Tens of thousands of children across the UK have bunked off school on Friday as part of a global climate strike, campaigners said.

The international movement, Fridays For Future, which was started by teenage activist Greta Thunberg in 2018, encourages pupils to protest against governments’ lack of action on climate change by not attending school on Fridays.

Around 120 demonstrations are being staged around the UK, as well as over 3,000 worldwide in 150 countries.

Skyrocket

The protests come following a cross-party leaders’ debate on climate change that was broadcast on Channel 4 on Thursday evening.

Activists say it is vital that the environment is pushed to the top of the political agenda.

Jake Woodier, campaigner with the UK Student Climate Network, said: “The idea is to make sure that there is enough pressure on the electorate and to highlight that this is not any ordinary election, it’s a climate election.

“Over the past year young people have been taking to the streets on a monthly basis to highlight the urgent need for action on the climate crisis.

“This has seen public concern skyrocket, and it’s essential that this concern translates at the ballot box in December.

Idiots

“We’ve got incredibly limited time to address the climate crisis and the next government will be in charge for five vital years that we can’t afford to lose.”

Hundreds of young people gathered in Parliament Square in central London on Friday morning.

Among them was 12-year-old Niamh, who travelled from Guildford to attend the demonstration with her brother Finn, 10, and father Simon.

Speaking to the PA news agency, she said: “It’s not fair. It’s going to affect my generation who won’t know what a polar bear is.

“If we’re off school it will make a difference. I think the government is doing a bit but we’re being idiots about it.”

Democracy

Simon, 43, added: “I think it’s good to get them involved and be socially aware, to get involved to fix this for everyone. “If we don’t, we’re buggered.”

Similar protests are taking place in other UK cities such as Cambridge, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

The UK Student Climate network says that although the majority of attendees are young people there are an increasing number of adults at Fridays For Future events.

Gwen, 48, from north London, said: “They [the kids] need to be empowered. They need to know they can make a difference. They need to know that they can change the world for the better.”

Her son Tariq, 12, said: “We’re here because we want democracy and [the Government] to give us a Citizens’ Assembly and to end climate change.

Moral

“They are the ones with the power to give us what we want. His friend Tom, 13, added: “It’s important stuff.”

The young activists were joined at Westminster by other groups and chanted “where the **** is the government?”

When asked about the language used, Gwen said: “They’re going to be exposed to it at some point – I’d rather it was at a protest march.”

Activists in London plan to unfurl a 30-metre long banner with a “message to the electorate” on Westminster Bridge on Friday afternoon.

Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said that youth demonstrators were the “moral conscience not just of their generation but the whole of our society”.

Debate

“These young people are walking out of school to teach us a big lesson on what it means to be responsible adults,” he said.

“Because there’s no running away from a nature and climate emergency that’s erupting all around us.

“Whoever’s going to be the UK’s next prime minister must realise the gravity of the situation and be willing to take the radical action needed to address it.”

During the Channel 4 debate Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s leader Adam Price and Green co-leader Sian Berry discussed their party’s plans for climate action.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Brexit Party’s Nigel Farage declined to take part in the debate.

Scared

Their absence was represented by two circular ice sculptures engraved with maps of the world which stood melting on stage throughout the hour-long programme.

The Conservatives have complained to Ofcom about the sculpture.

Tory minister Michael Gove also posted a video on Twitter, saying he asked to take part in the debate but was refused.

Mr Gove, a former environment secretary, said that the snub was a “denial of debate” and that the other parties were “running scared of debating the Conservatives”.

This Author

Mike Bedigan is a reporter for PA.

Massive Attack are teaming up with climate scientists to map the carbon footprint of the band while they are on tour.

Data from the Bristol-based group’s forthcoming tour schedule – including band travel and audience transportation – will be collected and analysed in a joint collaboration with the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre.

In a statement, Massive Attack said: “For some time, despite taking consistent steps to reduce the environmental impact associated with an internationally touring music group, we’ve been concerned and preoccupied with the carbon footprint of our schedules and the wider impact of our sector overall.

Impact

“This concern has deepened with each new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the universal acceptance of the climate and biodiversity emergency.

“Any unilateral statement or protest we make alone as one band will not make a meaningful difference. In pursuing systemic change, there is no substitute for collective action.

“In contribution to this action, we’re announcing the commission of the renowned Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester – a body that brings together scientists, economists, engineers and social scientists to research options to mitigate global warming – to map thoroughly the carbon footprint of band tour cycles, and to present options that can be implemented quickly to begin a meaningful reduction of impact.”

Dr Chris Jones, research fellow at Tyndall, said: “Every industry has varying degrees of carbon impact to address and we need partnerships like this one to look at reducing carbon emissions across the board.

Industry

“It’s more effective to have a sustained process of emissions reductions across the sector than for individual artists (to) quit live performances. It will likely mean a major shift in how things are done now, involving not just the band but the rest of the business and the audience.”

Last week, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said the band will not launch a globe-trotting tour for their latest album because of environmental concerns.

Massive Attack star Robert “3D” Del Naja wrote in the Guardian that they have “discussed ending touring altogether – an important option that deserves consideration”.

“In reality, however, an entire international roster of acts would need to stop touring to achieve the required impact,” he added. “In a major employment industry with hundreds of acts, this isn’t about to happen.”

This Author

 Kim Pilling is a reporter with PA.

Cattle farming is the main driver of illegal land seizures on Reserves and Indigenous territories in Brazil’s Amazon, fuelling deforestation and trampling on the rights of Indigenous and traditional people living there, Amnesty International has said in a new report. 

The 29-page report – Fence off and bring cattle: Illegal cattle farming in Brazil’s Amazon – was released as Amnesty, alongside Indigenous leaders from the Amazon, presented a petition with more than 162,000 signatures to Brazilian authorities calling on them to stop illegal seizures of protected land in the Amazon.

Richard Pearshouse, Amnesty International’s Head of Crisis and Environment, said: “Illegal cattle ranching is the main driver of Amazon deforestation. It poses a very real threat, not only to the human rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples who live there, but also to the entire planet’s ecosystem.”

Criminal activity

Pearshouse continued: “While the Bolsonaro administration slashes environmental protections at the Federal level, some state authorities are effectively enabling the illegal cattle farming which destroys protected areas of the rainforest.

“The public has a right to know about cattle ranching in protected areas – after all, this is criminal activity. Brazilian authorities must make this information publicly available and take meaningful steps to end illegal cattle farming in protected areas.”

Around two-thirds of the areas of the Amazon deforested between 1988 and 2014 have been fenced off, burned and converted to grazing pasture – almost 500,000 km2, a total land area equivalent to five times the size of Portugal. Amnesty’s report documents how some state authorities are effectively enabling cattle farming in protected areas.

Amnesty visited five protected areas in Brazil’s Amazon throughout 2019: the Karipuna and Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous territories and the Rio Ouro Preto and Rio Jacy-Paraná Reserves (in Rondônia state), and the Manoki Indigenous territory (in Mato Grosso state).

Reserves are areas designated for the protection of the environment, the livelihoods and culture of its traditional populations including the sustainable use of its natural resources. Along with Indigenous territories, they are protected under Brazilian law and international treaties.

Land seizure

Official data, satellite imagery and site visits by Amnesty show how illegal land seizures, by and large linked to cattle ranching, are on the rise in all five of these areas.

Cattle farmers and grileiros –private individuals who illegally seize land – follow a broad pattern to convert tropical rainforest into pasture in Brazil’s Amazon. Plots of land in the forest are identified, trees are cut down and cleared, and then fires are lit (often repeatedly in the same area), before grass is planted and cattle then introduced.

New roads being cut and the appearance of campsites in the protected forest are among the warning signs that this process has begun. Amnesty documented how these activities have been rife in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous territory in Rondônia, much of which overlaps with the Pacaás Novos National Park, where a federal environmental agent said more than 40km of new roads had appeared since 2017.

Another tell-tale sign that illegal farmers and grileiros are trying to seize land is the fencing off and burning down of large areas of the forest. Amnesty witnessed and recorded drone footage of this happening in Manoki Indigenous territory in Mato Grosso on 23 August 2019.

A Manoki leader told Amnesty it was part of intensified efforts by ranchers to destroy protected forest and convert the land to cow pasture. Amnesty observed cattle grazing in at least six different locations in Manoki territory.

Violence

Amnesty analysed remote sensing burn data and satellite imagery across the five territories and a clear pattern emerged. In multiple cases, satellite imagery captured land being burned adjacent to areas with cattle visibly roaming freely within protected areas. In some cases, probable paths from cattle moving through recently burned areas were visible.

Indigenous and traditional residents in four of the five protected areas told Amnesty International how these new invasions have often been accompanied by violence, threats and intimidation. At the fifth site, Rio Jacy-Paraná reserve, virtually all the original inhabitants have now been forcibly evicted from the reserve and are afraid to return because armed invaders involved in cattle farming now live on their land.

Government agencies with the mandate to protect the reserves have also been targeted. An environmental agent near Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau territory told Amnesty International: “We were surrounded by invaders. Thirty-two men, mostly hooded, arrived by foot behind us, with bottles of gas … There was a lot of shouting, threats, calling us ‘thugs’.”

The tense standoff lasted over an hour before the assailants left, but several weeks later they began sending the environmental agents audio messages with threats of violence.

In some cases, including in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous territory, the threat of armed violence against Indigenous peoples and environmental protection workers has been so severe that the armed forces and federal police have had to intervene.

Indigenous territories

Amnesty’s research revealed that, not only has the Bolsonaro administration cut funding to and otherwise undermined environmental and Indigenous protection agencies, but some state agencies are effectively enabling cattle ranching in protected areas.

State laws require state animal health control agencies to visit and register farms and track cattle movements.

Amnesty filed Freedom of Information (FOI) requests with state authorities in both Rondônia and Mato Grosso to access data on the number of cattle grazing in protected areas and on cattle movement.

Rondônia’s animal health control agency responded with incomplete data. Despite receiving five different FOI requests, Mato Grosso authorities declined to share any data at all.

The data that Amnesty obtained for Rondônia shows that there were over 295,000 cattle in Indigenous territories and environmentally protected areas in that state in November 2018.

This Author

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. This article is based on a press release from Amnesty International. 

Image: Amnesty International. 

The world’s fifteen largest asset managers command $37 trillion in assets under management, giving them huge influence over the global economy. But they are collectively failing to drive forward the transition needed to support international climate targets, finds a new report by InfluenceMap. 

These institutions manage portfolios containing a fifth of the total value of world capital markets, but the UK-based think tank reveals that their investments in sectors of crucial importance to climate change are significantly at odds with the rapid transition to a low-carbon economy needed to support the Paris Agreement goal of “keeping global warming well below 2°C while aiming for 1.5°C”.

Thomas O’Neill, research director of InfluenceMap, said: “If global asset managers wish to support the Paris Agreement and remain invested in the automotive, power and fossil fuel industries then they must engage robustly with companies in these sectors to accelerate their switch to low carbon technologies and ensure their policy lobbying supports climate targets.”

Pernicious lobbying 

Christiana Figueres, founding partner at Global Optimism, and former executive secretary at UNFCCC, said: “The asset management industry is only starting to be aligned with the Paris Agreement. In the face of the climate emergency, it is critical for investors to show companies the path to follow.”

‘Asset Managers and Climate Change’ is the first study to analyze the nature of asset managers’ engagement with companies on climate, highlighting the fact that the global leaders’ shareholdings and relationships give them huge leverage to drive corporate action to support the Paris Agreement.

Companies’ climate engagement performance is closely reflected in their record of voting on shareholder resolutions designed to support the Paris targets. BlackRock and Capital Group voted against 90 percent  of resolutions in 2018 while other US asset managers voted against the majority.

The report also highlights five smaller US and UK asset managers “who appear to be doing the ‘heavy lifting’ for the entire industry”, for example, filing 20 percent of all climate resolutions in 2018: Trillium Asset Management (which filed seven resolutions); Hermes Investment Management; Sarasin & Partners; Walden Asset Management; and Zevin Asset Management.

Fiona Reynolds, CEO of the Principles for Responsible Investment, said: “InfluenceMap is providing an invaluable knowledge base to investors, policy makers and civil society in exposing the pernicious negative climate lobbying activities of many business groups. We are pleased to see their analysis now extending to investors’ portfolio alignment with the Paris Agreement and corporate engagement programs on climate.”

Public benchmark

Reynolds continued: “Investors have a key role to play in addressing climate change and they need to use all the tools at their disposal. While there are many climate leaders in the investment community, there are also many laggards. 

“This new work by InfluenceMap will become another significant reference point in the finance sector to help track and inform decisions around institutional investment strategies and good governance in responding to the climate challenge.”

The study is the first output from InfluenceMap’s FinanceMap project, which aims to provide a public benchmark on how well the asset management sector is performing on climate change.

The project notes growing demands for radical action to address the climate emergency from both the public and institutional investors, notably the Climate Action 100+ investor engagement process which is prioritising the transformation of corporate business models and lobbying on climate.

FinanceMap analysed 50,000 listed funds managed by 150 financial groups and identified $8.2 trillion of holdings in four key industrial sectors: oil & gas; coal mining; automotive; and electric power.

Portfolio misalignment

It identified 850 companies held by these financial groups, assessed their production plans and compared them with the transition to low-carbon technologies that is consistent with limiting global warming to 1.75°, using the International Energy Agency’s Below 2 Degrees Scenario (B2DS).

It found that the equity portfolios of the top 15 asset management groups were misaligned with this goal, with a deviation of between minus 16 percent and minus 21 percent from a portfolio of investments aligned with the Paris target. This implies they are overweight in companies deploying brown technologies, and underweight in those deploying green in four key sectors: automotive, oil & gas, electric power and coal production, which represent roughly 10 percent of global equity markets.

The report notes that the portfolio misalignment reflects the fact that these asset managers are “universal owners” investing in the entire market, and recognises that divestment or significant underweighting of certain sectors may be difficult, especially given the current widespread use of index-driven portfolio allocation.

Forceful engagement with the companies in these sectors to hasten their transition to low carbon technologies must occur if the finance sector wishes to align its portfolios with climate goals. The majority of companies in these sectors are very far from aligning their business models to meet the goals of Paris.

Binding policy

The portfolio analysis reveals that “despite an almost continuous drumbeat of commitments and pledges from the world’s automakers to electrify their fleets” the automotive sector is the one which is furthest away from alignment with the Paris Agreement.

In 2018 the world’s automakers produced 96 million vehicles across all platforms, of which 1.4 percent were electric (EVs).  FinanceMap’s analysis suggests this will evolve by 2024 to 101 million vehicles in total, of which 4.2 million (4.2 parent) will be electric.  However, the IEA’s B2DS scenario requires at least 9.2 million EVs by 2024, illustrating the sector’s very significant misalignment with a 1.75°C pathway. 

In the US, industry lobbying has prevented Obama-era efficiency standards being implemented and, at a global level, the industry has strongly opposed binding policy to achieve a transition to electric vehicles in line with the Paris Agreement.

This sector-wide lag in EV uptake by the automakers and their lobbying to delay EV regulations illustrates the difficulties investors will have in using portfolio allocation alone to drive climate goals in finance – hence the focus on changing company behavior by engagement.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from InfluenceMap. 

Visitors might begin experiencing shortness of breath after one or two minutes inside artist Michael Pinsky’s Pollution Pods, but there’s nothing dangerous in the air in the pods.

Safe perfume blends and fog machines imitate the air quality of some of the world’s most polluted cities – London, Beijing, São Paulo, New Delhi – as well as one of the most pristine environments on earth, Tautra in Norway. 

Outside the pods, however, air pollution has been declared a public health priority by the World Health Organization (WHO).  Largely caused by the same burning of fossil fuels that is driving climate change, polluted air is poisoning nine out of ten of us and killing over seven million of us prematurely every year. Children are especially vulnerable: 600,000 children die prematurelyevery year from air pollution related diseases.

Air pollution 

As part of the BreatheLife Campaign, which mobilizes governments and communities to reduce the impact of air pollution on our health & climate, this viscerally powerful art installation will be installed at the COP25 climate summit.

Negotiators, observers and world leaders attending the summit will be encouraged to walk through the pods, which are being brought to Madrid by Cape Farewell, WHO, Clean Air Fund and Ministry of Ecological Transition, Spain.

Pinsky, said: “In the Pollution Pods, I have tried to distil the whole bodily sense of being in each place.  For instance, being in São Paulo seems like a sanctuary compared to New Delhi, until your eyes start to water from the sensation of ethanol, whilst Tautra is unlike any air you’ll have ever breathed before, it is so pure.”  

Visitors to the Pollution Pods at COP25 will experience the sensation of air pollution for a few minutes, but breathing toxic air is the reality for millions of people every day of their lives. 

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO said: “We need to agree unequivocally on the need for a world free of air pollution. We need all countries and cities to commit to meeting WHO air quality guidelines.”

Climate change

Throughout the life course, exposure to air pollution is a major risk for chronic heart and respiratory disease and can inhibit proper brain and lung development in children. 

A study by the Lancet showed that four million cases of childhood asthma every year, including 240,000 in the United States, could be caused by air pollution resulting from traffic fumes.   

Dr Maria Neira, WHO director of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, said: “The true cost of climate change is felt in our hospitals and in our lungs. The health burden of polluting energy sources is now so high, that moving to cleaner and more sustainable choices for energy supply, transport and food systems effectively pays for itself. When health is taken into account, climate change mitigation is an opportunity, not a cost”.

Teresa Ribera, Minister for the Ecological Transition of Spain, said: “Air pollution and climate change are the two sides of the same coin. The symbolic installation of the Pollution Pods at COP25 should remind everybody that we are negotiating for cleaner environments, cutting emissions and gaining better health for all.”

Jane Burston, Executive Director, Clean Air Fund, said: “The Clean Air Fund has projects in all four of the cities represented in the Pollution Pods. Air pollution has a terrible impact on people’s health in these cities and many more around the world – but the positive side is that reducing pollution can simultaneously tackle climate change and will save millions of dollars in healthcare costs and increase productivity.”  

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Theresa Simon & Partners, working with Michael Pinksy. 

Climate change is taking centre stage in the election as party leaders face questions about how they will tackle the issue in a TV debate on Thursday night.

Parties will vie for the votes of those concerned about the environment in what, despite subjects such as Brexit and the NHS, has been dubbed by some as “the climate election”.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Brexit Party’s Nigel Farage look set to snub the hour-long Emergency On Planet Earth debate on Channel 4 News.

Protests

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s leader Adam Price and Green co-leader Sian Berry (pictured) have agreed to take part.

Asked on Wednesday whether a Conservative minister, such as former environment secretary Michael Gove, could attend the Channel 4 debate instead of Mr Johnson, a spokeswoman for Channel 4 News said: “Michael Gove is not the party leader.”

Invitations to Mr Johnson and Mr Farage remained open, the programme said.

December’s General Election comes at the end of a year marked by mass protests and rising public concern over the climate and wildlife crises.

Despite this, the issue garnered only a brief mention in a head-to-head TV debate between Mr Johnson and Mr Corbyn earlier in the campaign.

Meat

A poll taken shortly before the election was called revealed the majority of people said climate change would influence how they voted.

Almost two-thirds agreed politicians were not talking about the issue enough in the run-up to the next national vote, the survey for environmental lawyers ClientEarth found.

The first leaders debate on climate change takes place in the wake of the latest warnings from UN experts of rising levels of climate-warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the need for swift and dramatic cuts in emissions to avoid the most dangerous impacts of global warming.

Leaders are likely to face questions over the level of ambition and feasibility in their plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the UK to zero overall, and the date they have pledged to achieve it by.

Presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy said leaders would be grilled on how people’s lives will have to change – whether it would involve giving up red meat, going on holiday or ending fast fashion.

Fairer

Plans to phase out petrol and diesel vehicles, cut the carbon from heating homes, plant trees and protect wildlife are also among the subjects they could be quizzed on.

Mr Guru-Murthy said: “This debate has been called for by hundreds of thousands of people from all sorts of different walks of life.”

He urged Mr Johnson, who has said he does not want to debate Ms Sturgeon because she cannot become prime minister, to change his mind, promising him he would get a fair hearing.

Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK, which backed a public petition to secure the debate, said: “The climate and nature emergency is a top concern for UK voters and an issue our politicians will have to put at the heart of their economic strategy for the foreseeable future.

“They must seize this opportunity for a greener and fairer future. The public will be looking to see who among the party leaders understands the gravity of the situation and has the policies and conviction to tackle it.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

Criminal charges have been dropped against climate change protesters who were arrested under a police order that was later ruled to be unlawful.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said 105 cases were being discontinued against Extinction Rebellion (XR) supporters who were detained during the action in October.

More than 1,800 people were arrested during the XR Autumn Uprising protest, which saw locations around central London, City Airport and the Tube network targeted.

Unlawful

Police initially made use of public order legislation, a section 14 order, to restrict the action to Trafalgar Square, and after repeated breaches went further, effectively banning XR protests from the capital.

High Court judges ruled that the effective ban was unlawful, paving the way for compensation claims against the Metropolitan Police.

The CPS said that 73 people charged with breaching the section 14 order, 24 charged with a breach and highway obstruction, and eight charged with stand-along highway obstruction would face no further action.

So far this year, policing protests by XR has cost the Metropolitan Police £40 million, nearly three times the annual budget of its Violent Crime Taskforce.

Raj Chada from law firm Hodge Jones and Allen said: “From the moment that the High Court ruled the Met Police’s ban was unlawful, this was an obvious consequence.

Demonstrations

“The CPS have dithered and delayed before bowing to the inevitable and only caused more anxiety and expense to our clients. “Anyone affected by this should contact us about a potential action against the police.”

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “Following careful consideration and further legal advice, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has decided it will not appeal the judgment in relation to conditions imposed on Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’.

“The MPS remains disappointed by the judgment, but of course respects the decision of the court. We have previously stated public order legislation needs updating.

“This case is the first time the legislation has been tested in such unique circumstances. It has highlighted that policing demonstrations like these within the existing legal framework can be challenging.

“The MPS will continue to carefully consider and review the use of this legislation during future demonstrations.”

This Author

Margaret Davis is the PA crime correspondent.

Labour is pledging to plant two billion trees by 2040 and create 10 new national parks as part of its plans to tackle the climate crisis.

Jeremy Corbyn is to commit on Wednesday to spending £3.7 billion in capital investment for the planting programme and habitat restoration if he wins the election.

Friends of the Earth welcomed the planting plan as “by far the most ambitious” of all the parties’ tree pledges, which are aimed at capturing atmospheric carbon to offset emissions. Corbyn attended a climate emergency rally in Falmouth, Cornwall, yesterday (pictured).

Nature recovery

Labour wants the 10 new protected parks to be added to the 15 existing ones during its first term if Mr Corbyn triumphs in the December 12 General Election.

Candidates include the Malvern Hills, Chiltern Hills, Lincolnshire Wolds, the North and South Pennines, coastal Suffolk and Dorset, the Cotswolds and Wessex.

Environmental degradation, potential for carbon sequestration and biodiversity net gain would be among the criteria for the areas to get the status.

Labour estimates the programmes would help create 20,000 of the one million green jobs it has pledged as part of a “green industrial revolution”.

While the plans focus solely on England, Labour wants to work with the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure “nature recovery networks” are extended across the UK.

Ambitious

Launching the “plan for nature” in Southampton, Mr Corbyn will try to paint Labour as the party for the environment in what he calls the “last chance” election to tackle the emergency.

“We’ll expand and restore our habitats and plant trees so that we can create natural solutions to bring down emissions and allow our wildlife to flourish,” the Labour leader is expected to say.

“Labour created the first national parks, and we’ll create 10 more, giving people the access to the green spaces so vital for our collective wellbeing and mental health.”

The Liberal Democrats have pledged to plant 60 million trees a year, equating to up to 1.2 billion by 2040, while the Tories have pledged half that.

Commenting on Labour’s announcement, Friends of the Earth tree campaigner Guy Shrubsole said: “This is by far the most ambitious tree-planting pledge we’ve seen from a political party.

Farmlands

“Tree cover in the UK needs to double as part of the fight against climate breakdown and this means adding three billion new trees, and fast.

“If sustained, Labour’s promised tree-planting rates would achieve this by 2050. While parties have been racing to make bigger trees pledges, it’s crucial to remember that trees will only help fix the climate crisis if emissions cuts happen at the same time.”

Labour said £1.2 billion from its green transformation fund would be spent on restoring natural habitats including woodland, grasslands, meadows, peat bogs and salt marshes in England.

A further £2.5 billion from the fund would be available for tree planting in national parks and in the National Forest as well as in publicly owned land such as parks and schools and in farmlands.

This Author

Sam Blewett is the PA political correspondent. Image:  Joe Giddens/PA Wire

The environment is under threat. A global scientific assessment this year highlighted the urgent crisis in biodiversity worldwide, with natural ecosystems diminished by 47 percent and many species facing imminent extinction.

The IPBES report recognized that “business as usual” will not do: a system change is needed.

But such change represents a threat to the profit-driven interests of the global corporate sector. For this reason, many corporations have sought ways to show that they are acting to address the environmental crisis, whilst maintaining unsustainable production methods and pursuing a model of endless, unstoppable economic growth. 

Natural capital

Through a process known as the financialisation of nature, corporations and political systems are redefining the environmental ‘problem’ into a ‘solution’ that can create even more economic profit, for their benefit. 

By reframing nature as “natural capital”, they are able to assign a price to it, in function of the “ecological services” it can offer—services such as carbon storage or water filtration.

Those who capture nature and its ‘services’ are able to then speculate with the prices, and compare the value of investing in nature with investing in other activities. This process reduces nature to its economic value alone, sidelining the social, cultural, political and even spiritual aspects of nature’s relationship with human societies.

The financialisation of nature takes on a particularly deceptive form in offsetting and biodiversity compensation schemes. These schemes allow companies and governments to pursue destructive activities—such as grabbing land from indigenous peoples and local communities or cutting down part of the rainforest—and claim that no damage is being done overall, as they have compensated the price of this destruction.

Compensation can be as simple as paying into a fund which promises to create or protect more nature elsewhere, or creating such an area themselves. 

Offsetting 

One such example is the Bujagali hydropower project in Uganda. The reservoir created by the Bujagali dam on the River Nile in 2012 flooded an area which had enormous ecological value, as well cultural and spiritual importance for the local Basoga indigenous peoples.

‘Comparably important’ waterfalls and river banks were set aside ‘in perpetuity’ as a biodiversity offset for the flooded area.

However, a few years later, the offset site in turn was to be flooded for another hydropower plant—with the offset needing to be offset.

On paper, any destruction has been offset, and no harm done. In reality, river banks along the Nile have been flooded, and many human right violations incurred in the process.

Compensation

A recent study by Friends of the Earth International reveals how policy makers advocate compensation and natural capital approaches as real solutions. Existing regulations based on limits and fines are increasingly turned into laws that provide offsetting and compensation options as legal solutions for environmental destruction. 

Such compensation schemes are promoted in international standards—such as the World Bank’s Performance Standard—or in national environmental legislation, in both cases giving the go ahead to destructive activities by companies that promise to offset or pay a compensation fee into a national fund designed for future ecological restoration.

These schemes are an important way for both corporate actors and politicians to ‘greenwash’ their activities—to maintain business as usual while still showing they are acting for the environment. 

Corporate gain

A complementary study Friends of the Earth International shows just how much the corporate sector stands to gain when legislation allowing offsetting is put in place at the national level.

Such legislation allows the legal approval of environmentally destructive activities which would otherwise not be allowed, especially access to land in protected areas. This approval further facilitates access to finance, especially as the International Finance Corporation (linked to the World Bank) and regional development banks approve projects more easily when they include offsetting. 

For example, the project to build a pipeline through Jasper National Park in Canada committed to offsetting, despite it not being a legal requirement. This commitment facilitated the licensing process and the project received approval without substantial environmental opposition. 

Equally, when corporations set aside land for future developments, it can end up being more profitable for them to leave it untouched and instead ‘cash in’ on the income gained from offsetting projects. 

On a wider social scale, such legislation aims to increase public acceptance for destructive activities. International conservation NGOs such as The Nature Conservancy or Flora and Fauna International offer compensation offset projects and lend corporations a positive, ‘green’ image—a well-known tactic of ‘greenwashing’.

The offsetting system relies on a huge body of research and development to keep it functional and credible: many think thanks, consultants, NGOs, academics, and accounting professionals earn their living thanks to financialization of nature processes. These actors will actively push to continue developing them, even as evidence of the ecological harm of these approaches mounts. 

Combatting financialisation 

It is fundamental that the environment, and those depending on and caring for it, are at the forefront of environmental management and related legislation.

Indigenous peoples and local communities are the best guardians of ecosystems: it is proven that areas where they organize territorial conservation using locally-relevant techniques are conserved better than national parks and private protected areas.  

We need strict legislation to counteract the consequences of deregulation, and ensure protection for the defenders of territories and human rights, who too frequently face persecution.

We need a binding treaty for corporations on human rights. We need a system change: reforming our economy to make sure that the needs of all are covered in a fair and community based manner, while stopping the greed of the few. 

This Author

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

Image: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR, Flickr.

“Nature for Sale” report coming soon.

The government has given permission to Drax Power Station in East Yorkshire to build the UK’s biggest gas power capacity.

The Secretary of State has given this green light to a project that will lock us into fossil fuel production for at least another two decades against the recommendation of their own planning inspectorate.

Read: ‘You burn our trees to power your homes’

This is blatantly a disaster for the climate and must be challenged. But this is only part of Drax’s story, and we must tell it all to tackle it at the root problems.

Environmental justice

Drax Power Station is also the world’s biggest burner of wood-based biomass. Falsely classified as renewable, this source of energy is on the rise across Europe – now making up two thirds of the EU’s renewable energy supply – with the majority of wood being sourced from the Southeastern US.

In states such as North Carolina, wood pellet companies such as Drax’s main supplier Enviva clear cut around 50 acres of forest a day to feed growing demand from across the Atlantic, and are planning a massive expansion.

Scratch below the surface more and we see that the majority of wood pellet mills and facilities constructed in the Southeastern US to feed biomass demands are clustered around certain areas and communities.

These communities are predominantly rural, predominantly of colour, and have a below state-average income. They are also likely to have already experienced some kind of pollution from nearby industry, be that energy, agriculture or transport. They are often known, for these reasons, as environmental justice communities.

A study from last year found that all wood pellet mills in North and South Carolina were located in environmental justice communities. Residents here, already subject to industrial pollution and economic depression, and which suffer from five times the asthma rate of the rest of the state, now face a tide of increased air and noise pollution and a loss of the forests they have grown up with. This alongside all the benefits the forests provide – water filtration, flood protection, and fresh, cool air.

Sense of community

These impacts are covered up by Enviva and Drax but are severe. Wood pellet facilities are known to release significant amounts of particulate matter, which cause a range of health issues from obesity to asthma.

Deborah Kornegay, lives 6-7 miles from Enviva’s Sampson County facility in North Carolina. She explained that this one facility increased particulate matter levels to 75 percent over pre-operation levels. Neighbour after neighbour has become reliant on inhalers, and are unable to sleep due to logging trucks barreling by every night.

The loss of the local environment has had a potent effect on the surrounding communities. James Woodley, who grew up in Northampton County, North Carolina, gave a heart-wrenching testimony recently, in which he described the importance of the local forests where he and his friends and family would visit when growing up – the fish would come and nibble at their feet when dabbled in the water: “Now the forests are gone, so is the sense of community”.

Woodley continued: “Dust is everywhere, and even people are breathing in dust and becoming sick from it. The roads where the trucks barrel through the community daily are damaged, and until they are fixed they are also dangerous.

“We fear for our children and pets being hit by a truck, if those kids or animals are on the road during the heavy truck traffic periods, which seems to be all the time. The noise from the facility, and the trucks barreling through the community, is constant, and a real nuisance. We hate living here, we have nowhere to go though. We just try to make it through day by day.”

Biodiversity hotspot

Why is this aspect of the story often lost? Because, as residents themselves say, companies such as Enviva deliberately pick the communities that are less able to fight back.

In fact, concerned citizens have been denied the ability to comment on newly proposed pellet mills in the past, despite Enviva being given more than enough time to make their case. No wonder these voices are never heard, if they are being systematically silenced.

Back to Drax. Why is it that last year, millions of tonnes of wood from a UN Biodiversity Hotspot was cut down and shipped 4000km overseas to be burnt in a UK power station, only to increase emissions? Why is it that communities on the sharp edge of environmental injustice are being marginalised further by an industry that, as Cindy Elmore rightly pointed out, is simply a continuation of British colonialism?

It is because Drax’s burning of coal, wood, and potentially now gas, is just a symptom of a wider model. The model that Drax operates is one that sees both forests and communities as their right to exploit. This model exacerbates existing injustices, rather than tackling them.

The model is always the same, whether it is the indigenous Shor of Siberia losing their villages and culture to coal imported by Drax, the communities of the South Eastern US losing their forests and health to wood imported by Drax, or any new communities overseas being displaced and broken apart by gas imported by a future Drax facility. The natural world and communities on the frontline are expendable. Big corporations are not.

False separation

This is why we cannot create a false separation between the environment and social justice. If the solutions are devised by the powerful, they will continue to be weak, and hurt the marginalised the most.

This has been the case with carbon offsetting for decades now, which industries still pretend will solve all our problems. It is why mega-mining companies are rushing to extract metals and minerals they claim are required for the renewable energy transition, but in fact are a smokescreen for continued human rights abuses.

This is why a burgeoning biomass industry, which destroys forests and biodiversity, harms the climate, and ravages communities, has taken off with barely any question from policymakers. It is why the people whose voices need to be centred are those that are most affected by these activities, not those committing them.

Drax is just a company clinging onto a model of the past that will not deliver climate justice. Time and time again it has proven that it is willing to open up new rounds of exploitation simply to survive, to keep burning. Now it wants to be the world leader in a technology that requires vast amounts of land, water and forests, just so it can stay in operation.

North Carolina is already on the frontline of the climate crisis and is said to be the birthplace of the environmental justice movement. The communities there should have the final say on the decisions that affect their livelihoods, not Drax. Otherwise, we risk repeating mistakes of the past over and over again. 

This Author 

Mark Robinson is a campaigner with Biofuelwatch, working to raise awareness of the negative impacts of industrial biofuels and bioenergy on biodiversity, human rights, food sovereignty and climate change. Biofuelwatch are currently campaigning to transfer over £1 billion in UK subsidies for biomass electricity towards genuinely renewable wind, wave and solar power.

Image: US Forest Service, Flickr. 

Right of Reply

“In the UK, biomass-generated electricity has already played an important role in helping to decarbonise the UK’s power system. In October, [Drax] published an updated sustainability policy and set up an Independent Advisory Board of scientists, academics and forestry experts. Drax only uses wood pellets from sustainably-managed working forests. Sustainable biomass supports healthy forest growth, biodiversity and absorbs more carbon than undermanaged forests. For example, in the US southeast, forest growth is almost twice as much as tree harvests since the 1950s, even though wood harvests have increased.”