Food is not a commodity. It is not ‘stuff’ put together mechanically and artificially in labs and factories. Food is life.

Food holds the contributions of all beings that make the food web, and it holds the potential for maintaining and regenerating the web of life.

Food also holds the potential for health and disease, depending on how it was grown and processed. Food is therefore the living currency of the web of life. 

Industrial agriculture 

As an ancient Upanishad reminds us: “Everything is food, everything is something else’s food.” Good food is the basis for good health. But bad food, industrial food, fake food is the basis for disease.”

Hippocrates said: “Let food be thy medicine”. In Ayurveda, India’s ancient science of life, food is called ‘sarvausadha’ the medicine that cures all disease.

Industrial food systems have reduced food to a commodity, to ‘stuff’ that can then be constituted in the lab. In the process both the planet’s health and our health has been nearly destroyed.

As much as 75 percent of the planetary destruction of soil, water, biodiversity, and 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrial agriculture, which also contributes to 75 percent of food related chronic diseases.

Chemical agriculture does not return organic matter and fertility to the soil. Instead it is contributing to desertification and land degradation. It also demands more water since it destroys the soil’s natural water-holding capacity.

Food security

Industrial food systems have destroyed the biodiversity of the planet both through the spread of monocultures, and through the use of toxics and poisons that are killing bees, butterflies, insects, birds, and leading to the sixth mass extinction. 

Biodiversity-intensive and poison-free agriculture, on the other hand, produces more nutrition per acre while rejuvenating the planet. It shows the path to Zero Hunger in times of climate change. 

The industrial agriculture and toxic food model has been promoted as the only answer to economic and food security. However, globally, more than a billion people are hungry. More than three billion suffer from food-related chronic diseases. 

Industrial agriculture is based on fossil-fuel intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures, and produces only 30 percent of the food we eat despite using 75 percent of farmed land. Meanwhile, small, biodiverse farms using 25 percent of that land provides 70 percent of the food.

At this rate, if the share of industrial agriculture and industrial food in our diet is increased to 45 percent, we will have a dead planet. One with with no life and no food.

GM

The mad rush for fake food and fake meat is a recipe for accelerating the destruction of the planet and our health. It’s ignorant of the diversity of our foods and food cultures, and the role of biodiversity in maintaining the our health.

Pat Brown, CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, stated in a recent article, ‘How our commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy’, that: “We sought the safest and most environmentally responsible option that would allow us to scale our production and provide the Impossible Burger to consumers at a reasonable cost.” 

Using GMO soya is hardly an “environmentally responsible option” given the fact that 90 percent of monarch butterflies have disappeared due to pesticides including Roundup Ready Crops, and we are living through what scientists have called an ‘insectageddon’.

In writing this, Pat Brown reveals his total ignorance that weeds have evolved resistance to Roundup and have become superweeds now requiring more and more lethal herbicides.

Bill Gates and DARPA are even calling for the use of gene drives to exterminate amaranth, a sacred and nutritious food in India, because the Palmer Amaranth has become a superweed in the Roundup Ready soya fields of the USA .

At a time when the global movement to ban GMOs and Roundup is growing, promoting GMO soya as ‘fake meat’ is misleading the eater both in terms of the ontology of the burger, and on claims of safety.

Ontological confusion 

Recent court cases have showcased the links of Roundup to cancer. With the build up of liabilities related to cancer cases, the investments in Roundup Ready GMO soya is blindness to the market.

There is another ontological confusion related to fake food. Fake meat is about selling meat-like products.

Pat Brown declares: “We use genetically engineered yeast to produce heme, the ‘magic’ molecule that makes meat taste like meat — and makes the Impossible Burger the only plant-based product to deliver the delicious explosion of flavor and aroma that meat-eating consumers crave.”

I had thought that the plant based diet was for vegans and vegetarians, not meat lovers.

Indeed, the promotion of fake foods seems to have more to do with giving new life to the failing GMO agriculture and the Junk Food Industry, and the threat to it from our increasing awareness that organic, local, fresh food regenerates the planet and our health.

In consequence, investment in plant-based food companies has soared from near zero in 2009 to $600m by 2018. And these companies are looking for more.

Profits and control

Pat Brown declares: “If there’s one thing that we know, it’s that when an ancient unimprovable technology counters a better technology that is continuously improvable, it’s just a matter of time before the game is over. I think our investors see this as a $3 trillion opportunity.”

This is about profits and control. He, and those jumping on the Fake Food Goldrush, have no discernible knowledge, or consciousness about, or compassion for living beings, the web of life, nor the role of living food in weaving that web.

Their sudden awakening to ‘plant-based diets’, including GMO soya, is an ontological violation of food as a living system that connects us to the ecosystem and other beings, and indicates ignorance of the diversity of cultures that have used a diversity of plants in their diets.

Ecological sciences have been based on the recognition of the interconnections and interrelatedness between humans and nature, between diverse organisms, and within all living systems, including the human body. Ecology has thus evolved as a systems science, not a fragmented and reductionist pursuit of profit. 

Food imperialism

Diets have evolved according to climates and the local biodiversity the climate allows. The biodiversity of the soil, of the plants and our gut microbiome is one continuum.  

Technologies are tools. Tools need to be assessed on ethical, social and ecological criteria – they need to be deployed in service to our wellbeing. 

Through fake food, the web of life is being redefined as an “ancient unimprovable technology”. This view is ignorant of the sophisticated knowleges that have evolved in diverse agricultuaral and food cultures, and in diverse climate and ecosystems, to sustain and renew biodiversity and health.

The Eat forum which brought out a report that tried to impose a monoculture diet of chemically grown, hyperindustrially processed food on the world has a partnership through FrESH with the junk food industry, and Big Agriculture such as Bayer, BASF, Cargil, Pepsico amongst others.

Fake food is thus building on a century and a half of food imperialism and food colonisation of our diverse food knowledges and food cultures.

Food cultures

Big Food and Big Money is behind the fake food Industry. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are funding startups.

We need to decolonise our food cultures and our minds. The industrial west has always been arrogant, and ignorant, of the cultures it has colonised. Fake Food is just the latest step in a history of food imperialism.

Soya is a gift of East Asia, where it has been a food for millennia. It was only eaten as fermented food to remove its anti-nutritive factors.

But recently, GMO soya has created a soya imperialism, destroying plant diversity. It continues the destruction of the diversity of rich edible oils and plant-based proteins of Indian dals that we have documented.

Women from India’s slums called on me to bring our mustard back when GMO soya oil started to be dumped on India, and local oils and cold press units in villages were made illegal.

That is when we started the ‘sarson (mustard) satyagraha’ to defend our healthy cold pressed oils from dumping of hexane-extracted GMO soya oil. Hexane is a neurotoxin.

Food sovereignty 

While Indian peasants knew that pulses fix nitrogen, the west was industrialising agriculture based on synthetic nitrogen which contributes to greenhous gases, dead zones in the ocean, and dead soils.

While we ate a diversity of dals in our daily dal roti, the British colonisers, who had no idea of the richness of the nutrition of pulses, reduced them to animal food. Chana became chick pea, gahat became horse gram, tur became pigeon pea. 

We stand at a precipice of a planetary emergency, a health emergency, a crisis of farmers livelihoods.

Fake Food will acclerate the rush to collapse. Real food gives us a chance to rejuvenate the earth, our food economies, food sovereignty and food cultures. Through real food we can decolonise our food cultures and our consciousness. We can remember that food is living and gives us life.

Boycott the GMO made Impossible Burger. Make tofu. Cook dal.

This Author 

Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, and food sovereignty advocate. Read a response from Impossible Food here.

For decades, Vandana Shiva has been an outspoken activist against genetic engineering and the products that result from it, such as crops that could greatly reduce the incidence of blindness and help farmers feed their communities in an era of uncertainty due to climate change.

Impossible Foods is transparent about its use of genetic engineering, so we’ve grown accustomed to reflexive attacks from anti-genetic engineering absolutists. But this latest call for a boycott of the Impossible Burger is particularly illogical and ironic, given that its author seems to genuinely share Impossible Foods’ mission — to make the world’s food systems sustainable.

Ms. Shiva, a long-time vegetarian, also seems to agree with Impossible Foods about how to save our withering natural ecosystems: we need to eliminate animal agriculture, the leading threat to our planet’s health and our own.

Different strategies

Environmentalists, including Ms. Shiva, have been begging people for decades to reduce or eliminate animal meat from their diets, replacing it with garbanzos, lentils and other plant-based foods. They’re fighting righteously for a noble cause. But using guilt and eat-like-me rhetoric to reduce consumption of animal meat is simply not working.

Despite increasing calls from activists for a more plant-based diet, worldwide meat production has tripled over the last four decades, according to Worldwatch Institute.

Global meat production is projected to double again by 2050, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. This is a global catastrophe, and it won’t be averted by extolling the virtues of tofu and dal.

Impossible Foods has a different strategy – one that has a shot at working. Instead of expecting people to give up meat, we accept that people will continue to crave it. And instead of vilifying meat and its consumers — a tried-and-failed strategy that divides communities without slowing the destructive impact of animal farming — we want to provide omnivores with a better choice: uncompromisingly delicious, nutritious, safe and affordable meat made from plants, with a vastly reduced impact on climate and biodiversity.

Instead of telling people what to eat, we offer them a better option and let them make their own choice.

Meat industry

The use of animals to produce meat is by far the most destructive technology on Earth today. The greenhouse gas footprint of animal agriculture rivals that of every car, truck, bus, ship, airplane, and rocketship combined. Animal agriculture pollutes and consumes more water than any other industry.

The global meat, fish and dairy industry is overwhelmingly the primary driver of the ongoing meltdown in diverse wildlife populations and ecosystems on land and in oceans, rivers and lakes.

To avert ecological disaster, our most urgent priority must be to reduce or eliminate the use of animals as technology in the food system. That’s Impossible Foods’ mission — and it’s one that we think Ms. Shiva and her fans wholeheartedly embrace, despite our tactical differences.

At the same time, we need to set the record straight about a couple things Ms. Shiva gets wrong about the Impossible Burger. Impossible Foods is working to satisfy the global demand for meat by producing meat for meat lovers, from plants, with a tiny fraction of the resource consumption and environmental impact of today’s animal-derived meats.

We love vegetarians and vegans; compared to omnivores, their impact on climate and biodiversity is already tiny. Frankly, if everyone were eating virtuous tofu and dal in place of meat, Impossible Foods wouldn’t exist and wouldn’t need to exist.  

Climate change

The Impossible Burger is for omnivores, not vegetarians. More than 90 percent of Impossible Burger consumers regularly eat meat from animals. They are not choosing between an Impossible Burger and tofu; they’re choosing between meat made from plants and meat made from a cow. 

If you like tofu and dal and are happy to avoid meat from animals, by all means keep it up!  But if you love meat and intend to keep consuming it, then please try Impossible meat in your beef tacos, pork dumplings or meatballs.

Impossible’s plant-based meat has similar nutritional value to animal-derived meat – without the destructive impact on public health and the environment.

And if you care about avoiding catastrophic climate change and preserving biodiversity and healthy natural ecosystems, we should be allies, not enemies.

Preserving biodiversity

If you care about the impact of pesticides on wildlife and biodiversity, as we do, you will applaud the fact that the Impossible Burger has a pesticide footprint 8-fold lower than the same, conventional burger made from cows. The Impossible Burger also has a 25-fold lower land footprint, 8-fold lower water consumption, 12-fold lower water pollution and 9-fold lower GHG emissions than a burger from cows, based on a life-cycle analysis conducted by a respected, independent auditor.  

The overwhelming majority of the corn and soybeans in the United States and the world is fed to livestock to produce meat. It’s precisely our appetite for meat that drives most of the mono-cropping and pesticide use that Ms. Shiva blames as the biggest threat to biodiversity. 

Since making meat from plants is vastly more efficient and less wasteful than feeding crops to cows, pigs and chickens and consuming their flesh, the success of Impossible Foods mission would actually greatly reduce demand for corn and soybeans and the pesticides and fertilizers that are used to promote their growth.

Aside from those corrections, we applaud Ms. Shiva for a career spent campaigning to get people to be more conscious about their food.  We understand what she’s trying to convey with her latest mantra, “Boycott the GMO Impossible Burger. Make tofu. Cook dal.” Two-thirds of it is spot-on. But if she were to take the time to understand Impossible Foods’ mission and the benefits to our planet, its climate and biodiversity every time a consumer chooses meat from Impossible instead of meat from an animal, she’d replace that mantra with: “Make tofu. Cook dal. And if you want meat, eat Impossible.”  

Like the Impossible Burger, tofu and dal are products of human ingenuity — brilliant ways to transform ingredients from plants into delicious, nutrient-dense foods. The Impossible Burger isn’t a threat to tofu or dal; it’s a 21st century addition to the same plant-based cornucopia.

Tangible impact

Activism alone has not dented consumption of animal meat. By contrast, the Impossible Burger is already making a tangible impact. And by welcoming consumers instead of shaming them, we’re on track to accomplish our shared mission.

If you’d like a deeper understanding of Impossible Foods, read more in the What IF? blog, which answers all your questions about the extraordinary safety record of our key ingredient, our use of genetic engineering, and our mission to replace the use of animals as food technology.

After you digest all that info, we’re sure you’ll want to find the closest place to try a delicious, plant-based Impossible Burger.

This Author 

Rachel Konrad is chief communications officer at Impossible Foods.

An oil rig at the centre of a protest by environmental campaigners has been forced to make a “u-turn” on its way to a North Sea field.

The Transocean PBLJ rig was heading to the Vorlich oil field after being occupied by activists in the Cromarty Firth, north of Inverness, between Sunday and Friday.

It had left the area on Saturday but was being pursued by Greenpeace’s ship, the Arctic Sunrise, and activists failed in an attempt to re-board the rig again on Sunday morning.

Drilling

The ship then overtook the 27,000-tonne rig, which was under contract to BP, 83 miles off the Scottish coast at 1pm according to the organisation.

Approximately 20 miles away from the drill site the rig made a u-turn and headed on the same track it came from when leaving Cromarty.

Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said: “BP’s oil rig has done a U-turn and we urge chief executive Bob Dudley to do the same.

“BP must stop drilling for new oil and switch to renewables. Pope Francis is absolutely right about the climate emergency. We must take action to save future generations from a ‘brutal injustice’. And we are.

“BP told the Pope on Friday that they want to find the answer to the climate problem. Wherever that answer may lie it’s certainly not in drilling new wells to access 30 million barrels of oil at the bottom of the North Sea.

Criminal

“This is why BP will face opposition wherever they plan to drill for more oil, from the North Sea to the Arctic and from the mouth of the Amazon to the Gulf of Mexico.

“We have tried letters, meetings, petitions – none of that worked. Now we’re going to stand in BP’s way to prevent further harm to people at the sharp end of the climate crisis.

“In the long run, this is a confrontation BP can’t win. They are in it for their profits, we’re in it for our planet’s future. BP must start ditching the climate-wrecking side of its business and switch to renewables.”

A BP spokesman said: “Reckless attempts by Greenpeace protesters to interfere with the rig while under transport risk the safety not only of those individuals but anyone responding.

“There is also a clear and blatant breach of criminal law and the court orders in place against both Greenpeace and their vessel. Greenpeace is choosing to wilfully break the law.”

This Author

Douglas Barrie is a reporter with Press Association Scotland.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) has announced its protest plan to ground flights at Heathrow Airport has been put on hold.

The environmental action group had said it would demonstrate at the airport in June and July unless Government plans to build a third runway were axed.

A statement on Sunday announced the disruption was cancelled but included an “action plan” which could be followed if the plan is revived.

Life

“Extinction Rebellion will not be carrying out any actions at Heathrow Airport in June or July this year, aimed at causing disruption to holidaymakers and those planning to use the airport in this period,” it said.

“The Heathrow Airport authorities will therefore not have to pause any summer flights. Fear and apprehension have swirled around this action since an internal proposal was leaked to media.

“The subsequent accusation that Extinction Rebellion was willing to endanger life is a depressing and predictable smear.”

A leaked internal memo had shown drones would potentially be used to stage the protest.

The group’s plans, announced in May, were roundly criticised by authorities and Baroness Vere, the aviation minister, warned “using drones to deliberately put people’s safety at risk carries a maximum life sentence”. The Metropolitan Police also drew up a plan to handle the protests.

Travel

XR said if drones are used for future demonstrations then “operators will fly them at a maximum height of six feet (1.82 meters) within the restricted 5km zone surrounding Heathrow”.

They would also not be flown within flight paths, but could still be used in areas that could force the airport “to safely close airspace”, the group said.

“The airport authorities and the general public be given two months’ advance notice of the start date and time of any planned action,” it said.

“Above all, this notice period provides an appropriate period for the authorities to safely plan the closure of the airport for the duration of the action.

“We hope it also provides members of the general public with sufficient time to seek alternative travel arrangements if necessary.”

This Author

Lewis Pennock is a reporter with the Press Association.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) has announced its protest plan to ground flights at Heathrow Airport has been put on hold.

The environmental action group had said it would demonstrate at the airport in June and July unless Government plans to build a third runway were axed.

A statement on Sunday announced the disruption was cancelled but included an “action plan” which could be followed if the plan is revived.

Life

“Extinction Rebellion will not be carrying out any actions at Heathrow Airport in June or July this year, aimed at causing disruption to holidaymakers and those planning to use the airport in this period,” it said.

“The Heathrow Airport authorities will therefore not have to pause any summer flights. Fear and apprehension have swirled around this action since an internal proposal was leaked to media.

“The subsequent accusation that Extinction Rebellion was willing to endanger life is a depressing and predictable smear.”

A leaked internal memo had shown drones would potentially be used to stage the protest.

The group’s plans, announced in May, were roundly criticised by authorities and Baroness Vere, the aviation minister, warned “using drones to deliberately put people’s safety at risk carries a maximum life sentence”. The Metropolitan Police also drew up a plan to handle the protests.

Travel

XR said if drones are used for future demonstrations then “operators will fly them at a maximum height of six feet (1.82 meters) within the restricted 5km zone surrounding Heathrow”.

They would also not be flown within flight paths, but could still be used in areas that could force the airport “to safely close airspace”, the group said.

“The airport authorities and the general public be given two months’ advance notice of the start date and time of any planned action,” it said.

“Above all, this notice period provides an appropriate period for the authorities to safely plan the closure of the airport for the duration of the action.

“We hope it also provides members of the general public with sufficient time to seek alternative travel arrangements if necessary.”

This Author

Lewis Pennock is a reporter with the Press Association.

Mexico has been rightly held up as a major leader on climate change in the developing world, while putting the US Government to shame over its own inaction.

The Paris Agreement is a crucial UN-led international arrangement that intensifies global climate decarbonisation and adaptation measures, yet the Trump administration has indicated its intention to pull out.

This article was first published on The Conversation. 

Mexico has taken direct inspiration from the UK’s Climate Change Act, which requires a 34 percent reduction in national greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 (measured at 1990 emissions levels). In early June the UK government pledged a new commitment of “net zero” by 2050.

Fossil fuel lobby

Seeking to follow the UK, Mexico put its own equivalent General Law on Climate Change in place in 2012 with advice and support from British experts.

The UK is now recognised as the pioneer of this type of framework approach to climate change in the developed world, with Mexico as the equivalent torchbearer in the developing world.

But things are running far from smoothly in Mexico at present. The country’s recent election of “strongman” president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has significantly hampered the General Law’s implementation.

Since taking office in December 2018, the leftist populist has swung his attention and sympathies towards Mexico’s powerful fossil fuel lobby, supported in turn by other powerful lobbies including cement and steel.

Planning to restore the national oil company Pemex to its glory days after the previous administration opened it up to the private sector, Obrador said recently: “We are going to rescue this industry that is so important for the country’s development.”

General Law

As one of the country’s biggest employers, this announcement has gone down well with many Mexicans. But this also means the future stability of Mexico’s celebrated low-carbon transition has been cast into serious doubt.

Admittedly, the General Law was rocked and buffeted by heavy political winds since its first inception under the presidency of Felipe Calderón.

Calderón’s six-year term, which ended in November 2012, was far from smooth, given the damaging impact of economic recession and disquiet around his alleged suppression of the press. But the Calderón administration did succeed in elevating climate change to a position of serious importance on the Mexican policy agenda, bolstered by substantial support from the UK.

Just as the General Law was bedding in, Calderón was replaced by President Enrique Peña Nieto. Beset by accusations of corruption, Nieto’s administration displayed scant regard for climate concerns, and was able to leverage one of the General Law’s great deficiencies to create a culture of climate inertia – a gaping chasm between the law itself and its implementation.

In other words, the law was prescribed but the specific policies needed to achieve lower carbon emissions were not. 

Net zero

Enter the recently elected President Obrador, who is presently extending this troubling gap between law and action.

The Mexican government has long had an I-say-you-do tendency that emanates from the presidential office downward – a tradition strengthened by this recent election. Mexican presidential administrations run for six-year terms (they are non-renewable), and the current president is only getting warmed up.

Of course, in terms of broader UK/Mexico dynamics, things are far from perfect on the UK side. For starters, the UK government has now agreed to up its 2050 reduction target for emissions to net zero, but this could prove difficult to achieve in practice, and some pressure groups including Extinction Rebellion are pushing for a net zero economy by 2025.

Admittedly, Mexico’s General Law lacks stringent UK-style reduction targets altogether, instead rolling some soft aspirational targets into an annex to the legal text.

But Mexico is a poorer developing country that is not historically responsible for emissions release to the same extent that the highly industrialised developed world is.

Pioneering framework 

And so, in spite of some flaws, the Mexican scheme does set a positive example to the wider world. A growing number of countries are taking inspiration from the serious commitment Mexico and the UK have made to climate issues by scrambling to put their own version of these climate change acts in place.

Added to this, a few months before Obrador took office, in July 2018, an amendment beefed up the Mexican framework slightly to bring it into line with requirements under the international Paris Agreement. So there is still much to feel optimistic about.

It is to be hoped that the Obrador administration recognises that valuing and acting on Mexico’s important, pioneering framework begins at home.

This will allow the flow of international green finance to Mexico from the UK and other major state funders to continue. If not, the UK will be looking elsewhere for a developing nation to support it in its commitment to fighting climate change.

This Author 

Thomas L Muinzer is lecturer in energy law at the University of Dundee. This article was first published on The Conversation. 

The agency’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) came under fire in an April letter from business leaders, scientists and campaigners for not considering the tougher temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.

Since the letter, the IEA has canvassed outside experts on a new, 1.5C-compatible model. They include Joeri Rogelj, a scientist at Imperial College and lead author on a recent UN report on 1.5C warming.

He said there was “genuine interest” at the IEA and – in his view – the agency “definitely intend” to produce a new scenario.

Preliminary stage

Rogelj, a signatory of the April letter, said two options were being considered at the time he was consulted by the IEA. The first was a full pathway to reach global net zero emissions on a timeline that would fit with 1.5C.

Rogelj said: “My understanding is that modelling the entire pathway is really challenging given the resources and the time constraints they have to produce the report this year.” 

That leaves a second option that charts a course to 2030. Rogelj said this would allow the IEA to do the modelling in time for the release of this year’s WEO in November. A draft is due in July.

A spokesman for the IEA did not deny a 1.5C scenario was under consideration, but stressed that work on the WEO was at a preliminary stage.

The spokesman said: “We are currently in the review and analysis phase for the forthcoming World Energy Outlook 2019 [and] are considering new science, new technology costs, and new themes for the next edition. Until we complete the full analysis, we are not in a position to comment on the content of the WEO.”

Dangerous territory

The WEO is used by businesses, investors and governments as the global benchmark for modelling the energy industry. The outlook’s most prominent scenario is one that extrapolates current policies.

The IEA and other international bodies have repeatedly warned that this path would send the earth’s climate into dangerous territory.

The April letter said most users saw this scenario as “guiding”, potentially leading investors and policymakers to align their plans to it. In 2015 in Paris, nations agreed to hold warming “below 2C” and stretch for a 1.5 limit. This lower, less destructive goal should be reflected in the IEA’s reports, they said.

This opened a debate over the IEA’s role in setting norms around global energy use. The agency responded that it produces a range of scenarios highlighting the huge gap between the current global trajectory and a safe climate. These include a scenario under which warming is held to 2C and “sustainable development” pathway, first published in 2017.

Both of them require global emissions to peak this year. The IEA has already produced models that align to 1.5C, although it has not published them as a full scenario alongside these others.

Cutting emissions

A source who has worked closely with the IEA said a 1.5C scenario for WEO 2019 was “definitely amongst the areas being looked at and assessed and thought about”.

Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, is also consulting on the 1.5C modelling work, according to the source. “He’s always been someone who is concerned about the climate and has been seeking to push a strong focus on climate risks.”

The IEA is an intergovernmental body with 30 full members, all drawn from the OECD. They represent a range of political perspectives and economic interests. In regular meetings at its Paris headquarters, the agency briefs governments on its research and the states communicate their priorities.

Some members are unlikely to be supportive. Cutting emissions in line with 1.5C is a deep challenge for all countries, but particularly economies tied to the production of coal, oil and gas.

Last year the US, the largest contributor to the IEA budget, refused to join other countries in welcoming a UN scientific report on the impacts of 1.5C warming.

Extraordinary opportunity

Other member states are lobbying the IEA in favour of a 1.5C scenario, according to Greg Muttitt, research director of Oil Change International (OCI). The NGO is coordinating a pressure campaign involving investors, pro-climate action governments and “influential climate experts”.

Muttitt said: “This is a very live conversation in all three of those circles.” 

One of those climate luminaries is former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. She has an ongoing dialogue with Birol and the IEA on the issue of 1.5C. On Tuesday, she told CHN the agency had an “extraordinary opportunity now to step up its leadership and ensure the WEO meets its users’ needs in a rapidly changing world”.

“The timing is key,” Figueres said. National governments are bound by the Paris Agreement to update their climate pledges by the end of next year. Given it is released in November each year, the 2019 edition of the WEO has a chance to inform those plans.

“With the Paris goal of 1.5C as our clear, shared imperative, all nations will benefit from a robust 1.5C-compatible IEA scenario,” said Figures.

Rogelj said it was possible the IEA would conclude that holding below the 1.5C limit was not feasible. The agency typically considers political constraints when assessing targets. This would “highlight the real challenges you have to achieve” the goal, he said.

This Author 

Karl Mathiesen is Climate Home News’ editor. He has written for national newspapers, newswires and magazines in Australia and the UK. This story was originally published on Climate Home News. 

Image: Joeri Rogelj. University of Leeds. 

The Spanish National Court has prosecuted five people for breaching CITES and EU legislation by trying to smuggle the endangered European eel between 2011 and 2012.

The network attempted to remove 724kg of live eels, with a value equating to €580,000, from Spain to Asia but were stopped in the first major operation carried out by SEPRONA, Spain’s nature protection service of the Civil Guard.

The network falsely documented the eels for transit to Asia as other species not subject to regulations, including the American eel, the California red worm, and the flathead grey mullet.

Illegal trade

The export and import of European eel out of and into the European Union has been suspended since 2010.

However, the scale of the illegal trade remains vast: according to Europol, 300 to 350 million European eels are illegal trafficked every year from Europe to Asia, accounting for almost one quarter of the total number of glass eels (juvenile eels) entering European waters every year.

The accused have been found guilty of trading in endangered eels without national authorisation within the CITES Convention and have been sentenced to a total of six years in prison and fined €1.5 million. Two individuals are facing further charges against another case of smuggling European eel in 2017.

Precious species

Andrew Kerr, Chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group, commented: “Spain is becoming a leader within Europol through its commitment to stopping these crimes. These are major fines and imprisonment, which illustrate that wildlife crime is important and will be severely punished within Spain and the EU.”

Kerr added: “Illegal trafficking still affects 25 percent of the total stock of European Eel. To complete the full recovery of the precious species, it is vital that we stop all smuggling because it undermines every effort used to establish adequate protection from other human impacts across Europe.”

In 2018, eight tons of trafficked eels were intercepted across Europe by authorities and 100 people were detained for the contraband. Since 2011, SEPRONA alone has carried out five major interventions in the trade, which has resulted in eight tons of smuggled eels to be seized.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Seahorse Comms. 

Image: Bermuda Biology.

Reclaim the Power’s upcoming camp will target gas infrastructure and make connections between fighting for climate and migrant justice. 

Writing in Bright Green, campaigner Annie Pickering said: “The environmentally destructive and systemic racist policies of the UK government are both examples of capitalist exploitation that need fighting. For this camp we have decided that from one space we can contribute to both fights.

“To build the better world we want to see we need to take action to stop climate chaos, get rid of the racist systems we live in, and create a different way of living. Climate justice is not about simply cutting our emissions, it is about tackling the inequalities of our current society by listening and learning from those currently most affected.”

Power stations

Drax is trying to keep our energy system hooked on filthy fossil fuels for decades to come by building the UK’s largest gas fired power station this autumn.

The UK is currently planning more big gas powered electricity infrastructure than anywhere else in Europe.

With Germany and others indicating that they’ll be following the UK’s lead on the issue, what happens with Drax could help halt the development of new gas fired power stations across Europe and push us towards a more democratic, clean energy future.

It’s up to us to turn off the gas and show investors and the government what real action for the climate looks like.

Hostile environment

In our communities migrants and people targeted by racism face multiple threats to their ability to lead their lives.

In this Brexit-fueled era we want to stand in solidarity with them in facing down the racism of the state’s Hostile Environment and the emboldened far-right.

To do this work well we need to start by listening to the incredible activists at the sharp end of migrant justice

So as well as informative and inspiring talks and trainings on climate, our program is packed with chances to learn about the impact of the Hostile Environment, and ways we can take action against it.

Camp 

The camp is one in a line of many previous camps against coal, fracking and more!

The camp will be at a secret location in the South East of England, within reach of London. We will let you know exactly where nearer the time. 

It is family-friendly with a kids space with activities, toys, books and games for children. You should bring a tent, suncream, a sleeping bag, and warm clothes.

You can buy coach tickets to the camp from London here. Coaches from other cities will be arranged shortly; you can also get in contact if you want to organise transport from where you are.

We will take a piece of land and put up marquees, a kitchen, a renewable power stage, compost loos, and little sinks to wash hands, and you can pitch your tent there!

Reclaim the Power will provide compost toilets and vegan food. There will be workshops, trainings and musical entertainment. The site will be as accessible as possible, but it will be outdoors. Once on site everyone is crew and we all pitch in to help.

Get involved

Entry is on donation, plus donations to cover food. It’s expensive to run a camp so we hope people do donate but for those who cannot donate much or at all, that is no problem as the camp should be inclusive for all who want to take action!

To find out more see our website, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and instagram (@reclaimthepower), or email us.

Those who seek refuge in the UK are met by Theresa May’s “Hostile Environment” facing raids on their homes and workplaces, imprisonment for indefinite periods and violent deportations. In the wake of Brexit, this is only set to get worse.

The border is everywhere, it’s just invisible to those of us with citizenship. People at the sharp end, friends and allies have been challenging these racist regimes for years.

Now it’s time for us to step up. Based on the aims drawn up by some of the groups most affected we want to challenge the Hostile Environment at this camp.

This Article 

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist‘s content editor. This article is based on copy from Reclaim the Power. 

Campaign group Global Justice Now has launched a legal challenge at the Information Rights Tribunal over the Department for International Trade’s failure to release details of numerous trade meetings it has held with the United States and other countries since the EU referendum in 2016.
 
It follows an outcry during last week’s state visit of US President Donald Trump over whether controversial areas like the NHS and chlorinated chicken will be on the table in negotiations over a post-Brexit trade deal between the US and UK.
 
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has spent more than a year refusing to release attendee lists, agendas and minutes from the trade working groups, following Freedom of Information requests by Global Justice Now in late 2017.

Information Commissioner

At that time, the Department of Trade was known to have set up at least 14 working groups covering 21 countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China and India.

While talks over new deals cannot formally be called negotiations until after the UK’s departure from the EU, regular quarterly meetings are nonetheless already taking place with the United States, for example.
 
A ruling by the Information Commissioner in March 2019 resulted in the release of hundreds of pages of documents relating to the working groups, but these were either entirely or heavily redacted on the basis of a variety of exemptions, including the “extremely sensitive” nature of international trade agreements.

However, minutes of UK-US Trade & Investment Working Group meetings in July 2017 and November 2017 did reveal that ‘Agricultural market access’ and ‘Services’ – potentially covering the NHS – as well as ‘Labour and environmental standards’, ‘Intellectual property’, ‘Financial services’ and ‘Data, digital and e-commerce issues’ have all been on the agenda in the talks.
 
Global Justice Now is working with barrister Dr Sam Fowles and law firm Leigh Day to challenge the ruling at the Information Rights Tribunal on ten grounds, including that the requirement for confidentiality has been exaggerated, and that the balance of public interest lies in favour of disclosure.

Mockery of democracy 
 
Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said: “Trade deals are supposedly the number one benefit of Brexit, yet Liam Fox is fighting tooth and nail to keep his plans for them out of the public domain.

“After more than a year of appeals, Fox’s department has only ‘released’ hundreds of pages of blacked out documents relating to these secretive trade talks – making a mockery of democracy and taking back control.
 
“Donald Trump may have let the cat out of the bag over a US-UK trade deal last week, but the public has a right to know whether this government has already put the NHS or chlorinated chicken on the table behind closed doors.

“It is outrageous that matters as important as the future of our NHS and our food standards should be being discussed in secret, especially with parliament currently having no powers to vote to stop a trade deal after Brexit.

“We are bringing this appeal to ask the simple question: what does Liam Fox have to hide?”

Transparency 
 
Dr Sam Fowles of Cornerstone Barristers said: “The Secretary of State has contended that it is not in the public interest to disclose details of his trade negotiations. This raises an important constitutional issue.

“International Trade Agreements can have domestic impacts that are equivalent to legislation yet are not subjected to anything approaching an equivalent level of scrutiny. We will be asking the Tribunal to find, as the House of Lords Constitution Committee found, that there should be a “general principle in favour of transparency” in relation to materials relating to international trade agreements.”

Rowan Smith, solicitor at Leigh Day, said: “The UK government argues that details about Brexit trade talks must be kept confidential. To do otherwise, they say, would prejudice negotiations. But this blanket approach to secrecy is unlawful.

“Trade deals bind successive governments. Many governments, the US and Canada for example, allow their citizens to know about their negotiations.
 
“UK citizens were told by the Leave campaigns that the UK government would be able to broker better international trade agreements than the EU. The public has a right to know whether this is in fact true; is the government managing to negotiate better terms in our name?
 
“The law requires the Secretary of State to look at the specifics of the information requested by the public. It should not be imposing a blanket exemption. Our client hopes the Tribunal will intervene and ensure the Secretary of State changes his approach on this issue.”

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Global Justice Now. Global Justice Now commissioned the non-profit Request Initiative to file the FOIA request: Brendan Montague is the director and shareholder of Request Initiative.