“Demand climate action” is the theme of the Scottish Greens’ election campaign in 2019. The slogan is emblazoned across the front cover of their manifesto.

The party is standing in 22 constituencies across Scotland, and co-leader Patrick Harvie has urged voters to push candidates from across the political spectrum on what their party is doing to take climate action.

Despite the party not standing in every part of the country, there are still more Green candidates than at the last UK election in 2017 (three) – including Mr Harvie who stood in Glasgow North.

Oil

The party does not currently have any Scottish MPs at Westminster. Implementing a Green New Deal has been a central part of the Greens’ manifesto.

It would aim to tackle the climate emergency by accelerating the transition to a zero-carbon economy, set out to create thousands of good-quality secure jobs (including 200,000 in Scotland), as well as pledging to improve wellbeing and build a “more fair and equal” society.

With 2019 bringing a wave of young climate strikers across the world calling for action, the party hopes to attract younger voters.

The party also has the youngest election candidate in Scotland, with 19-year-old Cameron Glasgow standing in the Livingston constituency.

A phasing out of North Sea oil and gas extraction, support for a transition to renewable energy, as well as a commitment to keep fossil fuels in the ground, have also been promised in the manifesto.

Action

The party backs Scottish independence, but has also made proposals for a reform of the current UK system.

It proposes a move to a system of proportional representation for all elections, as opposed to the current first-past-the-post model, as well as an extension of the vote to 16-year-olds; replacing the House of Lords with an elected second chamber; and reforming electoral law for the age of social media.

On Brexit, the party supports the UK staying in the EU, and has said that it will campaign for Remain if there is another referendum.

In an interview with the PA News agency ahead of the vote on December 12, Mr Harvie outlined the case for his party and the need for Green voices at Westminster.

“I think the case is clear that when Greens are in the room, others start raising their game,” he said. “They don’t even bother trying when the Greens aren’t there, so that’s why we need some Greens in the room at Westminster as well, and that’s why, if you want to demand climate action, voting Green is your way to do it.”

This Author

Lewis McKenzie is a PA Scotland political reporter.

Two Indian people visit St Paul’s Cathedral in London. They admire the stonework and then ask the whereabouts of London’s mining authority. That day, an advert in The Times hinted at their intentions: It had a wrecking ball smashing into St Paul’s. 

The campaigners from their home province of Odisha, India to draw attention to a strikingly similar scenario unfolding there. A London-based mining company, Vedanta, wanted to extract the bauxite from their ‘cathedral’: the Niyamgiri Hills.

These hills and their primeval forest cover are a sacred site for them: home to a pantheon of local gods. The key difference was that for the Indian campaigners, their holiest place is also essential for their survival. It is the source of vital water resources, food, medicine and fuel for the local population.

Investor

The St Paul’s stunt was part of a 10-year struggle in which thousands of locals had unwillingly found themselves fighting on an increasingly common kind of frontline.

Without a fight, forces foreign to them would have eliminated the foundations of their existence. This is a familiar story for millions around the world.

Since 2011, I have been working with hundreds of academics and activists globally to create an online atlas charting those environmental conflicts. This Environmental Justice Atlas, the largest database of its kind, has some 3,000 reports of such conflicts, but our team knows that even this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Coming back to St Paul’s: the good news is that the stunt actually worked. A $7 billion plan to destroy the  Niyamgiri Hills did not materialise.

Many things contributed to this victory for the Indian campaign, but one is worth mentioning here. One investor in Vedanta in particular was so distressed by the St Paul’s stunt that it withdrew its money from Vedanta: the Church of England.

Extraction

It is these kinds of frontlines that are popping up all over the world. After studying them for almost a decade, several patterns emerged.

From Au (gold) to Zn (zinc) and from the soil to the tree canopy, humanity is taking more from the earth than she can renew.

We not only take more than we can afford, we take more than we actually need for living a good life. A key observation is that the volumes we take rise faster than population.

The “we” in all this hides far more complex and worrying class division trends, as well as historic geographical shifts.

The “how” is equally worrying: it seems that always more violence accompanies the unaffordable part of extraction, from underground chemical warfare to squeeze gas out of the earth (fracking) to above ground warfare against earth defenders.

Powerful

The number of killed environmental defenders has gone up from one a week ten years ago to four a week now.

The inequalities and injustices created are growing but Western consumers are mostly shielded from these realities through phony ethical labels.

The impact of Europeans outside Europe is underestimated or ignored. In cartoons in globally sold magazines, the EU is often portrayed as a fragile lady upholding justice but through my journey along the many frontlines that the global economy throws up, I found that outside the EU she’s not that different from the American eagle.

She grabs uranium in Niger to fuel French and Belgian nuclear power plants, destroys Indonesia for our shampoo and chocolates and chops down trees in the Amazon to fire our stoves.

For the least powerful people in the poorest countries on earth, the people who live from tropical rainforests to resource rich deserts, the EU is more often looked at as a perpetrator than as a rescuer.

Nuclear

This uncomfortable reality of modern existence is usually kept from the already troubled minds of Western consumers.

When snippets of this reality make the news, blame is quickly shifted to others – often the victims themselves.

But exporting pollution to “under-polluted” countries (this is the terminology used in the World Bank) and grabbing their resources on scales never seen before is the bedrock of the economic “success” of the post-war period.

Not all is lost. To the contrary. Outside this dark reality there is a parallel and much more bright universe that is also far too little known.

In my book, Frontlines: Stories of Global Environmental Justice, I have followed brave leaders like Bruno, a nuclear engineer who turned into a hero for communities affected by radioactive pollution all over the world.

Multinationals

I got to know Julio, a lawyer who chose to put himself in the firing line of Chevron, a company that has spend a billion dollar on counterattacking those who seeks justice for the victims of a massive oil spill in Ecuador.

I met Alexandru, the Romanian antiquarian who walked all the way to Brussels to lobby for a ban on fracking. Then there’s Sumaira who survived several attacks of the Indian sand mafia and managed to win a legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court.

Elena (pseudonym) was just a simple non-activist mother, until a Canadian company arrived in her Greek backyard with plans for a massive gold mine. None of these people grew up wanting to become ‘activists’ or part of what some scientists now call a rising global movement for environmental justice.

But as the global economy keeps growing, together with the continued growth of extraction, trade, production, consumption and waste, ever more people just find themselves on a frontline that was brought to their doorsteps.

What I have noticed in the years working on this book is that the multinationals have become more powerful but so has the multinational resistance.

Justice

People like Bruno, Julio, Alexandru, Sumaira and Elena and millions of others are very busy resisting the expansion of the economy into the most unwanted places.

They and forging alternatives and they are winning battles. They are busy with building a future where organized citizens win power back at the cost of private companies and states.

This is sometimes referred to as the commons economy, but it is more than that. I see a degree of cooperation emerging between previously isolated small groups of earth defenders.

They are increasingly able to find support from all over the world, thanks to international NGOs, alternative media and citizens oriented scientists. In so many places, these new types of glocal coalitions manage to win battles, from fracking bans to divestment victories.

It’s not clear yet who will win the global war against the natural system that we are a part of, but it is clear that the outcome will define the course of history for humanity in the decades ahead of us.

It is therefore encouraging to see the rise of a global movement for environmental justice and a wave of victories that came about when ordinary people decided it was time to get out of their comfort zones and join one of the many frontlines to defend this one earth that we all live and depend on.

This Author

Nick Meynen is the author of Frontlines. Stories of Global Environmental Justice.

Despite former pledges to delay non-essential works to clear vital woodlands and protected habitats for HS2 until 2020, the government is now hurrying to get what it refers to as ‘enabling’ preparatory works done at DCP and other sites ahead of any official approval of the completed Oakervee Review, publication of which has now been postponed until 2020 following the general election. Ostensibly, this is to facilitate quicker resumption of the full-scale works once the review has been passed.

As a result, HS2 Ltd is currently cutting down ancient trees, destroying wetlands and woodlands, and disturbing habitats of many legally protected, rare, endangered wildlife species unique to the UK. These include water voles (on which the character of Wind in the Willows’ ‘Ratty’ is based), stag beetles, eels, great crested newts, harvest mice, hazel dormice, barn owls, snipes, teals, polecats, hedgehogs, muntjac deer (non-native but protected under the Deer Act 1991), common shrews, lapwings, European badgers and several species of bat – Leisler’s, Natterers’, Serotine and Brandt’s – also the exceedingly rare Bechstein’s bat, known to inhabit woods near Great Missenden where works are scheduled to commence.

Why these highly destructive works – described by members of the Green party as ecocide – are being pushed through despite being slammed by the review’s deputy chair, Lord Berkeley, and repeated warnings from external environmental advisers such as Matthew Frith of the London Wildlife Trust, is as yet unclear, although according to a leaked report, the work was given the go-ahead under Boris Johnson’s leadership.

This comes as devastating news for many of the increasingly environmentally aware public who are opposed to the scheme, not only because of the spiralling, out-of-control costs and further projected delays of the contentious high-speed railway project, but because of the additional problems this raises for the UK’s future as catastrophic climate challenges increase. The decimation of tree cover in the areas HS2 will pass through will not only magnify carbon emissions, but will also erase much-needed flood defences strategic to protecting homes and livelihoods as rising sea levels cause UK rivers and tributaries to swell.

Protester arrests

Further distressing developments have ensued as HS2 Ltd has employed members of the Thames Valley Police (TVP) and Metropolitan Police forces – diverting a supposedly reduced task force paid for by public taxes away from protecting the public from serious crime – to safeguard works against interference by environmental protestors.

After a few days of an apparently mild and amicable stand-off between protesters and HS2 staff near the canal separating Bucks County Council-owned land from that owned by Hillingdon borough, police arrived and began threatening, intimidating, assaulting and arresting protesters who were attempting peaceful non-violent direct actions in protest of the works. Several arrests and threats of arrests have been made in the past few days, with evidence of police harassment and brutality towards protestors who were simply attempting to save the habitats from further destruction.

Green party member Mark Keir, who is a contender for Mr Johnson’s seat in Uxbridge, is among those arrested on more than one occasion while participating in the protest, and possibly specifically targeted by police. Keir was tried at court last week and released on bail on condition he did not approach within 10 metres of an HS2 gate, however he was re-arrested on Wednesday 3 December immediately after he walked along the canal in the public park to record a live video on Facebook of the areas to be destroyed by HS2. He was taken to High Wycombe police station and brought before court again on Thursday, 4 December, and was subsequently re-released on bail.

At present, anyone suspected of ‘aggravated trespassing’ – even in a public environment such as DCP – in the areas where HS2 workmen are engaged in their ‘enabling’ work of ‘strimming’ (e.g. stripping woodland ‘vegetation’, including rare and valuable wetland plants, which provide habitats for many of the threatened wildlife species listed above) is likely to be threatened and/or forcefully removed. Once the strimming work is completed, HS2 will proceed to fell trees, whether or not they are found to host hibernating bats or other endangered species. This will certainly have a negative impact on visitors to the park, which is often used to provide environmental education to schools and children living near London.

Suspicious behaviour

Although several other environmental activists, Green party members, wildlife scientists and concerned members of the public have witnessed and recorded photographic and video evidence of HS2 damaging habitats while working in the Colne Valley area’s Sites of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI) and other sites such as Harvil Road in Harefield, and have questioned why these activities are going ahead without evidence of any lawful licences or proper mitigation, they have received little or no response from the relevant authorities under government body Natural England – and what evidence was initially supplied under Freedom of Information (FOI) requests has either been minimal, vague or inconclusive. Rebecca Lee of Natural England (NE) promised to send the evidence immediately, however instead only sent an automated email stating the information requested would be sent within the standard 20 days – unfortunately preventing any timely intercession for the threatened animals. 

Suspiciously, it is only as a result of recent persistent questioning from activists that HS2 has suddenly – as of yesterday – altered its information to include some elements of NE licensing to disturb bat roosts in trees and buildings. However, it appears the licences HS2 has apply only to great crested newts, bats and badgers; there are no licences for other legally protected species such as water voles, whose unique cylindrical droppings and waterway burrow structures have been clearly seen along the canal area where HS2 is presently working. The NE licences are also generic, whole-route licences rather than including any site-specific mitigation or provision.

Further, as there is no evidence, as per HS2’s public pledge, of any appropriate mitigation being done on behalf of these protected species in advance of the works, such lack of open information, transparency or willingness to substantiate works with evidence to concerned members of the public gives the appearance of illegal, questionable and underhanded doings.

Activists on site at Denham park who were questioning these points were told by Thames Valley Police (TVP) PC Reeve to report any suspected wildlife crimes to the wildlife unit at TVP using the 101 number. However, a subsequent follow-up call to check on the wildlife crimes reported with TVP’s Sergeant Ludovici revealed there is not in fact any wildlife crime unit or specially trained wildlife officer there, and that no action had been taken to address the suspected crimes reported.

Sgt Ludovici further intimated that the police are in fact unaware of any actual UK, European or international wildlife laws, which are clearly displayed on the Wildlife Trust’s website. While HS2 apparently had substantial input from knowledgeable ecologists earlier on in the planning stages, no such persons were actively present during the works to advise on the proper treatment of affected animals. According to the Bat Conservation Trust’s consultation notes, they had advised HS2 to take great care not to disturb hibernating bats, however HS2 workmen were observed yesterday removing ivy from tree holes where it is known hibernating bats are likely to roost.

Going, going, gone

Buckinghamshire County Council Parks Manager Andrew Fowler explained that although they had petitioned HS2 Ltd to halt the works until after the Oakervee report had been published, the Government had rejected their petition. He said: “We are against HS2 also, but there is nothing we can do – our hands are tied.” While Mr Fowler has agreed that having a knowledgeable wildlife expert on site to advise and assist the HS2 workmen with mitigation efforts would be of some help in protecting the affected wildlife, it is unknown whether he or Bucks CC, who own and manage the park, will ramp up efforts to ensure this takes place.

A dead swan found last week within the park’s vicinity was removed by charity Swan Rescue, who promised to undertake an autopsy, but later claimed they were unable to follow up concerns of its death being caused by water pollution because it would have to go through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The charity said DEFRA would be unlikely to investigate until multiple swan or other waterfowl deaths had occurred – by which time it would be too late to prevent.

Whether the actions described above are being done knowingly or out of ignorance, as the government is determined to proceed with these highly destructive ‘enabling’ works, the result will be a gross, unwarranted and irreplaceable loss of precious, diverse and rare wildlife and richly biodiverse habitats – and sadly, once they are gone, they cannot be restored, and will be lost forever to future generations.

This Author

Jane Cahane is a freelance journalist and editor, and was formerly editor-in-chief of The Investigative Journal and Chief Sub-editor of Recharge News

Armen Kirakosyan sits at his desk in the small backyard office in the northern outskirts of Yerevan, surrounded by shelves stuffed with books, some hidden behind photographs of — horses.

Kirakosyan is an engineer who, together with a few friends, established the horse farm ‘Ayrudzy’ in the town of Ashtarak in 1980 that later developed into a horse riding club. Combining his love for horses and engineering, he turned Ayrudzy into an NGO in 2007 with the aim to develop energy cooperatives in Armenia.

Since 2013, the club members have been working on the creation of an energy cooperative and, only recently, installed a solar station at Ayrudzy.

Energy cooperatives

When asked about his motivation, the 60-something fills his pipe, lights it and takes a few puffs. He recounts walking through the Ararat valley south-west of Yerevan. He says that the plants he saw on the banks of the Aras river at the bottom of the valley 30 or 40 years ago, now grow 200 metres higher up.

Kirakosyan says: ‘The climate is changing and now, in Ararat valley, we have a desertification process.’ And he believes that energy cooperatives can be part of the solution to address global warming by reducing Armenia’s dependence on natural gas.

Apart from that, Kirakosyan adds, he also just finds new technology exciting — he’s an engineer after all.

While Armen Kirakosyan has clear ideas about how Armenians can tackle the climate crisis, the issue itself can’t yet count on the awareness of the Armenian population at large. The country does have a long history of environmental mobilisations, but most of them have targeted localised problems that, for instance, affect the country’s rivers, lakes and forests.

Recently, citizens of the spa town Jermuk blocked the road to the by-now infamous Amulsar gold mine, which threatens to pollute the water in Jermuk and potentially even Lake Sevan, Armenia’s freshwater reservoir. This presents only the latest instance in a chain of environmental battles.

Velvet revolution

The fact that global warming hasn’t really featured high on the general public’s agenda shouldn’t really take anyone by surprise. Armenia remains a country where greenhouse gas emissions lie far below the ceiling that the Paris Agreement foresees for the country.

More importantly, however, Armenians had other problems to focus on: it was only a year and half ago that Armenian society began to free itself from a corrupt political elite in the social media-driven ‘Velvet Revolution’. 

Since then, the new Armenian government under former opposition leader Nikol Pashingyan has rooted out systemic corruption from the top — even opposition MPs agree on that — and ushered in attempts to reform the economy, education, health and other sectors. One can sensean atmosphere of hopebut also high expectationsin the country.

Crucially, Pashinyan has also made the case for accelerating Armenia’s green energy transition and, in his government’s 5-year economic plan, foresees solar energy to cover 10 percent of the country’s total energy consumption in 2024.

The country has huge untapped potential for green energy — hydro, solar, wind power and geothermal. That’s particularly true for solar: according to Armenia’s solar map, the country receives 1,720 kilowatt hours per square metre of sunlight every year, compared to an average of 1,000 in Europe. 

Geopolitics

Pashinyan’s plans to diversify Armenia’s energy supply, however, aren’t entirely new. Previous governments already encouraged the development of renewable energy as early as 2003. So these plans might be less rooted in the urgency to tackle global warming but rather in Armenia’s recent history and geopolitical situation.

When talking to Armenians about their country’s geopolitics, one can often hear variations of this very phrase, ‘A small country with limited resources’.

Unlike its eastern neighbour Azerbaijan, the landlocked country doesn’t have any indigenous fossil resources like oil or gas to provide a steady and independent energy supply. In its recent past lack of domestic resources put Armenia through a ‘dark’ period, still influencing its politics today.

In 1988, shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, a devastating earthquake caused at least 25,000 deaths in the north-western part of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. With the Chernobyl disaster two years earlier in mind, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev decided to close down Armenia’s nuclear power plant Metsamor, which was located a mere 100km from the earthquake’s epicentre. 

Energy crisis

Then, Armenia was connected to the Trans-Caucasus electrical grid and received gas and oil from Azerbaijan to compensate for the closure of Metsamor. As an effect of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the shortage of domestic energy sources became a real problem.

In late 1991, tensions over Nagano-Karabakh, a disputed territory between freshly independent Armenia and Azerbaijan, reached a peak. Azerbaijan, and later its ally Turkey, closed their borders and put a fuel embargo on Armenia.

This, in turn, led to a severe energy crisis lasting until 1995 when Metsamor was finally reactivated. During this time Armenian industry collapsed and GDP dropped by more than 50 percent. So did GHG emissions —by more than 70 percent, remaining stable ever since.

When asked, Armenians still remember these times with disbelief, recounting how they could use electricity for merely one or two hours per day and often resorted to candles illuminating their houses at night.

Explosive potential

The borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan remain closed to this day. In effect, Armenia’s energy supply is largely dependent on natural gas from Russia, transported via a pipeline through Georgia and transformed into electricity by thermal power plants.

Most cars in the country are also fuelled by natural gas and one third of imports are used in homes for heating purposes. In 2016, Armenia was only able to cover 34 percent of its energy demand with domestic energy sources.

While the country’s energy crisis in the early 90s might not be constantly present in the minds of Armenians, the energy question still has a socially explosive potential.

The Armenian Electricity Network, largely owned by Russian state-owned companies, announced a price hike of more than 17 percent in electricity prices in June 2015, thousands of Armenians took to the streets in the country’s capital in what was dubbed the “Electric Yerevan” protests.

After a week of protests and a heavy-handed response by the riot police, the price hikes were suspended and the Armenian Electricity Network sold to the Armenian-Russian oligarch Samvel Karapetyan. Similarly, Pashinyan finds himself in volatile negotiations with Vladimir Putin on gas prices after they had been increased by 10 percent in January 2019.

Energy poverty

The Electric Yerevan protests reflected a bigger socio-economic problem in the country, the widespread energy poverty: around 30 percent of the country’s population can be considered energy poor, having to spend more than 50 percent of totally family income on energy and heating.

With an average income of around 400 USD, Armenian families often spend more than 100 USD on heating alone. Oftentimes they don’t even heat whole apartments, but just the common areas.

In the rural parts of the country in particular, this leads poor families to not heat with expensive gas but with cheaper wood instead — contributing to already high levels of deforestation.

It’s because of these various reasons — Armenia’s lack of fossil resources, its history of energy insecurity and socio-economic problems like energy poverty — that Armenian governments have developed a high interest in diversifying the energy supply, notably through renewable energy sources.

At the same time, the energy sector is by far the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, having accounted for 70.3 percent of all emissions in 2012.

Bearing this in mind, it seems that climate change mitigation, alleviating socio-economic problems and the country’s national security interest could go hand in hand.

Potential and limitations 

Member of Parliament Mikayel Zolyan, who sits on the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, not only reaffirms the country’s interest in renewable energy but also the danger of its old nuclear reactor Metsamor, which the European Union has consistently argued should be phased-out.

Referring to the EU’s stance however, Zolyan clarifies that as long as there’s no massive financing effort, Armenians have no other option than to keep Metsamor running or else return to the dark days of energy shortages.

With regards to global warming, Zolyan’s sentiment is also reflected in Armenia’s First Biennial Update Report under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the framework under which the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.

The report’s projections rely on a new nuclear reactor to deliver about 63 percent of mitigation in the energy sector until 2030. 

Astghine Pasoyan, an economist at the Energy Saving Foundation, is also sceptical of the hype around solar energy. According to her, apart from a new nuclear reactor, a stronger focus on the demand side management would turn out more cost effective to reduce emissions in the short term.

For instance, most residential buildings in Armenia have been built during Soviet times when energy was cheap and readily available. Making them more energy efficient could go a long way reducing demand: a recent UNDP pilot project saw a multi-apartment building insulated, saving up to 58 percent of energy and lowering costs by 60 percent for residents.

Green roadmaps

Nevertheless, Pasoyan does see real potential in green energy in the medium and long term to lower gas demand. She helps municipal governments to set up green roadmaps — plans for local green development — which often attract grants instead of loans by international donors.

In particular, setting up public green energy projects could allow municipalities to provide public buildings with cheaper energy, create jobs and use their budget for local development instead of paying the gas bills.

In the end, with regards to the green energy transition in Armenia, one thing is clear: it will need a lot of money to succeed. Whether it’s in the form of the EU’s external investment funds, grants from development banks or even a Global Green New Deal, rich countries will need to provide investment to drive the transition. 

There are some good signs. The European Investment Bank has recently adopted a new lending policy, intending to phase-out the funding of fossil fuels until 2021 and ‘increasing the impact of investment to support energy transformation outside the EU’.

Similarly, the EU’s new neighbourhood policy instrument (NDICI), currently under negotiations for the next EU budget, aims to streamline investments and operations with regards to climate change.

And discussions about the future of the Eastern Partnership, which Armenia and five other countries in Europe’s East are part of, certainly bear the potential for increased ambitions to tackle the climate crisis.

In Armenia, there is certainly a multi-faceted interest to move quickly towards a green energy transition.

This Author 

Daniel Kopp is a journalist and executive editor of International Politics & Society (IPS). 

Walking and cycling have for too long been treated as the ‘poor relations’ in the transport family, scorned as marginal and unimportant and last in line for transport funding. 

We have some of the lowest levels of cycling and walking in Europe, and the Conservative Party’s manifesto demonstrates that the Tories intend the status quo to continue. 

Yet these forms of ‘active travel’ offer solutions that span several of the major crises facing our society.

Active travel

The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change warned that the world has eleven years for global warming to be kept to a maximum rise of 1.5oC over pre-industrial levels, yet the UK is way off track to meet its own climate change targets and is further still from meeting its commitments under the Paris climate agreement. 

We know that this election is the final opportunity to tackle the climate crisis, so we cannot afford for this policy failure to continue. Transport is the UK’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and the worst-performing sector when it comes to reducing carbon emissions.

Recent research has shown that if we had cycling infrastructure as good as the Netherlands, with a cycling culture to match, that could cut approaching 1/3 from car use right across our towns and cities, bringing a similar reduction to climate damaging emissions and local toxic air pollution. 

When rising transport emissions form one of the main threats to the UK meeting its climate targets, and when the development of our children’s lungs is being stunted by toxic air, this is a huge and underappreciated contribution.

On top of these benefits more active travel offers the best way out of the crisis of obesity and diabetes that threatens to overwhelm the NHS and its straining budgets.

Deep change

Achieving such deep change to levels of walking and cycling is not about more white lines on roads, it’s about fundamentally redesigning and remodelling whole street spaces to give a high quality urban realm that people enjoy being in, designed to put people, not vehicles, first.

Investment in walking and cycling can be seen to be part of the strategic approach to development that towns and cities need in order to upgrade their public spaces, regenerate their built environment and boost their economies. 

It is telling that the City of London is adopting ambitious policies to make its streets attractive for people on foot and on bikes. Why are they doing that? Because they want to attract and retain the big city firms, and those firms tell them that having a high quality walking and cycling environment matters to them and their employees.

It is clear that this scale of transformation of our towns and cities will require massive funding. However the spending plans that Labour have just announced for walking and cycling are, for the first time ever in the UK, on a scale that brings that transformative vision within range.

Labour has announced hugely ambitious plans to make England one of the most cycling and walking friendly places in the world.

Funding priority

In England, cycling and walking is not a genuine option for many people. Many of us lack the access to infrastructure to be able to travel on bike or foot safely and confidently.

Yet the Conservatives are offering almost nothing to improve the situation. Indeed, their most notable intervention on active travel in recent years was when then transport secretary Chris Grayling complained that cyclists were a nuisance, before accidentally knocking a cyclist off his bike outside parliament just weeks later. 

A transformation in the funding and priority given to cycling and walking is needed – and that’s what Labour will deliver.

The Conservative Party plans to spend almost £30 billion building new motorways and major roads, which we know will increase emissions and worsen congestion, at the expense of maintaining local roads and sustainable transport. Labour will reallocate money to cycling and walking, achieving £50 funding per person in cycling and walking by the end of the parliament. 

In developing Labour’s plans, we were guided by international examples of cities in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark who experienced steep declines in cycling until policy changes in the 1970s put them on a trajectory to become the most cycle-friendly places in the world. Labour’s plans will put us on track to achieve the same successes in England.

Air pollution

Labour’s ‘Healthy Streets Programme’ will make our towns and cities cleaner and greener to transform the environment, travel opportunities and quality of life across the country.

These programmes will be modelled on the best exemplars, like Amsterdam where 67 percent of trips are by foot or bike (compared to just 29 percent in UK cities), encouraging active travel to breathe new life into our towns and cities by reclaiming the urban realm, creating public spaces that are freer from traffic and accompanying pollutants, and fostering environments that are pleasant places in which to live and work.

There must be significant investment in cycling infrastructure to develop dense, continuous networks of cycle paths that are physically separated from traffic, including building cycling and pedestrian bridges and crossings to overcome obstacles.

We will therefore build 5000km of cycle ways, so that cycling is truly for the many, not the brave. That’s not to mention the many social and economic benefits, such as tackling the air pollution crisis and reaping health benefits that could save the NHS up to £9bn per year.

Harmful air pollution that kills 40,000 people each year will be cut. As a priority we will create safe cycling and walking routes to 10,000 primary schools, because we cannot continue to allow children’s lungs to be stunted by exposure to air pollution.

Industrial opportunity 

People must also be encouraged and given the confidence to cycle, so there should be training and support for all who need it. To this end we will fund the expansion of Bikeability cycle training, doubling present provision so it covers all primary school children, plus extension to all their parents, extension to give advanced training in secondary schools and extension to offer cycle training to all adults.

Everyone should have the chance to cycle, so we will guarantee universal access to bicycles. Evidence shows that support for e-bikes could be vital for encouraging older people to change their travel habits, so Labour will provide grants for e-bikes to support an e-bike revolution.

We’ll make the most of this industrial opportunity by developing a world-leading electric bike research, development and manufacturing facility, and by supporting the use of e-bikes instead of cars and vans for delivery services in cities.

Labour’s bold plan will, for the first time, give everyone freedom to walk and cycle along convenient, attractive routes, safe from traffic danger, tackling air pollution, saving our NHS billions and boosting our high streets by making towns and city centres more pleasant.

Our plans will transform opportunities so that travelling actively, healthily and sustainably is an option for the many, not just the bold and fearless.

This Author

Andy McDonald is Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary. 

As the festive season gathers pace, reforestation charity TreeSisters calls for a radical shift from the mindless consumerism propelling us towards climate meltdown, to a mindset of generous giving to the Earth that sustains us.

TreeSisters, which funds reforestation projects in Kenya, Cameroon, Brazil, Mozambique, Madagascar, India, Nepal and West Papua, is currently heading for 7 million trees planted globally and hoping to reach 10 million before year end.

The charity is aiming to create a new normal: one where giving back to Nature is as normal as it currently is to take. That giving back comes in the form of collective public responsibility for reforesting the world’s tropical rainforests, affirmed by many global scientists as the number-one strategy for stopping global warming.

Emissions Gap

As the UN’s bleak Emissions Gap Report calls for drastic action to slow climate change, TreeSisters’s new Grow Your Own Forest campaign invites everyone to grow their own forest as a simple way we can all help to cool down the planet.

Clare Dubois, Founding CEO of TreeSisters, says: “Christmas is a terrible time for trees, but it doesn’t have to be if we wake up. We can make the choice to shift from an unconscious consumer species to a conscious restorer species, we just need to choose.

“I’m asking everyone to wake up to the ecological cost of Christmas and start making choices that are kinder to the Earth. It can be fun to get more creative when it comes to greener gifts and wrapping paper that don’t result in endless trees being thrown away.”

“And what about actually giving the gift of trees? You could give your family the experience of restoring tropical rainforest by funding vital trees for them.

“For just £20 you’ll plant 66 tropical trees! When you Grow Your Own Forest with TreeSisters, you give back to the Earth in ways that cool her down and restore her. I see this shift back into reciprocity with the natural world as an unavoidable evolution for humanity.

“Continued unregulated consumption of limited natural resources only has one outcome: an impossible, unthinkable and unacceptable legacy of ecological chaos for today’s children.”

Amazon deforestation

Donate to TreeSisters and start growing your own forest and you’ll be able to see how many trees you’re planting every time you give.

You can log in any time to see how much your forest has grown and the impact you’re having. And when you share your forest fundraiser on social media, your friends can donate too, planting more trees. Just set up your account and watch your forest grow!

In response to devastating fires and forest destruction, TreeSisters is funding a new food forest project in the Brazilian Amazon to protect the rainforest and the livelihood of the Ashaninka tribe. The Amazon contains at least 10 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity and is our planet’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink, yet new data from Brazil’s space research agency has revealed deforestation of this rainforest has increased 29.5 percent in twelve months (August 2018 – July 2019), the highest level in a decade in the Brazilian Amazon.

This is largely due to President Bolsonaro’s profit-led roll back on environmental protections, support of loggers and grabbing of lands reserved for indigenous tribes.

Clare Dubois says: “The Amazon’s destruction threatens the lives of indigenous people and ultimately life on Earth. It will do more than accelerate climate change, it will lead to countless extinctions, including languages, cultures and the devastating loss of profoundly valuable knowledge.

“If the tropical forests are destroyed, we risk losing our temperate climates. The weather we’ve taken for granted for generations will be gone, and all security along with it. We have to stop the mindless destruction of the rainforests and begin vast, conscious restoration.

We can collectively take global reforestation into our own hands and start to give back, as much as we all can, right now.”

Get involved

As UN Secretary General António Guterres declared on the eve of COP25, “The point of no return is no longer over the horizon”. 

TreeSisters calls each and everyone of us to take urgent action to help cool our world by Growing Your Own Forest. To answer the call, visit the website and chose an amount that connects you to how much this matters and give. Every month you will watch your forest grow.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from TreeSisters.

Campaigners took to the streets in a march led by NHS nurses and doctors as Donald Trump attended a reception for Nato leaders at Buckingham Palace.

More than 1,000 marchers representing a coalition of groups including Keep Our NHS Public, Global Justice Now, Stop Trump Coalition and the UK Student Climate Network gathered to oppose the US position on a future trade deal with the UK, in the wake of the last week’s leaked trade negotiation documents.

These revealed that the US administration wants to access parts of the NHS, including longer patents for drugs, which the campaigners say would prove an “existential threat to universal healthcare” by raising costs for the NHS.

Climate change refusal

The leak also revealed that the US will refuse to reference climate change in the deal. After the UK representative in the talks inquired about including climate change, the US counterpart “responded emphatically that climate change is the most political (sensitive) question for the US, stating it is a ‘lightning rod issue’”, and that there was a ban bound by congress on mentioning greenhouse gas emission reductions in trade deals.

The protestors also wanted to highlight Trump’s desire for market access for US food products made to much lower standards than in the UK, such as chicken washed in chlorine. This will be bad for UK farmers and citizen’s health, they said.

Shaista Aziz, from Stop Trump Coalition, said: “Trump has already referred to his chum Boris Johnson as ‘Britain’s Trump’, which is why many people will be protesting Trump’s return to Britain on the eve of one of the most important elections in British history. We reject Trumpism in Britain and the USA, and we reject Trump’s plans for our NHS and country.”

Prime minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly stated that the NHS would not on the table in a future US trade deal, and has also said the UK was “not keen” on chlorinated chicken.

This Author

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for The Ecologist. She can be found tweeting at @Cat_Early76.

Some pet owners are convinced their dogs understand what they are saying, and even claim to have conversations with their four-legged friends.

Now scientists say they may be right, with research showing that man’s best friend is able to identify when someone new is speaking, or when they are saying a new word.

Humans can recognise who is speaking from the voice alone, and can also recognise the same word spoken by different people.

Sound

Researchers from the University of Sussex looked at whether domestic dogs could also spontaneously recognise the same word when spoken by different people, including people they were unfamiliar with.

They filmed the reaction of dogs when they heard recordings of men and women speaking a set of short words that sound similar to each other, such as had, hid, heard and heed.

The dogs in the study were recorded hearing the same word said by different speakers, or the same speaker saying different words.

According to the study published in Biology Letters they were able to listen to different people saying the same word and recognise it as the same word, ignoring the differences between speakers.

The dogs also discriminated between unfamiliar people by the sound of their voice alone.

Rewarded

Dr Holly Root-Gutteridge, who led the research, said: “Until now, the spontaneous ability to recognise vowel sounds when spoken by different people was considered to be uniquely human.

“But many dog owners believe their dogs can learn a word from one person and recognise it when spoken by a second or third person.

“We wanted to test if dogs can recognise the same phonemes – the little sounds that make up words – when spoken by different people, ignoring the differences in accent and pronunciation.”

Researchers chose words that are not usually associated with commands, so the dogs’ reaction could not be due to training.

The dogs did not know the speakers, so were not responding to the sound of a voice they recognised, and they were not encouraged or rewarded with treats and attention.

Tests

Scientists say their findings suggest our four-legged friends can recognise short words as being the same when spoken by different people.

They could also tell the difference when a word with a slightly different vowel sound was introduced.

Dr Root-Gutteridge, said: “The ability to recognise words as the same when spoken by different people is critical to speech as otherwise people wouldn’t be able to recognise words as the same when spoken by different people.

“This research shows that, despite previous assumptions, this spontaneous ability is not uniquely human and that dogs share this linguistic talent, suggesting that speech perception may not be as special to humans as we previously thought.”

A total of 42 dogs participated in the between-subject design study, with six tested under both conditions. Each set of tests included 24 dogs for a total of 48 results.

This Author

Nina Massey is the PA science correspondent.

Fossil fuel adverts should be banned unless they carry a tobacco-style health warning over climate change, green lawyers said as they launched a complaint against BP.

ClientEarth claims BP is misleading consumers about its focus on low carbon energy and climate solutions in advertising campaigns running in the UK and elsewhere.

The environmental legal charity has triggered an official complaint under the guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international set of rules governing corporate conduct.

Cleaner

The complaint is being submitted to the Government’s UK National Contact Point, which is responsible for implementing the complaints mechanism relating to the guidelines.

ClientEarth is also calling for a ban on all fossil fuel advertising unless it comes with a tobacco-style health warning about the dangers to the planet and people.

The lawyers say BP’s “keep advancing” and “possibilities everywhere” campaigns are potentially misleading, with a focus on the company’s renewable energy investments when the large majority of its investment is in oil and gas.

They have also raised concerns over statements on how clean gas is, its role in the energy mix and the need for greater use of gas in the coming decades.

ClientEarth climate lawyer Sophie Marjanac said: “BP is spending millions on an advertising campaign to give the impression that it’s racing to renewables, that its gas is cleaner, and that it is part of the climate solution.

Sustainability

“While BP’s advertising focuses on clean energy, in reality, more than 96 percent of the company’s annual capital expenditure is on oil and gas.

“According to its own figures, BP is spending less than four pounds in every hundred on low-carbon investments each year. The rest is fuelling the climate crisis.”

She added: “We see real parallels with fossil fuel companies and the tobacco industry, which knew about the risks their products posed but used misleading marketing campaigns to sell them regardless.

“Make no mistake, this is a climate emergency. You only need to see the increase in extreme weather events around the world – from flooding in the UK, to wildfires in the US and Australia.”

ClientEarth says the OECD sets guidelines on environmental communications and advertising that state the public requires accurate, clear and comprehensive information to make informed decisions on the sustainability of the products they buy.

Electric

There are also provisions to ensure disclosure of information, promotion of environmental awareness, and consumer education, which ClientEarth claims BP’s advertising campaign is in conflict with.

The legal charity is calling on BP to cease its advertising campaign until it complies with the OECD guidelines, issue a correction and ensure all future advertising complies with the rules.

In a statement, a spokesman for BP said: “We have not seen this complaint, but we strongly reject the suggestion that our advertising is misleading.

“BP has clearly said that the world is on an unsustainable path and must do more to reduce emissions. We support a rapid transition of the world’s energy system. BP is of course well known as a major oil and gas producer. We are also committed to advancing a low carbon future.

“So one of the purposes of this advertising campaign is to let people know about some of the possibilities we see to do that, for example in wind, solar and electric vehicle charging, as well as in natural gas and advanced fuels.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

The Pacific island state of Vanuatu made a bold statement yesterday at the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s annual Assembly of States Parties in The Hague. It argued that the Assembly should consider seriously expanding the court’s remit to include a crime of ecocide.

Ambassador John Licht of Vanuatu, speaking on behalf of his government to the full plenary session of the Assembly, declared: “An amendment of the Rome Statute could criminalise acts that amount to ecocide. We believe this radical idea merits serious discussion.”

This came in the context of Vanuatu’s declared commitment to universal justice for the most serious crimes, and also the observation that sea level rise and other impacts of climate change continue to compromise Vanuatu’s ability to achieve sustainable development under the 2030 SDG Agenda.  

International attention

Exploring justice for mass destruction to the natural environment and effects of global warming, Vanuatu’s official statement suggested that the Assembly of States Parties is supremely well positioned to consider averting climate catastrophe and securing reparation for victims through the international courts system.

The statement continued: “Science indicates that global warming is real and will only get worse and catastrophic if we do not achieve the rapid and far-reaching transformations necessary to keep temperature below 1.5 degrees.

“Therefore resolving to strengthen the international rule of law to protect our common heritage and environment could be our joint legacy.”

This is the first time since 1972 that a state representative has formally called for ecocide to be recognised at an international forum of such representatives.  T

he last person to do so was Swedish premier Olof Palme in 1972 at the UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment where he described the air and oceans as a shared environment towards which we all must have a duty of care, declaring that “ecocide … requires urgent international attention”.

Climate crisis

Ambassador Licht remarked after giving his speech: “We need to construct a strong bridge between science and legal pathways to explore how best the State Parties through their relevant international institutions could commence discussions on finding a legal recourse to the ongoing destruction of the natural environment and the Earth’s climate system – what we refer to as Ecocide.

“Vanuatu is not alone in the climate crisis”, he continued. “Societies around the world are facing similar challenges that continue to take lives and destroy economic wealth of affected regions at an unprecedented scale.

“Vanuatu believes that the ICC’s Assembly needs to remain relevant in the face of the greatest threats to human rights in the history of mankind – it needs to seriously consider amendments to have ecocide as the fifth crime under the Rome Statute.”  

The official statement to full Assembly came shortly after a side event hosted by the Republic of Vanuatu on “Investigating & Prosecuting Ecocide: the current and future role of the ICC”.  

The event was chaired by Ambassador Licht and featured Pacific speakers from Tuvalu and new ICC member state Kiribati, whose accession to the ICC’s Rome Statute took place just last month following a key roundtable meeting in Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila earlier this year. Also speaking were lawyers from France and Chile, international criminal barrister Richard Rogers and Stop Ecocide’s co-founder Jojo Mehta. 

Political climate

Jojo Mehta said: “The panel event was full and the atmosphere charged.

“This is an idea whose time has not only come, it’s long overdue. It’s committed and courageous of Vanuatu to take the step of openly calling for consideration of a crime of ecocide, and it was clear from the response today that they will not be alone. 

“The political climate is changing, in recognition of the changing climate.  This initiative is only going to grow – all we are doing is helping to accelerate a much-needed legal inevitability.”

This Author

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