IEEFA: Despite the talk, Shell and Total are still investing much more in fossil fuels than renewables

The supermajors’ aim of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 cannot be reached without exiting fossil fuel assets

July 23, 2020 (IEEFA) – While Shell and Total are shifting towards renewable energy technologies, around 90% of their capital continues to be spent on fossil fuels, finds a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

To reach their own stated targets, IEEFA estimates that Shell and Total each needs to shift at least $10bn per annum (or 50% of total capital expenditure) from oil and gas exploration and invest into accelerating their renewable strategies.

Ranking among the most significant contributors to the build-up of greenhouse gases, report author Clark Butler says both Shell and Total are well short of their publicised sustainable energy targets without a major shift of investment from fossil fuel assets to renewable energy.

“Total is unlikely to meet its 2025 goal of 25 gigawatts of installed renewable energy on its current trajectory,” says Butler. “And Shell’s immediate plan to spend $6bn on renewable energy generation by the end of 2020 will also fail.”

Total, the world’s fourth largest oil and gas company, has pledged to be net-zero in Europe (only) by 2050, and to reduce its carbon emissions intensity by 60% or more by 2050. Similarly, Shell plans to reduce its net carbon footprint by 65% by 2050.

“It is difficult to see how either company will achieve the massive transformation in carbon intensity they aim for without a fundamental shift away from oil and gas investment,” says Butler.

“Shell and Total together are responsible for more carbon emissions than Germany, the world’s sixth largest emitter. It is impossible for them to be net zero unless they invest more in zero emissions energy and less in fossil fuels.

“At the very least Total and Shell need to direct more than half of their capital investment each year to zero carbon investment if they are to reduce their carbon intensity in line with their own stated targets.

“This will at least tip the balance of investment in favour of renewables over fossil fuels and will scale them up towards renewable competitors like NextEra and Iberdrola.”

Butler says Total is almost halfway to its 2025 objective of 25GW and has successfully acquired large-scale renewable infrastructure development capacity.

“No other major oil company is growing renewables this fast,” says Butler. “But Total’s announcement last week of US$15 billion of debt financing dwarves its investment this year in zero carbon energy.”

“Shell is in an even worse position. It will need to increase its current level of activity by orders of magnitude to meet its renewables capital investment target of $2-3 bn per year from 2021.”

In contrast, the supermajors’ renewable competitors are way ahead of the curve.

Spain’s largest energy group, Iberdrola, told the market it would invest €32bn in renewables between 2018 and 2022. At its February 2019 shareholder update, that amount was increased to €34bn.

Butler notes Iberdrola’s share price performance over the last two years (up 53%) compared to Total (down 35%) and Shell (down 52%) confirms the market’s confidence in its strategy.

“In many ways, Iberdrola is the energy company Total and Shell say they want to become,” says Butler.

“An investor might well ask, why invest in Shell or Total to gain exposure to renewable energy when I could invest in NextEra, Ørsted or Iberdrola, given these firms are far more advanced in the transition?

“Investors may avoid the supermajors altogether unless they demonstrate serious progress towards their stated goals.”

Read the report: Supermajors’ Trajectory Towards Renewables Needs to Scale Up and Speed Up

Media Contact: Kate Finlayson kfinlayson@ieefa.org +61 418 254 237

Author Contact: Clark Butler clark.butler@ironbarkgroup.com

About IEEFA: The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) examines issues related to energy markets, trends, and policies. The Institute’s mission is to accelerate the transition to a diverse, sustainable, and profitable energy economy.

Posted in: Commentary, Energy Markets, Newsletter Daily, Oil industry, Renewables, Reports, Shell, Transition

IEEFA Africa: Botswana plans more coal-fired power as African solar accelerates

An African economic leader like Botswana should embrace solar to reduce subsidies and tariff hikes

As Sub-Saharan solar ambition has scaled up, Botswana has awarded its first ever power generation licenses to independent power producers (IPPs) – all three of them coal projects.

Most of the planned power generation is expected to export electricity to Botswana’s neighbours.

Solar ambition across Africa has been accelerating

Energy & Natural Resource Corporation’s planned 600 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station is expected to export power to South Africa’s Eskom power utility, Zimbabwe’s power utility Zesa and the Southern African Power Pool. Sese Power’s 225MW coal-fired power station is expected to export electricity to mining companies in Zambia.

Only power from Tlou Energy’s 2MW coal bed methane and solar project is expected to be for domestic consumption.

Tlou Energy’s incorporation of solar power in its project reflects the future of power generation in Southern Africa amidst technology that mirrors its past.

African solar ambition scaling up

Mining companies are increasingly keen to develop solar power

This development in Botswana comes as solar ambition across Africa has been accelerating. In May 2020, Algeria endorsed a huge 4 gigawatt (GW), five-year solar plan that will install 10 times the nation’s current solar power capacity for an investment in excess of $3bn.

May also saw major solar projects announced in Botswana’s vicinity.

Zambian state-owned electricity company Zesco announced that it had signed contracts worth $548m for the development of 600MW of solar power plants. And Zimbabwe announced an invitation to bid for 500MW of solar capacity across several locations. This follows the announcement of a 500MW solar project in Uganda in February this year.

Furthermore, mining companies are increasingly keen to develop solar power to meet their own power needs. Zimbabwean gold miner RioZim is planning 178MW of solar to meet the power needs of its own mining operations and make it independent of power utility Zesa, despite its attempt to develop a coal power station for the rest of nation.

The Morupule B coal power plant has been a major headache for the nation

In South Africa, mining companies are keen to start investing in solar power to reduce reliance on Eskom’s unreliable and expensive supply caused in part by the South African power utility’s financially catastrophic investment in new coal-fired power generation.

Botswana has had its own issues with coal-fired power development.

The Morupule B coal power plant has been a major headache for the nation. Currently the country’s only operating coal plant, Morupule B was completed at a cost of US1bn but has been plagued by technical problems that have left it unable to operate anywhere near full capacity.

The lack of available capacity led Botswana Power Corporation to seek to refurbish and reopen the previously shut down Morupule A coal plant. However, the refurbishment of this plant has reportedly also been mired in issues, both technical and financial.

Botswana’s economy stands out from the rest of Africa

Furthermore, a planned 300MW extension of Morupule B appears to have been shelved after the main proponent Marubeni pulled out of the project last year. Marubeni is one of a growing number of developers, investors and banks that are now distancing themselves from coal-fired power development.

Well over 100 globally significant banks have policies that restrict them from financing coal power and the list is now growing faster than ever. Such banks include major South African banks and the African Development Bank.

Botswana is an African economic leader

Botswana’s economy stands out from the rest of Africa. Rating agency Standard & Poor’s recently downgraded Botswana’s credit rating to BBB+ following COVID-19 impacts but it remains investment grade with one of the highest ratings on the continent. Moody’s rates Botswana’s credit even higher at A2 although with a negative outlook in the context of the current global downturn.

Botswana also has high levels of solar radiation and low population density making it a good candidate for solar power development as suitable developments sites ought to be plentiful. In addition, Botswana is ranked as being less corrupt than South Korea and a number of EU states including Italy.

With financiers and major investors increasingly turning away from coal, the nation should prioritise solar power

All this means that Botswana should be able to attract investment into its power sector. However, with financiers and . The International Energy Agency is calling for nations to invest in clean energy as a way to boost jobs and revitalise economies in the wake of COVID-19.

There is ambition for solar power in Botswana, but progress has been slow, and the country has fallen behind many other African nations. The Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) is expected to finally sign a deal for the long-delayed development of 100MW of solar before the end of the year.

However, momentum behind Botswanan solar may now be building. Following the issuance of generation licences to the country’s first independent power producers (IPPs), much of the latest interest in further generation licenses is coming from solar investors.

Power tariffs increasing significantly

Botswana has an important opportunity to take advantage of the declining cost of solar power to reduce the cost of power generation and the need for power subsidies and tariff increases.

BPC has recently increased power tariffs by 22% in order to boost revenues and reduce the need for further government subsidies to cover its losses. BPC’s highly unreliable coal-fired power units are making the utility reliant on expensive power imports.

Reliance on expensive coal-fired power plants goes hand in hand with the need for tariff or subsidy increases in developing nations. Indonesia’s state-owned power utility has seen its misguided reliance on new coal IPPs lead to the need for rapidly escalating government subsidies which may reach US$7.2bn in 2021. Bangladesh is also seeing power subsidies increase significantly, a trend set to continue if it relies on coal- and LNG-fired power into the future as planned.

Moving from a net power importer to a net power exporter makes a lot of sense

At last year’s World Economic Forum in Cape Town, Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi stated that he wanted to nation to embrace the fourth industrial revolution whilst diversifying its economy away from dependence on diamonds.

Moving from a net power importer to a net power exporter makes a lot of sense for Botswana. However, creating a “modern Botswana” won’t be achieved by developing the expensive coal power technology of the last century. A truly modern approach would involve the prioritization of solar power to meet domestic power needs followed by exports to Botswana’s neighbours who will be in need of further power supply as they recover from the COVID-19 slump.

The ever-declining cost of solar power can help BPC lower power tariffs which in turn can help support businesses and jobs across the nation.

The global economic downturn caused by COVID-19 means that refocusing future power plans towards modern technology to help revitalize the economy is more important than ever.

Botswana has many investment advantages over other African nations – it should fully utilize them to lead the continent towards power systems of the 21^st century.

Simon Nicholas is an energy finance analyst with IEEFA.

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U.K.’s biggest pension fund to divest from fossil fuels

IEEFA July 29, 2020 The Guardian:

The UK’s biggest pension fund, the government-backed National Employment Savings Trust (Nest) scheme with nine million members, is to begin divesting from fossil fuels in what climate campaigners have hailed as a landmark move for the industry.

The fund will ban investments in any companies involved in coal mining, oil from tar sands and arctic drilling. But the move puts Nest – a public corporation of the Department for Work and Pensions – potentially at odds with the current pensions minister, Guy Opperman, who earlier this month condemned divestment as “counterproductive”.

Nest, which handles much of the pensions of workers saving under the government’s “auto enrolment” scheme, will shift £5.5bn into “climate aware” investments as it anticipates a green economic recovery from coronavirus.

The ban will mean that some of the world’s biggest mining companies, such as BHP, can never be part of Nest’s share holdings, as long they derive profits from digging coal. It said it will sell its final holdings in BHP by 3 August. Nest will also seek to reduce its carbon-intensive holdings, such as with the traditional oil giants, while investing more money in renewable energy infrastructure.

Nest still has relatively little money under management – around £12.2bn – but it is expected to become a mammoth player in the industry as the savings from millions of workers pour into its coffers in the coming decades.

Nest is hesitant about describing its new policy as a full divestment programme. It said it remained interested in oil companies that were transitioning from carbon-based fuels to green energy and renewable technology and that it would use its muscle to challenge them and push for stricter targets.

SPACE
Why NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Uses Nuclear Energy

Radioactive plutonium is crucial for keeping this and other power-hungry deep-space missions warm and working for years on end

By Meghan Bartels, SPACE.com on July 29, 202

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover displays where its MMRTG was inserted, between the panels on the right marked by gold tube. Credit: NASA and JPL-Caltech


A spacecraft is only as strong as its power source, which is why when NASA was designing its Perseverance Mars rover, the agency turned to radioactive plutonium.

The plutonium that will be blasting off the planet on Thursday (July 30) isn’t in the same form as is used for weapons, and it’s well protected in case something happens to go wrong during the launch. But these plutonium units are a respected power source for spacecraft—NASA’s Curiosity rover runs on a similar device.

“NASA likes to explore, and we have to explore in some very distant locations, dusty locations, dark locations and harsh environments,” June Zakrajsek, a nuclear fuel expert at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio, said in a Department of Energy (DOE) podcast about the Perseverance mission. “When we’re in those kinds of environments, solar energy sometimes does not provide the power that we need. The light just does not get to those locations like we would need it.”

Some NASA missions to Mars have run on solar energy, of course—the InSight lander currently operating on the Red Planet bears solar panels, as did the twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers earlier this century. But Opportunity is a mascot for the weaknesses of solar energy at Mars, since the rover’s end came when a massive global dust storm blocked it from tapping into the sun’s light. Run a rover on nuclear power and you don’t have to worry about that scenario.

So for the Perseverance rover, NASA turned to plutonium in a system called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), which should be able to power the spacecraft for about 14 years.

“You don’t have extension cords, you can’t run out for a repairman,” Bob Wham, a nuclear fuel expert at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said in the same podcast. “You have to be totally reliable.”

Like the rest of the Perseverance rover, the MMRTG is based heavily on that of the Curiosity rover, which launched in 2011, landed on the Red Planet in 2012, and has been steadily chugging along ever since. Perseverance’s MMRTG has been in the works for seven years, nearly as long as its predecessor has been powering Curiosity, and carries a price tag of $75 million, according to the DOE.

(Nuclear power sources of other varieties have also traveled to deep space on missions like the forty-year-old twin Voyager probes and the Cassini spacecraft that dived through Saturn’s rings.)

Perseverance’s MMRTG is designed to produce 110 watts of power, about the same as is used by a light bulb. The plutonium will decay, emitting heat that a generator converts into energy to power all of the rover’s instruments, plus producing enough heat to protect the spacecraft from the freezing nights and winters on Mars.

The plutonium began as a different element entirely, neptunium, which scientists irradiated with neutrons in a nuclear reactor for nearly two months to convert it to the plutonium form needed for the MMRTG. The plutonium is then combined with ceramic, making a safer compound than is used in weapons.

Nevertheless, putting a nuclear power source at the tip of a rocket still prompts some cautionary measures. Most importantly, each pellet of plutonium is encased in iridium, which would contain the radioactive material if it fell back to Earth. According to NASA and the DOE, that’s happened to space-bound nuclear power sources on three occasions, none of which caused any damage, with one of the power sources even being fished out of the ocean for later use on another mission.

NASA beefs up the mission control teams for such launches with additional personnel to coordinate any necessary response to the nuclear aspect of the mission. For the Perseverance launch, the government modeled a whole host of things that could go wrong on launch day—covering everything from an issue before liftoff that would have relatively compact geographic impact to a problem in Earth orbit that keeps the spacecraft from leaving for Mars.

Both of these scenarios have a probability below 0.1%, according to the government’s models, and if an issue does occur during launch, those calculations suggest that even the most concentrated radiation exposure would be equivalent to about eight months of background radiation experienced by people living in the U.S.
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And so Perseverance is sitting on the launchpad loaded with an MMRTG containing 32 hot, silvery lumps of fuel, ready to blast off to the Red Planet.

Unlike Curiosity’s plutonium, some of that aboard Perseverance is relatively fresh and U.S.-made. The form of plutonium used on these missions began as a byproduct of nuclear weapon production processes, according to reporting by Slate after Curiosity’s landing, and the U.S. government stopped creating its own supply of this plutonium in the 1980s, having decided it could access enough for its needs.

But lately, NASA has been stuck rationing out the power sources, which is why the DOE decided in 2015 to get back in the business of making plutonium—up to 14 ounces (400 grams) each year right now, with an eye on being able to make 3.3 lbs. (1.5 kilograms) each year by 2026, according to the DOE.

As to where that plutonium will go, one future nuclear-powered NASA mission is already in the works. The agency’s Dragonfly mission, a drone bound for Saturn’s strange large moon, Titan, will be powered by an MMRTG. That spacecraft is scheduled to launch in 2026.

Copyright 2020 Space.com, a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

We’ve finally figured out where Stonehenge’s giant boulders came from

29 July 2020

By Donna Lu 

We finally know where most of Stonehenge’s sarsen stones came from

Andre Pattenden (English Heritag

The origins of the giant boulders at Stonehenge have long been a mystery – but now we have uncovered where they came from.

David Nash at the University of Brighton in the UK and his colleagues have identified the source of 50 of the 52 large boulders, known as sarsens, that make up the monument’s iconic stone circle.

By analysing the stones’ chemical composition, the team has traced their origins to 25 kilometres away from the monument, in the West Woods in Wiltshire.

The sarsens comprise Stonehenge’s outer circle as well as a horseshoe-shaped inner ring. Many are in trilithons: two vertical stones topped with a horizontal lintel.

Stonehenge also contains smaller rocks, known as bluestones, near its centre, the origins of which have previously been traced to Wales.

The researchers analysed the chemistry of the sarsens via a technique called portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, essentially a handheld X-ray gun. With this, they took five readings at different positions for each stone.

Read more: Hear what music would have sounded like at Stonehenge 4000 years ago

This revealed that 50 sarsens shared a common chemistry, containing more than 99 per cent silica, with trace elements including aluminium, calcium and iron.

“Two, much to our surprise, were different to that main cluster, but also different to each other,” says Nash. This suggests they have two separate origins.

Next, the researchers analysed a fragment of stone, taken from a collapsed sarsen when it was re-erected in 1958, to obtain a geochemical breakdown of the rock. They used this to sample areas of similar stone across southern Britain.

The site in the West Woods, one of six the team sampled in the Marlborough Downs, turned up with a match. “We didn’t expect we would ever find the original source area,” says Nash.

Identifying the origins of the sarsens opens up the possibility of future archaeological research into the routes they may have been transported to Stonehenge, says Nash.

The origins of the other two sarsens have yet to be identified.

Journal reference: Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc0133

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2250287-weve-finally-figured-out-where-stonehenges-giant-boulders-came-from/#ixzz6TlYrRZO4

Day After Voting Down 10% Pentagon Cut, 37 Senate Dems Join GOP To Approve $740 Billion War Budget

Friday, 24 July 2020, 4:14 pm
Article: Common Dreams

"I don't want to hear anyone tell me that we can't afford to expand enhanced unemployment benefits when we spend more on endless wars than the next ten countries combined," said Rep. Ro Khanna.

by Julia Conley

Protesters march against U.S. military intervention and spending. (Photo: Fibonacci Blue/Flickr/cc)

Hours after the Republican Party released a coronavirus relief proposal including $0 for election assistance funding and no additional funding for cities and states as the country continues to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Senate passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, allocating $740.5 billion to the Pentagon.

The annual military budget bill was passed with a vote of 86-14, with 37 Democrats joining the Republicans in supporting the proposal. View the full roll call here.

Progressives including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.),and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) voted against the bill.

The bill was passed a day after an amendment proposed by Sanders and Markey to cut the Pentagon's budget by 10% and redirect that funding toward significant investments in education, healthcare, and housing in poor communities—was rejected in the Senate, with a majority of Democrats siding with the GOP.

Democrats in the House also overwhelmingly joined Republicans to block a similar amendment put forward by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.).

The Senate bill includes $636.4 billion for the Pentagon's base budget, $25.9 billion for national security programs within the Department of Energy, and $69 billion for the Overseas Contingency Operations account.

President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the bill—on the grounds that it includes an amendment, introduced by Warren, to rename military bases which memorialize Confederate figures—but the budget was passed with more than two-thirds of the Senate's support, a veto-proof majority.

The House and Senate are now expected to reconcile their two versionsof the NDAA; the House bill includes a 3% pay raise for troops and $3.6 billion to combat China.

Earlier on Thursday, the GOP released its proposal for the next coronavirus relief bill, stipulating that the party would not approve the continuation of the full $600 boost in unemployment insurance, included in the CARES Act in March, which helped keep millions of Americans out of poverty in the first months of the pandemic.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who joined other progressives in the House in voting against the NDAA, reacted with disgust at the misplaced priorities made evident by the Pentagon budget's Senate approval and the GOP's proposal on Covid-19 relief.

Paul Kawika Martin, senior director and policy and political affairs at Peace Action, called on Democrats who continuously support hundreds of billions of dollars in military spending "take note that voters want government spending to put 'people over Pentagon.'"

"We should prioritize eradicating poverty, not war," wrote Markey on Wednesday, after the amendment he introduced failed in the Senate. "We should prioritize battling global-killer diseases, not developing new weapons designed to eradicate the human race. It is time we fund education, not annihilation. Medicaid, not missiles."

Julia Conley is a staff writer at Common Dreams.

© Scoop Media

UN Expert Welcomes Landmark Protection For Online Assembly

Thursday, 30 July 2020, 7:02 am
Press Release: UN Special Procedures - Human Rights

The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association has hailed as groundbreaking an authoritative new interpretation that the right to peaceful assembly extends to digital activities.

“I am excited by this truly landmark affirmation that protection of the right to peaceful assembly extends to remote participation, including online assemblies,” said Clément N. Voule, reacting to a document released by the UN Human Rights Committee today. “It is particularly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many peaceful gatherings have moved online.”

The Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by its State parties, released its first-ever interpretation of Article 21 of the Covenant, which in 66 words asserts the right to peaceful assembly. The Committee document, General Comment 37, is the culmination of two years of broad global consultations with civil society and experts, including with Voule and his predecessors, who had extensively pushed for such a document to be adopted.

“By focusing extensively on the intersection of digital technologies and the right to peaceful assembly, General Comment 37 sets out a clear framework to protect this fundamental right in the digital era,” said Voule. “It firmly settles the debate about whether the right to peaceful assembly extends to online activities, says governments should not block or hinder Internet connectivity in relation to peaceful assemblies, and questions the chilling effect of surveillance technologies.”

The Committee’s interpretation will be important guidance for judges in national and regional courts around the world, as it now forms part of what is known as ‘soft law’, he said.

“I urge States to protect peaceful assemblies online as well as offline,” said Voule. "During the current Covid-19 pandemic, when many peaceful gatherings have moved online, governments should strive to create an enabling environment for people to gather online and continue to access and use digital technologies to organise, participate in and monitor in-person assemblies.”

Mr. Clément Nyaletsossi Voule (Togo) is the Special Rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly and association.

© Scoop Media

NZ 

Banking Becomes First Living Wage Accredited Industry

Monday, 27 July 2020, 5:08 pm
Press Release: NZ Bankers' Association

Banking has become New Zealand’s first fully living wage accredited industry, leading to nearly 1800 employees and contractors moving onto the living wage and gaining greater economic independence for them and their families.

As of today, all 17 members of the New Zealand Bankers’ Association, and the association itself, have been fully accredited.

“As one of the largest industries in the country, we are showing leadership by committing to paying the living wage,” says New Zealand Bankers’ Association chief executive Roger Beaumont. “I encourage all industries to, where possible, pay the living wage to their employees and contractors.”

NZBA research shows that almost 80% of New Zealanders think the banking industry paying the living wage is a good idea and that it is important.

“New Zealanders clearly want their businesses to step up and pay a fair and decent wage. It’s the right thing to do,” says Beaumont.

“This is the first time we have had a whole sector showing leadership around a Living Wage and that is really something to celebrate,” says Annie Newman, Living Wage National Convenor.

“Banks are leading the way for many other sectors that could afford to follow suit and that’s important at a time when across the country so many workers are struggling during this COVID crisis. The message is, if you work in a bank you will be paid a decent wage whether you are a bank employee, a security guard or a cleaner. That’s fantastic.”

The 17 banks represented by NZBA range significantly in their size and scale, from employers of over 4000 people to small branches of global bank brands.

“There was no simple solution to accrediting every bank,” says Beaumont. “Large banks had huge numbers of contractors to work with while others had to get approval from international head offices. Navigating and, in some cases, seriously challenging those policies showed the effort everyone in the industry was willing to go through.”

Banks employ more than 25,000 people in New Zealand. Last year banks spent $5.73 billion running their businesses here, which includes purchasing local goods and services. The five major banks paid $2.7 billion to employees nationwide.

© Scoop Media

Global Witness Reveals 2019 Was 'Deadliest Year On Record' For Eco-Defenders, 212 Murdered Worldwide

Thursday, 30 July 2020, 4:36 pm
Article: Common Dreams

"Those that defend our land and environment are on the front lines of #ClimateAction. But we are failing them badly."

by Jessica Corbett

At least 212 eco-defenders were murdered around the world last year, according to a new annual report. Image: Global Witness

"In 2019, Global Witness recorded 212 murdered land and environmental defenders—making it the deadliest year on record for people defending their homes, forests, and rivers against climate-destructive industries."

That's according to Defending Tomorrow: The climate crisis and threats against land and environmental defenders (pdf), an annual report released Wednesday by the watchdog group, which has published data on the topic since 2012. The 2019 figure shows a notable jump from the 167 people killed in 2018.

While the number of murders last year set a new record, Global Witness notes that its data "will never accurately capture the true scale of the problem" because of reporting challenges in some countries, including "restrictions on a free press and the absence of documented abuses by governments and NGOs."

The two countries with the most known killings of eco-activists last year—Colombia with 64 and the Philippines with 43—collectively accounted for over half of all murders documented by the group. Honduras, which ranked fifth behind those two nations as well as Brazil and Mexico, had the most killings per capita.

Following a trend that Global Witness has reported on since 2012, Latin America was the worst-affected region, with over two-thirds of all the murders. More than half of all the activists killed were from mining-affected communities in the region—though the Philippines, in Asia, had the most mining-related deaths.

"Agribusiness and oil, gas, and mining have been consistently the biggest drivers of attacks against land and environmental defenders—and they are also the industries pushing us further into runaway climate change through deforestation and increasing carbon emissions," Global Witness campaigner Rachel Cox said in a statement.

"Many of the world's worst environmental and human rights abuses are driven by the exploitation of natural resources and corruption in the global political and economic system," Cox continued. "Land and environmental defenders are the people who take a stand against this."

In addition to the mining and extractives, agribusiness, and logging sectors, murders were linked to illegal crop substitution, land reform, water and dams, poaching, and fishing. There were nine killings linked to other sectors and 71 deaths with no clear link to a specific sector.

The report emphasizes a pattern of Indigenous people being attacked for defending their rights and territories. At least 33 activists were killed in the Amazon region last year, and nearly 90% of murders in Brazil—whose president, Jair Bolsonaro, has often clashed with Indigenous groups and environmentalists—were in the Amazon. Although the rainforest spans nine nations, the majority of it is located within Brazil.

Across the globe last year, "40% of murdered defenders belonged to Indigenous communities," the report says. "Between 2015 and 2019 over a third of all fatal attacks have targeted Indigenous people—even though Indigenous communities make up only 5% of the world's population."

Eco-defenders who aren't killed still face attacks that include criminalization and smear campaigns. The report explains that both individuals and advocacy groups face "stigmatization from government figures and local media, using labels like 'anti-development,' 'criminals,' or 'terrorists.'"

Global Witness found that over 1 in 10 defenders killed last year were women, and those who take action or speak out can endure gender-specific threats, including sexual violence. The report notes that women and girls are also often more vulnerable to the impacts of the human-caused climate crisis.

"The climate crisis is arguably the greatest existential threat we all face. And as it escalates, it serves to exacerbate many of the other serious problems in our world today," warns the report, specifically referencing economic inequality and racial discrimination.

"If we want to end climate breakdown, then it is in the footsteps of land and environmental defenders we must follow," the report adds. "We must listen to their demands and amplify them. Inspired by their bravery and leadership, we must push those in power—businesses, financiers, and governments—to tackle the root causes of the problem, support and protect defenders, and create regulations that ensure projects and operations are carried out with proper due diligence, transparency, and free prior and informed consent."

The report details demands for various actors that have "failed in their responsibilities."

• Governments need to urgently address insecure land rights, protect defenders' rights to safety, and investigate and bring to justice those responsible for attacks against them.
• Companies must respect defender rights, develop and implement zero-tolerance policies on threats against defenders, and ensure full cooperation with any investigations into attacks.
• Investors should screen portfolios for defender-related risks, establish early warning systems to detect and prevent potential conflicts, and include contractual provisions in all project contracts requiring compliance with the company's defender policy.

Putting the report in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and calls to #BuildBackBetter, Cox said that "if we really want to make plans for a green recovery that puts the safety, health, and well-being of people at its heart, we must tackle the root causes of attacks on defenders, and follow their lead in protecting the environment and halting climate breakdown."

The Global Witness report also elicited calls for action from those outside the organization.

"Those that defend our land and environment are on the front lines of #ClimateAction. But we are failing them badly," tweeted United Nations Environment Program executive director Inger Andersen with a link to the report. "We must stand by them and protect their vital work."

Jessica Corbett is a staff writer at Common Dreams.

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Nearly 800 million children affected by lead poisoning — half of them live in South Asia
BI INDIA BUREAU JULY 31, 2020,

Dylan Winterflood/unsplash

One in every third child — about 800 million worldwide — are being poisoned by lead

According to the UN report, lead poisoning hampers children's ability to fully develop and prevents them from taking the maximum advantage of the opportunities in life.

Further, childhood lead exposure is estimated to cost lower- and middle-income countries almost $1 trillion due to the lost economic potential of these children over their lifetime.

The study calls for the need to abolish dangerous practices like informal recycling of lead acid batteries

Childhood lead poisoning has been a long-recognised concern and a new study shows us the extent of this grave problem. According to UNICEF, a third of the world’s children - about 800 million worldwide — are affected by lead poisoning, through air and water pollution. They have found unacceptably high levels of lead in these children’s blood, at or above 5 micrograms per deciliter — the level which requires action. Moreover, nearly half of these children live in South Asia, states this UNICEF and Pure Earth report.

“With few early symptoms, lead silently wreaks havoc on children’s health and development, with possibly fatal consequences. Knowing how widespread lead pollution is – and understanding the destruction it causes to individual lives and communities – must inspire urgent action to protect children once and for all.” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore warned.

Findings of the UNICEF report

Lead poisoning causes irreparable harm and hampers children's ability to fully develop - it has been linked to mental health and behavioural problems

Older children have higher risk of kidney damage and cardiovascular diseases

Children from low and middle-income countries are more prone to it

Childhood lead exposure is estimated to cost low and middle-income countries almost $1 trillion, due to the lost economic potential of these children over their lifetime.

Lead poisoning - the leading causes

The report notes that informal and substandard recycling of the lead-acid battery is a leading contributor to lead poisoning in children living in low and middle-income countries, which have experienced a three-fold increase in the number of vehicles since 2000.

The increase in vehicle ownership, combined with the lack of vehicle battery recycling regulation and infrastructure, has resulted in up to 50% of lead-acid batteries being unsafely recycled in the informal economy.

Workers in dangerous and often illegal recycling operations break open battery cases, spill acid and lead dust in the soil, and smelt the recovered lead in crude, open-air furnaces that emit toxic fumes poisoning the surrounding community.

Often, the workers and the exposed community are not aware that lead is a potent neurotoxin.

Other sources of childhood lead exposure include lead-in water from the use of leaded pipes, lead from active industry, such as mining and battery recycling, lead-based paint and pigments; leaded gasoline, which has declined considerably in recent decades, but was a major historical source, lead solder in food cans, and lead in spices, cosmetics, ayurvedic medicines, toys and other consumer products, said the report.

Parents whose occupations involve working with the lead often bring contaminated dust home on their clothes, hair, hands, and shoes, thus inadvertently exposing their children to the toxic element.

"There is good news to hope. The good news is that lead can be recycled safely without exposing workers, their children, and their surrounding neighbourhoods, ” Richard Fuller, President of Pure Earth said.

Fuller says lead-contaminated sites can be remediated and restored.
A Third of Children Globally Have Dangerous Levels of Lead in Their Blood

Workers sort through used computers and other electronic waste at a workshop in New Delhi, India.
Kuni Takahashi—Getty
BY MÉLISSA GODIN
JULY 30, 2020


One in three children globally have dangerous levels of lead in their blood that could cause long-term physical and mental health problems, according to a new report, with the majority of children affected in low and middle-income countries.

The research—conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and published by Unicef in collaboration with Pure Earth on Thursday—found that up to 800 million children globally have lead levels at or above 5 micrograms per decilitre, an amount that can diminish a child’s IQ score by 3-5 points and could lead to increased violence, according to the report.

Most affected children are in low and middle-income countries, with South Asia accounting for half of the global total. India has the largest number of children with lead poisoning, with more than 275 million children with blood lead levels of more than five micrograms per decilitre.

“With few early symptoms, lead silently wreaks havoc on children’s health and development, with possibly fatal consequences,” said Henrietta Fore, Unicef Executive Director in a press release. “Knowing how widespread lead pollution is—and understanding the destruction it causes to individual lives and communities—must inspire urgent action to protect children once and for all.”

The report says e-waste, mining, paints and poorly recycled lead batteries are among the sources of poisoning. For example, children in many areas inhale the fumes from informal battery recycling operations and open-air smelters.

While exposure to high levels of lead can be deadly, lower levels can still have long-term health impacts, particularly for children whose brains are still developing. For children under the age of five, lead exposure is particularly dangerous and linked to mental health issues, behavioral problems as well as higher levels of crime and violence. Older children can also face severe problems, such as kidney damage and cardiovascular diseases.


But although the report rings an alarm bell about lead poisoning worldwide, it does offer hope.

“The good news is that lead can be recycled safely without exposing workers, their children, and surrounding neighborhoods. Lead-contaminated sites can be remediated and restored,” said Richard Fuller, President of Pure Earth. “People can be educated about the dangers of lead and empowered to protect themselves and their children. The return on the investment is enormous: improved health, increased productivity, higher IQs, less violence, and brighter futures for millions of children across the planet.”