Regulations that disallow human exposure to pesticides that are classified as mutagenic, carcinogenic, reprotoxic (toxic for reproduction), persistent or capable of disrupting endocrine systems within the European Union are under threat.

 These EU regulations are considered the gold standard in public protection by virtue of these and other protective measures.

But industry-linked experts and supporters of anti-regulation pressure groups have ‘taken control’ of the EU’s new Science Advice Mechanism (SAM) process. These experts have contributed to a report commissioned to reevaluate the EU’s authorisation of pesticides.

Public exposure

The report – called “EU authorisation processes of Plant Protection products“, and published in late 2018 – recommends dramatically weakening the EU regulatory system.

The adoption of many ideas previously proposed by the chemical industry is especially notable. For example, the EU currently deems the acceptable level of public exposure to mutagenic pesticides – those that damage DNA – to be zero. The new report recommends scrapping this standard of protection.

Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EU health commissioner, originally committed the new SAM report. Its purpose was to determine how to act in cases of so-called ‘diverging views’; that is, when media and interest groups get publicly involved.

The request follows a series of major controversies over EU regulatory decision-making. One such controversy was over the herbicide glyphosate (originally marketed by Monsanto as Roundup).

A “European Citizens Initiative” delivered more than a million signatures to the EU Commission asking for a ban on glyphosate. Several cities banned glyphosate. Even a dairy company banned the use of glyphosate by their farmers.

With this pressure from all over Europe, the EU Commission had difficulty reaching a decision since many EU member states -Bulgaria, Denmark, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Finland and the UK -opposed a ban.

Ultimately, a very unusual five-year extension for glyphosate was agreed – but soon the discussion will start again.

Major controversies

Issues with neonicotinoids have also pushed the EU Commission into a corner. 

Neonicotinoid insecticides are linked by much research to bee colony collapse and, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature “represent a worldwide threat to biodiversity, ecosystems and ecosystem services”.

This again placed the EU Commission in the crossfire since many EU member states and their ministries of agriculture wished to keep neonicotionids on the market.

Waves of scientific publications and media attention about dying bees and empty beehives forced the EU Commission to finally ban them. Nevertheless, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Lithuania still resist the ban by using derogations.

A third big controversy has been endocrine disruption. Public concern about hormone-mimicking chemicals forced politicians to address endocrine disruption concerns in the regulations and ban endocrine disrupting pesticides in 2009.

An enormous lobbying effort from industry, the US chamber of commerce, the EU Directorate General (DG) Enterprise, and EU DG Growth, tried to stop the implementation of the new rules, especially during the TTIP trade negotiations with the US. 

EU DG Environment was isolated and in the end DG SANTE (health) was willing to do the dirty work of undermining the rules. Again, waves of bad publicity from the public and scientists harmed the credibility of the EU Commission. This debate here is also far from over.

Stifling regulation 

The SAM report is important since it will soon be used by the EU Commission as an input for its REFIT programme to evaluate pesticide regulation. This is an event that the chemical industry sees as a major opportunity for a regulatory roll-back.

Some of the experts invited to help SAM and listed on the SAM website, however, are not independent.

Instead, they have strong links to the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). ILSI is a world wide network, a federation of non-profits funded by many industries, including the pesticide industry, and which provides expertise in regulatory issues.

ILSI global includes more than 400 company members and ILSI Europe includes 88. Among them are every pesticide multinational.

Sourcewatch writes of ILSI that: “The interests of food, pharmaceutical, tobacco, energy, and other industries have become even more entwined. They have learned to cooperate (rather than blaming each other for the cancer epidemic) and they now form coalitions to fight health and environmental regulations. 

“It is notable that they [ILSI members] generally employ the same lawyers, lobbyists and PR companies, and use essentially the same tactics.”

Behind the scenes

ILSI has negligible public profile, and claims not to be a lobby group, but is very active behind the scenes in obtaining seats for ILSI-associated scientists on regulatory panels.

These include the EU Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and international organisations like WHO, the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN, and the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS ) of the WHO.

Experts generally do not seem to disclose their links to ILSI publicly and can therefore appear to be independent academic scientists.

A recent example of ILSI members successfully getting seats on an EFSA-panel concerned the risk assessment idea of a Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC).

This idea assumes chemicals are safe at low doses without (expensive) testing. It has been an important goal of the chemical industry to establish TTCs in European and other jurisdictions.

PAN Europe has analysed the process of developing guidelines for the TTC at the European Food safety Authority EFSA. We discovered that the chair of the EFSA working group was Sue Barlow, who worked for ILSI and the cigarette industry. She had volunteered to be chair of the EFSA working group. 

From this position Barlow installed an ILSI network in the EFSA working group. This working group then more-or-less copy-pasted the ILSI proposal, making it into an EFSA-opinion. 

Conflicted scientists 

ILSI has been imposing its ideas on many other current EU risk assessment methods too, intending to weaken protections for the public and ease access of pesticides to the market. 

A PAN Europe survey showed that out of 12 EU pesticide risk assessment methods analysed, eight were designed and promoted by ILSI. Industry is being allowed, under the radar, to “write its own rules”.

In the case of the SAM, a prime example of these conflicts is UK professor Alan Boobis who is listed on the SAM website as a contributor to the SAM report.

Boobis has been active in ILSI for decades and, until January 2018, was the chair of its Board of Trustees. Due to his conflicts of interest Boobis left the new expert panels convened by EFSA in 2012.

French professor Dominique Parent-Massin is mentioned alongside Boobis as working on the SAM report. Parent-Massin has previously worked with ILSI-member Aspartame companies including Coca-Cola and Ajinomoto – the world’s biggest Aspartame producer.

Also listed on the SAM website is Joergen Schlundt, former director of the Danish National Food Institute. Schlundt is also a former ILSI board member and is now part of several ILSI research programs.

All three are listed on the SAM website as contributors to the report, or as providers of evidence through another report written by a new network called Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA), or being part of a ‘sounding board’ and fact-checking process. 

Pressure groups

Another expert used by the SAM is German professor Daniel Dietrich, editor-in-chief of the journal Chemico-Biological Interactions. 

He has been very vocal in trying to stop the regulation and banning of endocrine disrupting pesticides (in EU Regulation 1107/2009), along with a group of editors of journals of pharmacology and toxicology. 

Dietrich published editorials in several scientific journals that triggered highly critical responses from other scientists such as members of the ‘Endocrine Society‘.

Ties between the Dietrich group of authors and industry were exposed by Le Monde journalist Stephane Horel who found 17 out of the 18 experts of Dietrich group have past or current ties to industry. 

The Dietrich group has been prolific, publishing articles like ‘Endorcrine disruption: fact of urban legend?’ that disputes the health risks of endocrine disruption.

Anne Glover, an EU science advisor, found that toxicological thresholds below which chemicals are safe were unproven and probably unlikely – achieving a hard won consensus between opposing groups. But Dietrich and his group (along with Boobis) still claimed their opponents used ‘pseudoscience‘.

Dietrich also opposed the EU ban of bee-harming neonicotinoids: both Dietrich and Boobis criticised the IARC report on the genotoxicity of glyphosate.

Industry objectives

The EU has mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest from derailing its scientific decisions. The SAM website currently presents Declarations of Interest (DoI) for its members – including for Boobis, Parent-Massin, Dietrich, and Schlundt.

The SAM website states that: “The Commission found that none of the interests declared constituted a conflict of interest.”

But one might wonder whether procedures to report conflicts of interest are even functioning. DoIs were not available online when the SAM-report was published in June 2018 and one was not signed until considerably after publication, in August 2018.

The efforts of ILSI have so far been effective. Several of its campaigning targets are included in an important “SAPEA evidence review report”. 

SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) is a new body set up by European science academies. Their report is intended to feed into the SAM report and featured many of the conflicted scientists above.

SAPEA’s report promotes many industry objectives, such as the use of historical control data. The great importance of this is that, since many potential historical controls exist, their use makes it easier to ascribe toxic effects observed in animal testing as being simply noise and therefore irrelevant.

Another industry goal is to promote inexpensive (in vitro) mode-of-action assessment in preference to expensive adverse outcome testing. A third goal is to drop the obligation for chronic mouse testing.

The aims of PAN Europe and the Endocrine Society, on the other hand, are

1) to recognise the reality of low dose effects which are currently not tested at all for pesticides;

2) the recognition that chemicals may cause non-linear toxicity responses over a wide range of doses. These are called non-monotonic dose-effect responses whereas regulators presently acknowledge only linear dose-response curves of toxicity and even dismiss effects entirely if they are not linear;

3) mandatory testing for endocrine disruption;

4) to dispute the current regulatory assumption that chemicals have safe thresholds.

All are missing from the SAPEA report.

Hazard approach

In a further blow to precaution, the SAM report proposes to change EU rules by exchanging the acceptable level of citizen protection from “do not have any harmful effects on humans” for an undefined level, to that of “acceptable risk”.

This is the change of regulation that would make human harm legal, since it would stop the EU’s much-detested-by-industry “hazard approach“, that aims to avoid any exposure of humans to classified pesticides.

SAM proposes that the EU should re-examine this “hazard approach”, which has been under attack by industry for many years; and so it seems that SAM might prove to be the instrument by which industry finally achieves successes for which they have campaigned so long.

The EU has shown itself sensitive to public pressure. What is now needed is for that pressure to be redoubled.

These Authors

Hans Muilerman is chemicals coordinator at Pesticide Action Network and is based in Brussels. Dr Jonathan Latham, a former genetic engineer, is executive director of the Bioscience Resource Project and editor of Independent Science News.

Students are expected to once again join nationwide protests as part of an international youth campaign demanding action on climate change.

Organisers behind the Youth Strike 4 Climate movement said “sizeable events” are due to take place in major towns and cities including London, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Brighton. Demonstrators will take to the streets for the third mass walkout in as many months.

Protests earlier this year have seen police intervening as roads came to a standstill, activists scaled traffic lights and statues, and some sat in front of double-decker buses.

Championing

Those going on strike said they are demanding that the Government declares a state of climate emergency, and reforms the curriculum “to address climate change as an educational priority”.

They are also campaigning for the voices of young people to be considered when it comes to policy-making and for the voting age to be lowered to 16.

The strikes come in the wake of a UN report which warned that limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, beyond which climate impacts become increasingly severe, requires unprecedented action.

That includes cutting global carbon dioxide emissions by almost half within 12 years.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove has previously spoken of his support for strikes, saying: “Collective action of the kind you’re championing can make a difference, and a profound one.”

This Article

This article was written by a Press Association reporter.

We don’t need to tell you that something has been bubbling up over the last three months. Rather than under the surface, this energy has burst to the fore with vigour unseen in recent times.

Their youthful outlook, limitless and interconnected world – unlocked by technology and the organising potential of social media – makes for a fresh approach and a movement that’s not only diverse, but borderless and frenetic.

Across the UK – and spanning the globe – the youth movement leading the call for climate justice has emerged as one of the most powerful social and political forces in recent memory, leaving many behind in its wake.

Absences

Given the rapid frequency of mobilisations, strides away from traditional organising, combined with fast-paced decision-making that catches most off-guard, you wouldn’t be expected to know what’s coming next.

Such is the pace and unbounded thinking, the actions these young people take are often spontaneous and powerful. One moment we see primary school children walking across a London bridge chanting together as one, the next thousands are tearing down Whitehall, peacefully blocking roads in Newcastle, or grilling councillors on their climate action plans in an open forum in Truro.

One of the most exciting parts of this movement is how decentralised it is. At the last nationwide mobilisation more than 150 strike locations were registered from Devon to the Highlands.

Many of those organising in their communities managed to persuade whole schools to allow young people to leave their lessons and protest for the climate.

Some risked detentions, unauthorised absences and some received harsh treatment from their schools.

Despite these threats, many have said that they see taking action as a necessary part of their education, something which teaches them about working together, forming a collective and committing to a cause which will define their future.

Leadership

And this is where they demonstrate true moral leadership. They are able to articulate the impacts of climate change not just on themselves but on countries at the frontlines of the climate crisis.

They challenge isolationism, communicating regularly with youth strikers all over the world, supporting other countries and showing solidarity to those where protesting and taking action is even more risky.

Ideas of climate justice, equality, better education and economic change are at the forefront of some of the UK Student Climate Network’s demands which is refreshing and exciting.

These are demands which are even managing to cut through the noise from Brexit in order to force the country and its leaders to take the climate crisis more seriously.

Whilst they have made clear that they are deeply political, they have also stated that they are not party political. They want all parties to commit to treat climate change like the emergency that it is and respond accordingly.

As Greta Thunberg herself said: “I want you to panic.” 

Deep vision

While in the past climate change campaigning has perhaps tried to use less challenging language, they are speaking plainly, and are forcing politicians to meet them on their terms.

Now they have had all party leaders apart from Theresa May offering to meet with them, whilst the Conservative Environment Network released a special video with Michael Gove and Claire Perry praising their efforts.

In forcing Cabinet ministers to respond so quickly they have again pushed the climate debate into a new dimension.

Of course, Greta Thunberg has inspired huge numbers by her solo school strike since last summer.

Many have also been closely following and inspired by the Sunrise movement in the United States, so it is no surprise that this movement is calling for a broad and deep vision of the future by demanding a Green New Deal for the UK too.

Labour

Young people have the imagination and moral clarity to know that it is possible to both tackle the climate crisis and create a fairer world, addressing the root causes of the issue at hand, our current economic system.

Such transformative change here in the UK would be guided by five principles. Perhaps more pertinently, climate and social justice minimum standards.

These principles encapsulate the urgency of the climate crisis, and the scale at which it must be addressed.

Policy would be implemented to ensure rapid decarbonisation of the UK economy at the same time as the creation of millions of well paid, secure and meaningful jobs as part of a just transition for those in high emissions sectors.

This is not only vital for those that will be affected, but will be a defining part of any deal to gain the support of the organised labour movement. It’s not a case of environment or jobs, it’s a symbiosis of the two.

Luxury

Where a Green New Deal differs from mainstream and often market-based solutions to the climate crisis is that it combines social and economic justice alongside environmental protection.

It will be based upon a massive reduction in social and economic inequality, targeting investment in communities that have already suffered from current and historic oppression and economic deprivation.

Moving away from market-based solutions and technological fixes is a recognition of the need for protection and restoration of vital habitats and carbon sinks.

In creating a more equitable and just world, the protection of nature in this way would ensure provision of green spaces, clean air, water and a healthy environment for all; a far cry from the current unequal access in our current system that treats the above as a luxury or commodity, rather than a right.

Galvanizing

Additionally, a Green New Deal would build and create a resilient society that’s prepared for the inevitable effects of unavoidable climate change, protecting the most vulnerable in our communities, those that have too long been routinely structurally oppressed.

If designed and implemented properly – by the people, for the people – a Green New Deal has the potential to be a galvanizing idea that truly inspires people to organise together at the scale required to create a better world.

So what is next for this emergent political and moral force to be reckoned with? What is clear is that they are not going away. They have ambition to keep using creative and surprising tactics to push leaders further.

As they begin to organise and put structures in place to support the thousands of young people who want to take action, it will be up to the rest of the environmental justice movement to support them every step of the way with our networks and voices.

What we have seen over the last few months builds on the work done by movements before it and takes it to the next level. It should not be taken for granted. The opportunity to push for real and lasting political and systemic change is right here.

This movement are proving themselves to be resilient, focused and with a solid strategy which will push their radical demands for a better, fairer future into the centre of mainstream politics. And we can’t wait to watch them do it.

The Authors

Hannah Martin is a climate activist organising in support of YouthStrike4Climate and a Green New Deal and tweets at @Hannah_RM. Jake Woodier is a climate campaigner organising with the UK Student Climate Network and tweets at @JakeWoodier.

India’s main opposition party has released its greenest manifesto to date, in a bid to unseat nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi.

In a 55-page manifesto published last week, Congress vowed to take on the country’s air pollution and ramp up its defences against natural disasters. It promised to empower campaign groups and communities, including forest dwellers facing eviction under the current administration.

India is set to hold elections in phases from 11 April to 19 May and count the votes on 23 May. Opinion polls predict a slim parliamentary majority for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has put national security at the heart of its campaign.

Polluted

Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, said it “recognises that air pollution is a national health emergency”. The party committed to “significantly strengthen the National Clean Air Programme” and impose emissions standards across industrial sectors, although these were not quantified.

According to Greenpeace, choking smog kills 2 million Indians every year and costs the economy an estimated 3% of GDP.

Environmental activists and analysts welcomed the move. “The fact that air pollution is being treated as a national emergency sends a right signal in the sense that you are definitely acknowledging the problem,” Swati D’souza, energy policy analyst at think-tank Brookings India, told Climate Home News.

Pujarini Sen, a climate and energy analyst for Greenpeace, also cautiously greeted the manifesto. Indian political parties largely failed to deliver on their environmental promises of the 2014 election, according to one recent study.  But “for civil society, we now have a peg on which to hold them accountable,” Sen told CHN.

For its part, BJP promised to reduce pollution by at least 35% over five years in India’s 102 most polluted cities. Greenpeace said that ignored 139 other cities potentially breaching national air quality standards and urged both parties to make the National Clean Air Programme legally binding.

Renewable

It was perhaps on its relationship with civil society that Congress most distinguished itself from the BJP, Sen said. Where Modi’s regime has stripped thousands of NGOs of their licences and blocked them from receiving foreign funding, Congress described civil society as “a pillar of parliamentary democracy”.

The opposition showed solidarity with some 1.9 million forest-dwelling households threatened with eviction since the Supreme Court denied them land rights in February. Congress would “make local communities the custodians of forests and shareholders of forest resources,” the manifesto said.

The BJP manifesto does not mention evictions or the Forest Rights Act, which, according to recent media reports, the government is overhauling in a manner that could further curtail rights of the people.

On clean energy, BJP reiterated its target to install 175 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2022, while Congress had an unquantified goal to increase the share of solar and wind power in the mix.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

The EU and China affirmed a commitment to tackling climate change and promoting clean energy at a summit in Brussels this week.

The two superpowers reached a last-minute deal, including on areas of climate cooperation, after fraught talks on trade and market access.

While less detailed than a 2018 joint statement on climate change, it stressed: “The importance of showing resolve on the clean energy transition and of assuming greater leadership on the global environmental agenda.”

Target

Leaders said they would “reinforce their cooperation on green finance” and work towards a successful outcome at a climate summit to be hosted by the UN secretary general in September.

In a separate statement, energy chiefs called for boosting renewables, switching to lower carbon fuels and promoting energy efficiency. This covered smoothing trade in liquefied natural gas (LNG), but made no mention of coal.

Prior to the summit, a paper by the European Commission on the strategic outlook for the relationship called on China to strengthen its climate goals.

It highlighted China’s impact as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter and a major exporter of coal technology through its belt and road initiative.

Strategy

Brussels is urging China to peak its domestic emissions earlier than 2030, the target Beijing contributed to the 2015 Paris Agreement.

At the same time, UN chief Antonio Guterres is pushing leaders to bring plans, not speeches to his 23 September summit in New York. These should lead to a round of stronger national pledges by 2020, he has said.

Under the Paris pact, countries agreed to hold global warming to 2C, or 1.5C if possible. Yet national plans are collectively inadequate to meet that goal and the deal sets out a timetable for ratcheting up ambition.

Last month, China’s environment minister Li Ganjie said “we are updating our [national climate pledge] in accordance with the Paris Agreement and will communicate our [long-term climate strategy] on time by 2020”.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

Fred Henderson, Amber Hayward and Erin Emirali have been tirelessly promoting the use of Ecosia – a German-based internet search engine that uses 80 percent of its profits from advertising revenue to reforestation and conservationism projects.

Over the past year, University of Sussex students have carried out more than 600,000 searches using the site which has led to the planting of more than 8,000 trees and the removal of 500 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.

As well as helping make Ecosia the default option for many Sussex students and staff, the trio’s campaign Ecosia on Campus has encouraged and assisted students at more than 60 universities worldwide to start up their own campaigns to promote the use of the search engine leading to thousands more trees being planted.

Making a difference

Now as the three Global Studies students prepare to graduate this summer, the University of Sussex IT Services team have announced their support to increasing the Ecosia use on campus even further, helping to create a legacy for all of Fred, Amber and Erin’s hard work.

Amber said: “The environment is really on the minds of our generation around the world. It’s sometimes difficult to know how you can best make a difference but with Ecosia you can make a positive difference while doing something you would do many times a day regardless. You just have to use Ecosia instead of your normal search engines.”

Erin said: “We’re really proud of what we’ve managed to achieve. It’s been really surprising how much it has taken off but we’ve always been able to manage it and it’s never got too big for us three to manage alongside our studies.”  

Fred said: “We’re really keen that this campaign continues even after we leave the university in the summer. We’ve had a really positive meeting with the university’s director of IT and he has said he is determined that it will continue to grow even when we leave which is great to hear.”

The three students were working together on a course project when they discovered they all used Ecosia. They immediately began thinking about how they could help encourage more students to use the search engine as well.

Environmental impact

Ecosia first launched in 2009 and has since been responsible for more than 50 million trees planted in over 15 countries across the globe including in Indonesia, Senegal and Madagascar.

The website continues to grow in popularity with the rate of searches doubling in the last year alone.

The use of Ecosia really accelerated at the University of Sussex after the campaigners convinced the university’s IT Services team to make Ecosia the default homepage for Microsoft Edge. There are now plans to continue the promotion of Ecosia to increase its use among staff and students even further.

Jason Oliver, the University of Sussex’s Director of Information Technology, said: “The ITS team at Sussex are working to reduce energy consumption and waste wherever we can.  We’re very conscious of the environmental impact that technology can have if not managed carefully.  That’s why we’re proud to recommend and promote the use of Ecosia.”

To mark the success of the campaign, the three students will be planting three Rowan trees outside Chichester 1 building at the University of Sussex on Wednesday 10th April at noon.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the University of Sussex. For more information, visit the campaign’s Facebook page.

Sandiaga Uno may have personally benefited from payments made by one of Indonesia’s biggest coal miners to an offshore firm he owned, Global Witness says.

Berau Coal paid at least $43 million between 2010 and 2012 to an obscure offshore company in the Seychelles called Velodrome Worldwide Limited, according to a report released by the NGO.

Sandiaga Uno is running to become the country’s vice president in the April 2019 elections. Popular with housewives and millenials alike, he is widely perceived as the “surprise star of the 2019 presidential election campaign”.

Berau Coal

The multimillionaire, whose net worth is estimated at $360 million, said he has spent “somewhere around” $100 million in the campaign.

Presidential polls published on 21 March showed incumbent Joko Widodo (alias Jokowi) on 53.6 percent versus former general Prabowo Subianto – alongside whom Uno is running as vice-president – on 35.4 percent.

According to Global Witness, the politician’s company Recapital Advisors took ownership of Berau Coal in December 2009. One month later, Indonesia’s fifth biggest coal company contracted Velodrome to advise them on “key strategic, business and operational aspects” for a monthly fee of $2 million.

Uno was Velodrome Worldwide Limited’s only shareholder from its creation in October 2007 to May 2009, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ global database of offshore leaks. The company later passed into the hands of one of Uno’s long-standing business partners, Singaporean lawyer Ng Soon Kai.

In 2012, Berau Coal’s new controlling owners ended the agreement with Velodrome Worldwide Limited. Berau Coal later conceded that the “value of the business” with Velodrome Worldwide was “not clear”.

Foreign investments

Global Witness said Uno, as the co-founder of Recapital which then owned Berau Coal, likely had “a hand in the payments from Berau Coal to Velodrome, and that he may have benefited from them personally in some way”.

The NGO also pointed to tens of millions of dollars worth of suspect payments to co-investor Rosan Roeslani, who is currently head of Indonesia’s Chamber of Commerce, including an undisclosed alleged $3 million pay rise.

Neither Berau Coal, Recapital nor Uno could be reached for comment.

The company has been propped up by foreign investments, $950 million in Berau Coal had been sold by the end of 2012, according to Global Witness.

Financier Nat Rothschild sold his stake in 2015, describing the venture as his “first and last investment in Indonesia’s coal sector”.

Climate change 

Stuart McWilliam, lead climate campaigner at Global Witness, said: “Foreign lenders and investors have enabled the Indonesian coal industry to keep going, despite its well-known association with climate change, deadly air pollution, water and land pollution and recent corruption scandals.” 

Indonesia is the world’s fifth largest coal producer, according to the International Energy Agency.

McWilliam said: “These findings offer yet another potent reason why banks and investors should shun Indonesia’s big coal, and why politicians should withdraw their support for the significant expansion of coal-fired power in Indonesia.”

This Author

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

Eleven member states and the European Commission refused to sign a declaration they said did not match the bloc’s climate commitments.

The declaration, which is available online, was inked by 17 EU member states plus Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein, at the conclusion of a two-day informal meeting of EU energy ministers in Bucharest last week (1-2 April).

But the Commission and 11 EU countries refused to sign it because the text did not make reference to a proposed EU target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, two diplomatic sources told Euractiv.

Climate neutrality

The 11 countries are: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, and Ireland.

A diplomat explained: “We tabled amendments to reinforce the language related to the Commission’s long-term strategy” for climate change said one diplomat. Another official added: “But because these amendments were not kept, we were a bit lukewarm.”

Another diplomat from a country which did not sign the declaration was more straightforward. “For us, it lacks ambition,” adding the declaration would have “undermined” the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goal.

While the declaration does mention “climate neutrality” among the EU’s objectives, it does not make an explicit reference to 2050 as a deadline for achieving it.

“We don’t want to open the door to lower ambition for 2050,” the diplomat said in remarks that echoed divisions at a recent summit of EU leaders.

Reducing emissions 

Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, the European Commission’s spokesperson for energy and climate policy, confirmed that “the Commission did not sign the declaration for the time being.”

While the declaration does aim to “maximise the potential of the gas infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions,” Itkonen suggested it did not go far enough in supporting the Commission’s long-term strategy, which encourages EU countries to aim for net-zero emissions by 2050.

Itkonen told Euractiv in e-mailed comments: “The European Commission is committed to the climate neutral vision”, adding that “the Commission’s vision intends to set a clear direction of travel” for achieving the targets from the Paris Agreement.

The Romanian presidency, for its part, tried to play down divergences, saying EU member states were still analysing the text and were free to sign up at a later stage.

The Romanian Presidency said: “The declaration on Sustainable and Smart Gas Infrastructure represents an important base for the modernisation of the gas infrastructure with a view to accommodating growing shares of hydrogen and other renewable gases in support of the energy transition and of the Paris agreement.” 

The first diplomat was also quick to play down divisions among EU member states, saying the 2050 reference was the only real sticking point in the declaration. He said: “It’s a question of wording. There were things we wanted included in there, which didn’t make it in the final draft.” 

Carbon alternatives

The declaration itself says the signatories are “convinced that the gas infrastructure will have to play its role in the decarbonisation of the energy system, by preparing itself to transport growing shares of other gases than natural gas, such as hydrogen, biomethane, synthetic methane and by addressing the issue of vented and fugitive methane emissions.”

But Greens have warned that gas industry pledges to decarbonise and promote renewable and low-carbon alternatives were just an excuse to prolong fossil fuel operations for longer.

The Greens in the European Parliament warned in a a paper this week: “There is a high risk that illusionary renewable gas scenarios never materialise and lead to either stranded assets or a high-carbon lock-in.”

In fact, the Greens and the gas industry may have more in common than they think. In a recent interview with Euractiv, gas pipeline operators said they were currently working on joint network plans with electricity operators, which include zero-emission scenarios for 2050.

Jan Ingwersen, general manager of ENTSOG, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas said: “That automatically means there will be no fossil gas in the mix by then.”

The European Commission, for its part, said it would not support new investments in gas infrastructure without a detailed analysis of the carbon reduction they can bring.

Itkonen said: “We intend to analyse the potential role of the gas infrastructure in the future energy system, in order to transport and store near zero carbon hydrogen and renewable gases.”

This Article

Frederic Simon is news editor for EURACTIV, focussing on energy and environment. This article first appeared on Climate Home, and was produced by Euractiv.

A police investigation into conduct by the Meynell and South Staffordshire Hunt was undertaken by Derbyshire Police and based on evidence captured by the animal welfare charity League Against Cruel Sports.

The six accused will put in a plea and a case management hearing will be held.

Joint masters William Tatler and Peter Southwell, former huntsman Sam Staniland, whipper-in John ‘Ollie’ Finnegan, terrier man Andrew Bull and assistant terrier man Sam Stanley, face a charge of hunting a wild mammal with a dog contrary to Section 1 of the Hunting Act 2004.

Hunting Act

The alleged offence is said to have been committed on Saturday, 2 October 2018 in local woodland near Sutton on the Hill in Derbyshire.

Before the Hunting Act was introduced, hunts would train their hounds to kill adult foxes by first training them to hunt and kill young fox cubs living in patches of woodland. When the Hunting Act was introduced that practice was made illegal.

Martin Sims, Director of Investigations at the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “We welcome the fact that Derbyshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have brought these charges against the hunt.

“Our polling indicates that the vast majority of the public oppose hunting with packs of hounds, and if proven, these allegations that the hunt are targeting fox cubs would horrify them.”

The case comes 14 years after hunting with dogs was banned in England and Wales with the introduction of the Hunting Act 2004, which came into force in February 2005.

This Article

This article is based on a press release from the League Against Cruel Sports. 

The UK’s carbon emissions in 2018 are linked to the loss of more than 1,000 square kilometres of Arctic sea ice, conservationists have said.

WWF has calculated the impact of the UK’s pollution using research which reveals the reduction in average sea ice cover in the Arctic in September for each tonne of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

The conservation charity warned the carbon emissions put out by the UK in 2018 equates to the loss of an area of ice greater than the size of Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham combined.

Satellite

The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the average for the world with severe impacts for wildlife, WWF warned, as it called on the government to declare a “climate emergency”.

Rod Downie, chief polar adviser at WWF said: “What is happening in the Arctic is nothing short of a crisis and the world needs to wake up and act.

“Sea ice decline is one of the most visible signs of climate change on our planet. And it’s not just crucial to Arctic people and species like polar bears and walrus, but to the health of the planet as a whole.

“The bright surface of the ice reflects sunlight away from the planet and back into space, helping to keep our planet cool. “But when this ice melts, it is replaced by dark ocean which absorbs the sun’s rays, heating up our planet.”

He said the 12 lowest Arctic sea ice extents in the satellite record have all occurred in the last 12 years.

Generation

Arctic sea ice reaches its lowest extent for the year around September at the end of the summer melting season before winter weather causes the ice cover to increase again.

WWF wants the UK Government to make climate action a priority, end support for fossil fuels, including stopping fracking and airport expansion, and invest in the clean economy including renewables and electric vehicles.

The charity is also urging ministers to restore the environment at home and abroad, to help nature cope with climate change and commit the UK to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

Gareth Redmond-King, head of climate at WWF said: “We have the solutions at our fingertips, but what we’re missing is the political will to deliver them in time.

“We are the last generation who can halt catastrophic climate change. That is why we need to make our voices heard and fight for our world.”

The call comes as WWF and Netflix’s documentary series Our Planet, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, shows the impact of climate change on the natural world, including the harm to walruses of shrinking sea ice cover.

This Author

Emily Beament is the environment correspondent for the Press Association.