Czech President Milos Zeman leaves, opponents celebrate





Czech Republic's President Milos Zeman answers questions during an interview with The Associated Press at the Prague Castle in Prague, Czech Republic. Wednesday, March 8, 2023 marks the final day in office of outgoing Czech President Milos Zeman, with his opponents planning to celebrate. Zeman has polarized the Czechs during his two five-year terms in the normally largely ceremonial post with his support for closer ties with China and by being a leading pro-Russian voice in European Union politics. 

(AP Photo/Petr David Josek/File)

KAREL JANICEK
Wed, March 8, 2023


PRAGUE (AP) — Over the past 10 years, Czech President Milos Zeman has courted controversy, seeking a referendum on whether his country should leave the European Union, targeting migrants and joking about killing journalists.

Many Czechs will cheer the departure of their outgoing head of state Wednesday — with one activist group planning to burn Zeman in effigy and cast the ashes into Prague's Vltava River.

Zeman will be replaced in the largely ceremonial post by retired army general Petr Pavel, who beat a populist billionaire in the second round of presidential elections on Jan 28. Pavel formally takes over Thursday.

In his two consecutive terms in office, Zeman, 78, has polarized public opinion. A divided nation to which he contributed will be the most visible legacy of his reign while much of his political agenda at home and abroad failed.

While his predecessors, Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus, were elected by Parliament, when former prime minister Zeman took the office in 2013 it was in a direct vote by the Czech public. His ally Andrej Babis — who unsuccessfully ran against Pavel in January — became finance minister the same year before later assuming the post of prime minister.

“It turned out that a directly elected president can turn semi-dictator if he has the will and faces a weak opponent in the prime minister,” said Vera Kovarova, a deputy speaker of Parliament’s lower house from the STAN party.

Zeman was considered more pro-European than his euroskeptic predecessor Klaus, but gradually used every opportunity to attack the EU, including its plan to tackle climate change. After Britain decided to leave the EU, he proposed a referendum on the country’s membership in the bloc — while saying he would vote to stay.

He also sought closer ties with China and became a leading pro-Russian voice in EU politics.

His critics called him “a servant of the Kremlin” after he sided with Russia and cast doubt on the findings of his country’s own security and intelligence services on the alleged participation of Russian spies in a huge 2014 ammunition explosion.

After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Zeman condemned the “unprovoked act of aggression," but he had opposed the initial EU sanctions against Russia after the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Zeman declared he would focus on economic diplomacy but his promises of Chinese investments worth billions of dollars never materialized and his hopes to boost ties with Russia came to a complete end with the invasion of Ukraine.

On the 25th anniversary of the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution that year, protesters pelted him with eggs, sandwiches and tomatoes, accusing him of betraying the commitment to human rights enshrined by Havel, the hero of the revolution.

Zeman was one of the few European leaders to endorse Donald Trump’s bid for the White House and support his decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. His pro-Israeli views were perhaps the only part of his foreign policy that was positively welcomed in his country, which is one of the strongest allies of Israel in the EU.

Among other controversial acts, Zeman also linked Islamic extremist attacks in Europe to immigration, which he has described as an “organized invasion.” And he made derogatory comments about the #MeToo movement and transgender people, and vowed to veto legislation allowing same-sex marriages should it be approved by Parliament.

The media presented another target. On his first day in office, Zeman said some journalists “brainwash” and “manipulate public opinion.” He told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in China that there were too many journalists and some should be “liquidated.”

At home, Zeman was accused of trying to adjust the Constitution to his own needs. In 2019, the upper house of Parliament, the Senate, voted to charge him with failing to act in line with the Constitution in eight cases, including a repeated failure to appoint proposed government ministers. But the lower house dominated by Babis’ party didn’t follow suit and the case was never sent to the Constitutional Court for a final verdict.

In 2013, following the collapse of a government, Zeman ignored a coalition that had a majority in Parliament and named a new government of technocrats led by his adviser as prime minister. Most constitutional lawyers and experts said he had no right to do it.

That Cabinet lost a confidence vote but remained in power for half a year until an early election, pushing some of Zeman's projects, including a artificial waterway that would link rivers in Austria, Poland and Czechia. Experts dismissed the project as unrealistic and it was recently completely abandoned by the current government.

Zeman is a chain smoker with a soft spot for alcohol but has said he changed his habits an his doctors' advice. He has diabetes, has trouble walking and has been using a wheelchair.

Zeman has said he will settle in his new home near the presidential chateau in Lany, west of Prague, and he is planning to open an office near Prague Castle, the seat of presidency.

‘This is how I’m going to die’: police swarm activists protesting ‘Cop City’ in ‘week of action’

100
Timothy Pratt in Atlanta
Tue, March 7, 2023 

“Check their shoes and look for mud!” shouted one Atlanta police department officer to another.

The sun was setting against a tree line growing greener daily due to recent balmy, spring-like weather in Atlanta, but the bucolic setting of a Sunday in the sun at a free music festival abruptly became panic and chaos.

Related: ‘Sadness in the whole forest’: family of Cop City activist killed by police seeks answers

Dozens of law enforcement officers, many with automatic weapons, swarmed into a forest of hundreds of acres, seeking to find any of the 200 or so activists who had set fire to a bulldozer, trailer and other infrastructure used for construction on “Cop City”, a $90m, 85-acre police and fire department training center, about an hour earlier.

The clash was just the latest dramatic chapter to hit the Cop City project, which has already seen one environmental activist shot dead by police – the first incident of its kind in the US – and drawn national and international attention to the fight to save the Georgia forest where the giant project is planned.

The one officer’s frenzied order about dirty footwear seemed as absurd as any part of the Sunday night operation, since Georgia rains had left muddy patches all over the forest, and at least 600 people were lying on the grass, or camped among the trees, or entering the forest to catch an evening’s music under the stars or leaving – thus many had mud on their shoes.

But such was the situation on Sunday night, on the second night of the fifth “week of action” by activists over the last year dedicated to protecting the land called South River forest on municipal maps and Weelaunee forest by activists – using the Muscogee (Creek) word for “brown water”.

The scene included police running through trees, arresting a legal observer from the National Lawyers Guild, sending a negotiator to agree on terms with five randomly chosen individuals for letting about a hundred music festival audience members safely leave the forest, and detaining journalists for questioning on “what they were there to cover”.

The first two days had included free music, herbal workshops and a peaceful march through neighborhoods surrounding the forest south-east of Atlanta. Then, around 5.30 on Sunday evening, about 200 activists, most in balaclavas and camouflage clothing, began lining up to the right of the stage. They marched around three sides of the audience, chanting “Viva Tortuguita” – a reference to Manuel Paez Terán, a 26-year-old activist who was camping several hundred feet away from that spot on 18 January when police shot and killed him in another raid. It was the first time police killed an environmental activist while protesting in US history. Authorities said that Paez Terán fired first.

After several hours of chaos on Sunday night, 23 people – including a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild – had been arrested and charged with “domestic terrorism” under state law, adding to the 18 defendants facing the same unprecedented charges who have been arrested in recent months.

People protest against ‘Cop City’ at Atlanta’s city hall on 6 March. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA

Police officers had also threatened to arrest the hundred or so people who were lolling about in the field and listening to music only hours earlier if some agreement couldn’t be reached for their evacuation, said Jeff Simms, a retired federal endangered species biologist who was there.

Simms – who had come to the forest from Tucson, Arizona, to spend the week camping in the forest with his 21-year-old daughter, Alyssa – found the two of them thrust into unexpected positions as members of a five-person negotiating team on Sunday night.

Simms had watched dozens of police officers entering the forest from various sides and thought: “We’re all going to jail.”

He had spent one night camped in what is technically called Intrenchment Creek park. At least 85 acres of the forest is under threat from the construction of Cop City and another 40 acres is under threat from Ryan Millsap, former owner of Blackhall Studios, who made a deal with DeKalb county in 2020 to swap the land, in use as a public park, for another piece of land nearby. That deal is on hold due to a local environmental group’s lawsuit, and residents of surrounding neighborhoods continue to use the park for recreation.

The two parts of the forest are divided by a stream, Intrenchment Creek. The pair of threats to the forest led dozens of “forest defenders” to camp in the woods on both sides of the creek starting in late 2021. After Tortuguita’s death, hundreds recently began camping on the park side again – where all the arrests on Sunday were made.

On Sunday night, even as music continued on stage – mostly soft folk tunes, Simms said – police formed a line on the field. One had an AR-15 assault-type rifle, he said. Another announced on a bullhorn that they had a negotiator, and asked for five people to step forward.

“My daughter and I went, along with three others, and we all took turns speaking,” the 61-year-old said. The officer assured the team that they weren’t setting a trap, and said the crowd, which included at least one elementary school-aged child, would have 10 minutes to clear the field – or “we will arrest you for domestic terrorism”, Simms said the police told him.

“We told them the musicians had equipment, people had gear and bags, and we’d need at least 15 minutes,” Simms said. Then “I went back and told them, ‘We’re not gonna make it in 15.’”

People were hiding in the woods, and not sure how to get out

Mariah Parker

The group of five spoke to the crowd and helped arrange transportation out of the forest for those who hadn’t arrived in their own cars. Organizers on stage urged them to “stay together. They can’t arrest us all,” Alyssa said.

Eventually, the crowd was able to leave – even as officers in other parts of the forest were attempting to find, and arrest, anyone who had participated in vandalizing the construction equipment.

Simms and his daughter returned to the forest on Monday, to camp for the rest of the week. “I want to take notes about the biology of this forest,” he said. “I came here to do that.” The Center for Biological Diversity, a national organization, recently issued a statement calling for protecting the forest due to its biological and ecological importance.

Mariah Parker, a union organizer, rapper and former Athens-Clarke county commissioner, went to the forest for the first time on Sunday. She had already been public in her opposition to the Cop City project for months, based on concerns about the increasing militarization of police and mass incarceration, particularly in Black communities.

After spending an afternoon in the forest and at the music festival, she said: “It was so beautiful – seeing people building community. I was feeling excited for what this space could be, what kind of a world we could really have.” Parker, who is Black, had met a Black mother and her two children who lives near the forest, other rap artists, and local community gardeners and teachers.

She left at about 5.30pm – right before activists entered the training center construction site. Several hours later, friends in the forest texted her, frightened. “People were hiding in the woods, and not sure how to get out – and they weren’t even involved [in the vandalism],” she said.

Several of Parker’s friends were Black. For them, she said, “it must have been one of the worst moments of their lives, not being able to leave, or know what would happen. Particularly for Black folks, it must have felt like, ‘This is how I’m going to die.’”

Denmark hopes to pump some climate gas beneath the sea floor

JAMES BROOKS and FRANK JORDANS
Wed, March 8, 2023 

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark is cutting the ribbon Wednesday on an ambitious project to bury vast amounts of planet-heating carbon dioxide gas beneath the sea floor.

An international consortium of companies says the Greensand project in Denmark's North Sea will be the world’s first cross-border CO2 storage project.

Initially it will see 1.5 million metric tons of the greenhouse gas buried in a sandstone reservoir 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) below the seabed each year, rising to 8 million tons per year by 2030.

In a recent report, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said carbon capture and storage technology has to be part of the range of solutions to reduce emissions and curb global warming.


But critics of carbon capture and storage maintain the technology is unproven and undermines efforts to decarbonize the energy sector.

The project is led by chemicals giant INEOS and gas and oil producer Wintershall Dea.
___

Jordans reported from Berlin.

U.S. private payrolls increase in February -ADP

Wed, March 8, 2023

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - U.S. private payrolls increased more than expected in February, pointing to continued labor market strength.

Private employment increased by 242,000 jobs last month, the ADP National Employment report showed on Wednesday. Data for January was revised higher to show 119,000 jobs added instead of 106,000 as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private employment increasing 200,000.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers on Tuesday that the U.S. central bank would likely need to raise interest rates more than expected and opened the door to a half-point rate hike this month to combat inflation, following a recent raft of strong economic data.

Job growth was robust in January, with the unemployment rate falling to more than a 53-1/2-year low of 3.4%. Consumer spending rebounded strongly and inflation picked up in January.

The ADP report, jointly developed with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, was published ahead of the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics' more comprehensive and closely watched employment report for February on Friday.

It has not been a reliable gauge in forecasting private payrolls in the BLS employment report. The ADP initially reported 106,000 private jobs were created in January, a fraction of the 443,000 surge in private payrolls estimated by the BLS.

"More broadly, in the several months since the ADP data started being released with a new methodology, the first prints have not reliably predicted the first prints of the related BLS data," said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.

According to a Reuters survey of economists, private payrolls likely increased by 213,000 jobs in February. Total nonfarm payrolls are forecast rising by 203,000 jobs last month after surging 517,000 in January. 

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

UK

Women feel need to be 'looking over their shoulder' on public transport

Stewart Paterson
Tue, 7 March 2023 

The research was carried out for Transport Scotland (Image: Getty)

WOMEN feel they need to maintain "a constant state of vigilance" on public transport, research has found.

The study found concerns about men as “potential perpetrators of harassment, assault or anti-social behaviour” made women and girls feel unsafe on buses and trains.

The research for Transport Scotland found women changed or adapted their travel plans to avoid the risk of harassment or assault.

Women reported avoiding public transport completely, asking a male relative to meet them and taking steps like holding keys in their hand for self-defence and wearing trainers or flat shoes to be able to run if necessary.

Scotland's transport minister Jenny Gilruth said the report found women and girls are “constantly looking over their shoulder”.

Gilruth said: “It has become normalised and tolerated.

“Women should be able to travel safely on public transport and men should learn to behave themselves.”

Glasgow Times:

Because of the risks associated with public transport, the study found, the likelihood of delays or cancellations put women off using public transport at night to avoid having to wait alone in the dark.

Young women were more likely to report sexual harassment, disabled women were more likely to report anti-social and intolerant behaviour and women from ethnic minorities were most likely to report extreme examples of verbal sexist and racist abuse.

Women also noted that people, including other women, were unwilling to get involved “in situations that didn’t involve them”.

The report made 10 recommendations to improve safety for women and girls.

They include strengthening existing rules around non-consumption of alcohol on public transport and at points of interchange.

Other recommendations include more credible and accessible information and guidance for women and girls on what to do and who to contact if they feel threatened or unsafe.

Better lighting and security and increasing staff presence on board and at stations were also suggested.

Gilruth said what women face is not acceptable.

Glasgow Times:

She said: “During our research, women and girls told us they shoulder significant responsibility for adapting their own behaviour to try to ‘be’ and ‘feel’ safe on public transport.

“They are often in a constant state of vigilance, particularly at night time, and as a result end up changing their plans, only travelling at certain points of the day or not using public transport altogether.

“This is simply not acceptable in 21st-century Scotland.

“We will now work with transport operators and stakeholders to carefully consider these recommendations and how we can implement them quickly and effectively, to ensure our transport network is safer and more secure for all who use it.”

Superintendent Arlene Wilson, of British Transport Police, said: “We will use these findings to work with our partners to ensure that sexual harassment will not be tolerated on the network and we will always take reports of this behaviour seriously.

“Our officers continue to patrol the rail network to catch offenders and reassure passengers.”

She urged the public to report anything by texting 61016 or via the Railway Guardian app.

She added: “In an emergency, always dial 999.”

The battle for safer streets is not zero sum: let’s safeguard women and fight racial stereotyping

Jinan Younis
Tue, 7 March 2023

Photograph: Dmytro Betsenko/Alamy

Over the past month, it’s felt like every day has brought a grim reminder of the dangers faced by women on our streets and in our homes. The inquest into the murder of the Epsom college headteacher, Emma Pattison, and her daughter; the conviction of the murderer of the charity worker Elizabeth McCann; the arguments over the release of Joanna Simpson’s killer; the life sentence awaiting the boyfriend of Elinor O’Brien, who stabbed her in a “rageful and violent attack”; the conviction of the serial rapist police officer David Carrick; and the murder of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey. And it’s three years since the disappearance of Sarah Everard, murdered after being stopped on her way home by the rogue police officer Wayne Couzens (affectionately known by his colleagues as “the rapist”).

Against the backdrop of these horrific headlines, I have been having more and more conversations with women about how they feel unsafe in the streets. We’ve exchanged stories of being followed and catcalled, of sharing Uber rides with each other and making sure we text when we’re home safe. We’ve lamented the increased risk of attack that trans women face, and how Black and minority ethnic women face the threat of both racism and misogyny. We’ve discussed the 800 Met police officers under investigation for domestic and sexual abuse, and what it means for women’s trust in the police – though that’s a privilege many women of colour have never had.

But in my recent conversations with some women about their feelings of safety, I have noticed underlying coded messages. They say things like “it’s a dodgy area”; that they “wouldn’t want to be alone around there”. They say they are scared of men in hoodies.

Some forego any pretence. One woman said to me: “I probably do find Black men in hoodies more scary.” Others admit they quicken their pace when they see a Black man walking down the street.

When women talk in general terms of “dodgy” areas or that some “types” of men feel scary, often a lightly masked stereotype has informed that fear. Studies have shown time and again that images of Black men were seen as larger, more threatening and potentially more harmful in an altercation than a white person. Being scared of certain areas where there are more of the “types” of men perceived as scary, then, becomes code for being more scared of Black and minority-ethnic men in public. When I’ve challenged these women, they protest: “It’s just the crime statistics!”, without acknowledging that behind these statistics lie stories of police harassment, ethnic profiling and racial criminalisation.

Studies have tried to get to the bottom of this. One, in 2014, questioned a group of women about their fear in public spaces and reported: “Racist comments came up in the discussion: although the young women acknowledged they were stereotypes, they conditioned their feelings anyway.” A study last year examined views of Australian women on street harassment and spoke of “some participants saying they felt unsafe or perceived behaviour as threatening because the person was ‘not like them’.”

I find that the women who speak to me in problematic terms are usually those who have either not spent much time in areas with a high minority-ethnic population, or are part of the gentrification of poorer neighbourhoods and are living side by side with different racial groups for the first time. These women would typically pride themselves on being “anti-racist” – they may even have joined the mass global outrage over police brutality against Black men and women in 2020. They may have dipped into an anti-racism reading list. Yet it seems they haven’t truly interrogated how racial bias has seeped into the way they perceive their own safety.

This racial stereotyping can lead to a very real feeling of fear and vulnerability in women. Because that feeling is so real, women find it hard when challenged to unpack what biases have informed that fear. There’s a sense of outrage that anyone would question a woman who says she feels unsafe. Yet I am not challenging the fact women feel unsafe in the streets. I am simply asking for women to look at how their prejudices may inform who they are fearful of and why.

There are consequences to making lazy generalisations about “areas” that seem scary, or the “types” of men who inhabit them. It’s part of the same stereotyping that leads to the violent overpolicing of Black men. The Metropolitan police, for example, are four times more likely to use force against Black people, because officers perceive them as “more threatening and aggressive”.

The impact of this coded fear of certain “types” of men in certain “areas” is clear: increased policing of these communities. That means more surveillance, more targeting and more racial profiling of groups who are already treated with greater suspicion and violence than their white counterparts. If the headlines have shown us anything, it’s that women’s fear shouldn’t be relegated to a specific type of person; that anyone is capable of violence towards women, from teachers to police officers to intimate partners.

The goal of women’s safety does not lie in racial stereotypes. We should instead direct our concern towards a culture of toxic masculinity that has seeped its way into every corner of society. It shows up as misogyny in our institutions, in our workplaces and in our schools. It can be seen in the normalisation of violence against women in our popular culture. It is rooted in rigid concepts of gender and “manhood” and is supported by a system that routinely fails to believe women, and that blames and intimidates them.

Everyone should be able to feel they can walk down the street without fearing attack, assault or humiliation. So when we tackle the very real issue of women’s safety, we have to avoid actions that make the streets more dangerous for others.

This is not a zero-sum problem: we can fight for women’s safety in the streets and avoid playing into racial stereotypes. To have a coherent, intersectional approach to women’s safety, we have to work towards building streets that are safer for all vulnerable groups.

Jinan Younis is Head of the diversity, equity and inclusion practice at the strategy firm Purpose Union, and a former assistant politics editor at gal-dem magazine. She has contributed to the books I Call Myself a Feminist and Growing up with gal-dem. She is the past winner of the Christine Jackson Young Persons Award

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Nurses and midwives should be able to approve abortions, UK study concludes

Anna Bawden
Tue, 7 March 2023

Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Nurses and midwives should be able to approve abortions, MPs have been told, in what would be one of the biggest shake-ups of regulations in more than 55 years.

If adopted, the “two-doctor rule”, which stipulates that abortions have to be authorised by two GPs, would be scrapped.

More than 20 researchers from seven countries contributed to Shaping Abortion for Change (Sacha), the largest study on abortion in the UK, surveying more than 700 GPs, midwives, nurses and pharmacists in Britain, as well as interviewing women who had recently had an abortion.


The government-commissioned study concluded that regulations should be changed to allow nurses and midwives to authorise an abortion, prescribe abortion medication and perform vacuum aspirations. Researchers found that medical abortions, in which patients take abortion medication at home, now account for 87% of terminations in England and Wales.

Although nurses increasingly supervise these abortions, two doctors are still required to authorise an abortion under the 1967 Abortion Act. In addition, nurses are not allowed to perform vacuum aspirations for a termination, even though they can conduct the same procedures for miscarriages with patients who are up to 14 weeks pregnant.

The study, which was funded by the NHS’s research arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), examined international evidence, including abortion reforms in Australia, Canada and Sweden.

It found that almost a fifth of healthcare workers and a third of women were unaware that abortion is still a criminal offence unless it is signed off by a doctor.

Related: Women accused of illegal abortions in England and Wales after miscarriages and stillbirths

“Abortion legislation is more than 50 years old. Since 1967, medical and technological advances have transformed how women access their care. The law needs to be brought up to date with 21st-century opinions and practice,” said Kaye Wellings, Sacha co-lead and professor of sexual and reproductive health research at LSHTM.

In the study, 90% of healthcare professionals surveyed told researchers that they believe the decision to have an abortion should be entirely up to the woman. Medics also said anyone seeking a termination should, where possible, be offered a choice of whether to have it at home or in a clinic, what procedure they have – medical or surgical – and how they receive care and support.

The study also concluded that incorporating abortion services into other local sexual and reproductive health services could help improve access to care, but this would require the right training and resources.

Dr Rebecca French, Sacha co-lead and associate professor of reproductive and sexual health at LSHTM, said: “Abortion is one of the most common health procedures, likely to be experienced by one in three women in their lifetime. Yet, in our study nearly nine out of 10 healthcare professionals working outside of specialist abortion services said lack of training was a barrier to providing care. Abortion is a health issue and should be covered in health professional training”.

Responding to the findings, Elizabeth Barker, co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on sexual and reproductive health, said: “There has never been a more important time to look at bringing abortion provision in line with modern healthcare practice.

“I hope to see the government considering how these recommendations can be reflected in abortion policy moving forward.”

Related: Google adverts direct pregnant women to services run by UK anti-abortion groups

Clare Murphy, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said: “BPAS has long campaigned for reform of abortion law across England and Wales. The current law is outdated, unnecessary and doesn’t reflect how modern services deliver care. This study reflects what we as providers know is the truth.

“Even more worryingly, the criminal law that underpins the current arrangements leaves both women and doctors at risk of prosecution. Today, two women in England are facing court proceedings for allegedly ending their own pregnancies outside the law. It’s high time politicians recognised the damage the existing law has – and decriminalised abortion care once and for all.”

Louise McCudden, MSI Reproductive Choices’ UK advocacy and public affairs adviser, said: “Abortion is a common, safe, essential healthcare service and it is unacceptable that today, women are still at risk of criminalisation under a Victorian law created in 1861. There is no reason it should require two doctors signing off every procedure and no reason it should sit within criminal law.

“It’s heartening to see such strong support for decriminalising abortion among health professionals. At this moment of renewed global focus on the importance of reproductive choice and abortion rights, now is the time to take abortion out of the criminal code.”

UK

Behind the scenes with the environmental lawyers who are taking Shell’s Board of Directors to court

Rosie Frost
Tue, 7 March 2023 


Last month, environmental law firm ClientEarth announced that it was taking Shell to court. This may not sound out of the ordinary. But what makes this case different is that there are real people at the centre of it. This time it’s not a corporation that’s liable, it’s their Board of Directors.

ClientEarth says that the 11 members of the board have breached their legal duties by failing to adopt a transition strategy that aligns with the Paris Agreement.

Essentially, Shell’s Board isn’t doing enough to manage the risks the company faces because of climate change.

“What we’re asking the court for is an order which requires the board to adopt and implement a strategy to manage climate risk in line with its duties under the (UK) Companies Act, in line with its duties under English law,” explains ClientEarth senior lawyer Paul Benson.

The shift away from fossil fuels towards low carbon alternatives, they call that essentially an existential crisis for the oil and gas industry.

The other extraordinary thing is that the law firm isn’t acting alone: they are backed by investors who hold 12 million shares in the fossil fuel giant. ClientEarth, crucially, is one of these investors. They became a Shell shareholder in 2016.

“The shift away from fossil fuels towards low carbon alternatives, they call that essentially an existential crisis for the oil and gas industry,” says ClientEarth senior lawyer Paul Benson.

“Shell’s board has identified some of that risk. The problem is that it’s not managing it in a proportionate and adequate way, and that leaves the company seriously exposed.”

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What exactly is ClientEarth asking for?

“It’s the first time where a board of directors is on the hook for failing to properly prepare the company for the energy transition,” Benson says.

Bringing this case was no small decision. Benson asserts that his team has spent months pouring over the documents and has significant expertise in the area. From that work, came this landmark lawsuit.

It’s something of a test case for the English courts. There’s still hope that media coverage and pressure from investors could force the board to act. But Benson says that’s now a “forlorn hope”.

He is confident that the High Court will grant permission for ClientEarth to proceed with the first-of-its-kind lawsuit.

The High Court in London. - AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File
How did it get to ClientEarth suing Shell’s Board of Directors?

Benson explains that it is a “coming together of a number of really serious concerns and frustration”. ClientEarth has been a shareholder in Shell since 2016 and is part of a network of investors.

But they aren't the only ones worried about the future. Benson says their position as shareholders means they have been privy to this concern and frustration about the direction of travel.

He adds that investors have been uneasy about the direction the Board is taking and complaints have been voiced to them several times over the years. Not only that, but these investments include peoples’ pension funds.

Shell denies there is any unrest, claiming that shareholders “strongly support” the progress it is making on its energy transition strategy with 80 per cent voting in favour of it at the last annual general meeting.

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What are Shell shareholders concerned about?

One of the key issues for ClientEarth is a 2021 Dutch court order which requires Shell to cut its emissions by 45 per cent by the end of 2030 - a judgement the company has appealed.

Friends of the Earth and more than 17,000 co-plaintiffs successfully argued that the company knew about the risks of carbon emissions for decades and that its climate targets didn’t go far enough.

“That judgement, the court said very explicitly, is what we call stayed pending appeal. So that means they have to do it now. They can’t just appeal and say ‘oh maybe we’ll win the appeal’,” Benson explains.

“They have to do it now and start complying with the judgement now.”

But he claims the response to the court order set alarm bells ringing.

The Board has said they will cut scope one (direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned by the company) and scope two emissions (indirect emissions from energy purchased and used) by 50 per cent by 2030.

Scope three emissions, or emissions from the products they sell which are responsible for 90 per cent of the company’s total, won’t be cut.

It's just not a reasonable or sustainable management model for a huge multinational company to just say: ‘Well, I don't like part of that court order, so we're not going to do it.’

Independent assessments have estimated that Shell’s net emissions are set to drop by just 5 per cent by 2030 - a far cry from what the court has ordered.

According to Benson, the board doesn’t believe this target is compatible with the business and so they aren’t going to do it.

“It's just not a reasonable or sustainable management model for a huge multinational company to just say: ‘Well, I don't like part of that court order, so we're not going to do it.’”

Shell: Handbrake turns and stranded assets

Last year, ClientEarth sent a lengthy letter to the Board setting out its concerns.

It believes that the longer Shell leaves it to adapt to potential changes in regulation, the economy, consumer trends and even societal developments, the less likely it is that it can respond properly. It increases the chance of a harsh “handbrake turn” to rectify the problem.

They didn’t receive a satisfactory response and at that point, Benson says, they felt they had no option except for a lawsuit.

“It’s a recipe for stranded assets if you continue to plough money into major new oil and gas projects when every single energy transition scenario from the International Energy Agency says there is going to be a decline in demand.”

Stranded assets are those that are likely to be worth less than expected. In terms of oil and gas, that means those that are devalued or become liabilities because of the energy transition.

You’re putting all this money, people’s shareholder capital, people’s pensions fund money, into these huge new projects. And those projects are most likely going to end up as stranded assets.

For example, he explains that there are some assets which the company has or projects under exploration and development which won’t start producing oil and gas until 2030 or 2040. According to Benson, the world will look a lot different by that point.

“You’re putting all this money, people’s shareholder capital, people’s pensions fund money, into these huge new projects. And those projects are most likely going to end up as stranded assets.”

Shell has said it doesn’t accept ClientEarth’s allegations and insists its directors have complied with their legal duties, acting in the best interests of the company. It also claims that its climate targets are aligned with the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement. The Board has said it will defend its position.

Now it is up to the High Court to decide whether to grant ClientEarth permission to bring the claim.

Inside BP's plan to reset renewables as oil and gas boom



BP's new Chief Executive Bernard Looney gives a speech in central London

Mon, March 6, 2023
By Ron Bousso, Shadia Nasralla and Sarah McFarlane

LONDON (Reuters) - BP hasn't fallen out of love with renewables. It just wants to have more power.

CEO Bernard Looney's pursuit of green energy outstripped all rivals three years ago when he outlined a radical blueprint to move away from fossil fuels. Last month he applied the brakes, slowing BP's planned cuts in oil and gas and scaling back planned renewables spending in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

The oil major isn't backing away from renewables though, its green chief Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath stresses, it's simply changing the terms of the relationship.

Dotzenrath told Reuters BP was reviewing its solar and onshore wind businesses as part of a revamp that will see it move away from selling the clean electricity it produces, and instead keep hold of most of it to supply its growing electric vehicle charging network and production of low-carbon fuels.

The onshore renewables scrutiny, which hasn't been previously reported, follows reviews by Dotzenrath of BP's offshore wind and hydrogen businesses over the past year which led to overhauls that saw the company install new managers, hire staff, scrap some projects and seek to revise terms of others.

"We made some changes internally and created a focused hydrogen organisation, a focused offshore wind organisation," Dotzenrath said in an interview. "I'm (now) just reviewing the onshore renewables part - so the onshore wind and solar part."

BP's head of renewables and gas didn't elaborate on the nature of the latest review. The green stakes are high, though, given solar alone comprises more than half of BP's 43-gigawatt renewables project pipeline.

Dotzenrath also put the first numbers to BP's rebalancing act, which comes amid deteriorating profits in renewables power generation, telling Reuters that the company aimed to retain 80% of the power produced to supply the global EV network and to make "green" fuels such as hydrogen, seen by many transition experts as a key fuel of the future.

She did not give a timeframe for the shift, which represents a major pivot given the vast majority of BP's renewables output is currently linked to power grids. BP will continue to build some projects under traditional power supply deals, she added.

"We will not grow renewables for the sake of growing wind and solar," said Dotzenrath, who is marking a year in the job after joining BP shortly after Russia's invasion undermined Europe's energy security, fuelled bumper profits for oil and gas and changed the calculus of the energy transition.

"Our strategy is not necessarily about asset ownership in renewables, but it comes as a consequence. It is really about securing access to cheap - the cheapest - green electron," she added, referring to electricity from renewable sources.

IN FOCUS: VENTURE WITH EQUINOR

The most eye-popping change in the strategy update last month was BP slowing its planned cuts in oil and gas output from 40% to 25% by 2030 compared with 2019 levels.

It also lowered its projected annual spending on renewables to up to $5 billion by 2030 out of a total group budget of up to $18 billion, from $6 billion out of $16 billion under its previous update in 2022, according to a Reuters analysis.

While BP's move to produce more oil and gas for longer puts it more in line with its peers, its 25% annual reduction goal is still more ambitious than any of its global rivals.

The paring of green ambitions has been cheered by the market, with BP shares leaping about 17% since the Feb. 7 strategy update, much more than any other rival Western major.

By contrast, BP had significantly underperformed rivals since Looney outlined his industry-leading transition plans three years ago, remaining largely flat until the announcement compared with a 20% gain for Shell and 84% rise for Exxon.

The renewables revamp reflects an acknowledgement that the company won't be able to sufficiently compete with traditional power generators if it simply sells the energy produced by its wind and solar projects, according to Dotzenrath.

"It's a critical feedstock," she said. "If it is not integrated with our other businesses, we will not do this because we don't believe that we have a competitive edge."

The company's new trajectory has placed its flagship U.S. offshore wind joint venture with Norway's Equinor in the focus of managers, five sources familiar with the matter separately told Reuters.

BP executives, including Dotzenrath, have held several meetings with Equinor in London in recent weeks to discuss ways to give the oil major greater clout in the venture, said the two BP and three Equinor sources, who are close to the talks and declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

BP wants more of its staff involved in the Oslo-based venture, the people said. One of the Equinor sources with direct knowledge of the operations said BP currently had more than 20 people working on the JV projects out of a total of over 270.

Equinor declined to comment on any "speculation" about changes to the venture sought by BP. It said it looked forward to applying their combined expertise to develop projects on the U.S. East Coast. Dotzenrath also declined to comment on this.

"I am very happy with the joint venture and the progress we are making with the projects," Dotzenrath said. "These are very, very complex, large, mega projects ... we have much more ability to support Equinor in the delivery of these projects."

THAT'S THE BRUTAL REALITY

When BP paid $1.1 billion for its 50% stake in the venture to enter offshore wind in 2020, it was more reliant on the know-how of Equinor, which had over a decade of experience and specialism in the sector.

Over the past two years, though, BP has brought in hundreds of staff from renewables firms. It has also broken from its tradition of developing leaders internally and hired senior executives such as Dotzenrath, a former CEO of Germany's RWE Renewables, and an offshore wind chief from Danish giant Orsted.

The UK major surprised many investors and analysts in December when it decided not to join Equinor in bidding on a floating wind project off California. Floating offshore wind is a nascent technology that remains significantly more expensive than turbines fixed to the seabed.

"This was a portfolio decision," Dotzenrath said. "The North Sea is much more important to us and our integration story than California. I think that's the brutal reality at the moment."

(Graphic: BP's investment plans, https://www.reuters.com/graphics/BP-STRATEGY/byvrlkdzyve/chart_eikon.jpg

THE NEW NORMAL IN NUMBERS

BP's renewables revamp is underpinned by its projections about how much money it can make from the production and sale of green power versus higher-margin low-carbon businesses within its own integrated operations.

The company's outlook for its average core earnings from oil and gas in 2030 grew by around $10 billion to $42.5 billion over the course of last year, and by a meagre $1.5 billion to $11 billion from energy-transition businesses including renewables.

BP expects a return on investment of at least 15% on bioenergy including biogas as well as from combining EV charging with retail stores. Hydrogen is seen bringing in 10% returns, with renewables lagging at a maximum of 8% under the current model dominated by power sales.

While BP had a stated target in 2020 of trading 500 terawatt hours of electricity by 2030 – twice the volume in 2019 - no such target featured in its 2023 strategy update.

Dotzenrath said growth in renewables capacity would be in service to green hydrogen and other businesses it supplied internally with clean power.

"We take the green electron and do something with it," she added. "Access and control over the green electron is key because the world is short of green electrons."

Graphic: BP earnings forecasts for 2030 BP earnings forecasts for 2030, https://www.reuters.com/graphics/BP-STRATEGY/EARNINGS-FORECAST/zjpqjwlqevx/chart.png

Graphic: BP production outlook, https://www.reuters.com/graphics/BP-STRATEGY/dwpkdemrdvm/chart.png

(Reporting by Ron Bousso, Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Pravin Char)

UK

Labour to launch review to go ‘further and faster’ in closing gender pay gap

Pippa Crerar political editor
Tue, 7 March 2023 

Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex/Shutterstock

Labour is launching a review of the gender pay gap to help the party “go further and faster” on eradicating the problem, as part of its plan to boost growth if it makes it into government.

The former Trades Union Congress (TUC) chief Frances O’Grady, a Labour peer, has been asked to lead the review amid concerns that under current trends it could take until 2044 to bring pay for men and women into line.

The average working woman earns 15% less than the typical working man, with women aged 50-59 enduring an even worse gender pay gap of 21%, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will announce that O’Grady will join her, Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, and the shadow equalities secretary, Anneliese Dodds, to try to remove the remaining barriers to equal pay at the TUC women’s conference on Wednesday.

Related: Women in UK ‘more likely than men to be on low pay and struggling’

O’Grady will investigate the root causes of wage gaps in Britain, and her report, which will be published later this year, will be used by Labour to develop further policies to support working parents, help employers eradicate unequal pay and review the parental leave system.

Reeves is expected to say that closing the gender pay gap would help a future Labour government secure its challenging mission of the highest sustained growth in the G7. She will add: “Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act in 1970 was groundbreaking in ensuring equal pay should be legally enforced across all sectors of the economy.

“She was clear it would be working-class women on the lowest pay who would benefit most from equal pay, and so it is today. Yet half a century later unequal pay claims persist while the gender pay gap is too great and progress has been too slow. I’m impatient and so are working women. We literally cannot afford to wait that long.”

O’Grady added: “Everyone deserves to be paid a fair rate for the job. Working part-time and shouldering caring responsibilities shouldn’t mean having to put up with low or unequal pay. But too often women’s work is underpaid and undervalued.

“At the current rate of progress it would take another 20 years to close the gender pay gap and women simply can’t afford to wait. My report aims to help Labour blow the lid off the state of unequal pay in Britain and set out the action we need to tackle it.”

Climate change will quadruple extreme rainfall events, study suggests


Danny Halpin, PA Environment Correspondent
Tue, 7 March 2023 

Extreme downpours could become four times more frequent by 2080 if greenhouse gas emissions remain high, a new study suggests.

Climate scientists at the Met Office have found that for every degree of regional warming, the intensity of extreme downpours could also increase by 5-15%.

By the 2070s, deluges of more than 20mm of rain per hour could occur four times as frequently as they did in the 1980s. London typically receives about 40-50mm of rain in a month.


In July 2021, 40mm fell on the capital in just three hours, flooding 31 Tube stations and 2,000 properties.

The Met Office researchers said forecasting long-term trends for extreme rain will help planners and policymakers adapt to the changing risk.

Three million properties across England are currently at risk from surface water flooding, with urban areas in steep catchments, such as Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, particularly vulnerable.

Long-term climate modelling shows the number of extreme rainfall events are likely rise on average (Met Office/PA)

Using a high resolution model normally used for weather forecasting, Met Office climate scientist Professor Lizzie Kendon and colleagues examined how local weather patterns could change over a 100-year timespan – between 1980 and 2080.

They ran the model 12 times at a resolution of 2.2km which gave them a more accurate picture of how the frequency of heavy downpours is likely to change over the coming decades.

Previously, less accurate, lower resolution models had found a smaller increase of two to three times as many extreme rain events by the 2070s.

Prof Kendon said: “Being able to look at our projected future climate in such detail has unlocked an incredible amount of information and has shown how expected increases in intense rainfall events will actually manifest at local scale and for the coming years.

“Having this level of detail is crucial to ensure that we’re prepared for the possible extremes of the future.”

Higher temperatures create more extreme rainfall because warmer air holds more moisture – 7% for each degree – leading to a greater amount of water falling when clouds finally burst.

Much of the UK’s wet weather comes from clouds which form over the Atlantic and are carried east on the jet stream, which is why the west and north of the UK are generally wetter than the south and east.

The researchers found such regional differences in their climate modelling. North-west Scotland for example could see almost 10 times as many extreme downpours in 2080 as in 1980, whereas the south of the UK could see around three times as many.

The modelling also showed that extreme downpours are likely to fall in clusters because of natural climate variability adjusting conditions favourable for their occurrence.

Met Office modelling shows there will likely be large differences between the north and south of the UK in the number of extreme rainfall events (Met Office/PA)

Prof Kendon warned against trying to predict long-term trends through observation, adding: “The observed rainfall record in the UK is fairly erratic with a large amount of variability, these latest projections show that this is likely to continue through the century.

“What we can see from the higher resolution output is an even more erratic frequency of extreme events each year, so this could mean we see clusters of record-breaking intense rainfall events, followed by a period when no records are broken.

“Despite the underlying trend, these pauses in the intensification of local rainfall extremes can last a surprisingly long time – even multiple decades.”

She also said that alongside helping planners and policymakers, the study will be useful for other climate scientists seeking to attribute the likelihood of current extreme rainfall events being caused by climate change.

“Our study highlights the complexity of how natural climate variability and human-induced climate change will come together in the extreme rainfall events we experience over the UK – it is far from a simple picture of more extreme events decade by decade as a steadily increasing trend,” she added.