What’s the best way to see what the Paris Agreement really means for the future of fossil fuels?

For a start, see what the credit rating agencies have to say about the prospects for fossil fuel corporations. It so happens that, quick off the mark, Moody’s has already released its assessment. And to read it, it’s clear that much has changed – at least, not yet.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, the agreement reached at COP21 “could have material credit implications for certain sectors globally. However, significant uncertainty persists over the magnitude and pace of carbon emission policies.”

Significantly, credit ratings of fossil fuel companies have not been revised as a result of the deal reached in Paris on Saturday. But that could yet change, says Brian Cahill, a Moody’s Managing Director:

“The Paris Agreement will likely lead to an increased uptake of carbon reduction policies worldwide and, as such, the credit implications for a number of sectors will grow absent substantial counter-balancing initiatives by entities within these sectors.”

Too many uncertainties

Moody’s conclusions were contained in a just-released report, ‘Paris Agreement Advances Adoption of Carbon Regulations; Credit Impact to Rise‘.

According to the agency, “the cornerstone of the deal is the objective to limit global warming to ‘well below 2C above pre-industrial levels’ and’ pursue efforts’ to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” It also notes that “governments will revisit their emissions reduction targets every five years.”

However it says the agreement also creates major uncertainties as far as its consequences are concerned, owing to the fact that large parts of it are not legally binding, and that, in any event, the commitments made are insufficient to achieve the desired outcomes.

A key problem, says Cahill, is that “intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) – a public outline of a country’s post-2020 climate actions submitted at COP21 – are both voluntary and, as the Agreement states, not sufficient to meet the 2C limit goal.

“This makes more detailed assessment of the credit impact of the Paris Agreement difficult, although the trend is clear and broadly negative for those sectors with the highest exposure to carbon emissions regulation that we have identified.”

$3.2 trillion of debt at risk

The ratings agency recently identified three sectors – unregulated power generation, coal mining and coal terminals – with very high credit exposure to carbon regulations, and a further 11 sectors with high credit exposure. Combined, these 14 sectors account for approximately $3.2 trillion of rated debt.

But to assess what the Paris Agreement will mean for those sectors in specific jurisdictions remains difficult as there is no standard format for the INDCs, says Henry Shilling, a Moody’s Senior Vice President:

“Specifically, we believe that greater clarity on country-specific measures and improved disclosure around the implications of such measures by individual entities will allow market participants to more effectively assess the credit implications for a sector and differentiate between entities in those sectors.”

“Ideally, an entity’s specific disclosure would be done in a globally consistent manner and in a way that is independently verified.”

There is also a potential for “meaningful regional variations in the pace of adoption in INDCs” including in how they are achieved, for example using emission trading schemes, carbon taxes, or other policies, and their enforcement.

“Clearly, the future course of emissions remains highly variable, depending on the extent to which governments implement their INDC commitments and further tighten over time their targets”, says Cahill.

But in the EU decarbonisation policies will bite fossil fuel generators

In a separate report report focusing on the EU, ‘After COP21: Decarbonisation Policies in the EU Will Continue to Shape the European Electricity Sector‘, Moody’s concludes that the Paris Agreement “reinforces the pursuit of decarbonisation policies in the EU.”

“EU directives and/or national policies will lead to the closure of a large proportion of coal-fired plants by the middle of the next decade. In addition, utilities with conventional generation will continue to see their volumes reduced and their margins squeezed as new renewable capacity further push thermal generation out of the merit order …

“However, the push for new renewable capacity will be credit positive for renewable energy companies, whose growth will allow their parents to replace in part the lost earnings from declining thermal generation.

“Increasing renewable capacity will also require sizeable capex programmes to connect new capacity and manage the intermittency of these sources. This will provide grid transmission companies with the opportunity to grow their asset bases, but will also create operational challenges.”

Energy efficiency measures will also challenge the unregulated utilities, said Paul Marty, Moody’s Vice President and Senior Credit Officer: “A decline in electricity consumption driven by higher levels of energy efficiency and resulting in lower revenues would be credit negative for the sector.”

He added that “utilities with a low proportion of contracted / regulated activities such as networks or renewable generation supported by feed-in tariffs are most at risk.”

However, the agency points out, “Although the deal confirms the momentum for tackling climate change, and reinforces policies restricting greenhouse gas emissions, the Paris Agreement does not provide detailed objectives relative to greenhouse gas emissions nor does it impose any legal obligation to limit or reduce them.”

An international climate conference is a big thing. Tens of thousands of people, thousands of leaflets and papers, hundreds of shuttle buses.

And all too often over the years the results have been negligible a let-down. But this time it’s different.

The delegates pouring off the buses with their multi-coloured passes, the all-night negotiating sessions and, perhaps most importantly, the huge groundswell of public pressure for action, produced an agreement.

And that agreement contains one tremendously important figure: 1.5 degrees C. That’s the figure that nearly 200 world leaders have agreed we should aim to limit global warming to.

Far more still needs to be done by the Western world to support emerging economies and poorer nations. Future work will have to ensure that action on climate change is delivered equitably across nations, genders, and cultures.

But, by the measure of what was expected prior to Paris, this conference was a huge success.

It’s a big deal – really!

Campaigners were expecting us to only end up with a commitment to keep global warming to 2C. That the target of 1.5C is mentioned at all seems nothing short of a miracle. Yes, there’s a lot the agreement doesn’t say. But 1.5C says a great deal.

It says that the era of fossil fuels is fast drawing to a close, that the two-thirds of known fossil fuel reserves that the International Energy Agency says have to stay in the ground will stay in the ground.

It says that we need to provide the technology and the funding for the Global South to leap straight into renewable technologies, to provide the electricity and services required to deliver a decent life for everyone.

It says that we cannot continue with our current throwaway economy that fails to count carbon emissions and other environmental damage into the price of goods.

It says that we need to transform our industrial agriculture with the principles of agroecology and abandon the destructive, dangerous practice of factory farming animals.

But of course we’re talking about governments here – governments comprised of fallible people who might have left Paris in a haze of goodwill, positive intentions and self-congratulations, but who this morning will be getting the calls from the well-funded fossil fuel companies and the multinationals who’d rather see business continue as usual.

It is transformatory – with your help!

And that is where you come in. You – an individual citizen, a voter, a parent and grandparent, a young person looking to your future. The future is in our hands. Everyone can ensure that the 1.5C agreement is met.

Anything you can do to support this global cause will make the difference. It might mean a letter to your MP opposing airport expansion or factory farm. It might be a petition calling for support for renewable energy in your local community. It might mean calling for improved insulation at your elderly neighbour’s home. Anything you do today can protect our planet tomorrow.

It might be a tweet of support for the Upton Community Protection Camp, hanging on in the cold and rain on a field near Chester to protect it from fracking. Or a Facebook post backing the fossil fuel divestment campaigners in your university, or your local government area, demanding your community’s money.

It might be telling your friends about how we are all of us, each, in Britain, are subsidising fossil fuel production to the tune of £400 a year. Or telling them about how investment in public transport could provide car commuters with a convenient, reliable, affordable alternative to the inconvenient, uncertain, boring option of sitting each workday in traffic jams, breathing unhealthy polluted air.

It might be a commitment to do something every day to protect and strengthen the siren call of that 1.5C. Big or small, public or private, political or practical.

The Paris climate talks were part of an ongoing process, a movement towards a just transition to a zero-carbon economy that meets everyone needs comfortably, reliably, on our fragile, damaged planet.

That movement needs everyone’s involvement, everyone’s help. And everyone will then benefit.

Natalie Bennett is the leader of the Green Party of England & Wales.

Almost a year ago I wrote an article for The Ecologist entitled ‘death by landfill‘.

The article told the story of 7-year old Zane Gbangbola, who was killed in his bed during the floods of February 2014. Not by water, but by poison gas.

Given the lack of information at that time, the article focussed on how John Major’s Conservative government of the early 1990s reneged on a promise to introduce strict laws on contaminated land.

These would have required historic land contamination to be tracked down and, where appropriate, made safe. Had they been enacted they may have prevented Zane’s death twenty years later.

Almost two years on from Zane’s death, in advance of the inquest (already a year overdue), new information is beginning to emerge on the events of that day.

These documents raise questions as to whether the Government covered-up the unsettling facts of Zane’s death, and its implication for Britain’s legacy of contaminated land.

A delayed inquest and questionable investigation

Inquests should take place within a year following the death of a person in unexpected or suspicious circumstances. While there have been pre-inquest hearings, 21 months after the event there has still been no formal coroner’s hearing in this case.

From the documents disclosed to the inquiry earlier this year it is clear that the incident had been dealt with by the fire and rescue service as serious chemical contamination. Their equipment had detected cyanide, and neighbouring houses were also evacuated as the residents said they felt unwell. High levels of carbon monoxide were not detected.

Shortly after that, however, the police explained the incident as the result of carbon monoxide poisoning – and spent a year trying to investigate that cause. From the very beginning this threw the investigation of what happened that night into disarray. Zane did not have levels of carbon monoxide in his blood which would have been toxic. Likewise his father, who was paralysed as a result of exposure to gas, was diagnosed with cyanide poisoning.

Despite the medical evidence, official investigations tried to find evidence for carbon monoxide. Even during the recent pre-inquest hearing, at which many parties involved with the case are officially represented, efforts were made to challenge the evidence produced by the fire brigade that cyanide had been detected.

This highlights the problem with the contaminated land issues today – there is a large vested interest against disclosing its existence.

Whether it be the local authorities, who might have to pay for emergency testing and clean-up operations; or the owner of the site who might not be able to sell or develop it; or the waste lobby generally, who want to prevent tighter regulation on waste disposal operations – there are a lot of groups all desperately hoping that the Coroner will cite carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause of Zane’s death.

Official muddle and misdirection

As outlined in last year’s article, there is a critical issue here about the involvement of the state in Zane’s death. This goes beyond the fact that the Government reneged on implementing tighter contaminated land law in 1994.

Despite evidence to the contrary, Surrey County Council have denied land-filling took place at this site. According to local householders the local authority, Spelthorne Borough Council, failed to inform those buying houses around the site that the area has been used for depositing waste in the past – and have consistently down-played any potential hazards from the site.

That position is at odds with the Environment Agency – whose on-line public register maps denote that the site has been filled with waste. Many other sites in the area, all filled with waste historically exported from London, have been found to contain cyanide-contaminated wastes. Some have required excavation and ‘remediation’ to minimise the risk to the public.

The site behind Zane’s family home was filled from the 1930s until the 1980s. What records do exist indicate a number of failures to control waste deposit on the site. Despite this the pollution officer from Spelthorne Borough Council has stated that ‘there were no contraventions of waste approvals’.

What is more significant is that both Spelthorne and the Environment Agency appeared to know of the dangers the site presented – though they argue that any such knowledge was hypothetical since it was not backed-up by hard data from testing by the site’s owners. Some records suggest that there was a conscious decision by Spelthorne and the Environment Agency not to highlight the risks to those living nearby.

In early October I attended the ‘pre-inquest’ hearing at the Surrey Coroner’s Court in Woking. One of the key legal arguments that day related to Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Where the state has some culpability in the death of a person the courts require that there be a detailed investigation of the role of the state – in order to avoid any chance that the state may have used its powers to avoid blame, or cover-up the facts of the case. It’s not just that the state shouldn’t kill people. It is important that there is no demonstrable suspicion that the actions by authorities contributed to a person’s death.

After hearing the legal arguments from the various parties for a number of hours, the Coroner ruled that there was no evidence of negligence by the state sufficient to meet the applicable guidelines. Therefore a detailed investigation of the role of the state need not be carried out.

Did COBRA order a cover-up?

At the subsequent pre-inquest hearing on 7th December the case took an extraordinary turn – casting yet more doubt on the Coroner’s verdict that there was no state involvement.

New evidence was handed to the Coroner from the Environment Agency. This put a whole new light on the events of February 2014, and the regulatory processes carried out by various authorities in the years leading up to that day.

What was not disclosed before was that the cyanide levels on the upper floors on the house were much higher than on the ground floor. The Environment Agency were unable to take tests because of the toxic hazard, so the fire brigade took them. These indicated levels of cyanide up to 25,000 parts per million – very toxic.

This calls into doubt the efforts of both the police and local authorities to pin the cause on carbon monoxide.

As a result of those findings, the fire brigade immediately triggered the ‘national incident recording system’ at 5.40am. This led to senior police officers becoming involved in the response, and the Government’s COBRA emergency committee.

Parts of the files submitted to the Coroner’s office contain blank pages. There are also references stating that “information … may need to be vetted to ensure no sensitive material is allowed into the public domain.”

What is clear is that there were various meetings of the ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ commanders at the area incident room, feeding back information on the event to COBRA over the 8th and 9th of February. The COBRA Committee considered the case at 5pm on the 8th, 12 hours after the fire brigade raised the alert, and again the following day.

At some point it appears that COBRA may have decided to restrict information about the incident. It may have been done for the best of administrative reasons – perhaps to avoid piling any more panic on top of the already stressed situation in the Thames Valley at that point – but that decision had a damaging effect on the subsequent investigations into Zane’s death.

The restriction on disclosure about cyanide led to another story, based on carbon monoxide, being circulated – even though there was no evidence to support it. That subsequently misled the police’s investigation into Zane’s death, even though senior figures within the police service carrying out the investigation must have been aware of the true facts of the case.

However, as noted above, there are many interests in this case for whom a finding of ‘death by cyanide poisoning’ is far, far more problematic than carbon monoxide. That is why the open investigation of the role of public authorities in this case is so crucial to achieving justice for Zane.

‘Tragic circumstances that have still not been explained’

In late October the floods of 2014 were debated in Parliament, during which the local MP, Kwasi Kwarteng, said that “Seven-year-old Zane Gbangbola died during the floods in February 2014, in tragic circumstances that have still not been explained.”

In response the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at DEFRA, Rory Stewart, stated:

“Before I deal with the general point, let me try to address most directly the question of responsibility raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne. There is clearly a major issue. I am very keen to add the Government’s condolences in respect of Zane Gbangbola’s tragic death. That real tragedy is an example of why it is so important to get these things right.”

As part of a recent investigation by the Daily Mail, journalists interviewed former Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles. He told them: “I do not recall hydrogen cyanide being mentioned at all. The briefing was wholly in the context of us being concerned about private generators.”

The difficulty is that while local government might report to Eric Pickles, the Environment Agency are not managed from the Department for Communities and Local Government. Consequently would he have received those briefings?

David Cameron had taken personal responsibility for chairing COBRA meetings two days before Zane’s death – would he have been briefed first?

The Environment Agency’s response to such incidents would have been reported to the Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson – although there is confusion about responsibility at that point as he had just been admitted to hospital for emergency surgery.

The responsibility for how this incident was handled by COBRA is not clear – and will not be unless all the records from both the Government and police are released into the public domain.

In response to this new evidence the Surrey Coroner has now ordered that all relevant documents, including records from the COBRA Committee, be submitted to his investigation before Christmas. That is likely to require action by DEFRA minister Rory Stewart, investigating the actions his predecessor in his post, who had responsibility for management of flooding and the operations of the Environment Agency.

The bigger story here is still ‘buried’

The bigger story here is not simply the confusion which has delayed and diverted the investigations into Zane’s death. It’s far more widespread, and significant than that.

What this incident highlights is the toxic legacy that exists today across Britain – and the extent to which those involved have an interest in suppressing information about those hazards. The failure to disclose information to the public, especially by the local authority – Spelthorne Borough – is a significant factor in Zane’s case.

Be it the local authorities or the landowners involved, those who may have the evidence have no interest in disclosing it because of the public backlash and expense such disclosures may cause. Recent changes to pollution contaminated land guidance weaken the protection of the public yet further.

In 1994, in its fit of deregulatory zeal, the then Conservative government squashed any effort to investigate Britain’s legacy of toxic land – even though the hazards of these sites has been known for some time, especially landfill sites. Twenty years later, that rolling back of regulation of contaminated land was arguably a contributory factor in Zane’s death.

Had the family been properly informed they might not have bought the house. In any case, the risks sites such as this present would have required an early site investigation, and the implementation of measures to protect the nearby houses.

The policy of ignorance and denial cannot continue

Following the Dawes Report in 1929, London began to formalise the disposal of its waste. Until the 20th Century London had reclaimed much of its own waste within the capital’s manufacturing industries.

London’s construction boom during the 1930s, and following the Second World War, created gravel pits and clay pits all around the Home Counties. Those pits were in turn used for the disposal of London’s waste, which included large quantities of toxic materials from industry and town gasworks.

The situation was no different around Birmingham, Manchester, South Wales and West / South Yorkshire, who also exported their waste across their own hinterlands for decades.

Climate change will change weather patterns. The fact the gravel pit behind Zane’s home was inundated with water was due to the exceptional level of rain which created the floods.

Across Britain there are hundreds of sites with have been filled with industrial or mine waste from before the 1980s. Though they may currently be stable, they may suddenly become a toxic problem as rain patterns and local hydrological systems change with the climate.

For example, around the coast of Britain there are many ‘landraise’ sites (heaps rather than holes full of waste) in salt marshes which are likely to become unstable and erode as sea levels rise – spreading their toxic content along the shorelines of our estuaries.

This is the deeper reality which the current regulatory framework for contaminated land fails to acknowledge. Irrespective of what the vested interests in the development lobby desire, this issue cannot be ‘buried’ any longer.

The Government must revisit the issue of land contamination, and put right the mistakes of the 1990s. The effects of land contamination are not just an issue of risk today. How those risks will change with the changing climate needs to be given urgent consideration.

Paul Mobbs is an environmental and peace campaigner. He runs the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW) and is the author of Energy Beyond Oil and ‘A Practical Guide to Sustainable ICT‘ (which is available free on-line).

For a fully referenced version of this article visit the FRAW site.

Petition: ‘Call for a public debate into the death of 7 year old Zane‘ (38 degrees).

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Death by landfill – cutting ‘green tape’ costs lives‘.

I wonder how many of the delegates in Paris realise that they have just created the mother of all ‘take-back schemes’.

As a consumer, you may have already come across this sort of deal: if you don’t want to dispose of the packaging of your new sofa, you can take it back to IKEA and it’s their problem.

In many places, you can even take back the sofa itself when your kids have wrecked it.

For the Paris climate deal to succeed something similar will have to happen, where companies that rely on fossil fuels will be obliged to ‘take back’ their emissions.

The agreement reaffirms a commitment to stabilising temperature rises well below 2C, and even retains the option of limiting warming to 1.5C if possible. But it also confirms national targets that do little more than stabilise global emissions between now and 2030.

Given those emissions, sticking to within 2C will require us to take lots of carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the ground. The parties to the agreement are, in effect, saying “we’re going to sell this stuff, and we’re going to dispose of it later.”

How do I know? Well, peak warming is overwhelmingly determined by cumulative carbon dioxide emissions. To stabilise temperatures at any level, be it 1.5C, 2C or even 3C, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. Most governments, environmental groups and business leaders now understand this.

And it is acknowledged, albeit implicitly, in Article 4 of the Paris agreement, which calls for greenhouse emissions to be ‘balanced’ by carbon sinks some time after mid-century. But we’re unlikely to hit ‘net zero’ emissions before temperatures reach 2C, and even less likely before they reach 1.5C.

Warming is currently at about 1C and rising by 0.1C every five to ten years. We could slow the warming by reducing emissions, of course. But if we fail to reduce at the required rate – and the inadequate emissions targets indicate this is the intention – then we will be left with no option but to scrub the excess CO₂ back out of the atmosphere in future.

Who should take back the CO₂? The fossil fuel producers

That is why the deal is like a gigantic take-back scheme. The proof lies in what is not said in the Paris agreement. There is no explicit mention of a global carbon budget for instance, which adds up total emissions since the industrial revolution.

That is despite the fact that all governments have acknowledged, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the reality that stabilising temperatures requires a limit on cumulative CO₂ emissions. Certain countries simply cannot accept the suggestion that they may be obliged to leave some of their prized fossil carbon reserves underground.

And why should they? We do not need, and nor have we any right, to ban India from using its coal. We simply need to ensure that, by the time we reach 2C, or 1.5C if that is what is eventually deemed safe, any company that sells fossil fuels, or any carbon-intensive product like conventional cement, is obliged to take back an equivalent amount of CO₂ and dispose of it safely to ensure it doesn’t end up in the atmosphere.

Right now, that means re-injection underground: forests can’t be relied on over geological timescales (they might burn down, or even die out and re-release their carbon due to climate change itself). But there are plenty of other creative ideas for carbon dioxide disposal: someone just needs the incentive to do it.

And who better than the owners of the fossil fuel assets at the heart of the problem? Logically, the cost of CO₂ disposal should be borne by the seller of fossil carbon.

If it is paid for out of general taxation, no one will have any incentive to minimise the carbon content in the products they sell or buy, nor will companies have an incentive to minimise the cost of disposal. And relying on taxpayers to pay for disposal makes it vulnerable every time the purse strings are tightened.

It’s the only way to stabilise the climate

The idea of a ‘CO₂ take-back’ scheme was suggested by Nick Robins, a UN sustainability adviser, at a recent event in Paris. It may have been meant as a whimsical aside, but it really is the only feasible way of stabilising the climate. The alternative – a global ban on fossil fuel extraction and use – is neither ethical nor enforceable.

Enthusiasts for renewable energy would like us to believe they can make it cheaper than coal, so a global ban would be unnecessary. But there will still be cement, jet fuel, fertiliser – the list is endless.

The idea that we will develop a cheaper substitute for every single application of fossil carbon, everywhere in the world, before temperatures reach 2C, is pure fantasy. As Ottmar Edenhofer, one of the world’s leading climate economists, put it: “As a Catholic, I believe in miracles, but I do not rely on them.”

Of course, if we include the costs of take-back, then high-carbon products will become more expensive, which is all good for renewables. But unlike new taxes, take-back schemes are generally popular despite industry’s dire warnings about increased costs.

People understand that the main beneficiary of fancy packaging is the company selling the product. And even at today’s prices, the main beneficiaries of our continued use of fossil fuels is not the long-suffering consumer, nor even the firm with its logo on the pump, but those who hoover up the royalties, taxes and rents as fossil fuels come out of the ground.

For 2C / 1.5C, a 10% / 20% cut for every  0.1C of warming. Starting now

Earlier this year, I suggested that something like a CO₂ take-back scheme (although not with nearly such a catchy name) should be considered in the UK energy bill, and was promptly taken out for a coffee by a well-spoken industry lobbyist to tell me what a bad idea it was. To my mind, that rather suggested that I was onto something.

‘Mandatory sequestration‘ hasn’t really caught on in the environmental movement, partly I’m sure because it is a bit of a mouthful for any campaigner.

But stack up the net zero emissions point against the inadequate national targets, and you soon realise that all those shouting “1.5 to stay alive“ in Paris (and there were plenty) were actually advocating a crash programme of CO₂ disposal.

So when should we start? Indications are that if we allow emissions to keep on growing at 2% per annum as they have been, the world’s entire estimated ‘carbon budget’ of 840GtC that’s considered likely to deliver an under 2C temperature rise will have been reached in 20 years time, in 2035. To deliver 1.5C, that means putting even less carbon out there.

So here’s a plan of action. We are already at 1C, and stabilising temperatures requires net zero CO₂ emissions. So to stabilise at 2C, we need to reduce emissions, on average, by 10% of today’s value for every tenth of a degree of warming from now on. And to stabilise at 1.5 degrees, we need to reduce, on average, by 20% per tenth of a degree of warming.

It really is that simple – and right now, the world is warming by a tenth of a degree every 5-10 years. There is no time to lose.

#takebackCO2 – start tweeting it now!

Myles Allen is Professor of Geosystem Science, Leader of ECI Climate Research Programme, University of Oxford.

Twitter: #takebackCO2

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

The Supreme Court of the Philippines has ordered a permanent ban on field trials of GM eggplant and a temporary halt on approving applications for the “contained use, import, commercialisation and propagation” of GM crops, including the import of GM products.

The court ruled in favour of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, as well as several Filipino activists, academics and politicians, in a major victory for Filipino farmers and activists around the world (see full list below).

“This decision builds on a wave of countries in Europe rejecting GE crops, and is a major setback for the GE industry”, said Virginia Benosa-Llorin, Ecological Agriculture Campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines.

“The Philippines has been used as a model for GE regulatory policy around the world, but now we are finally making progress to give people a right to choose the food they want to eat and the type of agriculture they want to encourage.”

The temporary ban is in place until a new ‘administrative order’ takes effect. It notably includes the highly controversial GM ‘golden rice’, an experimental project by International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) that is currently back at the R&D stage due to the crop’s poor yields and performance in the field.

However it is not expected to impact on the ‘Bt’ GMO corn already grown in the Philippines, engineered to express insecticide throughout the plant and its seeds, which accounted for about a quarter of the country’s corn crop in 2014.

Upholding the precautionary principle on genetic contamination

The Supreme Court decision sets a global precedent as it is the first legal decision on GM in the Philippines using the Writ of Kalikasan (environment) – a legal environmental remedy found only in the Philippines.

The court is also the first in the world to adopt the precautionary principle – which holds that it is best to err on the side of caution in the absence of scientific consensus – regarding GM products in its decision.

“This case vindicates the many cases of genetic contamination we and others have highlighted, as well as the simple fact that there is no scientific consensus on the safety of genetically engineered crops”, said Benosa-Llorin. “It’s a major victory for Filipinos, especially for farmers struggling with incidents of genetic contamination.”

“GE crops promote an ineffective farming model based on industrial agriculture, a system that cannot withstand the impacts of a rapidly changing climate, and which is failing to deliver what Filipinos currently need: food and nutritional security in times of erratic weather patterns”, said Benosa-Llorin.

No more GE approvals until further notice

The decision of the high court invalidates the Department of Agriculture’s Administrative Order No. 08-2002 (DAO8) and will bar the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Science and Technology from issuing any GE approvals, pending crafting and approval of a new Administrative Order. It will also impact the trade of GE crops and products. 

A recent USDA report observed that “the Philippines’ prominence in biotechnology has made the country a target for domestic and international anti-biotech groups. This opposition in early 2012 culminated in a lawsuit challenging the safety of Bt eggplant.

“The resulting court decision ordered a halt to GE field tests and has slowed the final approval process. Respondents to the case have all filed petitions to the Philippine Supreme Court (PSC) seeking a reversal of the lower court’s decision.”

Now it looks like the USDA’s worst nightmares have been realised: the Supreme Court has affirmed the May 2013 Court of Appeals order for the government to prepare an immediate plan of action to rehabilitate field trial sites and protect, preserve, and conserve the environment, as well as recommending measure to reform the current regulatory process.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia is calling on the Philippines government to support ecological agriculture policies, investments and funding.

This article was originally published by GMWatch. Additional reporting by The Ecologist.

The petitioners to the case are:  Greenpeace Southeast Asia (Philippines), Magsasaka Siyentipiko sa Pagpapaunlad ng Agrikultura (MASIPAG),  Rep. Teodoro Casino, Dr. Ben Malayang III, Dr. Angelina Galang, Mr. Leonardo Avila III,Ms. Catherine Untalan, Atty. Maria Paz Luna, Mr. Juanito Modina, Mr. Dagohoy Magaway, Dr. Romeo Quijano, Dr. Wency Kiat, Atty. H.Harry Roque, Jr, Former Sen. Orlando Mercado, Mr. Noel Cabangon, Mayor Edward Hagedorn, Mr. Edwin Marthine Lopez

The wheel of climate action turns slowly, but in Paris it has turned.

There’s much in this deal that frustrates and disappoints me, but it still puts the fossil fuel industry squarely on the wrong side of history.

Parts of this deal have been diluted and polluted by the people who despoil our planet, but it contains a new temperature limit of 1.5 degrees C.

That single number, and the new goal of net zero emissions by the second half of this century, will cause consternation in the boardrooms of coal companies and the palaces of oil-exporting states and that is a very good thing. The transition away from fossil fuels is inevitable.

Now comes our great task of this century. How do we meet this new goal? The measures outlined simply do not get us there. When it comes to forcing real, meaningful action, Paris fails to meet the moment.

We have a 1.5 degree wall to climb, but the ladder isn’t long enough. The emissions targets outlined in this agreement are simply not big enough to get us to where we need to be.

A deeply engrained injustice to be overcome

There is also not enough in this deal for the nations and people on the frontlines of climate change. It contains an inherent, ingrained injustice. The nations which caused this problem have promised too little to help the people on the frontlines of this crisis who are already losing their lives and livelihoods for problems they did not create.

This deal won’t dig us out the hole we’re in, but it makes the sides less steep. To pull us free of fossil fuels we are going to need to mobilise in ever greater numbers. This year the climate movement beat the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, we kicked Shell out of the Arctic and put coal into terminal decline. We stand for a future powered by renewable energy, and it is a future we will win.

This is why our efforts have never been confined to these conference halls. Just as we’ve carried our messages of justice, equity, and environmental protection into the venues of the climate negotiations, and echoed the collective demand to speed the end of fossil fuels to the faces of our leaders, we will continue to raise our voices long after these talks are over.

We came to the COP with hope. Not a hope based on the commitments we wished our leaders would make, but a hope built on a movements that we have built together with many others. Together we are challenging the fossil fuel oligarchy, we are ushering in the era of solutions, and we are moving the political benchmark of what is possible.

Now we must escalate our fight for climate justice

While our political leaders walk, our movements run, and we must keep running.

From the High Arctic to Brazil, from the Alberta tar sands to Indonesia’s peatlands, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Mediterranean we will stand against those faceless corporations and regressive governments that would risk our childrens future.

We will push our beautifully simple solution to climate change – 100% renewable energy for all – and make sure it is heard and embraced. From schoolyards in Greece, to the streetlights of India, to small Arctic communities like Clyde River in Canada, we will showcase the clean, renewable solutions that are already here, and pressure our governments to make them available for everyone, fast.

Finally, we will stand with those communities on the front lines of this struggle. They are the leaders of this movement. They are the ones facing the rising seas, the superstorms, and the direct effects of our governments’ collective inaction. We will amplify their voices so the world is forced to hear our call for change.

In 2016 we – the entire climate movement – will escalate the fight. Together we will show the world that if our governments won’t act to stop the carbon bullies, then we will.

History is waiting in the wings, and we’re standing on the right side of it.

Kumi Naidoo is the international executive director of Greenpeace.

This article was originally published by Greenpeace.

When the heads of state first gathered in Paris at the beginning of the climate talks last week, there was much excitement over the launch of Mission Innovation, a program to “reinvigorate and accelerate public and private global clean energy innovation with the objective to make clean energy widely affordable.”

This was a welcome step and, frankly, long overdue – total public energy R&D expenditures of the major industrialized countries are still lower than the peaks reached after the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Yet at the same time, it is symptomatic of the flawed global approach to address climate change. We move forward in some ways but sidestep the key issues – in this case, the provision of adequate and suitable support to developing countries to quickly begin a transition to low-carbon energy. The result is that we leave large gaps in our attempts to avoid dangerous climate change.

There is no doubt that elements of Mission Innovation will help broaden the pipeline of clean energy technologies in the future. This could be a great boon to climate mitigation efforts. Measures call for:

• a doubling of public energy R&D expenditures of 20 major economies over the next five years
• working with business and private investors to commercialize resulting technologies, including the establishment of the Bill Gates-led Breakthrough Energy Coalition by a group of wealthy private investors
• effective, efficient and transparent implementation
• sharing of information about energy R&D efforts with the private sector and other relevant stakeholders.

But given the long time required for technology innovation in the energy area, it likely will be well over a decade before we see any large-scale commercial application of the technologies developed through Mission Innovation. In fact, the joint statement itself seems to acknowledge this when it talks about being part of a “long-term response to the climate challenge.”

The urgent imperative is deploy renewables, big and fast

What’s missing from the technology discussions in the climate arena is a focus on a much more important and urgent issue: how to ensure that cleaner energy technologies available today are deployed quickly and at scale in developing countries.

Moving their energy systems on a lower-carbon trajectory in the short term is critical because these countries need more energy to fuel their economies and are rapidly growing their energy infrastructure.

Although the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change obliges industrialized countries to take the lead in combating climate change, they instead have invested much effort in getting developing countries to take on greater obligations.

Developing countries, for their part, have committed to undertake significant levels of climate action. These commitments were outlined before the Paris summit in their intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) submissions.

The Civil Society Review of the pledges under the INDCs, as carried out by a large group of NGOs, indicates that developing countries, with their far more limited capabilities and resources, have pledged greater absolute mitigation (about nine Gigatons of CO₂ equivalents) than the industrialized countries (~6Gt CO₂-eq), in relation to the emissions projected for 2030.

Developing countries, in other words, have clearly risen to the challenge of contributing to the solution to climate change in the near term.

Let’s get on with implementation

But the successful achievement of their ambitious goals will require large-scale implementation of low-carbon and other technologies, such as wind, solar and energy-efficiency. This, in turn, requires a range of activities before any new energy systems are actually installed.

For example, countries need to analyze options to understand which technologies and pathways are best suited to their specific national contexts. They also need to devise strategies to make suitable technologies available affordably and quickly. And then they need to manage the process of introducing these technologies into local contexts and eventually scaling up their deployment.

This requires not just technical and financial resources but also new policies as well as delivery models. And the needs are different at different stages of the cycle – from technology development to commercial demonstration, market introduction, and eventually broader diffusion.

To make matters even more complex, each technology – whether it’s a solar-powered microgrids or long-distance transmission lines – has different requirements in each country.

In other words, there is no simple ‘one shoe fits all’ approach to the successful implementation of climate technologies.

Supporting the energy transition

The problem is most developing countries do not have the capabilities to undertake this implementation by themselves. They will need assistance to ensure adequate planning and the speedy and effective implementation of clean energy technologies.

A recognition of this critical need led to the establishment the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is intended to assist developing countries with technology solutions, implementation advice and capacity building.

Yet the CTCN is woefully underresourced and has struggled to raise funds for its operation. Its budget for 2016 is a mere US$18.6 million, of which $7 million has yet to be secured, according to officials. The Climate Technology Center (the hub that coordinates the response to developing country requests) has a total staff of eight.

Incredibly, the funding for the CTCN so far has not come through the UNFCCC channels but through bilateral channels such as Norwegian and Danish governments and the European Union. This creates long-term funding uncertainty and sometimes the imposition of specific conditions. This underresourced entity is supposed to help all developing countries successfully implement their climate technology plans.

The solutions we need right now remain woefully underfunded

So here we have, on the one hand, a situation in which we are talking about additional investments of billions of dollars in energy R&D for future technological options through Mission Innovation but, on the other hand, an almost utter disregard for enhancing the effectiveness of near-term climate technology implementation.

Forgotten (or ignored) is the text from the UNFCCC that states that industrialized countries will commit “financial resources and transfer of technology” to developing countries.

There is, therefore, a real danger that developing countries will not be able to successfully implement their INDCs, which in turn further threaten our ability to meet our climate targets. (It should be noted that the sum total of the pledges under the INDCs are far from sufficient to put us on the path even to a 2 degree Celsius global mean temperature rise above preindustrial levels.)

This situation, unfortunately, is par for the course in the climate arena. Many of the real needs of developing countries are not being given sufficient attention or appropriate levels of support – climate finance and adaptation are other examples.

Instead, industrialized countries are jostling for leadership in shifting the burden of mitigation and adaptation to developing countries rather than in taking aggressive climate action themselves. And they are shying away from providing suitable resources to developing countries to address or adapt to climate change.

And much of the action is outside the UNFCCC as with Mission Innovation, not in the multilateral process, as with the Technology Mechanism of the UN. It is not an ‘either-or’ – we need both and the former cannot substitute for the latter.

One must still hope, therefore, that the Paris agreement will pay attention to providing adequate and appropriate technical and financial support through the UN multilateral process to help developing countries implement their own pledges.

Frankly, there is no other choice, not if we are serious about the climate problem.

Ambuj D Sagar is Vipula and Mahesh Chaturevdi Professor of Policy Studies, The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

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

The most complex issues keeping negotiators awake have to do with the firewall that marks the difference in responsibility between developed and developing countries.

This division of mitigation and financial obligation has defined much of the last 20 years in the climate talks, and will continue define the level of ambition in the years ahead.

According to Mohamed Adow from Christian Aid, this deal needs three things: Loss and Damage, Finance and Ambition. This has been a calling card for many developing countries throughout the last two weeks, but it seems that today, on the eve of the final hours, we may still be a long way from achieving it.

“Without that (Loss and Damage, Finance and Ambition) we’ll leave the more vulnerable behind“. Adow also noted that the final agreement needed to move forward as a package which “needs to be able to evolve to meet the needs of a changing world” and can be reviewed in 2018 to “scale up our progress.”

Here is an analytical summary of the current status of the text, that is expected to keep negotiators awake tonight.

Insufficient emissions reductions on vague time frame

There are some elements of the draft text that could possibly salvage the negotiations on mitigation. It seems negotiators have agreed on five-year mitigation cycles, which is a key component of their ability to ‘scale up’. The new text also notes that countries’ commitments must be “confirmed or updated by 2020” but does not clearly state that they should be improved.

Without a precise timeframe for emissions reductions, we have no clarity on how mitigation actions should be verified and tracked over time. The new draft eliminated any reference to ‘decarbonization‘ of the global economy, one of civil society’s key demands.

Negotiators have also shifted from a quantified or time-bound reduction goal, to a ‘peaking’ goal. This means that emissions are planned to “peak as soon as possible” in the hope that we could “achieve greenhouse gas emissions neutrality in the second half of the century”.

This is linked to efforts to keep global temperatures below 2 degrees, or “as much as possible, below 1.5 degrees”. However, this will be almost impossible unless that “second half of the century” is as close to 2050 as possible.

Finance – we still don’t know where the money’s coming from!

This section could leave us in negotiating rooms all night. Finance continues to be marred in vague rhetoric with the crucial terms regarding the nature of the money.

Key definitions of what type of funds would be available, and where it may come from are also vague. The descriptors “new, additional, adequate, predictable, accessible, sustained and scaled up” are all in brackets. This leaves developing countries in a difficult position.

If we can’t manage to keep global temperatures below 2C above pre-industrial times, climate impacts in Africa alone could reach approximately $350 billion annually by 2070, according to UNEP’s Africa Adaptation Gap Report.

This is unfortunately becoming a very likely scenario. Calculations derived from the voluntarily commitments that were submitted by countries in their INDCs currently put us on a course for a 2.7 degree increase.

Therefore, the infamous $100 billion that is talked about here in Paris, is essentially a symbolic figure of a political gesture. It is not based on any up-to-date, needs-based-assessment of adaptation or mitigation, which largely depend on political will and inevitability.

Also, the new draft does not make an obvious link between adaptation and mitigation and makes no mention to a global long-term goal. There is no mention of ecosystems and socio-economic systems, although it recognises traditional knowledge and practices nested in local communities.

Loss and Damage

Although there is no mention of a clear financial mechanism to address payments for loss and damage, options presented in the new draft appear more concise. Among others, unbracketed implementation approaches include early warning systems, comprehensive risk management and assessment, climate risk facilities, and climate risk pooling.

These approaches also provide options for non-economic losses, climate change induced displacement, migration & planned relocation. However, a specific mention to “irreversible and permanent damage” can potentially leave out certain categories of events related to climate change.

However, in what must have been a deal with the US, there is a specific non-liability or compensation clause linked with the mechanism that for many, is all about compensation. The text specifically mentions that Parties shall enhance action and support “in a manner that does not involve or provide a basis for liability or compensation nor prejudice existing rights under international law.”

Technology Development & Transfer

This section has clarity on development of technology but very little on its transfer. Overall, it mentions how the implementation and setup will take place, and that developed countries will need to provide financial support for technological development.

But the critical element in technology transfer relates to Intellectual Property Rights, market mechanisms and barriers to technology transfer that crucially seem not to have been addressed in this agreement.

And although the submitted draft includes a clearer support for least developed and small island nations, the section on capacity building lacks ambition in terms of reviewing and ensuring progress. However, there are some positive elements regarding collaboration, planning and consistency with other aspects of the agreement to enhance performance.

Transparency and human rights

While much of the rest of the draft text has become more concrete, transparency is still a divisive factor. There are some robust options, with an understanding of different capacities and flexibility, along with critical support for developing countries.

However, the biggest divisions are still all wide open. The divide between developed and developing is clearer here than anywhere else in the text, as much of the potential agreement around different transparency responsibilities has remained open.

Considering where COP21 is being held, it is hard to believe how human rights has been treated. In the land of liberty, equality and fraternity, human rights have been deleted from all but the introductory paragraphs of the agreement, with little potential to affect implementation.

Big countries like the US, Norway and the EU, have reportedly been blocking these inclusions as fights with Saudi Arabia and some African countries such as Tanzania have made this topic almost unpalatable.

Paris: a long way from Copenhagen

Paris is quite different from Copenhagen, in the sense that no one really expects from world leaders to save the world this time, as everyone did so at 2009.

What we have this year, is a way larger awareness about the problem and the risks of climate change. Civil society and communities of practice are already fostering climate solutions at different levels.

What will characterise the Paris deal in history will be whether this agreement will accelerate or break this transition to a safer global economy that millions of people around the world are asking for. And on the basis of the latest version of the text, it’s hard to see how it can.

But there is a long, long way ahead. And as the Paris night sets in, this is just the beginning of a long hard process with no certain outcome.

Pavlos Georgiadis is an ethnobotanist, climate tracker and food author. He tweets at: @geopavlos

The COP21 (UNFCCC) summit here in Paris is in its final hours. An agreement was meant to be struck today, but now it’s only expected tomorrow after a mammoth overnight session – and only if key problems can be resolved.

But now a new idea is circulating that could help break the rich / poor country logjam by unlocking a new source of finance – making Big Oil, King Coal and Gas Giants pay a new global tax on the carbon embodied in the fuel they produce.

One strong point in favour of the tax is that it will be very easy to raise due to the small number of camponies involved. A 2013 report revealed that 63% of the main greenhouse gas going into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, came from the fuels produced by a mere 90 companies.

Those 90 fossil fuel companies are a roll call of household names, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, BP, Gazprom and Shell. Pressure is growing to work out if and how they, and other smaller fossil fuel producers, can be held financially responsible for the damage their products are causing.

Now the Climate Justice Programme and the Heinrich Boell Foundation are urging that producers should pay a carbon levy on all fossil fuel extraction and mining, with the proceeds going to help pay poorer countries for adapting to climate change and meeting the costs of its impacts.

The idea is attracting widespread interest and support is coming from some unexpected quarters, as reported on The Conversation today. Oleg Deripaska, president of the world’s largest aluminium producer Rusal, put the issue in stronger terms, describing the idea of voluntary national emissions commitments (upon which the Paris agreement largely hinges) as “balderdash”.

Asked what success would look like from the Paris negotiations, Deripaska replied: “A success [for most people] would be lunch at a nice French banquette with foie gras and oysters. But no, seriously, it is carbon tax or die.”

Making fossil fuel producers fund ‘loss and damage’

The levy would be applied to both the exploitation and the burning of fossil fuels. If a company was involved in both, it would have to pay the levy only once.

“We propose that a global fossil fuel extraction levy be established and paid into the international Loss and Damage Mechanism”, said Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Programme. “This funding would be used to assist the poorest and most vulnerable communities suffering the worst impacts of climate change. This levy needs to be part of a general phase-out of fossil fuels.”

As proposed, carbon majors wouild have to pay US$2 for every tonne of carbon dioxide their products release into the atmosphere. That’s much too low to send a strong market signal – economists believe that $20-$30 is needed for that. But even at $2 per tonne, the tax would – based on 2014 production figures – raise $50 billion a year.

The levy is based on a calculation of how much CO₂ is released on average from burning a barrel of crude oil (or a tonne of coal, or a cubic metre of natural gas). The CO₂ footprint of the drilling or mining itself would not be taken into account.

Compensation to poor, climate vulnerable countries of loss and damage related to climate change is one of the key sticking points at COP21, with rich countries with a long history of carbon pollution

Clear precedents show we can do it

The UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage Mechanism emerged from the 2013 climate summit in Warsaw. It is a way to address those climate impacts to which it is impossible to adapt,  including extreme events.

“Climate finance is already inadequate – with a huge gap between what is needed and what is being offered”, said Lili Fuhr from the Heinrich Boell Foundation. “A new source of finance from a levy on Big Oil, Coal and Gas could unlock some of the objections by rich countries to including loss and damage in a new Paris agreement.”

The Climate Justice Programme is convinced that existing international law, in particular the polluter pays principle, the no harm rule and the right to compensation support such a system.

“Our proposal draws from precedents such as the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, the oil spill compensation regime which collects levies from companies that ship oil internationally which are used as compensation after oil spills“, said Julie-Anne Richards.

The fossil fuel industry has so far given no reaction to the levy proposal.

Henner Weithöner is a Berlin-based freelance journalist specialising in renewable energy and climate change. He is also a tutor for advanced journalism training, focusing on environmental reporting and online journalism, especially in developing countries.He originally wrote this article for Climate News Network.

Twitter: @weithoener

The COP21 (UNFCCC) summit here in Paris is in its final hours. An agreement was meant to be struck today, but now it’s only expected tomorrow after a mammoth overnight session – and only if key problems can be resolved.

But now a new idea is circulating that could help break the rich / poor country logjam by unlocking a new source of finance – making Big Oil, King Coal and Gas Giants pay a new global tax on the carbon embodied in the fuel they produce.

One strong point in favour of the tax is that it will be very easy to raise due to the small number of camponies involved. A 2013 report revealed that 63% of the main greenhouse gas going into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, came from the fuels produced by a mere 90 companies.

Those 90 fossil fuel companies are a roll call of household names, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, BP, Gazprom and Shell. Pressure is growing to work out if and how they, and other smaller fossil fuel producers, can be held financially responsible for the damage their products are causing.

Now the Climate Justice Programme and the Heinrich Boell Foundation are urging that producers should pay a carbon levy on all fossil fuel extraction and mining, with the proceeds going to help pay poorer countries for adapting to climate change and meeting the costs of its impacts.

The idea is attracting widespread interest and support is coming from some unexpected quarters, as reported on The Conversation today. Oleg Deripaska, president of the world’s largest aluminium producer Rusal, put the issue in stronger terms, describing the idea of voluntary national emissions commitments (upon which the Paris agreement largely hinges) as “balderdash”.

Asked what success would look like from the Paris negotiations, Deripaska replied: “A success [for most people] would be lunch at a nice French banquette with foie gras and oysters. But no, seriously, it is carbon tax or die.”

Making fossil fuel producers fund ‘loss and damage’

The levy would be applied to both the exploitation and the burning of fossil fuels. If a company was involved in both, it would have to pay the levy only once.

“We propose that a global fossil fuel extraction levy be established and paid into the international Loss and Damage Mechanism”, said Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Programme. “This funding would be used to assist the poorest and most vulnerable communities suffering the worst impacts of climate change. This levy needs to be part of a general phase-out of fossil fuels.”

As proposed, carbon majors wouild have to pay US$2 for every tonne of carbon dioxide their products release into the atmosphere. That’s much too low to send a strong market signal – economists believe that $20-$30 is needed for that. But even at $2 per tonne, the tax would – based on 2014 production figures – raise $50 billion a year.

The levy is based on a calculation of how much CO₂ is released on average from burning a barrel of crude oil (or a tonne of coal, or a cubic metre of natural gas). The CO₂ footprint of the drilling or mining itself would not be taken into account.

Compensation to poor, climate vulnerable countries of loss and damage related to climate change is one of the key sticking points at COP21, with rich countries with a long history of carbon pollution

Clear precedents show we can do it

The UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage Mechanism emerged from the 2013 climate summit in Warsaw. It is a way to address those climate impacts to which it is impossible to adapt,  including extreme events.

“Climate finance is already inadequate – with a huge gap between what is needed and what is being offered”, said Lili Fuhr from the Heinrich Boell Foundation. “A new source of finance from a levy on Big Oil, Coal and Gas could unlock some of the objections by rich countries to including loss and damage in a new Paris agreement.”

The Climate Justice Programme is convinced that existing international law, in particular the polluter pays principle, the no harm rule and the right to compensation support such a system.

“Our proposal draws from precedents such as the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, the oil spill compensation regime which collects levies from companies that ship oil internationally which are used as compensation after oil spills“, said Julie-Anne Richards.

The fossil fuel industry has so far given no reaction to the levy proposal.

Henner Weithöner is a Berlin-based freelance journalist specialising in renewable energy and climate change. He is also a tutor for advanced journalism training, focusing on environmental reporting and online journalism, especially in developing countries.He originally wrote this article for Climate News Network.

Twitter: @weithoener