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australia-news/2019/feb/14/were-not-insured-townsville-flood-leaves-policyholders-stranded | 'We're not insured': Townsville flood leaves policyholders stranded | Like most doctors, Michael Clements says he’s “risk-averse”. When he established his medical practice in the Townsville suburb of Idalia, he checked the area’s flood history. He hired surveyors and spoke to the council. There was, they all said, little to worry about. After flood water unexpectedly came through the Fairfield Central shopping centre last week, Clements and other shop owners attempted to lodge insurance claims. Most found that their policies did not cover floods. Across Townsville, there are dozens of similar stories: residents and small business owners trying to establish how they were exposed to the unprecedented storm. Some blame town planners, who rated their properties as flood-free. Some blame insurance companies. Others the dam operators. In each case, decisions were based around the risk of a “one-in-100-year” flood. The monsoonal downpour that hit Townsville was much more severe. ‘I was very embarrassed and ashamed’ “There’s a very well-established [one in 100 years] flood level that the town planners talked about, that architects talked about, and we were well aware of it,” Clements told Guardian Australia. “We as a family heavily invested in Townsville and … we thought Idalia was an ideal suburb and environment. We certainly did look at the flood history. We talked to our conveyancers and solicitors and planners. They said you’re well above the level, so flood is not a predictable and regular occurrence.” Clements said he had approached an insurance broker, explained the technical risks, and asked for a policy. The broker did not mention that flooding was not covered. “When I called up the insurance [company] I fully expected them to say: Here you go, you’re covered. The first thing they did was call me back the next day and tell me I wasn’t covered for flood. “I was very embarrassed and ashamed when I found out ... I’m so risk-averse as a business owner. Almost every other shop owner in the same centre is in the same boat. They thought they were covered but they’re covered for storm, not flood.” Planning does not account for extremes Experts have increasingly warned about the limitations of the one-in-100-year flood level for planning purposes. A risk management expert, Andrew Gissing, said councils and governments were not consistent in the information they gave residents. Some provided modelling based on extreme scenarios – one in 1,000 years or the “probable maximum flood” – while others stuck to the “one-in-100-year” designation. “If a government authority has information about a natural hazard risk, … they should be making that freely and easily available to the community,” Gissing said. “This was an extreme event. We need to consider extreme events in our planning.” Confusion about insurance policies Insurers have been called to a government roundtable in Townsville this Friday. Most policies cover flooding as standard but it is not a requirement. Some specifically exclude it. On others, it is an optional extra. The concern in Townsville is that people have opted for the cheaper option, in the belief their properties were not at risk. According to an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report last year, insurance in cyclone-prone north Queensland can be three to five times more expensive than elsewhere. The state’s deputy premier, Jackie Trad, has called on insurance companies to be “compassionate and fair” when assessing claims. The Insurance Council of Australia says customers who did not have flood cover should still lodge a claim. “Most policies include storm cover,” its chief executive, Rob Whelan, said last week. “Where flood cover was not purchased, it will typically be tested by the insurer through an independent hydrology process. This will determine if the inundation that caused the damage is to be classified as flood water or as storm water.” Dam statistics The management of the Ross River dam remains under the microscope more than a week after the release of water caused most of the inundation of Townsville’s suburbs. As Guardian Australia revealed last week, the dam’s management plan was based on a one-in-100-year flood but studies showed the strategy would cause more extensive damage in extreme scenarios. Based on the number of flooded properties – at last estimate about 3,000 – and the rate of the water sent streaming from the dam, the flooding was on par with a one-in-1,000-year event. The state government is holding an inquiry, which is likely to investigate the way the government-owned SunWater and the Townsville city council managed the dam. The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, was this week grilled in parliament about SunWater’s role. She denied it had refused a request from the council to release extra water from the dam during the first few days of a week-long deluge. Palaszczuk said the flood was the result of climate change and “the manual was followed”. | ['australia-news/townsville', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/flooding', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/environment', 'business/insurance', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/ben-smee', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-02-13T22:42:03Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2022/mar/24/indigenous-elders-in-wa-say-gag-clause-denies-them-a-say-in-industrial-developments-on-their-land | Indigenous elders in WA say ‘gag clause’ denies them a say in industrial developments on their land | Traditional custodians of the Burrup Peninsula want the Western Australian state government to remove a “gag clause” that stops them from mounting real opposition to industrial developments on their land. The Murujuga elders and traditional custodians travelled to Perth from the Pilbara in the far north of Western Australia on Thursday to deliver an open letter to the government outlining the changes. It was signed by 27 elders and custodians, including both the current and former chair of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation. Their major concern are sections of the Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreement (BMIEA), created by the WA government in 2003, which stops traditional owners from objecting to developments on their land. In their letter, the group say their “sacred lands were forcibly acquired”. They call for the government to remove any restrictive clauses and commit to independently funding the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation so it is not reliant on financial support from the fossil fuel industry. Until a new, fairer process is established to give traditional owners actual influence over the development process, they are also calling for a halt to new applications for industrial development in the area. Woodside Energy is currently working on a massive expansion of its gas infrastructure in the area as part of the $16.5bn Scarborough gas project, and fertiliser company Perdaman is planning to build a $4.5bn fertiliser plant which will rely on a portion of the gas produced by Woodside. Raelene Cooper, a Mardudhunera woman and former board member of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, said the agreement had been signed 19 years ago by elders who did not understand what they were agreeing to. “I believe this was deceitful,” Cooper said. “In small writing the government has denied us proper procedural fairness in terms of what happens out on the Burrup with projects and development. “The government has been acquiring this land over the last 20 years and pushing forward on developments. It only works one way. “As far as I’m concerned, the agreement is null and void.” The group attempted to meet with the WA premier, Mark McGowan, and Aboriginal affairs minister, Tony Buti, to discuss scrapping the agreement, but were told both were unavailable due to “prior commitments”. Instead they expected to meet with other MPs on Thursday and with representatives from Woodside in a separate meeting. A spokesperson for the WA government said in a statement the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation is “consulted extensively” and the state government “encourages project proponents to obtain informed consent from traditional owners”. “Murujuga is also host to several export industries critical to the Western Australian and national economies, and it is a priority that these co-exist harmoniously with the surrounding cultural heritage,” they said. “There is nothing in the BMIEA agreement preventing MAC, contracting parties, or individual members of those groups from providing submissions under any legislation to protect the cultural and heritage values of Murujuga.” The open letter also called for Woodside shareholders to withhold further investment as the company does not have the “free, prior, and informed consent of Murujuga Traditional Owners” to proceed with its plans for the Scarborough gas field. A Woodside spokesperson said the company “has engaged and consulted extensively” with traditional owners in accordance with its policies and through its own investigations the company has found its developments “will not impact any rock art”. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning A spokesperson for Perdaman said the company has “followed all legal and regulatory approval processes for the last four years”. “The Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreements (BMIEA) is an agreement between the WA Government and three previously registered native title claim groups. Amendment of the BMIEA is a matter for the parties to that agreement,” they said in a statement. The Burrup Peninsula in the Pilbara – known as Murujuga to traditional custodians – is an outdoor gallery home to over a million examples of Indigenous rock art produced over a period of 50,000 years. The area was nominated for a world heritage listing in 2018. If successful, this would mean the area is protected in the same way as the pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge and the Taj Mahal. It is also the site of significant industrial development, with fossil fuel companies such as Woodside operating plants for processing gas, and two companies operating fertiliser plants in the area. Traditional custodians have previously raised concerns that the cumulative pollution from these operations is slowly acidifying the rocks, which erodes the art. | ['australia-news/western-australia', 'australia-news/indigenous-australians', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'australia-news/woodside', 'profile/royce-kurmelovs', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2022-03-24T06:12:42Z | true | EMISSIONS |
australia-news/2019/jul/04/coalition-forced-to-explain-conduct-of-taylor-and-frydenberg-over-endangered-grasslands | Coalition forced to explain conduct of Taylor and Frydenberg over endangered grasslands | The government will be forced to explain the conduct of two of its senior ministers – Angus Taylor and Josh Frydenberg – in relation to critically endangered grasslands at the centre of an investigation involving companies part-owned by Taylor. A Greens motion to compel the explanation passed the Senate with support from Labor, Centre Alliance, One Nation and Jacqui Lambie on Thursday. During the next sitting period, the government’s leader in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, will have to explain the actions of both ministers “and how it is not a breach of the ministerial standards”. He will also have to say whether there has been or will be an investigation into the conduct of Taylor and Frydenberg. Last month a Guardian Australia investigation revealed Taylor held talks with Frydenberg’s office and senior environment department officials about the protection of the natural temperate grassland of the south-eastern highlands. At the time of the meetings, Taylor was the minister for cities and Frydenberg was the environment minister. The meetings were requested via Frydenberg’s office. At the same time federal and state investigations were under way into the alleged poisoning of 30 hectares that contained the grassland on a property in the Monaro region of New South Wales owned by Jam Land Pty Ltd. One of the directors of that company is Richard Taylor, the minister’s brother, and the minister himself holds an interest in the firm via his family investment company, Gufee. Emails obtained by Guardian Australia showed that Frydenberg’s office raised the grasslands protection with the Department of the Environment and Energy on 8 March, a day after officials from the same department met Jam Land to discuss potential contraventions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. An investigator from the unit that examines breaches under national environment law was also present at the meeting with Taylor and Frydenberg’s office on 20 March 2017. After lobbying by Taylor, Frydenberg’s office sought advice on whether protection of the grasslands could be watered down without first seeking the advice of the independent threatened species scientific committee, and whether this could be done secretly. The Greens had initially hoped to have both ministers examined through Rex Patrick’s proposed inquiry into ministerial conduct, a vote on which has now been deferred until the next sitting period. But they have been unable to gain support from Labor for a number of amendments they proposed for that inquiry and instead moved a separate motion on Thursday. “There are serious questions ministers Taylor and Frydenberg need to answer about whether their behaviour complies with ministerial standards,” the Greens’ deputy leader, Larissa Waters, said. “The Greens motion means we will now get an explanation from the government’s leader in the Senate about his cabinet colleagues’ behaviour instead of the ‘nothing to see here’ we’ve been getting from the PM on this issue.” The Greens motion noted that ministers must “make arrangements to avoid conflicts arising from their private interests, also having regard to interests held by family members” and they must “not use public office for private purposes”. Taylor has repeatedly stated he asked for a briefing in his capacity as the member for Hume and the compliance action was not discussed. He said the purpose was to understand the technical aspects of the grasslands protection and its impact on his constituents. The natural temperate grassland of the south-east highlands is mainly found on the Monaro plains, which are not in Hume. However, some communities of the grassland are found in Taylor’s electorate. Frydenberg has not answered questions put to him by Guardian Australia in recent weeks. He has provided a single statement saying Taylor sought a meeting to discuss the upgrading of the grasslands’ status to critically endangered. “Following the briefing and since, no changes to the listing have been made,” he said. Taylor’s sister-in-law, the NSW MP and minister Bronwyn Taylor, has also faced questions in the NSW parliament over whether she sought to influence the state government’s submissions on the upgrading of the grasslands protection. Documents tabled in the NSW parliament last week revealed Bronwyn Taylor lobbied in a personal capacity the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage to drop a separate investigation into alleged illegal clearing of native grasslands on another property she owns with her husband, Duncan Taylor. The office ultimately found no evidence that the clearing was illegal. | ['australia-news/coalition', 'australia-news/angus-taylor', 'australia-news/josh-frydenberg', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/australian-greens', 'australia-news/liberal-party', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'profile/anne-davies', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/endangered-habitats | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-07-04T07:56:01Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
us-news/2024/mar/09/power-line-pole-at-fault-texas-wildfire | Power line pole at fault in biggest wildfire in Texas history, report says | The biggest wildfire in Texas state history, which killed two people and scorched more than 1m acres, was caused by a power line pole that had decayed at the base, an investigation has concluded. The finding comes from a Texas A&M forest service investigation into the Smokehouse Creek fire, which blazed through the state’s Panhandle region and into neighbouring Oklahoma after breaking out near the small town of Stinnett on 26 February. The investigation report described how “[a] power pole that appeared to be decayed at the base where it made contact with ground had broken off at ground level”. Winds of up to 60mph and unseasonably high temperatures had been reported when the blaze started. The forest service report did not elaborate on what led to the power line igniting the blaze. Its conclusion comes after the utility provider, Xcel Energy, issued a statement acknowledging that “its facilities appear to have been involved in the ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fires”. However, the Minnesota-based company has denied that it has been negligent in maintaining the structures or allowing them to decay. Xcel Energy is subject to a lawsuit filed on behalf of a homeowner in Stinnett alleging that the fire started “when a wooden pole defendants failed to properly inspect, maintain and replace, splintered and snapped off at its base”. Xcel has disputed the allegations. However, Mikal Watts, the attorney who filed the suit on the homeowner’s behalf, said in a statement issued this week that the company conducting inspections for Xcel had previously found the pole’s condition to be so unsafe that it had marked it with a red tag, indicating that it should not be climbed and should be replaced immediately. Some 500 structures have been destroyed and thousands of livestock have been killed in the blaze, which was reported by Texas forest A&M service to be 87% under control on Friday. Two women were killed, one who was overcome by flames after leaving her truck and another whose remains were found in her home in Stinnett. Another power line is said to have caused a separate wildfire in the Panhandle region, the Windy Deuce fire, which ignited on 26 February at an oil field. It is believed to have been sparked by a power line that ran directly through a tree and made contact with tree limbs, according to a forest service report. | ['us-news/texas', 'world/wildfires', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/roberttait', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-03-09T16:46:05Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/oct/26/uk-government-u-turns-on-sewage-after-tory-mps-threaten-rebellion | UK government U-turns on sewage after Tory MPs threaten rebellion | The government has announced a partial U-turn over the sewage amendment after Tory rebels threatened to scupper an upcoming vote in the Commons. Under new rules, there will be a duty on water companies to reduce the impact of sewage discharges from storm overflows. This means the organisations will be required by law to show a reduction in sewage overspills over the next five years. Last week, 22 Conservative MPs rebelled against the government to vote in favour of an amendment to the environment bill that would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump waste into rivers. The amendment was rejected in the Commons, and the negative reaction of constituents took some Tory MPs by surprise. Philip Dunne, one of the Conservative rebels and the chair of the environment audit committee, said: “I am confident that although it was just 22 of us last week, awareness of this issue has been raised. There were many who abstained, and many who did not understand the gravity of the issue who have been made aware by constituents and colleagues. “I am not whipping this vote so I can’t give you certainty but I believe if this goes back to the Commons it will be very close, enough to worry the government.” It remains to be seen whether the partial U-turn will quell the rebellion and widespread outrage over the failed amendment. There were 403,171 spills of sewage into England’s rivers and seas in 2020, according to the Environment Agency, adding up to more than 3.1m hours of spillages. The government has blamed a variety of factors for the increasing sewage spills, including Victorian infrastructure and climate breakdown. An environment minister said there had been a tussle against the government, as No 10 and the Treasury believe that putting this duty on water companies, which would have to massively upgrade infrastructure, would be too expensive. The minister said: “Basically we have been working for ages on how to put this stuff in law – a duty on the water companies – and it will be introduced when it goes back to the Commons. But what is infuriating is that even if the bill went through completely unchanged, it represents raising the bar beyond anything we have ever had before. “So to have people like Lord Adonis imply that everything is currently fine and that we are coming along post-Brexit and legislating to allow crap to go into the rivers is not only wrong, it is a blatant lie – designed to whip people up into a frenzy of hate. But the government has been slow. And the move in the Commons will look like a concession when in fact we have been working on it for weeks.” On Tuesday, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson criticised the current “failure of water companies to adequately reduce sewage discharges [as] unacceptable” and said it sympathised with the intentions of the amendment. However, he said the cost of forcing water companies to “take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows” had not been estimated – warning it could be up to £150bn. “Following a debate in the House of Commons last week during the final stages of the environment bill, today we are announcing that we will put that commitment on a statutory footing with a new clause,” the spokesperson said. The Duke of Wellington, who brought the bill, on Tuesday asked peers to back it a second time. It would ask water companies “to take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows”. The cross-bench peer told the Evening Standard: “This is particularly important for London. Anyone who saw the BBC Panorama programme in April will have learned about the embarrassing state of the riverbed of the Thames and the enormous quantity of sewage, which is regularly discharged into the river.” The environment bill contains some measures to protect Britain’s waterways from sewage, including a new duty directly on water companies to publish information within one hour on the operation of storm overflows. It also obliges water companies to monitor the water quality upstream and downstream of storm overflows and sewage disposal works. | ['environment/pollution', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'politics/conservatives', 'politics/lords', 'environment/rivers', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helena-horton', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-10-26T17:39:32Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
lifeandstyle/2016/mar/12/my-kitchen-yossy-arefi-kitchen-encounters | My kitchen, my inspiration: Yossy Arefi | Kitchen encounters | My kitchen is … small for most people, but for NYC it’s pretty big! When you walk into my apartment, you walk directly into the kitchen. There’s one big counter surface with a butcher-block counter top that my boyfriend and I installed when we moved in. Some tiling work – white subway tiles with black grout – that I did myself that I’m quite proud of. The only colour is a red Persian-style carpet on the floor. I have one big cabinet and some open shelving for glasses. It’s pretty organised – the small space demands that – but I always feel like it’s bursting at the seams. I’m constantly getting rid of things to make space. The floor is pretty terrible, these green fake stone vinyl tiles, which is why I have that big carpet to cover it up. And there’s a big window looking out over the backyard. The light in the winter is amazing. My favourite kitchen tool is … my wooden spoons. They are the things I use most often, for sweet and savoury. I love the look of well-used wooden tools. I have a big collection: some hand-carved by friends, some simple utilitarian ones. My storecupboard staple is … a variety of flours for baking: all-purpose, whole wheat, spelt, rye, buckwheat. I keep them all in jars on a shelf above my sink. When I’m starving I … have avocado toast on any kind of bread with flaky salt and olive oil, and sometimes red pepper flakes. Or cheese: I don’t always have some, but I love all cheese. My culinary inspiration is … the seasons. What’s new at the market, what’s fresh. At the moment, it’s rhubarb. It’s my very favourite baking ingredient. My best-kept kitchen secret is … not being afraid to make mistakes. People in baking so often are. But when you’re cooking and baking, mistakes aren’t that big a deal. Having that attitude will give you a lot more confidence, because you’re not mixing your anxiety into whatever you’re making. If you mess up and don’t tell your guests, they probably won’t even know. I’ve been known to curdle a custard, but that can be saved by putting it in a blender and starting over. My current obsession is … baking with tahini. I ate a lot of it growing up, but never thought to bake with it, until recently – it has a great bitter flavour, which pairs so well with citrus and chocolate. Everything tastes better with … salt. I have a whole range of varieties from Maldon, and Jacobsen Salt Company, big pyramid flakes, and black lava salt from Hawaii, by Karen Mordechai’s company, ILA. When I go shopping I … go free-form. I usually try to have a variety of fruit, veg, grains and beans, fish and meat. But I very rarely make a list. I go to lots of different places – the Union Square farmers market at least twice a week, and then other items at the local grocers in my neighbourhood. For dinner tonight … pasta with Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce. It’s the easiest, best pasta sauce I’ve ever made. Yossy Arefi is a Brooklyn-based food stylist and photographer. She is the author of Sweeter off the Vine: Fruit Desserts for Every Season (Ten Speed Press). She will be taking over Cook’s Instagram account this weekend. Follow @guardian_cook for updates | ['food/food', 'lifeandstyle/series/kitchen-encounters', 'food/chefs', 'tone/features', 'technology/gadgets', 'type/article', 'profile/dale-berning-sawa', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/cook', 'theguardian/cook/cook'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2016-03-12T09:00:13Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
sustainable-business/live/2016/oct/18/cities-circular-economy-waste-recycling-water-energy-food | Sustainable cities: how can we develop the urban circular economy? – live chat | Many thanks to everyone who joined us for our circular cities live chat today. Scroll down to read some of the highlights (in the blog) or the full chat (in the comments space). And if you’re looking for further reading, check out our recent piece on eco-villages. Is this the future of circular cities? de Winter says: it is often easier to implement circular economy strategies [in developing countries] because there is no vested infrastructure yet [...] Many towns in Africa are going directly towards solar panels, without having the need to connect to the grid [...] On the other hand the challenges are bigger. Plastic waste is huge problem in India. To overcome that problem they now made mandatory to use plastics in roads. You can check out our article about plastic roads in India here: de Winter says: Governments are key in stimulating the circular economy. I mentioned earlier that sweden reduced taxation on repairing, thereby stimulating repair services [...] On the other hand, much more effort can go into supporting businesses. Many cities are moving more towards a facilitation role, rather than strict rules and regulation. They can come with innovative policies, but ultimately businesses are the one[s] who need to implement it. van Bueren says: the institutionally fragmented nature of urban decision-making doesn’t make it easy to ‘implement’ CE. In the Netherlands, waste and water management companies are experimenting to find a balance between individual and collective systems and very local (building or building block or neighbourhood level) and city level interventions. Lombardi says: Businesses are often the source of the innovation that enables the transformation of our economy - be it repackaging and rethinking products for the bottom of the pyramid, or crowdfunding, or sharing economy. It’s great when policy can lead the way and set direction - like the animal byproduct ban a few years back, which stimulated lots of new business activity - but sometimes business has to come up with the brilliant ideas first, and policy follows. de Winter says: Storytelling is very important in engaging citizens [...] For example, in Glasgow we came up with a strategy that was making bread from beer. This is a very attracting story and appealing to many consumers. And more importantly it will explain the concept of circular economy in a simple way. By those incremental changes you can quickly create systems changes, by changing consumers’ behaviour Panellist Rachel Lombardi, director of business development at International Synergies Limited, says: every city is different - in culture, context, resources - but construction and food/organic waste are pretty common challenges Panellist Ellen van Bueren, chair of urban development management at TU Delft | Delft University of Technology, says: Testing and experimentation, learning by doing, by public and private stakeholders, is at the core of a large and varied number of circular innovations taking place in [Buiksloterham, The Netherlands, an industrial district being redeveloped for mixed-use, including residential] Panellist Jurn de Winter, circular cities project manager at Circle Economy, says: There are many cities worldwide already embracing the circular economy, take for example Glasgow, Barcelona, Brussel[s]. [...] The Netherlands recently set a target to be 100% circular in 2050. Combined with the infrastructure and businesses, Netherlands is set to become a hotspot for the circular economy. Cities are home to more than half the world’s population and, as urban populations continue to rise, they must find ways to cope with acute demands for resources and space. In response, a growing number are embracing circular economy principles, from roads made out of waste plastic in Chennai, to bricks made from old construction waste in Rotterdam. Built-up urban areas also lend themselves to the expansion of peer-to-peer business models. In the US, for example, where 90% of households own a car, car sharing has been shown to help reduce traffic without taking away people’s freedom to drive. It also helps cut the cost of maintaining and parking cars. The question is how to go beyond individual examples of circular innovation to build a city-wide circular system. Join us onWednesday 19 October, 1-2pm (BST), to debate how to support the development of circular cities. Questions we will explore include: where are cities successfully embracing the circular economy and what resources aren’t yet being captured and repurposed? what is the role of business in developing circular cities? what’s next in the world of peer-to-peer lending? what incentives are there for urban dwellers to embrace the circular economy? what are the main barriers to developing circular cities? Ellen van Bueren, chair of urban development management, TU Delft | Delft University of Technology Wayne Hubbard, chief operating officer, London Waste and Recycling Board Rachel Lombardi, director of business development, International Synergies Limited Eelco Smit, sustainability director, Philips Jurn de Winter, circular cities project manager, Circle Economy Moderator - Tess Riley, deputy editor, Guardian Sustainable Business Make sure you’re a registered user of the Guardian and join us in the comments section below, which will open on the day of the live chat. You can send questions in advance by emailing tess.riley@theguardian.com or tweeting @GuardianSustBiz using the hashtag #AskGSB | ['sustainable-business/series/circular-economy', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'money/peer-to-peer-lending', 'environment/environment', 'money/money', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'tone/minutebyminute', 'tone/blog', 'tone/sponsoredfeatures', 'profile/tess-riley', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-professional-networks'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2016-10-19T13:01:37Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/17/planet-climate-change-risk-drought-famine-epidemic | 'Whole world at risk' from simultaneous droughts, famines, epidemics: scientists | Nafeez Ahmed | An international scientific research project known as the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP), run by 30 teams from 12 countries, has attempted to understand the severity and scale of global impacts of climate change. The project compares model projections on water scarcity, crop yields, disease, floods among other issues to see how they could interact. The series of papers published by the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that policymakers might be underestimating the social and economic consequences of climate change due to insufficient attention on how different climate risks are interconnected. Europe, North America at risk One paper whose lead author is Franziska Piontek of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research explores impacts related to "water, agriculture, ecosystems, and malaria at different levels of global warming." The study concludes that: "... uncertainty arising from the impact models is considerable, and larger than that from the climate models. In a low probability-high impact worst-case assessment, almost the whole inhabited world is at risk for multisectoral pressures." The uncertainties in the model are large enough that they may "mask" the risk of a "worst case" scenario of "multisectoral hotspots," where impacts affecting "water, agriculture, ecosystems, and health" overlap in ways that could affect "all the world's inhabited areas." In the worst-case analysis, "Almost the entire global population is exposed to multisectoral pressure" at global mean temperatures of around 4C higher, with "roughly 18% of the global population" projected to "experience severe pressure in all four sectors. The affected regions are in Europe, North America, and south-east Asia." How likely is this scenario? The study points out that: "This worst case is rather extreme, but nonetheless it represents the upper end of the risk spectrum in light of the large uncertainties." Robust policy decisions to aid mitigation and adaptation strategies therefore require further research to understand "how impacts in different sectors overlap, as overlapping impacts increase exposure, lead to interactions of impacts, and are likely to raise adaptation pressure." Chronic water scarcity Other papers point to significant risks that are much more likely on a business-as-usual emissions trajectory. A study led by Jacob Schewe of Potsdam finds that "the combination of unmitigated climate change and further population growth will expose a significant fraction of the world population" to "chronic or absolute water scarcity." About 2.7C above preindustrial temperatures: "... will confront an additional approximate 15% of the global population with a severe decrease in water resources and will increase the number of people living under absolute water scarcity (<500m3 per capita per year) by another 40% (according to some models, more than 100%) compared with the effect of population growth alone." The Mediterranean, the Middle East, the southern United States and southern China, for example, could see a "pronounced decrease of available water," while southern India, western China, and parts of eastern Africa could see an increase. The study results represent the multiple-model average of 11 hydrological models produced by five different climate models. While some areas like southern India, western China and eastern Africa could see an increase of available water, others like the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the southern United States and southern China, would see a "pronounced decrease of available water" without curbs in greenhouse gas emissions. Agricultural collapse Water scarcity in turn will have a dramatic impact on agriculture. Another study in the PNAS collection combining climate, agricultural and hydrological models warns that freshwater shortages could double climate change's debilitation of global food crop yields. Current agricultural models estimate that climate change will directly reduce food production from maize, soybeans, wheat and rice by as much as 43 percent by the end of the 21st century, encompassing a loss of between 400 and 2600 petacalories of food supply. But incorporating hydrological models reveals that when accounting for the decline of freshwater availability, there would be an additional loss of 600 to 2900 petacalories - potentially wiping out quantities equivalent to the total present-day food supply. Such devastating potential losses could, however, be ameliorated by more efficient use of available surplus freshwater. The paper recommends "increases in irrigation capacity and efficiency" to be complemented by "efforts to increase water use efficiency and soil conservation in rainfed systems as well, which have a demonstrated capacity to boost crop yields without further exploiting freshwater resources in rivers and aquifers." Other findings of the range of studies show that increases in river flooding are expected in more than half of the areas investigated, and that the frequency of drought may increase by more than 20% in some regions. Potsdam director Prof Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who co-authored several papers in the PNAS special feature, said: "There is an elephant in the room: current and future climate change impacts. But strangely, many people seem to be blind to it. Many decision makers prefer to turn a blind eye to global warming consequences, while many scientists tend to focus on very specific aspects of climate change. So we resemble the fabled blind men, who unknowingly touch different parts of the same elephant: grasping the animal's trunk, one of the men is convinced he has a snake in his hand, whilst one other mistakes the tail for a rope. To recognize the animal, they must talk to each other to properly identify the individual parts and to bring them together. This is exactly what this international project does." Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed | ['environment/earth-insight', 'environment/series/guardian-environment-blogs', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/drought', 'global-development/famine', 'world/epidemics', 'society/health', 'science/agriculture', 'environment/water', 'global-development/access-to-water', 'type/article', 'profile/nafeez-ahmed'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-12-17T14:29:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2021/nov/16/bill-gates-natrium-nuclear-power-plant-wyomning-kemmerer | Bill Gates-backed experimental nuclear power plant heads to tiny Wyoming city | A tiny city in the top US coalmining state of Wyoming is set to become the home of an experimental nuclear power project backed by Bill Gates. The new Natrium nuclear power plant will be located in Kemmerer, officials announced on Tuesday, and will replace a coal-fired plant that is set to close in 2025. “Our innovative technology will help ensure the continued production of reliable electricity while also transitioning our energy system and creating new, good-paying jobs in Wyoming,” said Chris Levesque, the CEO of TerraPower, the company behind the project that was founded by Gates about 15 years ago. Construction is set to begin in 2024. The project will employ as many as 2,000 people during construction and 250 once operational in a state where the coal industry has been shedding jobs. Kemmerer, one of four cities in the running to host the project, is home to 2,600 people and is located about 130 miles (210 km) north-east of Salt Lake City. If it’s as reliable as conventional nuclear power, the 345-megawatt plant would produce enough climate-friendly power to serve about 250,000 homes. The announcement came days after world leaders met at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow. Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and chairman of TerraPower, in June announced plans for the Wyoming project along with officials from Rocky Mountain Power, Joe Biden’s administration and the state of Wyoming, which produces about 40% of the nation’s coal. “We think Natrium will be a gamechanger for the energy industry,” Gates said at the project’s launch in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Proponents of the project, which will feature a sodium-cooled fast reactor and molten salt energy storage, say it would perform better, be safer and cost less than traditional nuclear power. “Natrium will be that next improvement on safety. Importantly it won’t rely on outside sources of power, pumps and extra equipment to help the plant recover in the event of an emergency,” said Levesque, referring to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster caused by a tsunami that knocked out emergency generators. The high heat-transfer properties of sodium will allow the Natrium plant to be air-cooled. That will enable the plant to be quickly shut down in case of an emergency, and the absence of emergency generators and pumps will save on costs, Levesque said. Others are skeptical about the benefits of sodium compared with water for cooling as in conventional nuclear plants. “The use of liquid sodium has many problems. It’s a very volatile material that can catch fire if it’s exposed to air or water,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists science advocacy non-profit. Countries including the US have experimented with sodium-cooled fast reactors for decades but only Russia has fielded such a reactor on a large, power-producing scale, Lyman said. “Honestly I don’t understand the motivation,” Lyman said. “There are some people who are just strong advocates for it and they’ve sort of won the day here by convincing Bill Gates that this is a good technology to pursue.” | ['us-news/wyoming', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'us-news/bill-gates', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2021-11-17T02:19:52Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2016/may/20/uk-manufacturing-boosted-food-and-drink-production | UK manufacturing boosted by pick-up in food and drink output | Britain’s manufacturers have enjoyed a pick-up in output, largely thanks to food and drink production getting back up and running after flooding hit factories earlier this year. The business group CBI said its latest poll of manufacturers suggested orders had improved in recent weeks, particularly from the domestic market, bringing respite to a sector that has been hurt by weak export demand and an uncertain UK outlook. There have been worries that uncertainty about the outcome of next month’s EU referendum had been prompting companies to delay investment decisions. The Bank of England has warned economic growth could slow further in the second quarter. But the latest economic indicators have painted a mixed picture. The CBI’s survey of nearly 500 manufacturers found output picked up in the three months to May. But it emphasised that most of that was down to a rebound in the food and drink sector, following flooding earlier this year. Carr’s water biscuits were among the foods affected by the winter floods after a Carlisle factory owned by United Biscuits was inundated before Christmas. A variety of other favourite names usually produced at the site were also hit, including McVitie’s ginger nuts, Crawford’s custard creams and Crawford’s shortcake. But the plant – the second-biggest biscuit factory in Europe – recently resumed production. The CBI said that, excluding food and drink from its survey results, manufacturing output was little changed in the latest three months. The survey also asked factories about their order books and found 16% of businesses reported an increase in total orders while 24% reported a decrease. That gave a net balance of -8%, an improvement on April’s -11% reading. The balance for export orders was -14% in May, down from April’s -13% reading. “Conditions in the manufacturing sector seem to be a little better overall, with improving order books compared with a couple of months ago. But domestic and global uncertainty remains high, alongside lacklustre export demand,” said the CBI’s director of economics, Rain Newton-Smith. Other economists also warned that the outlook remained tough for manufacturers. “Sterling will appreciate and export orders will fall if, as we expect, the UK votes to remain in the EU in June,” said Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at the consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics. “Meanwhile, domestic demand for manufactured goods likely will grow at a more gradual pace than in recent years as growth in consumers’ real income slows in response to rising inflation and intensifying austerity.” The poll further clouds the UK economic picture after retail sales figures this week showed a rebound in sales volumes in April, and labour market data revealed a rise in employment to a new record high. Those reports contrasted with surveys suggesting companies are putting off hiring and investment decisions and that consumers have become more cautious ahead of next month’s referendum. The Bank of England has said the upcoming referendum is making it harder to gauge the strength of the underlying economy and that it is treating all economic indicators ahead of the vote with an extra dose of caution. One of its top policymakers, Kristin Forbes, conjured the image of a “fog” obscuring the economic data. In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph published on Friday, Forbes said: “Some of the data is quite solid, and some of the data has been a bit softer. We aren’t quite sure why. “We don’t have concrete evidence that some of the softening we are seeing now is all referendum-related and uncertainty-related, and there is a chance other things are going on.” | ['business/manufacturing-sector', 'business/business', 'business/economics', 'business/economicgrowth', 'business/fooddrinks', 'environment/flooding', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/katieallen', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-05-20T17:13:30Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2019/jul/28/the-guardian-view-on-amazon-deforestation-europe-must-act-to-prevent-disaster | The Guardian view on Amazon deforestation: Europe must act to prevent disaster | Editorial | If there is a glimmer of light amid the darkness of recent reports from the Brazilian Amazon, where deforestation is accelerating along with threats to the indigenous people who live there, it could lie in the growing power of climate diplomacy, combined with increased understanding of the crucial role played by trees in our planet’s climate system. The deal agreed a month ago between the EU and the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (Venezuela is suspended) enhances European leverage with its South American trading partners. Already, the prize of access to EU markets is credited with having convinced Brazil not to follow Donald Trump’s lead by withdrawing from the Paris climate deal. Now the EU must strengthen its environmental commitments, as a letter from 600 scientists demanded before the deal was agreed. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, made no secret of his plans to promote development, and drew powerful support from Brazil’s agribusiness and mining interests before last year’s election. He scorns conservation and indigenous rights, claiming recently that his foreign opponents want Amazon tribes to live “like cavemen”. Satellite data shows the message is getting through, with clearances up sharply and this month set to be the first in five years in which Brazil has lost an area of forest bigger than Greater London. Illegal gold mining too is spreading. Last week one of the leaders of the Waiãpi people, Emyra Waiãpi, was found stabbed to death on a remote reserve in the state of Amapá, after armed men raided his village. The situation is of critical importance, and all the more disturbing given recent climate projections. Protecting the world’s largest tropical rainforest, thought to contain 30% of all species, has rightly been an important focus for Brazilian and global environmental policies for two decades. But less than a year after Mr Bolsonaro’s election, the national environment agency appears significantly weakened, with enforcement actions during the first half of 2019 down 20% on the same period in 2018. Prosecutors and activists have been intimidated, while public opinion is mostly engaged elsewhere (for example, on pension reforms). Mr Bolsonaro’s pitch to domestic and foreign audiences is the same: the Brazilian Amazon is none of anyone’s business but Brazil’s. With this in mind, the forest’s international defenders must tread carefully. Denunciations of the new government’s pro-business policies in the name of biodiversity could prove counterproductive. Instead, environmentalists, including Green politicians, should work through European political institutions, in the knowledge that the EU is the second-biggest market for Brazilian exports. Firm pressure must be brought to bear in the form of strong environmental regulations, and a refusal to compromise on transparency. Beef or soya farmed on illegally cleared land must not be imported to Europe. At the same time, Brazilian civil society organisations need support to challenge and resist illegal incursions, and to champion their country’s existing commitments – including to reforestation of cleared areas. Climate education must be promoted globally, so that people can better understand what is going on (the murder of a journalist linked to rainforest exploitation is already the subject of a drama on Brazilian TV). Forest clearances may produce short-term gains, but in the longer term they can only bring disaster. Brazil is in a strong position, at the next round of UN climate talks (moved to Chile after Mr Bolsonaro withdrew an offer to host), to demand increased international aid for the vast Amazon region. If we claim this tropical wilderness as a green lung for the world, we cannot expect Brazil to conserve it alone. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'world/brazil', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'world/americas', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/amazon-rainforest', 'environment/deforestation', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/deforestation | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-07-28T17:43:57Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2007/apr/04/relievedbutwary | Relieved but wary | So they are freed. The 15 British sailors and marines are - in the words of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - pardoned. They are shaking hands with him in front of television cameras and are off to their distant island. The crisis seems to be over and I am to write about the Iranian perception of all this - my perception of the crisis. Curiously, I am struggling to find the words. Something is not quite right. It is not that I do not feel relieved; indeed, I do. Not that I find writing about my views difficult, or expressing my feelings burdensome; it is just that this time I am not quite sure about how I feel. Do I think the Islamic Republic was right to seize the British servicemen and woman? No. Do I believe Blair's "all innocent" plea just because he shouts it? No. Having evoked identical answers, do I see anything else in common between the two? Yes. They have both let their people down. And in this, whether or not the marines had trespassed into Iranian waters is irrelevant. Where exactly the incident happened, why - really - the two sides were there, or on whose orders they did what they did are facts well beyond my capacity to establish. And as I said, they are of very little relevance, if any, to my principal feeling about those who perpetuated this crisis. For I do not trust them. Comforting it is, indeed, to see the rhetoric fade and the hope for a happy end loom. Yet, the troubling question remains unanswered: could I - and would I - readily take to the streets and proudly hail my side now that it has all come to an end? Not so sure, for there is no such side as mine. I was greatly relieved to hear it end, and I wish it had done so sooner. But I cannot side with a government that, against the honest will of its people, and against the loud and clear voice of every human's reason, embarks on a holy journey to provide freedom thousands of miles away - yet, all it does is to create there a frightening scene of anarchy. And it is no better on this side. For I cannot side with a government that ignores the very basic rights of its people, my people, on a daily basis and yet fills every wall, and every blank piece of its children's mind, with a superficial right to nuclear energy. As an Iranian - given the historical facts about the British presence in "Persia" - it is all but obvious not to trust the British government. It is painful on another scale, though, not to be able to trust your own government when it stands seemingly firm against the former. The current crisis was resolved in less than two weeks, giving Iranians some reason to be hopeful about other outstanding issues threatening their country. All it took this time, and would arguably take in other instances, was a face-saving formula for both sides to cheer their "victory" and salute their brave sons and daughters. Yet, the uncomfortable position of the ordinary Iranian lingers on: faced with the suspicious, if not hostile, looks of the "others" and a constant fear of the worst to come from "their own". It really is an awkward position just to be Iranian, ordinary and sane. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'world/iran', 'world/iraq', 'world/islam', 'politics/tonyblair', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/middleeast', 'type/article'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2007-04-04T17:15:00Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2021/aug/11/tomago-australias-largest-aluminium-smelter-vows-to-switch-to-renewable-energy-by-2029 | Tomago, Australia’s largest aluminium smelter, vows to switch to renewable energy by 2029 | Australia’s biggest power consumer has said it plans to switch to a largely renewable energy supply in 2029 in a move that energy analysts say would greatly reduce carbon emissions in New South Wales. Tomago Aluminium, Australia’s largest aluminium smelter, is reportedly in talks with renewable energy suppliers ahead of the expiry of its current energy contract with AGL in 2028. The company’s chief executive, Matt Howell, told the Australian Financial Review the goal for the smelter near Newcastle was to be “for all intents and purposes 100% renewable” by 2029. “There’s further improvement on the cost of the equation to go before firmed renewables is a viable option for us, but we are perpetually optimistic; I think we’ll get there,” he said. Simon Holmes à Court, a senior adviser to the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University and a clean energy commentator, said it was a significant announcement from Howell, who in the past has questioned the cost of running a smelter entirely on renewables and expressed support for a government-funded gas-fired power station in the Hunter. “It would have a huge impact on NSW emissions if they greened up that smelter,” he said. Holmes a Court said Tomago Aluminium used about 11% of the energy of the NSW grid. Tomago Aluminium is managed as an independent joint venture by Rio Tinto, CSR and Hydro Aluminium. Holmes à Court said there could be further significant emissions cuts and investment in new energy infrastructure if other smelters that were backed largely by coal contracts, such as Rio Tinto’s Boyne Smelters in Gladstone, also made the switch. Smelters use about 10% of the energy of the east coast grid. He said it was increasingly likely steel and aluminium manufacturers would transition to green energy contracts as the European Union and other export markets look to introduce carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAM) from as early as 2026. “They’ll be locked out of a large number of significant markets if they don’t decarbonise,” Holmes à Court said. “Tomago could sign a zero emissions power contract at a significantly lower cost than they pay now before the mooted 2026 EU CBAM.” Dan Gocher, the director of climate and environment at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, said the announcement should signal the end for AGL’s Bayswater power station, which is scheduled to close in 2035. “Without its largest customer, AGL is unlikely to make a profit from Bayswater beyond 2029,” Gocher said. “The owners of Tomago … should be applauded for this outcome. Such decisions de-risk Australian industry in the face of carbon border adjustment mechanisms.” Sam Mella, the Hunter engagement lead for Beyond Zero Emissions, said Tomago’s announcement was a strong sign for the future of manufacturing in the region. “This will keep our local industry competitive in the global market and reinforces our vision to establish the Hunter as the first renewable energy industrial precinct in Australia,” she said. “Tomago’s commitment shows the potential for the Hunter to become the electric motor of the Australian economy and the importance of meeting customer demand for a zero-carbon future.” Comment was sought from Tomago Aluminium. AGL’s chief operating officer, Markus Brokhof, said the company was committed to the Hunter region and was progressing plans to “transform our thermal generation sites into low-carbon integrated industrial energy hubs”. “This includes progress on a grid-scale battery, wind, solar and thermal storage system and a waste to energy facility, while also exploring the feasibility of pumped hydro at Bell’s Mountain,” he said. Brokhof said there were no changes planned for the closure dates of AGL’s coal-fired power stations. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/newcastle', 'business/agl', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2021-08-11T10:46:09Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2022/sep/17/socially-reckless-whitehaven-approved-for-coal-search-near-pilliga-conservation-area | ‘Socially reckless’: Whitehaven approved for coal search near Pilliga conservation area | Whitehaven Coal has been granted a licence by the Perrottet government to explore a new site which could lead to the expansion of its Narrabri underground coal operations in north-west New South Wales. The Gorman North strategic release is one of eight sites listed as “potential areas for proactive release for coal exploration under the strategic release framework” (SRF) by former deputy premier John Barilaro. The licence, granted on Friday 9 September under the operational allocation framework (OAF) process, allows Whitehaven to seek out sites for a mine extension closer to Narrabri, under the edges of the Pilliga state conservation area. Anti-coal action group Lock The Gate has condemned the move and released a Gorman North strategic release mapping and analysis report. Lock The Gate in a statement said that its analysis revealed threats to groundwater, endangered species, and native forest if Whitehaven built coal mines in the area. The licensing has caused confusion among landholders in the exploration zone, who cited a lack of community consultation, and licences being issued without a competitive tender process. But because the approval was under the OAF, Whitehaven was not required to undertake community consultation or conduct a preliminary regional issues assessment (PRIA). Landholders believed because Gorman North was a strategic release, any licences would be issued under the SRF, requiring public consultation. NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson questioned the use of the OAF instead of the SRF to approve the licences, labelling them “socially reckless and irresponsible”. “If there is some sort of ambiguity about which pathway to take, then surely you would take the pathway that the spirit and intent of the system provides and what the community expects,” Higginson said. “But clearly they didn’t.” Higginson questioned the Mining, Exploration and Geoscience (MEG) chief executive, Georgina Beattie, about this in late August. “What I understood from the response,” Higginson said, “is because there were no other potential market operators out there, it went straight in under [the OAF]”. “Whitehaven coal has been the one company that has not been talking about packing up, winding down, or leaving. They’ve been very aggressive in their continuation approach. “That’s been their relationship with the NSW Coalition and the Minerals Council. So Gorman North perhaps fits into that narrative.” Sally Hunter, whose husband Geoff Hunter, is on the Narrabri community consultative committee, said they were the ones to inform landholders directly, after spotting ads in the local paper. “No one knew about Gorman North so we ended up telling people about it,” she told Guardian Australia. “Unfortunately, when anyone inquired about it, Whitehaven said, ‘Oh no, you’re talking about the Narrabri underground expansion Stage 3 – here’s where all that information is, go and look at that’. “People were confused. We know of people that rang the company after we told them, and [Whitehaven] sent them on a wild-goose chase because they’ve done nothing to inform anyone in the region.” Linda Croker lives on Evesham, a Poll Hereford stud in the zone, but has little idea what any expansion could mean for her farm. “We’ve had basically nothing from Whitehaven, at all. We were unaware that it was even happening until Sally put a flyer in our mailbox telling us that it might happen,” she said. “We’re very concerned for the future … it makes it uncertain for all the surrounding property owners. We’ve already got enough mines here.” The OAF can be used to grant licences if the applying company has existing operations adjacent to the exploration zone. The Gorman North zone was set up abutting the north-west edges of Whitehaven’s Narrabri Coal operation. A spokesperson for MEG said “identification as a strategic-release area does not prevent an application under the operational allocation framework”. “The operational allocation pathway requires notification and advertisements, and a market-interest test. The department conducted a market-interest test over the entire Gorman North area. No market interest was received, so the applications were assessed in accordance with the Mining Act 1992 and the operational-allocation guidelines. “If market interest had been received, the department would have considered the strategic release framework for the entire Gorman North area, including a preliminary regional issues assessment.” Whitehaven Coal was approached for comment. Tom Plevey is a freelance writer based in Tamworth Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community | ['australia-news/series/the-rural-network', 'environment/coal', 'campaign/email/the-rural-network', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'australia-news/series/rural-network', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/the-rural-network'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2022-09-16T20:00:24Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2024/nov/20/bali-plastic-recycling-scheme-swamped-with-garbage | Bali plastic recycling scheme swamped with garbage | The Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) makes high-profile claims about the projects around the world it supports in the pursuit of clearing up plastic waste leaching into the environment. It works with partner organisations in developing countries to support community initiatives to collect and recycle plastic waste. But a visit to one of the earliest projects in Bali reveals it has collected a fraction of the plastic waste it set out to handle. Based in Jembrana, west Bali, the scheme set out to develop a “life-changing” waste system catering for 160,000 people. It was designed and implemented by the alliance in partnership with Project STOP, which aims to support waste management projects in south-east Asia. Jembrana’s scheme includes a household waste collection service, an educational campaign and sorting buckets for residents, and a new recycling facility, where waste is processed and composted. The facility was built next to an existing landfill. When the Alliance handed Project STOP Jembrana over to the local government and community last year, it said that it had “reached financial sustainability”. But it reported collecting less than a quarter of the 2,200 tonnes of plastic it originally intended to prevent from entering the oceans each year. But when a reporter from Greenpeace’s Unearthed team went to visit it earlier this month, it was swamped with garbage from an adjacent landfill and struggling with broken machinery and poor finances. The local organisation that took over the site with the local government has fallen into debt, and the mountain of waste at the surrounding landfill is bigger than when Project STOP began. The project recently announced plans for waste to be burned in cement kilns – a practice that has raised concerns over the impact of air pollution on local communities, and which campaigners say disincentivises recycling. Unearthed was told by workers that only 35 of the original 53 waste collection vehicles were still operational, and many of those frequently broke down. “There has been no fleet to pick up trash from my house for a long time. So I still use a bucket to collect trash, but I burn the trash behind my house,” resident Ni Luh Sumitri told Unearthed. Crucial waste sorting and recycling equipment is also broken, contributing to the growing waste pile adjoining the site. This waste pile has reportedly caused frequent fires, pollution and foul odours. A landfill worker, who spoke to Unearthed on condition of anonymity, said smoke from fires at the landfill often entered residents’ homes at night. A spokesperson for the AEPW said: “We fund a portfolio of projects of different sizes and nature with the objective of helping to solve the plastic waste challenge as well as develop learnings for future activities. “As with any portfolio, we recognise projects may not work perfectly or achieve the same level of success. If these projects were easy, we wouldn’t be fulfilling our purpose of developing new solutions. Accordingly, we not only measure our progress by volume, but also through the funding of projects and the advancement of what we hope are scalable solutions that may have the potential to scale.” The head of Jembrana’s environmental agency, Dewa Gede Ary Candra Wisnawa, told Unearthed that his party was still trying to improve management, but added: “We in the regions [are facing] budget constraints … there are many things that need to be fixed or adjusted. That is normal in adjusting the system.” “More and more residents are collecting and sorting waste before being transported to [the recycling facility], but the problems at the [facility] are now an obstacle,” I Ketut Suardika, the head of the Jagra Palemahan community organisation, told Unearthed. | ['environment/plastic', 'environment/recycling', 'world/bali', 'environment/environment', 'environment/waste', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2024-11-20T10:00:03Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
cleantechrevolution2009/homemade-power | Homemade power | Ceres Power, a company specialising in domestic fuel cells that convert gas to produce both heat and electricity, was the winner of the Carbon Trust inaugural prize in 2003. The company now has back orders for over 50,000 units, worth about £100m, and is hard at work equipping a new factory in Sussex which will begin production in late 2009. "Winning the prize reinforced our green credentials with a wide range of stakeholders in the city, the government and the industry," says Ceres chief executive Peter Bance. The beauty of the Ceres fuel cell is that it uses nearly all the heat value of the gas it converts, generating electricity to be used at home or exported to the grid, as well as in cental and water heating. Now compare this with the current inefficient way of doing things. Up to three-quarters of the energy of the fuel burnt in power stations is thrown away - flowing out of cooling towers and through transmission losses - before the electricity even reaches our homes. Then we burn even more fuel for hot water and central heating. But put the electricity and heat production together into a Ceres Power unit and you get the same end result, without the waste. Your carbon footprint is halved - along with your electricity bill. Indeed, you could be earning money exporting expensive peak-time units into the grid. There's a real advantage for the individual householder here, with expected fuel cost savings of £250 to £400 per year. But the benefits go much wider than that. The UK is facing an electricity supply gap over the coming decades, and there's still no clear plan for how to fill it. Domestic fuel cells could be the answer. "About 1.5m domestic boilers are replaced in the UK every year", says Bance. Replace each one with a 1 kilowatt fuel cell unit, and you are adding 1.5 gigawatts of generation capacity to the UK every year - equivalent to a big coal, gas or nuclear power station. Ten years on, the UK would have an extra 15 gigawatts and the energy gap would be plugged." That's not all. "The UK is facing huge costs to beef up the grid to accommodate wind power, new nuclear stations and so on, " says Bance. "By installing generation directly into houses rather than central power stations you reduce both the strain on the grid and the need for capital expenditure. This could save the country billions." There's just one problem. Ceres Power's domestic fuel cells are only scheduled to hit the market in 2011, but they are needed now. | ['cleantechrevolution2009/launch-supplement', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/carbon-challenge', 'theguardian/carbon-challenge/carbon-challenge'] | theguardian/carbon-challenge | EMISSIONS | 2009-07-08T23:01:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
politics/2004/dec/31/tsunami2004.internationalaidanddevelopment | Leader: Helping Asia's victims | Six days since the Indian Ocean tsunami did its deadly work, the world is still struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of a disaster that is now known to have killed 123,000 people - 23,000 more than yesterday's worst estimate - and ruined or blighted the lives of millions more. Charity begins at home, so it is heartening that individuals in Britain have already donated a record £30m, mostly channelled through the Disasters Emergency Committee. The Christmas spirit is alive and generous. It is encouraging, too, that the government has now upped its original, widely criticised, contribution of just £15m to a heftier £50m - though it is worth remembering that it has spent an estimated £6bn on the war on Iraq. Hilary Benn, the international development secretary, has pointed out that the key is turning cash into practical help on the ground in Asia. But the amount of money matters hugely both for short-term emergency aid - providing food, shelter, clean water and preventing disease - and the longer haul of rebuilding shattered communities and infrastructure for years after the TV cameras have left. Perhaps Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian chief, was deliberately provocative by castigating "stingy" official responses, including what the New York Times yes terday dismissed as a "miserly" US government aid pledge. Some have argued that natural disasters produce greater generosity than ones that can be at least partially attributed to human failings such as war, unfair trade or corruption. The fact that no one can be blamed for an unstoppable wall of water sent surging by the grinding of subterranean tectonic plates may explain why there has been relatively little finger-pointing, for example about the absence of a Pacific-style tsunami warning system that could have saved thousands of lives. But perhaps the brutal answer to an impressive display of empathy and charity is that wealthy westerners only really notice distant disasters when wealthy westerners are themselves caught up in them. Even Voltaire's irrepressibly optimistic Candide, inspired by the terrible Lisbon earthquake of 1755, would have been hard-pressed to find good in a tragedy of these dimensions. But any reinforcement of that elusive sense of common humanity and solidarity would be welcome. So would a sustained effort of giving beyond this darkened festive season and its indulgences, to help ease the pain of countless ravaged families and orphaned children who are half a world away, but for a brief moment feel closer to us all. | ['politics/politics', 'world/tsunami2004', 'global-development/global-development', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'world/world', 'society/society', 'tone/editorials', 'type/article'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2004-12-31T01:49:46Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/sep/04/sparrowhawks-play-hard-to-get-country-diary-sheffield | Sparrowhawks play hard to get | A new noise stopped me dead in my tracks; a sort of pulse-quickening, primitive shriek, more banshee wail than bird call. Through the still-bare March treetops I saw the source of the sound barrel straight overhead – my first thrilling glimpse of sparrowhawk in this neck of Ecclesall Wood, near my home. In the long light of a clear May evening came a second sighting, not far from the first; a revelatory 10 minutes of spectacular aerobatics in the full view of Ecclesall Road South, the bird’s fluidity of movement spellbinding. More recently, when the woods were muffled and dense with August foliage, I heard those sounds again, but more frequent and insistent, and produced by at least two birds. I waded towards them into the bramble-tangled understorey, but the calls simply receded as I pushed onwards, always one effortless step ahead of me, like a rainbow. A few days later I managed a frustratingly obscure glimpse, but a close-up look at these birds – which have, after all, evolved to be invisible in domains such as this – was proving elusive. That night I dreamed a huge sparrowhawk flew over me in a field, so close I could clearly make out the bright yellow of its irises and the horizontal bars of its plumage – distinctive features that, having recognised sparrowhawks previously by sound, I had not consciously memorised. The birds were eluding me in the day but somehow invading my nights. The following day I resolved to try one last time. After an hour of waiting, scanning the foliage, the sound began again. I lifted my binoculars, more in hope than expectation, but landed straight on a sparrowhawk, poised with disarming stillness on a conifer branch. I had the nape-prickling feeling of looking at a ghost. A little later I located the juvenile, the source of all that noise. I watched both for half an hour, the three of us silent and still. Only after they moved on did I see the messy scattering of pigeon feathers on the ground. All that time I had been searching in the trees, while a tell-tale sign had been unnoticed at my feet. | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/birds', 'environment/forests', 'environment/birdwatching', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'uk/sheffield', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/carey-davies', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-09-04T04:30:03Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2022/may/17/dont-accidentally-hire-a-north-korean-hacker-fbi-warns | Don’t accidentally hire a North Korean hacker, FBI warns | US officials have warned businesses against inadvertently hiring IT staff from North Korea, saying that rogue freelancers were taking advantage of remote work opportunities to hide their true identities and earn money for Pyongyang. An advisory issued by the state and treasury departments and the FBI said the effort was intended to circumvent US and UN sanctions, and bring in money for North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. The officials said companies who hired and paid such workers may be exposing themselves to legal consequences for sanctions violations. “There are thousands of DPRK IT workers both dispatched overseas and located within the DPRK, generating revenue that is remitted back to the North Korean government. “These IT workers take advantage of existing demands for specific IT skills, such as software and mobile application development, to obtain freelance employment contracts from clients around the world, including in North America, Europe, and east Asia.” North Korean workers pretended to be from South Korea, Japan, or other Asian countries, the advisory said. It laid out a series of red flags that employers should watch for, including a refusal to participate in video calls and requests to receive payments in virtual currency. US officials said the North Koreans were mostly based in China and Russia, with smaller numbers operating out of Africa and south-east Asia. Much of the money they earned was taken by the North Korean government. The advisory says that while much of the surreptitious job-seeking is to earn foreign exchange or to access virtual currency exchanges, some of the workers have helped Pyongyang’s government-backed hacking operations. The workers also “may steal the customer account information of US or international banks to verify their identities with freelance platforms, payment providers, and companies employing” contract workers, it said. Hiring the North Koreans “poses many risks, ranging from theft of intellectual property, data, and funds to reputational harm and legal consequences, including sanctions under both US and United Nations authorities”, it said. With Reuters and Agence France-Presse | ['world/north-korea', 'technology/hacking', 'world/asia-pacific', 'technology/technology', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-05-16T23:40:31Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
technology/2023/jan/06/chameleon-cars-urine-scanners-and-other-standouts-from-ces-2023 | Chameleon cars, urine scanners and other standouts from CES 2023 | From colour-changing cars, dual-screen laptops and satellite emergency texts to AI-ovens and a urine-scanning smart toilet upgrade, the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas had more concepts of the future on show than ever before. The biggest consumer gadget show of the year was still quieter than pre-pandemic levels, with the global economic slowdown biting big tech along with everything else. However, there were still thousands of products on display. Here are some of the highlights. Colour-changing concept cars Introduced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, BMW’s i Vision Dee caught the attention with its E-ink outer skin, which can change colour in an instant. Don’t expect that on a car you can buy any time soon but it also has a head-up display projected across the full width of the windscreen, which will be available from 2025. Sony and Honda showed off a prototype electric car from their joint venture. The Afeela is covered inside and out with 45 sensors and has a full-width media screen inside, presumably for playing PlayStation games. A production version is expected by the end of 2025. Closer to reality was Volkswagen’s ID7, which is an electric replacement for its Passat capable of travelling more than 400 miles before recharging, and is due to go on sale by late 2024. Ahead of its full unveiling next year, the ID7 was wrapped in an eye-catching electroluminescent camouflage paint that changed colour in time to music. Asus glasses-free 3D display Asus’s Vivobook Pro laptop with a 3D screen hopes to succeed where 3D TVs failed – as no glasses required. Using an eye-tracking camera system and a lenticular lens built into the 16in OLED screen, the laptop can accurately display a different image for each eye giving the impression of 3D, including objects that jump out of the screen. It will play 3D movies and games but is most impressive with creative software, for which Asus has developed plugins to take advantage of the screen. The laptop is expected be available later this year and joins rival devices from Acer and Sony in trying to make glass-free 3D computer screens a reality. Lenovo’s dual-screen laptop The latest Yoga Book from Lenovo replaces the keyboard deck of a traditional laptop with a second screen. The full-sized Windows 11 notebook has two 13.3in OLED displays hinged in the middle so that it can be used on a desk like a traditional laptop, propped up like a tent, read like a book or folded to be like a tablet. A detachable keyboard and folding stand turn the Yoga Book 9i into a dual-screen workstation at a desk, too. The machine will cost $2,099 (£1,771.66) in the US and is expected to launch in June. Samsung’s oven knows when your food is burning Samsung’s new Bespoke AI oven has a camera inside that can recognise food items, and using artificial intelligence it can not only automatically provide cooking recommendations for mode, temperature and time, but warns you if the food is about to burn. It can spot 80 different ingredients and dishes and includes air sous vide, air-frying and steam-cooking modes alongside traditional oven functions. You can even use the camera to take photos of or livestream your culinary creations as they cook. Pee-scanning toilet upgrade Wearables are so last year. Made by the appropriately named health-tech firm Withings, the U-Scan is the first hands-free at-home urine lab, which promises to “provide an immediate snapshot of the body’s balance” using a 90mm round pod you hide under the toilet rim. It tracks 100 biomarkers for monitoring menstrual cycles and hormone levels or hydration and nutrition using customisable cartridges, sending all the data to the Health Mate app. The device, due to launch by mid-2023, will cost £500, with cartridges lasting three months costing £30. Satellites to solve out of phone signal emergency texts Apple added the ability to use satellites to send SOS messages to the iPhone 14 late last year. Now the chip manufacturers Qualcomm and Mediatek are adding a similar ability to their top processors that could end up in high-priced Android phones from the second half of the year. They promise two-way texting at some point in the future but how that will be built into phones and who pays for the service remains to be seen. Google and Samsung will have to be convinced to use Qualcomm’s rather than their own-brand chips in their top phones, too. | ['technology/ces', 'technology/samsung', 'business/bmw', 'business/business', 'technology/sony', 'business/honda', 'business/vw-volkswagen', 'technology/asus', 'technology/lenovo', 'business/qualcomm', 'technology/technology', 'technology/computing', 'business/automotive-industry', 'us-news/las-vegas', 'us-news/us-news', 'technology/gadgets', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/samuel-gibbs', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-01-06T13:00:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2007/feb/09/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange | Worse than we thought | Polar ice cap 1956 2006 2056 The world's scientists last week gave their starkest warning yet that a failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will bring devastating climate change within a few decades. Average temperatures could increase by as much as 6.4C by the end of the century if emissions continue to rise, with a rise of 4C most likely, according to the final report of an expert panel set up by the UN to study the problem. The forecast is higher than previous estimates, because scientists have discovered that Earth's land and oceans are becoming less able to absorb carbon dioxide. An average global temperature rise of 4C would wipe out hundreds of species, bring extreme food and water shortages in vulnerable countries and cause catastrophic floods that would displace hundreds of millions of people. Warming would be much more severe towards the poles, which could accelerate melting of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets. The report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is written by hundreds of scientists across the world and has been approved by every government. It leaves little room for doubt that human activity is to blame. Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said: "February 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether people are to blame for climate change." The report itself said human activity was "very likely" to be responsible for most of the observed warming in recent decades, which means the scientists are 90% sure. The warning comes as world governments face increasing pressure to agree a global deal to reduce emissions. Susan Solomon, the co-chair of the IPCC working group that prepared the report, said: "If we keep emitting greenhouse gases at current rates we will see bigger changes this century than we did in the previous century. The amount of warming will depend on choices that human beings make." The previous IPCC report, in 2001, said that failure to act could bring global warming of up to 5.8C by 2100. Dr Solomon said the latest predictions painted a gloomier picture because scientists have discovered feedbacks in the global carbon cycle that are adding to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Early estimates say this would be enough to raise temperatures by at least another 1C by 2100. A 4C rise or higher this century would see the world warm almost as much in 100 years as it did during the 15,000 years since the end of the last ice age. Even the most optimistic scenario would see a likely increase in temperature of 2.4C over pre-industrial levels by 2100. As the world warms up the oceans become less able to dissolve carbon dioxide. At the same time carbon dioxide that now fertilises soils will reach saturation point. As temperatures rise even further many plants will become stressed by drought conditions and microbes in the soil will start breaking down organic matter from dead plants faster, meaning large areas of land will begin emitting carbon dioxide instead of acting as an overall sink for the gas. Signs that soils were beginning to become part of the problem of global warming emerged in 2005 when researchers discovered that a vast expanse of western Siberia was undergoing an unprecedented thaw. The region, the largest frozen peat bog in the world, had begun to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago. The team, from Tomsk State and Oxford universities, believe the million-square-kilometre peat bog could begin to release billions of tonnes of methane locked up in the soils. Methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The team found that even if methane seeped from the peat bog over the next 100 years it would add 700m tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year, roughly the same that is released annually from the world's wetlands and agriculture. It would effectively double the atmospheric levels of the gas, leading to a 10% to 25% increase in global warming. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/ipcc', 'science/science', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/davidadam', 'profile/iansample', 'publication/guardianweekly', 'guardianweekly/guardianweekly1', 'guardianweekly/guardianweekly1/guardianweekly'] | environment/ipcc | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2007-02-09T15:08:52Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2017/sep/06/the-guardian-view-on-plastic-learning-to-love-it-wisely | The Guardian view on plastic: learning to love it wisely | Editorial | Our love for plastic is all-consuming. It is the irresistible wonder material: mouldable, inert, light and highly versatile, used not just in toys and toothbrushes but in pacemakers, teabags and spaceships. But this is a paradoxical relationship, and not a healthy one: we rely on it too much and value it too little, regarding it as cheap and disposable. The cost is becoming obvious. Our planet is being buried under a mountain of plastic. Of the 8.3bn tonnes produced between the 1950s and 2015, four-fifths lies in landfill or in our natural environment. Once we marvelled at plastic’s durability; now we lament the centuries it takes to decompose. The impact on our oceans, our landscapes and our wildlife is undeniable. But far from reversing course, we are accelerating: we have made roughly as much plastic since 2000 as we did in all the years before. It is not only out there: it is in here. The Guardian has revealed that microplastic contamination has been found in tap water samples from around the world: the Orb Media investigation found that 94% of samples from the US were contaminated, and even in European nations, which had the lowest rate, 72% were affected. Other research has found tiny pieces of plastic in seafood, and fibres in the air in people’s homes. We do not know how this affects our health. But we do know that there is good reason to be concerned. Experts fear the spread of plastic nanoparticles, so minute that they could be able to penetrate our organs. They warn too that studies show microplastics can attract bacteria found in sewage, and toxic chemicals which they release into the bodies of wild animals. Why should we imagine that we will be immune? Last year, the environmental audit committee urged the government to draw up a research strategy on microplastic pollution, prioritising human health impacts and ways to reduce pollution. In-depth work is needed on where microplastics come from; how they get into food and water, and in what quantities; and whether they remain in our bodies and leach chemicals into our guts or affect other organs. We cannot afford to wait for the results as we watch plastic take over our planet. Use in Asia is surging: China accounts for more than a quarter of global demand for polyethylene terephthalate bottles. In many parts of the world, clean drinking water means bottled water. Even in the UK, consumers cannot avoid plastics if we try. The vogue for zero-waste grocery stores, where customers bring their own containers and weigh out what they want, is likely to remain a niche one. Consumers are an important part of the story, but a relatively small one. Government action will be required to push resistant industry into the changes needed, both in Britain and abroad. Most plastic is recyclable; but less than a 10th of that produced is actually recycled. So the Scottish government’s announcement of a deposit return scheme for drinks containers is welcome. In Norway and other European countries, taxes are used to incentivise businesses to meet recycling targets. Even that is just a start in changing our mindset so that we design items with their end already in mind. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and World Economic Forum produced a striking portrait of a new plastics economy, where the materials do not end up as waste. That means wider use of reusable packaging, a radical increase in recycling and greater adoption of industrially compostable plastic packaging. The real problem is not plastic: it’s us. We need not reject the wonder material, but instead regain our sense of wonder, learning to treat it as a treasure instead of trash. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'environment/plastic-bags', 'environment/ethical-living', 'business/fooddrinks', 'business/business', 'tone/editorials', 'tone/comment', 'environment/oceans', 'type/article', 'profile/editorial', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-09-06T18:39:17Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/southern-crossroads/2014/jan/12/greg-hunt-negligent-direct-action-climate-change-denialist | Australian environment minister is totally, shamefully negligent with "direct action" policy | Alexander White | Moderate conservative that he is, Australian environment minister Greg Hunt ran on a platform of "lean" government, where private businesses "are the true creators of wealth", individuals need to take personal responsibility for their actions, and the former Labor government's carbon price was a "non-delivery of an invisible substance". It was a surprise then, to learn last week, that Greg Hunt wants to give $3 billion to big polluting companies to reduce their emissions, but have no sanctions for those businesses if they fail to meet the reduction targets. This is like giving money to an illegal drug dealer to develop innovative ways for him to stop dealing drugs, then having no penalty if he keeps selling them. Worse, the drug dealer could claim government funding for drugs that he supposedly didn't sell over his "baseline" of sales, but carry on pushing drugs regardless. You'd expect that a believer in lean government wouldn't use billions in tax-payer's money to create an expensive, totally ineffectual regulatory bureaucracy to auction permits to not emit carbon pollution. The Australian government's "direct action" policy will allow companies to bid for grants to implement the most efficient carbon reduction programs. Companies will have a "business as usual" baseline from which they agree to reduce their pollution. Several options are canvassed by Greg Hunt, including having multi-year compliance periods, or the ability for companies to "make good" by buying reduction credits from elsewhere. In reality, the Emissions Reduction Fund is little more than a slush-fund for the big polluters. What is surprising is that Greg Hunt seems unaffected by the cognitive dissonance of paying someone to not do something — to not emit a tonne of carbon dioxide — when his principle criticism of the carbon price was that it was a "non-delivery of an invisible substance". This policy is shamefully negligent. Not just because it won't actually reduce Australia's carbon emissions and will fall vastly short of the inadequate 5% reduction target. But because you can't measure what you don't emit. Instead, you just assume how much you would have emitted and compare it to what you did emit. This is, needless to say, utterly subjective, and open to manipulation. Private companies will be given public funds to magically reduce their carbon pollution emissions, with no consequences if they fail to deliver. As is so often the case with this government, Greg Hunt and prime minister Tony Abbott have a very flimsy moral case to implement their direct action policy, and the federal election does not qualify as a mandate to abolish the carbon price. Abbott may claim that the 2013 election was a "referendum" on the carbon price, but if so, only around 45.5% of voters supported the abolition by voting for the LNP. This falls to a miserable 37.7% in the Senate. Implicit in their "direct action" policy is that it is a more effective way to reduce carbon emissions than the carbon price. This is a view that could only be held by someone if they didn't accept the scientific basis for climate change. Considering Tony Abbott's past statements that climate change is "crap" and that the carbon price was "socialism masquerading as environmentalism", a common sense reading of the policy is that exists solely because of the climate change denialists in the ranks of the Liberal-National party. In fact, according to an August 2013 report by Reputex, the cost per tonne of emissions reduced under Hunt and Abbott's "direct action" policy, if it were to achieve the 5% reduction, would be $58 per tonne. Labor's carbon price by contrast was just $23 per tonne (and would have gone to a floating market-set price next year). Simply put, the "direct action" policy of Greg Hunt and Tony Abbott betrays either a shameful ignorance of the national perils inherent in climate change, or malicious intent to line the pockets of big polluters at the expense of everyone else. What's more, the "direct action" policy is utterly at odds with the pro-market, "lean" government, responsibility ideology of the Liberal-National party. It abolishes the carbon permit market in favour of a heavily regulated grants/auction system. It creates more bureaucracy to replace the public servants who were administering the carbon price. It creates a consequence-free money tree for big polluters who won't need to take responsibility for their pollution. This Liberal-National government is shamefully attempting to fleece everyday Australians out of $3 billion, handed out in grants to big polluters for magical, unmeasurable carbon emission reductions. | ['environment/southern-crossroads', 'environment/series/guardian-environment-blogs', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/carbon-tax', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/greg-hunt', 'australia-news/tony-abbott', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'type/article', 'profile/alexander-white'] | environment/carbon-tax | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-01-12T00:17:41Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
business/2008/oct/20/greenbusiness-renewableenergy | Queen breezes in to aid wind projects | The Queen has helped trigger a resurgence of interest in wind projects in the deep waters off Britain by promising to invest in projects at a time when onshore and other offshore schemes are struggling to meet their potential in the face of planning delays and other problems. The decision by the monarch's crown estate, to pay up to half of all pre-construction development costs, has brought a surge in applications for the latest round of wind licensing with almost 100 companies wanting to build farms far into the North Sea. "The crown estate offering to be a development partner takes away much of the cost and uncertainty with third-round projects, which is why we have seen so much interest in the latest licensing round," said Adam Bruce, chairman of the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), on the eve of its annual conference to be opened by Gordon Brown tomorrow. The Queen's property arm has also shown its willingness to be at the forefront of the battle against climate change by agreeing to buy the world's biggest wind turbine, the 7.5MW Clipper Windpower MBE prototype, codenamed Project Britannia. The turbine, said to be powerful enough to provide power for 5,500 homes, is under construction in Blyth in north-east England, and will be eventually towed out and erected in the North Sea. Although deep-water projects were expensive and the cost of steel and other materials was soaring, they could be far more efficient because they could utilise larger turbines and take advantage of stronger prevailing winds, said Bruce. "Unlike onshore wind schemes, the operator is also only dealing with one planning regime and one landlord in the crown estate which is now offering to be a partner," he added. The organisation, which has responsibility for licensing the seabed up to 200 miles off-shore for renewable projects, will help pay for the cost of undertaking studies on what impact a particular wind plan would have on shipping and marine life. The cost of doing that will later be clawed back from revenues once the wind turbines are turning. Ninety-six companies expressed their interest by last month in becoming involved in the third licensing round, far more than in previous rounds. The crown estate is considering the offers and will make a decision on who will win the chance to proceed with schemes on 11 favoured sites, called zones. A spokeswoman for the crown estate said the response to the licensing round had "greatly exceeded our expectations". The crown estate, which owns large parts of Regent Street, London as well as 55% of Britain's foreshore, traces its history back to the reign of King George the Third, who swapped much of his land for a fixed income from the Treasury. The deep-water interest is a welcome boost for the wind industry which is still hobbled by problems that ministers have repeatedly promised to sort out. A new planning bill is meant to streamline wind projects but the BWEA pointed out today in a new review that half of the 7GW of wind capacity stuck in the planning system is located in Scotland and not covered by the legislation, while a further 3.5GW is below a 50MW threshold. There are still difficulties, with the ministry of defence and the aviation industry over the alleged threat to radar coverage posed by wind turbines. Government has again promised help resolve these difficulties but problems remain. "It is not possible to quantify the risk to a project from an aviation perspective - the objections cannot be easily predicted and a pre-planning statement of no objection is not always valid through the planning process," says the BWEA. The prime minister will reiterate his determination to clear any logjams and ensure wind reaches its potential. Brown will say that his decision to create an dedicated energy and climate change department is proof of how seriously he takes both global warming and energy security. Meanwhile, the Carbon Trust will tomorrow announce that it has reached agreement with five major energy companies under which £30m will be invested to find ways to reduce the cost of offshore wind by at least 10%. Airtricity, ScottishPower Renewables and StatoilHydro will work with RWE Innogy and DONG Energy to research and develop ways of cutting costs and improving efficiency at wind farms at a time of mounting concern that rising costs are chasing investors away from renewables. The move comes just days after the Carbon Trust, an organisation established by government to help speed up the introduction of clean energy, unveiled a report showing that ministers would fail to meet their offshore wind goals unless a variety of measures were introduced. Among proposals was one allowing operators to develop a new generation of wind farms closer to shore. | ['business/business', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'uk/uk', 'uk/monarchy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2008-10-20T17:14:19Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2016/apr/05/scrapping-hinkley-for-renewable-alternatives-will-save-tens-of-billions | Scrapping Hinkley for renewable alternatives would save 'tens of billions' | Scrapping plans for new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset and building huge amounts of renewable power instead would save the UK tens of billions of pounds, according to an analysis that compares likely future costs. The Intergenerational Foundation thinktank calculated that Britain would pay up to £40bn less for renewable alternatives that would generate the equivalent power to Hinkley over the plant’s planned lifetime. A final investment decision by EDF on the nuclear power plant’s expansion is expected in May. The deal involves the government committing £92.50 per megawatt hour over 35 years for its electricity output, more than twice the current wholesale price. But a report published on Tuesday by the thinktank, which campaigns on fairness between generations, found that onshore windfarms would cost £31.2bn less than Hinkley, and solar photovoltaic power £39.9bn less over 35 years to build and run. The estimate is based on both the value of subsidies paid by the taxpayer for the electricity and the cost of building the infrastructure. The analysis is based on the government’s ‘contracts for difference’ subsidy levels for the technologies and projections by Bloomberg for how the cost of wind and solar power will fall in the future. Andrew Simms, one of the report’s co-authors, said: “The government’s current plans for new nuclear power will break spending records, and pass both high costs and large, unknown economic risks onto every UK child for generations to come. “But, readily available, cheaper, safer and quicker renewable energy options would help Britain live both within its economic and environmental means, while also protecting and providing for future generations.” The report says that at £24bn, Hinkley Point C would be the “most expensive building on Earth”, and argues that the new reactors would pass not just economic costs to future generations, but the burdens of nuclear waste and climate change because nuclear is not quick enough to build at scale to stave off dangerous global warming. “An over-reliance on new nuclear capacity is expensive, poor value, slow, insecure and an obstacle to better alternatives. Without a rethink we risk passing on a huge intergenerational economic burden in which known costs are high, and risks exist heavily on the downside,” the report’s authors said. Tom Burke, chairman of the environmental thinktank E3G and a former government adviser, said that while the report’s precise figures for costs were debatable, the broad thrust of its analysis was correct. “The government essentially is pushing this cost on to future generations. It’s a terrible thing to do to your kids. There are a lot of kids not born yet who will end up paying for this,” he said. Lower wholesale electricity prices in future would mean that because of the way the contracts for difference work – by topping up payments for electricity to a guaranteed amount, or ‘strike price’, currently well above the wholesale price – the true cost could be much higher. “Trying to get a 35-year projection of your electricity price correct would have been like asking Tony Benn as energy minister in Harold Wilson’s government what the electricity price would be in 2013,” said Burke. Renewable power has grown in the UK to the point where more electricity was generated from biomass, wind, hydro and solar power in 2015 than nuclear power stations. But it is unlikely the Intergenerational Foundation’s report will shift minds in government, which has cut subsidies for both solar and wind power while pressing ahead with the Hinkley project. The analysis assumes the level of subsidy for solar and wind under the contracts for difference subsidy regime would remain constant, though in reality this would likely decrease as more capacity was built. A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesperson said: “Nuclear can provide continuous power, irrespective of whether the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. The industry will also create thousands of jobs and benefit companies in the supply chain, meaning financial security for working people and their families across the UK. “We don’t recognise the figures presented in the report for the Intergenerational Foundation. Hinkley Point C is a good deal for consumers and, once operational will provide 60 years of secure, reliable and low-carbon electricity for the cost of 35. This will help us to keep the lights on while meeting our emissions targets in the most cost-effective way.” | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'uk-news/hinkley-point-c', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'business/business', 'business/energy-industry', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2016-04-05T05:01:27Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2012/sep/07/green-politics-green-party | Green party is the only genuine opposition, says Natalie Bennett | Labour is failing to offer a real alternative to the coalition on the economy and the environment, and the Green party is now the only genuine opposition party to the government, the newly elected leader of the Greens will say on Friday afternoon. Australian-born Natalie Benett, a former Guardian journalist who said there will be a Green councillor in every major town and city within a decade after being elected leader on Monday, will say "the Labour party has not changed" in her speech to the party's annual conference. In an attack on Labour's policies on energy, the economy and reform of the public sector, she is expected to say: "Ed Miliband's Labour party is still championing nuclear power. Still pushing for unsustainable growth. Hasn't moved to support cooperatives and small business against multinational companies. Doesn't support renationalisation of the railways. Isn't speaking out in favour of the minimum wage being a living wage." Bennett indicated this week that the Green party would be seeking to win the votes of disaffected Labour and Liberal Democrat voters, in a continuation of tactics by outgoing leader and MP Caroline Lucas, who used her conference speech last year to appeal to Lib Dem voters. The new leader will claim that Labour has failed to provide opposition to the government's cuts agenda and that the Green party has filled that role. "We have to be the opposition to this disastrous coalition government. We are the opposition. We can do it because we have the vision of a better, more equal, healthier Britain, and we know how to get there." The Green party would strengthen trade unions, restructure the economy in favour of low-carbon industry, cut emissions and increase renewable energy, and make society more equal, Bennett will argue. Despite being disadvantaged by the current first-past-the-post electoral system, she will say that while pushing for proportional representation is still a Green party campaign, the party cannot wait for it "to bear fruit". Under Lucas's leadership, who was elected as the party's first leader in 2008 and in May announced she would not run for another term, the party beat the Liberal Democrats to come third in the London mayoral election contest this year, Lucas herself became the first Green MP in England, and the party has doubled its membership. In her final speech as leader today, Lucas is expected to say: "New leader Natalie Bennett has all the passion, the commitment and the inspiration needed to lead the party forward. There are huge opportunities for us in the years ahead. On so many of the big issues of our time, Greens are winning the battle of ideas. "From 20mph speed limits in residential areas and introducing a living wage to lift people out of poverty, to nationalising the railways and replacing the failed policy of austerity with investment in jobs and the green economy, our policies are coming into their own." On Thursday, Miliband criticised the coalition's green record, saying Labour would not pose "the environment and the economy as alternatives as the current Chancellor does", apparently referring to remarks by George Osborne last year. Miliband's intervention followed a cabinet reshuffle by David Cameron this week that saw the appointment of a new environment secretary and energy minister who have both spoken out against wind power subsidies in the past, and the removal of Justine Greening as transport secretary, widely seen as paving the way for the government's backing of a third runway at Heathrow, which Greening opposed. | ['environment/green-politics', 'environment/environment', 'politics/green-party', 'politics/politics', 'politics/labour', 'tone/news', 'uk/uk', 'politics/liberal-conservative-coalition', 'politics/conservatives', 'politics/liberaldemocrats', 'politics/natalie-bennett', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-09-07T11:05:18Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
australia-news/2017/jun/14/coal-dinosaurs-arguing-against-the-finkel-review-clearly-dont-understand-it | Coal dinosaurs arguing against the Finkel review clearly don't understand it | Michael Slezak | Energy and climate is a complex policy area. But the amount of rubbish floating around both from the pro-coal dinosaurs in the Coalition backbench and from similarly inclined commentators is astounding. The Finkel review recommendation a clean energy target be implemented has been at the core of conservative objections and about 20 Coalition backbenchers spoke against the recommendations in a party room meeting. Many of their arguments have been aired publicly or leaked. Here are some of the silliest. ‘Emissions-lowering policy will push up power prices’ This is the line being run by Tony Abbott and, reportedly, by others including the Victorian Liberal moderate Russell Broadbent. For a party traditionally geared towards helping businesses make more money, this line of argument reveals the ideological commitment to fossil fuels, which ignores the pleas of energy users everywhere. The Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group and the Energy Users Association of Australia all agree the lack of policy that puts a price on carbon is pushing up prices by stifling new investment in new generators. At some point greenhouse gas emissions will need to be eliminated from the electricity sector; investment decisions become much riskier until investors know what the policy is that will drive that. Finkel noted this in the first few paragraphs of his report. “We quickly discovered that, beyond the cost of gas, uncertainty around emissions reduction policies was pushing up prices and undermining reliability. Our plan removes that uncertainty.” Submissions from the big “gentailers” – companies that own generators and retail assets – made this point explicitly. Origin, Energy Australia and AGL each made submissions that argued this. Modelling in Finkel’s report – which backs up earlier modelling – shows instituting any of the emissions-lowering policies he considered would drive down both wholesale and retail electricity prices, compared with doing nothing. Why commentators and politicians would continue to argue that emissions reductions policies will push up prices, contradicting what energy generators, energy retailers and energy users say – and what all the science and modelling work shows – is a bit mysterious. ‘We should delay action on climate change because it will be cheaper in the future’ The Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly, who is chair of the Coalition backbench committee on climate and energy, said on Radio National on Wednesday that it would be better to “backload” emission reductions closer to when they need to be achieved, because by that time technology will be better or cheaper. In other words, we should delay cutting emissions. He said: “That will give you the opportunity to actually use a lot of these technologies as they’re developing rather than jump in now and spend billions of dollars in capital investment in some renewable technologies that in three or four years could be redundant.” But this idea seems to just be completely made up. If the aim is to reach a certain target by 2030, it will be cheaper to get there slowly, rather than to try to do it quickly at the last minute. Sending clear long-term signals to the electricity industry, which invests in assets that last decades, will be less disruptive than doing something at the last minute. Indeed, that is the plea from industry: set the emissions reduction policies in place now, so that long-term decisions can be made. As it happens, the Climate Institute modelled the exact question of the relative costs of taking action now, or leaving it to the last minute. The two cases they compared were not those being considered by the Finkel review but they showed convincingly that last-minute action causes large disruptions and comes with large social and economic costs. ‘Coal energy is cheapest’ Despite Finkel’s recommendations making very little dent in coal generation above business as usual, the recommendations have provoked a revolt in support of coal. Abbott has labelled Finkel’s recommended clean energy target as a “tax on coal” and, on Radio National, Kelly said coal power is still “our lowest cost of electricity generation”. That’s just not true. If you’re comparing the cost of new-build electricity, coal is the most expensive of all. And if you’re comparing the cost of existing power, that produced from wind or solar is by far the cheapest – often bidding into auctions at zero dollars, since the marginal cost of each watt-hour they produce is virtually nothing. ‘We should allow coal to get clean energy certificates’ As it happens, while it sounds perverse to let coal get clean energy certificates, this doesn’t seem like the worst idea being floated by the pro-coal commentariat. Under the proposed clean energy target, if the benchmark were set high enough to allow so-called new “high-efficiency, low-emissions” coal power plants to receive clean energy certificates, it wouldn’t incentivise one to be built. Such a plant is clearly not economical to build now and, if it just scraped into the proposed framework, it would receive so few certificates compared to cleaner energy that it wouldn’t change the economics. Indeed, even if it were set high enough to allow the cleaner existing coal power plants to receive clean energy certificates, all it would likely do is give a boost to gas and help encourage the dirtiest coal power plants to close earlier. | ['australia-news/finkel-review', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/tony-abbott', 'australia-news/liberal-party', 'australia-news/coalition', 'environment/coal', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/michael-slezak', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2017-06-14T03:34:16Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2010/jun/03/gulf-oil-spill-bp-dividend | Gulf oil spill: BP to go ahead with $10bn shareholder payout | Tony Hayward, BP's embattled chief executive, will risk incurring further wrath in the US over the Gulf oil spill tomorrow by defying calls from politicians to halt more than $10bn (£6.8bn) worth of payouts due to shareholders this year. He will hope to appease City investors by promising in a conference call with analysts to stick with BP's dividend policy amid mounting concern about a plunging share price. BP declined to comment on its strategy tonight but it is understood that Hayward will say he is confident the company can pay for liabilities resulting from the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion – now estimated by analysts at $20bn to $60bn – as well as rewarding investors. The move follows demands from senators Charles Schumer and Ron Wyden in a letter to Hayward all dividends be halted until the cost of the clean-up is known. Analysts warned that committing to the dividend risked further political opprobrium in the US, with Alex Stewart from Evolution Securities fearing it could force Hayward to make a U-turn next month. BP reports its results on 27 July, when it will announce the size of its next quarterly payout, but it is expected to spend more than $10bn in total dividends this year. "The problem they have is that the oil is likely to be still flowing by the time they announce results," said Stewart. "It's not going to look good paying about $3bn in [quarterly] dividends to shareholders if at the same time local fishermen are having their livelihoods destroyed in the Gulf." However, BP's dividend is of crucial importance to the City and to the pensions of millions who depend on payouts from profitable companies to boost their retirement funds. Together with rival Shell, BP accounted for 25% of the total dividends of £50bn paid in the UK market last year. Any cut in the dividend could result in investors selling BP shares, further weakening the company, which has lost nearly 30% of its value since the disaster began. Crude oil has been leaking from a well at the bottom of the sea since 20 April and BP has been unable to stem the flow despite various attempts to halt it, including the "top kill" method of pumping mud and debris into the hole. Hayward's handling of the crisis has been called into question, and he chose Facebook to apologise for his latest gaffe: saying he wanted his life back. His position has become more troubled since he said in an interview with the FT today that it was "entirely fair criticism" that BP was not fully prepared for the oil leak. Analysts were today openly questioning the future of Hayward as chief executive, and whether his company could be taken over and broken up. Bookmaker Paddy Power is now offering even odds that Hayward will be forced to leave his post by the end of this year, meaning two successive chief executives would have left earlier than originally intended. Hayward's predecessor John Browne departed following the Texas City fire which claimed 15 lives. | ['environment/bp-oil-spill', 'business/bp', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'environment/oil-spills', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'business/tony-hayward', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'profile/timwebb', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-06-03T19:09:54Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2011/may/20/coalition-climate-change-budget | Letters: Two cheers for the coalition's climate change budget | I welcome the agreement on the fourth carbon budget (Editorial, 18 May) and the efforts of the energy and climate secretary to secure it. Unfortunately, cabinet infighting has delivered a flawed deal, with the government failing to heed advice from the Committee on Climate Change on three key points. First, it is refusing to toughen up the existing targets for 2013-23, making the fourth budget harder and more costly to achieve and stunting ambition in the here and now. Second, the concessionary review clause slipped in by the Treasury will allow the government to backtrack on the budget in 2014, depending on progress elsewhere in the EU, reducing long-term certainty on emissions cuts and potentially harming the investor confidence in green technologies which the Climate Change Act is designed to build. And on the fundamental issue of how we meet the targets, the government has shunned the CCC's recommendation that the budget should be met through domestic action alone. Exporting carbon pollution is not the same as reducing it. Allowing trading mechanisms such as offsetting is, in effect, outsourcing our responsibilities to other countries – and weakening the drive to build green industries here. With the right political leadership and commitment to ambitious reforms, the green jobs of the future can become a reality now. Caroline Lucas MP Green, Brighton Pavilion • Chris Huhne deserves congratulations for winning the cabinet battle over climate targets, as does the prime minister for backing him. The decision will give a boost to the coalition's tattered green credentials. David Cameron must now get on with the urgent task of fast tracking the policies that will ensure that the UK's bold climate targets are met. This means strengthening the energy bill to slash energy waste in our homes and communities, putting electricity decarbonisation by 2030 at the heart of electricity market reform and ensuring that the fight against climate change is central to UK transport policy. Andy Atkins Executive director, Friends of the Earth • As the biggest union in the UK steel industry, we represent many of the people you refer to as having "dirty jobs". This is simplistic. Thousands of them are already playing their part in the green economy, producing steel for renewable energy infrastructure, greener cars and low-carbon construction. The industry has already significantly reduced its carbon footprint and by 2023 technological developments should allow it to play its part in meeting the UK's targets, while creating jobs. Nevertheless, it is vital that climate change policies do not jeopardise the industry and that a policy is implemented to sustain and develop energy-intensive industries. Michael Leahy General secretary, Community trade union Your leader has a lively awareness of the immediate economic problems, but excludes any realistic assessment of the true scale of the physical-world problem we are being forced to confront. Those at the sharp end of climate change research – like Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre – say that we need something more like 10% cuts a year. Dr James Hansen, who heads the Nasa climate change research effort says that two degrees of warming is not a safe target, but a recipe for disaster. Looked at in that light, even the most ambitious action to address the climate threat that has so far been proposed, at either the national or international level, cannot be regarded as really serious. Phil Thornhill National coordinator, Campaign against Climate Change | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'tone/letters', 'environment/carbon-offset-projects', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/green-economy', 'environment/green-jobs', 'politics/chrishuhne', 'politics/politics', 'politics/tradeunions', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/carbon-offset-projects | EMISSIONS | 2011-05-19T23:05:04Z | true | EMISSIONS |
uk/2005/jan/13/arts.tsunami2004 | Orchestras in tsunami fundraiser | Two Manchester symphony orchestras are to join forces to raise funds for victims of the tsunami. The BBC Philharmonic and the Hallé will play separately and together, platform space permitting, under two conductors in the city's Bridgewater Hall on January 27. All musicians, and the hall, are donating their services - the idea came from the Hallé's manager, John Summers. The evening's climax is likely to be a performance of Nimro, a piece traditionally associated with occasions of mourning, from Elgar's Enigma Variations played by up to 170 musicians. The combined orchestras, under the Hallé's Mark Elder, will play two other variations from the Enigma set, plus Jupiter from Holst's Planets. In the first half, Elder and the Hallé plus the orchestra's chorus and youth choir will perform works by Verdi and Brahms, with the pianist Igor Tchetuev as soloist in Rakhmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. After the interval, the BBC Philharmonic's conductor emeritus, Sir Edward Downes, will play preludes from Wagner operas. | ['uk/uk', 'world/tsunami2004', 'world/world', 'culture/culture', 'music/music', 'type/article', 'profile/davidward'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-01-13T02:28:10Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/jul/31/edmonton-incinerator-expansion-fundamentally-unjust-say-residents | Edmonton incinerator expansion 'fundamentally unjust', say residents | Georgia Elliott-Smith lives near the Edmonton EcoPark waste incinerator in north London. It sits in one of the poorest areas in the country, where 65% of the residents are from ethnic minority backgrounds and air pollution already breaches legal limits. The waste-to-energy incinerator is run by the North London Waste Authority (NLWA), serves seven London local authorities, and is planning to expand to increase its capacity by 200,000 tonnes. “When you walk around the neighbourhood around this incinerator, it’s already a very industrial area,” Elliott-Smith, of the group Stop the Edmonton Incinerator, said. “There’s waste handling areas, depots, you can drive up and see the open doors of where the waste trucks go in – and all the bushes are full of plastic bags blowing around.” Elliott-Smith pointed out the contradiction between the decision to expand the Edmonton facility and the government’s rejection of an incinerator in a leafy part of Cambridgeshire last month. “An incinerator was rejected … because it wasn’t in keeping with the local neighbourhood, because they’ve got a lot of ancient buildings in that area. Yet … in Edmonton, where there’s a lack of historic buildings and leafy neighbourhoods, apparently [an incinerator] is in keeping with … where we live,” she said. As well as the noise, dirt and pollution, Elliott-Smith said the use of incineration by the local authorities – Camden, Barnet, Enfield, Islington, Haringey, Hackney and Waltham Forest – meant recycling rates were low, at 30%. “Lots of people do not have access to recycling in my area. There are local authority flats with no access to recycling, and my son’s primary school has to pay for separate recycling. As a result, everything goes into mixed bins that go straight to the incinerator.” She believes the expansion is part of a “progressive creep” of one pollutant after another, which create a significant burden on the residents. “We know that the World Health Organization says there is no safe limit for particulates,” she said. “Would you buy a house next to an incinerator? Would you be happy to breathe what comes out of an incinerator? Because if you’re not, then turn around and tell me that the risk is negligible.” The NLWA admits that waste from other areas will be brought to Edmonton – an urban, heavily populated and deprived part of the UK – to be incinerated. “It makes absolutely no sense. And we think that it’s fundamentally unjust,” said Elliott-Smith. The campaign against the incinerator also highlights the impact on climate change of CO2 emissions from the incinerator and the fact that companies pay no tax for incineration. The Labour MP for Edmonton, Kate Osamor, wants an immediate pause and review of the expansion of the site, saying it will produce more than 700,000 tonnes of CO2 every year, and emit particulate matter that can damage the lungs of children. A report by anti-incinerator campaign group UKWIN has stated that the UK’s 42 municipal waste incinerators released a combined total of nearly 11m tonnes of CO2 in 2017. The report said analysis of the composition of the waste revealed that around half of waste in the residual waste stream sent to energy from waste facilities was recyclable. A spokesperson for the NLWA said the expanded facility would be a world-class sustainable waste hub for north London’s two million residents. “The new Edmonton energy Energy Recovery Facility will not result in a deterioration in air quality. It will be fitted with a higher level of emission controls than most other energy-from-waste plants in the UK. “[It] will be the first in the UK to operate using selective catalytic reduction to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions to well below the stringent requirements of the emission limits set by the European Union. “The contribution of the facility to local residents’ exposure to air pollutants is extremely small. Public Health England is clear that modern, well-run and -regulated municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health.” | ['environment/incineration', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'environment/air-pollution', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/sandralaville', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-07-31T09:00:10Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
australia-news/2021/mar/23/residents-of-sydneys-north-west-say-recent-swell-in-development-has-made-flooding-worse | Residents of Sydney's north-west say swell in development has made flooding worse | “Where do they think the water is going to go? It’s not 1960 any more.” Shaun Boland was furious on Tuesday and it wasn’t because live power lines had blocked him from accessing, by boat, his two-storey house at Pitt Town Bottoms in Sydney’s north-west. His home, like dozens of others nearby, was drowned and blending into the Hawkesbury River. “You can’t just have thousands of acres of grass and rezone it for thousands of houses and new roads and not expect all the rainwater to run down into the river,” Boland told Guardian Australia. After intense rain over the weekend caused Sydney’s Warragamba Dam to spill over, increased river flows triggered “waves so big you could surf them”. They crashed against his 120-year-old home that was eventually submerged. It had previously seen off significant floods in the area. Locals ventured out in private boats, canoes and jetskis on Tuesday as the State Emergency Service performed rescues and delivered medicine to communities that had become islands. The Australian Defence Force had joined the disaster effort too. In Pitt Town Bottoms, Boland expected it would be weeks before he could return to his house with his wife and two children. They were in the process of moving into another property nearby – so they had somewhere to stay – but like all residents along the Hawkesbury he’s worried about the growing risk of floods. The plumber was critical that decisions to release water from Warragamba Dam upstream don’t appear to take into account increased development in the area. “All the water is coming down into the river from all the new estates around us,” Boland said. “How can they not expect flooding to be worse than it’s been before?” Boland said previously there would be a few days before intense rains saturated the ground and it could no longer absorb additional water. Then there’d be a rise in the rivers that flooded the suburbs. But this week, he insisted, the flooding happened far quicker. He backed the NSW government’s push to raise the height of the dam wall – but also wanted politicians to consider the impact new housing developments have on the flood risk. At the Bird In The Hand Inn in Pitt Town, displaced locals gathered for dinners they couldn’t eat in their homes. On Tuesday, they were discussing how the Bells Line of Road – which was at the centre of fires that ravaged Sydney’s far west and lower Blue Mountains in December 2019 – had now been closed because of the floods. Residents also exchanged stories of the homes that had dodged previous floods but succumbed to the weekend rains. “All these estates have sprung up around us – where do they think the runoff is going to go?” the publican said. In Box Hill, near Pitt Town, several new housing estates surround what in the future will be the Box Hill City Centre. On Tuesday, the construction site was flooded. The scene was common across swathes of western Sydney in suburbs along the flood plain. At the entrance to Pitt Town, a sign advertising the final release of new houses was submerged this week. In between ducking to avoid live power lines and guiding his boat away from red-bellied black snakes floating on debris, Dane Kemp pointed out the homes and the horse paddocks submerged below. Kemp has lived in Pitt Town for most of his life, and his dry family house is less than 100 metres from the end of his street, which has become a makeshift marina for residents taking boats out to supply friends whose properties “have become an isolated island”. “It’s so bloody dangerous out here, I don’t like doing it,” Kemp said of the risk of taking a boat out among the power lines in order to check on his neighbours’ livestock. The 33-year-old said his family “has had a few sleepless nights ourselves” since waters sharply rose about 2pm on Sunday. He knows that while his house narrowly escaped the flooding many others did not. “Every house out there that’s gone under is just totally ruined,” he said. In the boat, looking out at the waters above the Lynwood Country Club golf course, Kemp’s head almost brushes the globe of a street light. The civil industry worker points out that people, including his family, had lived in the area for a long time before the recent swell in development on the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain. He believes the scale and type of development is affecting the flooding. “Australia keeps growing and people have got to live somewhere,” he said. “But with some of the new places here, it’s more roofs, it’s more pavement, and when the rain falls it’s got to go somewhere. Even if it’s not flooding those homes because they’re built higher it might flood somewhere else.” He understands it wasn’t a straightforward option to just release water from Warragamba Dam in anticipation of the rain that ultimately caused the dam to spill on Saturday afternoon. “It’s a tough one, yes they could have released the dam, but if the rain didn’t come, everyone would have blamed them for wasting water, and this is an area that was in drought for years.” | ['australia-news/australia-east-coast-floods-2021', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'environment/flooding', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/elias-visontay', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-03-23T11:08:21Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2022/mar/17/great-barrier-reef-hit-by-sixth-mass-bleaching-event-leading-coral-scientist-says | Great Barrier Reef hit by sixth mass bleaching event, leading coral scientist says | One of the world’s leading coral scientists claims a sixth mass bleaching event is unfolding across the Great Barrier Reef, with official monitoring flights now under way all along the Queensland coastline. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) has confirmed monitoring flights are being conducted “along the length and breadth” of the 2,300km world heritage reef. But the authority is not due to make a formal update on conditions over the reef, or the initial findings from those flights, until Friday. The development comes less than a week before the start of a 10-day United Nations monitoring mission to the reef ahead of a crucial meeting of the world heritage committee in June. Prof Terry Hughes, a leading expert on coral bleaching at James Cook University, said he had received a “flood of reports from the field” of bleached corals in the last two weeks. Rising ocean temperatures driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases have caused five mass bleaching events along the reef in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020. Hughes told the Guardian he believes a sixth mass bleaching event is now unfolding, and that it was not mild or local. The amount of heat stress over the reef tends to peak in early to mid-March each year but scientists began to worry as early as December after water temperatures rose to record levels for that month. Hughes said: “We all breathed a sigh of relief because corals that were pale in December regained their colour in January and February. But in the last three weeks there have been reports of moderate to strong bleaching all along the reef.” Observations from the Bureau of Meteorology show water temperatures at between 1C and 2C above average across wide areas of the reef. A study, led by Hughes, has found more than 98% of all the individual reefs have bleached at least once. During the last three mass bleaching events, Hughes has led aerial surveys across the length of the marine park to record the condition of corals from a low-flying aircraft. Hughes said that task had now been passed on to GBRMPA. He said water temperatures and the accumulated heat stress alone was not enough to say for sure if corals had bleached. “We won’t have a full picture until the flights are done,” he said. “We have to see those maps [of bleaching] so it is premature to say how this ranks next to the other five bleaching events.” GBRMPA has been collating information on bleaching from flights, in-water surveillance and reports for weeks. A week ago the authority said there had been “low to moderate bleaching” reported in many areas. In a statement on Thursday, the authority said it was “conducting aerial surveys along the length and breadth of the reef, to get a clearer picture of any bleaching in the Marine Park this summer. The status of reef health is updated each Friday.” Flights began last weekend. The Australian Institute of Marine Science has previously said a recovery in coral cover over the reef since the last bleaching event in 2020 has been driven by fast-growing acropora corals that were also susceptible to bleaching. Hughes said northern parts of the reef were “halfway to recovery” but a lot of “vulnerable corals” were now bleaching. Corals can recover from mild bleaching, but if heat stress is too severe the coral can die. While there is no formal definition of a mass bleaching event, Hughes said: “Most people would describe bleaching that includes severe levels of bleaching at a scale of hundreds of kilometres would qualify as a mass bleaching.” Last week, environment groups said it was vital that a UN mission to the reef – requested by Australia and starting on Monday – should be able to see bleaching. No details have been released either by Unesco or the Australian government about where the mission will go or who it will meet. A report from the mission is expected by early May ahead of a scheduled world heritage committee meeting in June. Last year, UN science advisors recommended the committee place the reef on a list of world heritage sites “in danger” because of the impacts of bleaching and a lack of progress in improving pollution levels. But fierce lobbying by the Australian government saw the 21-country committee ignore the recommendation. During the meeting, Australia also sided with countries to go against several UN recommendations relating to other sites around the world. Australia reportedly struck at least one quid pro quo – a deal with Spain to back a world heritage inscription for a site in Madrid, despite UN advisors opposing it, in exchange for Spain’s support to block an “in danger” listing for the reef. Last month the Morrison government pledged a further $1bn for local reef conservation efforts over the next nine years. But many reef scientists have said efforts like finding more heat-tolerant coral species, improving water quality and removing coral-eating starfish will be overrun by global heating unless greenhouse gas emissions are cut rapidly. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/great-barrier-reef', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/coral', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/great-barrier-reef | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-03-17T02:47:02Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/blog/2009/nov/19/climate-sceptic-james-delingpole | Climate sceptic James Delingpole's cheap shot at Newsweek backfires | Leo Hickman | For those of you who have not yet stumbled across his oeuvre before, James Delingpole does a nice turn over on the Telegraph blogs as a rent-a-quote climate change sceptic and good all-round right-wing contrarian. He reprises this role each week for the Spectator, which also played host this summer to his penetrating interview with Ian Plimer, the author of Heaven and Earth: Global Warming – the Missing Science. In addition, Delingpole frequently states that he's something of a second world war buff. Oh, and, lest we forget, he also recently popped up on C4's When Boris Met Dave as a talking head to reminisce about his days spent with the aforementioned Tory rivals while at Oxford University. He revealed that he was aggrieved not to be invited, unlike his contemporaries, into the Bullingdon Club, or "the Buller" as he longingly describes it. Now that we've established his credentials to the uninitiated, let's move on to a blog he wrote for the Telegraph this week, entitled "How Al Gore's amen corner Newsweek censored his critics". It's largely a riff on a recent Newsbusters blog post about how Newsweek ran a series of letters supportive of Al Gore the week after he appeared on its front cover. What upset Newsbusters – which says it is the "leader in documenting, exposing and neutralising liberal media bias" – was that Newsweek had admitted that 74% of the letters it had received about Al Gore had been critical of him and his views about climate change. So why, asked Newsbusters (and, in his echo chamber, Delingpole), did Newsweek only publish positive letters the following week? To give Newsbusters and Delingpole their dues, it does seem to be a legitimate question. But Delingpole didn't stop there: he also aimed his artillery at a US war veteran who wrote one of the supportive letters published by Newsweek saying that his letter was the worst of the lot. This is the offending letter sent in by "Lee Bidgood Jr of Gainesville, Florida" that Newsweek chose to publish: Propaganda by global-warming sceptics and deniers reminds me of 1944, when as an army officer I saw living skeletons in striped pyjamas. Horror stories about Nazi concentration camps suddenly rang true. I wondered how intelligent people could commit such atrocities. History records the effectiveness of Joseph Goebbels' propaganda. I hope Al Gore and others can prevail over today's anti-science propaganda. Strong words, indeed. So strong, in fact, that it led Delingpole to imply that the letter's author might, in fact, be a fraud: Gosh I do hope they [Newsweek] got their fact checkers on to that one. Otherwise, I'd suspect that this was the concoction of some young eco-freak who wasn't even born in '44 using the Holocaust and the respect we grant war veterans to make a cheap political point. That is quite some slur – even if delivered by inference – to aim at a war veteran, but especially when trying to make your own "cheap political point". So much so that you would have thought that Delingpole – a self-confessed second world war aficionado, remember – might have done some fact-checking of his own. Alas, evidently not – as I discovered when I approached Lee Bidgood Jr to ask him if we he wished to respond. This is what he had to say: The "writer" [of that blog] seems unworthy of a reply. However, for your information: I was born in 1921, took advanced ROTC 1937-41 which made me eligible for a commission when I reached 21 or war was declared. The latter happened first. I was commissioned a 2nd Lt, 2 April, 1942, ASN 0-441619 in the Coast Artillery Corps. Trained at Camp Hulen, Texas in AA, and was assigned to the 436th AAA BN AW SM Promoted to 1st Lt 11 August, 1942. Participated in seven campaigns: Fr Morocco-Algeria; Algeria-Tunisia; Algeria-Sicily; Rome-Arno; southern France; central Europe; Rhineland. Two invasions: Fr Morocco; Sicily. Promoted to Capt. 1 March, 1945. Discharged 4 February, 1946. The scene I described for Newsweek occurred when our Battalion was in convoy from southern France heading up to the front. A train was transporting concentration camp inmates from somewhere in France to Germany. Our artillery or aircraft had knocked out the engine, derailing some of the cars and spilling the inmates. Newsweek shortened my account of the incident. Much later our unit at war's end was in bivouac in Bavaria, when we smelled death after the wind shifted. It was Dachau. Since retiring from a middle-level management position (an endangered species) in a large corporation, I have been an environmental activist with prime emphasis on climate change and what we must do about it. I now live in Gainesville, Florida in a retirement complex. Memo to Delingpole: by all means have a pop at wacko communist alarmists such as myself – I'm sure you will – but probably best to leave 88-year-old war veterans, even if they do happen to be concerned about climate change, out of it next time. | ['environment/blog', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/leohickman'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2009-11-19T12:02:30Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
environment/2024/apr/15/environment-conservation-france-protest-uk-ban-bottom-trawling-fishing-uk-eu-trade-deal-tca | Conservationists condemn France’s protest over UK’s bottom-trawling ban | France has been accused of hypocrisy by conservationists over a fresh post-Brexit dispute with the UK over fishing rights. France launched an official protest after the UK banned bottom trawling from parts of its territorial waters last month, with the aim of protecting vulnerable habitats. The ban on bottom trawling – a hugely damaging fishing technique that drags heavy nets along the seabed – covers British as well as EU vessels, and applies to 13 marine protected areas (MPAs), covering 4,000 sq km. French diplomats claimed the move breached the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), which could lead to punitive measures against the UK if an arbitration tribunal rules in France’s favour. Charles Clover, director of the Blue Marine Foundation, a UK-based conservation organisation, said the TCA clearly permitted fishing restrictions provided they were applied equally. “This is hypocrisy by the French,” he said. “They are not looking at the small print. “They are playing a ludicrous ideological game against their own rightwing parties, grabbing back support from the trawlermen and not looking at what the rules are.” The Paris-based environmental group Bloom said it would consider legal action against France if it continued the dispute. Claire Nouvian, head of Bloom, said the French president, Emmanuel Macron, was showing the world his true ideological stripes. “It is an embarrassment for France, who say they are champions of the world’s oceans, to do this,” she said. “It highlights the discrepancy between their words and their actions. If they keep going down that route, we will look into litigation ourselves to sue the French government.” Many trawlers operating out of Boulogne depend on the restricted areas for much of their catch. Far-right politicians have backed the trawler operators, with Rassemblement National, the parliamentary party led by Marine Le Pen, stepping up rhetoric on the issue. The party in the northern Hauts-de-France region, in a post on X, accused the UK of threatening the survival of the industry. Last year, an editorial in Nature magazine described France – which held a global oceans summit in 2022 and is hosting next year’s UN ocean conference – as being among the countries undermining progress towards ocean sustainability because it opposed a ban on bottom trawling in marine protected areas in the EU. In 2022, France, the UK and Costa Rica launched the High Ambition Coalition for Nature & People to push for protecting 30% of land and sea by 2030 (known as the “30x30” target). Nouvian said: “The TCA language is precise. It’s not discrimination to implement what the scientists have been saying and what member states have been talking about in their 30x30 plans.” She noted that all member states were expected to ban bottom trawling in MPAs by 2030 under the EU’s ocean action plans. A UK government spokesperson said: “We are proud of our strong record of safeguarding our oceans and the precious species that depend on them. The recent decision to prohibit bottom trawling, which applies to all vessels –including British ones – followed extensive consultation with a range of stakeholders, including UK and French fishing organisations. “It represents a significant step in protecting our vulnerable and ecologically valuable rock and reef habitats, where the scientific evidence has demonstrated the negative impact of bottom-towed fishing gear.” Officials from the European Commission were meeting their French and UK counterparts on Monday to discuss the issue. A commission spokesperson said: “We are having a meeting to share information on adopted, or about to be adopted, measures, as part of our technical exchanges.” It is the second dispute this year over the UK’s marine conservation measures. In February, Denmark and Sweden asked the EU to intervene after the UK closed part of the Dogger Bank fishing grounds in the North Sea to protect seabirds. | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/fishing', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/marine-le-pen', 'environment/food', 'business/fishing-industry', 'business/business', 'world/world', 'environment/fish', 'world/emmanuel-macron', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/karenmcveigh', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/global-development'] | environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-04-15T17:54:50Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/2023/mar/28/sonos-era-100-review-the-latest-best-sounding-smart-speaker | Sonos Era 100 review: the latest best-sounding smart speaker | The Era 100 is the first of a brand new line of wifi speakers from multi-room audio specialists Sonos, taking what was good about its popular longstanding One series and adding more bass and stereo sound. The new compact smart speaker costs £249 ($249/A$399), making it the mid-range option in the company’s speaker line after the firm’s collaboration with Ikea starting at £99. With a similar aesthetic to the outgoing One, it is only 2cm taller and 1cm deeper, making it pretty compact and easy to place on a cabinet or bookshelf. It requires just a power cable, connecting to your router via wifi 6 for streaming music from more than 100 different services, including Spotify and BBC Sounds, controlled from the Sonos app on your phone. In a first for Sonos’s non-portable speakers, it also supports Bluetooth 5 for impromptu streaming from guest’s phones or other Bluetooth devices, which works great. A button on the top turns the voice assistant on or off. There’s a choice of one or both of Sonos’s own local voice assistant for playback control and Amazon’s Alexa, but not Google’s Assistant. If all you want to do is control the speaker, Sonos’s voice assistant is the best, working faster and without having to connect to Amazon. A switch on the back of the speaker can disconnect the mics entirely if not needed. Specifications Dimensions: 18.3 x 12 x 13.1cm Weigh: 2kg Speakers: two tweeters, one midwoofer Connectivity: wifi 6, Bluetooth 5, USB-C, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect Great, wide sound The Era 100 might be a compact speaker but it packs surprisingly big, room-filling sound. It has a 25% larger woofer than the One and a pair of tweeters angled left and right to create stereo sound. We’re not talking the new spatial audio capability like Apple’s offering or the more expensive Era 300, but the result is a much wider audio with more bass that makes the speaker sound a lot bigger than it is. The stereo effect is not bad at all when facing the speaker straight on but quickly merges togetherwhen you move to the side. It sounds really good, packed with detail, with warm mids, crisp highs and plenty of bass. It can hit all but the deepest of notes when pushed and has excellent separation of tones while maintaining a good balance even when blasting out tracks up to about 90% volume. Vocal clarity is excellent and it handles a wide variety of music genres better than many competitors. It occasionally has a bit too much mid-bass thump for my liking in some tracks, but that was easily adjusted with bass, treble and “loudness” settings in the app. The Era 100 also supports Sonos’s room-tuning Trueplay feature for the first time on Android, previously it was an Apple exclusive. Using the “quick tune” option the speaker blasts out a tone and uses its built-in microphones to tweak the sound to best suit your room. The option for the more laborious full tuning, waving an iPhone or iPad around a room, is still available, but I’m not sure it’s necessary here. If one isn’t enough, you can pair two Era 100s for stereo sound, or use them as rear surround sound speakers with one of Sonos’s soundbars. Sustainability The Era 100 is generally repairable by Sonos. The company commits to a minimum of five years software support for feature updates after it stops selling a product, but has a track record of much longer, including bug and security fixes for its legacy products. It draws about 1.5W when idle and less while sleeping overnight, up to 4-11W at 50% volume and a maximum of 24W at 100% volume. The speaker contains 48% recycled plastic and is designed with disassembly in mind for repair, refurbishment and recycling. It offers trade-in and product recycling, and publishes annual responsibility and sustainability reports. Price The Sonos Era 100 comes in black or white costing £249 ($249/A$399). For comparison, the Ikea Symfonsik line starts at £99, the Sonos One line costs from £179, the Era 300 costs £449, the Apple HomePod costs £299, the Amazon Echo costs £99.99 and the Google Nest Audio costs £89.99. Verdict The Era 100 is Sonos’s best-sounding small speaker, and takes the crown as the new top smart speaker for music. Its compact frame hides powerful, room-filling and high-quality sound with plenty of bass, adding to the winning formula of its popular predecessor. It won’t manage any spatial audio tricks, but produces a nice and wide sound or surprisingly good stereo if you sit directly in front of it. Pair two of them for even better sound. Additions of Bluetooth, line-in capability and modern wifi 6 are most welcome upgrades, as is progress on repairability and sustainability. Sonos’s excellent multi-room audio platform continues to set the standard, compatible with a massive range of streaming services while being kept continually updated with a very long support life. The recent addition of its own voice assistant that controls playback processed locally on the device for speed and privacy is great, and you use it side-by-side with Amazon’s Alexa too. It isn’t exactly cheap, costing twice or more than some smart speakers bought from Google or Amazon, but it isn’t tied to their ecosystem, sounds better and has much greater compatibility to use your favourite music services. Pros: great sound, good-looking, easy set up, wide support for music services, long support life, wifi 6, Bluetooth and line-in options, can be paired up, good optional voice control, Alexa support, recycled materials. Cons: comparatively expensive, no Google Assistant support, no spatial audio support/Dolby Atmos. | ['technology/sonos', 'technology/smart-speaker', 'technology/technology', 'technology/gadgets', 'type/article', 'tone/reviews', 'profile/samuel-gibbs', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/consumer-tech--commissioning-'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2023-03-28T06:00:09Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/ethicallivingblog/2007/nov/23/cutyourcarscarbonemissions | Tread lightly: Cut down on car miles | This week, Tread lightly is tackling transport, which is, along with home energy use, the second major contributor to global warming. While airline travel (which will be saved for a later pledge) is the biggest offender, unless you already drive rarely and own a hybrid or electric vehicle, you can do a lot of simple things to cut down on your transport-related CO2 emissions. Private car transport accounts for over 10% of total CO2 emissions in the UK. In a typical family, car travel accounts for one tonne of their direct emissions - a fifth of the total. The first thing to do is think about the journey that needs to be made. A quarter of all journeys in the UK are less than 3km (two miles), so it's worth thinking about alternatives. Opt to take public transport where possible, or get fit and whiz through the traffic on a bike. Walk to school or work if and when you can. You can find the best route at www.walkit.com (only available in central London at the moment). It's not only helping the environment, it's good for your health too. If you absolutely have to drive, here's how to be kinder to the environment. Share your transport. Organise a car-pool or lift-sharing scheme with friends, neighbours or other parents - this can cut down traffic on the roads by 20%. Use www.liftshare.org to find people in your area who are travelling to where you want to go, or find out more about car clubs here. Change your car. According to Chris Goodall in the book How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, the average car in the UK emits 180g of CO2 every kilometre. Swapping a larger car for a smaller or medium-sized diesel with manual transmission can reduce emissions to by 28% to below 130g, the book says. Sports cars and 4x4s produce huge amounts of CO2 and are the worst culprits. The Hummer H£ automatic, for example, releases 346g of CO2 per kilometre - 237g/km more of carbon compared to the most fuel-efficient car, the Toyota Aygo (109g/km). Find out which cars are the top 10 gas guzzlers here. Reduce your mileage. The average British motorist drives 9,000 miles (14,500 km) a year. Can you walk, or catch a bus or train instead? Don't just think about replacing shorter journeys - longer trips by train or bus also save carbon and can be less stressful. Get an idea of your car's CO emissions. The Low Carbon Diet, by Polly Ghazi and Rachel Lewis, has some useful pointers for working out your car's carbon footprint. For an accurate result, they suggest visiting the Vehicle Certification Agency website, where you can enter your vehicle's make, model, fuel type and transmission and it will give you a CO2 per kilometre figure for cars going back to 1997. Or you can just look up your mileage on your last MOT certificate and multiply the kilometres driven x 0.18 for petrol, and x 0.17 for diesel cars, and this will give you your car's carbon footprint. Try to drive more efficiently. Don't accelerate hard, and try to drive at speeds optimal for fuel efficiency (55-60mph). Don't use air conditioning and make sure your keep your tyres inflated and unnecessary weight out of the car. The Guardian's Giles Smith has some more tips for green driving here. Green extras. Ghazi and Lewis suggest swapping your AA membership for one with the Environmental Transport Association, which campaigns for climate-friendly transport policies. It offers full breakdown services as well as bicycle insurance. So what other carbon-saving transport tips can you suggest? | ['environment/series/tread-lightly', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'uk/transport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/green-living-blog', 'type/article', 'environment/blog', 'profile/jessicaaldred'] | environment/carbonfootprints | EMISSIONS | 2007-11-23T00:00:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2018/mar/29/top-marine-scientists-defend-attack-on-great-barrier-reef-research | Top marine scientists defend attack on Great Barrier Reef research | Scientists at Australia’s leading marine science agency say an attack on the integrity of their research into threats to the Great Barrier Reef was flawed and based on “misinterpretation” and “selective use of data”. The Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims) researchers were responding to accusations made in November 2017 in a journal Marine Pollution Bulletin that claimed much of their work “should be viewed with some doubt”. In November Dr Piers Larcombe, an industry consultant affiliated with the University of Western Australia, and Prof Peter Ridd, of James Cook University in Queensland, claimed in a “Viewpoint” article that there was a lack of “quality control” in marine science. The pair claimed to have identified flaws in nine scientific papers published between 2003 and 2013. But in the response, led by Aims scientist Dr Britta Schaffelke, several of the criticised scientists write: “Given their sincere call to improve quality control processes in science, it is interesting that nowhere in their Viewpoint article do Larcombe and Ridd make it clear to readers that many of their criticisms of the nine GBR [Great Barrier Reef] papers have been raised previously and have been thoroughly addressed by the original authors.” Schaffelke told Guardian Australia: “We wanted to set the record straight. We have laid out clearly where we disagree and how the initial findings still hold.” In an emailed response to Guardian Australia, Larcombe and Ridd maintained their concerns and rejected the criticisms. “There is not enough effort to check, test and replicate much of the science upon which we base important public policy decisions. The GBR is just one example of this,” they said. Larcombe and Ridd had criticised research showing that water quality in the reef, linked to run-off from farms, was having an adverse effect on corals and that, overall, the reef was in a state of decline. The pair pointed to documented problems in reproducing scientific results in medical and biomedical sciences, and said this issue might exist in marine science. They also said that science backed by industry was more rigorous. But responding to those claims, Schaffelke writes: “This, however, does not seem supported by the fact that two fields of science where major credibility problems have arisen are medicine and biomedical science, both with a considerable proportion of industry-funded research.” The criticisms, Schaffelke wrote in the journal, were “based on misinterpretation, selective use of data and over-simplification”. The article added: “A large body of research on the condition of the GBR by many scientists from various organisations consistently shows that the GBR is under pressure from past and ongoing human activities, that the pressure varies regionally, and that the GBR still retains some level of resilience.” One of the journal’s chief editors, Dr Pat Hutchings, senior fellow at the Australian Museum Research Institute in Sydney, said Larcombe and Ridd would be offered the chance to write a final response to the Aims scientists in the journal, which the pair said they would take up. Ridd is currently suing James Cook University after the Townsville-based institution accused him of serious misconduct over similar public attacks on Aims research and other work carried out at the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, also based at the university. Ridd declined to comment on the status of his court action against JCU, except to say the case was “proceeding”. According to documents published on a blog maintained by Ridd, the university had censured Ridd and then, later, said he had broken the university’s code of conduct. Ridd had given an interview to Sky News program Jones and Co to promote a book published by the Institute of Public Affairs with contributions from several climate science deniers. Ridd had written a chapter, again claiming flaws in reef science. Ridd’s claims about marine science and his legal action have been cheered in conservative media circles, including the far-right Breitbart. Ridd has written articles that have appeared on Fox News and in News Corp Australia outlets. Canegrowers – a group representing the sugar cane industry in Queensland – has also highlighted Ridd’s work. In December 2017, one Canegrowers manager sent Ridd’s paper to several stakeholders, saying they should “feel free to distribute the paper widely”. In a statement to Guardian Australia, a spokesperson clarified that Canegrowers “has made no allegations or claims about the science called into question by Peter Ridd”. The Canegrowers chief executive, Dan Galligan, said the paper from Aims “offers a scientific view of the rigour around the science that was called into question in November”. “Pleasingly, it acknowledges that everyone would like to see greater rigour and assurance in the science – on that, there appears to be agreement from all parties in this point,” Galligan said. | ['environment/great-barrier-reef', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/marine-life', 'science/science-scepticism', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/graham-readfearn', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-03-28T17:00:08Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2020/dec/24/nsw-pandering-to-morrison-government-by-declaring-hunter-valley-gas-fired-power-station-essential | NSW ‘pandering’ to Morrison government by declaring Hunter Valley gas-fired power station essential | The NSW government has granted critical infrastructure status to a proposed new gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley in a move energy analysts say is “pandering” to the federal government. The state’s planning minister, Rob Stokes, said he made the declaration because the commonwealth proposal to build the power station on the site of a former aluminium smelter in Kurri Kurri had “significant economic potential”. The Morrison government has said it would commission Snowy Hydro to build the power station as part of its so-called “gas-fired” recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic if the private sector does not invest in 1,000 megawatts of new energy capacity by April next year. The federal government has demanded a new gas-fired power station be built to replace the ageing Liddell coal-fired power station, which is due to close by 2023. The government has claimed new electricity generation is urgently needed, despite its own taskforce and the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) finding this is not the case and that other committed and probable projects would be “more than sufficient” to maintain energy reliability. Stokes said on Wednesday he was declaring the proposed station at Kurri Kurri critical state infrastructure because of its “importance for future energy supply”. “With another player in the energy market, it increases competition and will help mitigate the closure of Liddell’s coal-fired power station in 2023, putting downward pressure on electricity prices,” he said. “Gas-fired power stations will have a critical role to play in ensuring our energy security as we transition to a low-carbon emissions economy with renewable energy projects such as wind and solar.” He said, if approved, the project would create 600 jobs during construction and “generate up to 750MW of electricity”. But Richie Merzian, the climate and energy program director at progressive thinktank the Australia Institute, called the decision another sign Australian governments were “quick to back in more fossil fuels”. “NSW is in a tough position. It wants to go hard into the renewable space but it has to keep the federal government on side,” he said. “This is pandering to the gas-fired government in Canberra.” Merzian said the state government should instead keep its focus on its multi-billion dollar roll-out of new renewable energy zones across the state. The state parliament passed the government’s energy bill in November after a mammoth debate and attempts by One Nation MP Mark Latham to block the legislation by moving hundreds of procedural amendments. The NSW environment minister, Matt Kean, has promised the most ambitious energy plan in the country, with the government to underwrite the private sector in building 12 gigawatts of solar and wind – roughly as much clean energy as is already in the national grid – and two gigawatts of energy storage. Merzian said Stokes’ decision would increase public scrutiny of the proposed Kurri Kurri project and predicted that, like the Narrabri gas project, it would be “heavily challenged, including potentially in the courts”. Dylan McConnell, an energy expert with the University of Melbourne, described the state government’s declaration as “odd”. “It’s putting the cart before the horse in terms of calling it a critical infrastructure project given the Aemo analysis has suggested it’s not needed,” he said. “For the government to pull the trigger and build it, they’re not going to make a decision until April next year if the private sector doesn’t step up to the plate and build capacity themselves. “So it seems to be a funny thing to call it critical infrastructure.” If Snowy Hydro pursues the project it will still have to undergo a full state environmental assessment. A spokesperson for federal energy minister Angus Taylor said the AEMC’s finding that NSW residents’ electricity bills could rise following the closure of Liddell shows “that we need to get new dispatchable generation up and running in NSW before Liddell exits”. “This is why the Morrison Government set industry a 1,000MW dispatchable generation target in NSW,” the spokesperson said. “The energy companies have until 1 April 2021 to reach final investment decision on new dispatchable capacity. The Morrison Government is preparing to step up if the energy companies don’t to ensure households and businesses have affordable reliable power.” | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/coal', 'environment/gas', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2020-12-24T04:02:07Z | true | ENERGY |
technology/2020/nov/26/amazon-and-apple-not-playing-their-part-in-tackling-electronic-waste | Amazon and Apple 'not playing their part' in tackling electronic waste | Global giants such as Amazon and Apple should be made responsible for helping to collect, recycle and repair their products to cut the 155,000 tonnes of electronic waste being thrown away each year in the UK, MPs say. An investigation by the environmental audit committee found the UK is lagging behind other countries and failing to create a circular economy in electronic waste. The UK creates the second highest levels of electronic waste in the world, after Norway. But MPs said the UK was not collecting and treating much of this waste properly. “A lot of it goes to landfill, incineration or is dumped overseas. Under current laws producers and retailers of electronics are responsible for this waste, yet they are clearly not fulfilling that responsibility,” the MPs wrote. About 40% of the UK’s e-waste is sent abroad, according to estimates – something the MPs point out is often done illegally. The tsunami of electronic waste was throwing away valuable resources vital to a sustainable future, the report published on Thursday said. Globally, thrown-away computers, smartphones, tablets and other electronic waste have a potential value of $62.5bn each year from the precious metals they contain, including gold, silver, copper, platinum and other critical raw materials such as tungsten and indium. MPs accused online retailers including Amazon and eBay of freeriding as they are not considered retailers or producers, and are therefore not legally liable to contribute to the collection and recycling of e-waste. “For all their protestations of claimed sustainability, major online retailers and marketplaces such as Amazon have so far avoided playing their part in the circular economy by not collecting or recycling electronics in the way other organisations have to,” MPs said. “Given the astronomical growth in sales by online vendors, particularly this year during the coronavirus pandemic, the EAC calls for online marketplaces to collect products and pay for their recycling to create a level playing field with physical retailers and producers that are not selling on their platforms.” The report by MPs condemns the “built-in obsolescence” in many electronic products – which includes the practice of intentionally shortening the lifespan of products. The inquiry by MPs heard that tech companies such as Apple had been found to glue and solder together internal components, making any repair nearly impossible. MPs said consumers did not have control over the products they owned, they could not take components out to repair themselves and there were no access manuals on how issues could be fixed. “Instead, the charges proposed for repair by Apple in particular can be so expensive it is more economical to replace the item completely,” the report said. “Tech companies should now take the lead in creating sustainable and environmentally friendly business models that do not rely on the over exploitation of nature and natural resources.” The report calls for: The right to repair to be enshrined in law. A reduction in VAT on the repair of electrical and electronic products, as takes place in other countries. All producers to be forced to collect products and pay for their recycling. Ambitious long-term targets for collection, reuse and recycling of e-waste to focus on reducing consumption and capturing and retaining vital raw materials. Apple said: “We were surprised and disappointed with the Environmental Audit Committee’s report, which does not reflect any of Apple’s efforts to conserve resources and protect the planet we all share. There are more options for customers to trade in, recycle and get safe, quality repairs than ever before, and our latest Apple Watch, iPad, and iPhone lineup all use recycled material across key components. We will continue to work with parliament and the government to document Apple’s industry-leading commitments and to support our common effort to leave a clean economy and a healthy planet for the next generation.” Libby Peake, the head of resource policy at the Green Alliance thinktank, said the report was impeccably timed. “Just before the Christmas shopping season gets going, the environmental audit committee has reminded us that many of the products we buy in the UK are destined not to last – which is a scandal for consumers as much as for the environment. “More importantly, it has identified what we need to do to change this and make sure people can buy long-lasting products as well as have the right to repair them.” An Amazon spokesperson said: “Amazon is committed to minimising waste and helping our customers to reuse, repair, and recycle their products, and we provide a range of options that anyone can easily access through the Amazon Second Chance website. “We have supported the recycling of more than 10,000 tonnes of electronic waste in the UK over the last decade.” | ['technology/technology', 'business/electrocomponents', 'technology/amazon', 'technology/apple', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-11-26T07:00:51Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2020/sep/30/germans-embrace-fresh-air-to-ward-off-coronavirus | Germans embrace fresh air to ward off coronavirus | Ventilating rooms has been added to the German government’s formula for tackling coronavirus, in refreshing news for the country’s air hygiene experts who have been calling for it to become official for months. The custom is something of a national obsession, with many Germans habitually opening windows twice a day, even in winter. Often the requirement is included as a legally binding clause in rental agreements, mainly to protect against mould and bad smells. But while some people may dismiss the method as primitive, “it may be one of the cheapest and most effective ways” of containing the spread of the virus, Angela Merkel insisted on Tuesday. The German chancellor explained that the government’s guidelines to tackle the virus, encapsulated in the acronym AHA, which stands for distancing, hygiene and face coverings, will be extended to become AHACL. The “C” stands for the government’s coronavirus warning app, and “L” for Lüften or airing a room. “Regular impact ventilation in all private and public rooms can considerably reduce the danger of infection,” the government’s recommendation explains. Impact ventilation, or Stosslüften, which needs explanation for most people unfamiliar with Germany except for experts in air hygiene, involves widely opening a window in the morning and evening for at least five minutes to allow the air to circulate. Even more efficient is Querlüften, or cross ventilation, whereby all the windows in a house or apartment are opened letting stale air flow out and fresh air come in. In Germany, windows are designed with sophisticated hinge technology that allows them to be opened in various directions to enable varying degrees of Lüften. Since it has become known that 90% of Covid-19 patients pick up the virus indoors, the practice has come into its own. With winter on the doorstep, it will become even more important, experts insist. The country’s leading coronavirus expert, Christian Drosten, who is head virologist at the Charité hospital in Berlin, has already dedicated an edition of his hit pandemic podcast to the importance of Luftverdünnung and Luftbewegung – air rarefaction and movement – in which he extols the praises for frequent airing, while the weekly Die Zeit has published a 10-page feature on ventilation, including the science behind it and, especially how to do it in winter. Even without coronavirus, Martin Kriegel, an engineer and air current analyst at the Technical University in Berlin, told Die Zeit, “there is clear evidence that air quality in offices correlates with the number of days workers are off sick”. Schools, which have increasingly been viewed as a testing ground for how society can learn to live with the disease, have long since adopted the practice. A recent gathering of the ministers of education for Germany’s 16 states was dedicated to how to air a classroom. Five experts, from fluid mechanics to indoor air hygienists and aerodynamicists, reinforced the importance of airing a room every 15 to 20 minutes, for five minutes in spring and autumn, and three minutes in winter. But although the custom is well-established in Germany, it is also a frequent cause of tension, which some fear is only likely to increase this winter the more people practise it. The typical grumpy German response of someone objecting to an open window, is erfroren sind schon viele, erstunken ist noch keiner – many people have frozen to death, but no one has ever died from a bad smell. Helen, a 34-year-old primary school teacher from Cologne, who did not want to give her full name, said: “A typical scenario in Germany is someone opening the window in an office or on a train, say, then the next person comes in and complains it’s draughty – that’s another German obsession – and insists on closing it. That’s also why Germans often wear scarves.” She has been following the recommendations and airing her classroom every 20 minutes, she said. “I do enjoy regularly airing, whether in the classroom or at home, and now because of the coronavirus it seems more important than ever. Though I am concerned how I will manage with the kids in winter when it’s really cold.” | ['world/germany', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'world/europe-news', 'science/infectiousdiseases', 'science/science', 'world/world', 'campaign/callout/callout-coronavirus', 'environment/air-pollution', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/kateconnolly', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-09-30T14:18:18Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2023/sep/14/experts-call-for-global-moratorium-on-efforts-to-geoengineer-climate | Experts call for global moratorium on efforts to geoengineer climate | Governments should place a moratorium on efforts to geoengineer the planet’s climate, as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the climate crisis takes hold, a panel of global experts has urged. Geoengineering is highly controversial, but discussions of its feasibility are gathering pace as the impacts of extreme weather, driven by climate breakdown, grip the planet. There is no global agreement on geoengineering, and no rules on what countries, or businesses, can do. In a report published on Thursday, the Climate Overshoot Commission called on governments to phase out fossil fuels, put more resources into adapting to the impacts of extreme weather, and start using technologies to remove carbon dioxide, such as carbon capture and storage and the capture of carbon directly from the air. Governments should also allow academics to investigate the possibilities of geoengineering, chiefly in the form of solar radiation management, which involves attempting to reduce the amount of sunlight striking the Earth’s surface, for instance through whitening clouds to be more reflective, or setting up mirrors in space. But governments should not embark on any such activities, the panel warned, because of the dangers involved in tinkering with the global climate in ways that are not yet well understood. Pascal Lamy, the former chief of the World Trade Organization, who chaired the Climate Overshoot Commission, said it was “not inevitable” that the world would overshoot 1.5C, the global temperature limit governments have agreed, but that the likelihood was increasing. “It depends on what we do,” he said. But he warned that the world could not ignore the possibility of geoengineering, as some countries could start to investigate and experiment on their own. He said: “There is an increasing international discussion of solar radiation management. But the danger is of unintended consequences, and of transboundary consequences.” Scientists could not say whether solar radiation management was safe, and the precautionary principle should be applied, he said. Lamy urged all governments to unilaterally decide on a moratorium, rather than wait for a global agreement on one. “I do not propose a big international conference – that would take a lot of time in my experience,” he told the Guardian, in an interview. He said academic research on solar radiation management should be shared, open and transparent. Geoengineering is a term that can include everything from reforesting large areas of land to absorb more carbon, to painting rooftops white to be more reflective, or seeding the ocean with iron to grow more plankton and absorb more carbon. The Climate Overshoot Commission, a group of senior former diplomats, policy experts and scientists including Laurence Tubiana, the former French diplomat who was one of the main architects of the Paris agreement, focused on solar radiation management because that is one of the most controversial and dangerous ideas. While regrowing trees is usually regarded as safe, putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or seeding clouds to reflect more rays into space could have huge impacts that would be hard to control, and would be impossible to confine within country borders. As well as the risks inherent to changing the climate in one place, there could be a “termination shock” – the concern that if emissions continued to pour into the atmosphere while geo engineering was used, stopping use of the technology would cause severe disruption to the climate as the underlying heating effect took hold again. Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory speaking on his own behalf, warned of the danger. “Geoengineering, like direct air capture, is a deeply uncertain techno-solution that fossil fuel executives love to push to take pressure off their core business of selling oil, gas, and coal, which, as more and more people are realizing, is causing rapid and irreversible destruction of our planet’s habitability,” he told the Guardian. “Fossil fuel elites will use geoengineering as an excuse to continue business-as-usual. As a climate scientist, my worst nightmare is continued fossil fuel expansion accompanied by solar geoengineering followed by termination shock. This would be game over for human civilization and much of life on Earth.” Mark Maslin, professor of earth system science at University College London, who was not involved with the panel, said many scientists had strong feelings on geoengineering. “Solar radiation management [efforts] are dangerous experiments and will cause unpredictable climate change, because the distribution of solar energy across the Earth is what creates our dynamic climate,” he said. “Reducing the solar energy in one region will change how the atmosphere and oceans move energy from the tropics to the poles in unpredictable ways.” He added: “A strong international moratorium against solar radiation management is required, to ensure no country or company tries to ‘fix climate change’ with disastrous consequences.” Carbon dioxide removal technologies are also controversial, though to a far lesser extent than geoengineering. The panel found that countries should “promote the rapid expansion of higher-quality carbon dioxide removal”, including placing obligations on fossil fuel companies to remove and store an increasing proportion of the carbon generated by their products. Myles Allen, a professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford, who has championed carbon takeback obligations, where the producer has a responsibility to “take back” the carbon dioxide emitted from their products, said: “With a carbon takeback obligation, we could stop fossil fuels from causing further global warming in two or three decades, limiting future warming to less than the warming that has occurred since 2000, and rendering solar radiation management irrelevant. Without it, we can’t. So the real choice is not between carbon takeback and fossil fuel phase-out, but between carbon takeback and solar geoengineering.” | ['environment/geoengineering', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/environment', 'environment/carbon-capture-and-storage', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2023-09-14T04:00:20Z | true | EMISSIONS |
news/2015/aug/03/global-warming-climate-change-arctic-ice-trade-routes | Weatherwatch: Melting polar ice brings promise of prosperity | Scientists are still attempting to gauge what possible effects the melting of the Arctic ice sheet will have on the British weather. For example, is the Gulf Stream going to slow down sufficiently to give us colder winters and are we already getting more storms during the summer because the jet stream has moved? So, it is a surprise to see a confident prediction of one potential effect. According to the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, the lack of polar ice is going to make us wealthier. This is because the opening of the sea route along the northern coast of Russia will bring us much closer to east Asia and boost trade accordingly. The only uncertainty is how soon the icecap will disappear completely in summer but the study concludes that, by 2030, the northern route will be open all year – although it could be sooner because the ice seems to disappearing faster than scientific predictions. Switching trade routes so container ships travel across the Arctic Ocean rather than through the Suez canal will burn less fossil fuel by reducing the shipping distance from northern Europe to Japan by roughly 37% and to China by about 23%. Egypt will suffer as fewer ships pay to enter the canal but trade between east Asia and the northern countries of the European Union will boom. Southern Europe will gain no advantage because distances will remain roughly the same. The researchers calculate that climate change in the Arctic will alter the pattern of global business, with 15% of China’s international trade utilising the northern sea route by 2030. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/oceans', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/arctic', 'business/economicgrowth', 'business/economics', 'type/article', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-08-03T20:30:05Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2023/jul/13/scottish-windfarm-built-in-1995-to-be-repowered-with-new-turbines | Scottish windfarm built in 1995 to be ‘repowered’ with new turbines | One of Britain’s oldest onshore windfarms will soon be “repowered” so it can generate five times as much green electricity as it did in 1995 – with almost half as many turbines. The owner of the Hagshaw Hill windfarm, ScottishPower, began dismantling 26 turbines on its site in rural South Lanarkshire on Wednesday. The renewables developer will replace the ageing turbines with 14 larger versions that use updated technology to generate renewable energy more efficiently. The tip of each new turbine will stand at a height of about 200 metres (over 650ft), compared with the older turbines that had a height of 55 metres, according to ScottishPower. The windfarm will also be equipped with a battery storage facility of about 20 megawatts to help make better use of the green electricity. The “repowering” project means the 16MW windfarm, which was the first commercial windfarm to operate in Scotland when it began generating 28 years ago, will have a capacity of 79MW once complete. Charlie Jordan, the chief executive of ScottishPower Renewables, told the Guardian that there was “massive potential” to increase the UK’s renewable energy capacity by repowering its older windfarms using new technology. “Wind power technology has improved so much in the last 30 years. Three modern wind turbines could produce as much power as the whole [Hagshaw] site,” he said. “Although Hagshaw is our oldest site, there were a number of windfarms built in the late 1990s which are coming to the end of their operational lives. We have a dozen more to repower over the next three or four years.” The local community had been “really supportive” of the project, which would employ up to 100 people when work reached its peak, he said. Currently, repowering an existing windfarm is subject to the same planning consent process as building a new onshore windfarm from scratch, according to Jordan. “At the moment, we have to start right at the beginning again,” he said. ScottishPower is calling on the government to streamline the planning process for existing windfarms to take into account the lower risks of developing in an area that is well understood by developers and supported by local communities. Barry Carruthers, a director at ScottishPower Renewables, said: “We’ve worked in this area for almost 30 years, we know how good this site is and now we’ll be able to produce enough electricity to power almost 61,000 homes each year – almost half the homes in South Lanarkshire.” ScottishPower expects to continue dismantling Hagshaw Hill over the summer and into early autumn. The first new turbines are expected to arrive at the site in May 2024, and the repowering will be complete by early 2025. | ['environment/windpower', 'business/scottish-power', 'uk/scotland', 'environment/energy', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'business/utilities', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2023-07-13T05:00:23Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2012/sep/14/arctic-sea-ice-harsh-winter-europe | Arctic sea ice melt 'may bring harsh winter to Europe' | The record loss of Arctic sea ice this summer may mean a cold winter for the UK and northern Europe. The region has been prone to bad winters after summers with very low sea ice, such as 2011 and 2007, said Jennifer Francis, a researcher at Rutgers University. "We can't make predictions yet … [but] I wouldn't be surprised to see wild extremes this winter," Francis told the Guardian. This year's ice melt has broken the 2007 record by an an area larger than the state of Texas. Polar ice experts "thought that it would be many years until we again saw anything like we saw in 2007", said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado. The unprecedented expanse of ice-free Arctic Ocean has been absorbing the 24-hour sun over the short polar summer. The heat in the water must be released into the atmosphere if the ice is to re-form this autumn. "This is like a new energy source for the atmosphere," said Francis. This heat and water vapour will affect the all-important jet stream – the west-to-east winds that are the boundary between cold Arctic and the warm mid-latitudes. Others researchers have already shown that the jet stream has been shifting northwards in recent years. Francis and colleagues have recently documented that the jet stream is also slowing down. "The jet stream is clearly weaker," said Francis. That means weather systems, be it rain or dry conditions, are slow to move on and last longer. Ultimately this can result in "blocking" events, such as the conditions that produced the terrible heatwave in western Russia during the summer of 2010, she said. This summer, Greenland experienced a similar blocking anti-cyclone, resulting in a record surface melting of its ice sheet. It is not possible to directly connect that block to the prolonged US heatwave and drought this summer, Francis said. However "blocks act like a traffic jam, slowing down weather patterns elsewhere". These changes are happening much earlier than scientists thought, said James Overland, an oceanographer and researcher at the University of Washington. "We've only had a little bit of global warming so far," Overland said. As the sea ice continues to decline, the jet stream will likely continue to slow more, and shift further north "bringing wild temperature swings and greater numbers of extreme events" in the future he said. "We're in uncharted territory." | ['environment/sea-ice', 'environment/poles', 'environment/environment', 'world/arctic', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'tone/news', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/winter', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'world/europe-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-09-14T10:52:29Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2014/jan/03/antarctic-rescue-chinese-xue-long-aurora-australis | Antarctic rescue: trapped Chinese icebreaker will try to break free | The rescue of passengers aboard the research ship Akademik Shokalskiy, icebound in Antarctica, took another dramatic twist on Friday, after a Chinese icebreaker involved in the rescue itself became trapped in thick sea ice. The ship, Xue Long – or Snow Dragon – signalled that it might need to be rescued from ice floes off the coast of Antarctica, where 24 hours earlier its crew had helped free passengers from the Shokalskiy. The Chinese icebreaker, which has more than 100 people on board, will attempt to break through the dense pack ice towards open water on Saturday morning. If that fails, the 15,000-tonne ship might need rescuing by a more powerful vessel. The development raises the prospect that the Aurora Australis, which has on board 52 scientists, journalists and tourists, who, on Thursday, were successfully evacuated from the Akademic Shokalski, could return to the scene to rescue the Xue Long. "It's dreadful to hear that the Xue Long is trapped in the ice, said Chris Turney, the expedition leader, who is a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales. "Thanks to the courageous efforts of the captain and his men, they made an incredible effort to help us get to safety – we all owe them a huge debt. We're keeping everything crossed that they get out soon." The latest complication in the dramatic 10-day rescue mission came as passengers freed from the Shokalskiy spent their first day aboard the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis. The Aurora Australis, which is ferrying the expedition party to Tasmania, has been told to be prepared to turn around to help free the Xue Long. Tracey Rogers, a marine ecologist at the University of New South Wales and part of the group rescued by the Xue Long, said it was important for their ship to stay in the area to help. It was the Xue Long's helicopter that airlifted the passengers to safety. Rogers said: "We need to stay around because there's more than 100 people on that vessel. As part of the work in Antarctica we all look out for one another. Antarctica is a place of peace and science and people look out for each other. These guys looked out for us, it's our turn to be there for them. "The sad part is that, because they were so extremely professional, streamlined and fast when rescuing us, that we didn't get a chance to say thank you properly." Rogers spent her first 24 hours in new surroundings collecting messages and drawings of thanks from her fellow evacuees, which she plans to send to the crews of the Xue Long and the Shokalskiy. "It's a simple organic thing we've put together. We can't get to them physically but we can scan in something on a computer. It's something that's a little personal, to be able to say thank you – particularly to the captain of the Xue Long, because it was his choice to stay and help us. Jianzhong Wang is a real hero." The Aurora was on Friday continuing to Tasmania as it awaited further instruction on whether it should return to the Xue Long, believed to be about 40 nautical miles away. Another option is for the Xue Long to wait about 10 days for an American icebreaker to reach the area, off Cape de la Motte, in Antarctica, and try to free the ship. | ['world/antarctica', 'world/world', 'australia-news/tasmania', 'environment/poles', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/science', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/alokjha', 'profile/josh-halliday', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-01-03T17:23:43Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2017/jan/19/alexandria-egypt-locals-adapt-storms-floods-coastal-waters-rise | Alexandria: locals adapt to floods as coastal waters inch closer | “Before we were flooded a couple of years ago, we didn’t imagine the water could reach this level,” said cafe manager Samir Gaber, gesturing at a cluster of tables overlooking the Mediterranean. Gaber has managed the Latino cafe in Alexandria for six years, during which time the business has had to adapt to increasingly dramatic winter storms. With the storms come the floods, crashing waves engulfing large chunks of the many cafes nestled on the coastline. “There was another wall here before the flooding, but the steel bars [supporting it] were destroyed,” explained Gaber. “Now we’ve constructed a drain to absorb floodwater,” he said, gesturing below the new stone wall running along the outside edge of the cafe. Many of the cafes and businesses on the Alexandria coast have begun adjusting to extreme weather without making the link to climate change. On the southern tip of the Mediterranean, the coastal waters are inching closer to buildings and flooded ancient structures, including the Greco-Roman tombs at Anfushi. Seawater seeping into the groundwater has also made the fragile ground more unstable, resulting in the alarming collapse of some of the city’s buildings. The UN estimates that global sea levels will rise between 13cm and 68cm by 2050, and say that the Mediterranean is particularly vulnerable – by 2080, up to 120,000 people living near the sea could be affected by rising waters if no action is taken to protect them. Rising sea levels and seawater temperatures will also increase the salinity of the Nile, Egypt’s primary water source, and increasingly salty water sources could destroy farmland across the Nile Delta. In 2007, the World Bank estimated that 10.5% of Egypt’s population could be displaced by rising waters caused by climate change. An hour to the east from Alexandria, the quiet of the town of Rosetta ignores the urgency of the lapping waters. Life in the town, famed for the discovery of the Rosetta stone, is at one with the sea. “You have to do what you have to do, and don’t think about the bad weather – the good weather comes from God,” said fisherman Ahmed Mohamed Gowayed, reciting a local saying. Storms annually disrupt the calm of this low-lying town where houses sit at sea level, many only separated from the coast by a winding coast road. But in recent years the weather has been more violent. “Last year the storm destroyed palm trees, buildings, cars – older people in their seventies said they’d never seen anything like it in their lives,” said Gowayed. The storm also destroyed barges and kiosks that local fishermen rely on for their livelihoods. “If the weather continues like this I will build a stronger kiosk,” smiled Gowayed, undeterred by the prospect of the next storm. Mohamed El Raey, professor of environmental studies at Alexandria University, believes that climate change is contributing to an increase in “extreme events”, across Egypt. “The government needs to increase awareness among the population,” he said. They also need to be more stringent about urban planning, he added. “If people don’t find places to live that they like, they build houses wherever they find an area.” In 2011, the government released a report detailing how the country must adapt to climate change, estimating that about 13% of Egypt’s northern coastline was at risk. Political and economic upheavals have since diverted their attention elsewhere, but in Alexandria and Rosetta the impact of climate change is becoming increasingly hard to ignore. | ['environment/sea-level', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/series/global-warning', 'environment/environment', 'world/egypt', 'world/middleeast', 'world/world', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/ruth-michaelson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-special-projects'] | environment/sea-level | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-01-19T08:00:31Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2014/oct/29/american-red-cross-hurricane-sandy-aid-failures-npr-report | American Red Cross only 'interested in illusion of mass care' during hurricane Sandy – report | A joint investigation by ProPublica and NPR has revealed an inability by the American Red Cross to meet the basic needs of the people and communities in the first weeks after superstorm Sandy slammed the east coast two years ago. Despite the millions of dollars Americans donated to the Red Cross in the wake of Sandy in the north-east and hurricane Isaac in Louisiana a month earlier, internal documents obtained by ProPublica and NPR and interviews with top officials and employees paint a different picture of the venerable charity, one consumed more by its public image than its mission. “It was just clear to me that they weren’t interested in doing mass care; they were interested in the illusion of mass care,” says Richard Rieckenberg, a former head of mass care for the American Red Cross who oversaw aspects of the charity’s response to Sandy and Isaac. According to an internal powerpoint titled “Lessons Learned”, the charity’s national headquarters in Washington “diverted assets for public relations purposes”. At one point during Sandy, as many as 40% of the organization’s available emergency vehicles were being used as backdrops for news conferences, Rieckenberg said. The Red Cross denied this claim. Rieckenberg said the charity’s response was ill-prepared and sluggish, and described how the charity lacked basic necessities such as food, blankets and batteries in the immediate wake of the storms. When there were surpluses of food, it too often went to waste. One day, relief organizers were reportedly ordered by Red Cross supervisors to produce 200,000 extra meals, even though there was no one to deliver the food. In another instance, tens of thousands of meals were discarded because deliverers couldn’t find the people who needed them. And in another incident, the Red Cross sent pork lunches to a Jewish retirement high-rise. “We didn’t have the kind of sophistication needed for this size job,” a Red Cross vice-president said, according to a copy of the minutes from a closed-door meeting in December 2012, obtained by the reporters. “Our experience with the Red Cross is they’re a little late to the game,” emergency management coordinator for Bergen County, New Jersey, police lieutenant Matthew Tiedemann, told NPR and ProPublica. “The reality set in that I was in the sheltering business. It was pretty time-consuming, considering I was putting together cots when I should have been managing an emergency,” he says. Despite the findings, the organization defended itself in a statement to NPR and ProPublica. “While it’s impossible to meet every need in the first chaotic hours and days of a disaster, we are proud that we were able to provide millions of people with hot meals, shelter, relief supplies and financial support during the 2012 hurricanes.” | ['us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'society/charities', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/new-york', 'us-news/new-jersey', 'media/npr', 'us-news/hurricane-isaac', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lauren-gambino'] | us-news/hurricane-isaac | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-10-29T18:12:56Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2019/aug/07/windfarm-operators-court-south-australian-blackout | Windfarm operators taken to court over South Australian blackout | Australia’s energy regulator has launched court action against four windfarm operators, alleging they failed to meet performance requirements during 2016’s statewide South Australian blackout. About 850,000 homes lost power on 28 September that year, when severe weather conditions led to significant damage to SA transmission lines, causing voltage disturbances. The event heightened a fractious national debate about energy policy. The Australian Energy Regulator has said a loss of wind generation after the voltage disturbances contributed to the the blackout. It alleges subsidiaries of the four companies – AGL Energy, Neoen SA, Pacific Hydro and Tilt Renewables – failed to ensure their windfarms complied with a generator performance standard requirement and had automatic protection systems to ensure continuity of supply. The regulator’s chair, Paula Conboy, said the alleged failures meant the Australian Energy Market Operator was not fully informed when responding to the system-wide failure. “The [regulator] has brought these proceedings to send a strong signal to all energy businesses about the importance of compliance with performance standards to promote system security and reliability,” she said. In an investigation published in December, the regulator said it did not intend to take formal enforcement action over the incident as it believed it would be more effective to focus on “remedial recommendations for improved processes”. It noted the unprecedented circumstances of the blackout. A fact sheet released by the regulator at the time said the investigation found some instances in which companies did not comply with obligations but they “did not contribute to the state going black” and all key obligations had been met. In a note attached to its statement on Wednesday, the regulator said that report applied to events leading up to the blackout and the subsequent system restoration and market suspension only. It said the charges related to the blackout itself, which was not the focus of that investigation. AGL said it did not accept the the regulator’s conclusions, that it had complied with national electricity rules and would “strongly contest” the charges. It said the weather event was a once in 50-year storm and AGL had worked with the SA government and regulators to identify what could be learned from it. “We are committed to working with the regulator and stakeholders to ensure the integrity of the energy market and the ongoing stability of South Australia’s electricity system,” an AGL spokesperson said. Tilt Renewables said it believed it had acted in good faith and in accordance with the national electricity rules. Pacific Hydro declined to comment. A market operator report in 2017 found the blackout had been caused by extreme weather, including two tornadoes with wind speeds of between 190km/h and 260km/h. It said windfarms rode out the grid disturbances prompted by the loss of a transmission line, but a protection mechanism in the turbines had triggered a sustained reduction in power in the state. About 450MW capacity was lost within seven seconds. The sudden reduction in wind power prompted a significant increase in imported power through the Heywood interconnector, which links SA with Victoria. The surge tripped the whole system, resulting in the blackout. The energy minister, Angus Taylor, said it was important that the regulator enforce market rules. “Our job is to make sure that we do everything we can as a commonwealth government to keep the lights on, and we expect the states to do that as well,” he said. Conboy said the regulator would seek declarations, penalties, compliance program orders and costs. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/windpower', 'australia-news/south-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-morton', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2019-08-07T04:05:08Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2017/may/24/adani-mine-palaszczuk-faces-factional-fight-to-seal-new-royalties-deal | Adani mine: Palaszczuk faces factional fight to seal new royalties deal | Adani has declined to say whether it can build Australia’s largest coalmine without a royalty “holiday” from the Queensland government, which now appears in doubt after it was thwarted by an internal Labor revolt. But the Indian miner’s next investment move will come after the state makes “a decision [on royalties] that we can live with”, a spokesman for its Australian arm said. Adani would also face another crossroads in the future if its bid for a $1bn taxpayer-funded concessional loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility foundered, the spokesman said. The Queensland government’s senior figures – the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, the treasurer, Curtis Pitt, and the deputy premier, Jackie Trad – will broker a new arrangement to replace an ill-fated proposal that reportedly allowed Adani to defer up to $320m in royalty payments during the mine’s early years. The proposal, developed by state treasury specific to Adani, was to be approved by the cabinet budget review committee, consisting of the leadership trio. But it was scrapped after opposition from the left-faction majority in Labor’s cabinet, including Trad, who declared the deal would break a 2015 election promise of “no royalty holiday or subsidisation of taxpayer funds for Adani”. The entire cabinet will now have to sign off on its replacement, a new overarching royalties scheme for all miners in three undeveloped regions, the Galilee and Surat basins and the north-west minerals province. Whether or not any royalties pause will be offered to Adani and other miners hinges on whether enough left-faction ministers support any concession. The issue highlights the political divide the Palaszczuk government is walking between disparate support bases – those in the regions who support the 1,400-plus jobs the project would create, and those in the state capital who oppose the mine on environmental grounds. A government source said the deal would likely take its final shape in negotiations among the leadership before coming to cabinet. Adani announced on Monday it would postpone what it calls its “final investment decision” on the Carmichael mine after the company was told by the premier’s office there was no cabinet ruling on its royalties offer. That decision had been slated by the board of its Indian parent company by the end of next week. Adani had flagged then investing $100m to $400m from the parent company in preconstruction works. But the deadline for the real final investment decision – the point of financial closure, when Adani clinches necessary investor backing for the $16bn project – was slated for the start of 2018. The Adani spokesman said the board’s investment decision would come after a state government decision on royalties – “a decision that we can live with”. Asked if Adani could proceed without any royalties pause, he said: “Let’s wait and see what the government comes back with.” It was possible that Adani may also have to postpone its financial closure deadline, depending on how long the government takes to make its decision on a royalties offer, the spokesman said. “It can affect a number of the preconstruction stage works,” he said. The status of Adani’s Naif bid did not affect its board investment decision because it was “part of the funding arrangements which flow after”, he said. “So we get [a final investment decision] and we get all our banking components in place; if we get Naif, we’re right. “If we don’t get Naif, we have to make another assessment.” Adani considered its royalties deal to be the final outstanding matter before the Indian board could rule on investment, the spokesman said. He said federal Labor had told the company it would support amendments on native title laws to safeguard its land access deal with traditional owners. That deal continues to be contested in courts by some of the Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owners. | ['business/adani-group', 'environment/carmichael-coalmine', 'australia-news/queensland-politics', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/coal', 'australia-news/labor-party', 'australia-news/annastacia-palaszczuk', 'world/india', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/joshua-robertson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/coal | ENERGY | 2017-05-23T20:12:38Z | true | ENERGY |
technology/2020/aug/26/new-zealand-stock-exchange-hit-by-cyber-attack-for-second-day | New Zealand stock exchange hit by cyber attack for second day | New Zealand’s stock market has been interrupted by an apparent overseas cyber attack for the second day running. The Wellington-based NZX exchange went offline at 11.24am on Wednesday and although some connectivity was restored for investors, some trading was halted. The NZX said it had experienced “network connectivity issues” and that the NZX main board, NZX debt market and Fonterra shareholders market were placed on halt. However it then announced that those areas would resume trading with the rest of the market at 3pm on Wednesday. The interruption followed a shutdown and trading halt on Tuesday afternoon due to an overseas-based distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The incident follows a number of alleged cyber attacks by foreign actors, such as the targeting of a range of government and private-sector organisations in Australia. In a statement earlier on Wednesday, the NZX blamed Tuesday’s attack on overseas hackers, saying that it had “experienced a volumetric DDoS attack from offshore via its network service provider, which impacted NZX network connectivity”. It said the attack had affected NZX websites and the markets announcement platform, causing it to call a trading halt at 3.57pm. It said the attack had been “mitigated” and that normal market operations would resume on Wednesday, but this subsequent attack has raised questions about security. A DDoS attack aims to overload traffic to internet sites by infecting large numbers of computers with malware that bombards the targeted site with requests for access. Prof Dave Parry, of the computer science department at Auckland University of Technology, said it was a “very serious attack” on New Zealand’s critical infrastructure. He warned that it showed a “rare” level of sophistication and determination, and also flagged security issues possibly caused by so many people working from home. “Unfortunately the skills and software to do this are widely available and the disruption of Covid and people working from home all over the world potentially with lower security on their computers means that these attacks are easier than usual.” | ['technology/hacking', 'world/newzealand', 'technology/cybercrime', 'world/asia-pacific', 'technology/technology', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/martinfarrer', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2020-08-26T02:49:25Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
science/2016/jul/14/outlook-perpetual-freezing-darkness-weatherwatch | The outlook: perpetual freezing darkness | The weather forecast for 18 July 1816 was bad. In the so-called Bologna Prophecy, an anonymous Italian astronomer had predicted that dark sunspots would gradually overwhelm the sun. On the 18th the sun would go out entirely, plunging the world into perpetual freezing darkness. Such a prediction might have been ignored, except that the sun really did seem to be losing power. 1816 was “the year without a summer”. May and June had seen double the usual rainfall in England, and “from all parts of Europe there are accounts of the dreadful ravages of storm and tempest”, according to The Gentleman’s Magazine. Conditions were as bad in North America, where there had been snow storms in June. The reason for the dismal summer was not sunspots, but the eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia in April 1815. The explosion, rated as “super-colossal” on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, threw 10 cubic miles of dust and ash into the atmosphere, darkening the sky for hundreds of miles around. The spreading dust cloud produced colourful sunsets and glowing twilit skies around the world, and a marked deterioration in the weather. The prophecy, and a day in Geneva so dark that candles were needed at noon, inspired Byron to write Darkness, a grim poem anticipating the end – “Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless …” but 18 July came and went without incident. 1816 was a terrible summer, with crop failure and famine, but it was not the end of the world. | ['science/meteorology', 'science/geology', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/world', 'world/volcanoes', 'science/sun', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-07-14T20:30:20Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/cif-green/2011/feb/16/corporate-hired-spies-private-security | Corporate hired spies are here to stay | Peter Bleksley | A small independent garage is repeatedly targeted by thieves intent on stealing expensive tools. A flagship academy suffers the same fate, only it's the IT equipment that the burglars want. A global energy supplier wants to protect its power plant. Step forward the private security sector. Police forces are stretched to breaking point and face deep cuts. They are constantly forced to review what they do and how they do it. As discontent and protest grows, I believe the police will be forced to focus more on their core task of keeping the peace. That means they'll be less likely to deal with teenagers sending threatening texts, online fraud, other forms of financial deception and more. This will open the door to even more protective and investigative services coming from the private sector. Such companies already touch on our lives whenever we attend a sporting or music event, or go shopping. Behind almost every high-visibility guard we see there is a company offering a wide range of covert services. In the past decade I have worked for many of these companies. Some of them are an absolute disgrace. One was set up by a failed cop who got himself a website and a mobile phone and, suddenly, he can call himself a security company. An uninsured, unethical and dangerous security company, that is. I've seen thuggish former doormen do the same thing, and I've listened to their staff boast about the wanton acts of violence they've carried out. I've also worked for global outfits that build their entire management structure on a bedrock of bullying, while hoodwinking executive clients into thinking they're brand leaders. Fortunately there are others within the industry who act lawfully and with integrity, and whose creativity and audacity enables them to achieve what their clients need. Their operations are widespread and their successes sometimes prevent more price rises being foisted upon us, as fraudsters, cheats, thieves and con artists are stopped, frustrated, and often bought to book. It is entirely likely that the cost of your car, holiday and home insurance would all be higher were it not for the secretive work carried out by the corporate world's hired spies. Meanwhile, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde, whinges about the private sector deploying "completely uncontrolled and unrestrained players". This comes from a man who presides over no less than four units set up to deal with "domestic extremism", and "public order intelligence", one of whom inserted Mark Kennedy and his cohorts into the climate campaign movement. Given what's been disclosed about his activities, it would be fair to ask how controlled and restrained PC Kennedy was. May I also remind you that these units under Orde's control receive public funding, yet are not designated as "public bodies", so don't waste your time compiling a Freedom of Information Act application to see their costs, or examine their expenses – the act doesn't apply to them. In an imperfect world where we have two-tier health and education systems, it should come as no surprise to anybody that we have two-tier security and investigation operations. The truth is, if you can afford it, you can have your own private uniformed force, and your own highly experienced, highly trained and fully resourced private CID. Energy firms, just like many other companies, seek cost-effective solutions to issues that can damage revenue streams, branding and assets. It's a rational business decision for them to use every available legal tool to manage threats to their operations. Deal with it, because we're here to stay. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'uk/police', 'world/protest', 'uk/uk', 'tone/comment', 'environment/activism', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/peter-bleksley'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2011-02-16T12:33:12Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2014/dec/02/yeb-sano-vocal-critic-west-dropped-lima-climate-talks | Yeb Saño, vocal critic of west, dropped from Lima climate talks | Yeb Saño, one of the most vocal critics of rich countries in international global warming negotiations, has not arrived at the latest UN climate conference in Lima and is believed to have been dropped by the Filipino government as its chief negotiator. The move coincides with the Philippines apparently leaving the ‘like minded developing countries’ (LMDC) group, a powerful bloc of nations regarded by the US and Europe as the main obstacle to a new global agreement. Saño, who has headed the Filipino diplomatic delegation to the talks for three years and is director of the government’s climate change commission, became one of the few iconic figures in the 2012 talks after an emotional speech when he broke down in tears and called on rich countries to act urgently for the climate. At the UN climate summit in Warsaw last year, Saño and 300 other delegates fasted for the duration of the talks when his father’s home city of Tacloban was flattened by Typhoon Yolanda, one of the world’s strongest recorded cyclones. Last month Sano walked 1,000km from the centre of the Filipino capital Manila to Tacloban. As another powerful typhoon developed in the Pacific ocean and headed towards the Philippines this week, neither Saño nor the Filipino government responded to calls. However, a video of Saño was published online on Monday, where he did not explain his absence at the Lima talks but said he would be fasting during the conference because he cared “about the future of this world” and to avert a “climate crisis”. NGOs said his absence was likely to be linked to his growing reputation and to rich countries’ hardening attitude to political opposition ahead of crucial meetings. “[Saño’s absence] has certainly left many wondering if this could be due to pressure being brought to bear on small countries like the Philippines by those whose interests such powerful voices threaten,” said Friends of the Earth UK’s Asad Rehman. Christian Aid’s senior climate change adviser, Mohamed Adow, said: “It is strange that he is not here to join us in Lima. Yeb’s absence is very curious given the significant leadership role he has played at these talks, fighting for the rights of people suffering from climate change. People are scratching their heads as to why Yeb is not on the delegation anymore. He is a ray of light in an often dark process and I hope he has not been excluded from the delegation because some people don’t like the important truth he tells.” Voltaire Alferez, co-ordinator of Aksyon Klima Pilipinas (AKP), a network of more than 40 Filipino organisations working on climate change, said the government should explain why he was not in Lima. “We are at a loss as to why Saño is not present here in Lima. His absence is greatly felt, especially by civil society members who he inspired in Warsaw. They must focus on the negotiations instead of bickering among themselves.” There is a long history of industrialised countries exerting strong pressure on poorer countries in advance of major climate negotiations. Veteran negotiator Bernarditas Muller was “neutralised” ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in 2009 after she was identified as a leading opponent of the US position and dropped by the Filipino government. Muller had gained a reputation as a “dragon woman” who would not yield to intense diplomatic pressure in negotiations. She now represents the Philippines on the Green Climate Fund, a key institution which developed countries have recently pledged $10bn (£6.4bn) to, and which is intended to raise $100bn a year to help developing countries adapt to climate change and to mitigate emissions. The Philippines, a former US colony and important development, trade and security partner to the US, has “a special relationship” with Washington. It receives over $6bn a year in US foreign investment. The LMDC group represents more than 50% of the world’s population and includes China, Venezuela, India and Indonesia. They traditionally negotiate as a group until the last few hours of the talks. The Lima meeting, which has entered its second day, is the last summit before countries expect to sign a binding climate deal next year in Paris. Politicians from over 190 countries will arrive next week to take over negotiations. | ['environment/cop-20-un-climate-change-conference-lima', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/philippines', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/green-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/johnvidal'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-12-02T13:43:28Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2018/dec/07/africa-cocoa-industry-failing-deforestation-pledge-campaigners | Africa cocoa industry failing on deforestation pledge – campaigners | The cocoa industry is failing to meet a highly publicised pledge to stop deforestation in west Africa and eliminate tainted beans from supply chains, environmental campaigners say. Big chocolate companies and the governments of Ghana and the Ivory Coast continue to be responsible for the deforestation of tens of thousands of hectares of land over the past year in former rainforest-covered nations, despite their solemn promises to end the practice last November, the campaigning organisation Mighty Earth said. Last year the Guardian investigated how the chocolate industry was driving deforestation on a devastating scale in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s two biggest cocoa producers, including in supposedly protected “classified” forests and national parks. Cocoa is a mainstay of the Ivorian and Ghanaian economies but their rainforests have been devastated by it. With more chocolate being devoured each year – the average Briton ate 8.4kg of it in 2017 – the few remaining forests are being cut down to meet demand. Soon after the publication of the Guardian investigation and a study by Mighty Earth, the two west African governments made plans to stop all new deforestation and replant degraded forests. Then, at the UN’s conference on climate change in Bonn, the cocoa and chocolate companies responsible for the purchase of 80% of west Africa’s cocoa promised to end forest destruction. But more than 3,000 miles away from the executive photo ops, more trees were being cut down. Satellite mapping shows many new areas where there has been significant deforestation in the past year, particularly in Ivory Coast. In the south-west region alone, 13,748 hectares (34,000 acres) of forest have been lost in 2018 – equivalent to 15,000 football fields, more than the 13,000 lost there in 2016. Governments have failed to stop it, and companies are still buying cocoa from “dirty producers” who continue to cut down the few remaining patches of rainforest, according to Chocolate Greenwashing, a Mighty Earth report released on Friday. “Companies have talked the talk but not walked the walk,” said Etelle Higonnet, the report’s lead author. She warned that “peak deforestation danger season”, the time of year when most trees are cut down, will begin within weeks. “The time for shilly-shallying is over,” she said. “Government and industry need to commit manpower and resources to solve the problem right now.” At the moment, deforestation is worst in the far west of Ivory Coast, in areas such as Goin Debe and Cavally, the maps show. If nothing is done, Goin Debe’s forests will disappear entirely by 2071 and Cavally’s “protected” forest by 2061, Mighty Earth said. The country has lost 90% of its forest since independence in 1960. Farmers who continued to cut trees down said they could still sell their cocoa openly without any repercussions. In Ghana deforestation continues inside Tonton, Tinte Bepo and Tano Ofin forest reserves, and unless the land is immediately restored, cocoa grown on it will probably find its way to the supply chains of big companies such as the Singapore-based agribusiness Olam, Mighty Earth said. Cocoa is mostly grown on small plots of land by individual farmers, who sell it on to cooperatives and middlemen, who in turn sell it to big companies. This makes it more difficult to track cocoa beans down to the farm they were grown on and to monitor their practices. Some farmers believe that recently deforested land produces the best cocoa plants with the largest beans and many do not realise that cutting down rainforests will ultimately result in less rainfall and therefore worse crops. More deforested land for cocoa plantations also means less for critically endangered western chimpanzees and the forest elephants from which the Ivory Coast got its name. Higonnet said the clear progress seen in some areas proved deforestation for cocoa could be stopped. “Some bad actors are ruining it for the high-performers,” she said. Part of the Ivorian government plan has been to convert degraded “classified forests”, which should have been protected but were not, into agroforests managed by cocoa companies. Olam said it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the government for one of these forests in June. Olam Cocoa’s CEO, Gerry Manley, said the objective was “to validate the development of sustainable agroforestry systems, ensure an improvement in cocoa farmer livelihoods and allow for the sustainable coexistence of protected forests, industrial plantations, subsistence crops, and perennial crops”. Richard Scobey, the president of trade group the World Cocoa Foundation, said a few companies had signed MOUs. “WCF has not seen any of them, but our understanding is that they are very general and high level,” he said. Julia Christian, a forest campaigner at Fern, an NGO that monitors deforestation, said the conversion plan was worrying. “It’s sending the message that if companies cause deforestation, at some point the government will just legalise the deforestation and allow it to continue,” she said. Very little of the cocoa industry’s $100bn (£80bn) profit makes it into the pockets of cocoa farmers even now. They receive only 6% of a chocolate bar’s sale price to the manufacturers’ and retailers’ 80%. But activists warn the new plans could further benefit corporations at the expense of farmers. “The state has a duty to help small producers and agricultural cooperatives to become professional and competitive, instead of adopting a strategy that will ultimately eliminate them,” said Youssouf Doumbia, the president of OI-REN, an environmental civil society organisation. “The result of such a measure would ultimately be to concentrate almost all the revenues of the sector in the hands of a small group of managers of large companies and to impoverish the population.” | ['environment/deforestation', 'world/ivory-coast', 'world/ghana', 'global-development/global-development', 'food/chocolate', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/forests', 'business/fooddrinks', 'environment/environment', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'business/business', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ruth-maclean', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-12-07T05:00:08Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2017/sep/12/florida-hurricane-irma-pickup-truck | 'You go when you go': the 70-year-old man who spent Irma in his pickup | You have to wonder: does Ronald Sandelé, a 70-year-old resident of Key Largo, care about protecting the life of a seagull more than saving his own skin? I met him as I was trying to find gas in Key Largo in the Florida Keys – no easy task in the wake of Hurricane Irma, when looking for fuel has become an obsession for millions of Floridians in the absence of power, food and water. He suddenly appeared, shirtless and in shorts, and walked perilously out into the road to rescue the bird that was lying stricken on the tarmac, its wings clipped by a passing car. “Nice birdy, nice birdy,” he said, as the bird bit hard on his fingers with its beak in distress. “I only need four fingers,” Sandelé said. Having laid the bird gently on the grass, he got back into his grey pick-up truck. I was curious about this older man who was so concerned to save the life of a seagull, even amid such human devastation after the hurricane on the Florida Keys. He said he’d been living in his truck for the past three weeks, after he was thrown out by his landlord from the home he had rented for 31 years. For the past three weeks? So where had he spent Sunday, when Irma passed through the Keys as a blazing category 4 hurricane, chewing up everything in its path? “In the truck,” he replied, to my astonishment. In a pickup truck in the middle of a huge hurricane – that must be one of the most dangerous spots on earth. “It was kind of rock’n’roll at the back end of the hurricane,” he said. He described how the vehicle began to shake violently and then its rear started to lift up into the air, as though it were about to flip over and soar into the sky. Like a bird. He must have been scared, I said. “No, not scared. I believe in providence: you go when you go. And what’s the point of being scared? It paralyses you. You function better without fear.” And then he said, talking to me from the driving seat of the truck which now passes as his home: “It was fun, actually. Irma tossed the truck around like a toy. I never knew a hurricane could do that.” | ['world/hurricane-irma', 'us-news/florida', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/us-news', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/edpilkington', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2017-09-13T00:24:18Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2023/may/06/us-epa-pfas-drinking-water-pollution-ohio-river | US agency takes unprecedented action to tackle PFAS water pollution | The US Environmental Protection Agency is taking unprecedented enforcement action over PFAS water pollution by ordering the chemical giant Chemours’ Parkersburg, West Virginia, plant to stop discharging extremely high levels of toxic PFAS waste into the Ohio River. The river is a drinking water source for 5 million people, and the EPA’s Clean Water Act violation order cites 71 instances between September 2018 to March 2023 in which Chemours’ Washington Works facility discharged more PFAS waste than its pollution permit allowed. The agency also noted damaged facilities and equipment that appeared to be leaking PFAS waste on to the ground. PFAS are a class of about 15,000 chemicals often used to make thousands of products across dozens of industries resistant to water, stains and heat. The chemicals are ubiquitous and linked at low levels of exposure to cancer, thyroid disease, kidney dysfunction, birth defects, autoimmune disease and other serious health problems. The step by the EPA drew praise from some environmental groups, but at least one noted the permit still allows high levels of PFAS pollution and may not adequately protect the environment and human health. The EPA and states should also be taking similar action against PFAS polluters everywhere, not just Chemours, critics say. Washington Works’ PFAS waste poisoned Parkersburg’s water for decades under DuPont’s management, before it spun off Chemours. That led to lawsuits in the early 2000s that dragged on for years, but in 2017 led to $671m in payouts to town residents, an epidemiological study that linked DuPont PFAS to residents’ health problems and a movie about the controversy. Still, the pollution continues. “The Parkersburg community has a long history with this facility and the ever-present threat of PFAS pollution,” said Adam Ortiz, the EPA mid-Atlantic regional administrator, in a statement. “This order demonstrates that EPA will take action to safeguard public health and the environment from these dangerous contaminants.” The EPA is ordering Chemours to rein in its pollution by testing effluents and implementing a plan to remove more of the dangerous chemicals before discharging water. The order cites exceedances for two PFAS compounds, PFOA and HFPO-DA, the latter more frequently known as GenX. Chemours in 2019 recorded GenX levels from one Washington Works pipe at a monthly average of about 38,000 parts per trillion (ppt). The pollution permit’s current limit is 1,400ppt. But the EPA is in the process of lowering GenX’s national drinking water limit to 5ppt. Similar levels and exceedances were found for PFOA, and the chemicals are generally considered to be two of the most well-studied and dangerous PFAS compounds. The EPA order also noted an unplugged grate and piping were allowing PFAS to spill on to the ground, where it probably moved into ground or surface water and inspectors found ripped storage bins that appeared to be leaking PFAS waste. Chemours failed to “properly operate and maintain all facilities and systems of [pollution] treatment and control”, the EPA wrote. This represents the first time the EPA has taken action against a PFAS polluter for violating limits on a pollution permit. The agency in 2021 advised states’ environmental departments to begin doing the same, but did not make it mandatory. The EPA did not immediately answer specific questions from the Guardian. The enforcement action is “significant”, said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility non-profit. But she said it represented “baby steps” and questioned why the EPA was allowing such high levels of PFAS to be disgorged into the Ohio River and why more pollution permits do not have PFAS restrictions. “It’s great that EPA is enforcing against Chemours for point source PFAS discharges, but this is the exception and not the rule. It should be the rule,” she said. Chemours did not say how it plans to control the pollution, but told the Guardian that it “worked with EPA to agree to a consent decree and will continue to take action to address the legacy deposition that have contributed to many of the exceedances”. | ['us-news/us-news', 'environment/pfas', 'campaign/email/today-us', 'us-news/west-virginia', 'environment/pollution', 'environment/water', 'environment/environment', 'environment/epa', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/tom-perkins', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2023-05-06T10:00:05Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
lifeandstyle/2023/may/12/say-no-mow-leaving-grass-to-grow-is-easier-looks-good-supports-pollinators | Leaving grass to grow is easier, looks good, and supports pollinators | In general, I try to adopt a “good for you, not for me” approach to other people’s gardens. Ultimately, gardening is something that has brought me greatest pleasure when I have felt able to do it exactly as I wish. If you want to fill yours with gnomes, go for it! Want to dedicate all of your flower beds to spinach? Enjoy your iron-rich diet! Whatever makes you happy. Where I struggle, though, is with lawns. Specifically, ones made of plastic (not to be discussed today – we’re still getting to know one another) and those maintained by someone wearing protective clothing, who arrives with a large vessel of chemicals and a sprayer. The history of the lawn is complex and problematic, but the fact is: most gardens have one. Even my garden has one, and I don’t even like them. These often ecologically bankrupt swathes of green and, in our increasingly hot summers, yellow, feed into the myth of the “English Garden”, and we spend untold hours and reserves spraying and watering and mowing to maintain their carpet-like appearance. But imagine a world where we just … didn’t? This time last year I spent a gossipy afternoon in the long, skinny and gloriously wild garden of Andrew Timothy O’Brien, a friend and clever gardener whose approach is pleasingly non-interventional (you can learn some of it in his permission-granting book To Stand and Stare). Technically, there is a bit of lawn in O’Brien’s garden, but he hadn’t mown it all year and so it had bled beautifully into his flowerbeds – soft and wafting with daisies and dandelions, lady’s smock and speedwell. Where he and his spaniel, Nell, had trodden, a gentle path had been forged, but otherwise the place was left for the pollinators. It was the essence of what’s become known as No Mow May in practice: abandon your mower for a month at a time (or, indeed, longer) to improve the fates of our invertebrates. We may be halfway through May, but there’s never been a better time to unshackle yourself from one of the most tedious of horticultural tasks. Since the 1930s, 97% of British wildflower meadows have vanished; we’ve lost dozens of species of bee and hoverfly since 1980 due to insecticides (like those sprayed on domestic lawns), habitat loss and general biodiversity decline. Plantlife, the charity behind No Mow May, claims that putting the mower away can lead to an active reversal of this: a tenfold increase in bees thanks to the growth of nectar-rich plants such as white clover, daisy and selfheal can put on in a matter of weeks. I tend to mow once a month, tops, due to laziness and curiosity – I like seeing what turns up when I don’t – but if you enjoy the satisfaction of neat stripes may I suggest adopting a landing strip approach? Even leaving parts of a lawn, such as concentric circles or a strip down the middle of a broader path, can vastly improve wildflower growth. | ['lifeandstyle/gardens', 'lifeandstyle/gardeningadvice', 'environment/plants', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'campaign/email/inside-saturday', 'environment/insects', 'environment/bees', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/alice-vincent', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/saturday', 'theguardian/saturday/lifestyle', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/saturday-magazine'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-05-12T10:00:50Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk-news/2019/jun/11/hospital-rail-lines-and-roads-flooded-after-heavy-rain-in-england | Hospital, rail lines and roads flooded after heavy rain in England | Heavy rain has caused widespread disruption in England, including flooded roads, railways and a hospital, and forecasters have warned of more to come. The Environment Agency issued dozens of flood alerts across England and a flood warning, which is more serious, for Wokingham, Berkshire. One of the worst-hit areas was Lincolnshire, where floodwater had to be pumped out of Pilgrim hospital in Boston. There were so many emergency in calls in the county that fire crews said they could only deal with flooding incidents if water had entered people’s homes. In the south-east, railway lines near Orpington in Kent and Mitcham Junction in London were flooded as the network struggled to cope with a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours. Rain also damaged power supply to trains and signalling equipment, Network Rail said. The rail operator Southern warned passengers to expect delays and cancellations for the rest of the day across the Southern and Thameslink network and urged people avoid travelling in the south London area if possible. Flash floods forced the closure of dozens of roads, including in Wymondham in Norfolk and Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. Overnight the M25 was closed for several hours in both directions after a sinkhole opened up on the carriageway near Sevenoaks in Kent. After emergency repairs the road was fully reopened in time for the morning rush-hour. In West Kingsdown, near Sevenoaks, a woman in her 80s and her dog were rescued after her home was flooded to waist height. The Met Office has extended a yellow “be prepared” warning for heavy rain from Tuesday to Thursday. It now stretches from parts of north Wales in the west to the Wash in the east and all the way to Edinburgh in the north. Another warning covers Devon and Somerset, where similar conditions were expected. Forecasters predict that some areas of the UK could be inundated with up to 100mm of rain this week, twice the monthly average for June. On Wednesday and Thursday, some parts of the UK could get between 60mm and 100mm of rain, the Met Office said. Advice was issued to avoid low-lying footpaths near watercourses and to plan driving routes to avoid low-lying roads near rivers. | ['uk/weather', 'environment/flooding', 'uk/rail-transport', 'uk/transport', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewweaver', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-06-11T12:20:49Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2023/jul/24/liberate-tree-experts-to-save-our-forests | Liberate tree experts to save our forests | Letter | The recent report highlighting the UK’s failure to plant enough trees is not a surprise to professional foresters (Less than half of annual tree-planting target in England met, say MPs, 19 July). Tree planting is a central plank in Britain’s net zero strategy. An inability to get new woodland established means the UK will almost certainly not meet carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation targets. Too often the focus is on the establishment of woodlands and not their long-term, active management, thus increasing the risk that we are investing in projects with a high risk of failure. The environmental audit committee report identifies several failings and bottlenecks to progress with woodland creation. Chief among these is the number of overlapping and disjointed strategies, and a labyrinthine application and grants process. One way of reducing complexity would be to give greater autonomy to tree and woodland professionals. The Institute of Chartered Foresters is a highly respected body that has strong internal governance and promotes high standards in professional practice. Giving chartered arboriculturists and chartered foresters greater independence, supported with a simpler funding model (perhaps through a type of trusted trader scheme), could help incentivise and liberate tree and woodland professionals to do what they do best, which is create and manage the UK’s valuable woodlands for both people and nature. Prof Edward Wilson Institute of Forestry and Conservation, University of Toronto • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. | ['environment/forests', 'environment/biodiversity', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-07-24T16:09:15Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
technology/commentisfree/2019/sep/08/iphone-safe-from-hackers-think-again-ios-android-zero-day-exploit-zerodium-google-threat-analysis | Think your iPhone is safe from hackers? That’s what they want you to think… | Whenever there’s something that some people value, there will be a marketplace for it. A few years ago, I spent a fascinating hour with a detective exploring the online marketplaces that exist in the so-called “dark web” (shorthand for the parts of the web you can only get to with a Tor browser and some useful addresses). The marketplaces we were interested in were ones in which stolen credit card details and other confidential data are traded. What struck me most was the apparent normality of it all. It’s basically eBay for crooks. There are sellers offering goods (ranges of stolen card details, Facebook, Gmail and other logins etc) and punters interested in purchasing same. Different categories of these stolen goods are more or less expensive. (The most expensive logins, as I remember it, were for PayPal). But the funniest thing of all was that some of the marketplaces operated a “reputation” system, just like eBay’s. Some vendors had 90%-plus ratings for reliability etc. Some purchasers likewise. Others were less highly regarded. So, one reflected, there really is honour among thieves. But it’s not just credit cards and logins that are valuable in this underworld. The most highly prized “goods” are what hackers call “exploits” – ie specialist knowledge of vulnerabilities in operating systems or other software that can be exploited by intruders for malign purposes. And within this category the really, really valuable ones are “zero-day” exploits. These are aimed at software vulnerabilities that, prior to their discovery, were completely unknown; in other words, they are vulnerabilities with no known patches and can therefore be exploited until a fix has been found. There are, as you might expect, specialised marketplaces in which zero-day exploits are traded. Some of the most avid purchasers are the security agencies of governments. I’m sure that GCHQ, the NSA and the CIA, for example, maintain stockpiles of zero-day exploits, some internally discovered by their geeks together with some purchased from the market. But there are other, even less savoury customers too. And there are vendors of varying degrees of transparency and integrity who operate in the marketplace. Companies like Zerodium, for example, which describes itself as “the leading exploit acquisition platform for premium zero-days and advanced cybersecurity capabilities”, operate openly. Their modus operandi seems to involve connecting ethical hackers and computer scientists who have discovered vulnerabilities with organisations whose computer systems might suffer from them and would therefore value being alerted. Some zero-day exploits can fetch high prices. This week Zerodium announced that it will pay $2.5m to security researchers who provide exploits that allow the complete takeover of Android phones without requiring the target to click on anything. But the big news in the announcement was that Zerodium was valuing the same kinds of exploits on Apple’s iOS operating system at only $2m. Given that the Android system is notoriously littered with security vulnerabilities while iOS is reckoned to be relatively secure, the discrepancy looked like a misprint. Surely the rewards for cracking the more secure system should be higher? In principle, yes. But on 29 August, Google’s Threat Analysis Group’s researchers revealed that m alicious websites had been covertly and successfully hacking iPhones for years. The hacked sites were being used in “indiscriminate watering hole attacks” against their visitors, using iPhone zero-day exploits. Simply visiting a hacked site was enough for the exploit server to attack the iPhone, and if it was successful, install a monitoring implant. Google estimated that these sites received “thousands of visitors” per week. And an enigmatic passage in the Google report – “To be targeted might mean simply being born in a certain geographic region or being part of a certain ethnic group” – has led to fevered speculation that the culprit was China and the target its Muslim Uighur minority. This revelation of iOS’s unsuspected vulnerability came as a shock to a world that had assumed that the orderly, tightly controlled Apple software ecosystem would be more secure than the chaotic, multi-versioned and unpoliced Android system. Nothing, remember, goes on an iPhone that Apple has not vetted and approved, whereas anything goes on Android. But the corollary of this is that iOS is a complacent monoculture – a vast billion-strong monoculture. That has two consequences. One is that it’s a juicy target for attackers. The other is that if you are confident that your phone is secure then you will be cavalier in what you do with it. Which leads one to wonder how many Uighurs are now ruing the day they first thought of buying an iPhone. What I’m reading Ne’er the twain Two systems, one world. That’s the subject of a thoughtful essay on the Project Syndicate site by Joshka Fischer, former German foreign minister, about the prospect of a bi-polar world dominated by China and the US. The word on the street There’s some wonderful reportage by Maciej Cegłowski on his idlewords.com blog about being among the demonstrators on the streets of Hong Kong. That’s the way to do it… How to review a novel: the title of a characteristically acute, amusing and perceptive essay on Literary Hub by Mary-Kay Wilmers, co-founder and long-time editor of the London Review of Books. | ['technology/ios', 'technology/hacking', 'technology/apple', 'technology/software', 'world/china', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'technology/series/networker', 'technology/technology', 'tone/comment', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/johnnaughton', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/new-review', 'theobserver/new-review/discover', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-new-review'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2019-09-08T06:00:44Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/article/2024/jul/19/climate-protesters-jailed-today-whos-next | Climate protesters jailed today. Who’s next? | Brief letters | On the day that the first Covid inquiry report excoriates the UK’s failure to save lives during the pandemic, protesters who, at worst, added negligible delays to the hell that is the M25 commute, receive hugely disproportionate custodial sentences (Five Just Stop Oil activists receive record sentences for planning to block M25, 18 July). Who else is going to prison? John Kelly Little Raveley, Huntingdon • By saying “I’m a never Trump guy. I never liked him” (From anti-Trump to vice-president nominee: JD Vance in his own words, 16 July), JD Vance is clearly showing himself to be a man of principle – in the style of Groucho Marx: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others.” Chris Ainsworth Rawtenstall, Lancashire • Alas, our posties no longer drop elastic bands in our area (Letters, 18 July). We relied on them to top up our household stock. Now we source ours during the asparagus season because the stems are usefully tied together with them. Ann Smith Churchdown, Gloucester • Elastic band recyclers will find that they are conveniently stored in a 35mm film canister. Chris Osborne West Bridgford, Nottingham • Thank you for Ella Baron’s wonderful depiction of the appalling divide between rich and poor that our democracy allows (17 July). If only Charles had ordered a taxi and asked people to wear their own clothes. Philip and Enid Lodge Liverpool • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. | ['environment/activism', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'environment/just-stop-oil', 'world/protest', 'uk-news/covid-inquiry', 'us-news/jd-vance', 'us-news/donaldtrump', 'business/royal-mail', 'uk/monarchy', 'uk/uk', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2024-07-19T16:09:47Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
technology/article/2024/aug/02/starmer-live-facial-recognition-plan-would-usher-in-national-id-campaigners-warn | Starmer’s live facial recognition plan would usher in national ID, campaigners say | Civil liberties campaigners have said that a proposal made by Keir Starmer on Thursday to expand the use of live facial recognition technology would amount to the effective introduction of a national ID card system based on people’s faces. Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said it was ironic the new prime minister was suggesting a greater use of facial matching on the same day that an EU-wide law largely banning real-time surveillance technology came into force. “Expanding live facial recognition means millions of innocent Britons being subjected to automated ID checks,” said Carlo. “These are the surveillance tactics of China and Russia and Starmer seems ignorant of the civil liberties implications.” Live facial recognition has, until now, largely been used in the UK by the Metropolitan police and South Wales police, as a real-time aid to help officers to detect and prevent crime, including at public events such as last year’s coronation. It is capable of scanning more than 100 faces a minute for identification. But on Thursday, Starmer suggested that it should be deployed more widely, in response to the violent disorder around the country after the stabbing and murder of three girls in Southport, Lancashire. Promising to create a national police capability to tackle the rioting, the new prime minister said forces needed to work better together, sharing intelligence and engaging in a “wider deployment of facial recognition technology”. Details were scant but immediately after, Starmer suggested that trouble-makers could be subject to “criminal behaviour orders to restrict their movements before they can even board a train” – implying a wider use of live facial recognition at transport hubs such as railway stations. Daragh Murray, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, said: “There is a clear danger that in responding to a tragedy and public unrest we expand and entrench police surveillance without appropriate scrutiny. Given that the police have responded to disorder and riots for decades, why is facial recognition needed now?” There is no specific law in the UK regulating the use of facial recognition software and as a result its implementation is broadly defined by police forces, which use it to locate missing persons and offenders, but also, the Met says, “people on a ‘watchlist’ who are sought by the police”. The Met’s policy statement says those put on a watchlist include people “wanted by the courts”, people subject to court or bail restrictions – but also people “where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the individual depicted is about to commit an offence” in the future. Campaigners say that such broad definitions could allow police to target legitimate protesters, not just people with violent intent. Facial recognition has been used at the British Grand Prix for the past two years, scanning hundreds of thousands, after Just Stop Oil protesters ran on to the track during the first lap of the Formula One in 2022. There have also been concerns about the accuracy of live facial recognition, with black people more likely to be misidentified than other racial groups. The Met says it can retune the face matching algorithm to eliminate demographic discrepancies, but Big Brother Watch said doing so made it less effective overall. In a ruling in 2020, a court found South Wales police had failed to properly investigate whether the software exhibited any race or gender bias. Police say there has been a “substantial improvement” in its accuracy, with Met-commissioned research suggesting the chance of a false match was now one in 6,000 people. Big Brother Watch is bringing a legal challenge to the Met’s use of the technology alongside Shaun Thompson, an anti-knife-crime community worker, who says he was misidentified and wrongly detained at London Bridge station in February by officers who demanded he give his fingerprints to prove who said he was. Earlier this year Met officials described the technology as a “gamechanger” and said that when the technology had been deployed, it had helped make one arrest every two hours. | ['technology/facial-recognition', 'technology/technology', 'uk/police', 'politics/keir-starmer', 'world/privacy', 'uk/uk', 'campaign/email/morning-briefing', 'politics/politics', 'world/surveillance', 'law/uk-civil-liberties', 'politics/idcards', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dan-sabbagh', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | technology/facial-recognition | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2024-08-02T17:32:47Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2018/oct/02/ikea-says-goodbye-to-plastic-straws-with-display-at-londons-design-museum | Ikea says goodbye to plastic straws with display at London's Design Museum | Ikea today symbolically unveiled its last single-use plastic straw in a display at London’s Design Museum, after it stopped serving or selling the items in any of its UK and Ireland stores, restaurants and bistros this week. The so-called Last Straw installation will be on show to the public until Saturday and aims to inspire consumers to collectively take small steps that will have a positive environmental impact. “Plastic straws have become such an important emblem for change when it comes to single-use plastic, but this campaign is not just about straws,” said Ikea spokeswoman Hege Sæbjørnsen. “We want to harness people’s energy behind ditching single-use plastic straws and disposables to draw attention to the thousands of everyday changes we can all make to have a big impact on the planet.” The UK uses an estimated 8.5bn straws a year, according to the Marine Conservation Society, and plastic straws are one of the top 10 items found in beach clean-ups. The Swedish furniture chain announced in June that it will phase out all single-use plastic products from its stores and restaurants globally by 2020 amid growing concern about the effects of plastic on the environment. Plastic straws, plates, cups, freezer bags, bin bags, and plastic-coated paper plates and cups are all being phased out and where possible replaced by alternatives. Plastic waste has become a charged issue, with TV programmes such as Blue Planet II and, more recently, Drowning in Plastic, exposing its impact on the oceans and regular warnings made over the dangers of a global plastic binge. Ikea has 363 stores in 29 countries worldwide, including 21 in the UK and Ireland. Its three-year Lagom project aims to give customers and co-workers the chance to test products that help save energy and water, reduce waste and promote a healthy lifestyle. The company says the programme is based on a Swedish philosophy on everyday life that means “just the right amount”. | ['environment/plastic', 'business/ikea', 'environment/waste', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'business/retail', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-10-02T12:10:05Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
politics/2009/jul/07/brown-stabilise-oil-markets-g8 | Gordon Brown hopes to stabilise oil markets at G8 summit | Gordon Brown flies to the three-day G8 summit in earthquake-prone L'Aquila, central Italy, tomorrow determined to secure an agreement to tackle oil price instability to help the recovery from world recession. British officials dismissed fears the summit, based in a police barracks, would be disrupted by further earthquakes even though the town suffered shocks as recently as Friday. More than 290 people died in an earthquake there in April. The G8 is due to discuss the fragile state of the global economy over lunch in L'Aquila, with discussion shifting to foreign policy issues including Iran, Afghanistan and Burma in the evening. British officials said yesterday there were "signs that the world economy is not returning to health as quickly as it was thought would happen". "Oil prices have risen by 75% in the last four months and more needs to be done to reduce volatility and increase transparency of the oil market," one official said. Brown also expects the Doha trade round to be given political momentum, possibly with a commitment to complete the stalled talks next year. There is a faint hope the Indian government, elected in May, will take a more flexible approach. British officials say they have made good progress on the $1.1tn (£682bn) economic recovery package agreed at the G20 chaired by Brown in London in April. Other objectives for Brown include helping secure a food security package worth more than $15bn (£9.3bn) over three years to stave off hunger in developing countries, and a commitment by the G8 developed countries to ensure that global temperatures do not rise by more than 2C. If this temperature limit is agreed, it would be the first time the US has committed itself to such a target. British officials are not expecting developing countries to sign up to this target at a meeting within the summit on Thursday. Developing countries such as India and China oppose signing up to a target now since it may place a duty on them to commit themselves to specific national targets to reduce their emission growth. British officials admit India and China will need a great deal of persuasion between now and December's UN conference in Copenhagen, which is due to agree a carbon reduction framework after 2012. British officials said "if we do not have shared objective by Copenhagen, then the exercise is going to be very difficult. The key is to persuade the developing nations that they can slow their emissions without damaging their prospects of economic growth". The food security package, known as a global partnership, requires developing countries to devise a plan to improve agricultural structure, that is then submitted to the World Bank for approval before donors come in with co-ordinated aid. A quarter of the harvests in the world have failed due to disease, a figure described as "staggering" by UK offiicals. British officials are still hoping that the G8 will agree to publish an official scorecard setting out individual nations are doing in meeting the previous pledges on heath, water, education and food aid. "Generally there is a feeling that the credibility of the G8 depends on reporting accurately on what is done. If we say we will do something, we should say what we have done", the officials explained. | ['politics/gordon-brown', 'business/oil', 'world/g8', 'business/economic-recovery', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/food', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'world/world', 'politics/politics', 'tone/news', 'environment/oil', 'type/article', 'profile/patrickwintour', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2009-07-07T20:44:32Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2023/oct/27/is-crisis-at-siemens-energy-symptom-of-a-wider-wind-power-problem | Is crisis at Siemens Energy symptom of a wider wind power problem? | One of the world’s biggest wind turbine makers has reignited concerns over the headwinds facing the industry after losing billions in market value this week. Shares in Siemens Energy, the owner of the turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa, plummeted after it emerged that the company was in rescue talks with the German government to secure €15bn of guarantees to shore up its balance sheet. The company expects heavy losses this year after faults were discovered in its newest turbine models. Claudia Kemfert, an energy expert at the German Institute of Economic Research in Berlin, said that while Siemens’ wind power woes were “tragic” they were not emblematic of the wind industry, which was in good shape overall. “Wind power is literally on the rise globally,” Kemfert said. “The problems at Siemens Gamesa are homemade. The group must get a grip on quality problems. The fact that this has not been done to a sufficient degree to date is astonishing and must be changed.” Still, some fear that a troubling trend has emerged: the climbing costs of financing and building windfarms have created headwinds for those constructing offshore windfarms around the world. Inflation is casting doubt on the future of multibillion-pound wind projects. In time, the sector-wide cost pressures could threaten government renewable energy targets too. Which wind power companies have been affected by climbing costs? Sweden’s Vattenfall raised a red flag over rising costs this summer, halting work on its giant offshore windfarm off the Norfolk coast. Vattenfall said it would stop work on Norfolk Boreas, designed to power the equivalent of 1.5m British homes, because a 40% increase in its costs, in large part due to higher prices for energy and materials, meant it was no longer profitable. Vattenfall bid a record low price of £37.35 per megawatt hour (MWh) to win a government support contract for the project but, following a surge in global energy prices, said it would now need a “significantly higher” subsidy for its project to make financial sense. Along with SSE and ScottishPower, it warned the UK government that its late summer auction for new subsidy contracts was set too low to cover costs. The government ignored calls for the auction to start at a higher price and no new offshore windfarms bid for contracts. The Danish windfarm giant Ørsted, meanwhile, has raised concerns about supply chain glitches and soaring interest rates, and told investors of a near £2bn writedown due to delays to a string of windfarm projects in the US. Which windfarms risk being derailed? Ørsted has said there is a very real chance that it will drop plans to build its US windfarms entirely if the US government does not take steps to help. The company is spearheading seven projects in the north-east of the US, enough to supply the equivalent of 2m homes with clean electricity. Its three largest projects due for completion in the next few years lie off the coasts of New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York’s Long Island. In the UK, Ørsted had planned to develop the Hornsea 3 windfarm after winning a contract on the same terms as Vattenfall’s Norfolk Boreas – it is yet to commit to a final investment decision on the project. The UK government’s failure to secure any new offshore windfarms in its latest subsidy auction meant the industry missed out on a potential of 5GW worth of new offshore wind capacity, or enough to power nearly 8m homes a year. What does this mean for climate action? Energy economists have warned that the slowdown in the offshore wind industry spells trouble for governments with renewable energy targets. The UK set out an aim to increase its offshore wind capacity fivefold to reach 50GW by the end of the decade. This week, analysts at Cornwall Insight said the UK was likely to miss this target, jeopardising the government’s legally binding commitment to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050. It expects UK offshore wind to reach 47GW by 2030. In the US, Joe Biden set an offshore wind target of 30GW by 2030. But analysts at BloombergNEF cut their forecasts to just 16.4GW by the end of the decade after policymakers in New York forcefully rejected developers’ pleas for higher rates earlier this month. The slowdown casts doubt on the US ability to meet its climate commitments, including the country’s Paris agreement pledge to at least halve greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by the end of the decade. What can governments do to help? The UK government has promised to review its auction process for offshore wind. Europe has taken a more proactive approach. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, identified access to adequate financial guarantees as a major problem for the entire wind energy sector in her annual “state of the union” speech. Earlier this week, the commission unveiled its new “wind power package” of measures including plans to help windfarm developers access finance. Von der Leyen said: “We will fast-track permitting even more. We will improve the auction systems across the EU. We will focus on skills, access to finance and stable supply chains.” She concluded that “the future of our clean tech industry has to be made in Europe”. Her words are sobering reading for policymakers in the UK and the US. | ['environment/windpower', 'business/siemens', 'business/business', 'campaign/email/business-today', 'world/germany', 'business/manufacturing-sector', 'world/world', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'us-news/us-news', 'uk/uk', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/explainers', 'profile/jillian-ambrose', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2023-10-27T14:14:04Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2019/dec/12/autistic-people-not-superheroes-not-tragic | Autistic people are not all superheroes, but we’re not all tragic, either | Ellen Jones | With the return of Netflix’s Atypical for its third season, and the increasingly huge public profiles of neurodiverse figures such as Greta Thunberg, it seems that autism has never been talked about more in the mainstream media. And yet depictions of autism frequently fail those they claim to represent, with dire consequences for autistic people. There are two mainstream narratives surrounding autism: that it is either a blessing or a curse. Either you are gifted with savant-like traits (think Rain Man) and excel in areas such as mathematics, or your autism is the reason you are isolated, alone and miserable. When Greta Thunberg called out ableist bullying and challenged assumptions, even she resorted to the “superpower” stereotype. And in the case of media coverage, these two extremes in expectations are sometimes quite literally presented as a dichotomy, with Forbes running headlines such as “Is Greta Thunberg ‘disabled’ or a superhero?” What if it is neither? Or both? The disability rights movement is founded on the principle of “nothing about us without us”. So it is difficult to see how representation of autism could ever be positive when we are rarely involved or even consulted. Autistic people are being constrained by the expectations and judgments of neurotypical people because we are so rarely the ones given space to talk about autism. I suspect that is partly due to a belief that autistic people (and disabled people more broadly) cannot speak for themselves. Seldom are autistic people part of the creative teams developing storylines involving autism. Indeed, this was a large problem with Atypical in its first season – none of the writers, directors or producers was autistic, and this resulted in the perpetuation of many stereotypes the community has spoken out against. What we are seeing in mainstream media is not a true reflection of autism. We are, instead, seeing what neurotypical people think autism is. Savan Gandecha, a YouTube creator and host of #AutismWithSav, told me he agrees that we need to “move away from the stereotypes – that will improve representation in the long run”. Autism is multifaceted, varied and exists on a spectrum, but we never see the diversity of autistic people and their symptoms. Disability has a 2% representation rate in the popular media, and of that tiny figure, only 5% of disabled characters are played by disabled actors. The idea that this is adequate to represent one of the world’s largest marginalised groups is absurd. The consequences stretch far beyond simply finding television cringeworthy or uncomfortable to watch. Given that public perceptions of autism are largely predicated on these mainstream portrayals in cinema, television, theatre or books, the consistently poor depictions and subsequent misunderstandings about the condition can be incredibly harmful. Autistic people on screen very rarely engage in behaviours that are seen as more taboo – for example, stimming behaviours such as rocking or flapping – or are seen to have meltdowns, and if they do, it is seen as something to be mocked. The National Autistic Society reports that 28% of autistic people have been asked to leave a public space because of behaviours associated with being autistic, and I suspect that many of these people are adults. The charity’s study also shows that autistic adults think they are judged to be strange (84%), shy (70%) or antisocial (69%) and that people stare, tut or actively avoid them. The lack of representation of autistic adults adds to the myth that autism is something that is grown out of, which is just not how developmental disabilities work. Even in journalism, neurotypical (or allistic, or non-autistic) professionals are commissioned to write and speak about autism, seemingly with little understanding that they are talking about a key part of someone’s identity. Most recently, when Greta Thunberg wrote about her autism as a driving force in her activism, the vast majority of articles about it demonstrated a fundamental lack of awareness surrounding the language autistic people prefer. When I was diagnosed with autism, I went and looked for examples of autistic people like me – whether they were queer, or women, or also had mental health issues. What I found was a thriving community, operating under the hashtag #ActuallyAutistic. At last, I could see people all over the world expressing themselves honestly about their experiences of being autistic. Depictions of autistic people as a monolith contribute to a culture in which we only recognise the condition in a small percentage of the people who are autistic. Despite what mainstream media would have you believe, not all autistic people are white, cisgender, young or male; for every four men or boys diagnosed with autism, only one woman or girl is – but that is probably because representations aren’t diverse enough. Savan concurs that “more representation is needed from other autistic people who are women and girls and … from BAME backgrounds”. Consequently, autism goes unrecognised and autistic people unsupported. We need representation that is made responsibly and with our input. We simply cannot afford for this misinformation to continue, even in the form of lighthearted teenage television shows. There has been some progress. Hollyoaks cast autistic teenager Talia Grant to play an autistic character and Channel 4’s Are You Autistic? was hosted by, and with the input of, autistic experts, but this is only a tiny shift and one that is hugely outweighed by poor representation. Autistic people ought to be the ones leading the conversation surrounding autism. But more importantly, allistic people need to listen and create a space in which we can do this. However, that would require an acknowledgment that no amount of well-intentioned speaking on behalf of autistic people will be anything other than ableist. • Ellen Jones is a campaigner and creator with a focus on LGBTQ+ rights, mental health and disability | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'society/autism', 'society/society', 'environment/greta-thunberg', 'tv-and-radio/tv-and-radio', 'culture/culture', 'tone/comment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/ellen-jones--xxx-', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/opinion', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-opinion'] | environment/greta-thunberg | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-12-12T16:28:50Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
australia-news/2023/jan/20/woman-charged-over-mccubbin-painting-protest-in-western-australia | Woman charged over McCubbin painting protest in Western Australia | Police have charged a woman who defaced an Australian masterpiece in protest against Woodside Energy. A video released by activist group Disrupt Burrup Hub on Thursday showed a woman spraypainting a Woodside logo on Frederick McCubbin’s Down on his luck, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. She then appeared to glue her hand to the wall, while a man unfurled an Aboriginal flag, made an acknowledgment of country, and spoke about Woodside’s “ongoing desecration of sacred Murujuga rock art”. Woodside is expanding its operations on the Burrup peninsula, in WA’s Pilbara region. The peninsula, known as Murujuga to the traditional owners, has the largest and oldest collection of petroglyphs (rock carvings) in the world. Woodside’s industrial developments include fertiliser and gas plants, and planned expansions require the petroglyphs to be moved. The 1889 McCubbin oil on canvas, valued at $3m a decade ago, was protected by Perspex. “This painting is barely 100 years old,” the man said. “We have 50,000-year-old artwork that Woodside is destroying. Cultural artwork that is sacred to our people is being destroyed.” Police said on Friday a Northbridge woman, 37, had been charged with one count of criminal damage. She is due to appear in Perth magistrates court on 16 February. Disrupt Burrup Hub has started a fundraiser for fines, legal fees and action costs, and said all industry on the Burrup should be stopped. “Woodside like to slap their logo on everything while they spray their toxic emissions all over sacred rock art,” the group said. The Mardudhunera woman Raelene Cooper, a former chair of the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation who is now with the Save Our Songlines campaign, said the protest was “very courageous”. “Some people were asking why can’t they leave the art alone,” she said. “That’s exactly how we feel about what Woodside is doing to our rock art, and our sacred songlines and the plants and animals on the Burrup. “Murujuga holds the stories and songlines of our people going back more than 50,000 years. Woodside need to stop destroying our art.” A Woodside spokesperson said the company respected people’s rights to protest peacefully and lawfully. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup “Woodside has a proven, more than 35-year, track record of safe, reliable and sustainable operations on Murujuga, delivering natural gas to customers in WA and around the world,” she said. “Our environmental approach complies with all applicable environmental laws and regulations and is underpinned by robust science-based decisions.” The company said peer-reviewed research had not identified any impacts on Murujuga rock art from industrial emissions associated with liquefied natural gas production. Prof Benjamin Smith, University of WA chair of world rock art, said it was clear that industrial pollution was eroding the petroglyphs on the peninsula. “It has been shown without any doubt that nitrogen oxide pollution, combined with local rain and dew, is causing serious damage to Murujuga rock art,” he said. “Woodside is the largest nitrogen oxide emitter by far at Murujuga. “We don’t need to fingerprint the source to know that Woodside’s nitrogen oxide and other forms of acidic pollution are damaging the rock art and that these emissions are a serious problem that needs urgent intervention.” | ['australia-news/western-australia', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'australia-news/woodside', 'profile/tory-shepherd', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2023-01-20T04:04:13Z | true | EMISSIONS |
commentisfree/2008/sep/01/hurricanegustav.neworleans | Sandy Rosenthal: New Orleans residents are worried about levees, not Hurricane Gustav | The danger posed by Hurricane Gustav to the people in the heart of New Orleans is not as great as it was during Katrina, because the storm surge is coming from a different direction. But there is still danger. With no electricity, there are no services. Most people are frightened to death. Many left days before the official evacuation began Sunday morning. People know, down to the tiniest detail, the ramifications of catastrophic flooding should the levees not hold. My family evacuated to my sister-in-law's condo in Baton Rouge, driving from New Orleans on back roads to avoid the crowded interstate. For the time being, there is still electricity, though power is now out at my home in uptown New Orleans, in the university area. New Orleans residents have hope, but they also did all the things responsible people do: sharing contact information with family and friends, boarding up houses, paying bills, buying supplies for power outages, turning off the gas, completely emptying out their refrigerators and freezers, parking cars on high ground, putting valuables up high or on the second floor, packing for weeks instead of days. Folks have all known since Monday last week exactly where they would evacuate. It was the talk of the town. In the minds of New Orleanians, the tragedy of Katrina was not the failed response. The tragedy was how, when Katrina barrelled through, New Orleans was overly vulnerable to storm surge, and that should never have happened. What happened during Katrina was engineering failure, not natural disaster. New Orleanians are not afraid of Gustav. They fear the failure of the federal levees. And design and construction of the levees is - by federal mandate in Flood Control Act of 1965 - the sole responsibility of the US Army Corps of Engineers. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'us-news/hurricanegustav', 'weather/neworleans', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/sandyrosenthal'] | us-news/hurricanegustav | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2008-09-01T18:00:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2019/apr/15/diageo-to-remove-plastic-from-guinness-multipacks | Diageo to remove plastic from Guinness multipacks | Plastic can holders and shrinkwrap are to be removed from multipacks of Guinness, its owner, Diageo, will announce on Monday. Diageo is phasing out plastic packaging from multipacks of its Guinness, Harp, Rockshore and Smithwick’s beers and replacing it with 100% recyclable and biodegradable cardboard packs. The new packaging will appear on shelves in Ireland in August, followed by the UK and other international markets in 2020. Individual cans are already fully recyclable, including the widget inside cans of Draught Guinness that creates its creamy head. Diageo said it is investing £16m to reduce the amount of plastic used in its beer packaging as part of a drive to create more sustainable packaging in the war against single-use plastics. Less than 5% of its packaging is plastic and the company said the move would further reduce usage by more than 400 tonnes annually, the equivalent of 40m 50cl plastic bottles. “For 260 years Guinness has played a vital role in the communities around us,” said Mark Sandys, the global head of beer at Diageo. “We already have one of the most sustainable breweries in the world at St James’s Gate [in Dublin] and we are now leading the way in sustainable packaging. This is good news for the brand, for our wider beer portfolio and for the environment.” Plastic pack rings, known in the industry as hi-cones or yokes, are connected rings used to hold together multipacks of canned drinks, particularly beers. A standard packaging device for more than 50 years, they have become an environmental scourge by contributing to growing ocean plastic pollution and posing a threat to marine life. Last year, in a quest to find an alternative, Carlsberg announced plans to replace the rings with recyclable glue. It is phasing in a “snap pack”, which it said will reduce the amount of plastic used in traditional multipacks by as much as 76%. In the UK the change will initially involve Carlsberg Export but the company said the pack will eventually be used across its entire drinks portfolio, including Tuborg and San Miguel. Meanwhile, the beer brand Corona has started piloting plastic-free six-pack rings made from plant-based biodegradable fibres. They will be introduced in its home market of Tulum, Mexico, followed by the UK. Plastic waste has become a pressing issue, with TV programmes such as Blue Planet II exposing its impact on the oceans. Regular warnings are also made about the dangers of a global plastic binge. Dr Sue Kinsey, a senior pollution policy officer with the Marine Conservation Society, said: “These kinds of can yokes are regularly found in small numbers on our beach cleans. During last year’s Great British Beach Clean we found around 100 over one weekend. They are a hazard to wildlife, which can get entangled in them. Any steps taken to stop the flow of plastics to our oceans are to be welcomed.” David Cutter, Diageo’s chief sustainability officer and president, global supply and procurement, added: “Great packaging is essential for our products. Consumers expect our packs to look beautiful, be functional, and sustainable. I am proud to announce this investment, through which we have been able to combine all three. “We have been working tirelessly to make our packaging more environmentally friendly and I’m thrilled with this outcome for Guinness and our other global beer brands.” | ['business/diageo', 'business/fooddrinks', 'food/beer', 'business/business', 'food/food', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/environment', 'society/plastic-free', 'society/society', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/uk', 'world/ireland', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/rebeccasmithers', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-04-14T23:01:03Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
commentisfree/2012/sep/25/silence-rachel-carson-spring | Fifty years on, the silence of Rachel Carson's spring consumes us | Jay Griffiths | No chittering, no fluting, no chissicking. The bleak silence of a spring without its birds is the central image of Rachel Carson's most famous work. Since its publication 50 years ago, humanity has continued silencing the languages of nature, through the pesticides that Carson examined, habitat loss, pollution, overfishing, overhunting and climate change, reducing numbers and driving some species to extinction. The losses of the natural world are our loss, their silence silences something within the human mind. Human language is lit with animal life: we play cats-cradle or have hare-brained ideas; we speak of badgering, or outfoxing someone; to squirrel something away and to ferret it out. I wish there was a verb to otter, ottering around in pure play, to honour Otter ludens, which plays in my mind long after I've seen one. But when our experience of the wild world shrinks, we no longer fathom the depths of our own words; language loses its lustre and vividness. The human mind needs nature in order to think most deeply. Pretending to be other creatures, children practise metaphor and empathy alike. Cultures have long heard wisdom in non-human voices: Apollo, god of music, medicine and knowledge, came to Delphi in the form of a dolphin. But dolphins, which fill the oceans with blipping and chirping, and whales, which mew and caw in ultramarine jazz – a true rhapsody in blue – are hunted to the edge of silence. In the Sumerian period, according to legend, messengers of the gods in the shape of fish would spend their nights below the oceans, and in the days would teach humans the moral code and the arts. After the flood they did not return, so human scholars dressed themselves in fish cloaks, with fins and tails. The stupidity of overfishing would have shocked Carson, herself a marine biologist. Since the 1950s, when she published her trilogy The Sea, two-thirds of the species we have fished have collapsed, and some species are down 99%, according to Callum Roberts, a professor of marine conservation, in his vitally important Ocean of Life. Dredgers carve graveyards in seabeds, fertilisers fuel plankton blooms that result in oxygenless dead zones, and climate change threatens much sea life. Many cultures, such as the Iroquois, regard animals as guides. Biomimicry in architecture and design treats nature as a teacher; aeronautical engineers have studied the precise angle of eagle feathers. Art listens to the natural world, unwilling to shake the linnet from the leaf, refusing to silence the Rite of Spring. Take nature out of Shakespeare and it would be incalculably impoverished; without his bunch of radish or shotten herring Falstaff wouldn't be truly Falstaff, nor would Ophelia's lament be so poignant without her rosemary for remembrance and rue for you. And in a silent spring, the very Forest of Arden would be voiceless. The forest doctors of the Amazon say each plant has its "song", and that to know how to use the plant you must listen to its voice. The silencing of the rainforests is a double deforestation, not only of trees but a deforestation of the mind's music, medicine and knowledge. Forest doctors use medicines the west needs so badly, and they say ayahuasca, the most profound of all medicines, guides the psyche; as I know from experience, it is the finest treatment for severe depression, the psyche's most terrible silence. But those who want to make nature history attempt to silence its protectors. Carson has been vilified with false accusations that her influence on DDT-restriction caused millions to die of malaria. (It was not banned in anti-malarial use but in agricultural use, and that partly because its indiscriminate use created resistance in malarial mosquitoes.) In the Amazon, the forest doctors are attacked by missionaries and the forests are destroyed for timber extraction and cattle ranching. We are taking the most precious mind-medicine and turning it into beefburgers. Here's rue for us all. In silenced forests, in silenced seas, in silenced springs, the human mind loses its thoughtways, risking the extinction of metaphors, losing the resonance of language, putting the significance of wildness on a Cites list of endangered ideas. The web of life is also a web of thought, and our minds are cats-cradled in the unsilenced, singing earth. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/environment', 'environment/green-politics', 'uk/uk', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/jay-griffiths', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-09-25T20:00:07Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
world/2009/jul/13/swine-flu-g8-michael-jacobs | Swine flu strikes Downing Street – and almost reaches G8 summit | The first case of swine flu has struck Downing Street and it nearly caused a diplomatic crisis. Gordon Brown's senior climate change adviser Michael Jacobs was banned from attending the G8 summit in Italy for fear he would pass the contagious disease to Barack Obama and other world leaders. It is understood that Jacobs contracted the disease while involved in climate change talks in Mexico. He had travelled to Rome for some preliminary negotiations on the draft of the G8 communique text, and was told by his personal doctor that he was no longer suffering from the disease. He then planned to travel to the conference site in L'Aquila, Italy, but was told by Brown that he could not risk him going. The prime minister told Jacobs it would be diplomatically disastrous if Britain was responsible for infecting the G8's leaders. Instead, Jacobs followed negotiations by phone. A Downing Street source said there was no evidence that anyone else in Brown's entourage has contracted swine flu and that if they had, proper procedures for decontamination will be followed. Jacobs is seen as the one of the best informed climate change specialists in Britain and his absence from the talks was regarded as a significant loss. He made no mention of contracting the disease or the ban imposed on him when he sent out a circular to those interested in climate change setting out the outcome of the negotiations, and the problems that lie ahead in securing a deal at Copenhagen at the end of the year. Jacobs, former general secretary of the Fabian Society, clearly did not regard his absence as fatal to the outcome of the summit since he pointed out in his email to green groups that five big achievements had been secured at the L'Aquila talks, For the first time the G8 and developing nations agreed that the science demanded global average temperatures rise by only 2C on preindustrial levels. "Until a few weeks ago, in fact in the case of the developing countries until a few days ago we did not believe we were going to get this agreement," he said. Secondly, the G8 agreed to cut its own emissions by 80% by 2050. He also said it was now possible to see an agreement to cut global emissions by half at Copenhagen, the aim of the talks. The G8 meetings had seen developing countries for the first time accept the concept that their emissions were peaking, Jacobs said. | ['world/swine-flu', 'world/g8', 'environment/green-politics', 'politics/politics', 'society/flu', 'lifeandstyle/health-and-wellbeing', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'uk/uk', 'society/health', 'society/society', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/patrickwintour', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-07-12T23:10:03Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
technology/2018/feb/06/how-teslas-big-battery-is-bringing-australias-gas-cartel-to-heel | How Tesla's big battery is bringing Australia’s gas cartel to heel | On Sunday 14 January something very unusual happened. The Australian Energy Market Operator called – as it often does – for generators in South Australia to provide a modest amount of network services known as FCAS, or frequency control and ancillary services. This time, though, the market price did not go into orbit and the credit must go to the newly installed Tesla big battery and the neighbouring Hornsdale windfarm. The call for 35MW of FCAS – usually made when there is planned maintenance or a system fault on the interconnector between Victoria and South Australia – has become a running joke in the electricity market, and a costly one for consumers. The big gas generators – even though they have 10 times more capacity than is required – have systematically rorted the situation, sometimes charging up to $7m a day for a service that normally comes at one-tenth of the price. (You can read reports on how they do it here, here and here, and for a more detailed explanation at the bottom of this story.) The difference in January was that there is a new player in the market: Tesla. The company’s big battery, officially known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, bid into the market to ensure that prices stayed reasonable, as predicted last year. Rather than jumping up to prices of around $11,500 and $14,000/MW, the bidding of the Tesla big battery – and, in a major new development, the adjoining Hornsdale windfarm – helped (after an initial spike) to keep them at around $270/MW. This saved several million dollars in FCAS charges, which are paid by other generators and big energy users, in a single day. And that’s not the only impact. According to state government’s advisor, Frontier Economics, the average price of FCAS fell by around 75% in December from the same month the previous year. Market players are delighted, and consumers should be too, because they will ultimately benefit. Ed McManus, the CEO of Meridian Australia and Powershop Australia, which operates the Mt Millar windfarm in South Australia, says the Tesla big battery is already having a “phenomenal” impact. “If you look at FCAS … the costs traditionally in South Australia have been high …. and our costs in the last couple of years have gone from low five-figures annually to low six-figures annually. It’s a hell of a jump,” McManus said in this week’s RenewEconomy’s Energy Insiders podcast. “That plays into the thinking of new players looking to come in to South Australia to challenge the incumbents. FCAS charges are on their minds. “It’s a little early to tell, but it looks like from preliminary data that the Tesla big battery is having an impact on FCAS costs, bringing them down … that is a very, very significant development for generation investment and generation competition in South Australia,” McManus said. There is no doubt that the actions of the Tesla big battery in the FCAS market will please the state government, which signed a contract with Tesla to address just this issue. And it may be able to repeat the dose with the newly announced 250MW “virtual power plant”, also to be built by Tesla. If it can keep a lid on FCAS prices like it did in January, then it will likely pay back the cost of the battery in a single year from this service alone, let alone the value of its trading in the wholesale market, and the value of its emergency backup capabilities. It’s just another string in the bow of the Tesla big battery, following its devastatingly fast response to trips of major coal-fired generators (it was in the market again on Saturday night after Vales Point in New South Wales tripped), its ability to go to capacity from a standing start in milliseconds, and its smoothing of wind output and trading in the wholesale market. These graphs below explain what has been happening in the FCAS market in the past year, and what happened on 14 January. Let’s take 14 September as exhibit A. The Australian energy market operator, Aemo, called for 35MW of FCAS for a well-advertised maintenance schedule, but the four big operators – AGL, Origin and Engie – could only find 30MW of “low-priced” capacity, despite having more than 400MW available. So the prices went into orbit. According to the Australian Energy Regulator report, the bidding patterns cost around $7m that day (see the chart below for comparison with a normal day’s work). Sometimes the shortfall has been just 1MW or 2MW, but it sends the prices up nevertheless. The generators profit from the scarcity they create. This practice has been systematic for more than a year, and there has been at least 10 such events in the past 12 months. In January, however, after an initial spike, the Tesla big battery bid in at around $270/MWh and that’s where the market stayed. It probably saved around $3m or more. What’s particularly interesting about this is that it was not just the battery bidding in, it was also the neighbouring Hornsdale windfarm – also owned and operated by the renewable energy company, Neoen – that bid 10MW of FCAS into the market as it continued its trials sponsored by Australian renewable energy agency (Arena) and Aemo. This is a huge development. There are separate markets for lower regulation, but for ease of purpose we have chosen to focus on the raise regulation market only. But the results are the same for both. | ['technology/tesla', 'australia-news/south-australia', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/energy', 'australia-news/south-australian-politics', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/giles-parkinson', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/renewableenergy | ENERGY | 2018-02-06T02:40:13Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2013/nov/18/tornadoes-midwest-homes-flattened-illinois | At least eight dead and thousands without power as tornadoes flatten midwest | Hundreds of thousands of homes were left without power across large parts of the midwest on Monday, after a fast-moving storm system spawned scores of tornadoes, flattening neighbourhoods and leaving at least eight people dead. In Illinois, six people were killed as up to 65 tornadoes swept through the state. One man in Michigan died after his vehicle was crushed by a falling tree, and another man was found dead, entangled in power wires. About 450,000 people were still without power in Michigan on Monday, with hundreds of schools closed. In Illinois, entire towns were on lockdown, with buildings deemed too unsafe to allow residents to return. Illinois governor Pat Quinn declared a state of disaster emergency in seven counties on Monday, USA Today reported. Quinn said first responders had been "working to exhaustion" to search for survivors and clear roads. "We're in this together," Quinn said. "We're a team. We are the people of Illinois – we never give up, never surrender. We will prevail." The American Red Cross has been working with emergency management officials to set up shelters and provide assistance for those who have lost homes. More than 100 schools were closed in Detroit on Monday, Detroit News reported, with many more closed to the west of the state. Power remained down in Ann Arbor and Flint and metro Detroit. DTE Energy Co said 245,000 customers were without power in the state, while CMS Energy Corp reported 213,900 customers without service, Detroit News said. The tornado that struck Washington, Illinois, had winds of up to 200mph. One person died in the storm, which destroyed 250 to 500 houses. "It looks like someone vacuumed up the neighborhood," said US congressman Aaron Schock, a Republican whose district includes Washington. "The good news is the tornado warning system worked, so there wasn't a lot of loss of life," Schock said. "These people knew what was coming, and they were smart and took cover." The person who was killed was identified by the Tazewell County coroner on Monday as Steve Neubauer. Neubauer, 51, was found near his home on School Street in Washington, the Chicago Tribune reported. Authorities in Washington were preventing people from returning to the town amid concern that remaining structures might be unstable. "I know it's frustrating for people," Manier said amid piles of rubble left by the storm. "I'd be frustrated. I'd want to be looking for pictures." He said 60 people had been injured in the city. One factor that worked to the town's advantage was that many residents had been in churches when the storms hit, Manier said. At OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, five miles west of Washington, spokeswoman Amy Paul said 37 patients had been treated, eight with injuries ranging from broken bones to head injuries. Another hospital, Methodist Medical Center in Peoria, treated more than a dozen people. Officials said none were seriously injured. The tornadoes were spawned by a fast-moving storm system that travelled across the midwest. The National Weather Service said it had created about 65 separate tornadoes. Three people were killed in Massac County, Illinois, on the border with Kentucky, emergency officials said, while an 80-year-old man, Joseph Hoy, and his 78-year-old sister, Frances Hoy, were killed in Washington County, Illinois, about 200 miles south of Washington City. Thousands were without power in Indiana and Ohio after storms, Associated Press reported. Several people were injured by tornadoes in Indiana, which caused widespread damage. Governor Mike Pence said 12 counties reported either tornadoes or storm damage after the initial line of storms had traveled midway across the state. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report | ['world/tornadoes', 'world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adam-gabbatt'] | world/tornadoes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-11-18T18:16:24Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2005/sep/26/hurricanes2005.weather | After the deluge, 2.5m Texans prepare for long journey home | Texas yesterday began the task of resettling more than 2.5 million people who had fled Hurricane Rita, attempting to avoid the traffic chaos that overwhelmed their evacuation. Meanwhile, troops were conducting search and rescue missions in flooded Cajun towns in western Louisiana, which bore the brunt of the storm. In New Orleans, army engineers said it would take two weeks to pump out water in the Ninth Ward after Rita reopened holes in protective levees made by Hurricane Katrina. However, by late yesterday, only one person was known to have died as a direct result of the category three hurricane. The victim was killed in Mississippi by one of the tornadoes set spinning far from the eye of the storm by its 125mph winds. The minimal toll was a marked contrast to the thousand killed less than a month ago by Katrina, many because government rescue efforts came too late in New Orleans. In Texas, the remedy proved worse than the storm. An eleventh-hour change in Rita's course spared Houston and Galveston severe damage, meaning that in all probability Friday's bus inferno in which 23 elderly patients died was the single deadliest episode of the storm. In an effort to avert the gridlock that trapped hundreds of thousands of Texans in their cars for more than 12 hours during the evacuation, the state authorities called for a voluntary phased return. They divided the sprawling 2 million-strong city of Houston into quadrants, with residents coming back to the north-west and outlying areas yesterday, the south-west today and the north-east tomorrow. The population from south-east of Houston, from coastal towns such as Port Arthur, will have to wait until flooding subsides and power lines can be lifted from the roads. There were some reports of motorway congestion yesterday, but no repeat of last week's astonishing exodus. The principal problem was a petrol shortage in an area that is usually the hub of the US oil industry. Long lines of cars formed outside Houston petrol stations yesterday. The shortage also affected salvage work. In Port Arthur, where the levees stood up to the storm surge but torrential rain left extensive flooding, a policeman said the local force was hamstrung by shortages. "We've got no gas. We're just about ready to burglarise some of the transport businesses to get some," said the officer, who did not want his name used. "We're attempting to find fuel wherever we can," a police spokeswoman, Wendy Billiot, said, confirming that petrol could be commandeered. "If it's necessary, we are considering that option." She was speaking at the town's Holiday Inn, part of which had become an improvised command post. A ballroom was being used yesterday as a temporary jail. The humid air outside was heavy with oil from the refineries along the wide ship canal leading from the Gulf. At least one refinery, owned by Valero Energy Corporation, sustained serious damage. For those who stayed in Port Arthur, on the Texas-Louisiana border, it was terrifying even though the town escaped the worst of the hurricane. Ashley Harrison, who was caught in the open in his pick-up truck, said: "It was a white-knuckle moment. Next time, I don't care if it's a category three, two or one, I'm gone." Over the state border in Louisiana, helicopters flying from bases inland and the USS Iwo Jima naval ship offshore were rescuing people in an area of isolated Cajun communities where a local form of French is still spoken. George Bush, learning the political lessons of the lacklustre federal response to Katrina, kept a high profile yesterday. Having sat out the storm at the US northern command headquarters in Colorado, he visited an airforce bay in San Antonio, Texas. He was shown on live television nodding while being briefed, and asking questions on how to improve the federal response to natural disasters. Coastguards warned New Orleans residents against returning to their flooded neighbourhoods. Asked if it was realistic for New Orleans residents to start heading home by Monday or Tuesday, they spoke of a "thoughtful" approach to reflooded areas that may remain uninhabitable because of safety reasons. A spokesman said officials should be worried until the levee structure had been repaired to pre-Katrina heights. Until then any re-entry into the city, any type of development or anything else has to take into account what would happen if it exceeded the capacity of the levees. | ['world/world', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/houston', 'type/article', 'profile/julianborger', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international1'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-09-26T00:14:14Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
us-news/2018/oct/11/hurricane-michael-trail-of-devastation-florida-georgia | 'Like an atomic bomb': Hurricane Michael leaves trail of devastation | The colossal scale of Hurricane Michael’s deadly trail of carnage through Florida’s Panhandle became clear on Thursday as the waning but still powerful storm lashed the Carolinas before heading east towards the Atlantic. Entire waterfront communities were obliterated by one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the United States and authorities confirmed that at least six people had lost their lives. The death toll was expected to rise. Downgraded to a tropical storm, the cyclone that struck Florida’s Panhandle as a category 4 monster on Wednesday, with winds of 155mph, dumped large quantities of rain and caused further flooding in areas of South and North Carolina still recovering from Hurricane Florence last month. But it was Florida, where Governor Rick Scott had predicted “unimaginable devastation”, that clearly fared the worst, with coastal towns inundated by catastrophic wind and a storm surge of up to 14ft from the Gulf of Mexico. Television pictures showed that some residential waterfront communities had been completely destroyed. Street after street of houses and other buildings were ripped apart in Panama City, boats and warehouses in marinas were smashed into pieces, roofs were ripped from multiple structures in several other communities. Fallen trees and downed power lines were everywhere, with more than a million homes and businesses without electricity in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and North and South Carolina, according to poweroutage.us. “It looks like an atomic bomb had hit our city,” resident David Barnes told the Panama City News Herald. “Damage has been widespread.” Authorities confirmed at least six deaths, four of them in Florida’s Gadsden county near the state capital, Tallahassee. One man was killed when a tree fell on his house. An 11-year-old girl in Seminole county, Georgia, died after a mobile carport was picked up by the wind, crashed through the roof of the home where she was staying, and hit her on the head, the local emergency management agency director, Travis Brooks, told WALB. And a sixth death was confirmed in Iredell county, North Carolina, a male driver whose car was crushed by a tree during the storm. In Mexico Beach, Florida, where Michael roared ashore at lunchtime on Wednesday with winds gusting to 175mph, the small town of barely 1,000 was “wiped out”, according to Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). A CNN reporter looked down from a helicopter on whole streets flattened in a town Long called the hurricane’s “ground zero”. First responders were only able to reach the community after daylight on Thursday morning, and more helicopter footage showed national guard troops helping a handful of survivors. A Mexico Beach town councillor, Rex Putnal, said he was anxiously awaiting news of residents who had defied evacuation orders and chosen to stay. “Two hundred plus stayed in Mexico Beach to ride out the storm, and I know the people who stayed have done all they can to help everybody [but] I haven’t had any reports back from search and rescue,” he told CNN. A Mexico Beach resident, Scott Boutell, was close to tears as he spoke to the same reporter in front of his wrecked house: “Our lives are gone here. All the stores, all the restaurants, everything. There’s nothing left here any more,” he said. At a briefing on Thursday, Governor Scott of Florida spoke of the devastation across the Panhandle. “This hurricane was an absolute monster,” he said. “So many lives have been changed forever. Homes are gone, businesses are gone. Roads and infrastructures along the storm’s path have been destroyed.” Michael had crossed into Georgia late on Wednesday still as a category 3 hurricane with winds of 125mph, spawning tornadoes, one of which damaged five houses in Roberta. By 5pm Thursday, it was still a tropical storm with winds at 50mph as it moved swiftly towards the North Carolina-Virginia coastline and a weekend Atlantic crossing to western Europe, with southern Ireland and Cornwall in its long-range sights. In Panama City, two hospitals that were badly damaged were evacuating patients to hospitals in Pensacola. Federal help was also being sent in. Long, the head of Fema, said it would take some time to establish priority areas of need. “There’s a lot of debris to get through to get the teams in and be able to assess damage,” he said. “Access to all the areas is one thing, search and rescue is where we are hyper-focused,” he said. “This is what a category 4, borderline category 5 storm looks like, the worst of the storm surge, the worst of the wind and because it was strong it created a lot of damage far inland. It’s continuing to rush through South and North Carolina today.” Van Johnson Sr, the mayor of Apalachicola, another waterfront community ravaged by the storm, said he was also trying to assess the extent of the damage. “There are so many downed power lines and trees that it’s almost impossible to get through the town,” he said. Michael was the most powerful storm to hit the US in more than 25 years, and the most powerful on record in the Florida Panhandle. It sprang quickly from a weekend tropical depression, going from a category 2 on Tuesday to a category 4 storm by the time it came ashore. There have been isolated reports of looting. Congressman Neal Dunn said some arrests had been made in Bay county and the authorities had imposed a curfew. Donald Trump has approved a major disaster declaration request for Florida, freeing federal resources for recovery efforts. The president said at the White House that Michael was “an unbelievably destructive, powerful storm. We’ve not seen destruction like that in a long time.” The cyclone triggered flash floods and mudslides earlier this week in mountain areas of western Cuba. Six people died in Honduras, four in Nicaragua and three in El Salvador. | ['us-news/hurricane-michael', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/florida', 'us-news/state-of-georgia', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/south-carolina', 'us-news/northcarolina', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/richardluscombe', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | us-news/hurricane-michael | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-10-11T22:13:18Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2007/may/29/davidorgoliath | Miliband a bit green | Do most of the solar panels manufactured in Wrexham really go straight to Germany? Is giving birth to one child the equivalent of burdening the planet with the same amount of CO2 produced by 300 transatlantic flights? Is the government's Low Carbon Building Programme really so paltry that at current rates, it would take 76 years for every house in Britain to have solar panels on the roof? All these questions, and more, were chewed over during a maddeningly shapeless conversation - billed as "Greening Britain" - between eco-author Mark Lynas, campaigner and green entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett, and David Miliband. To be slightly cruel, however, they paled into insignificance next to another question, backhandedly raised by the BBC's Guto Harri in the event's opening moments: in that brief and fevered period when Blairite panic was defining the headlines, was the latter really being touted as the next Prime Minister? Fair play to Miliband: this was a sticky wicket, defending the government's alleged green credentials against scattershot attacks from the floor, and the very different tacks taken by Leggett and Lynas. The former is the CEO of Solar Energy, the UK's largest solar electricity company, and spent much of his time decrying the fact that he and his associates aren't given the subsidies they supposedly deserve, which seemed a little rich. The latter, the author of High Tide, Six Degrees and The Gem Carbon Counter, was more impressive, but not exactly in the mood for a give-and-take debate. "Either the government's in denial, or they're totally incompetent," went his opening gambit. "Which one is it, David?" He spent the ensuing 55 minutes with his arms tightly folded, the picture of seething dissent and all-or-nothing absolutism. Miliband, you would have thought, could have made a go of things - but he was rather lacking what his old overlord Tony Blair always had in spades: that ability to face endless brickbats from those opposed to him and affect a concerned openness to their criticisms, only to eventually come out fighting. He seemed too brittle and impatient, and far too fond of parrying criticism by either awkwardly flipping into another subject or issuing transparently stock responses. Not that, in several areas, he didn't have a reasonable story to tell: his enthusiasm for carbon credit cards sat well with the audience, as did his spiel about the imperative to decentralise more of our energy production, and what he had to say about the "common but differentiated" response to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions in China and India. His repetition of the need to focus on "electricity, heat and transport" gave him a rhetorical blade with which he could slice through a debate that often threatened to go simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. But he was hobbled by an old New Labour conversational tic. By way of grappling with a good deal of Lynas and Leggett's points, he limply acknowledged that people were right to challenge the government to "go further" and "do more" - shades here of the government mantra "so much done, so much more to do". But, in so many areas, that isn't actually the point. As Lynas said, projects like the widening of the M1 and the expansion of Heathrow Airport are flatly wrong - so wrong that they shred the idea that opponents of the government are merely decrying the pace of their policies, rather than their essential direction. These questions will only get louder: shutting them down with a textbook New Labour response really won't do. Miliband also needs a much better line on the revival of nuclear power, presented here - slightly apologetically - as a status quo-preserving option that he would rather quickly bat away before getting back to the cuddly subject of renewables. That's surely the wrong approach: by way of engaging with the kind of public disquiet that will be whipped up by anti-nuclearites as the government's policy takes shape, they need fleshed-out arguments that go straight to the most thorny issues - the real cost, waste disposal, supposed safety risks - as well as a willingness to state the nuclear case enthusiastically. Perhaps he ought to read some James Lovelock. His last mistake, in these surroundings, was something of a killer. As detailed in a G2 cover story I wrote last month, a vast gas pipeline is being built from West Wales to Gloucestershire - it runs straight past the Hay site and has prompted much discussion during the festival's four days (at a cost of £840m, it will supply a fifth of the UK's natural gas requirements). At Harri's suggestion, it came up via a question from the floor, but the environment secretary appeared to know next to nothing about it. The future PM of recent legend, you might have thought, would have done his homework. All our blogs from Hay will be collected here. Guardian Books will feature the latest news from Hay, literary blogs and a daily podcast. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'politics/davidmiliband', 'environment/environment', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'commentisfree/cif-green', 'type/article', 'profile/johnharris'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2007-05-29T08:00:00Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2021/feb/26/blossom-circles-to-bloom-across-england-wales-and-northern-ireland | 'Blossom circles' to bloom across England, Wales and Northern Ireland | The joyful sight of trees bursting into blossom during the first Covid lockdown last spring gave comfort and hope to countless people confined indoors or only allowed to roam very briefly outside. Almost 12 months on a conservation charity is leading a major project to create “blossom circles” in cities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland to provide spaces for reflection and optimism to aid the emotional recovery from the pandemic. The National Trust said the project – and other planned events this spring and in future years – was part of its ambition to inspire a British equivalent of hanami – the Japanese custom of relishing the fleeting sight and scent of blossom. Planting is well under way at the first of the sites at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. The design for the “London Blossom Garden” features 33 UK-grown trees, including cherry, plum, hawthorn and crab-apple to represent the 33 London boroughs. Blossom circles are planned for Plymouth, Newcastle upon Tyne and Nottingham. Other locations will be announced in due course. The spaces will be used in various ways, including for events and social gatherings, workshops, festivals and exhibitions as lockdown restrictions are eased and for years to come. The project, supported by the People’s Postcode Lottery, will help meet the trust’s ambition to plant 20m trees by 2030 to help tackle climate change and create new homes for nature. Hilary McGrady, the charity’s director general, said: “Our vision is for nature, beauty and history for everyone. Our simple ambition with this project is to bring all of these elements together in the creation of green, nature-rich havens in the very heart of urban areas. Everyone needs beautiful, open spaces, wherever they live.” In March last year the Trust urged people in lockdown to take a moment to pause, actively notice and enjoy the transient beauty of blossom, and share their images on social media using the hashtag #BlossomWatch. Thousands of people took up the challenge, some sharing pictures of blossoms that brightened their back gardens while others spotted the delicate, colourful blooms as they took their permitted daily exercise. McGrady said the ambition now was to embed blossom moments or events in the nation’s cultural calendar. Starting this year and building annually, National Trust, partners and communities nationally will be celebrating blossom through #BlossomWatch and sharing ideas for how people can get involved and connect with blossom wherever they are. The project has been supported by a range of partners and political leaders. Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, said: “I know from my time in Japan during the sakura season how beautiful cherry blossom can be. This is a fantastic example of how heritage organisations help make our neighbourhoods more beautiful and improve our physical and mental wellbeing.” The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said the capital’s garden would be a lasting, living memorial to commemorate all those who have lost their lives in the pandemic. “It will also be a tribute to the amazing ongoing work of our key workers and create a space for Londoners to contemplate and reflect on all this global pandemic has meant to our city and world,” he said. National Trust blossom programme manager, Annie Reilly, added: “We will be working hard to ensure each space is designed to deliver something special in line with the individual needs of the local community. They might be large or small, intimate spaces; they will only become more beautiful over time as the trees root themselves in their surroundings, and we hope, into people’s daily lives.” | ['environment/forests', 'environment/environment', 'uk/national-trust', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stevenmorris', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-02-26T07:01:08Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2021/jul/18/angela-merkel-to-visit-flood-ravaged-areas-in-germany | Angela Merkel says Germany must do more to fight climate crisis | Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Germany must up its pace in tackling the impact of the climate crisis, after more flash floods devastated towns in eastern Germany, Bavaria and Austria over the weekend. While one flood in itself was not an indicator of the climate crisis, Merkel said during a visit to one of the two regions in western Germany hardest hit by last week’s record rainfall, the number of such extreme weather events had increased in recent years. “We have to up the pace in the fight against climate change,” the German leader said. The Alpine district of Berchtesgadener Land became the latest region to be affected by floods on Saturday evening, after heavy rainfall led to flooded streets and landslides, leaving at least one person dead. Across the border in Austria, a brook swollen with rainwater flooded the historic centre of the town of Hallein, south of Salzburg, trapping residents in their buildings, upending cars and inundating ground-floor shops. The town’s mayor, Alexander Stangassinger, told the broadcaster ORF the floods had caused damage worth millions of euros. Several towns in the hilly eastern German region of Saxon Switzerland, south-east of Dresden, were also cut off and train services to the Czech Republic disrupted. Rainfall in the catchment basin of the Kirnitzsch, Polenz, Sebnitz and Wesenitz tributaries exceeded 100 litres per sq metre over the course of 24 hours, authorities reported, leading the waters to break the rivers’ banks. Intense rainfall last week claimed the lives of at least 184 people in western Europe. On Wednesday and Thursday, a near-stationary low-pressure weather system over parts of western Germany brought intense rainfall and floods, with 110 people killed in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, a further 45 in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and at least 27 in neighbouring Belgium. At least 670 people were injured. Germany’s main provider of public railway services, Deutsche Bahn, said the storms and floods had caused damage to over 80 of its stations and more than 600km of tracks. During her visit to the affected areas in western Germany, Merkel on Sunday described a “surreal, ghostly situation” in the village of Schuld in Rhineland-Palatinate state, where floods had ripped through buildings, washed away cars and trapped people in their homes. “The German language barely has words for the devastation that has been wrought here,” Merkel said during her joint visit with Malu Dreyer, the state premier. She pledged quick financial aid to the region and vowed to return to Schuld in August. Her finance minister, Social Democrat chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, on Sunday promised at least €300m (£257m) to the victims of the natural disaster. “Germany is a strong country,” Merkel said. “We will stand up to this force of nature, in the short term, but also in the medium and long term.” The floods have hit Germany two months before federal elections that will determine a successor to Merkel, who is stepping down after 16 years in office. The conservative frontrunner to step into her shoes, Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), on Thursday interrupted a party meeting to attend flood-hit areas in NRW, the populous western state he represents as premier. While visiting the devastated town of Erftstadt, where an eroded gravel quarry had swallowed cars, bits of road and entire buildings, Laschet was on Saturday caught sharing jokes with bystanders while the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, solemnly addressed the cameras. Lars Klingbeil, the general secretary of the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD), called Laschet’s behaviour “lacking in decency and appalling”. The broadcaster WDR commented that every election campaign offered a few moments “in which the candidates show their true colours”, adding: “Today is such a moment.” Laschet tweeted an apology on Saturday afternoon. “The fate of those affected, which we heard about in many conversations, is important to us,” he wrote. “So I regret all the more the impression that arose from a conversational situation. That was inappropriate and I am sorry.” The Green party’s candidate for chancellor, Annalena Baerbock, who has struggled to centre the national conversation around ecological issues after a strong start to her campaign, cut short her holiday to visit affected areas but declined to be accompanied by the press. Mass tabloid Bild, which makes no secret of its distaste for the idea of a Green victory in September, warned against “politicising” the floods. “What no one needs right now is a stupid, ideological blame game and campaign soundbites that instrumentalise the brute force of nature for political ends,” wrote Bild’s editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt in a comment piece. “You overcome catastrophes through unity, not division.” By contrast, the regional public broadcaster in the affected parts of Germany, WDR, said it was inevitable that the floods will take centre stage as the country’s election campaign enters its hot phase. “Weather is highly political, there is barely such a thing as apolitical weather.” A high pressure system over Britain and Ireland is promising to alleviate concerns about further rainfall by bringing dry and sunny summer weather to Germany in the coming week, the German Meteorological Service announced on Sunday. The weekend could see a return of stormy weather in Germany’s south-west, however. | ['world/germany', 'world/angela-merkel', 'environment/flooding', 'world/belgium', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'world/netherlands', 'world/switzerland', 'world/luxembourg', 'world/austria', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/philip-oltermann', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-07-18T16:35:01Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2020/sep/23/weatherwatch-italy-climate-varied-as-chequered-history | Weatherwatch: Italy’s climate is as varied as its chequered history | It has been said that Italy is not a country, but an emotion – and it is certainly true that, until Garibaldi and others united this disparate set of peoples in 1861, it was a disparate collection of city states, monarchies and republics. Italy’s climate reflects this chequered history: with three major climatic zones and many smaller microclimates. The northernmost part of the country, on the southern fringes of the Alps, is generally temperate, with warm summers and cool – sometimes extremely cold – winters. Winters can also be cold in the region just to the south, the Po Valley, which stretches from Turin in the west to Venice in the east; indeed, in midwinter this area can be colder than London, though in summer it is much hotter and more humid. Italy’s remaining climatic zone covers the whole centre and south, from the Renaissance cities of Pisa and Florence, down through Rome and Naples, to the far south. This region enjoys a typical Mediterranean climate, with very warm, dry summers and mild, slightly wetter winters, with temperatures reaching the high 40s on occasion on the island of Sicily. Italy is bisected by the mountain range of the Apennines, which rise to over 1,800m (5,900ft), and in winter can be much colder than the nearby coasts, with frequent falls of snow. | ['world/italy', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/stephenmoss1', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-09-23T20:30:48Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
travel/2013/aug/11/musical-road-trip-from-nashville-to-denver | A musical road trip from Nashville to Denver | I pulled up at the barrier and handed my documents to the man in the car-hire booth. He looked at my seven-seater, five-metre-long Dodge Caravan, empty but for me, my bright yellow suitcase and a violin. "Have you lost your friends?" he asked, peering into the cavernous interior. "Oh no," I replied. "I just haven't met them yet." It was only when I was describing the incident to someone later, and remembering the car-hire guy's pitying look, that I realised how this must have sounded: like a lonely hippy hoping to pick up hitch-hikers. In reality, I was about to transport three musicians, a music writer and a banjo-maker between Nashville, Tennessee, and Denver, Colorado, 1,700 miles away. We had three days to make the trip (we were shuttling between festivals), at an average of 10 hours' driving per day. With that much in-car time – not to mention two banjos, a fiddle and a ukelele – I figured we would need our space. The shortest route between Tennessee and Colorado is the I-70 through Missouri and Kansas. But the I-40 would take us via Jackson and Amarillo, and our first stop would be Memphis. Think of the playlist opportunities! And while we hadn't time to visit Graceland, we had heard a whisper of a joint that served the best barbecue in the city. With a tight schedule, we called ahead to reserve a table – which was embarrassing when the Interstate BBQ turned out to be, as the name suggested, a truck stop by the freeway. But it lived up to the hype: our plates were soon full of sticky ribs the length of our forearms, not to mention the house speciality, BBQ spaghetti – sweet and rich, concealing huge hunks of meat in its wriggly depths. We returned to the car with four hours still to travel and a pact that we would keep the windows open. The glory of an American road trip is its evolving landscape. Tennessee offered its lush green hills and, at night, the dark immensity of the Mississippi, so black that no one could say for sure when we had finally crossed it. Arkansas lightened the mood with its pentecostal churches – tiered like wedding cakes and lit up like Vegas casinos – and its signs directing us toward the Clinton Presidential Library one moment, and an Adult Superstore the next. Oklahoma's cornfields, splayed out either side of the freeway, seemed benign in the next day's sunlight – until we saw the mangled billboards and trees sheared by June's tornado and, later, passed a ruin of a trailer park, the upturned metal cabins flung like toys after a toddler's tantrum. With so many musicians in the car, two things were inevitable. One, that we would sing our way through Oklahoma! (after all, there was a bright golden haze on the meadow). The other, that we would stop in Oklahoma City to visit the American Banjo Museum. The instrument still gives many the screaming heebie jeebies, but its history is fascinatingly intertwined with that of the United States, and many of the exhibits, decorated, inlaid and veneered, are pure artworks in themselves. The I-40 crosses north Texas at the panhandle, its narrowest point, although its extraordinary ranchland rolls out, people-free, to horizons that seem further away than you've ever travelled. By the roadside, the Big Texan, a shamelessly imitation wild-west steak house, advertises its "free 72oz steak" for many miles and only reveals the catch on arrival: you have to eat the entire thing, and multiple accompanying dishes, within an hour. We paled at the challenge, although not at the generous helpings of beer, served in plastic cowboy boots that they let us take as souvenirs. Unfortunately, only one of our group had remained sober to drive us to our hotel, several hours away, and it was the one whose other car is a Mustang. Around midnight, I woke to hear this driver declaring that she would try a shortcut down an old, unpopulated country road. She also announced that our fuel was running dangerously low, and that she hadn't seen a gas station in a long while. As we lurched off the freeway, cutting up exactly the kind of lorry that hunted down Dennis Weaver in Duel, I reached for my notebook and wrote, in a shaky hand: "We are going to die." Travelling through New Mexico by night would have been eerie even if we hadn't been writing ourselves into a horror movie – a full moon picked out its rocky outcrops in spooky silhouettes and by the time we reached our hotel, a light hysteria had taken hold. Luckily, we had booked into a rather smart lodge rather than pitching up at a dodgy motel. If I had two pieces of advice for driving the States, they would be these – everywhere will take you three hours longer to drive than Google Maps suggests, and a junior suite that sleeps five can be surprisingly economical. You'll be thankful for it at 3am. What else did I learn on the road trip? Well, the drive between New Mexico and Colorado is one of the most otherworldly experiences you can have without booking a flight to Mars. "Is this the way to Amarillo?" will bomb in a carful of Americans (it wasn't a hit over there). But you can, just, perform a banjo/ukulele/fiddle trio in a moving car. If you're careful where you aim your bow. Essentials Emma's flights and car hire were provided by netflights.com, which offers return flights to Nashville from London with Delta Air Lines from £517 per person including taxes. Netflights.com also offers fully inclusive car hire in over 550 locations across the USA from £18 per day. A junior suite at the Lodge at Santa Fe starts from $123 (lodgeatsantafe.com) Interstate BBQ is at 2265 S Third Street, Memphis (interstatebarbecue.com) The American Banjo Museum is at 9 E Sheridan Ave, Oklahoma City (americanbanjomuseum.com) | ['travel/usa', 'travel/travel', 'tone/features', 'travel/memphis', 'travel/nashville', 'travel/denver', 'travel/colorado', 'travel/new-mexico', 'travel/road-trips', 'type/article', 'profile/emmajohn', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/magazine', 'theobserver/magazine/life-and-style'] | travel/nashville | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2013-08-11T05:30:01Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2012/may/10/mixed-plastics-recycling-new-plant | Breakthrough in mixed plastics recycling as new plant opens | A major breakthrough in the challenge of recycling mixed plastics - a long-standing issue for consumers - has been made with the opening of a new national recycling plant. The £15m facility in north Lincolnshire - a joint venture recycling operation between Coca-Cola Enterprises and ECO Plastics - was opened on Thursday by environment minister Lord Taylor, and will be one of the first to use advanced technology to integrate the processing of both plastic bottles and polymers. It will enable an additional 15,000 tonnes of rigid plastic packaging such as tubs, pots and trays to be recycled every year. The government's waste advisory body Wrap has provided a £1.15m loan towards the development of the facility - an extension of the existing bottle sorting and processing facility - and an important step towards building much-needed reprocessing infrastructure for rigid plastics. Recycling of plastic bottles began in earnest 10 years ago and about 50% of all bottles are now recycled. But other plastics, such as dark plastic ready meal trays, yoghurt pots and protective film, have proved a challenge to recycle, not helped by varying local recycling facilities and compounded by confusing consumer advice to householders. There are also strict rules on re-use, which means that packaging outside food cannot be recycled to provide packaging for food products. Marcus Gover, director of closed loop recycling at Wrap, said: "It is important that rigid plastic packaging is effectively recycled as if not carried out properly rigid plastics can contaminate the highly valuable plastic bottle waste stream – which would not be good for the economy or the environment. As the UK's capacity to process non-bottle plastics packaging grows, it will ultimately become viable for local authorities to routinely collect non-bottle plastics packaging from households at kerbside." Wrap has also drawn up new guidance for local authorities on the recycling of plastics that will be sent out next month. Last month's budget set a new target for plastic recycling of 42% (up from 24%) by 2017, and earlier this month minister Lord Taylor of Holbeach criticised the continued disposal of plastic bottles and other plastic products to landfill as "shameful". He said 240,000 tonnes of plastic bottles were last year sent to landfill by households with access to kerbside plastic recycling collection – equivalent to nearly half of all bottles used. The plastic bottles sent to landfill would have been worth around £91m if they had been recycled. Coca-Cola has already pledged to recycle all clear plastic bottles disposed of at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, of which it is one of the major sponsors. The recycled materials will be used to make 80m new Coke bottles. Gover admitted that recycling plastic film - the "final frontier" in plastics recycling, is one of the hardest challenges of all, as it can get caught in machinery. But in September 2011 Wrap research proved it was technically possible, commercially viable and environmentally best to recycle it. It is working with retailers such as the Co-op and Sainsbury's to collect bread bags, clingfilm and more at the front of stores and recycle back to materials used in store. Lord Taylor said of the new move: "I'm delighted to see this investment in ECO Plastics. It will increase the amount of plastic that gets recycled by 15,000 tonnes, helping to protect the environment and save businesses money by cutting back on their use of raw materials. The recycling industry is growing and we're working to help companies gain a foothold in this exciting new marketplace which will help us become a zero-waste economy." | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'environment/pollution', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'business/supermarkets', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'business/business', 'money/money', 'type/article', 'profile/rebeccasmithers'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2012-05-10T14:42:15Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2012/feb/27/overfishing-european-trawlers-eu-exemption | Overfishing by European trawlers could continue if EU exemption agreed | Heavily subsidised European trawlers could be allowed to continue to overfish the waters of developing countries despite mounting evidence that stocks are being devastated and that African coastal populations are being deprived of food. Documents seen by the Guardian show that Spain, which dominates EU fishing with nearly 25% of its boats, is pressing hard in EU ministerial meetings to exempt European vessels from proposed tighter rules when they work outside EU waters. The two documents, dated 30 January 2012 and 3 February 2012, were leaked from the council of the EU and contain the commission's draft proposals for reform of the external fisheries policy. They show that Britain has argued strongly for much stronger rules to govern EU fleets wherever they fish. Concern is mounting that the EU heavily subsidises – to the tune of €1.9bn a year – some of the world's biggest and most powerful freezer-trawler vessels to work in the waters of over 20 of the world's poorest countries using bilateral agreements, known as Fisheries partnership agreements (Fpas). But a new report by Greenpeace International shows that these agreements allow European fleets to unfairly compete with artisanal fishermen and that most commercial fish stocks in West African waters are now fully or over-exploited. According to the study, the EU paid €142.7m to secure the fishing rights for just one fleet of 34 giant factory trawlers to work in Mauritanian and Moroccan waters between 2006 and 2012. Of this, EU taxpayers paid €128m, and the companies only €14m. The report shows that these 34 vessels catch 235,000 tonnes a year of fish from the Moroccan and Mauritanian waters, leaving little for the local fishers. Mauritania is one of seven Sahelian countries to have declared a food emergency in the last month and appealed for emergency aid. The Pelagic freezer-trawler association (PFA), a group of companies working under Dutch, German, French, UK and Lithuanian flags, also received €21m in subsidies to increase and modernise its fishing operations between 1994 and 2007. "Millions of Africans depend on fish caught by local fishermen, but as a consequence of overfishing by the European fleet, stocks are further decreasing. Local fishermen are now forced to fish further out at sea because the accessibility to stocks for the coast is diminishing. "The EU fleet's destructive fishing practices cost European citizens billions of euros each year in lost potential income and tax exemptions. In addition, despite widespread recognition that harmful fisheries subsidies should be brought under control, EU taxpayers have been paying around €1.9bn in EU and national aid each year. This is fuelling overcapacity and overfishing," said the report. Using enormous trawl nets up to 600 metres long with openings 200 metres wide, one European trawler, says the report, can capture and process 200-250 tonnes of fish per day. This is more than 56 traditional African boats can catch in a year. More than 90% of the fish caught by EU freezer-trawlers off Morrocco and Mauretania is exported to countries outside the EU, such as China, Egypt, Nigeria and Thailand. "This means EU taxpayers pay more than 90% of the access costs to allow these companies to continue overfishing in African waters to supply cheap fish to the rest of the world," the report says. The amount of fish discarded at sea, dead or dying, during one large trawler's fishing trip at full capacity is estimated to be same as the average annual fish consumption of 34,000 people in Mauritania. "In the past 15 years, "bycatch" from around 20 EU pelagic trawlers in Mauritania has killed an estimated 1,500 critically endangered turtles, more than 18,000 big rays and more than 60,000 sharks," says the report. Spain, which receives nearly €1bn a year of EU fishing subsidies, has 172 vessels working Moroccan waters, and 49 working off the Cape Verde islands. "Local fishermen have seen see their catches shrinking and their costs and workload rising. They are forced to travel further to catch fish and often have to compete for space with the industrial trawlers in dangerous waters unsuitable for their small boats," says the report. Fish is a primary protein source for people along West Africa's coastline. A collapse of West Africa's marine resources would have catastrophic effects for the region. Greenpeace has called on EU governments and the European parliament to agree new fishing rules that reduce overcapacity by decommissioning unsustainable fishing vessels. They also urged the EU to end subsidies to destructive fishing practices, and instead only invest public money in measures of public value, such as restoring and maintaining stocks. "European taxpayers are bankrolling these floating factories to plunder the fishing grounds of some of the world's poorest countries. It is grotesque that at a time of economic crisis we should be using public money to support this immoral practice," said Ariana Densham, a Greenpeace fisheries campaigner. "Last year Richard Benyon met with West African fishermen and heard first-hand about the impact on their lives, and as a result committed to achieving radical reform of the rules governing fishing in distant waters. He must remain true to this promise and not back down during the tough European negotiations coming up in March," she said. | ['environment/fishing', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'environment/environment', 'world/eu', 'world/europe-news', 'world/africa', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-02-27T08:30:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
world/2013/jan/04/house-approves-hurricane-sandy-bill | US Congress approves $9.7bn in hurricane Sandy aid package | The US House of Representatives voted in favour of a $9bn package to fund insurance claims arising from hurricane Sandy on Friday, but only after a quarter of Republican congress members – including the former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan – voted against the legislation. The bill, which provides extra finance for victims in New Jersey and New York, passed by 354 votes to 67 against. All the no votes came from Republicans. The Senate later passed the bill. Friday's vote indicates that that there could be a fight looming when a larger package for $51bn of reconstruction aid comes before the House on 15 January. There is now a real prospect of an ugly debate over the details of that package. The passage of bill HR 41 came at the end of a tumultuous week for the GOP in the House. The was scheduled only after the outspoken governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and other Republicans from Sandy-affected states lined up to criticise their party's leadership after a plan to vote on a larger relief bill was dropped amid the turmoil over the fiscal cliff deal earlier this week. Christie said that Congress had shown "callous indifference" in delaying its consideration of Sandy relief. In the vote on Friday, Ryan was the highest-profile Republican to reject the measure. The Wisconsin congressman – who earlier this week voted in favour of the fiscal cliff deal – joined a list of mostly hardline conservative Republicans in expressing dissatisfaction with Sandy package. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had earlier warned that the its national programme for flood insurance would run out of money next week if Congress did not provide the additional borrowing authority provided in the bill. Fema has said that it has received about 140,000 insurance claims related to Sandy, which damaged or destroyed more than 72,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey, and more than 570,000 in New York. Many claimants have received only received partial payments. The row over the bill came after the House speaker, John Boehner, reversed a decision to allow a vote on the full $60bn package on Tuesday. Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, had threatened to leave the party before being soothed by Boehner and offered Friday's vote. Some Republicans had defended Boehner, arguing that the $60bn bill was full of "pork" – sweetener payments – that had little to do with Sandy, including $150m for fisheries in Alaska and $2m for a new roof for the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Frustration was evident on the floor of the House on Friday. "It took only 10 days after Katrina for President Bush to sign $60bn in Katrina aid," said New Jersey Democratic representative Bill Pascrell. "How dare you come to this floor and make people think everything is OK." The result of Friday's vote is unlikely to allay fears that the 113th Congress would be just as partisan as the 112th, with 29% of House Republicans voting against the deal. Some 67 GOP votes were against the bill, with 158 in favour. All 178 Democrat votes were in support of the package. | ['us-news/hurricane-sandy', 'us-news/house-of-representatives', 'us-news/republicans', 'us-news/us-congress', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/us-politics', 'us-news/john-boehner', 'world/world', 'us-news/new-york', 'us-news/new-jersey', 'us-news/chris-christie', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-gabbatt'] | us-news/hurricane-sandy | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-01-04T18:00:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sport/2007/jun/16/rugbyleague.sport1 | Rugby league: Smith wants an English Carvell | Great Britain's new coach, Tony Smith, hopes to persuade the Hull prop Garreth Carvell to make himself available for England in next year's World Cup after including him in his first Lions squad for next Friday's one-off Test against France at Headingley. Carvell, who is from Leeds, chose to play for Wales at the last World Cup seven years ago when he was 20 and has won three caps for them. But the regulations would allow him to represent a different country next autumn, following the example of many players who have switched from Samoa or Tonga to New Zealand, and by selecting him for the France game Smith has cranked up the pressure. "It's a strange one, because so many people have the option of playing for more than one country, and it may well be that Garreth has to make a decision," he said. England were weakened in the 2000 World Cup when Iestyn Harris and Keiron Cunningham were already committed to Wales, and other players who would almost certainly have been selected by the coach John Kear, such as Chris Joynt, James Lowes and Barrie McDermott, opted instead to represent Ireland. However, Smith's plans should not be disrupted anything like as much, with Harris and Cunningham in the twilight of their careers and all the best British players set to stick with England because of their more realistic hopes of making progress in the competition. Carvell will have to make his decision before this autumn, when Wales play a Test against Papua New Guinea and the second leg of their World Cup qualifier against Scotland in Glasgow, having lost the first leg 21-14 last October. Smith also revealed that Richie Mathers, his former Leeds full-back who is now playing for the Gold Coast Titans, is part of his plans, and was only omitted from the France game because of the disruption it might have caused to his progress in Australia. Wakefield Trinity have awarded their Cook Islands prop Adam Watene a new two-year contract and also agreed a one-year extension with Jason Golden, the 21-year-old forward who joined them from York last winter. Huddersfield's coach, Jon Sharp, has released Tom Hemingway, a promising 20-year-old scrum-half, to join his former club Batley on a month's loan, a major boost to the Bulldogs' hopes of avoiding relegation from National League One. Hemingway will make his debut tomorrow at Rochdale, whose players agreed to take a pay cut this week to ease the Hornets' financial problems. | ['sport/rugbyleague', 'sport/sport', 'sport/england-rugby-league-team', 'sport/wales-rugby-league-team', 'type/article', 'profile/andywilson', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/sport'] | sport/wales-rugby-league-team | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2007-06-15T23:44:17Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
technology/2018/oct/16/huawei-mate-20-pro-launches-in-screen-fingerprint-sensor | Huawei Mate 20 Pro launches with in-screen fingerprint sensor | Huawei’s new Mate 20 Pro has a massive screen, three cameras on the back and a fingerprint scanner embedded in the display. The new top-end phone from the Chinese firm aims to secure its place at the top of the market alongside Samsung, having recently beaten Apple to become the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in August. The Mate 20 Pro follows Huawei’s tried and trusted format for its Mate series: a huge 6.39in QHD+ OLED screen, big 4,200mAh battery and powerful new Huawei Kirin 980 processor – Huawei’s first to be produced at 7 nanometres, matching Apple’s latest A12 chip in the 2018 iPhones. New for this year is an infrared 3D facial recognition system, similar to that used by Apple for its Face ID in the iPhone XS, and one of the first fingerprint scanners embedded in the screen that is widely available in the UK, removing the need for a fingerprint scanner on the back or a chin on the front. The Mate 20 Pro is water resistant to IP68 standards and has a sleek new design reminiscent of Samsung’s S-series phones, with curved glass on the front and back. The back also has an new pattern etched into the glass, which is smooth to the touch but ridged when running your nail over it. “The hyper-optical pattern reduces smudging, is a little grippier than normal smooth glass so it’s less slippery in the hand, and it looks great,” said Peter Gauden, global senior product marketing manager for Huawei. On the back is a new version of Huawei’s award-winning triple camera system using a 40-megapixel standard camera, an 8-megapixel telephoto camera with a 3x optical zoom and new for this year is a 20-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera, replacing the monochrome sensor used on the P20 Pro. “The monochrome lens from last year was barely used, so we switched it out for the wide-angle camera,” Gauden said. “Now you can take really epic wide-angle shots, with the camera automatically zooming in or out on the fly, recognising when you’re trying to take a photo of a cat or dog, or something that would aesthetically benefit from a wider shot, or you can manually press the zoom button to switch.” The Mate 20 Pro will also be the first Huawei phone with the company’s latest EMUI 9, based on Android 9 Pie, which it said has been optimised to significantly speed up regular tasks. Huawei said that compared to the Mate 10 running EMUI 8, the new Mate 20 Pro will be able to launch apps 51% faster, responds to taps 47% faster and is smoother in operation throughout. The company also said that in its testing the Mate 20 Pro launched apps as much as 400 milliseconds faster than its chief rival Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9, starting Chrome 43% faster, Google Maps 27% faster and Facebook 25% faster. Alongside the Mate 20 Pro, Huawei also launched a cheaper Mate 20 without the face recognition or embedded fingerprint scanner, and a new fitness-focused smartwatch using its own-brand LiteOS called the Huawei Watch GT. “These new devices will be of great concern to rival smartphone makers,” said Ben Wood, chief of research for CCS Insight. “The Huawei P20 devices (P20 Pro, P20 and P20 Lite) have already grabbed substantial share in key markets such as Europe and Asia/Pacific and have only been prevented from securing share in the US because of the ban on Huawei products that occurred in January 2018.” Wood said that Huawei had shipped 95m smartphones in the first six months of 2018 accounting for a 30% year-on-year growth. “We believe camera capabilities will emerge as the star feature on these new devices, in particular the Mate 20 Pro. If it can replicate the performance of the P20 Pro it will further underline Huawei’s growing status as smartphone camera maker,” Wood said. | ['technology/huawei', 'technology/smartphones', 'technology/android', 'technology/gadgets', 'technology/technology', 'technology/mobilephones', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/samuel-gibbs', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-technology', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/consumer-tech--commissioning-'] | technology/gadgets | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2018-10-16T13:30:14Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
environment/2021/oct/21/plastics-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-crisis | US plastics to outstrip coal’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, study finds | The plastics industry in the United States is on track to release more greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) than coal-powered electricity generating plants by the end of the decade, according to a new report released on Thursday. The report, by Bennington College’s Beyond Plastics project, found that the American plastics industry is releasing at least 232m tons of GHG annually, the equivalent to 116 average-sized coal-fired power plants. “Plastics is the new coal and it is a major environmental justice concern … The health impacts of the emissions are disproportionately borne by low-income communities and communities of color,” said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and former regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator under President Obama. Ninety per cent of the plastics industry’s reported climate change pollution takes place in just 18 communities, where residents earn 28% less than the average American household and are 67% more likely to be minority communities. The report identified 10 different stages in which plastics manufacturing emits the most significant GHG. Hydro-fracking is expected to release 45m tons of methane annually in the US by 2025. Transporting and processing fracked gases emit roughly 4.8m tons of methane a year. Petrochemical ethane gas cracker facilities release at least 70m tons of GHG annually. Other plastic raw materials manufacturing is responsible for 28m tons of GHG emissions per year. Exports and imports of plastics raw materials and products emit at least 51m tons of GHG annually, equivalent to more than 25 coal-fired power plants. In addition, the report found that the petrochemical industry’s plastics infrastructure is expanding rapidly. Since 2019, at least 42 US plastics facilities have opened, are under construction or are in the permitting process. If the facilities become fully operational, they could release an additional 55m tons of GHG – or the equivalent of another 27 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants – by 2025. “I want to explain to you ethane crackers. At the hydro-fracking sites, you have ethane released to the atmosphere. The best way to prevent this flaring of ethane into the atmosphere would be to close and properly cap hydro-fracking. Instead, the petrochemical industry has found a way to use the ethane as a building block for plastics,” Enck said at a press conference on Thursday. “They [companies in the industry] capture the ethane, build new pipelines, send the gas to ethane cracker facilities, which is heated at very high temperatures and cracked, thus the name, and that becomes the major building block for single-use plastic. It uses an enormous amount of energy … all to give us more single-use plastic packaging,” she said. With the World Economic Forum projecting global plastics production to triple by 2050, Enck said the new focus of the fossil fuel industry is plastics, saying: “Fossil fuel companies are making less money on generating power and less money for transportation … so [they] see plastics as the plan B. “There’s no plan B for the rest of us. We are in a climate crisis,” she said. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/maya-yang', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/plastic | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-10-21T21:47:17Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
uk/2009/apr/23/budget-2009-greenhouse-gas-cuts-environment | Budget 2009: Greenhouse gas emissions cuts promised | The government promised to cut greenhouse gases by 34% in just over a decade in a bold effort to transform the way the UK economy works. Chancellor Alistair Darling intends to reach the ambitious target by using so-called "carbon budgets", which fix binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions over five-year periods. The 34% target is in line with the advice of the government's watchdog, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). "This represents a step change in the UK ambition on climate change," said the budget report. The reduction would not include the purchase of carbon credits created from cuts made in other countries, but the report said these "offsets" could be a "fallback option", adding that the target cut would be higher if there were "satisfactory" global agreement on cutting emissions. But it stopped short of committing to the higher 42% cut recommended by the CCC in those circumstances. The announcement makes Britain the first country to set legally binding targets. While welcoming the move, environmental campaigners warned not enough was being done. Friends of the Earth, the charity that led a mass public campaign for the Climate Change Act, which created the targets, said the 34% cut was no longer enough. "Setting the first ever carbon budgets is a ground-breaking step - but the government has ignored the latest advice from leading climate scientists and set targets that are completely inadequate," said Andy Atkins, the organisation's executive director. "A 42% cut by 2020 is the minimum required." There was also widespread criticism that the budget did not include enough money for renewable power generation, or energy efficiency for homes and other buildings. The budget also promised up to four "demonstration" projects for carbon capture and storage for coal and gas power plants, and £60m of new spending on research and development of the unproven technology, but critics said these partial capture schemes would not be enough if the government went ahead with plans for up to eight new coal-fired stations. | ['uk/budget', 'environment/environment', 'environment/carbon-capture-and-storage', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/carbonfootprints', 'environment/carbon-offset-projects', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'uk/budget-2009', 'type/article', 'profile/juliettejowit', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/budget-2009', 'theguardian/budget-2009/budget-2009'] | environment/carbon-offset-projects | EMISSIONS | 2009-04-22T23:01:00Z | true | EMISSIONS |
sport/2018/apr/05/aimee-willmott-hannah-miley-commonwealth-games-swimming-gold-max-whitlock-gymnastics | Aimee Willmott applies her own science to beat Miley to Commonwealth gold | Few swimmers have a greater understanding of how to tease the best performance out of themselves than Aimee Willmott, who has written an academic paper on the subject. Willmott’s dissertation, published in the European Journal of Sport Science, considers the effect clothing worn between a warm-up and competition can have on performance. She concludes that wearing the right garb can give a 0.59% boost in performance, which may not sound significant but in a sport such as swimming the finest margins decide medals. Accordingly, Willmott touched the wall only 0.26sec ahead of Hannah Miley to claim one of Team England’s six gold medals on the opening day of the Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast. On a humid evening at the Optics Aquatics Centre, Willmott followed her own advice and togged up until the last possible moment before the 400m medley final. “I did five years of uni and finished last year and did my study based on how hot you are before you swim determining how fast you swim,” said Willmott, who graduated with a degree in sport and exercise science from the University of East London. “I practise what I preach. I dressed up really warm and was so hot before with the nerves and the crowd combined.” Willmott and Miley were stroke for stroke until the final 15m of the race when the red cap of the Teeside swimmer poked in front and she denied the Scotswoman a hat-trick of Commonwealth titles. It completed a remarkable comeback for Willmott after she was forced to relocate her training base from the London Aquatics centre to the University of Stirling when the elite programme at the home of the 2012 Olympics was abruptly shelved. She doubted she would even make it to the Gold Coast after sustaining a series of injuries that shook her self-belief. “After the 12 months I’ve had with two broken ribs, a bashed elbow and knee surgery it was just a huge sigh of relief to get here,” she said. “To just do the business is incredible.” “The injury setbacks were really bad to the point where me and my parents couldn’t even have a conversation because I was just so stressed,” she added. “When you break your ribs, you can’t really do a lot so from swimming twice a day and gym, to the programme in London closing down and sitting on a sofa for eight weeks it was really hard to deal with. I’ve learned a lot, gained a lot of confidence and got the enjoyment back. I’d lost that a little bit before.” Her victory came before a fourth gold of the day for the England team, this one for James Wilby, who beat the defending champion Ross Murdoch from Scotland into second, to win the men’s 200m breaststroke. There were two other golds in the pool for England, for Paralympic champion Ellie Robinson in the women’s S7 50m butterfly and Tom Hamer in the men’s S14 200m freestyle. The honour of England’s first gold of the Games went to the visually impaired cyclist Sophie Thornhill and her tandem pilot Helen Scott who won the women’s sprint. Later, England claimed silver in the men’s team sprint and men’s team pursuit. The double Olympic champion Max Whitlock won the first of a possible three golds as England’s men won the team gymnastics event. The team of Whitlock, Nile Wilson, James Hall, Courtney Tulloch and Dominick Cunningham were utterly dominant, taking the title a massive 10 points ahead of nearest rivals Canada. The team event doubles up as qualification for the individual disciplines and Whitlock competed only on the floor and pommel horse, the two apparatus on which he won gold at Rio 2016. His complex floor routine, which has undergone a facelift since Rio, scored 14.8 before he returned to the pommel horse for a top score of 15.150, putting him in pole position for double gold in those individual events. Anna Hursey, the 11-year-old table tennis player from Wales, continued a remarkable rise to prominence by winning her first doubles match. She was making her Commonwealth Games debut but there was no hint of nerves as she and partner Charlotte Carey brought Wales their only win as India claimed the five-rubber series 3-1. | ['sport/commonwealth-games-2018', 'sport/commonwealth-games', 'sport/swimming', 'sport/gymnastics', 'sport/sport', 'sport/australia-sport', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/martha-kelner', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/commonwealth-games-2018 | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2018-04-05T12:07:00Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
news/2016/dec/18/why-britains-coast-doomed-floods-weatherwatch | Why Britain's coast is doomed | Storms during the winter of 2013-14 generated the maximum recorded sea level at 20 of the 40 tide gauge sites around the UK, as well as the largest number of extreme sea level events in any season in the last 100 years. This is one of the findings of scientists from Southampton University who have been studying coastal flooding around Britain to try to understand the increasing threat from storm surges in various parts of the coast. There are several factors involved in who will get flooded and when. The track of the depressions, the direction of the wind and the state of the tide dictate which places are vulnerable at any one time. To help people predict when coastal communities might be at risk the scientists have developed a historical record of coastal flooding called Surgewatch, which gives a report of each event since 1915 and its severity. Those with memories of recent storms or extra information are asked to contribute. But a disturbing finding is that none of these serious flood events occurred during severe storms but those classed as moderate. This was because none of the severe storms coincided with a high spring tide so were not enough on their own to overtop the sea defences. In other words, so far the UK has been lucky. The conclusion must be that with sea levels rising at around 3mm a year and storms getting more frequent and violent, it is only a matter of time before a major storm and a spring tide coincide, and bring widespread destruction to somewhere along Britain’s coastline. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/coastlines', 'environment/winter', 'science/meteorology', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/sea-level', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-12-18T21:30:02Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
lifeandstyle/2019/mar/22/unbelievably-dull-parenting-and-school-runs | ‘Unbelievably dull’ parenting and school runs | Letters | Fiona Sturges says “for most of us, looking after children … is unbelievably dull” (Talking about the pram in the hallway, Journal, 21 March). Speak for yourself. I was rearing my two children in the 1960s when it was still regarded as the wife’s job. I stayed at home until they reached school age. Watching children grow and helping them to develop their skills is fascinating. There are so many things to do! Playing with water, making collage, going to the library and choosing books, going on walks to look at hedgerows and find out which plants are edible and which are poisonous, keeping pets, and just playing – even inventing new games. I know it is difficult now to survive on the husband’s pay, but we never had much money. I made their clothes, we didn’t go abroad for holidays or out for meals, and we grew vegetables and ate home-cooked food, and children didn’t seem to “need” so many toys. But it wasn’t boring! Young children spend a lot of time sleeping, so there’s lots of time for reading and studying interesting things. Once they started school I could work, though to begin with I found jobs that fitted the school year, and my husband did the school run for primary years. I was just 23 when my first child was born so time to develop a career after child rearing. Perhaps the answer is to decide your first priority: your job or kids. Start early enough and there is time for both. Val Spouge Braintree, Essex • I hope the Guardian readers of Norwich took note of David Reed’s comments about the school run (Letters, 18 March). In a recent consultation to control parking in our area, one concerned local complained that having to walk their children to the neighbourhood park and sports centre would reduce access and “make the obesity crisis worse”. Kate Dillon Norwich • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters • Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition | ['lifeandstyle/parents-and-parenting', 'lifeandstyle/family', 'society/children', 'society/society', 'money/childcare', 'money/money', 'environment/air-pollution', 'environment/environment', 'education/schools', 'education/education', 'uk/uk', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/air-pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2019-03-22T17:02:57Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2020/jul/21/greta-thunberg-says-eu-recovery-plans-climate-provisions-inadequate | Greta Thunberg says EU recovery plan fails to tackle climate crisis | Greta Thunberg has accused EU politicians of failing to acknowledge the scale of the climate crisis and said its €750bn Covid-19 recovery plan does not do enough to tackle the issue. The climate campaigner said the package of measures agreed by EU leaders proved that politicians were still not treating climate change as an emergency. “They are still denying the fact and ignoring the fact that we are facing a climate emergency, and the climate crisis has still not once been treated as a crisis,” Thunberg told the Guardian. “As long as the climate crisis is not being treated as a crisis, the changes that are necessary will not happen.” EU leaders reached agreement on the recovery fund in the early hours of Tuesday and pledged that 30% of the package would go towards climate policies, but few details were given. Thunberg, 17, and other leaders of the school strikes movement across Europe said the package was inadequate. Luisa Neubauer, 24, a central figure in Germany’s school strikes movement, said young people were becoming increasingly frustrated with politicians. “We are asking our leaders to take care of the most fundamental thing: the safety of us, the safety of people around the world, the safety of our futures,” Neubauer said. “It is worrying on a democratic level when you ask for such substantial things, which seem so obvious, and yet you see how leaders are widely ignoring it, or not considering it to be as important as other things.” Another prominent school striker, Adélaïde Charlier, 19, from Belgium, said politicians who adopted the language of climate action without following up with urgent policy measures were worse than climate deniers. “When leaders minimise the climate crisis, I feel it is more dangerous than leaders that outright deny it … because then we actually feel we can rely on them and we are actually on the right path and that is dangerous and wrong.” The group has written an open letter to EU leaders demanding they act immediately to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis. The letter, signed by 80,000 people including some of the world’s leading scientists, argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that most leaders are able to act swiftly and decisively when they deem it necessary, but that the same urgency has been missing in the response to climate change. “It is now clearer than ever that the climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis, neither from the politicians, media, business nor finance. And the longer we keep pretending that we are on a reliable path to lower emissions and that the actions required to avoid a climate disaster are available within today’s system … the more precious time we will lose,” it says. The letter argues that the climate and ecological emergency can only be addressed by tackling the underlying “social and racial injustices and oppression that have laid the foundations of our modern world”. Earlier this year the EU unveiled its green new deal proposals, which it said aimed to transform the bloc from a high- to a low-carbon economy without reducing prosperity and while improving people’s quality of life. The climate strikers dismissed the EU’s target of net zero emissions by 2050 as dangerously unambitious. Thunberg, who this week was awarded Portugal’s Gulbenkian prize for humanity and pledged the €1m ($1.15m) award to groups working to protect the environment and halt climate change, said it was up to ordinary people to stand up and demand that politicians rise to the challenge. “I see the hope in democracy and in people,” she said. “If people become aware of what is happening then we can accomplish anything, we can put pressure on people in power … if we just decide we have had enough then that will change everything.” | ['environment/greta-thunberg', 'world/eu', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/school-climate-strikes', 'environment/activism', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2020-07-21T13:37:53Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
stage/2021/apr/07/drama-about-flint-water-crisis-takes-major-theatre-award | Drama about Flint water crisis takes major theatre award | A “bold and urgent” play about the Flint water crisis, seen through the eyes of an all-female Michigan family, has won this year’s Susan Smith Blackburn prize for female, transgender and non-binary playwrights. The award went to Erika Dickerson-Despenza for cullud wattah, part of a tetralogy about water which the playwright hopes will “raise consciousness and radicalise” audiences. “I’m a black woman who has grown up in a family of primarily black women,” said Dickerson-Despenza. “I wanted to write about women living under siege – environmental racism, classism and gender dynamics, and what this does to women and girls in the black midwest. Because I’m a grassroots organiser and activist, I think of all my work as a vehicle. My goal is to radicalise people … I will explore an issue in a creative way to raise collective consciousness.” Dickerson-Despenza grounded the drama in the context of the 2014 water crisis in Flint, when lead-tainted water led to deadly disaster: “I didn’t follow a single family but I began seeing things written by Flint residents on social media, even before the news stories. I ended up mapping the information for a couple of years on Post-it notes on my wall.” The play uses language in innovative ways, disrupting conventional syntax, with characters speaking in a black vernacular: “I do not follow white rules of how writing should look on a page. I think of it as a disorderly, joyful kind of writing. I’m interested in the possibilities of language and what I can build with it.” Born and raised in Chicago, the playwright, 29, lives in New York and has been mentored by Lynn Nottage, a previous recipient of the prize, whose play Sweat contains similar themes. Dickerson-Despenza, who receives $25,000 and a signed print by Willem de Kooning, revealed that cullud wattah had been submitted to the prize in two previous years. Natalie Abrahami, on the judging panel, said that while race and class inequalities exposed by the pandemic only make the play more resonant, it is a “winning play” in spite of the current backdrop. “I think it is a standout play but we were so aware of how it speaks to the situation we are in now. From the moment you start reading it you know you are in the hands of a master. She is so in command with what she is trying to achieve.” Last July, cullud wattah had been due to premiere at the Public Theater, in New York, but that production was cancelled because of the pandemic. Dickerson-Despenza is now developing a 10-play cycle focusing on the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Judges commended two other playwrights on the shortlist: Kimber Lee, for The Water Palace and Ife Olujobi for Jordans, who were each awarded $10,000. Abrahami said the shortlist was broad in scope but fiercely political, with several plays grappling with environmental themes and containing clear, direct instructions around casting for diversity and representation. Paapa Essiedu, another judge, presented the prize in an online ceremony. He said Dickerson-Despenza’s play would be seen as a classic for years to come. Last month the Guardian published findings of a nine-month investigation which discovered alarming levels of forever chemicals, arsenic and lead in American water systems, with more than 35% of samples containing potentially toxic chemicals at levels above the recommended maximum. | ['stage/theatre', 'stage/stage', 'culture/culture', 'culture/awards-and-prizes', 'us-news/flint-water-crisis', 'environment/water', 'environment/environment', 'environment/pollution', 'lifeandstyle/women', 'world/race', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/arifa-akbar', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-04-07T20:00:54Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2005/mar/29/naturaldisasters.indonesia | 2,000 feared dead after quake | Survivors of the Boxing Day tsunami fled their homes last night after a huge undersea earthquake measuring up to 8.7 magnitude struck off the coast of Sumatra, with as many as 2,000 people feared dead on the Indonesian island of Nias, close to its epicentre. Ninety-three days after giant waves left nearly 300,000 people dead or missing, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla told a local radio station that between 1,000 and 2,000 people were probably killed on Nias after the earthquake. He said the estimate was based on an assessment of damage to buildings, not bodies counted. Agus Mendrofa, deputy district head on Nias, off the western coast of Sumatra, earlier told local radio 296 people had died. He added that hundreds of buildings had been damaged or had collapsed. Sergeant Zulkifli Sirait of the island's police told AP: "We still cannot count the number of casualties or the number of collapsed buildings because it is dark here. It is possible that hundreds of people trapped in the collapsed buildings died." The Misna missionary news agency in Rome reported that a huge fire was raging in Gu nungsitoli, the island's main town. "From the window I see very high flames," it quoted Father Raymond Laia as saying by telephone. "The town is completely destroyed." The town was likely to be 75% damaged, local police said, after the earthquake struck on the same faultline as the Boxing Day quake, 250 miles south-east of Banda Aceh. Altogether, at least 340 Nias residents died and 10,000 were left homeless in the December 26 earthquake. With a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean still the subject of political debate, governments in Thailand, India and Japan tried to warn residents through the radio and television after the earthquake struck 19 miles under the Andaman Sea at 11.09pm local time. Last night, the threat of a tsunami appeared to recede, with the Thai, Sri Lankan and Indian governments cancelling their tsunami alerts. But in Australia officials warned a tsunami could hit the western coast. In the Indonesian province of Aceh, tens of thousands of people abandoned tents and temporary homes and ran for high ground in darkness when the earth shook for two minutes, far longer than the much smaller quakes in recent weeks. Electricity and phone lines were down across much of Sumatra as the earthquake was felt as far away as Bangkok and Singapore, where tall buildings swayed and people in high-rise hotels streamed on to the streets. Recorded at 8.7 by the US Geological Survey and 8.5 by Japan's Meteorologic Agency, with an epicentre further south than the Boxing Day earthquake, seismologists warned the latest earthquake had the potential to create another destructive tsunami at the end of a week of at least seven smaller aftershocks in the region. Residents in the Sumatran city of Medan said they felt the tremors were stronger than on December 26. In Thailand, cracks in buildings appeared, apparently caused by the quake, and people were evacuated from hotels and hospitals in Phuket, Phang-nga and Krabi. Warnings were issued over the radio by officials charged with setting up a tsunami warning system in the country. "About 3,000 to 4,000 tourists and locals have been evacuated from Patong and Kamala beaches to higher places," Wichai Buapradit, deputy governor of Phuket, told Reuters. "We've told them to take their valuable belongings and to go to higher places." Sirens sounded in Sri Lanka as towns on the east coast began frantically evacuating residents. Local media reported people had fled inland well in advance of any official government warnings. Scientists last week predicted a magnitude 7.5 earthquake was possible in the region after the seismic slip on December 26 had piled dangerous levels of stress on to two vulnerable parts of the fault zone off the coast of Sumatra. "There's been seismic activity throughout this zone that has been ongoing for the last three months," Dale Grant of the US Geological Survey told the BBC. "This is an aftershock of the great quake which is something we see as the earth tries to settle itself." But Mr Grant said he would not expect potential tsunami wave heights to be "anywhere near as large" as those that pounded coastlines on Boxing Day because the quake was less strong. The December 26 event measured 9 magnitude and left 1.5 million homeless across 11 countries. The British Geological Survey said yesterday's earthquake "occurred close to the epicentre of the Boxing Day quake". "It could be described as the largest aftershock of this event," said senior seismologist David Booth. He said there was a high probability of a tsunami occurring "but because the earthquake is of such a shallow depth and is offshore, it would be on a much smaller scale than the Boxing Day disaster". India said it had issued a tsunami warning as a precaution and put troops on alert along its coastline, but said it had no evidence or reports of any deadly waves. In the Indian-controlled Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which have been rocked by 100 aftershocks since the December tsunami, local authorities issued a tsunami warning asking local people to vacate the coast. Scientists at Hyderabad's National Geophysical Research Institute interviewed on Indian television warned that if a tsunami was to be generated there was a three-hour window before the coast would be hit. On Sunday, a quake measuring 6.4 came 40 minutes after midnight local time in Indonesia's eastern province of Maluku. A second aftershock, measuring 6.0 came seven hours later. On Friday, a 5.9 quake hit near Banda Aceh. Despite panic and evacuations, there was also complacency on the streets of the devastated areas that have become weary of aftershocks. With no sign of a tsunami two hours after the tremors, many Indonesians roused from sleep returned to their beds. | ['world/world', 'world/natural-disasters', 'world/indonesia', 'world/tsunami2004', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/banda-aceh', 'type/article', 'profile/justinmccurry', 'profile/randeepramesh', 'profile/johnaglionby', 'profile/patrickbarkham'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-03-29T01:29:50Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
australia-news/2022/apr/26/victoria-expands-rebates-to-allow-both-solar-panels-and-hot-water-systems | Victoria’s solar rebate expansion will help wean state off gas, say experts | Energy experts say the Victorian government’s expanded solar rebates scheme will help drive the state’s transition away from gas as it aims to halve its emissions by the end of the decade. Victorian households will be able to access rebates for both solar panels and a solar hot water system under the widening of the program announced on Tuesday. Households can now only take part in the solar panels program or the hot water rebate, but not both. Meanwhile, an additional 50,000 businesses across the state will become eligible for solar panel rebates and an interest-free loan to slash up-front installation costs. When the household changes come into effect in mid-May, almost 190,000 Victorians who previously accessed a $1,400 rebate to install solar panels will be able to access an additional 50% rebate – of up to $1,000 – to have solar hot water or a high-efficiency electric heat pump system installed. When the 10-year scheme was announced, the government said the policy aimed to cut the state’s carbon emissions by almost 4m tonnes and would result in household solar generating 12.5% of the state’s 40% target for renewable energy by 2025. Alison Reeve, the deputy program director for energy and climate change at the Grattan Institute, said a large part of the state’s transition to a low-emissions future required a phasing out of its reliance on gas. “Switching people from gas water heating to solar heating is a positive step on that journey,” she told Guardian Australia. “In Victoria you’ve got a lot of houses with gas heaters installed and it takes time for that change to kick through.” The discovery of natural gas in the 1960s in Bass Strait has caused it to become the state’s dominant residential fuel source, particularly for heating homes in winter. The department of industry and science’s latest energy statistics, released last year, show Victoria’s gas use from the residential sector is 14.8% – almost double the nationwide figure of 7.9%. When the solar homes scheme launched in 2018, the Andrews government estimated a solar hot water system could save a household up to $400 each year. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning The Clean Energy Council’s director of distributed energy, Darren Gladman, said the exact dollar figure of savings would depend on a household’s hot water consumption. Gladman said an advantage of using solar energy to both generate electricity and heat water was that it allowed you to store the benefits within the water system. “There are some [solar] hot water systems that allow you to keep water hot,” Gladman said. He said a well-insulated system would mean electricity would not be needed at night to heat the water “when energy is more expensive”. “You’re using the store of hot water to allow you to heat up the hot water when the electricity is cheap and use it later in the day or in the morning or evening.” Gladman stressed that rising gas prices meant relying on gas for hot water would become more financially inefficient in the future. The state’s energy and environment minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, said the expansion of the scheme would help more Victorians save money on their energy bills, support clean energy jobs and help the state reach its target of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030. “There’s eight out of 10 Victorian households that are now eligible to get both the solar panels rebate and the solar hot water rebate,” she said. “The difference now is that rather than just having the choice of one or the other, they can actually get both, meaning that they will actually now be saving more money.” But the Greens’ environment spokesperson, Ellen Sandell, said Victoria needed to do more to end its reliance on gas. “We very much welcome this announcement, but it also makes no sense that at the same time the Victorian Labor government still supports laws which force new home developments to connect to expensive gas,” she said. “We don’t need gas – what we need is a proper plan to stopping supporting multinational gas corporations, electrify our homes and power them with 100% renewable energy.” The government will also expand its $47.5m solar for business program from Friday to help employers cut their energy costs. Businesses with up to 50 employees will be able to access a rebate of up to $3,500 to install solar panels – an increase from the current threshold of 20 staff. Businesses will also become eligible for interest-free loans of between $1,000 and $5,000 to reduce upfront costs for solar installation. | ['australia-news/victorian-politics', 'australia-news/victoria', 'environment/solarpower', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/adeshola-ore', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-state-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2022-04-26T07:19:28Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2020/jan/29/australias-volunteer-firefighting-force-declined-10-in-past-decade | Australia's volunteer firefighting force declined 10% in past decade | Australia has suffered a 10% decline in the number of volunteer firefighters over the last decade, according to the Productivity Commission’s review of government services. The latest instalment of the review, released on Tuesday, found that the number of volunteer firefighters nationwide has dropped from 169,766 to 152,798 in the decade from 2009-10 to 2018-19. In the same time, the total proportion of volunteers, including firefighters and support staff, has dropped from 1,015 per 100,000 people to 824, almost a 20% reduction. The new figures come after an unprecedented season of bushfires and fierce political debate about Australia’s preparedness both in terms of emergency services resourcing and the need to do more to combat global heating. In December, the prime minister Scott Morrison first rejected calls to compensate volunteers before bowing to mounting pressure from Labor and some within his own ministry, creating a supplement to pay volunteers. Under the scheme, eligible volunteers will receive $300 a day up to a total of $6,000 if called out for more than 10 days this fire season. The review of government services found the long-term trend of decline continued in the last year, with the number of volunteers engaged in firefighting falling from 156,319 in 2017-18 to 152,798 in 2018-19. Most states and territories contributed to the decline, with 1,745 fewer volunteers engaged in firefighting in New South Wales, 794 fewer in Queensland, 442 fewer in Victoria and 403 fewer in the Northern Territory. Only the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania bucked the trend, adding just 28 and 20 volunteer firefighters respectively. While the volunteer workforce has shrunk, the number of professionals has grown – suggesting the trends are driven in part by the urbanisation of the population, with more Australians living in cities and towns served by professional firefighters. The number of professional firefighters and support staff has grown from 17,278 in 2009-10 to 20,692 in 2018-19, although the proportion of the population engaged in professional firefighting rose only slightly from 61 per 100,000 people to 63. Jurisdictions with the highest rate of attrition of professional firefighters in the last year were Queensland, with 7% quitting the service, followed by the ACT (4.3%) and Western Australia (3.7%). In December Morrison said the volunteer effort “is a big part of our natural disaster response and it is a big part of how Australia has always dealt with these issues”, and promised to search for options to encourage volunteers. Labor called for volunteer firefighters to be paid or offered tax breaks. On Christmas Eve, Morrison directed all commonwealth public service departments and agencies to permanently offer at least 20 working days’ paid leave for volunteer firefighting. The veterans’ affairs minister, Darren Chester, proposed a levy to pay volunteers in “one-off” events, warning it it was likely unsustainable to pay some from the federal public service to fight fires and not other volunteers. Morrison then announced a package of payments up to $6,000, primarily directed at employees of small and medium businesses and self-employed volunteers. He suggested that larger companies could provide their employees with 20 days of emergency services leave. | ['australia-news/bushfires', 'world/natural-disasters', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/scott-morrison', 'australia-news/coalition', 'world/wildfires', 'australia-news/australia-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/paul-karp', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-01-28T16:30:23Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2012/apr/16/gdf-suez-nuclear-reservations-gerard-mestrallet | GDF Suez's nuclear reservations hit government energy policy | The government's energy policy has suffered a fresh blow when GDF Suez, the French firm behind plans to build a new nuclear plant in Cumbria, said it needed more financial incentives if it was to proceed. Gérard Mestrallet, chairman and chief executive of GDF, said he wanted talks with the government about the right fixed or minimum price for producing nuclear energy: "We are, with our partners, going to take a decision in 2015 [on building a new plant at Sellafield]. Today it is very difficult to invest in a nuclear power plant without clear visibility." The government has promised to provide a fixed carbon price to make nuclear investment more attractive, and has proposed a "contract for difference" which some say will act as a price guarantee. But Mestrallet said what was on offer was "not enough and something is missing". The comments will send a shockwave through Whitehall because they come just weeks after the German utilities RWE and E.ON said they would not proceed with plans to build new nuclear plants at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire. The German firms run the Horizon joint venture in Britain. They cited concerns about financing the projects as well as costs associated with Germany's abandonment of nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident in Japan. This would leave only GDF and the major French electricity producer EDF in the race to build new atomic plants in the UK. GDF has its own joint venture with Iberdrola of Spain called NuGen which insisted after the E.ON and RWE announcement that it remained "committed" to its planned 3.6 gigawatt plant at Sellafield. But Mestrallet's words make clear that GDF will only proceed if the British government makes further concessions to nuclear, something industry critics feared would happen. The GDF warning came as the French grip on Britain's energy infrastructure tightened with a plan to take full control of International Power (IP) for about £6.5bn. IP operates key power stations around the country including the gas-fired plant at Satend near Hull and a coal-fired facility at Rugely, in Staffordshire, as well as many others abroad. The move could exacerbate concerns about the undue influence of companies partly owned by the French state such as EDF, Areva and GDF – which have already big stakes in the British energy market. The French government is the biggest shareholder in GDF with 36%. GDF, the world's largest independent power producer, bought 70% of IP in 2010, but has now agreed to buy the remaining stake for 418p a share. Mestrallet said the acquisition of the minority stake in IP constituted a major step that would "allow the group to fully capture growth in fast growing markets". He denied further control by GDF of the UK business could be anything but good and said EDF was a "competitor" not a French state collaborator. An earlier offer from GDF at 390p a share had been resisted by the British company's board but Sir Neville Sims, chairman of the committee of independent directors at IP, said he had no difficulty recommending the new offer. It represented a price that "fairly reflects the company's position in international power generation markets and its inherent growth potential," he said. The independent directors will recommend that shareholders vote in favour of the deal at the annual meeting on 15 May. The deal would be the second biggest this year after Glencore International's offer for mining group Xstrata. Angelos Anastasiou, a utility analyst with Investec Securities, said this was the right price for a business of this sort, adding: "We see the offer progressing smoothly to its conclusion." But the acquisition by GDF follows the purchase by EDF of nuclear operator British Energy and the growing influence of French nuclear engineering firm, Areva. Jonathon Porritt, director of sustainability group Forum for the Future, recently expressed deep misgivings about the situation. He said in the Guardian last month: "UK energy policy is being manipulated and subverted to make it possible for French nuclear power companies (EDF and Areva) to start building four new reactors in the UK – two at Hinkley Point in Somerset and two at Sizewell in Suffolk." IP runs six UK power stations including some wind farms. It has recently reduced the power output from a Teesside gas plant from 1,875 megawatts to 45MW, describing the commercial environment in Britain as "challenging". But of particular interest to GDF is IP's 6,600-MW building programme abroad, mostly in developing countries. Almost three-quarters of recent operating income has come from nations like Brazil, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. | ['business/energy-industry', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'business/business', 'tone/news', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2012-04-16T15:39:28Z | true | ENERGY |
commentisfree/2013/oct/21/nuclear-power-hinckley-deal-energy | Welcome back nuclear power, our costly, unpopular light in the dark | Simon Jenkins | The best to be said of the Hinkley nuclear power station announced this morning by the government is that it was announced at all. After decades of indecision, the certain prospect of lights going out across Britain as coal stations closed finally forced Whitehall's hand. The coalition has taken a decision on energy, praise be. And nuclear is at least cheaper than wind. Beyond that, all is chaos. Buying 7% of Britain's electricity supply for 35 years from the French and Chinese at double the current (already inflated) price, suggests a nation gone soft in the head. There is not even "risk transfer", since risk has been all but eliminated from the contract. When asked by the BBC why foreign taxpayers should benefit from this lavish profiteering at the expense of British energy consumers, the relevant minister, Ed Davey, could not answer the question. The truth is that with billions already going on wind and more still on such wild projects as HS2 and aircraft carriers, the Treasury simply cannot find £14bn more and refuses to borrow it. Two foreign states are doing the borrowing for us, financed by a massive burden-transfer on to future British consumers, the proxy taxpayers of tomorrow. Nuclear remains a scientific tragedy. Proffered as key to the future in the 1950s, it has acquired the zombie status of cell cloning and GM foods, because of the taboo attached to its very rare accidents. Though the safest form of power to generate, it is wildly over-regulated and thus far more expensive than need be. Why a nuclear submarine can fit a serviceable reactor into its shell but local communities cannot remains a mystery. Driving down the cost of nuclear in all its forms is still the holy grail of energy technology. Meanwhile, if people really think carbon reduction is a "critical" matter, then the urgent answer remains gas, half as polluting as coal and in near universal abundance. But gas fracking is fast acquiring the taboo of nuclear. We seem stuck in the age of unreason. But at least nuclear is back in the energy mix. | ['commentisfree/series/first-thoughts', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'money/energy', 'money/consumer-affairs', 'money/household-bills', 'money/money', 'business/energy-industry', 'business/business', 'uk/uk', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'type/article', 'profile/simonjenkins'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2013-10-21T09:12:44Z | true | ENERGY |
healthcare-network/2017/oct/03/nhs-digitally-savvy-workforce-ensure-survival | The NHS needs a digitally savvy workforce to ensure its survival | Harpreet Sood | It was in the early hours of a Saturday morning that I admitted 83-year-old Mrs J, who was brought in feeling unwell and drowsy with a chesty cough. After carrying out investigations, we treated her for a chest infection with antibiotics and fluids. I was called back an hour later. Mrs J was not well. Her blood pressure was dropping, her lips swelling and she had started to develop a rash. It became evident she was allergic to the antibiotic we had given her. Mrs J suffered. She suffered because we did not have the right information at the right time. We did not know she was allergic to this particular antibiotic. In our day and age, where so much information is available at our fingertips, this is unacceptable. This experience made me reflect on the incomplete information and avoidable inconsistencies we clinicians deal with on a daily basis when making critical decisions. In other areas of life, access to information is often more straightforward. I felt frustrated that while I could see an opportunity to improve clinical practice by making more patient information more readily available, I lacked the skills to make this happen. Around the same time, as part of my national policy role, I was assisting Prof Robert Wachter with his review of how technology is used in NHS hospitals. Commissioned by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, Wachter’s review focused on how well the NHS workforce, in particular, clinicians, used digital technology and information. While accompanying Wachter on visits to NHS sites across the country, sitting in on interviews with doctors and nurses and listening to similar experiences from other clinical colleagues, I realised that I was not alone in wanting to do more. Many frontline staff reported feeling frustrated by the current state of play but also that they felt out of their depth in trying out new ways of delivering care digitally. This led to one of the review’s key recommendations: that the NHS in England needs to grow and strengthen its field of health technology leaders to help guide people in greater use of technology to improve patient care. Healthcare is an information rich industry. As clinicians, the more information we have, the more able we are to make the best decisions for our patients. What we need is a cadre of digitally skilled healthcare professionals who can make the right information available to the right people at the right time. If we do this, we can deliver huge benefits to patient care. For example, electronic prescribing, which supports doctors and nurse practitioners to prescribe medications accurately by making information – including patient allergies – available wherever they go, have been shown to reduce sometimes fatal medication errors by up to 50%. A 2016 Chief Clinical Information Officers Networksurvey of its members revealed that 76% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed that the NHS has enough clinicians trained in health information technology and informatics. There are pockets of excellence across the NHS but the landscape as a whole is disjointed. Many NHS chief clinical information officers and chief information officers have developed careers in a piecemeal fashion. If the NHS is serious about digital transformation then we need to raise our game and strive for excellence in training. Investing in technology is important but equally important is investing in the people tasked with making it work for clinicians and patients. A report published by a House of Lords select committee (pdf) in April, following a year-long inquiry into the long-term sustainability of the health service, concluded that the biggest internal threat to its future is the lack of strategy to secure an appropriately skilled, well trained and committed workforce. Which is why we launched the NHS Digital Academy – in partnership with Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh and Harvard Medical School – at the Health and Care Innovation Expo in Manchester. The academy will offer – for the first time – a national, fully funded and world-class programme of education that will upskill NHS managers and clinicians to drive through the transformation the health service needs. They will learn about leadership and change management, health informatics and data analytics, health systems and user-centred design and citizen informatics, to name a few. Applications for the programme will open later this year and it will kick off early next year. The NHS is investing £6m to produce 300 highly skilled technology leaders who will ensure that everyone in the health service benefits from the opportunities technology and informatics offer to healthcare and that no one is left behind. The academy will contribute significantly to the growing digital health and informatics industry in the UK and help nurture and shape the workforce the NHS needs to survive. Dr Harpreet Sood is associate chief clinical information officer at NHS England and a practising NHS doctor Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views. If you’re looking for a healthcare job or need to recruit staff, visit Guardian Jobs. | ['healthcare-network/series/partnerships-in-practice', 'healthcare-network/healthcare-network', 'healthcare-network/work-practices', 'healthcare-network/workforce', 'healthcare-network/innovation', 'healthcare-network/about-guardian-healthcare', 'healthcare-network/data-management', 'healthcare-network/efficiency', 'healthcare-network/england', 'healthcare-network/leadership-and-management', 'society/nhs', 'society/health', 'society/society', 'technology/technology', 'technology/big-data', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-professional-networks'] | technology/big-data | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2017-10-03T08:45:19Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2005/jan/12/internationalaidanddevelopment.indonesia | Indonesia issues ultimatum to foreign troops | Foreign soldiers assisting the tsunami relief effort in Indonesia's devastated Aceh province will have to leave by the end of March, the Jakarta government said today. The Indonseian vice-president, Jusuf Kalla, said troops should be gone "the sooner the better", and added that three months should be enough time for them to complete their work. The announcement came as Indonesia moved to assert greater control over the relief effort. The government is believed to be grateful for the help offered, but uneasy about the number of foreign aid workers and soldiers in Aceh, where seperatists have been fighting government troops for decades. Aid workers were today told that their safety could not be guaranteed outside Banda Aceh, the main city, and the ravaged town of Meulaboh, and ordered to declare their travel plans or risk expulsion. Indonesia's military has warned that separatist fighters could rob aid convoys and use refugee camps as hideouts, but has yet to offer evidence to support its claims. A government statement said it would be "placed in a very difficult position" if any foreigner who came to Aceh was harmed, but Clive Williams, an Australian defence expert, told the Associated Press that the Indonesians wanted to conceal military corruption. "The big problem with dealing with [the Indonesian military] in Aceh is that they're involved in a lot of corruption there, and the reason I think they don't want people to go to some areas is because they're involved in human rights abuses," he said. "Having a situation of martial law and then civil emergency has allowed them to get away with a lot." Wary of Indonesia's sensitivities, US marines have scaled back their plans to send hundreds of troops ashore to build roads and clear rubble. Commanders have also agreed that their troops would not carry guns while on Indonesian soil, and that the majority of troops would return to ships stationed off the coast after each day's work. Getting help to the neediest is already a logistical nightmare, with roads having been washed away or blocked by fallen trees. More than 100,000 people in the province have been killed, and tens of thousands left homeless. It is on the northern tip of Sumatra island, which was closest to the epicentre of the earthquake that triggered the December 26 tsunami. The death toll from the tsunami today stands at 158,638, with Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India having suffered the most fatalities. Today's developments came as the Paris Club of creditor nations was expected to approve a plan to suspend debt repayments for countries hit by the tsunami. Indonesia - the hardest-hit country - has said that, in addition to a debt freeze, it also needs more donations to cope with the disaster. Not all members of the Paris Club support a debt moratorium, and the Australian prime minister, John Howard, has expressed concern that freezing debts would not help those most in need. However, decisions on debt relief are taken by consensus rather than unanimity. Some of the other affected countries, such as Thailand, have said they do not believe a debt moratorium is the best form of assistance. Herve Gaymard, the French finance minister, said not all countries had to accept the offer of a debt freeze. "Some countries - I'm thinking, for example, of Thailand - do not wish to benefit from this moratorium, simply because they have a lower level of debt than others and they don't want their name to be downgraded on financial markets," he said. A freeze in debt repayments could offer short-term gain but bring long-term pain as the cost of servicing debt may rise in the future. | ['world/world', 'global-development/global-development', 'world/indonesia', 'world/tsunami2004', 'world/asia-pacific', 'type/article'] | world/tsunami2004 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2005-01-12T16:19:10Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
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