The Brazilian Congress is currently considering a change to its constitution that would be a major blow for the recognition of indigenous rights in the country.

Proposal of Constitutional Amendment 215 (PEC 215) would transfer the power to demarcate indigenous peoples’ land, conservation units, and Quilombola territories from FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous affairs department, to Congress.

PEC 215 was proposed in 2012, as the 215th amendment to Brazil’s 1988 Constitution. The Constitution came after the end of 20 years of military dictatorship in Brazil. It was known as the ‘social constitution’.

In December 2014, indigenous peoples won an important victory, when PEC 2015 was shelved, after months of protests. But there was always a danger that the proposal would be revived. And now it has been.

Brazil’s minister of agriculture: Indigenous Peoples are ‘obstacles’

Brazil’s Congress has a large block of anti-indigenous politicians, the ruralistas, that campaigned for the weakening of Brazil’s forest code and maintain close ties to the agri-business sector.

In December 2014, Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s President, appointed a leading figure in the ruralista lobby, Tocantins Senator Kátia Abreu, as minster of agriculture. Her nickname is the ‘Chainsaw Queen’.

In a recent interview with the Guardian Abreu explains her anti-environmentalist views: “Criticism from radical environmentalists is the best form of endorsement. It gives me satisfaction. It shows I am on the right track and playing the right role.”

She attacks any group that attempts to slow the expansion of Brazil’s agriculture sector. She claims that environmentalists, indigenous groups and landless peasants are working for foreign interests. Of course she provides no evidence for this, but says that she gets “a very strong impression that this is the case”:

“For many years, environmentalism reached an extreme pitch and we in the agribusiness sector were treated like criminals. [But now] our agribusiness sector can influence the choice of kings and queens in Brazil. In the past, we only exercised economic influence. Now we also have political power.”

For Abreu, environmental issues and indigenous peoples are ‘obstacles’: “There are many things holding back progress – the environmental issue, the Indian issue and more. But even with these problems we keep producing high levels of productivity. Imagine how high it might be without those obstacles.”

Not surprisingly, the rate of deforestation in Brazil is increasing.

Resistance is growing

Resistance against PEC 215 continues. In April 2015, more than 1,500 indigenous people travelled to Brasilia and camped outside Congress for four days and three nights in a protest camp against PEC 215 organised by Coordinating Body of Brazil’s indigenous people (APIB).

Francisco da Silva, an indigenous Kapinawá leader from the state of Pernambuco, told Truth Out of Dilma Rousseff that, “During her presidential campaign, she committed to demarcating indigenous territory in Brazil. Today, we see that indigenous people are moving toward complete disappearance.

“If she herself does not honor her own words and the constitution, the only thing left for us to do is for us to demarcate our own territories and to defend our ancestral lands ourselves, because if we do nothing, this law will leave us in the hands of the multinational corporations.”

In May 2015, 48 senators signed a statement against PEC 215, which describes the proposed amendment as “inapplicable”. The statement adds that the proposal “brings to the sphere of the Congress a political and legal error” and represents an “attack on the rights of Indigenous Peoples”.

The fact that more than half of all senators signed the statement suggests that if the proposal to amend the constitution reached the Senate, there is a good chance that it would be rejected.

The triumph of capitalism? Not on our watch

Last month Indigenous Peoples, parliamentarians, organisations and social movements delivered a manifesto opposing PEC 215 to Congress. The manifesto states that

“PEC 215 and its appended action are intended to paralyze the demarcation of indigenous lands, the titling of Quilombola Territories and the creation of Units of Conservation, as well as to permit the approval of large-scale projects within these protected areas, such as: hydroelectric dams, mining, extensive agribusiness, the building of highways, waterways for industrial transport, ports and railways.”

In an interview with the Real News last year, anthropologist Antonio Carlos De Souza Lima, president of the Brazilian Anthropological Association, said of PEC 215:

“We have to consider that we live in a country of rights, that the Brazilian Constitution established a set of rights that took into consideration the ethnic differences of this country.

“Those rights cannot be trapped by an argument of a development model visibly committed to profit at the expense of the welfare of the majority, not just indigenous, but the welfare of all of us … This is the capitalistic world, the triumph of the interests of a small group.”

Chis Lang edits REDD Monitor, where this article was originally published.

Twitter: #pec215nao

Petition: ‘Contra a PEC 215, que transfere para o Congresso Nacional a competência de demarcar terras indígenas, quilombolas e unidades de conservação‘ (in Portuguese). Note – the FB sign in does not seem to work, Just enter your name, email and city.

Email action: Survival International has set up an email action, urging the President of the Federal Senate, Senator Renan Calheiros and the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Deputy Eduardo Cunha to reject PEC 215.

Dear Gary Smith (GMB National Secretary for Energy),

The undersigned are scientists, academics and energy policy analysts who read with concern your Press Release objecting to the Austrian Government’s appeal against the UK Government’s proposed subsidies to the planned Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear station. Your statement contains several misconceptions, unsupported assertions and inaccuracies.

Let’s start with your view that HPC is “much needed”. It isn’t: UK electricity demand is steadily declining. In fact it has declined 14% since 2000, while GDP has increased 18% in the same period.

It’s true that some coal-fired stations will be closing over the next few years, some of which may need replacing by quick-to-build gas-fired stations and an array of renewable sources. But there’s no way new nuclear could make any contribution in the next decade.

Maybe you should seek another legal opinion?

Second, you allege the Austrian appeal is “almost certainly doomed to fail”. The opposite is the case: the Austrian Government has retained a team of about a dozen European lawyers – experts in EC Competition Law.

They have been assessing this case since November last year and consider the appeal to be very robust and likely to succeed: the EC’s decision flies in the face of several European Directives, Policy statements, and previous EC decisions. And it is not just Austria: Luxembourg will be joining shortly, and several European renewable energy utilities also launched their appeal today.

You state Austria’s appeal is “more about playing to a domestic audience rather than a serious challenge to stop new nuclear in the UK.” On the contrary, Austrian Government’s press statement of July 6 is clearly serious in opposing nuclear – not just in the UK but in the rest of Europe.

As the Austrian Chancellor stated: “Nuclear power plants are dangerous, expensive, and compared with the technologies of the future like wind and solar energy, are neither economically nor ecologically competitive.”

Technical failures, reluctant investors

But it’s not just the Austrian appeal. Hinkley suffers from a phalanx of financial and technical problems as well. The financial, legal and technical situations at the two EPRs under construction in Finland and France are simply disastrous.

In addition, AREVA is effectively bankrupt and EDF is €34 billion in debt: their share prices have plummeted to near zero and their bonds have junk status. See the many technical and regulatory problems facing Hinkley C.

But the acid test is the actions of Areva and EDF. EDF has halted site preparation at Hinkley C, dismissed the workers and closed its offices there. And Areva recently decided to test to destruction a steel pressure vessel dome already constructed and destined for Hinkley.

This means a new dome would have to be recast adding another two to three years and even more uncertainty to the project. In reality, it’s an implicit acknowledgement by Areva that Hinkley C is unlikely to be built. It looks as if this is less a case of the UK deciding to abandon HPC – and more a case of it being unable to be built at all.

You state: “Of course the anti-nuclear lobby in the UK will welcome the challenge hoping it will help their policy of trying to ‘suffocate’ investment.” But there isn’t an anti-nuclear ‘lobby’ in the UK, unlike the massive pro-nuclear lobby. Your notion that several local groups stopped nuclear investment is far-fetched.

What is true is that UK banks, international funding agencies, other UK energy companies, and foreign governments (apart perhaps from China) have all steered well clear of the HPC project, but that’s because in their view new nuclear is grossly uneconomic. As regards the possible involvement of China, many independent observers, including yourselves, have objected to the inherent dangers here.

Don’t nail your members’ future to a sinking ship

Nuclear is in decline not just in the UK but in the rest of the world. It’s shedding employment by the cartload, eg the recent loss of a quarter of Magnox Electric jobs. We feel sorry for those who lose their jobs but your members would be better served by GMB joining union-academic initiatives which seek to steer unions towards the undoubted jobs bonanza among the renewables.

Your union should also look at Germany whose non-nuclear energy policies have resulted in 440,000 direct jobs in its burgeoning renewable energy (RE) industries. And there are about 7.7 million RE jobs worldwide. It’s about time the unions looked to the future than the past on energy policy, and the Labour Party too.

We are former union officials, or have worked closely with unions, or are broadly sympathetic to the aims of unions and their members.

Yours sincerely,

Dr David Elliott, Emeritus Professor, Open University

Dr Ian Fairlie, Independent Consultant

Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future: Chair, Sustainable Development Commission (2000-2009): Chancellor, Keele University

Ian Ralls, Joint Co-ordinator, Friends of the Earth Nuclear Network

Peter Roche, Edinburgh Energy & Environment Consultancy

Alan Simpson, Energy Policy Advisor: former Labour MP (1992-2010)

Peter Wilkinson, Director, Wilkinson Environmental Consulting.

The Brazilian Congress is currently considering a change to its constitution that would be a major blow for the recognition of indigenous rights in the country.

Proposal of Constitutional Amendment 215 (PEC 215) would transfer the power to demarcate indigenous peoples’ land, conservation units, and Quilombola territories from FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous affairs department, to Congress.

PEC 215 was proposed in 2012, as the 215th amendment to Brazil’s 1988 Constitution. The Constitution came after the end of 20 years of military dictatorship in Brazil. It was known as the ‘social constitution’.

In December 2014, indigenous peoples won an important victory, when PEC 2015 was shelved, after months of protests. But there was always a danger that the proposal would be revived. And now it has been.

Brazil’s minister of agriculture: Indigenous Peoples are ‘obstacles’

Brazil’s Congress has a large block of anti-indigenous politicians, the ruralistas, that campaigned for the weakening of Brazil’s forest code and maintain close ties to the agri-business sector.

In December 2014, Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s President, appointed a leading figure in the ruralista lobby, Tocantins Senator Kátia Abreu, as minster of agriculture. Her nickname is the ‘Chainsaw Queen’.

In a recent interview with the Guardian Abreu explains her anti-environmentalist views: “Criticism from radical environmentalists is the best form of endorsement. It gives me satisfaction. It shows I am on the right track and playing the right role.”

She attacks any group that attempts to slow the expansion of Brazil’s agriculture sector. She claims that environmentalists, indigenous groups and landless peasants are working for foreign interests. Of course she provides no evidence for this, but says that she gets “a very strong impression that this is the case”:

“For many years, environmentalism reached an extreme pitch and we in the agribusiness sector were treated like criminals. [But now] our agribusiness sector can influence the choice of kings and queens in Brazil. In the past, we only exercised economic influence. Now we also have political power.”

For Abreu, environmental issues and indigenous peoples are ‘obstacles’: “There are many things holding back progress – the environmental issue, the Indian issue and more. But even with these problems we keep producing high levels of productivity. Imagine how high it might be without those obstacles.”

Not surprisingly, the rate of deforestation in Brazil is increasing.

Resistance is growing

Resistance against PEC 215 continues. In April 2015, more than 1,500 indigenous people travelled to Brasilia and camped outside Congress for four days and three nights in a protest camp against PEC 215 organised by Coordinating Body of Brazil’s indigenous people (APIB).

Francisco da Silva, an indigenous Kapinawá leader from the state of Pernambuco, told Truth Out of Dilma Rousseff that, “During her presidential campaign, she committed to demarcating indigenous territory in Brazil. Today, we see that indigenous people are moving toward complete disappearance.

“If she herself does not honor her own words and the constitution, the only thing left for us to do is for us to demarcate our own territories and to defend our ancestral lands ourselves, because if we do nothing, this law will leave us in the hands of the multinational corporations.”

In May 2015, 48 senators signed a statement against PEC 215, which describes the proposed amendment as “inapplicable”. The statement adds that the proposal “brings to the sphere of the Congress a political and legal error” and represents an “attack on the rights of Indigenous Peoples”.

The fact that more than half of all senators signed the statement suggests that if the proposal to amend the constitution reached the Senate, there is a good chance that it would be rejected.

The triumph of capitalism? Not on our watch

Last month Indigenous Peoples, parliamentarians, organisations and social movements delivered a manifesto opposing PEC 215 to Congress. The manifesto states that

“PEC 215 and its appended action are intended to paralyze the demarcation of indigenous lands, the titling of Quilombola Territories and the creation of Units of Conservation, as well as to permit the approval of large-scale projects within these protected areas, such as: hydroelectric dams, mining, extensive agribusiness, the building of highways, waterways for industrial transport, ports and railways.”

In an interview with the Real News last year, anthropologist Antonio Carlos De Souza Lima, president of the Brazilian Anthropological Association, said of PEC 215:

“We have to consider that we live in a country of rights, that the Brazilian Constitution established a set of rights that took into consideration the ethnic differences of this country.

“Those rights cannot be trapped by an argument of a development model visibly committed to profit at the expense of the welfare of the majority, not just indigenous, but the welfare of all of us … This is the capitalistic world, the triumph of the interests of a small group.”

Chis Lang edits REDD Monitor, where this article was originally published.

Twitter: #pec215nao

Petition: ‘Contra a PEC 215, que transfere para o Congresso Nacional a competência de demarcar terras indígenas, quilombolas e unidades de conservação‘ (in Portuguese). Note – the FB sign in does not seem to work, Just enter your name, email and city.

Email action: Survival International has set up an email action, urging the President of the Federal Senate, Senator Renan Calheiros and the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Deputy Eduardo Cunha to reject PEC 215.

Dear Gary Smith (GMB National Secretary for Energy),

The undersigned are scientists, academics and energy policy analysts who read with concern your Press Release objecting to the Austrian Government’s appeal against the UK Government’s proposed subsidies to the planned Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear station. Your statement contains several misconceptions, unsupported assertions and inaccuracies.

Let’s start with your view that HPC is “much needed”. It isn’t: UK electricity demand is steadily declining. In fact it has declined 14% since 2000, while GDP has increased 18% in the same period.

It’s true that some coal-fired stations will be closing over the next few years, some of which may need replacing by quick-to-build gas-fired stations and an array of renewable sources. But there’s no way new nuclear could make any contribution in the next decade.

Maybe you should seek another legal opinion?

Second, you allege the Austrian appeal is “almost certainly doomed to fail”. The opposite is the case: the Austrian Government has retained a team of about a dozen European lawyers – experts in EC Competition Law.

They have been assessing this case since November last year and consider the appeal to be very robust and likely to succeed: the EC’s decision flies in the face of several European Directives, Policy statements, and previous EC decisions. And it is not just Austria: Luxembourg will be joining shortly, and several European renewable energy utilities also launched their appeal today.

You state Austria’s appeal is “more about playing to a domestic audience rather than a serious challenge to stop new nuclear in the UK.” On the contrary, Austrian Government’s press statement of July 6 is clearly serious in opposing nuclear – not just in the UK but in the rest of Europe.

As the Austrian Chancellor stated: “Nuclear power plants are dangerous, expensive, and compared with the technologies of the future like wind and solar energy, are neither economically nor ecologically competitive.”

Technical failures, reluctant investors

But it’s not just the Austrian appeal. Hinkley suffers from a phalanx of financial and technical problems as well. The financial, legal and technical situations at the two EPRs under construction in Finland and France are simply disastrous.

In addition, AREVA is effectively bankrupt and EDF is €34 billion in debt: their share prices have plummeted to near zero and their bonds have junk status. See the many technical and regulatory problems facing Hinkley C.

But the acid test is the actions of Areva and EDF. EDF has halted site preparation at Hinkley C, dismissed the workers and closed its offices there. And Areva recently decided to test to destruction a steel pressure vessel dome already constructed and destined for Hinkley.

This means a new dome would have to be recast adding another two to three years and even more uncertainty to the project. In reality, it’s an implicit acknowledgement by Areva that Hinkley C is unlikely to be built. It looks as if this is less a case of the UK deciding to abandon HPC – and more a case of it being unable to be built at all.

You state: “Of course the anti-nuclear lobby in the UK will welcome the challenge hoping it will help their policy of trying to ‘suffocate’ investment.” But there isn’t an anti-nuclear ‘lobby’ in the UK, unlike the massive pro-nuclear lobby. Your notion that several local groups stopped nuclear investment is far-fetched.

What is true is that UK banks, international funding agencies, other UK energy companies, and foreign governments (apart perhaps from China) have all steered well clear of the HPC project, but that’s because in their view new nuclear is grossly uneconomic. As regards the possible involvement of China, many independent observers, including yourselves, have objected to the inherent dangers here.

Don’t nail your members’ future to a sinking ship

Nuclear is in decline not just in the UK but in the rest of the world. It’s shedding employment by the cartload, eg the recent loss of a quarter of Magnox Electric jobs. We feel sorry for those who lose their jobs but your members would be better served by GMB joining union-academic initiatives which seek to steer unions towards the undoubted jobs bonanza among the renewables.

Your union should also look at Germany whose non-nuclear energy policies have resulted in 440,000 direct jobs in its burgeoning renewable energy (RE) industries. And there are about 7.7 million RE jobs worldwide. It’s about time the unions looked to the future than the past on energy policy, and the Labour Party too.

We are former union officials, or have worked closely with unions, or are broadly sympathetic to the aims of unions and their members.

Yours sincerely,

Dr David Elliott, Emeritus Professor, Open University

Dr Ian Fairlie, Independent Consultant

Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future: Chair, Sustainable Development Commission (2000-2009): Chancellor, Keele University

Ian Ralls, Joint Co-ordinator, Friends of the Earth Nuclear Network

Peter Roche, Edinburgh Energy & Environment Consultancy

Alan Simpson, Energy Policy Advisor: former Labour MP (1992-2010)

Peter Wilkinson, Director, Wilkinson Environmental Consulting.

Dear Gary Smith (GMB National Secretary for Energy),

The undersigned are scientists, academics and energy policy analysts who read with concern your Press Release objecting to the Austrian Government’s appeal against the UK Government’s proposed subsidies to the planned Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear station. Your statement contains several misconceptions, unsupported assertions and inaccuracies.

Let’s start with your view that HPC is “much needed”. It isn’t: UK electricity demand is steadily declining. In fact it has declined 14% since 2000, while GDP has increased 18% in the same period.

It’s true that some coal-fired stations will be closing over the next few years, some of which may need replacing by quick-to-build gas-fired stations and an array of renewable sources. But there’s no way new nuclear could make any contribution in the next decade.

Maybe you should seek another legal opinion?

Second, you allege the Austrian appeal is “almost certainly doomed to fail”. The opposite is the case: the Austrian Government has retained a team of about a dozen European lawyers – experts in EC Competition Law.

They have been assessing this case since November last year and consider the appeal to be very robust and likely to succeed: the EC’s decision flies in the face of several European Directives, Policy statements, and previous EC decisions. And it is not just Austria: Luxembourg will be joining shortly, and several European renewable energy utilities also launched their appeal today.

You state Austria’s appeal is “more about playing to a domestic audience rather than a serious challenge to stop new nuclear in the UK.” On the contrary, Austrian Government’s press statement of July 6 is clearly serious in opposing nuclear – not just in the UK but in the rest of Europe.

As the Austrian Chancellor stated: “Nuclear power plants are dangerous, expensive, and compared with the technologies of the future like wind and solar energy, are neither economically nor ecologically competitive.”

Technical failures, reluctant investors

But it’s not just the Austrian appeal. Hinkley suffers from a phalanx of financial and technical problems as well. The financial, legal and technical situations at the two EPRs under construction in Finland and France are simply disastrous.

In addition, AREVA is effectively bankrupt and EDF is €34 billion in debt: their share prices have plummeted to near zero and their bonds have junk status. See the many technical and regulatory problems facing Hinkley C.

But the acid test is the actions of Areva and EDF. EDF has halted site preparation at Hinkley C, dismissed the workers and closed its offices there. And Areva recently decided to test to destruction a steel pressure vessel dome already constructed and destined for Hinkley.

This means a new dome would have to be recast adding another two to three years and even more uncertainty to the project. In reality, it’s an implicit acknowledgement by Areva that Hinkley C is unlikely to be built. It looks as if this is less a case of the UK deciding to abandon HPC – and more a case of it being unable to be built at all.

You state: “Of course the anti-nuclear lobby in the UK will welcome the challenge hoping it will help their policy of trying to ‘suffocate’ investment.” But there isn’t an anti-nuclear ‘lobby’ in the UK, unlike the massive pro-nuclear lobby. Your notion that several local groups stopped nuclear investment is far-fetched.

What is true is that UK banks, international funding agencies, other UK energy companies, and foreign governments (apart perhaps from China) have all steered well clear of the HPC project, but that’s because in their view new nuclear is grossly uneconomic. As regards the possible involvement of China, many independent observers, including yourselves, have objected to the inherent dangers here.

Don’t nail your members’ future to a sinking ship

Nuclear is in decline not just in the UK but in the rest of the world. It’s shedding employment by the cartload, eg the recent loss of a quarter of Magnox Electric jobs. We feel sorry for those who lose their jobs but your members would be better served by GMB joining union-academic initiatives which seek to steer unions towards the undoubted jobs bonanza among the renewables.

Your union should also look at Germany whose non-nuclear energy policies have resulted in 440,000 direct jobs in its burgeoning renewable energy (RE) industries. And there are about 7.7 million RE jobs worldwide. It’s about time the unions looked to the future than the past on energy policy, and the Labour Party too.

We are former union officials, or have worked closely with unions, or are broadly sympathetic to the aims of unions and their members.

Yours sincerely,

Dr David Elliott, Emeritus Professor, Open University

Dr Ian Fairlie, Independent Consultant

Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future: Chair, Sustainable Development Commission (2000-2009): Chancellor, Keele University

Ian Ralls, Joint Co-ordinator, Friends of the Earth Nuclear Network

Peter Roche, Edinburgh Energy & Environment Consultancy

Alan Simpson, Energy Policy Advisor: former Labour MP (1992-2010)

Peter Wilkinson, Director, Wilkinson Environmental Consulting.

The ‘Action Alliance’ of ten green power suppliers and municipal utilities today filed a lawsuit with the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg against State Aid for the UK’s planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant.

The Alliance of German and Austrian green utilities is accusing the Commission of making both legal and procedural errors when it approved State Aid for the project last year.

But their biggest fear is that the subsidy package for Hinkley Point C – estimated to be worth over €100 billion – would together with other proposed nuclear projects “massively distort the European energy market and create an unfair competitive advantage for nuclear power.”

“We want the European Court of Justice to annul the EU Commission’s decision because these exorbitant nuclear subsidies are an unlawful operational aid”, says Sönke Tangermann, managing director of Hamburg-based energy cooperative Greenpeace Energy. “They should never have been approved.”

The Coop is going to court together with Austrian energy producer Oekostrom AG, and the municipal utilities of Aalen, Bietigheim-Bissingen, Bochum, Energieversorgung Filstal, Mainz, Mühlacker, Schwäbisch Hall and Tübingen.

Markets will be flooded with subsidised nuclear power

“We see the danger that European electricity markets in future could be flooded with highly subsidised nuclear power, and that regional, highly efficient and ecological power production will be driven out of business”, says Dr Achim Kötzle, executive director of energy management at Tübingen’s municipal utility.

“From the perspective of municipal utilities, the economic viability of decentralised power generation plants would in particular suffer from the planned nuclear subsidies.”

The Action Alliance has commissioned research which shows that the state-guaranteed remuneration alone for power from Hinkley Point C adds up to about €108 billion: the guaranteed inflation-proof price of about 12 €-cents per kWh is three times higher than the market price and would last for 35 years.

“Such high subsidies for one single, hazardous and expensive NPP would have an effect on the market in Germany due to European cross-border exchanges in electricity – with the consequence that wholesale prices for electricity would fall in Germany, leading to competitive disadvantages and lower profits for other suppliers as well as renewable energy providers”, argues the Alliance.

With other EU states – among them Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic – planning to use the British subsidy model for their own nuclear projects, this price distortion could cut prices in Germany’s wholesale electricity market by as much as 12%, leading to massive distortions in the power market – and pradoxically, higher prices for the retail customer.

“This threatening market distortion results in additional costs to the system set out in Germany’s Renewable Energies Act (EEG) because higher levels of compensation would have to be paid, placing a particular burden on German households and medium-sized businesses”, explains the Alliance.

The only mystery in this is that none of the UK’s green energy suppliers, for example Ecotricity and Good Energy, have joined the legal action as they would be most immediately impacted.

The Commission’s legal blunders

Representing the Action Alliance before the Court of Justice of the European Union, is Dr Dörte Fouquet, an expert in subsidy and energy law, attorney and partner at the international law firm Becker Büttner Held.

“The Commission did not adequately analyse the far-reaching consequences of its approval of State Aid, nor did it take into account that there was no tendering procedure for Hinkley Point C”, she says. “Moreover, there is no general market failure that would anyway justify such State Aid.”

Austria already filed its own complaint on the same issue last week and Luxembourg has announced it will also take legal steps. The German government has so far refused to take legal action against the controversial subsidy decision, but is coming under growing pressure to change its mind.

In the last few weeks more than 15,000 people have responded to a call from the Greenpeace Energy to send postcards and sent emails to their Bundestag representatives, and submitted online petitions to the Bundestag’s Committee on Petitions, appealing for Germany to take legal action.

Today Greenpeace Energy will hand the postcards over to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and again call on Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the SPD to take action. But time is short: the deadline to file a complaint against the Commission’s decision falls next week on 23rd July.

“Whoever simply accepts the expensive, hazardous, and competition-distorting return of nuclear power in Europe is a traitor to the energy transition in his own country”, says Sönke Tangermann from Greenpeace Energy.

A new study commissioned by the Norwegian government, and conducted by a nationally recognised scientific authority on the safety of biotechnologies, concludes that available scientific data on GM crops is inadequate to prove their safety.

The scientific report was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency and completed last year, before being publicly released in June by the Genok Centre for Biosafety, located in the Arctic University of Norway. The Genok Centre is a nationally-designated centre of competence on biosafety issues.

The new study analyses a dossier by giant agribusiness conglomerate, Monsanto, submitted to the Brazilian government, and conducts a comprehensive review of the available scientific literature from other sources.

Its focus is on Monsanto’s GM soybean Intacta Roundup Ready 2 Pro, which is grown in Brazil, and also authorised in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and probably also present in Bolivia due to illegal introductions from neighbouring countries.

Major gaps in the scientific literature

The report, titled ‘Sustainability Assessment of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerant Crops‘ concludes that due to major gaps in the scientific literature, it is not possible to give a scientific verdict on their safety.

Monsanto’s dossier, the report concludes, demonstrates a range of methodological weaknesses, and highlights the problem of incomplete information and research on GM crops in the available literature.

According to Monsanto, genetically modified organisms do not harm human or animal health, and therefore do not have any adverse effects on crops and the environment. But according to the new Norwegian study:

“Contrary to this assertion, the literature provides indications of harmful and adverse effects to the environment and to health (both animal and human), as well as to socio-economic conditions, particularly over the medium- and long-term.”

The new study is authored by Georgina Catacora-Vargas, a researcher at the Agroecology Centre (AGRUCO) at the Faculty of Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry Sciences, University Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Catacora-Vargas was until recently technical biosafety advisor at Bolivia’s Vice-Ministry of Environment, Water and Forestry Management.

“Statements of the safety of GM crops rely principally on the absence of evidence of harm in specific research tests, rather than actual evidence of safety”, said Catacora-Vargas. “Absence of evidence of harm is a too low standard for adequate protection of human and environmental health …

“Moreover, today, a large portion of the research on GM crops is based on short-term studies that have inherent methodological weakness for detecting subtle yet significant effects that materialise in the long-term. Another common weakness - as indicated in my report - is the lack sufficient analytical rigour to derive any meaningful conclusions.”

According to her report, the large number of studies indicating positive impacts of GM crops are questionable because of such “methodological limitations”, which largely ignore “possible long-term effects” and used a “reduced and repetitive set of indicators.”

Most of this research does not compare GM crops with other production systems, such as IPM (integrated pest management), organic, and agroecological; focuses exclusively on ‘single-trait’ GM plants rather than, more realistically, “the combinatorial and additive effects of multiple-trait GM crops”; and is based on experiments which do not adequately consider “real field conditions.”

“These limitations”, the Norwegian report concludes, “partially explain the kinds of findings reported by the applicant [Monsanto]: all of them showing no possible adverse effects in contrast to a significant body of literature.”

Monsanto: GM crops ‘in some cases safer’

Mark Buckingham, a spokesman for Monsanto, dismissed the report’s findings: “We are confident that GM crops can be and are being properly assessed for safety and that GM crops being used by farmers are just as safe and in some cases safer than conventional crops and foods.”

According to a compendium of EU-funded research published by the European Commission in 2010, “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”

Buckingham added that GM crops are “designed to be safe” by scientists and plant breeders, and that national and international regulators whose job is “to check that a crop is safe and to protect consumers” have certified GM:

“Since GM crops were first grown on a large scale 19 years ago in the mid 1990’s, billions of meals including ingredients from these crops have been safety consumed by people around the world. No health effects what so ever have been observed - GM crops have a track record of safety.”

The author of the new study, however, disagreed. At the request of the Norwegian Environment Agency, the report focused on analysing the herbicide tolerant trait of Monsanto’s ‘Intacta’ crop.

“The literature contains a number of recent scientific studies which do indicate potential adverse effects”, said Catacora-Vargas, noting that Monsanto’s comment solely concerned Intacta’s insect resistance. By selectively focusing on studies of only certain impacts of the crop, Monsanto and other biotechnology companies are misleading the public.

She added that the EU’s 2010 compendium, which is also cited in the new Norwegian study, “is one of the very few with specific research on Intacta. These few papers are insufficient  -  evidence wise  -  to assert that Intacta is safe to the environment and human health.

“If integral analysis of GM crops’ sustainability is incomplete, it is just because the knowledge available on GMO safety and sustainability is also incomplete. There are more unknowns than evidence on the safety of GM crops.”

Monsanto’s flagship product condemned by WHO

The release of the new Norwegian report coincided with a spate of bad news for the biotechnology food industry. An expensive two-year research trial to test GM wheat’s ability to repel aphids (also known as plant lice), conducted by Rothamsted Research, failed spectacularly to produce the desired results.

Most GM crops contain the Roundup Ready trait patented by Monsanto. But in March, an assessment by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer arm published in The Lancet, found that Roundup is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The study evaluated evidence of human exposures to Roundup since 2001, largely for agricultural workers in the US, Canada and Sweden. Alarmingly, it found “limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma”, along with “convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals.”

According to Dr. Helen Wallace of the campaigning group, Genewatch UK, Monsanto’s GM crops “are now failing in the field due to the growth of superweeds resistant to the weedkiller RoundUp which is blanket sprayed on these GM plants.”

Despite the “high failure rate of experimental GM crops”, Genewatch UK notes ongoing efforts at “collaboration between government-funded scientists, ministers and industry on a PR strategy to try to rehabilitate GM crops in Britain and weaken regulations.”

Large quantities of industry and public money therefore incentivises academic scientists to produce research on GM crops that favours the industry, and underplays contrary evidence.

The harder we look, the worse it gets

The author of the new Norwegian study, Catacora-Vargas, said that given the current level of knowledge, “it is premature to assert that GM crops are safe. Currently, the more research we do on GMOs the more questions and uncertainties arise.”

She added that non-GM based forms of agriculture such as low input agriculture, agroecological approaches and even peasant and family farming are receiving insufficient attention from governments.

These non-GM production systems “have shown their capacity to produce adequate volumes of healthy and safe food and feed, besides being less energy and resource demanding. We still have a long way to go in designing scientific research that will provide the evidence needed to make justifiable claims of safety of GM crops, and their benefits in comparison to other production systems.”

These findings will add to growing public concerns over the addition of GM crops into the food-chain, and the role of the industry in suppressing scientific research that contradicts its claims.

The report: ‘Sustainability Assessment of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerant Crops‘ was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency and released by the Genok Centre for Biosafety at the Arctic University of Norway.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed is an investigative journalist, bestselling author and international security scholar. A former Guardian writer, he writes the ‘System Shift’ column for VICE’s Motherboard, and is also a columnist for Middle East Eye. His website is at nafeezahmed.com.

He is the winner of a 2015 Project Censored Award, known as the ‘Alternative Pulitzer Prize’, for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian work, and was selected in the Evening Standard’s ‘Power 1,000’ most globally influential Londoners.

A regular correspondent for The Ecologist, Nafeez 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, Counterpunch, Truthout, among others. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Faculty of Science and Technology at Anglia Ruskin University.

Books: Nafeez is the author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010), and the scifi thriller novel ZERO POINT, among other books. 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.

This article was originally published on by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, which encourages you to become a patron of independent, investigative journalism for the global commons.

A new study commissioned by the Norwegian government, and conducted by a nationally recognised scientific authority on the safety of biotechnologies, concludes that available scientific data on GM crops is inadequate to prove their safety.

The scientific report was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency and completed last year, before being publicly released in June by the Genok Centre for Biosafety, located in the Arctic University of Norway. The Genok Centre is a nationally-designated centre of competence on biosafety issues.

The new study analyses a dossier by giant agribusiness conglomerate, Monsanto, submitted to the Brazilian government, and conducts a comprehensive review of the available scientific literature from other sources.

Its focus is on Monsanto’s GM soybean Intacta Roundup Ready 2 Pro, which is grown in Brazil, and also authorised in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and probably also present in Bolivia due to illegal introductions from neighbouring countries.

Major gaps in the scientific literature

The report, titled ‘Sustainability Assessment of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerant Crops‘ concludes that due to major gaps in the scientific literature, it is not possible to give a scientific verdict on their safety.

Monsanto’s dossier, the report concludes, demonstrates a range of methodological weaknesses, and highlights the problem of incomplete information and research on GM crops in the available literature.

According to Monsanto, genetically modified organisms do not harm human or animal health, and therefore do not have any adverse effects on crops and the environment. But according to the new Norwegian study:

“Contrary to this assertion, the literature provides indications of harmful and adverse effects to the environment and to health (both animal and human), as well as to socio-economic conditions, particularly over the medium- and long-term.”

The new study is authored by Georgina Catacora-Vargas, a researcher at the Agroecology Centre (AGRUCO) at the Faculty of Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry Sciences, University Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Catacora-Vargas was until recently technical biosafety advisor at Bolivia’s Vice-Ministry of Environment, Water and Forestry Management.

“Statements of the safety of GM crops rely principally on the absence of evidence of harm in specific research tests, rather than actual evidence of safety”, said Catacora-Vargas. “Absence of evidence of harm is a too low standard for adequate protection of human and environmental health …

“Moreover, today, a large portion of the research on GM crops is based on short-term studies that have inherent methodological weakness for detecting subtle yet significant effects that materialise in the long-term. Another common weakness - as indicated in my report - is the lack sufficient analytical rigour to derive any meaningful conclusions.”

According to her report, the large number of studies indicating positive impacts of GM crops are questionable because of such “methodological limitations”, which largely ignore “possible long-term effects” and used a “reduced and repetitive set of indicators.”

Most of this research does not compare GM crops with other production systems, such as IPM (integrated pest management), organic, and agroecological; focuses exclusively on ‘single-trait’ GM plants rather than, more realistically, “the combinatorial and additive effects of multiple-trait GM crops”; and is based on experiments which do not adequately consider “real field conditions.”

“These limitations”, the Norwegian report concludes, “partially explain the kinds of findings reported by the applicant [Monsanto]: all of them showing no possible adverse effects in contrast to a significant body of literature.”

Monsanto: GM crops ‘in some cases safer’

Mark Buckingham, a spokesman for Monsanto, dismissed the report’s findings: “We are confident that GM crops can be and are being properly assessed for safety and that GM crops being used by farmers are just as safe and in some cases safer than conventional crops and foods.”

According to a compendium of EU-funded research published by the European Commission in 2010, “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”

Buckingham added that GM crops are “designed to be safe” by scientists and plant breeders, and that national and international regulators whose job is “to check that a crop is safe and to protect consumers” have certified GM:

“Since GM crops were first grown on a large scale 19 years ago in the mid 1990’s, billions of meals including ingredients from these crops have been safety consumed by people around the world. No health effects what so ever have been observed - GM crops have a track record of safety.”

The author of the new study, however, disagreed. At the request of the Norwegian Environment Agency, the report focused on analysing the herbicide tolerant trait of Monsanto’s ‘Intacta’ crop.

“The literature contains a number of recent scientific studies which do indicate potential adverse effects”, said Catacora-Vargas, noting that Monsanto’s comment solely concerned Intacta’s insect resistance. By selectively focusing on studies of only certain impacts of the crop, Monsanto and other biotechnology companies are misleading the public.

She added that the EU’s 2010 compendium, which is also cited in the new Norwegian study, “is one of the very few with specific research on Intacta. These few papers are insufficient  -  evidence wise  -  to assert that Intacta is safe to the environment and human health.

“If integral analysis of GM crops’ sustainability is incomplete, it is just because the knowledge available on GMO safety and sustainability is also incomplete. There are more unknowns than evidence on the safety of GM crops.”

Monsanto’s flagship product condemned by WHO

The release of the new Norwegian report coincided with a spate of bad news for the biotechnology food industry. An expensive two-year research trial to test GM wheat’s ability to repel aphids (also known as plant lice), conducted by Rothamsted Research, failed spectacularly to produce the desired results.

Most GM crops contain the Roundup Ready trait patented by Monsanto. But in March, an assessment by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer arm published in The Lancet, found that Roundup is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The study evaluated evidence of human exposures to Roundup since 2001, largely for agricultural workers in the US, Canada and Sweden. Alarmingly, it found “limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma”, along with “convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals.”

According to Dr. Helen Wallace of the campaigning group, Genewatch UK, Monsanto’s GM crops “are now failing in the field due to the growth of superweeds resistant to the weedkiller RoundUp which is blanket sprayed on these GM plants.”

Despite the “high failure rate of experimental GM crops”, Genewatch UK notes ongoing efforts at “collaboration between government-funded scientists, ministers and industry on a PR strategy to try to rehabilitate GM crops in Britain and weaken regulations.”

Large quantities of industry and public money therefore incentivises academic scientists to produce research on GM crops that favours the industry, and underplays contrary evidence.

The harder we look, the worse it gets

The author of the new Norwegian study, Catacora-Vargas, said that given the current level of knowledge, “it is premature to assert that GM crops are safe. Currently, the more research we do on GMOs the more questions and uncertainties arise.”

She added that non-GM based forms of agriculture such as low input agriculture, agroecological approaches and even peasant and family farming are receiving insufficient attention from governments.

These non-GM production systems “have shown their capacity to produce adequate volumes of healthy and safe food and feed, besides being less energy and resource demanding. We still have a long way to go in designing scientific research that will provide the evidence needed to make justifiable claims of safety of GM crops, and their benefits in comparison to other production systems.”

These findings will add to growing public concerns over the addition of GM crops into the food-chain, and the role of the industry in suppressing scientific research that contradicts its claims.

The report: ‘Sustainability Assessment of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerant Crops‘ was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency and released by the Genok Centre for Biosafety at the Arctic University of Norway.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed is an investigative journalist, bestselling author and international security scholar. A former Guardian writer, he writes the ‘System Shift’ column for VICE’s Motherboard, and is also a columnist for Middle East Eye. His website is at nafeezahmed.com.

He is the winner of a 2015 Project Censored Award, known as the ‘Alternative Pulitzer Prize’, for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian work, and was selected in the Evening Standard’s ‘Power 1,000’ most globally influential Londoners.

A regular correspondent for The Ecologist, Nafeez 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, Counterpunch, Truthout, among others. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Faculty of Science and Technology at Anglia Ruskin University.

Books: Nafeez is the author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010), and the scifi thriller novel ZERO POINT, among other books. 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.

This article was originally published on by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, which encourages you to become a patron of independent, investigative journalism for the global commons.

It’s easy to blame the aggressors of the troika – and a proper assemblage of gargoyles they are at that.

They have cruelly inflicted on Greece a humilating climbdown, forcing it to accept a deal much worse that that rejected in the decisive OXI vote in last week’s referendum.

They have represented the brute power of finance capital against people and democracy. They have forced Greece into becoming a vassal state utterly subservient to their power.

In short, it’s easy to hate them. But in fact, all they have been doing is their job. There has been no secret agenda. They have surprised no one. They have done nothing they have not done before, in Ireland, Portugal, Spain.

If you really want to hate anyone, hate Alexis Tsipras. Hate Yanis Varoufakis. Hate those who have promised everything, and delivered not just nothing, but worse than nothing. Hate the entire Syriza Government, which has destroyed the Greek economy and handed it over to finance capital on a plate.

Hate Syriza, which not only betrayed the promise on which it was elected, but held a totally unnecessary referendum whose outcome it has betrayed completely within days, accepting a deal that adds up to nothing less than treachery against the Greek people.

Where did it all go wrong?

The answer to that is simple. They had no plan. They had no backbone. They had no backstop. They had no muscle. The only ‘or else’ they put up to the troika was to make the Greek economy hold its breath until … until it bust. Which it has now done.

Had their intention been to force Greece into poverty and foreign economic and political subjugation they could not have done a better job of it. Was it even their intention all along? Were they traitors from the start, on a mission to lead their country into ruin and a new era of abject servility? It’s hard to believe – but the effect has been exactly the same as if they were.

At least when the World War I hero Maréchal Pétain formed  the Nazi puppet state of Vichy France in 1940, he had some kind of excuse: to avoid the certainty of a military occupation. But Syriza has none.

At any point since its election the Greek Government could have acted. First it could have imposed capital controls, much earlier than it was forced to, to stop its Euro and other foreign currency holdings from flowing away to safe havens abroad.

Second, it could have been printing up secret stocks of drachma banknotes months ago – against the possibility it would have to bring them out at short notice.

Third, when the banks were running out of money, it could have have introduced the drachma as a parallel currency to prevent the banks’ insolvency and the consequent freeze up of the economy that has run the economy from basket case into collapse – and made it legal tender.

Fourth, could have declared the illegitimacy of most of its debt and its refusal to repay – while seriously pressing its own claim for €320 billion in reparations from Germany for the loans it was forced to make to the Reichsbank under Nazi occupation.

But Syriza did none of these things. When the troika called Greece’s bluff, its hand was empty. All they could say was ‘pretty please’ – at which the thugs of capital rightly laughed in their faces.

What now?

Greece now has to pass emergency legislation that will have the effect of packing up Greece – its economy, its people, its sovereignty, its future as an independent state – into a gift-wrapped parcel, and handing it over to its creditors.

Will it succeed? Perhaps. Tsipras will surely have the support of the opposition, if not of its own elected representatives. If it does, will the deal stick? Surely not. The 61% of Greeks who voted NO meant what they said. They voted NO not just to secure better terms from the troika, but fully prepared to ditch out of the Euro if those better terms were not won.

Any laws passed in the Greek Parliament to comply with the troika’s final ultimatum will lack the slightest shred of democratic legitimacy following the NO vote – remembering the key legal precept that political power derives its legitimacy only from the will of the People.

If the laws are passed, Greece will enter into a period of revolutionary fury and political turmoil that is bound, one way or another, to end in the collapse of the Government, the deposition of Tsipras, and a future of profound uncertainty and insecurity.

Remember that Greece has a long history of fighting for its sovereignty – and of resisting betrayal by those in whom it has put its faith. Its communist partisans bravely fought out the Nazis in World War II, only to be betrayed by their former allies, Britain and the US, who rounded up and murdered the war heroes and installed a government of former Nazi collaborators to see off the ‘Soviet threat’.

The political battle continued until 1967 when the military junta known as the Regime of the Colonels seized power, carrying out a ferocious crackdown on its opponents characterised by severe violations of human and political rights, with widespread torture and arbitrary imprisonment. The junta was finally forced out in 1974 by a popular revolution which culminated in Greece’s re-establishment as a democratic Republic.

Greek democrats today must be ready for a comparable fight against the new neoliberal occupation, with Germany once again at its helm, to which Tsipras has offered up his country against the clearly expressed popular will.

This will be a defining battle for national sovereignty, democracy and human dignity in Greece, and indeed all of Europe – and one that progressives forces everywhere must do all they can to support. OXI!

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

In the latest of Shell’s (tragi)comedy of Arctic errors, one of the oil giant’s icebreaker ships has been waylaid for repairs of a sizeable hole in its hull, which could cause delays to its drilling plans.

Discovered last Friday, the 39-inch long gash near the bottom of the Finnish MSV Fennica forced it to return to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, for inspection and repairs.

The Fennica is a key piece of Shell’s drilling armoury, as it carries the capping stack that would be used to seal a well in case of a blowout.

It is not yet known if the 22-year old vessel can be repaired quickly, or if the damage done will take the icebreaker temporarily out of commission and further complicate Shell’s Arctic oil drilling – this is scheduled to begin later this month as long as it receives permits to drill for both or its rigs.

Drilling delays possible 

The gash could have been caused by an uncharted shoal, but this has not been confirmed by the US Coast Guard. Local firm Resolve Magone Marine Service could possibly do an underwater repair at Dutch Harbor.

If Shell does manage to fix the ship over the next few days or weeks, the repaired Fennica may need its permits to be signed off all over again, which could be a hitch in the firm’s drilling plans.

Alternatively, the situation may force Shell to make changes to its 29-vessel strong fleet, such as transferring the crucial spill response equipment from the Fennica to another ship. This could be Shell’s other hired icebreaker Nordica, the spec sheets of which indicate it could handle Fennica’s Arctic Capping Stack (ACS). The transfer could take a few days, however.

If that were to happen, and/or Shell were required to source a new icebreaking vessel, it’s also possible (though unlikely) that Shell would require entirely new permits – since the plans on which the US government has signed off included had Fennica performing that role.

Such a transfer is unlikely, with a Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith telling AP that he’s not aware of any discussion of transferring the required equipment to another vessel: “I’m sure it’s come up. It’s an option, but it’s not our focus.”

With Shell’s narrow drilling window having opened on 1st July and the encroachment of sea ice limiting operations to no longer than three months, time is of the essence.

Smith also told press does not believe Fennica’s ruptured hull would delay the company’s planned drilling in the Chukchi Sea but said “any impact to our season will ultimately depend on the extent of the damage.”

‘Comedy of errors’

The incident is one to add to the litany of Shell’s issues when attempting to explore the Arctic. As Rachel Maddow said on her popular MSNBC news show, Shell

” … can’t keep their ships working, they can’t operate their own equipment. They might just be physically incapable of doing what they’re trying to do. Maybe the thing that ultimately stops Shell from drilling in the Arctic is that Shell can’t actually figure out how to drill in the Arctic.”

Shell’s recent mishaps have included problems with its 2015 tests of its containment dome system – another spill response mechanism designed to put a lid on the leak – where one vessel dragged its anchor; trouble with one of Shell’s contracted rig’s oil filter; and its ‘state of the art’ tug Aiviq recently crashing while docking in Everett, Washington, because of an apparent “thruster malfunction”.

The misadventures echoed Shell’s 2012 attempt at drilling in the Arctic Ocean – which ended with one of their drilling rigs running aground (see photo) and eight felony charges and a $12 million fine related to violations on the other rig.

Shell’s Chukchi Sea drilling campaign has also been hampered this time around by wildlife protection rules, which mean that the two contracted rigs will only be able to drill consecutively, not at the same time.

Spill response risk

The Fennica incident has further raised concerns about Shell’s ability to respond in a timely manner to a spill in Arctic conditions. Bad weather meant it took Shell nearly two days to get an inspector out to the Fennica, according Associated Press.

That kind of obstacle doesn’t exactly bode well for when Shell actually starts drilling – in waters far further north – especially if there is an oil spill.

Shell has a plan to deal with a blowout – that thing when massive amounts of oil burst forth from a well –  but it’s “very optimistic”, according to experts. One option in Shell’s current multiple-choice response plan involves setting the fugitive oil alight (see photo).

And if that and the other few recourses don’t pan out, Shell says it will just leave the oil there to be cleaned up the next year. The company’s worst case forecast for a spill in the sensitive environment off the coast of Alaska would see 25,000 barrels per day released for 30 days.

There is at least a 75% chance of at least one large spill releasing over 1,000 barrels of oil over 77 years – the period of oil production in the Chukchi Sea.

The US government has already shortened its operational window by a month to provide the company with more time to respond to a late-season accident.

Zachary Davies Boren is an environment journalist writing for Greenpeace Energydesk, the Press Association, The Telegraph, The Independent, Huffington Post, IBTimes, Yahoo, Chicago Tribune and other media.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace EnergyDesk.

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