Monthly Archives: February 2016

TTIP talks resume today – but the wheels are wobbling!

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The twelfth round of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP), the biggest trade deal of them all, starts today in Brussels betweent he US and the EU.

The impacts of TTIP are disturbing and well documented elsewhere on this site, but we are seeing signs of panic setting in on the pro-TTIP side of the fence. They’re right to panic.

1. TTIP is hugely behind schedule

It should have been signed off by now, and well into the ‘legal scrubbing’ stage where the lawyers tie up the legal loose ends and smooth of the rough edges. These negotiations are not open ended. Every delay, every extra month taken up at this stage is a threat to the entire project.

We have the US elections looming, two of the frontrunners are against the new generation trade deals like TTIP and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). There is no secret about the desperation of the Obama machine as they try to get the deal done and signed off before he vacates the White House at the end of the year.

Obama is due to visit Germany in April to plead with all concerned to get a move on with the project. It is not impossible for the ratification vote in the European parliament to be held in 2019, after the next elections. That would make ratification in Europe very uncertain indeed.

2. Secret corporate courts

There is a huge crisis over the corporate courts or ‘ISDS’ as it is known, short for ‘Investor-State Dispute Settlement.

As the most contentious part of TTIP, it has attracted huge criticism and upset amongst members of the European parliament and in the public domain as well. In 2014, 150,000 responded to a European consultation on the issue and 97% of those responses were very negative.

Since then, the trade commissioner in Brussels has dreamt up the Investor Court System as a proposed alternative. It has been made very clear that ICS is not alternative, more a repackaging of the dangerously flawed ISDS. Earlier this month, the largest association of German Judges completely slammed the ICS idea as undemocratic and undermining the sovereignty of domestic courts.

Slowly, our representatives in Brussels are beginning to realise this. We need to keep shouting about this

3. The UK’s ‘stay or leave’ referendum

You might have noticed, but there is going to be a referendum on membership of the EU in the UK in June. Everything is up for grabs. If the UK votes to leave the EU, TTIP will probably still apply to us.

In the horse-trading and arguments that will rage between now and the day of the vote, there will be concessions and deals struck – maybe, just maybe, TTIP could become a casualty. And in the run up to the referendum, the very idea of Brussels politicians signing off on such a far-reaching corporate power grab is adding a whole lot of fuel to the Brexit fire.

4. Another thorny question – public sector procurement

Procurement at all levels of government, both sides of the Atlantic is proving to be a sticking point. The EU wants access to state level procurement in the US – that’s a huge market to access. And at country level in the EU there’s an almost equally lucrative market to exploit for US corporations.

The trouble is, this isn’t a deal being negotiated at state or nation state level. The US Trade Representative and the DG Trade in Europe are doing their utmost to keep scrutiny and influence at that level to a minimum, but agreeing stuff that is essential to their underlings at local level is part and parcel of TTIP and is inflaming opposition.

Local authorities across the EU and in the UK are declaring their opposition to TTIP and CETA. In the States, there’s a similar move afoot. It was recently announced that the EU and USA were going to swap procurement market access offers at the end of this month and then hold a special intercessional meeting to discuss them.

5. People power!

And finally, one thing that cannot be ignored is the growing movement of ordinary people across the EU and the US gaining knowledge and understanding about the deals – despite the best efforts of our governments and media.

From the 3.2 million people who signed their opposition in the European Citizens’ Initiative last year, to the trade unions and community organisations saying ‘no’ to the deals, we are building a force that will be hard to resist. We can win this fight if we continue to step up the pressure.

 

 

Guy Taylor is trade campaigner at Global Justice Now, having joined November 2014 to focus on the campaign against TTIP. He previously worked for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and before that for anti-capitalist group Globalise Resistance.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

Twitter: #StopTTIP

 

Queensland’s land clearance is costing Australia and its wildlife dear

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Land clearing has returned to Queensland in a big way.

After we expressed concern that policy changes since 2012 would lead to a resurgence in clearing of native vegetation, this outcome was confirmed by government figures released late last year.

It is now clear that land clearing is accelerating in Queensland. The new data confirm that 296,000 hectares of bushland was cleared in 2013-14 – three times as much as in 2008-09 – mainly for conversion to pastures.

These losses do not include the well-publicised clearing permitted by the government of nearly 900 square kilometres at two properties, Olive Vale and Strathmore, which commenced in 2015.

Alarmingly, the data show that clearing in catchments that drain onto the Great Barrier Reef increased dramatically, and constituted 35% of total clearing across Queensland in 2013-14.

The loss of native vegetation cover in such regions is one of the major drivers of the deteriorating water quality in the reef’s lagoon, which threatens seagrass, coral reefs, and other marine ecosystems.

The increases in land clearing are across the board. They include losses of over 100,000 hectares of old-growth habitats, as well as the destruction of ‘high-value regrowth’ – the advanced regeneration of endangered ecosystems.

These ecosystems have already been reduced to less than 10% of their original extent, and their recovery relies on allowing this regrowth to mature. Alarmingly, our analysis of where the recent clearing has occurred reveals that even ‘of concern’ and ‘endangered’ remnant ecosystems are being lost at much higher rates now than before.

While this level of vegetation loss and damage continues apace, Australia’s environmental programs will fall well short of achieving their aims.

Nullifying all our environmental restoration programs

Land clearing affects all Australians, not just Queenslanders. Australia spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year trying to redress past environmental damage from land clearing. Tens of thousands of volunteers dedicate their time, money and land to the effort.

But despite undeniable local benefits of such programs, their contribution to national environmental goals is undone, sometimes many times over, by the damage being done in Queensland.

Take the federal government’s 20 million trees program. At a cost of A$50 million, it aims to replace 20 million trees by 2020 to redress some of the damage from past land clearing. Yet just one year of increased land clearing in Queensland has already removed many more trees than will be painstakingly planted during the entire program.

The Australian government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) is paying billions of dollars to reduce carbon emissions from industry. But the carbon released from Queensland’s land clearing in 2012-2014 alone is estimated at 63 million tonnes, far more than was purchased under the first round of the ERF (at a cost to taxpayers of A$660 million).

Species cannot recover if their habitat is being destroyed faster than it is being restored. But under Caring for our Country and Biodiversity Fund grants, the extent of tree planting to restore habitat across Australia reported since 2013 is just over 42,000 hectares – an order of magnitude less than what was cleared in Queensland alone in just two years.

And it will be many decades before these new plantings will provide anything like the environmental benefits of mature native vegetation.

Land clearing between 2012 and 2014 in Queensland is estimated to have wiped out more than 40,000 hectares of koala habitat, as well as habitat for over 200 other threatened species. Clearing, along with drought (which is also made worse by clearing), is the major cause of an 50% decline in koalas of south-west and central Queensland since 1996.

The loss of remnant habitat, especially from forests along waterways, means more habitat fragmentation. This is a further threat to many species of wildlife, and it hampers our ability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.

The federal government has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to improve reef water quality. Yet ongoing land clearing in reef-draining catchments will reverse many of the gains these programs aim to achieve. Last year, Queensland’s Auditor-General reported that stronger legislation would be essential to reducing harmful catchment runoff to the Great Barrier Reef.

Prevention is better than cure

We live in an era of tightening carbon budgets, declining land-production capacity and rapidly deteriorating biodiversity, including in iconic places such as Great Barrier Reef. The evidence is clear that we cannot continue to degrade our environment without severe consequences.

It is far more efficient to prevent environmental damage than to try to reverse it later. For example, the cost of stabilising river-banks following deforestation can range from A$16,000 to A$5 million per kilometre. Natural ecosystems contribute enormously to the economy in ways that are often unrecognised.

We are running up a large environmental debt that will eventually have to be paid by all Australians, one way or another. And some damage, like the loss of a species, is irreversible.

Previous native vegetation laws had successfully reduced land clearing, but were reversed in 2013 by the former Newman government.

The current Palaszczuk government in Queensland has repeated its election promise to re-strengthen native vegetation protections. The amendment bill is due to be introduced to parliament within weeks.

But the minority government relies on the votes of cross-benchers to pass its legislation-so for now, the future of some of Australia’s most precious environmental assets remains uncertain.

 

 

Martine Maron is Associate Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland.The Conversation

Bill Laurance is Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook University.

Bob Pressey is Professor and Program Leader, Conservation Planning, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University.

Carla P. Catterall is Professor in ecology and environment, Griffith University; Clive McAlpine, Senior Research Fellow in Ecology, The University of Queensland.

Hugh Possingham is Director ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The University of Queensland.

James Watson is Associate professor, The University of Queensland; Jonathan Rhodes, Associate Professor, The University of Queensland.

Kerrie Wilson is Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow, The University of Queensland.

Marc Hockings is Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland.

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

 

Queensland’s land clearance is costing Australia and its wildlife dear

Leave a reply

Land clearing has returned to Queensland in a big way.

After we expressed concern that policy changes since 2012 would lead to a resurgence in clearing of native vegetation, this outcome was confirmed by government figures released late last year.

It is now clear that land clearing is accelerating in Queensland. The new data confirm that 296,000 hectares of bushland was cleared in 2013-14 – three times as much as in 2008-09 – mainly for conversion to pastures.

These losses do not include the well-publicised clearing permitted by the government of nearly 900 square kilometres at two properties, Olive Vale and Strathmore, which commenced in 2015.

Alarmingly, the data show that clearing in catchments that drain onto the Great Barrier Reef increased dramatically, and constituted 35% of total clearing across Queensland in 2013-14.

The loss of native vegetation cover in such regions is one of the major drivers of the deteriorating water quality in the reef’s lagoon, which threatens seagrass, coral reefs, and other marine ecosystems.

The increases in land clearing are across the board. They include losses of over 100,000 hectares of old-growth habitats, as well as the destruction of ‘high-value regrowth’ – the advanced regeneration of endangered ecosystems.

These ecosystems have already been reduced to less than 10% of their original extent, and their recovery relies on allowing this regrowth to mature. Alarmingly, our analysis of where the recent clearing has occurred reveals that even ‘of concern’ and ‘endangered’ remnant ecosystems are being lost at much higher rates now than before.

While this level of vegetation loss and damage continues apace, Australia’s environmental programs will fall well short of achieving their aims.

Nullifying all our environmental restoration programs

Land clearing affects all Australians, not just Queenslanders. Australia spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year trying to redress past environmental damage from land clearing. Tens of thousands of volunteers dedicate their time, money and land to the effort.

But despite undeniable local benefits of such programs, their contribution to national environmental goals is undone, sometimes many times over, by the damage being done in Queensland.

Take the federal government’s 20 million trees program. At a cost of A$50 million, it aims to replace 20 million trees by 2020 to redress some of the damage from past land clearing. Yet just one year of increased land clearing in Queensland has already removed many more trees than will be painstakingly planted during the entire program.

The Australian government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) is paying billions of dollars to reduce carbon emissions from industry. But the carbon released from Queensland’s land clearing in 2012-2014 alone is estimated at 63 million tonnes, far more than was purchased under the first round of the ERF (at a cost to taxpayers of A$660 million).

Species cannot recover if their habitat is being destroyed faster than it is being restored. But under Caring for our Country and Biodiversity Fund grants, the extent of tree planting to restore habitat across Australia reported since 2013 is just over 42,000 hectares – an order of magnitude less than what was cleared in Queensland alone in just two years.

And it will be many decades before these new plantings will provide anything like the environmental benefits of mature native vegetation.

Land clearing between 2012 and 2014 in Queensland is estimated to have wiped out more than 40,000 hectares of koala habitat, as well as habitat for over 200 other threatened species. Clearing, along with drought (which is also made worse by clearing), is the major cause of an 50% decline in koalas of south-west and central Queensland since 1996.

The loss of remnant habitat, especially from forests along waterways, means more habitat fragmentation. This is a further threat to many species of wildlife, and it hampers our ability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.

The federal government has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to improve reef water quality. Yet ongoing land clearing in reef-draining catchments will reverse many of the gains these programs aim to achieve. Last year, Queensland’s Auditor-General reported that stronger legislation would be essential to reducing harmful catchment runoff to the Great Barrier Reef.

Prevention is better than cure

We live in an era of tightening carbon budgets, declining land-production capacity and rapidly deteriorating biodiversity, including in iconic places such as Great Barrier Reef. The evidence is clear that we cannot continue to degrade our environment without severe consequences.

It is far more efficient to prevent environmental damage than to try to reverse it later. For example, the cost of stabilising river-banks following deforestation can range from A$16,000 to A$5 million per kilometre. Natural ecosystems contribute enormously to the economy in ways that are often unrecognised.

We are running up a large environmental debt that will eventually have to be paid by all Australians, one way or another. And some damage, like the loss of a species, is irreversible.

Previous native vegetation laws had successfully reduced land clearing, but were reversed in 2013 by the former Newman government.

The current Palaszczuk government in Queensland has repeated its election promise to re-strengthen native vegetation protections. The amendment bill is due to be introduced to parliament within weeks.

But the minority government relies on the votes of cross-benchers to pass its legislation-so for now, the future of some of Australia’s most precious environmental assets remains uncertain.

 

 

Martine Maron is Associate Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland.The Conversation

Bill Laurance is Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook University.

Bob Pressey is Professor and Program Leader, Conservation Planning, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University.

Carla P. Catterall is Professor in ecology and environment, Griffith University; Clive McAlpine, Senior Research Fellow in Ecology, The University of Queensland.

Hugh Possingham is Director ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The University of Queensland.

James Watson is Associate professor, The University of Queensland; Jonathan Rhodes, Associate Professor, The University of Queensland.

Kerrie Wilson is Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow, The University of Queensland.

Marc Hockings is Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland.

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

 

Corporate power and the moulding of truth

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As I have found out myself, there is nothing media outlets like less than criticising other media publications or the ‘profession’ of journalism.

It’s not really surprising. The credibility of a corporate media depends precisely on their not breaking ranks, and not highlighting the structural constraints a ‘free press’ operates under.

So one has to commend the Boston Globe for publishing this piece by Stephen Kinzer, a former foreign correspondent, warning that the media is not telling us the truth about what is going on in Syria. His account, well worth reading, begins:

“For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression … This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular electricity may soon be restored. The militants’ hold on the city could be ending …

“Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds, and the ‘moderate opposition’ will win.

“This is convoluted nonsense, but Americans cannot be blamed for believing it. We have almost no real information about the combatants, their goals, or their tactics. Much blame for this lies with our media.”

Kinzer then goes on to describe why the media are failing – but those very structural constraints that govern our free media appear to limit the scope and depth of his analysis:

“Under intense financial pressure, most American newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks have drastically reduced their corps of foreign correspondents. Much important news about the world now comes from reporters based in Washington. In that environment, access and credibility depend on acceptance of official paradigms.

“Reporters who cover Syria check with the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, and think tank ‘experts.’ After a spin on that soiled carousel, they feel they have covered all sides of the story. This form of stenography produces the pabulum that passes for news about Syria.”

So is there more to it?

Kinzer’s explanation represents more of the ‘cock-up, not conspiracy’ justification for skewed reporting. If only there was more money, more space, more time, more reporters, he suggests, the media would not simply spew the government’s official line.

Guardian journalist Nick Davies wrote a whole book, Flat Earth News, making much the same claim – what he called “churnalism”. I reviewed it at length here. Journalists like this kind of argument because it shifts responsibility for their failure to report honestly on to faceless penny-pinchers in the accounting department.

And yet, there are journalists reporting from the ground in Syria – for example, Martin Chulov of the Guardian – who have been just as unreliable as those based in Washington.

In fact, many of the points Kinzer raises about the reality in Syria echo recent articles by Seymour Hersh, who is writing from the US, not Damascus. But he, of course, has been shunted to the outer margins of media discourse, publishing in the London Review of Books.

Media coverage of Iraq was just as woefully misleading during the sanctions period in the 1990s, when I worked in the foreign department at the Guardian, and later in the build-up of the US-led attack on Iraq. In those days, when there was no shortage of resources being directed at foreign reporting, the coverage also closely hewed to the official view of the US and UK governments.

The problem is not just that foreign reporting is being stripped of financial resources as the media find it harder to make a profit from their core activities. It is, as Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky pointed out long ago in their 1978 book Manufacturing Consent (link to full PDF), that the corporate media are designed to reflect the interests of power – and the corporations that control our media are power.

The world view of career success

They select journalists through a long filtering process (school, university, journalism training, apprenticeships) precisely designed to weed out dissidents and those who think too critically. Only journalists whose worldview aligns closely with those in power reach the top.

None of this is in Kinzer’s piece.

It is doubtful that he, a member of the media elite himself, would recognise such an analysis of the journalist’s role. As Chomsky once told British journalist Andrew Marr, when Marr reacted with indignation at what he inferred to be an accusation from Chomsky that he was self-censoring:

“I don’t say you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is, if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”

That understanding of journalism does not depend on conspiracy, but nor does it accept that it is all about cock-up. It posits a much more interesting, and plausible, scenario that journalists get into positions of influence to the extent that they are unlikely to rock the boat for elite interests. The closer they get to power, the more likely they are to reflect its values. Much like politicians, in fact.

That’s why extremely few senior journalists have read Manufacturing Consent. And why among the Guardian journalists I worked with, though none seemed familiar with his huge body of work, there were few intellectuals who were referred to in more derisive terms than Chomsky.

 

 

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001. A former Guardian reporter, he now writes for Middle East Eye, CounterPunch and other media. In 2011 Jonathan was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

This article was originally published on Jonathan Cook’s website.

 

Nuclear zombie? Hinkley C build won’t start until 2019 – if at all!

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The future of the nuclear industry in Europe took another blow this week when the French state-owned power company EDF again postponed a final decision on whether to build two large nuclear power stations in the UK.

And most tellingly, the company has just revealed that construction will now not start before 2019 – even in the event of a ‘final investment decision’ to go ahead with the project, which could be announced within weeks.

The final investment decision on building two European Pressurised Water Reactors (EPRs) had been expected on Tuesday last week, but it emerged on Monday that it was to be postponed because the company had still to secure enough backing to finance the £18 billion (€23.26 bn) project.

But to save face with shareholders the company claimed that Chinese New Year celebrations had held up negotiations with the Chinese backers, China General Nuclear Corporation (CGN), which has agreed to buy a 33.5% stake in the project.

Preparation of the site at Hinkley Point in the west of England was stopped last year while EDF sought partners for the project. Each time there has been a postponement the company has issued a statement saying it remains “fully committed” to building the two 1,650 MW reactors.

This week was no different. “We have the intention to proceed rapidly with the investment decision for Hinkley Point”, EDF’s chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy told reporters. Adding that EDF had not yet finalised talks with its Chinese partners, he said: “Today we estimate this final decision is very close.”

Nuclear zombie: Hinkley C’s £2 billion sunk cost that EDF can’t afford to write off

But Levy went on to say that it would take about three years, possibly a bit more, of study and work with sub-contractors before EDF could begin building the first permanent structures on the Hinkley Point C site, though it will do preparatory work between now and then:

“Definitive construction of what will be built on the site, what we call the first concrete, is on the horizon for 2019.”

The idea that there will be a three year delay before any concrete is poured after a positive decision to proceed has caught observers, and contractors lined up to work on the project, by surprise. Earth moving and site preparation has already been under way for several years, plans are at an advanced stage, and heavy engineering works would normally be expected to begin within months.

The date, 2019, is a year after the reactors were originally due to be completed. The timetable has gradually slipped backwards. Last year the date for power to start being generated was put back to 2025, but this new date for pouring concrete makes 2030 more likely – if the reactors are built at all.

One insider with close contacts within EDF told The Ecologist: “The fact is that EDF is already in a precarious financial situation, with its share price half what it was a year ago, a falling credit rating, and massive liabilities for reactor upgrades and decommissioning.

“It has so far sunk £2 billion into Hinkley C and it simply cannot afford to write that sum off even if has already decided that this project is a total loss. So they have to pretend that it’s a goer and that the £2 billion is a live investment that will, one day, produce a return to its shareholders.”

In other words, a final investment decision to go head may, in fact, be no such thing. The company could just be planning to keep a few earth movers trundling about on the site, for years on end iof needs be, to give the appearance of activity while it seeks a graceful way out of the gigantic hole it has dug for itself.

The most likely long term plan, our source continued, is to try to sell the entire site on to its Chinese partner CGN after a few years. However CGN would then want to use a new reactor design, probably its own ‘Hualong’ model – which would then create additional long delays as no example has yet been built and it would have to undergo rigorous safety examination.

Record of delays, cost hikes and safety concerns

The new proposed start date of 2019 is significant for reasons the company dare not spell out. This is because there is no evidence yet that these so-called EPR (European Pressurised Reactor, no renamed ‘Evolutionary Power Reactor’) will operate effectively.

Four EPRs are under construction, but are years behind schedule, and costs have tripled. In Europe their earliest proposed start date is 2018 – so it looks as though EDF is being careful not to begin building another one until it can prove the design actually works.

The EPR, a so called ‘third generation’ design, is the largest nuclear plant in the world. They have a chequered history, even before any has actually produced a single watt of electricity. Construction of the first prototype began in 2005 at Olkiluoto in Finland: expected to be finished in 2009, it is still under construction.

The same is true of the second, at Flamanville in France, where construction began in 2007. It has also hit delays and cost over-runs of staggering proportions, and technical problems – in the form of a metallurgically flawed pressure reactor and lid – that could sink the project completely.

The vessel and lid contains too much carbon and is undergoing stress testing to see if it is safe. While the outcome of these tests remains unknown, a question mark hangs over the station’s future. It too is due to start in  2018 but few believe it will do so.

The other two EPRs are being built at Taishan in China. Both should have been in operation by this year, but both also have undergone unspecified delays that are probably related to the same pressure vessel problems that have afflicted Flamanville.

These difficulties, plus the vast amount of remedial safety work required by the French safety regulators from EDF on its fleet of 58 ageing reactors in France itself, have put the company under severe financial strain. It needs to find €100 billion for repairs, and to improve safety following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, to keep the plants operating until 2030.

As a result of fears that the company might overstretch itself and jeopardise jobs in France the six trade union representatives on EDF’s board have expressed opposition to the company going ahead with building reactors on British soil.

UK energy policy in tatters

This further postponement of a start date for the new reactors leaves the UK government with a gaping hole in its energy policy, despite it offering to pay double the existing price of electricity for the output from Hinkley Point, a subsidy that will continue for 35 years.

The Conservative government has been relying on nuclear energy to replace fossil fuels from 2025, when it plans to phase out all its coal stations. Some renewable energy subsidies have been scrapped to make way for new nuclear stations. As a result the UK is due to miss its EU renewable energy targets.

In all, the Conservative government wants ten new nuclear stations in the UK – four EPRs and the rest from Japan and the US. None of these now seems likely to be built before 2030, if at all.

Perhaps to divert attention from the postponement of the new reactors, EDF announced that it was going to extend the life of four of the nuclear power stations it already operates in Britain. It bought eight ageing stations of British design in 2009 for £12.5 billion.

Some were already due to close in 2018 but have had their lives extended. Now another four will be kept open to bridge the gap left by the failure to build the new stations at Hinkley Point. These are the Heysham 1 plant in northwest England and another at Hartlepool in the northeast, both of which had been due to be switched off in 2019 because of their advanced age. They will be allowed to keep producing electricity for another five years.

Two other reactors, Heysham 2 and Torness in Scotland, have been granted extensions of seven years to 2030. There is no reason – as long as the stations are deemed safe – why further life extensions should not be applied for, and granted.

Continuing to apply for life extensions for old nuclear stations also saves the company from technical bankruptcy. Once a station is closed its decommissioning costs become company liabilities. With the company’s debts already high, it would not take many closures for EDF’s liabilities to exceed its assets.

 

 

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Also on The Ecologist

 

Nuclear zombie? Hinkley C build won’t start until 2019 – if at all!

Leave a reply

The future of the nuclear industry in Europe took another blow this week when the French state-owned power company EDF again postponed a final decision on whether to build two large nuclear power stations in the UK.

And most tellingly, the company has just revealed that construction will now not start before 2019 – even in the event of a ‘final investment decision’ to go ahead with the project, which could be announced within weeks.

The final investment decision on building two European Pressurised Water Reactors (EPRs) had been expected on Tuesday last week, but it emerged on Monday that it was to be postponed because the company had still to secure enough backing to finance the £18 billion (€23.26 bn) project.

But to save face with shareholders the company claimed that Chinese New Year celebrations had held up negotiations with the Chinese backers, China General Nuclear Corporation (CGN), which has agreed to buy a 33.5% stake in the project.

Preparation of the site at Hinkley Point in the west of England was stopped last year while EDF sought partners for the project. Each time there has been a postponement the company has issued a statement saying it remains “fully committed” to building the two 1,650 MW reactors.

This week was no different. “We have the intention to proceed rapidly with the investment decision for Hinkley Point”, EDF’s chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy told reporters. Adding that EDF had not yet finalised talks with its Chinese partners, he said: “Today we estimate this final decision is very close.”

Nuclear zombie: Hinkley C’s £2 billion sunk cost that EDF can’t afford to write off

But Levy went on to say that it would take about three years, possibly a bit more, of study and work with sub-contractors before EDF could begin building the first permanent structures on the Hinkley Point C site, though it will do preparatory work between now and then:

“Definitive construction of what will be built on the site, what we call the first concrete, is on the horizon for 2019.”

The idea that there will be a three year delay before any concrete is poured after a positive decision to proceed has caught observers, and contractors lined up to work on the project, by surprise. Earth moving and site preparation has already been under way for several years, plans are at an advanced stage, and heavy engineering works would normally be expected to begin within months.

The date, 2019, is a year after the reactors were originally due to be completed. The timetable has gradually slipped backwards. Last year the date for power to start being generated was put back to 2025, but this new date for pouring concrete makes 2030 more likely – if the reactors are built at all.

One insider with close contacts within EDF told The Ecologist: “The fact is that EDF is already in a precarious financial situation, with its share price half what it was a year ago, a falling credit rating, and massive liabilities for reactor upgrades and decommissioning.

“It has so far sunk £2 billion into Hinkley C and it simply cannot afford to write that sum off even if has already decided that this project is a total loss. So they have to pretend that it’s a goer and that the £2 billion is a live investment that will, one day, produce a return to its shareholders.”

In other words, a final investment decision to go head may, in fact, be no such thing. The company could just be planning to keep a few earth movers trundling about on the site, for years on end iof needs be, to give the appearance of activity while it seeks a graceful way out of the gigantic hole it has dug for itself.

The most likely long term plan, our source continued, is to try to sell the entire site on to its Chinese partner CGN after a few years. However CGN would then want to use a new reactor design, probably its own ‘Hualong’ model – which would then create additional long delays as no example has yet been built and it would have to undergo rigorous safety examination.

Record of delays, cost hikes and safety concerns

The new proposed start date of 2019 is significant for reasons the company dare not spell out. This is because there is no evidence yet that these so-called EPR (European Pressurised Reactor, no renamed ‘Evolutionary Power Reactor’) will operate effectively.

Four EPRs are under construction, but are years behind schedule, and costs have tripled. In Europe their earliest proposed start date is 2018 – so it looks as though EDF is being careful not to begin building another one until it can prove the design actually works.

The EPR, a so called ‘third generation’ design, is the largest nuclear plant in the world. They have a chequered history, even before any has actually produced a single watt of electricity. Construction of the first prototype began in 2005 at Olkiluoto in Finland: expected to be finished in 2009, it is still under construction.

The same is true of the second, at Flamanville in France, where construction began in 2007. It has also hit delays and cost over-runs of staggering proportions, and technical problems – in the form of a metallurgically flawed pressure reactor and lid – that could sink the project completely.

The vessel and lid contains too much carbon and is undergoing stress testing to see if it is safe. While the outcome of these tests remains unknown, a question mark hangs over the station’s future. It too is due to start in  2018 but few believe it will do so.

The other two EPRs are being built at Taishan in China. Both should have been in operation by this year, but both also have undergone unspecified delays that are probably related to the same pressure vessel problems that have afflicted Flamanville.

These difficulties, plus the vast amount of remedial safety work required by the French safety regulators from EDF on its fleet of 58 ageing reactors in France itself, have put the company under severe financial strain. It needs to find €100 billion for repairs, and to improve safety following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, to keep the plants operating until 2030.

As a result of fears that the company might overstretch itself and jeopardise jobs in France the six trade union representatives on EDF’s board have expressed opposition to the company going ahead with building reactors on British soil.

UK energy policy in tatters

This further postponement of a start date for the new reactors leaves the UK government with a gaping hole in its energy policy, despite it offering to pay double the existing price of electricity for the output from Hinkley Point, a subsidy that will continue for 35 years.

The Conservative government has been relying on nuclear energy to replace fossil fuels from 2025, when it plans to phase out all its coal stations. Some renewable energy subsidies have been scrapped to make way for new nuclear stations. As a result the UK is due to miss its EU renewable energy targets.

In all, the Conservative government wants ten new nuclear stations in the UK – four EPRs and the rest from Japan and the US. None of these now seems likely to be built before 2030, if at all.

Perhaps to divert attention from the postponement of the new reactors, EDF announced that it was going to extend the life of four of the nuclear power stations it already operates in Britain. It bought eight ageing stations of British design in 2009 for £12.5 billion.

Some were already due to close in 2018 but have had their lives extended. Now another four will be kept open to bridge the gap left by the failure to build the new stations at Hinkley Point. These are the Heysham 1 plant in northwest England and another at Hartlepool in the northeast, both of which had been due to be switched off in 2019 because of their advanced age. They will be allowed to keep producing electricity for another five years.

Two other reactors, Heysham 2 and Torness in Scotland, have been granted extensions of seven years to 2030. There is no reason – as long as the stations are deemed safe – why further life extensions should not be applied for, and granted.

Continuing to apply for life extensions for old nuclear stations also saves the company from technical bankruptcy. Once a station is closed its decommissioning costs become company liabilities. With the company’s debts already high, it would not take many closures for EDF’s liabilities to exceed its assets.

 

 

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Also on The Ecologist

 

Secret TTIP talks resume Monday as EU-US rifts deepen

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The 12th round of negotiations for the proposed TTIP trade deal between the EU and the USA are due to start in Brussels on Monday.

But chances of success are looking remote – much to the relief of civil society on both sides of the Atlantic. The two parties look increasingly at odds over the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms – one of the main planks of the negotiations.

ISDS and its ‘corporate courts’ are seen, especially by the US, as integral to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. But it now looks like they could sink the deal altogether. A White House official recently admitted that the deal was unlikely to be reached while President Obama was still in office.

These investment provisions would enable corporations to sue governments in secretive, supra-judicial courts for bringing about legislation that would harm their profits.

Other contentious aspects of the deal include ‘regulatory cooperation’, the principle that regulations on either side of the Atlantic will be recognised even if, in fact, they are much weaker on one side than on the other. This would force down standards for health, safety, labour and environment in the EU and the US to the lowest applicable level.

Conducted in secret (but not for lobbyists)

Also causing immense anger to elected representatives in national, state and EU parliaments has been the secrecy under the negotiations have been veiled.

The TTIP negotiating documents have been subjected to extreme levels of secrecy, leading to widespread criticism from both civil society and MEPs. In 2015 Green MEP Molly Scott Cato decried the extreme security lengths she had to endure to access the reading room that had been set up in Brussels.

Now the UK government has announced its plans to open a special ‘TTIP reading room’ where MPs will be able to read the negotiating texts. The announcement was made in response to a written parliamentary question by Caroline Lucas MP, in advance of the resuming negotiations.

In her response Trade Minister Anna Soubry stated: “Restrictions placed on these rooms include that they are only accessible to officials of Member State central governments and Members of Member State national Parliaments. The UK intends to establish such a reading room in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.”

In addition MPs will only be allowed to enter the room with pencil and paper to make notes. They will have to sign a confidentiality agreement forbidding them to disclose any paert of the texts to other parties including their constituents. The text as a whole will remain behind lock and key.

By contrast, corporations and corporate lobbyists have enjoyed privileged access to the negotiators and negotiating documents throughout the TTIP process and have been intimately involved with drafting the developing texts.

Caroline Lucas: ‘open TTIP up to public scrutiny!’

“The good news is that the government has finally conceded that MPs are going to get sight of this hugely significant trade deal before being asked to vote on it”, commented Lucas. “But the bad news is that a cloak of secrecy still surrounds TTIP.

“If the same rules apply here in the UK as they do in Brussels – which is what the minister is implying – then MPs will be bound by a confidentiality agreement if they want to see the text. This opaque process – which shuts citizens out of this crucial debate – is profoundly undemocratic.

“Rather than kowtowing to the corporations, ministers should trust the British public to have a say on this issue by opening it up to real democratic scrutiny.”

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said: “Given the extent of the impact that TTIP would have on our public services, our consumer standards and our democracy, it’s astounding that MPs still haven’t been able to look at all at the negotiating texts.

“While the opening of this reading room is an opportunity for MPs to see for themselves the extent of the corporate power grab under TTIP, there are still big questions as to whether or not they will have any say whatsoever as to the contents of the toxic trade deal, or if it will simply get voted on in Brussels.

“It’s deplorable that MPs will have to sign confidentiality documents in order to see documents in a guarded room. This effects all of us – and should be open to all of us. We think the fact that it’s not speaks volumes about TTIP.”

German MP Katja Kipping likewise wrote of her frustrating experience of accessing the texts in a similar reading room in Germany’s parliament, observing that she had “read nothing that would lead me to reconsider my previous criticism that consumer protection plays no part in TTIP.”

 

 

Principal source: Global Justice Now.

 

Monsanto’s pride, Monsanto’s fall: playing God with the Indian farmer

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The mantra of global agribusiness is that it cares about farmers. It also really cares about humanity and wants to help feed a growing world population by using its patented genetically modified (GM) seeds.

It says it wants to assist poor farmers by helping them grow enough to earn a decent income. Seems like it’s a win-win situation for everyone!

If you listen to the PR, you could be forgiven for believing that transnational agribusiness companies are driven by altruistic tendencies and humanitarian goals rather than by massive profit margins and delivering on shareholder dividends.

To promote itself and its products, the US multinational company Union Carbide came out with a series of brochures in the 1950s and 60s with powerful images depicting a large ‘hand of god’ in the sky, which hovered over a series of landscapes and scenarios in need of ‘fixing’ by the brave new world of science and the type of agricultural technology to be found in a pesticide canister.

One such image is of a giant hand pouring chemicals from a lab flask upon Indian soil, with a pesticide manufacturing factory in the distance and Mumbai’s Gateway of India opposite (see image, right).

It was a scene where science met tradition, where the helping hand of God, in this case Union Carbide, assisted the ignorant, backward Indian farmer who is shown toiling in the fields. The people at Union Carbide didn’t do subtlety back then.

We can now look back and see where Union Carbide’s hubris got the people of Bhopal and the deaths caused by that pesticide factory depicted in the image. And we can also see the utter contempt its top people in the US displayed by dodging justice and failing the victims of Bhopal. There’s humanitarianism for you: playing god with people’s lives and avoiding accountability for the death and havoc created.

The supposed humanitarian motives of global agribusiness are little more than a sham. If these companies, their supporters, media shills and PR mouthpieces really want to feed the world and assist poor farmers in low income countries, as they say they do, they would do better by addressing the political, economic and structural issues which fuel inequality, poverty and hunger.

And that includes the role of agribusiness itself in determining unfair world trade rules and trade agreements, such as the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which help grant it access to agriculture across the globe and recast it for its own ends (US agribusiness and the transformation of food-sufficient countries into food-deficit ones has long been bound up with the projection of Washington’s global power.)

Laughing all the way to the bank at the farmer’s expense

Many of the people these companies supply their inputs to and make a profit from are smallholder farmers who live on a financial knife edge in low income countries. Monsanto has appropriated around $900 million from India’s farmers over the last decade or so – illegally according to Vandana Shiva. By way of contrast, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant brought in $13.4 million in 2014 alone, according to Bloomberg.

Writing in India’s Statesman newspaper, Bharat Dogra illustrates the knife-edge existence of the people that rich agribusiness profits from by discussing the case of Babu Lal and his wife Mirdi Bai who have been traditionally cultivating wheat, maize, and bajra (millet) on their farmland in Rajasthan. Their crops provided food for several months a year to the 10-member family as well as fodder for farm and dairy animals which are integral to the mixed farming system employed.

Dogra notes that company (unspecified – but Monsanto and its subsidiaries dominate the GM cotton industry in India) agents approached the family with the promise of a lump-sum payment to plant and produce Bt (GM) cotton seeds in two of their fields. Babu Lal purchased pesticides to help grow the seeds in the hope of receiving the payment, which never materialised because the company agent said the seeds produced had “failed” in tests.

The family faced economic ruin, not least because the food harvest was much lower than normal as the best fields and most labour and resources had been devoted to Bt cotton. There was hardly any fodder too. It all resulted in Babu Lal borrowing from private moneylenders at a high interest rate to meet the needs of food and fodder.

Things were to get much worse though as the company’s agent allegedly started harassing Babu Lal for a payment of about 10,000 rupees in lieu of the fertilisers and pesticides provided to him. Several other tribal farmers in the area also fell into this trap, and reports say that the soil of fields in which Bt cotton was grown has been badly damaged.

The promise of a lump-sum cash payment can be very enticing to poor farmers, and when companies use influential villagers to get new farmers to agree to plant GM cotton, tribal farmers are reluctant to decline the offer. When production is declared as having failed, solely at the company’s discretion it seems, a family becomes indebted.

According to Dogra’s piece, there is growing evidence that the trend in tribal areas to experiment with Bt cotton has disrupted food security and has introduced various health hazards and ecological threats due to the use of poisonous chemical inputs.

What seed companies are doing is experimenting with farmers’ livelihoods and lives. ‘Success’, regardless of the impact on the farmer, is measured in terms of company profits. However, failure for the farmer is a matter of life and death. Look no further than the spike in suicides across the cotton belt since 1997. Even ‘success’ for the farmer may not amount to much when the costs of the seeds and associated chemical inputs are factored into any possible increase in yield or income.

Despite constant denials by Monsanto and its supporters in the media that Bt cotton in India has nothing or little to do with farmer suicides in India, a new study directly links the crisis of suicides among Indian farmers to Bt cotton adoption in rain-fed areas, where most of India’s cotton is grown.

As outlined in the case of Babu Lal above, many fall into a cycle of debt from the purchase of expensive, commercialised GM seeds and chemical inputs that then often fail to yield enough to sustain farmers’ livelihoods.

Planned obsolescence of the Indian farmer

Dogra’s story is about one family’s plight, but it is a microcosm of all that is wrong with modern agriculture and that could be retold a million times over in India and across the world:

  • the imposition of cash monocrops and the subsequent undermining of local food security (leading to food-deficit regions and to a reliance on imports);
  • the introduction of costly and hazardous (to health and environment) chemical inputs and company seeds;
  • crop failure (or, in many cases, the inability to secure decent prices on a commercial market dominated by commodity speculators in the US or rigged in favour of Western countries);
  • and spiralling debt.

The situation for India’s farmers is dire across the board. Consider that 670 million people in India’s the rural areas live on less than 33 rupees a day (around 50¢US) a day. And consider that 32 million quit agriculture between 2007 and 2012. Where did they go? Into the cities to look for work. Work that does not exist.

Between 2005 and 2015, only 15 million jobs were created nationally. To keep up with a growing workforce, around 12 million new jobs are required each year. Therefore, if you are going to place the likes of Babu Lal and millions like him at the mercy of the ‘helping hand’ of giant agribusiness companies or the whims of the market, you may well be consigning him and millions like him to the dustbin of history given the lack of options for making a living out there.

In fact, that is exactly what the Indian government is doing by leaving farmers like him to deal with agribusiness and the vagaries of the market and having to compete with heavily subsidised Western agriculture / agribusiness, whose handmaidens at the WTO demand India reduces import restrictions. Little wonder then that 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1997.

While the West tries to impose its neoliberal agenda of cutting subsidies to agriculture and dismantling price support mechanisms and the public distribution system that if effectively run would allow Indian farmers to receive a decent stable income, farmers are unsurprisingly leaving the sector in droves as agriculture becomes economically non-viable.

Forcing farmers to leave the land is a deliberate strategy. Just like it is a deliberate strategy to give massive handouts to industry and corporate concerns who are not delivering on jobs. It’s all about priorities. And farmers are not a priority. They are being driven from farming, while all the advantages are being given to a failing corporate-industrial sector.

With 300,000 having killed themselves in the last 18 years and many more heavily indebted or existing on a pittance, what we are witnessing is the destruction of the Indian farmer. Structural violence doesn’t require guns or knives – economic policies and political choices will do just fine.

This type of violence involves the uprooting of indigenous agriculture and replacing it with a chemical-intensive Western model of agriculture, whereby those farmers left on the land are to be recipients of the inputs and knowledge of agribusiness companies.

This began with the ‘green revolution’, which selected certain locations, farms and crops to bring about spectacular yields thus maximising impact and promoting this model of farming above any notion of ‘helping farmers’ in general, and is continuing apace today courtesy of GM cotton seeds and possibly GM food.

But let us not forget that GM is a fraudulent enterprise supported by fallacious arguments in an attempt to spread the technology within India and is surrounded by various spurious claims (which are deconstructed here).

Crisis management or R&D?

This model of agriculture stresses agribusiness inputs, which have led to a continuous process of crisis management (under the banner of ‘research and development’) and short-termism: new products – destined to fail – to replace the older products that have already failed. This scenario is only good for one thing – the profit sheets of the agribusiness cartel as it pushes its never-ending stream of ‘innovations’ onto the hapless farmer.

For example, going back a couple of years, a report in Business Standard (BS) stated that Bt cotton yields in India had dropped to a five-year low. India approved Bt cotton in 2002 and, within a few years, yields increased dramatically. However, most of the rise in productivity seemingly had nothing to do with Bt cotton itself and more to do with non-GM hybrid seeds.

What’s more, since Bt has taken over, yields have been steadily worsening. According to BS, bollworms are developing resistance. Contrary to what farmers were originally told, the Monsanto spokesperson quoted by BS says that such resistance is to be expected.

However, when Bt cotton arrived in India, farmers were told that they wouldn’t have to spray any more. All that farmers had to do was plant the seeds and water them regularly. They were told that, as GM seeds are insect resistant, there was no need to use huge amounts of pesticides.

But, according to Monsanto’s spokesperson, the bollworm problem is all the Indian farmers’ fault because “limited refuge planting” is one of the factors that may have contributed to pink bollworm resistance. Using the ‘wrong’ biotech seed is another. The answer from the biotech sector to combat falling yields is continuous R&D to develop new technologies and new strains of GM seeds to try to stay ahead of insect resistance or falling yields.

Agribusiness corporations are engaged in managing and thus profiting from the crises they themselves have conspired to produce with their destruction of traditional agriculture and local economies and their chemical inputs and genetic engineering. By its very nature – by tampering with nature – US agribusiness is designed to stumble from one crisis to the next.

And it will do so by hiding behind the banners of ‘innovation’ or ‘research and development’. But, it’s all good business. And that’s all that really matters. There’s always money to be made from blaming the victims for the mess created and from a continuous state of crisis management.

Ultimately, this is what this con-trick is all about: planned obsolescence – planned obsolescence of products, in order that profits can be made from a stream of new ‘wonder’ products and, as far as India is concerned, planned obsolescence of farmers as agribusiness sets out to uproot tradition and shape farming in its own corporate image. And the great con-trick is that it attempts to pass off its endless crises and failures as brilliant successes.

Case study: Bt cotton and whitefly

If anything highlights how this traditional knowledge and practices are being cast aside, it is the recent case of Bt cotton and whitefly. In the cotton belt of Punjab and Haryana, the tiny whitefly has caused extensive damage.

They sprayed this way and that way with pesticides. The agritech companies blamed farmers for not spraying correctly. The companies blamed each other for selling the wrong chemicals to farmers. It’s a repeat of the bollworm blame game. In any case, the pesticide use failed to kill the whitefly that ravaged cotton crops.

Writing on his blog, food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma says that the only time whitefly did not destroy crops was when pesticides were not used. Instead, farmers used ‘insect equilibrium’ and their knowledge of which insects kill crop-predator pests. This knowledge has been built over centuries of trial and error and which did not come courtesy of a white-coated figure in a lab. Now it is in danger of being wiped out as farmers are being turned into consumers of agritech products.

Sharma notes in that the areas where extensive pesticide use failed to defeat the whitefly, they “stand like an oasis in a heavily polluted chemical desert.” In the areas that were not ravaged, pesticides have not been used for several years. Benign insects are used to control harmful pests. They allowed the natural predators of whitefly to proliferate, which in turn killed the whitefly.

Sharma says he has met women who can identify 110 non-vegetarian insects and also as many as 60 vegetarian insects (a few years back, he also reported how insect equilibrium was managing a mealy bug problem too).

For agribusiness, though, it is more profitable to hijack agriculture and recast it in its own ‘hand of god’ image. It can then serve up its industrial poisons and GMOs to farmers courtesy of politicians who handed agriculture to it on a plate.

The need for change

Fast forward 50 years from that Union Carbide image and today global agribusiness tries to be a little bit subtler in its approach. But the underlying messages and attitudes remain: that backward, ignorant farmers are in need of a giant ‘helping hand’; that these companies know best; and that debt, economic distress and farmer suicides are not of its making or concern.

On the back of some cooked-up notion about wanting to help the poor, endlessly repeated by prominent politicians and neoliberal apologists, who show little more than contempt for the poor in their own countries, global agribusiness is playing fast and loose with poor people’s lives and is profiting handsomely.

It aims to cement a future that is committed to the destruction of indigenous agriculture and which is dominated by powerful business interests (see this on the Gates Foundation in Africa) and chemical-intensive farming based on patented GM seeds.

Rather than side-line the recommendations of various reports that conclude agroecological approaches are more suitable for the global south and that GM and chemical-dependent practices are inappropriate, policy makers would do better by acknowledging and accepting that agroecology has a major role to play. Its benefits are clear to see.

 

 

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher, based in the UK and India.

Support Colin’s work here.

This article is a revised and updated (by the author) version of one originally published on Colin’s website.

Bibliography

1. This report on the tremendous success of agroecology in Africa from the Oakland Institute;

2. This report from Tamil Nadu on rolling back the damage caused by the green revolution by using agroecology;

3. This 2013 UN trade and development report, which states that farming in rich and poor nations alike should shift from monoculture towards greater varieties of crops, reduced use of fertilisers and other inputs, greater support for small-scale farmers, and more locally focused production and consumption of food;

4. This peer-reviewed paper (from the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability) showing that agroecological approaches offer opportunities to substantially increase food production, while preserving the natural resource base and empowering rural communities;

5. This section of the GMOs Myths and Truths report, which refers to peer-reviewed papers and various reports to support the claims made about agroecology, not least that increased productivity with fewer external inputs is but one advantage of the model;

6. The renowned the IAASTD report, which involved nearly 400 internationally respected experts and concluded the need for a fundamental shift in our present global agricultural systems towards multi-functional systems that recognised and accounted for “the complexity of agricultural systems within diverse social and ecological contexts.”

 

Supreme Court can’t hold back the renewable energy revolution!

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The wringing of hands among environmentalists was a perfectly reasonable reaction to the February 9th Supreme Court announcement that it had stayed implementation of the White House Clean Power Plan approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency last August.

After all, the Supreme Court more typically issues stays of execution in death penalty cases. In this instance, the Court tried to deliver its own death penalty to climate change mitigation.

But before a pall settled too heavily over our crushed clean air optimism, we were urged to take heart.

Or, more specifically, to look at the empirical evidence – a runaway renewable energy train that has left the five renegade Justices – although no longer including the now deceased Antonin Scalia – and other climate deniers standing on the platform. Without their luggage.

The Supreme Court stalls the Clean Power Plan – but the US is decarbonizing anyway

Writing in the Washington Post, reporter Chris Mooney pointed out that while the Court may have stalled the Clean Power Plan, the country at large wasn’t really taking any notice.

Mooney observed: “the US has been going through something that looks a lot like the kind of transition it is meant to prompt even without the plan in place. Namely: The nation has been slowly decarbonizing its electricity system, through the growth of renewables and the switching from burning coal to burning natural gas.”

And indeed the numbers are encouraging. The Factbook released on February 4th by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that 8.5 gigawatts of new wind capacity and 7.3 gigawatts of new solar photovoltaics were installed in 2015.

Other key findings include: American energy productivity has increased by 13% from 2007 to 2015; total US investment in clean energy topped $56 billion in 2015, the second highest in the world; 2015 US power sector carbon emissions fell to their lowest annual level since 1995.

Similar numbers released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have solar and wind well outpacing new installation of natural gas at 5.94 gigawatts and leaving coal in its own dust at just 3 megawatts.

New nuclear installation remained at a big, beautiful zero. This non-entity status will continue in 2016 at least until the TVA Watts Bar 2 reactor gets switched on this summer, having taken a record-breaking 43 years to reach green light status.

But that will be it. TVA just canceled its two planned new reactors at Bellefonte in Alabama, and crippling and expensive delays continue to plague the only other new nuclear construction sites, in Georgia and South Carolina.

No stopping renewables in 2016 and beyond

Meanwhile, there will be no stopping renewables in 2016 and beyond. The February Short-Term Energy Outlook released by the US government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) “expects total renewables used in the electric power sector to increase by 8.1% in 2016” in electricity and heat generation.

Departing from the traditional – and continued – solar growth in rooftop PV panels, the EIA also “expects utility-scale solar capacity will increase by about 80% (10 GW) between the end of 2015 and the end of 2017, with 4.1 GW of new capacity being built in California.”

The nod to California is significant and exposes the red herring arguments tossed out by Michael Shellenberger and his pro-nuclear Breakthrough Institute, who continue to insist that shutting California’s nuclear power plants – the twin reactors at San Onofre officially closed in 2013; Diablo Canyon ought to follow – will be the death knell for the state’s carbon emissions reductions.

What the Breakthrough Institute most particularly fails to admit is that by far the biggest challenge to California’s GHG emissions reduction goal is to be found in the transportation sector. According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, 37% of CO2 emissions in the state come from transportation, “the single largest source of CO2 in California.”

Unlike Shellenberger and friends, the California EPA does not advocate keeping nuclear power plants going to address this problem since it’s clearly irrelevant. Just 11% of the state’s emissions come from power generation, or 20% including imports.

Instead it urges people to “Help reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by driving less, switching to a more fuel efficient vehicle, and saving electricity at home and at work!”

Solar industry adding jobs in US 12 times faster than rest of the economy

The White House pointed out with some buoyancy during the Clean Power Plan rollout that: “Since Obama took office, the administration has made the largest investments in clean energy in American history.”

It continued: “In 2014 renewables accounted for half of new electricity generation capacity placed in service. As of October, renewables were on pace to account for over 60 percent of new generation capacity placed in service in 2015. Solar installations climbed 30 percent.” And the solar industry, the Plan said, “is adding jobs 12 times faster than the rest of the economy.”

The Supreme Court may have frozen the Clean Power Plan for the time being, even as Scalia’s death has plunged it into a firestorm of controversy.

But the Court can’t hold back the determination of cities and states around the country, who have no intention of missing out on the inevitable and welcome renewable energy revolution.

 

 

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a Takoma Park, MD environmental advocacy group.

 

South Africa’s conservation success story: the ‘Black Mambas’ mean business!

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A rhino lies dead; her horn hacked from her skull, the remnants dug out deeply from her sinus cavity.

All is quiet except for a rustling behind the body; a small calf emerges, only a few weeks old.

What will be the fate of this rare animal that is hunted daily for its horn, carrying a street value higher than cocaine?

Seems strange that this inept substance, made of nothing more than keratin, to which our fingernails are made of, can be fuelling such crime around the world.

Sadly, this is a regular occurrence in South Africa, where poaching has reached an all-time high. Rhinos are now unable to reproduce at the same rate to which they are slaughtered every year.

However, all is not lost, as I have heard of a reservation lying to the East of Kruger called Balule, where the Black Mambas, a 26-strong all-female anti-poaching unit, has managed to reduced bush meat and rhino poaching by a staggering 76%.

Founded by Transfrontier Africa in 2013, they have so far removed more than 1,000 snares, destroyed five poachers’ camps, put two bush meat kitchens out of action, and had six poachers arrested. And they arrive in the UK this weekend to receive the prestigious Helping Rhinos ‘Innovation in Conservation’ Award.

I was determined to find out just why this project has been so successful and also to meet the strong women who have made this a reality.

Alongside Simon Jones of Helping Rhinos and presenter and producer Nigel Marven, we all pack our cases and head off to Balule, to film alongside the Mambas, to truly live their lives, to find out their passions, their fears and why their presence has been so successful, not just for the animals, but also for the poor communities they support.

Combatting indiscriminate carnage of cable snares

The Mambas rise at 5am every morning, taking shifts to walk a gruelling 20km to check the boundary fences for incursion. The baking 40 degree heat means that their duties need to be wrapped up early.

They check for signs of entry, as well as for snares laid in the night. Their role is like a British ‘bobby on the beat’ – to provide a physical presence in the area. I walk with two Mambas Siphiwe Sithole and Felicia Mogakane.

“What did your family think when you told them you wanted to join The Black Mambas?” I ask.

“They were scared that it would be dangerous and I would be eaten by a lion”, Siphiwe answers.

“How has being a Mamba helped your family?” I ask Siphiwe.

“It has helped me a lot, because now I can take care of my kids, I know if I want to do something now, I’ve got something in my pocket … I am the bread winner.”

As we walk through the bush, The Mambas chance upon a dead Cape Buffalo which had been trapped by its leg by a wire snare. The Mambas explain to me that it could have taken up to five weeks to die, as buffalo are equipped to deal with extreme draught.

We find several snares in one patch and set to clearing them. There are two types of snare, fine wire snares and larger thicker cable snares. It’s the cable snares which are responsible for dismembering large animals such as elephants, as their strong wire cuts deeply through the legs.

Inspiring conservation role models for Africa’s youth

Later on, as we are driving to a local school, I can’t help but notice that the wilds of Africa seem to be a distant memory; everything is electrically fenced in and owned by game lodges. I ask, “Do you feel that the local people poach because they feel that the land and the animals do not belong to them any more?”

Siphiwe answers, “In their mentality, there is that thing that conservation is for white people. Did you see a black person running a private lodge or a private game reserve? So they feel that they have to finish the animals so the white people won’t have them.”

This makes me sad that this is a common feeling amongst the communities out there, however The Mambas explain that they feel that poaching is still inexcusable and a lazy way out, but the monetary rewards are so high that it’s a quick way to make huge amounts of money, so poaching rhinos is driven by greed. The rich gangsters use poor local trackers to find the rhinos, so they don’t have to do their own dangerous work.

Finally we arrive at Masake primary school, it is still early, around 9.30am, and we see children eating lunch. Black Mamba education officer, Lewyn, explains that this is often the only meal the children get a day, as they come from such poor backgrounds.

Lewyn’s conservation lessons named The Bush Baby Programme is really fun, uplifting and the children learn in English. Black Mambas Siphiwe and Felicia attend lessons often as conservation role models. I can see that the children are really taking in the positive message these strong ladies are conveying.

The day ends with a visit with a Rhino Orphanage run by charity Rhino Revolution, supported by The Black Mambas who provide security for these precious, rhino calves. I feed Fatty, the largest rhino and my heart melts. Each rhino costs about £450 a month to wean and if this orphanage is to expand to take in the huge amounts of orphan victims, it will need to raise much more funds and fast. With dedicated staff and the Mambas supporting this project, I truly hope it gets the support it deserves.

All in all, I can conclude that the Black Mambas are a very strong presence in Balule and with a record drop in poaching in their reserve by 75%, it is definitely working. This concept is a fantastic one and hopefully it will set precedent for similar units to be set up all over Africa.

Siphiwe: “If the world out there can give a hand and help him to expand the group of Black Mambas, I think that at the end of the day we will win this war, because at each and every corner we will be there. The poachers will know that they don’t have a chance.”

 

 

Anneka Svenska is a conservationist & broadcaster who specialises in films covering serious wildlife crime, wildlife & environmental conservation and education surrounding misunderstood apex predators.

Most recently Anneka has returned from filming alongside Image Impact Films and producer/presenter Nigel Marven in South Africa, where they created a short film to highlight the work of The Black Mambas and charity Helping Rhinos.

UK visit schedule

Sunday 21st Feb – Black Mambas arrive in the UK.

Monday 22nd Feb – Black Mambas and Richard Vigne (CEO of Ole Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya) give a talk at Port Lympne Reserve in Kent.

Tuesday 23rd Feb – Black Mambas and Richard Vigne give a talk to staff at London Zoo.

Thursday 25th Feb – Black Mambas sightseeing in London, including a trip to the House of Commons.

Friday 26th Feb – Black Mambas return to South Africa in the late afternoon.

The Black Mambas trip to the UK is sponsored by RACS Group.

More information

Black Mamba official website.

United Nations Champions of the Earth Award.

Sponsor the work of the Black Mambas via Helping Rhinos.