the ‘badger removal’ areas.

“I know the Government is planning shortly to announce a ten-year strategic framework for the control of the disease but, as far as I can tell, there is no evidence that this will include a commitment to deal with the badger problem in the immediate future, although there is a strong rumour that the Government may be intending to reduce the levels of compensation to farmers, something which, I happen to think, would be less than fair and provoke real anger among farmers.

Cull opponents ‘intellectually dishonest’

“Apart from the appalling waste of valuable cattle, I explained to you my real fear that unless something is done urgently we could end up with another food scare and I know you remember only too well the consequences of BSE and FMD …

“Certainly the raw milk cheese-producers, many of whom have established their businesses in an effort to diversify their farms, which is what the Government wants, are deeply fearful of what what may happen to them and I know John Krebs, the outgoing Chairman of the Food Standards Agency, shares their fears.

“So all I can say is that I do urge you again to look again at introducing a proper cull of badgers where it is necessary. I, for one, cannot understand how the ‘badger lobby’ seem to mind not at all about the slaughter of thousand sof expensive cattle, and yet object to a managed cull of an over-population of badgers. To me, this is intellectually dishonest.”

A gentle let down from Tony Blair

The Prime Minister responded with his usual masterly support, sympathy and non-commitment on 30th March 2005, writing:

“Dear Prince Charles … As you know, I always value and look forward to your views – but perhaps particularly on agricultural topics. You first raised the issue of bovine TB, and the link to badgers. The Irish trials have indeed chaged everything here, as I know Ben Bradshaw acknowledges.

“The crucial thing now is rapidly to work up the case for action, so as to enable an early decision. (If we do not work throug the case properly we will be challenged in the courts.) While I can personally see the case for culling badgers, I would not want to pre-judge the decision. But I am not prepared to tolerate unnecessary delay, and I know, again, that Ben agrees.”

In short, he kicked the badgers into the long grass, where they remained until the Coalition government elected in 2010 took up the issue under strong pressure from the National Farmers Union, with Environment Secretary Owen Paterson championing the cause. The Labour Party today is directly opposed to the cull.

Where Prince Charles’s viewed the evidence as conclusive that badgers are responsible for bovine TB, scientific opinion today is divided on the issue, with an emerging concensus that badger culling is a best a component of a much wider strategy in which frequent TB testing and farm biosecurity are the main planks, and badger culling is unimportant or absent altogether.

The evidence he cited about the Republic of Ireland is also contested – and the BBC was recently forced into an embarrassing retraction of a news story in which it claimed that culling was effective there.

Indeed, if culling is mis-handled, it can do more harm than good by disrupting badger families and causing them to migrate to new areas, potentially spreading the disease.

The letters: ‘Prince of Wales correspondence with government departments‘ published by the Cabinet Office.

Amber Rudd has been appointed secretary of state for energy and climate change following the dramatic departure of Liberal Democrat Ed Davey – much to the relief of some environmental groups.

Rudd is among the most credible and least divisive of the new Tory cabinet. She has worked as a parliamentary private secretary to George Osborne, suggesting that she retains close ties with the chancellor.

But she was also seriously undermined during her post as energy minister when Michael Gove, as chief whip, cancelled her trip to the Lima climate change conference, insisting that she remained to vote in Parliament on an issue the government was sure to win.

Seductive whispers

The trip would have been invaluable in raising her profile on the international stage and building the networks and credibility to argue Britain’s case. She will also have to vie for the chancellor’s attention against the seductive whispers of the climate deniers.

Chief among them is Lord Lawson of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Lawson has been successful in raising the cash for his charity from Tory donors – but perhaps, more importantly, has shown that many financing the party are against climate policies.

Osborne often sought private advice from his predecessor at Number 11 – flattering the ageing grandee by hosting his party at the prestigious address and praising him from the dispatch box during budget speeches.

The Conservatives would appear to be in a stronger position now they have formed a government. But, ironically, the majority is smaller than that enjoyed by the coalition.

David Cameron must retain the support of all but 12 of his party in order to pass legislation and avoid humiliation in the House of Commons.

The ‘grey blob’ at the heart of the Tories

And there is now a hard core of climate deniers – numbering at least 12 – in the Tory ranks, led by the bitter Owen Paterson and the oil-tainted Peter Lilley.

Paterson was sacked from the last government reportedly because Lynton Crosby feared climate denial was going to destroy Tory support among the electorate.

Here, we take a closer look at the main climate deniers in the Tory party and assess how they have done in their local constituencies.

The lesson is that the rump of the deniers threatens to become a serious challenge. Rudd will have to fight a strategic, robust and constant rearguard defence against those who are ostensibly on her side.

Their aim will be to frustrate and distract her, just as the European referendum will provide a significant distraction for the party and the country, as we enter the crucial Conference of the Party talks in Paris in November.

Owen Paterson, Conservative MP For North Shropshire

Owen Paterson has been re-elected to the ultra-safe Conservative seat of North Shropshire, beating Labour’s Graeme Currie. He has secured a majority of 16,500 votes with 51% of the total share.

A renowned climate change sceptic, Paterson had controversially served as environment secretary, a post he eventually lost last summer during a Cabinet reshuffle. According to Paterson, his sacking was a measure to appease the “green blob”.

In the latest annual lecture for Lord Lawson’s GWPF think tank, he called for the repeal of the Climate Change Act.

During the election campaign Paterson did not shy away from the opportunity to reinstate his backward-looking views on global warming.

At a hustings event in the North Shropshire constituency, he claimed that climate change is yet to happen. This was an assertion that drew loud jeers from the public in attendance.

Green Party candidate Duncan Kerr commented on the occasion: “It is very depressing when this is the view of the former Secretary of State for the Environment.”

Quotes: “People get very emotional about this subject and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries.”

“It would also lead to longer growing seasons and you could extend growing a little further north into some of the colder areas.”

Peter Lilley, Conservative MP For Hitchin and Harpenden

Former Cabinet minister Peter Lilley held onto the Tory safe seat of Hitchin and Harpenden with an increased majority after winning 31,408 votes – up from 29,869 in 2010. In second place came Labour’s Rachel Burgin with 11,433 votes.

A self-confessed “global luke-warmist”, Lilley once told a parliamentary debate: “the simple fact is that the science behind climate change is not resolved.”

He was famously one of the only three MPs to vote against the landmark Climate Change Act in 2008. His hardline stance on green issues, however, did not prevent him from being appointed to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee.

Until November 2014 he was a non-executive director of Tethys Petroleum, a Cayman Island-based oil and gas company with drilling operations in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. As revealed by the Guardian, Lilley had also received more than $400,000 in share options from the company.

Just like Owen Paterson, he is closely associated with Lord Lawson’s think tank, for which he wrote a report criticising the influential Stern Review of the economics of climate change.

Quote: “Given that we are passing the climate change bill, which is based on the supposition that the climate is getting warmer, let me point out that it is now snowing outside, in October.”

Christopher Chope, Conservative MP For Christchurch

Christopher Chope has been returned as MP for Christchurch, Dorset, a seat he has held since 1997. The Tory MP won 58% of the share, gaining a comfortable majority of 18,000 votes over UKIP’s Robin Grey, who came second.

A renowned climate change sceptic, Chope is a former Conservative frontbencher – who, coincidentally, also used to be a spokesman on the environment.

He is also the Roads Minister who, as MP for Southhampton in 1990, forced the M3 motorway through Twyford Down in Hampshire destroying a cherished and deeply historic landscape, in the process stimulating the birth of Britain’s road protest movement.

He was part of the Conservative trio, alongside Peter Lilley and Andrew Tyrie, that voted against the Climate Change Act in 2008.

In April last year, he took part in a debate organised by the Bruges Group, an Eurosceptic think tank, with the title ‘How the EU’s Climate Alarmism is Costing You Money’.

Andrew Tyrie, Conservative MP For Chichester

Andrew Tyrie has been re-elected to the safe Conservative seat of Chichester for the fifth time. He won 58% of the vote, securing a large majority over UKIP’s Andrew Moncreiff in second place.

Tyrie is the third of the three MPs who voted against the Climate Change Bill, primarily, he said, on economic grounds.

He supports the view that “mankind might be contributing to global warming but there is little evidence to support the view that the correct response at this time should be rapidly decarbonize the economies of the world.”

John Redwood, Conservative MP For Wokingham

John Redwood has been re-elected as an MP for Wokingham after polling 58% of the vote. He secured a majority of 26,000 votes over Labour’s Andy Croy in second place.

Redwood has repeatedly questioned the science behind climate change, asking experts to provide more conclusive evidence of the man-made nature of global warming.

On his personal blog, Redwood complained about the “BBC peddling climate change alarmism” by not including skeptics’ voices in debates about global warming.

Quote: “I look out of my window to see my garden frozen solid, covered in frost and snow. It is April 7th, and I have just turned the heating up.”

Brendan Montague writes for DeSmogUK. Follow him on Twitter @Brendanmontague.

This article was originally published on DeSmogUK.

In a shock vote for President Obama yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have allowed him to ‘fast track’ trade agreements like TTIP.

Although only a procedural vote, the fact that Democrats in the Senate united to dismiss a motion to end a filibuster makes it significantly less likely that Obama will succeed, with commentators saying Obama’s trade strategy is now ‘in tatters’.

Despite strong White House pressure on Democratic senators to rally behind their President, the vote was supported only by Republican members and a single Democrat – and fell eight votes short of the 60 required.

Obama needs fast track authority in order to finish negotiations on US-EU trade deal (TTIP) and its sister agreement the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) with countries including Japan and Vietnam. Without it, he has to go back for proper Congressional discussion and amendments which, he argues, would make any deal impossible.

But Obama’s party are very reluctant to support him, opposed to the job losses and attacks on workers’ rights they believe would result for the trade agreements.

The big fear – secret courts for corporations to sue governments

Lead opponent Senator Elizabeth Warren is particularly concerned about the ‘corporate court’ system which allows foreign corporations to sue governments in secret courts for enacting regulations that threaten corporate profits.

Earlier this year she told the Washington Post that the system, known as Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) “would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws – and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers – without ever stepping foot in a U.S. Court.”

Campaigners had certainly hoped to defeat Obama’s fast track bid in the lower House of Representatives. But to be defeated in the Senate makes fast track’s chances of succeeding much smaller.

And if fast track falls, TTIP and TPP are pushed back at least 18 months until after the election. Interestingly Presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton, normally a staunch supporter of free trade deals, is keeping quiet on fast track, aware of its unpopularity in her party.

The battle isn’t over, but yesterday’s vote should give campaigners everywhere real hope.

Eurpean Parliament to vote next month

Meanwhile in Strasbourg the European Parliament is working towards a key vote of its own. On 10th June, the Parliament will issue an opinion on TTIP.

The vote isn’t binding – Europeans already have permanent ‘fast track’ as our Parliament can only say yes or no to any trade agreement – but it could send a strong message to the Commission who are negotiating. The vote has already been put back, as committees deal with 900 amendments submitted by MEPs.

The Commission are working frantically to pretend they’re listening to public opinion. Last week Trade Commissioner Malmström, responsible for TTIP, produced a reform proposal for the ISDS system which has dogged the negotiations to date.

In the Commission’s most ‘popular’ consultation in history – nearly 150,000 Europeans wrote submissions – 97% firmly said they did not want any sort of ISDS. Unsure how to react, Malmström proposes removing some of the more egregious elements of the process, for example allowing an appeals mechanism for countries sued in these secret tribunals.

The hope is that such reforms will persuade MEPs to be more supportive of TTIP on 10th June. But Malmström’s reforms would have done little to change the appalling ISDS cases cited by campaigners, for example:

• Egypt sued for raising the minimum wage;
• Argentina sued for trying to prevent increases in the price of water during an economic crisis
• Canada sued for placing a moratorium on fracking, taking a health damaging additive out of gasoline, and denying a permit for a granite mine that would disturb whale breeding waters;
• Poland sued for renationalising health insurance;
• Australia sued for mandating plain cigarette packets.

No to the corporate courts, no to TTIP!

Neither are the Americans likely to accept the proposals even if they did make a difference. That’s because Malmström’s proposals don’t and can’t address the central problem; the whole point of ISDS is to create a parallel legal system which serves the interests of foreign capital.

Indeed Malmström’s most ‘radical’ proposal is that ultimately we ditch ad hoc tribunals altogether and set up a permanent court for investment arbitration.

This only serves to highlight the interests she really cares about. We have no international mechanism for protecting the rights of people or protecting the environment from the harm caused by big business, because governments like the UK and US routinely veto any such system at the United Nations.

Yet the Commissioner believes that her most pressing issue is to push forward an international court to protect the ‘rights’ of global investment.

Malmström hopes this might convince wavering MEPs to water down their criticism of TTIP in the upcoming vote. Campaigners across Europe need to ensure that doesn’t happen. We have the chance to show the Commission that we don’t want TTIP, on the floor of the European Parliament.

That means supporting calls to exempt public services and to exclude the so-called ‘regulatory cooperation council’ which would give big business a permanent say over our laws.

But most important it means saying no to ISDS in any form at all. Such a vote would really send TTIP off the tracks.

Action: Tell your MEPs to Stop TTIP!

Nick Dearden is director of the Global Justice Now (formerly World Development Movement), and former director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

This article is an updated version of one first published by Global Justice Now.

Amber Rudd has been appointed secretary of state for energy and climate change following the dramatic departure of Liberal Democrat Ed Davey – much to the relief of some environmental groups.

Rudd is among the most credible and least divisive of the new Tory cabinet. She has worked as a parliamentary private secretary to George Osborne, suggesting that she retains close ties with the chancellor.

But she was also seriously undermined during her post as energy minister when Michael Gove, as chief whip, cancelled her trip to the Lima climate change conference, insisting that she remained to vote in Parliament on an issue the government was sure to win.

Seductive whispers

The trip would have been invaluable in raising her profile on the international stage and building the networks and credibility to argue Britain’s case. She will also have to vie for the chancellor’s attention against the seductive whispers of the climate deniers.

Chief among them is Lord Lawson of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Lawson has been successful in raising the cash for his charity from Tory donors – but perhaps, more importantly, has shown that many financing the party are against climate policies.

Osborne often sought private advice from his predecessor at Number 11 – flattering the ageing grandee by hosting his party at the prestigious address and praising him from the dispatch box during budget speeches.

The Conservatives would appear to be in a stronger position now they have formed a government. But, ironically, the majority is smaller than that enjoyed by the coalition.

David Cameron must retain the support of all but 12 of his party in order to pass legislation and avoid humiliation in the House of Commons.

The ‘grey blob’ at the heart of the Tories

And there is now a hard core of climate deniers – numbering at least 12 – in the Tory ranks, led by the bitter Owen Paterson and the oil-tainted Peter Lilley.

Paterson was sacked from the last government reportedly because Lynton Crosby feared climate denial was going to destroy Tory support among the electorate.

Here, we take a closer look at the main climate deniers in the Tory party and assess how they have done in their local constituencies.

The lesson is that the rump of the deniers threatens to become a serious challenge. Rudd will have to fight a strategic, robust and constant rearguard defence against those who are ostensibly on her side.

Their aim will be to frustrate and distract her, just as the European referendum will provide a significant distraction for the party and the country, as we enter the crucial Conference of the Party talks in Paris in November.

Owen Paterson, Conservative MP For North Shropshire

Owen Paterson has been re-elected to the ultra-safe Conservative seat of North Shropshire, beating Labour’s Graeme Currie. He has secured a majority of 16,500 votes with 51% of the total share.

A renowned climate change sceptic, Paterson had controversially served as environment secretary, a post he eventually lost last summer during a Cabinet reshuffle. According to Paterson, his sacking was a measure to appease the “green blob”.

In the latest annual lecture for Lord Lawson’s GWPF think tank, he called for the repeal of the Climate Change Act.

During the election campaign Paterson did not shy away from the opportunity to reinstate his backward-looking views on global warming.

At a hustings event in the North Shropshire constituency, he claimed that climate change is yet to happen. This was an assertion that drew loud jeers from the public in attendance.

Green Party candidate Duncan Kerr commented on the occasion: “It is very depressing when this is the view of the former Secretary of State for the Environment.”

Quotes: “People get very emotional about this subject and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries.”

“It would also lead to longer growing seasons and you could extend growing a little further north into some of the colder areas.”

Peter Lilley, Conservative MP For Hitchin and Harpenden

Former Cabinet minister Peter Lilley held onto the Tory safe seat of Hitchin and Harpenden with an increased majority after winning 31,408 votes – up from 29,869 in 2010. In second place came Labour’s Rachel Burgin with 11,433 votes.

A self-confessed “global luke-warmist”, Lilley once told a parliamentary debate: “the simple fact is that the science behind climate change is not resolved.”

He was famously one of the only three MPs to vote against the landmark Climate Change Act in 2008. His hardline stance on green issues, however, did not prevent him from being appointed to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee.

Until November 2014 he was a non-executive director of Tethys Petroleum, a Cayman Island-based oil and gas company with drilling operations in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. As revealed by the Guardian, Lilley had also received more than $400,000 in share options from the company.

Just like Owen Paterson, he is closely associated with Lord Lawson’s think tank, for which he wrote a report criticising the influential Stern Review of the economics of climate change.

Quote: “Given that we are passing the climate change bill, which is based on the supposition that the climate is getting warmer, let me point out that it is now snowing outside, in October.”

Christopher Chope, Conservative MP For Christchurch

Christopher Chope has been returned as MP for Christchurch, Dorset, a seat he has held since 1997. The Tory MP won 58% of the share, gaining a comfortable majority of 18,000 votes over UKIP’s Robin Grey, who came second.

A renowned climate change sceptic, Chope is a former Conservative frontbencher – who, coincidentally, also used to be a spokesman on the environment.

He is also the Roads Minister who, as MP for Southhampton in 1990, forced the M3 motorway through Twyford Down in Hampshire destroying a cherished and deeply historic landscape, in the process stimulating the birth of Britain’s road protest movement.

He was part of the Conservative trio, alongside Peter Lilley and Andrew Tyrie, that voted against the Climate Change Act in 2008.

In April last year, he took part in a debate organised by the Bruges Group, an Eurosceptic think tank, with the title ‘How the EU’s Climate Alarmism is Costing You Money’.

Andrew Tyrie, Conservative MP For Chichester

Andrew Tyrie has been re-elected to the safe Conservative seat of Chichester for the fifth time. He won 58% of the vote, securing a large majority over UKIP’s Andrew Moncreiff in second place.

Tyrie is the third of the three MPs who voted against the Climate Change Bill, primarily, he said, on economic grounds.

He supports the view that “mankind might be contributing to global warming but there is little evidence to support the view that the correct response at this time should be rapidly decarbonize the economies of the world.”

John Redwood, Conservative MP For Wokingham

John Redwood has been re-elected as an MP for Wokingham after polling 58% of the vote. He secured a majority of 26,000 votes over Labour’s Andy Croy in second place.

Redwood has repeatedly questioned the science behind climate change, asking experts to provide more conclusive evidence of the man-made nature of global warming.

On his personal blog, Redwood complained about the “BBC peddling climate change alarmism” by not including skeptics’ voices in debates about global warming.

Quote: “I look out of my window to see my garden frozen solid, covered in frost and snow. It is April 7th, and I have just turned the heating up.”

Brendan Montague writes for DeSmogUK. Follow him on Twitter @Brendanmontague.

This article was originally published on DeSmogUK.

In a shock vote for President Obama yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have allowed him to ‘fast track’ trade agreements like TTIP.

Although only a procedural vote, the fact that Democrats in the Senate united to dismiss a motion to end a filibuster makes it significantly less likely that Obama will succeed, with commentators saying Obama’s trade strategy is now ‘in tatters’.

Despite strong White House pressure on Democratic senators to rally behind their President, the vote was supported only by Republican members and a single Democrat – and fell eight votes short of the 60 required.

Obama needs fast track authority in order to finish negotiations on US-EU trade deal (TTIP) and its sister agreement the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) with countries including Japan and Vietnam. Without it, he has to go back for proper Congressional discussion and amendments which, he argues, would make any deal impossible.

But Obama’s party are very reluctant to support him, opposed to the job losses and attacks on workers’ rights they believe would result for the trade agreements.

The big fear – secret courts for corporations to sue governments

Lead opponent Senator Elizabeth Warren is particularly concerned about the ‘corporate court’ system which allows foreign corporations to sue governments in secret courts for enacting regulations that threaten corporate profits.

Earlier this year she told the Washington Post that the system, known as Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) “would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws – and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers – without ever stepping foot in a U.S. Court.”

Campaigners had certainly hoped to defeat Obama’s fast track bid in the lower House of Representatives. But to be defeated in the Senate makes fast track’s chances of succeeding much smaller.

And if fast track falls, TTIP and TPP are pushed back at least 18 months until after the election. Interestingly Presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton, normally a staunch supporter of free trade deals, is keeping quiet on fast track, aware of its unpopularity in her party.

The battle isn’t over, but yesterday’s vote should give campaigners everywhere real hope.

Eurpean Parliament to vote next month

Meanwhile in Strasbourg the European Parliament is working towards a key vote of its own. On 10th June, the Parliament will issue an opinion on TTIP.

The vote isn’t binding – Europeans already have permanent ‘fast track’ as our Parliament can only say yes or no to any trade agreement – but it could send a strong message to the Commission who are negotiating. The vote has already been put back, as committees deal with 900 amendments submitted by MEPs.

The Commission are working frantically to pretend they’re listening to public opinion. Last week Trade Commissioner Malmström, responsible for TTIP, produced a reform proposal for the ISDS system which has dogged the negotiations to date.

In the Commission’s most ‘popular’ consultation in history – nearly 150,000 Europeans wrote submissions – 97% firmly said they did not want any sort of ISDS. Unsure how to react, Malmström proposes removing some of the more egregious elements of the process, for example allowing an appeals mechanism for countries sued in these secret tribunals.

The hope is that such reforms will persuade MEPs to be more supportive of TTIP on 10th June. But Malmström’s reforms would have done little to change the appalling ISDS cases cited by campaigners, for example:

• Egypt sued for raising the minimum wage;
• Argentina sued for trying to prevent increases in the price of water during an economic crisis
• Canada sued for placing a moratorium on fracking, taking a health damaging additive out of gasoline, and denying a permit for a granite mine that would disturb whale breeding waters;
• Poland sued for renationalising health insurance;
• Australia sued for mandating plain cigarette packets.

No to the corporate courts, no to TTIP!

Neither are the Americans likely to accept the proposals even if they did make a difference. That’s because Malmström’s proposals don’t and can’t address the central problem; the whole point of ISDS is to create a parallel legal system which serves the interests of foreign capital.

Indeed Malmström’s most ‘radical’ proposal is that ultimately we ditch ad hoc tribunals altogether and set up a permanent court for investment arbitration.

This only serves to highlight the interests she really cares about. We have no international mechanism for protecting the rights of people or protecting the environment from the harm caused by big business, because governments like the UK and US routinely veto any such system at the United Nations.

Yet the Commissioner believes that her most pressing issue is to push forward an international court to protect the ‘rights’ of global investment.

Malmström hopes this might convince wavering MEPs to water down their criticism of TTIP in the upcoming vote. Campaigners across Europe need to ensure that doesn’t happen. We have the chance to show the Commission that we don’t want TTIP, on the floor of the European Parliament.

That means supporting calls to exempt public services and to exclude the so-called ‘regulatory cooperation council’ which would give big business a permanent say over our laws.

But most important it means saying no to ISDS in any form at all. Such a vote would really send TTIP off the tracks.

Action: Tell your MEPs to Stop TTIP!

Nick Dearden is director of the Global Justice Now (formerly World Development Movement), and former director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

This article is an updated version of one first published by Global Justice Now.

Major internet companies including Apple, Facebook and Google continue to lead efforts to build an internet that is renewably powered.

But an uncooperative fossil fuel sector and rapid energy demand growth for the internet driven by video-streaming places those ambitions under threat, according to a new report released today by Greenpeace.

Continued resistance to renewable investments from coal-heavy monopoly utilities in data center hot spots such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Taiwan is causing the rapid growth in the digital world to increase the demand for dirty energy.

“Tech companies are increasingly turning to the smart choice of renewable energy to power the internet”, said Gary Cook, Senior IT Analyst for Greenpeace USA.

“But they’re hitting a wall of stubborn monopoly power companies that refuse to switch to 21st century sources of energy. Internet companies need to work together to push utilities and policymakers to provide them with 100% renewable energy and avoid the creation of a dirty internet.”

Greening the Apple

The report, ‘Clicking Clean: A Guide to Building the Green Internet‘, found that Apple is the most aggressive in powering its data center operations with renewable energy, and continues to lead the way toward a green internet.

Despite continued rapid growth, Apple appears to have kept pace with its supply of renewable energy, maintaining its claim of a 100% renewably powered cloud for another year.

It has also announced several major renewable energy investments in the last year, including an $850 million deal to power its operations in California – the largest ever non-utility solar deal.

It is followed by Yahoo, Facebook and Google with 73%, 49% and 46% clean energy respectively. But Google’s march toward 100% renewable energy is threatened by monopoly utilities like Duke Energy in North Carolina, a major hub for data centers.

Currently, NC energy users are only allowed to buy power from Duke, which gets only 2% of its electricity from renewable sources. But this may change: NC legislators are trying to increase the options for consumers to buy renewable energy from rival suppliers.

The dark giant of cloud computing: Amazon Web Services

The report also highlights the “continued lack of transparency” by ‘cloud’ giant Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides the back-end computing power behind vast numbers of organizations from tiny to enormous including Netflix and the CIA.

AWS has taken some significant steps over the last year, including committing to power its operations with 100% renewable energy – but the lack of basic transparency about its energy use is a growing concern for its customers.

Although AWS did announce plans to purchase over 100 MW of wind energy this past year, Greenpeace discovered that AWS continues to rapidly expand in Virginia – where the utility Dominion powers the grid with only 2% renewable energy.

The company did not respond to Greenpeace’s requests for information, so researchers carried out an analysis of permit applications for backup diesel generators by Amazon subsidiary Vadata, concluding that AWS made investments in new data center capacity in 2014 that would increase its energy demand by 200 MW in that state.

“Amazon needs to provide more information about its data center footprint and how it will move toward 100% renewable energy, as Apple, Google, and Facebook have done”, said Cook.

“Its rapid expansion in coal dependent Virginia should be a concern to its customers like Netflix and Pinterest who are fully dependent on Amazon for their online operations. Increased transparency will allow AWS customers to know where they and AWS stand on their journey to 100% renewable energy.”

Greenpeace found that Amazon’s current investments would deliver an energy mix of 23% renewable energy for its operations.

Video-streaming driving energy demand increase

The energy use of our digital infrastructure, which would have ranked sixth in the world among countries in 2011, continues to rapidly increase, and is largely being driven by the dramatic growth of streaming video services like Youtube, Netflix, and Hulu.

Video streaming is estimated to account for more than 60% of consumer internet traffic today, and is expected to grow to 76% by 2018.

And it’s not just AWS that’s under-performing. ‘Colocation’ companies, the internet landlords that rent out data center space, continue to lag far behind consumer-facing companies in seeking renewable energy to power their operations.

One exception is Equinix, whose adoption of a 100% renewable energy commitment and offering of renewably hosted facilities is an important step forward and puts the company at the front of the colocation pack.

When companies did not respond to Greenpeace’s questions, their energy consumption was estimated using conservative assumptions and publicly available information. Greenpeace is calling on all major internet companies to:

• Make a long-term commitment to become 100% renewably powered.
• Commit to transparency on IT performance and consumption of resources, including the sources of electricity, to enable customers, investors, and stakeholders to measure progress toward that goal.
• Develop a strategy for increasing their supply of renewable energy, through a mixture of procurement, investment, and corporate advocacy to both electricity suppliers and government decision-makers.

---

 

The report: ‘Clicking Clean: A Guide to Building the Green Internet‘.