Cutbacks and slow progress on policies to tackle climate change must be urgently reversed if the UK is to meet its new legally-binding net zero target, MPs have said.

The target to cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions to zero overall by 2050 was passed into law earlier this year – but MPs warn it will not be met without new policies to boost clean growth.

The Commons Science and Technology Committee pointed to a number of areas where Government policy to support bringing in low-carbon tech had been delayed, cut back or had undermined emissions reductions.

Heating

They include cuts to grants for low emissions cars, the freezing of fuel duty while trainand bus fares have risen and the restriction and removal of policies to improve the energy efficiency of homes, a report by the MPs said.

Committee chairman Norman Lamb said the Government was not putting in place the policies that were needed to meet its climate targets, with the UK currently not on track to meet its goals into the 2030s, let alone net zero.

“We need to see the Government put its words into actions. We heard of cutbacks in various programmes and slow progress, which are incompatible with the UK’s two upcoming, legally binding, carbon budgets – this is unacceptable.

“If governments across the world fail to act, it will have dire consequences for the environment and generations to come.”

Meeting the target requires efforts to cut carbon emissions from heating systems, improve home energy efficiency, tackle vehicle pollution, support onshore wind and solar power and sustain nuclear power without growing the industry, the report said.

Scrapped

Meeting ambitions for virtually all cars and vans to be low carbon by 2050 will require 20,000 new registrations a week on average, compared to 1,200 ultra low emissions vehicles registered each week in 2018, the report said.

The committee joined calls for the Government to bring forward a ban on the sale of new conventional cars and vans planned for 2040 to 2035 at the latest, and for it to explicitly cover hybrid vehicles.

It also called for moves to tackle emissions from car manufacturing, and urged greater efforts to reduce vehicle ownership, boost public transport and car sharing, as well as walking and cycling.

The report also said the Government must commit now to large-scale trials of low carbon heating technology such as heat pumps, and replacing gas with hydrogen.

A policy to make new homes “zero carbon”, which was scrapped before it was implemented in 2016, should be urgently reintroduced, and incentives are needed to encourage people to make energy efficiency improvements.

Zero emissions

Ministers must support new onshore wind and large-scale solar power projects which have local backing, the report added.

And the Government should publish an easily-accessible, central guide for members ofthe public explaining what measures individuals and households can take to support the UK’s emissions-cutting.

A Government spokesman said: “From transport to heating, electricity to agriculture, we are working to put in place the right measures to help us tackle global warming.

“We welcome the committee’s report and will consider its findings.

“We are going further and faster to tackle climate change than any other major economy, having legislated for net zero emissions by 2050.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

Almost three-quarters of people think the UK is already feeling the effects of climate change, according to a poll which comes after the country sweltered in record heat.

The survey by Ipsos MORI found 73 percent of people thought the impacts of rising global temperatures were already being felt in this country, compared to just over two-fifths (41 percent) in 2010. Concern about climate change has also hit record highs, the poll found.

Some 85 percent of those quizzed now say they are concerned about climate change, with more than half (52 percent) admitting to being very concerned – the highest levels Ipsos MORI has seen since it started polling on the issue in 2005.

Greenhouse

Back then, 82 percent of people were concerned about climate change, a figure which declined to 60% in 2013, before rising to the current highs.

The polling comes after the UK saw temperatures soar to new record highs before extreme rain and flooding hit parts of the country. The pollster interviewed more than 1,000 adults in the last week of July.

Of those quizzed, one in four said the recent hot weather was mainly caused by climate change driven by human activity such as burning fossil fuels, while 57 percent said it was down to a mixture of human activity and natural weather patterns. Just 15 percent blamed natural weather for the sweltering conditions.

Just over half of those polled said the UK should cut greenhouse gases to net zero more quickly than the Government’s 2050 target to help tackle the problem.

Opinion

Antonia Dickman, head of energy and environment research at Ipsos MORI, said: “In 2005/6 we saw a peak in concern about the environment, reflecting the prominence of media reporting around, for example, Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, the Kyoto Protocol coming into effect and the Stern Report.

“But climate fatigue appeared to set in, particularly in the aftermath of the economic crash when it struggled to compete for public consciousness.

“Recently, though, concern has been creeping up again and after events such as Extinction Rebellion, the school strikes for climate and the climate emergencies being declared by local authorities, this latest poll shows the highest levels of public concern for climate change that Ipsos MORI has recorded in the last 15 years.

“The number of people saying they feel ‘very’ concerned is a sign that public opinion is rebuilding in strength and the record summer temperatures across the UK might also be contributing to an increasing sense among the public that our country is already feeling the effects of climate change. “

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

The UK’s homes are some of the leakiest in Europe. Every year, we spend a small fortune on heat which simply escapes through our windows, doors, walls and floors.

As well as wasting our dwindling carbon budgets, it’s a serious public health problem. Climate change think tank E3G reckon cold homes in Britain kill as many people each year as breast or prostate cancer.

Dr Brenda Boardman, Emeritus Research Fellow at the Oxford Environmental Change Institute, wants us to think big when it comes to insulating our homes to help tackle this problem. 

Super homes

Household energy demand has been dropping, it’s about 20 percent lower than it was ten years ago, but there’s still a lot of space to up our ambition. “How far could we go, if we really wanted to?” she asks. “Could we phase out all active heating systems in all buildings?”

Buildings in Europe are ranked on their energy efficiency from A to G. If you live in the UK, your home’s probably a D, but you might be lucky enough to be higher, or unlucky enough to be lower. If your home is an A, you’re part of a very elite group.

Of the British domestic properties which have registered an energy efficiency rating, only 0.05 percent of existing dwellings and 1 percent of new builds are an A. Band A homes are rare and special beasts, intricately designed to be kept temperate with almost no heating or air conditioning.

In the UK, this means high levels of insulation, high performance windows, and a clever ventilation systems which recycle the heat lost in the home so you can make the most of it.

This is the stuff of glitzy TV home design show and architecture prizes, or so-called “superhomes” where enthusiasts have poured love, time and money into retrofitting their older homes to bring them up to scratch.

Urgent need

Boardman wants us to consider a 2050 target of everyone living in a band A home, and put low income households first in line. After all, aren’t these households the ones who most urgently need freeing from the expense and stress of energy bills?

Some of this sort of work is already happening, albeit not at scale, or to band A levels.

Take, for example, Wilmcote House, a large concrete panel building owned by Portsmouth city council. It’s in one of the most deprived areas of England, a stone’s throw from the birthplace of Charles Dickens. It was recently given a £12.9 million deep retrofit, all done with tenants in-situ, so people didn’t have to move out.

They aimed to take dwellings to a band C, saving tenants £750 a year on energy bills. As a report on the project by the LSE’s Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion notes, before the retrofit, residents had multiple issues with damp, condensation and mould, as well as draughty windows, leaky roofs and freezing rooms which were expensive to keep at a liveable temperature.

Children were having to do their homework wearing woolly hats and mould grew on walls and even mattresses. Residents were embarrassed to invite people to visit, and got used to having to lend each other money to keep their heaters on. 

After the improvements were completed in 2018, tenants were, on the whole, warmer, healthier, happier and saving hundreds of pounds per year each in energy bills. The cost worked out at about £117,000 per flat for the council, but they felt it was justified, cheaper and less disruptive than demolishing and rebuilding the block.

Insulation and ventilation 

Wilmcote House is unusual though. Ruth London, from campaign group Fuel Poverty Action, regularly sees cases were tenants have been fighting for insulation but can’t get it. She sees cases of bad retrofits too.

London explained: “The problem is usually ventilation. When this is done badly, it can end up causing damp and mould, making the space even less healthy than it was.”

Since the Grenfell fire, cladding has understandably dominated discussions about insulation, with stories of tenants living in fear as they wait to have their building’s cladding replaced. According to Fuel Poverty Action, even when cladding has been removed, replacements have sometimes been delayed. 

London continued: “When the cladding’s off, the insulation’s off, leaving people in the cold. In many cases, this has happened over the winter. People freeze. Even if you keep heating on 24 hours the flat won’t always warm up, and anyway people can’t afford to.

“The winter after Grenfell, the deaths from cold homes were 17,000. And it’s not just a matter of people being cold in their homes, but afraid to go home – sitting in cafes, libraries, anywhere they can go to get some warmth.”

Repowering London

Dave Fuller runs a community solar project in north Kensington. Talking to residents in the Lancaster West estate – the larger development the Grenfell tower is part of – he says people have been living without hot water because boilers have been shut off, as well as issues with communal heating, and problems where the cladding’s been ripped off.

Fulled said: “It’s clear people are still being screwed over in various ways when it comes to heat.”

Fuller’s solar project is part of Repowering London, whose world-leading work has already transformed communities in Brixton and Hackney.

For Repowering, solar isn’t just something for the eco-keen rich: people who own a roof and have the money to glaze it with shiny blue photovoltaic cells. It’s for everyone: the panels are installed on social housing blocks by local young people.

Repowering’s move into north Kensington – an area infamous for housing injustice for decades before the Grenfell fire – is significant. Could they take the transformative, tenant-controlled approach to heating systems? Work like this would need investment though. 

Spending plans

Nottingham council are pioneering a British rollout of a Dutch “energiespong” approach – wrapping houses with insulated panels which snap on a little like Lego – after the local authority won £5m from the EU’s European Regional Development Fund. Most councils struggle to find such funds though.

Ed Matthew, Associate Director at E3G, argues we should, at the very least, get on with cutting the amount of energy we use in British homes.

Matthew believes we should at least halve it: “It is not an option, it has to be at the heart of the government’s zero carbon energy infrastructure and spending plans.”

This Author 

Alice Bell is director at 10:10 Climate Action. This article originally appeared in 10:10 Climate Action’s book Stories of Heat from our Warming World.

Image: Lambeth Community Solar, Repowering London.

Veganuary – a global organisation encouraging people to try vegan in January and the rest of the year – is today calling on all coffee chains to drop the surcharge on plant milks.

The call comes on World Plant Milk Day, an annual collaboration between global food awareness organisation ProVeg International and vegan news service Plant Based News, which celebrates the wide array of plant-based alternatives to dairy products and highlights their many benefits – for animals, the planet and our health.

Most high-street coffee chains currently charge 20-50p extra when customers choose plant milk (soya, oat, almond, coconut). AMT Coffee is a rare exception, always offering it for free and, after collaborating with Veganuary and ProVeg, the chain will be encouraging customers to try plant milk on World Plant Milk Day by offering 25 percent off all coffees ordered with it as well as an e-voucher for a free plant-based drink.

Cliamte catastrophe 

Toni Vernelli, Head of Communications at Veganuary, said: “Charging extra for plant milk is effectively a tax on climate-conscious customers.

“Animal farming is responsible for more than half of all food-related greenhouses gases and cows are the prime cause, with each one burping out 600 litres of methane a day. The true cost of cow’s milk is climate catastrophe.”

She added: “This World Plant Milk Day we’re calling on all coffee chains to follow AMT’s lead and help halt the devastating impact animal farming has on our planet by providing free planet-friendly plant milk for all customers – before we all pay the price.”

AMT Coffee will also be encouraging customers to take part in the 7-Day Dairy-Free Challenge beginning on World Plant Milk Day, marking another milestone in the plant-based revolution and giving a glimpse of the excitement already building for Veganuary 2020 – less than five months away.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Veganuary.

Many people in Palestine live with extreme energy scarcity. Local communities have no sovereignty over their energy supply, due to Israeli occupation since 1967.

The Israeli control of energy is a key driver of environmental injustice, or ‘nakba’in Arabic, in addition to toxic waste-dumping, expropriation of water sources and destruction of Palestinian lands under the guise of nature conservation.

Much of the energy in Palestine is imported at high prices, placing a heavy economic burden on poor and marginalised communities which represent approximately half of the population. As supply is neither adequate nor reliable, many communities struggle with just a few hours of power per day.

People power

Energy scarcity is felt most keenly by rural women who bear the double burden of domestic and agricultural work.

In response, in 2003 Friends of the Earth Palestine/Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network (PENGON) began implementing renewable energy projects to build the capacity of local people, especially women, to manage their own clean energy sources.

The projects provide households, small farms, businesses and non-profit institutions like schools with reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity for their basic needs – such as lights, machinery and water pumps. 

Through training and advocacy, they put power back into the hands of Palestinian women, like Majida and Rasmeya. This is their story of People Power in action. 

Solar power 

In the Gaza Strip, the situation is urgent. Since the bombardment of power plants by Israeli fighter jets in 2006, the amount of energy produced locally has decreased to just a quarter of previous capacity.

More than 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza suffer from daily electricity shortages, which usually last for at least ten hours. The amount of fuel currently brought in covers a mere 20 percent of the electricity demand – meaning that some communities have power for only three to four hours per day.

Like many other women from marginalised Bedouin communities in Gaza, Majida rears sheep to produce milk and cheese for sale. Her business depends heavily on refrigerators, to store dairy products in the hot climate.

Majida has four children, three of whom are blind. She told us how much she suffered, living in darkness, unable to adequately care for her children. Energy scarcity caused her a lot of anger and pressure. 

Majida’s family was one of 270 families to directly benefit from PENGON’s solar projects in Gaza. Mains power has made a dramatic change for her family. She is now able to adequately attend to her children when they need help.

Majida said: “It was dark and I couldn’t do anything. I used to talk to myself, asking: ‘Why things are like that? Why is my life this way?’ 

“Now with solar energy installed, I am more comfortable, things are easier for me. Whenever they ask for anything – food, drink, clothes – I can just turn the lights on and do it.”

Positive impacts

Rasmeya and her family members have also each seen an improvement in their quality of life.

Rasmeya explained: “I suffer from pain in my chest due to asthma. I used to feel like I was suffocating in the heat and couldn’t stay home. Now I can use the fan to bring me air. My chest is better and the pain is gone.” 

“My daughter used to study using a battery operated light, and the mobile. It was really hard for her. At night when the batteries were empty we used to sit without lights.” Now her daughter is able to study in the evening, creating long-term positive impacts for her education. 

The solar energy installed four years ago has also helped Bedouin women to improve the quality and efficiency of dairy production, by powering mechanical appliances such as shakers:

“Now we use the shaker and have time to do something else, but before we had to do it manually for more than two hours. With the energy source we can use the shaker, TV, small fridge, chargers and lights.”

Farming 

In the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank, around 13 percent of the population (amounting to nearly 216,000 people) either lack a reliable power supply or have no supply at all.

Israeli restrictions on construction have impeded local communities from addressing energy scarcity themselves or building basic infrastructures for farming.

In response, PENGON members, including the Ma’an Development Center and the Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), have supplied solar units to 650 households and small farms, and run training to build community participation and leadership in the renewable energy sector.

In a context where energy scarcity intersects with gender injustice, the network seeks to widen the space for women to build their skills and to have a voice in discussions on energy policy. 

Saeed’s farm used to suffer from severe water scarcity in the hot climate. Now he and fellow small farmers are able to power water pumps for irrigation: “Solar energy stimulates farmers to continue their agricultural work.

“Before the spring was flowing randomly, but now the water is pumped in to agricultural channels. More than 50farmers have benefited from it. It’s easier and saves us a lot of costs.”

Sustainable agriculture

At the Beit Qad Permaculture Center, impacts such as this are spread through capacity-building workshops for women, men and agricultural students.

Hassan Abu Alrob explained: “Beit Qad Farm practices sustainable agriculture, which is based on using all available natural resources.

“Part of that is using the sunlight that can provide this farm with energy. Our monthly electricity cost – which used to be on average 1500 Nis (equivalent to $415) – became zero after the installationof the solar panels.” 

The farm currently uses solar to power much of their equipment: water pumps for the fish pond, a drying unit for medicinal herbs and a processing unit for dairy. They can now better care for sheep, with machines for milking and feeding, air conditioners and lighting, and they have refrigerators for storing dairy products and medication.

“We have meters linked to the municipal electricity network. Any energy surplus during summer we can provide to the municipality and then during the winter they can cover the shortage.”

This allows them to continue running training courses on sustainable farming, including workshops for women about small-scale agricultural techniques such as vertical planting, recycling boxes, barrels and pipes, and creating organic gardens with a small water source like a well or tank.

Energy sovereignty 

Solar power also reinforces the stability of non-profit institutions such as schools.

Cremzan, a sensitive area close to the wall in the West Bank, is home to the Lavagornya school, attended by 270 children. The solar energy systems installed by PENGON member the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ) now provide for a large amount of the institution’s operational costs.

Mohammad Qaraka said: “Electricity costs are a burden on the school expenses – about 1500 Nis per month. The solar panels enable us to use that money to improve employee status instead. [The school] is under threat of confiscation and this project enhances their steadfastness in this area.” 

Jane Hilal, Head of Water and Environment Research at ARIJ, explained: “The primary aim of our projects is to promote the Palestinian environment and create an environment that people can live in. We try to use water and environmental resources in the rightway in order to provide it for everybody.”

Gender justice

These real solutions for clean energy are having huge impact on peoples’ lives in Palestine, and are tackling social and climate injustice from the grassroots up, with women as protagonists.

Beyond empowering women and men to be active in the energy sector, PENGON seeks to transform energy policy by mainstreaming clean energy nationally through lobbying and advocacy. They have formed a committee that affected communities can contact for urgent environmental needs, and developed a resource guide for mainstreaming gender into energy policy.

Their impact is bolstered by relationships with local authorities and development councils.

Zahi Damakhi, a farmer in Beat Hassan, Jordan Valley, said: “The most important thing is that the ministry makes a plan to implement more clean energy projects. Speeding up the implementation of such projects will decrease the electricity bills we now have to pay to the Israeli company.”

Women and communities in Palestine are now taking their place as leaders in Palestine’s clean energy transformation.

This Author

Madeleine Race is a communications officer at Friends of the Earth International. 

PENGON’s story is one of 33 initiatives featured in the 2019 Atlas of Utopias, a global gallery of inspiring community-led transformation in water, energy, food systems and housing. Find out more on the Transformative Cities website. 

I sit with Gagik Grigoryan as he narrates his journey from cattle farmer to environmental activist.

He tells me: “The whole village was drinking this dirty water without knowing about it.” The village in question is Gndevaz, nestled in the rugged mountains of southern Armenia.

In 2016, a little-known Jersey-registered mining firm called Lydian began construction on an open-cast gold mine at Amulsar mountain, located just kilometres from Gndevaz. Local communities surrounding the mine made their opposition clear from the start. Lydian ploughed on.

Serious contamination

Two things happened in May 2018 that saw local hostility become determined resistance.

Firstly, Armenia’s “velvet revolution” saw mass protests bring down 30 years of authoritarian rule. People were now free to protest without the fear of heavy repression. 

Then, secondly, the water flowing from people’s taps in Gndevaz turned black, following a rogue explosion at the mine. This was the last straw.

On 18 May, people from Gndevaz and other surrounding villages blocked each of the roads leading to the mine to begin a 24/7 blockade that continues to this day.

For Gagik, a regular fixture at the blockade since day one, his life is on the line. “I had 20-30 cows,” he told me. “They grazed the grass on the slopes of Amulsar. As soon as they started operating, when the excavation started, our cattle stopped eating the grass we had gathered for the winter.

“The cattle didn’t even drink the water. How could we keep these animals? The cows started giving less milk so we had to kill or sell them. Our village used to have 300 to 400 cows and now we have only 100.”

Halted construction 

Constant explosions at the mine covered the surrounding villages with dust, stopping cattle grazing. And with Amulsar mountain the source of two major rivers, as well as the starting point for a network of dams and tunnels that feed Armenia’s largest source of fresh water, Lake Sevan, scientists have warned that water contamination is a serious threat.

The impacts for Gagik’s livelihood have been profound. While his dairy farm had established links with around 40 shops in the capital city of Yerevan, as news spread about Lydian’s operations, business dried up: 

“Yerevan citizens considered our products toxic and not suitable for use. We had invested around 70-80 Armenian Dram [£120,000-140,000] in the dairy but we had to stop it because we couldn’t run it.”

The community blockade at Amulsar – which has stopped construction on the mine completely and has prevented any gold from being extracted – has helped Gagik’s farm get back on its feet: 

“We have resumed our operations and have started supplying our goods to Yerevan again because people are aware that the construction has stopped. That’s why the sales are OK now.”

Corporate courts

But Gagik’s business, the local communities of Amulsar and the Armenian people more broadly now face a new threat: corporate courts.

Technically known as investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), corporate courts allow investors like Lydian to sue governments in secret tribunals for policies that might curb their profits.

Having previously been used by multinationals to attack everything from minimum wage policies to plain cigarette packaging, corporate courts lawsuits can only be brought by foreign investors, not domestic companies or governments themselves. The average award paid out to investors is £400m. No appeal process is offered.

All this, then, offers a last-resort for crisis-hit Lydian. Armenia’s new government, elected in April 2018 on the back of a so-called ‘velvet revolution’ that toppled the previous authoritarian regime, have until recently been on the fence about the mine and have refused to remove local protesters. 

However, Lydian’s threat of a $2bn corporate courts lawsuit has effectively bullied the Armenian government into submission. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan formally authorised the mine this week amidst vociferous protest and violent police repression. The next step will likely be an attempt to forcefully remove the community blockade.

Gagik and his dairy farm, meanwhile, have no option of an international lawsuit to challenge this disastrous decision. 

What if?

But if the past year tells us anything, it’s that the Armenian people’s resolve will take some beating. In Gagik’s words: “The health and future of our children. This is what’s important. I am not going to leave this mountain. If I am not able my sons will do it. If my sons are not able my grandchildren will do it.”

What if we followed the lead of Gagik and the communities surrounding Amulsar? What if we heeded the words of children and grandchildren taking to the streets for their future right now, not just in Armenia but across the world?

Perhaps the corporate courts set up to protect the multinationals uprooting the earth from beneath our feet could become a thing of the past. Perhaps a world where water was respected as more precious than gold could be in our sights.

This Author

James Angel is campaigns and policy manager at Global Justice Now.

Image: Gagik Grigoryan. 

A nuclear reactor at a power station will temporarily return to service after being shut down last year when cracks were found in its core.

Reactor 4 at Hunterston B power station in North Ayrshire was one of two remaining reactors at the plant taken out of service last year.

Now, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has given operator EDF Energy the go-ahead to return Reactor 4 to service for up to four months.

Safe

The ONR said it had focused on whether cracks seen in the reactor graphite core will compromise safety and concluded “an adequate safety case has been provided to allow a further period of operation”.

In a statement, the ONR said: “ONR is satisfied that Reactor 4 is safe to operate for the next period and can be safely shut down in all foreseeable circumstances, including that of a significant seismic event.”

Donald Urquhart, ONR deputy chief inspector, said: “We have made the decision to allow Reactor 4 at Hunterston B to return to service following a long and detailed assessment of the safety case submitted by EDF Energy.”

He added: “Nuclear safety remains our utmost priority and we would only allow a reactor to restart with clear evidence that it remains safe for workers and the public.”

The ONR said the longer-term condition of the reactor “remains uncertain” and EDF Energy “will need to justify safe operation” beyond the four-month period.

Renewable

Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer raised concerns over previous safety incidents at the plant, described by EDF Energy as minor.

The politician said these combined with the cracks “paint the picture of an ageing relic being pushed beyond its already repeatedly extended lifespan”.

Friends of the Earth Scotland director Richard Dixon said: “Restarting the Hunterston reactors is definitely not worth the risk.

“Most people in Scotland will not even have noticed these reactors at Hunterston have been offline for so long as dependable renewable energy has more than made up for the difference.”

Assessment

EDF Energy said in a statement: “We are pleased to confirm that the independent nuclear safety regulator, ONR, has given permission for EDF Energy to re-start Reactor 4 at Hunterston B power station.”

The energy company said tests have “demonstrated that even in the most extreme conditions our reactors operate within large safety margins”, adding the control rods will “safely shut down the reactor in all circumstances”.

The core will continue to be monitored to “ensure safe operations at all times”.

The safety case for returning Reactor 3 at Hunterston to service has been submitted to the ONR and the regulator said it would begin assessment shortly.

This Author

Laura Paterson is a reporter with PA Scotland. 

Gene-editing is seen by many as the ultimate in precision breeding. Polled cattle, whose horns have been genetically removed, have been presented as exemplars of this – a socially beneficial use of precise genome engineering.

Such hornless cattle were produced in 2016 by Recombinetics, Inc., of St. Paul, Minnesota, a development that was reported in the journal Nature Biotechnology. 

In that publication, Recombinetics researchers reported detecting no unexpected alterations, such as insertions or deletions of DNA, as a result of the gene-editing procedure. They concluded “our animals are free of off-target events” (Carlson et al, 2016).

Genome editing 

The Carlson claim, along with other assertions of precision, have comprised the major ingredient of a larger global argument, led by the biotech sector, in favour of light (or no) oversight of animals and plants produced through gene-editing.

Thus, in a commentary titled ‘Regulate genome-edited products, not genome editing itself‘ which accompanied the Carlson publication, academic researchers led by Dana Carroll, some of whom are associated with Recombinetics, stated:

“Any mutations leading to obviously deleterious phenotypes would be eliminated from breeding programs. Other hypothetical risks, such as a modified protein that turned out to be allergenic to humans, might equally well arise naturally in the absence of human intervention.

“The effects of genome editing are largely identical to those of the natural processes that continually create variation in the genomes of food animals. From this point of view, it is hard to see why the process of genome editing to introduce defined genetic changes should be regulated”

But, in a paper just published online (July 28th, 2019), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) researchers re-examined the DNA of the genetically dehorned calves, whose genome sequences had been posted online by Recombinetics . In fact, the two calves’ genomes did contain unintended DNA alterations.

Antibiotic resistance

One calf was found by FDA to have an unintended duplication of the polled gene locus; while the DNA of both calves contained two antibiotic resistance genes, along with various other gene sequences of bacterial origin.

The inadvertently introduced bacterial sequences were found close to the editing site. Of the two antibiotic resistance genes found by FDA, one confers Neomycin/Kanamycin resistance and the other Ampicillin resistance.

The presence of the previously undetected antibiotic resistance genes in gene-edited cattle raises issues of biosafety given that there is a strong global push to limit the spread of genes conferring antibiotic resistance. This is because every cell of the gene-edited cattle with the polled locus will also contain the resistance genes, allowing them to easily be transferred to bacteria.

The FDA researchers’ discovery of bacterial DNA in the genome of the calves raises more general regulatory questions about gene-editing too, beyond a lack of precision.

The unexpected DNA sequences detected by the FDA researchers originate from the plasmid (a DNA carrier) used by Recombinetics to introduce the polled DNA sequence. As the commentators themselves, arguing for regulatory exemption, proposed in 2016:

“Given that the United States has no specific legislation regulating animal breeding, there would appear to be no authority for the FDA to regulate varieties that carry naturally occurring alleles produced using genome editing”.

Authority to regulate 

But what the new FDA finding demonstrates is that the Recombinetics gene-edited cattle do contain DNA unnatural to cattle, despite the claims of their developers to the contrary. Thus FDA does have the authority to regulate.

Other researchers have in the past called on genetic engineers to rigorously exclude potential contaminating DNA, such as unwanted bacterial plasmid DNA, as part of standard experimental procedures. Recombinetics apparently failed to do this.

FDA’s demonstration that gene-editing techniques can, unbeknownst to the developer, introduce foreign DNA is likely to be seen as a significant blow to the no-regulation argument. It is also a powerful vindication of the EU approach, which is to regulate gene-edited organisms as GMOs.

These Authors

Jonathan Latham is a molecular biologist and former genetic engineer. This article was first published by Independent Science News. 

Image: PETA. 

A new report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called for us to make radical changes to the way we farm and eat to prevent further global warming. But what did the IPPC report actually say on meat eating? Were the NFU and others right to say reporting was misleading?

As ever, the issues are complex, hard to convey accurately in an eye-catching headline or a snappy tweet.

The IPCC is clear that, on a global level, ruminant livestock – that’s cattle and sheep – carry a high greenhouse gas footprint. This leads to the conclusion that if we eat less red meat, we can reduce these emissions. 

Intensive production 

However, the IPCC acknowledges that “analysing ruminant meat production is highly complex” because the way it is farmed varies hugely across the globe, and the authors note the environmental benefits of cattle and sheep in grass-fed systems. They say: “Ruminants can have positive ecological effects (species diversity, soil carbon) if they are fed extensively on existing grasslands.” 

So where and how we produce meat and dairy matters. American style “feed lot” beef production, where cows are kept in confinement eating masses of grain and protein crops that could feed humans, is both ethically and environmentally wrong. But cattle grazing biodiverse grasslands, where appropriate incorporating loads of trees, can bring multiple benefits. 

To grow arable (cereal) crops like wheat and barley, farmers need to build fertility in the soils to provide nutrients, especially nitrogen, to feed those crops. But synthetic nitrogen is very energy intensive to make and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and soil erosion – indeed the UK’s arable soils have lost 40-60 percent of their soil carbon already.

Organic farmers avoid synthetic nitrogen by rotating their cereal crop fields with leguminous crops like clover and sainfoin – which naturally pull nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil.

When farming in this nature-friendly way, it makes economic and environmental sense to allow animals to graze these crops, building organic matter in the soil along the way. 

Harmful and inhumane

The IPPC deliberates on the debate between red meat and that from monogastric animals like pigs and poultry. From a climate change point of view, monogastrics are a problem because feeding them can lead to land use change with rainforests being destroyed or savannah grasslands ploughed out to grow the grain these animals eat. 

The report concludes that while ruminants (like cows) emit methane – a very potent greenhouse gas, but one which is short-lived – a stable population of ruminants will not add to global warming, while a rapid increase or decrease will. Destroying forest habitats to grow more grain for pigs and chicken certainly will make matters worse. 

So, while the IPCC arrives at an unambiguous directive towards “adoption of diets low in animal sourced products”, they state that their primary concern is with reductions in the consumption of grain-fed livestock. 

The authors note there is robust evidence that what we eat has a significant impact on carbon emissions and that this is “driven particularly through the amount of (especially grain-fed) livestock and products”. 

This is the Soil Association’s position too, and not just from a climate change perspective. Many of the grain dependent, intensive animal systems around the world are inhumane, dependent on antibiotics, and produce extraordinary amounts of manures that can be a problem in themselves in less well-regulated countries than the UK. 

Major shift

Finally, did the IPCC (as the Guardian claims) promote “a major shift towards vegetarian and vegan diets”? Well, no. 

The IPCC does present a table showing a hierarchy of diet patterns, with vegan and vegetarian diets shown to have the lowest greenhouse gas footprint, but it does not go on to propose that these diets should be prioritised. 

The final summary for policy-makers promotes: “Balanced diets, featuring plant-based foods, such as those based on coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and animal-sourced food produced in resilient, sustainable and low-greenhouse gas emission systems.”  

They add: “The question is not about eating less meat for everyone, but to adopt sustainable supply and consumption practices across a broad range of food systems.”  And so say all of us.

The Author

Helen Browning is an organic farmer and business owner. She is chief executive of the Soil Association and a member of the Food Ethics Council.

Sainsbury’s has confirmed that it is stopping the production and sale of their own-brand plastic tampon applicators, following a targeted campaign co-ordinated by Ella Daish. 

The supermarket is delisting and removing their own-brand range of ‘compact’ plastic tampon applicators from stores, with all of these products being taken off the shelves by the end of August 2019.

Ella told The Ecologist: “This is a significant and welcome step towards ending the production of unnecessary plastic at source.” Her campaign to end period plastic calls on manufacturers to remove it from all their menstrual products. 

Increased participation

Plastic pollution has gained a lot of media attention over the last two years and has made many consumers consider the way they use plastic, the waste it generates and the damage it is causes worldwide.  People are becoming aware of the impacts their purchasing choices have and are changing the way they spend.

With plastic bags, bottles and straws usually dominating the discussion, period products don’t often get spoken about, meaning that many are unaware of the hidden plastic they contain. However, this is changing. This year the campaign has mobilised 200,000 participants – awareness is rising and with it the number of people that are demanding manufacturers to bring about change.

Plastic tampon applicators are a huge issue, they are used for seconds, yet take centuries to break down. People have sent me pictures of plastic applicator pollution from the islands of Scotland, down to the beaches in Cornwall, everywhere in-between and beyond.

Making change

There are plenty of viable alternatives that avoid plastic including cardboard applicators and non-applicators, which is why I’ve been urging manufacturers to stop using plastic.

Ella said: “There is no excuse to make them out of plastic, it’s unnecessary and the environmental impacts they have are avoidable. This is why the step taken by Sainsbury’s is so important.

“It’s fantastic that Sainsbury’s have made the decision to delist their own-brand range of plastic tampon applicators, they are the first manufacturing decision maker on the campaign to completely remove them from their range. Other retailers now need to follow their lead.  This is the kind of positive change we need manufacturers and supermarkets to be actively taking, it proves it can be done.”

This Article 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist.