Rajendra Pachauri: Less Meat, Less Heat
Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra K. Pachauri recently held a presentation at the University of Ghent, on the impact of meat consumption on climate change. Dr. Pachauri is the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC; he has been a vegetarian for ten years especially to decrease his ecological footprint.
Meat production and consumption cause 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is as much as the transport sector worldwide. Dr. Pachauri presented the following comparisons to clarify this impact: one cow emits the same amount of CO2 as a Ford Fiesta; eating no meat one day per week saves as much CO2 emission as not using a dishwasher, washing-machine, freezer, vacuum cleaner, hifi and TV for a whole year; the production of one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of beef requires 15,000 liters (4,000 gallons) of water and the CO2 emissions are similar to driving your car for 45 km (28 miles).
Green Jobs Now
This month, hundreds of events were organized across the United States to promote the creation of green jobs. A petition letter was sent to the U.S. Congress and the presidential candidates.
The petition reads: "I urge our elected officials to invest in creating millions of green jobs and a Clean Energy Corps. We can't drill and burn our way out of the current crisis. We can invest and invent our way out. We can create new pathways out of poverty and curb global warming at the same time. We will do this by retooling our factories, rebuilding our communities, and repowering America with 100% clean and renewable electricity. It's time to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty."
The Green Jobs Now National Day of Action is an initiative by Green For All, 1Sky, the We Campaign and others. The We Campaign is coordinated by the Alliance for Climate Protection, founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, who recently issued the challenge of 100 percent of U.S. electricity production to come from sources with zero carbon emissions within 10 years.
MEPs Give Boost to Renewables Industry
The Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) of the European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favour of key amendments which will support the development of renewable energy to help achieve the 20% by 2020 target. According to the Rapporteur, Green MEP Claude Turmes, EU countries are set to back the main elements of the vote.
The MEPs adopted flexibility mechanisms which will help Member States achieve their renewables target whilst retaining control over their national support schemes and renewable energy policies. National governments will have the options of statistically transferring surplus renewable energy to count towards their national target, launching joint renewables projects with other Member States, and voluntarily agreeing joint, or harmonised, support mechanisms.
Other important amendments agreed by ITRE include mandatory interim targets that are legally binding, which together with the direct penalty mechanism, would allow the European Commission to take effective early action against those Member States that fall behind on their renewable energy targets. ITRE also underlined that electricity from outside the EU must be physically imported into the Community before it can count towards a Member States national target.
The European Parliament will vote on the Renewable Energy Directive in a plenary session in the coming months.
No to Nuclear in Nizhny Novgorod
Russian anti-nuclear activists from seven cities recently gathered in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, some 500 kilometers southeast of Moscow, to protest government plants to build a nuclear power plant in the city. Local activists were joined by protestors from Dzerzhinsk, Rostov-on-Don, Yekatrinburg, Moscow, Irkutsk, and Voronezh. Representatives of anti-nuclear groups from around Russia gathered in solidarity in the fight against the construction of the new nuclear power plant. The protest was organised by Ecodefence, Voronezhs Groza movement, and the Nizhny Novgorod Anti-Atomic movement.
A banner measuring about 100 square meters reading No to the nuclear plant was raised on the 12-meter wall of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin and remained there for about 10 minutes before police ripped it down. Prior to the beginning of the protest, Nizhny Novgorod police phoned the activists and tried to force them to abandon the protest, but activists brushed off the pressure.
According to ANPED Board Member Andrey Ozharovskiy, a repeat of Chernobyl is possible on the banks of the Volga where Nizhny Novgorod is situated. The nuclear power plant is a radiation hazardous installation there is no guarantee that an accident will not happen, or even a catastrophe. In the event of an accident or incident our region will suffer unjustifiable damage, ecological refugees will appear, contaminated zones, evacuation zones, and people dont want that.
The disaster at the Chernobyl plant near Pripyat in the Ukraine of the former Socialist Republic was the worst nuclear accident in history. A nuclear reactor exploded several times and caught fire, sending a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere that contaminated an extensive geographical area. The fallout was 30 to 40 times that released by the atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War II. Some 336,000 people were evacuated and resettled. A 2005 report prepared by the Chernobyl Forum, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization attributed to the Chernobyl incident 56 direct deaths and an estimated 4,000 extra cancer cases among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed, and 5,000 among the six million living nearby.
Dmitry Levashov, a representative of the Nizhny Novgorod Anti-Atomic Movement said nuclear propaganda was trumping true public information. The authorities are taking the line of the nuclear lobby, arguments of opponents of the nuclear power plant are being ignored, and this is not right. It is an important problem, therefore we are doing everything to attract attention.
Viktoriya Gromova, a representative of Voronezhs Groza, stated: Building nuclear power plants is an economic trap. The nuclear power station will produce dangerous nuclear waste, for which there are no safe means to handle. When the waste piles up significantly, storing it in the territory of [the Nizhny Novgorod] region will be a dangerous and cash consuming matter. Nuclear electricity will then become too expensive. We think it is far better to conserve energy and develop the use of renewable energy, which do not create unsolvable problems for coming generations.
Nizhny Novgorod concluded an agreement with Rosatom to build the plant. The site for the plant has not yet been chosen, but one possible location is in the Uren district of the Nizhy Novgorod region, east of the city of Nizhny Novgorod.
Nuclear energy is not a sustainable source of energy. For more information about nuclear energy, please read our statement on nuclear energy.
EU Approves GM Soybean
Due to a lack of consensus and an ambiguous policy framework, the European Union has approved the import of a strain of genetically modified soybean. The bean, which bears the moniker A25704-12 and was developed by German biotechnology firm Bayer Cropscience, is now authorised to be brought to Europe to be used in food or animal feed for the next 10 years.
The decision was arrived at by the EU's executive, the European Commission, after ministers from the EU member states could not come to an agreement on the subject. When ministers are blocked over approval of a particular genetically modified product, the decision passes over to the Commission.
While a strong majority of European citizens have concerns about such biotechnology - with only 27 percent in favour of GM products according to a 2006 Eurobarometer poll, ministers themselves are sharply divided.
The Commission has repeatedly given its approval using this procedure, following the opinions of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). In August 2007, EFSA said that Bayer's A25704-12 soybean was safe for import, awarding the product a "positive safety assessment."
The authority has long been accused of being biased in favour of the biotech industry, both by environmental groups and by certain EU member states, who say the body gives its OK to GMOs without the required research. EFSA bases its investigations on data provided by the GM industry itself. Therefore it has always declared any GM crops it has studied to be safe.
For more information about the background and risks of GMOs, please see Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation by F. William Engdahl; the interview with Jeffrey Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, What's Wrong With GMOs?; and the report by the Independent Science Panel, The Case for a GM-Free Sustainable World.
Green.TV
green.tv is the worlds first ever broadband TV channel dedicated entirely to environmental films. Formed in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme in early 2006 it shows content from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, IFAW and many more. In total there are now over 600 films on the site ranging from informative little docs to short witty comical clips.
Shell and Chevron Involved in Sex and Drug Scandal
People often say the Bush administration is in bed with the oil companies, but it turns out to be literally true.
According to the U.S. Interior Department, some government officials in charge of collecting oil and gas royalties smoked pot, snorted cocaine and had sex with employees of big energy firms.
Three reports delivered this month to the U.S. Congress portray "a culture of ethical failure" in which employees of the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) often accepted gifts from oil and gas interests, steered lucrative contracts to cronies and partied hard with those with whom they did business on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer.
The MMS collects about $10 billion annually in royalties from energy companies that drill offshore and on federally owned lands. Beside the IRS, it's one of the biggest sources of government revenue.
During the Bush years, the agency has faced harsh criticism for failing to vigorously pursue millions of dollars in outstanding or potential royalties. One controversial program, called royalty-in-kind, allows energy companies to pay the government in gas and oil, instead of dollars.
According to the inspector general's report, the royalty-in-kind office of the MMS was rife with "substance abuse and promiscuity." Some MMS workers in the royalty-in-kind program took cocaine and marijuana and had "illicit sexual encounters." Certain fun-loving employees were known as the "MMS Chicks" by energy firm employees, who would generously invite the women to lively social events.
Oil and gas companies named in the corruption scandal are Chevron, Hess, Shell Pipeline and Gary-Williams Energy. They paid for MMS workers to attend PGA golf tournaments, Major League Baseball and football games, ski trips, a Toby Keith concert, paintball-shooting events and ''treasure hunts''.
Shell has reported 2007 earnings of US$27.5 billion, while the price of gasoline has meanwhile risen to over US$4 per gallon. According to Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, the profits would be invested in "the future of society so that people can live the life they want."
Government workers got drunk at social events with employees of oil companies doing business with the agency and MMS workers had "brief sexual relationships" with industry contacts, according to the inspector general.
The Shadows of Consumption
The Shadows of Consumption: Consequences for the Global Environment gives a hard-hitting diagnosis: many of the earth's ecosystems and billions of its people are at risk from the consequences of rising consumption. Products ranging from cars to hamburgers offer conveniences and pleasures; but, as Peter Dauvergne makes clear, global political and economic processes displace the real costs of consumer goods into distant ecosystems, communities, and timelines, tipping into crisis people and places without the power to resist.
Peter Dauvergne maps the costs of consumption that remain hidden in the shadows cast by globalized corporations, trade, and finance. He traces the environmental consequences of five commodities: automobiles, gasoline, refrigerators, beef, and harp seals. In these fascinating histories we learn, for example, that American officials ignored warnings about the dangers of lead in gasoline in the 1920s; why China is now a leading producer of CFC-free refrigerators; and how activists were able to stop Canada's commercial seal hunt in the 1980s (but are unable to do so now).
Dauvergne's innovative analysis allows us to see why so many efforts to manage the global environment are failing even as environmentalism is slowly strengthening. He proposes a guiding principle of "balanced consumption" for both consumers and corporations. We know that we can make things better by driving a fuel-efficient car, eating locally grown food, and buying energy-efficient appliances; but these improvements are incremental, local, and insufficient. More crucial than our individual efforts to reuse and recycle will be reforms in the global political economy to reduce the inequalities of consumption and correct the imbalance between growing economies and environmental sustainability.
Shrink
Almost everyone in industrialised countries uses paper every day, but we have become careless. For example, 65% of print-outs and photocopies, many of which could be read on screen, land in the bin before the end of the day, and junk mail and catalogues are clogging our mailboxes. Paper production and use is directly linked to grave negative impacts on forests, biodiversity, on water resources, on the global climate and on human rights, through irresponsible producers.
A network of more than 50 European environmental non-governmental organisations recently launched Shrink. Shrink is a joint project addressing the madness of over-consumption of paper. Individuals as well as corporate and institutional paper users are invited to pledge to cut their paper consumption.
Forest Law: the EU Approach
Illegal logging and its environmental effects as well as its impacts on people are among the reasons why the European Commission published the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan in 2003. The Action Plan sets out different measures available to the European Union and its Member States to tackle illegal logging.
A policy brief by the European Forest Institute, Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade the European Union approach, introduces the Action Plans main aims and methods to develop markets in Europe for legal products. The Plan focuses on the EU trade policies by developing partnerships with producer countries; by developing legislation to encourage importers to take responsibility for the provenance of the wood they buy and by promoting responsible purchasing by governments and timber importers in Member States.
Earth Overshoot Day
September 23 this year marks an unfortunate milestone: the day humanity will have used all the resources nature will generate this year, according to Global Footprint Network data. Earth Overshoot Day marks the day when humanity beings living beyond its ecological means. Beyond that day, we move into the ecological equivalent of deficit spending, utilizing resources at a rate faster than what the planet can regenerate in a calendar year.
Globally, we now now require the equivalent of 1.4 planets to support our lifestyles. But of course, we only have one Earth. The result is that our supply of natural resources -- like trees and fish -- continues to shrink, while our waste, primarily carbon dioxide, accumulates.
Just like any company, nature has a budget -- it can only produce so many resources and absorb so much waste every year. The problem is, our demand for nature's services is exceeding what it can provide.
In 2008, humanity used about 40% more in one year than nature can regenerate that same year. That means it takes over a year and three months for the Earth to regenerate what humanity is using in one year. This problem -- using resources faster than they can regenerate and creating waste faster than it can be absorbed -- is called ecological overshoot.
We currently maintain this overshoot by liquidating the planets natural resources. For example we can cut trees faster than they re-grow, and catch fish at a rate faster than they repopulate. While this can be done for a short while, overshoot ultimately leads to the depletion of resources on which our economy depends.
In fact, overshoot is at the root of the most pressing environmental problems we face today: climate change, declining biodiversity, shrinking forests, fisheries collapse and several of the factors contributing to soaring world food prices.
Humanity first went into overshoot in 1986; before that time the global community consumed resources and produced carbon dioxide at a rate consistent with what the planet could produce and reabsorb. By 1996, however, humanity was using 15 percent more resources in a year than the planet could supply, with Earth Overshoot Day falling in November. This year, more than two decades since we first went into overshoot, because we are now demanding resources at a rate of 40 percent faster than the planet can produce them, Earth Overshoot Day has moved forward to September 23.
Cool the Earth
With the aim of curbing global warming as much as possible and keeping the earth "cool", Eco Business Creation Association is calling for ideas from around the world for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, through the Cool the Earth contest. Applicants will have the opportunity to exchange views or to network over the Internet in order to enhance the feasibility of ideas.
Based on the innovative ideas it receives, prototype projects will be conducted in Japan to establish models for reducing emissions. The results of these projects will be reported to the global community in the hope that this will promote further innovation towards reducing CO2 emissions.
Sugarcane Lobby Active in Brussels
In spite of overwhelming criticism of agrofuels as a 'solution' to climate change, sugarcane ethanol is often seen as the one more positive exception. The Brazilian government is lobbying hard in Brussels in favour of high EU agrofuel targets and for better market access for sugarcane ethanol. However, sugarcane is far from a sustainable source of energy. Certification initiatives such as the 'Better Sugarcane Initiative' are top down approaches that lack support from small producers or affected communities.
In July, responding to high profile concerns, the European Parliament's Environment Committee voted in favour of cutting the proposed 10% target down to 4% by 2015. Many calls are now going out to the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee to drop the proposed 10% agrofuel target in their upcoming vote on the issue on 11 September.
That same ITRE Committee however voted on 1 September to significantly dilute proposals for fuel efficiency standards for cars. Car manufacturers will be able to use agrofuels as a 'get out clause' to avoid having to abide by standards. This shows clearly that agrofuels are being promoted in the EU largely to make up for the lack of real measures to reduce emissions from cars and fuels, or to change the transport model. EU decision makers have turned agrofuels into an escape route for the car and the oil industry, who will have to invest less in more efficient cars, or in a clean-up of oil operations.
More information about agrofuels and their impact is available in the September 2007 IFG Report The False Promise of Biofuels.
Dangerous Pesticide Limits in New EU Law
According to a study by Greenpeace Germany and Global 2000 (Friends of the Earth Austria), new maximum legal limits for the pesticide content of food products sold within the EU violate food safety by exposing people to unacceptable levels of contamination.
The 2005 regulation on Europe-wide limits on pesticide content in food sold within the EU has entered into force this month. It intends to address growing public concern over the health and environmental impact of the so-called plant protection products.
The study, The EU's Unsafe Pesticide Limits, finds that under the new regulation almost 700 of the maximum amounts of pesticide in fruit and vegetables allowed throughout the EU are too high.
In reaction to these findings, Pesticides Action Network (PAN) and Natuur en Milieu Netherlands have lodged an appeal at the Court of First Instance to force the European Commission to review its position and to encourage it to take their views into account properly at an earlier stage of the policy process.
SCP Policy Review of Western and South Caucasus EECCA Countries
Unsustainable consumption and production patterns have brought human civilisation to the brink of a global disaster. Alteration of these patterns in order to minimise their adverse environmental impacts has now become the key question for survival, a question relevant for any country and any citizen.
However, the principle of common but differential responsibility stipulates that every country has the right to economic development; the less economically developed a country is, the higher the destructive environmental effect it may generate in the course of its industrialisation and economic growth. To address these destructive trends, numerous international assistance mechanisms were instituted to support countries in environmentally sound reforming of their economies by transfer of knowledge and technologies that may accelerate transition to sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns.
Transition economies have a special role to play in this process as they have not completely gotten rid of their inherited Soviet-style management practices; and their environmental policy in its modern understanding is still very young, similar to the market economy and the process of democratic transformation of their political systems. Where are these countries in terms of understanding and implementation of SCP patterns? How are key SCP instruments reflected in their policies and legislation? May NGOs of their countries become driving forces to accelerate greening of their economies?
The SCP Policy Review of Western and South Caucasus EECCA Countries seeks to answer the above questions from the NGO point of view and draw the picture of current progress on the environmental policy integration, sustainable development agenda and sustainable consumption and production concept implementation in countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. Having many common roots from the legacy of the past, these countries also have differences and specific features, which are important to know and understand
