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  • US imposes new freeze on deepwater drilling

     

    Mr Salazar had previously warned he would issue a new order to block deepwater drilling regardless of how the court ruled, as oil companies decided not to resume drilling due to the legal uncertainties.

    The first moratorium was imposed after the deadly April 20 explosion on a BP-leased drilling rig sparked the worst environmental disaster in US history.

    The new move, said the Interior Department, is supported by “an extensive record of existing and new information indicating that allowing new deepwater drilling to commence would pose a threat of serious, irreparable, or immediate harm or damage to the marine, coastal, and human environment”.

    – AFP

  • Souless corporations are the enemy of the environment.’says Pavan Sukhdev

     

    The report will be launched at the first Global Business of Biodiversity Symposium in London, where speakers will include environment secretary Caroline Spelman. She will highlight examples of businesses causing damage which imposes a huge cost on themselves and society – including an estimate that global destruction of forests costs the world’s economies $2tn-$5tn (£1.3tn-£3.3tn) a year.

    She will also speak of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “BP’s shares have halved since the spill began in mid-April – there will be no dividends this year,” she is due to say. “While the real impact on the local economy, wildlife and marine health may not be fully known for years … What’s bad for biodiversity is bad for business.”

    Sukhdev told the Guardian that private businesses were too important as employers and payers of taxes to embark on a revolution, calling instead for society to take a greater responsibility for regulating the behaviour of companies. When the final report is published, at a biodiversity conference in October in Japan, Sukhdev will recommend major changes in the way companies are regulated.

    “We have created a soulless corporation that does not have any innate reason to be ethical about anything,” he said. “The purpose of a corporation is to be selfish. That is law. So it’s up to society and its leaders and thinkers to design the checks and balances that are needed to ensure that the corporation does not simply become cancerous, and that’s something that sometimes we do and sometimes we really don’t.”

    TEEB was set up after the success of the groundbreaking 2006 report by Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK government. The Stern report argued that the cost of tackling climate change would be 1-2% of the global economy, while the cost of doing nothing would be 5-20 times that. Sukhdev’s team says that the failure of governments and businesses to put a “price” on ecosystem services provided by nature – from flood protection and pollination of crops, to carbon take-up by forests and the sheer wonder of nature – has led to widespread destruction of whole ecosystems and of the variety of all life on Earth.

    Previously, Sukhdev has called for governments and businesses to be forced to report their environmental and social impacts alongside – not separately from – their financial accounts. He has also called for stricter limits on extraction and pollution.

  • Electric cars and wind turbines face metal supply shortages

    Electric cars and wind turbines face metal supply shortages

    Ecologist

    12th June, 2010

    The Government’s much-vaunted ambition for a low-carbon economy could be threatened by shortages in key metals and the environmental cost of developing new mining facilities

    A rapid increase in electric cars and offshore wind turbines might not be sustained, the Government has been warned, because of a shortage in a number of key metals.

    Current production of both requires considerable amounts of rare earth metals, valued for their magnetic capacity and resistance to high temperatures.

    However, the world may now face shortages as China, which produces 95 per cent of the metals, cuts back on exports to concentrate on manufacturing and exporting higher value goods.

    A report prepared for the Department for Transport by the consultants Oakdene Hollins warns that the combined demand from wind turbines and hybrid/electric cars for neodymium (used in wind turbine generators) and lanthanum (used in batteries) is predicted to exceed all but the ‘most optimistic supply scenarios’.

    It says UK plans for offshore wind farm capacity alone would lead to an average demand for neodymuim in 2020 of over 12 per cent of the total global supply in 2014.

    Overall demand for rare earth metals is predicted to grow at 8-11 per cent a year between now and 2014.

    Environmental cost

    The report says the US and others have responded by seeking to develop new mines of their own, with Canada, Australia, Malaysia and Greenland known to contain significant reserves.

    However, these will take as long as four years to open and more importantly would come at an environmental cost in terms of land use, extraction cost, water and chemical usage and biodiversity loss.

    ‘If you are trying to decarbonise the transport sector you don’t want another biofuels situation – [where] you are trying to solve one problem but you end up creating another,’ said report author Dr Hudai Kara.

    Alternatives to magnets used in electric car motors are currently limited but the report says a number of alternatives for batteries are currently being researched. It urges the UK to focus, like Japan, on research into the life extension of products and better recycling techniques for recovering the metals.

    The Department of Transport said it was currently considering the findings but would not comment on their significance to the development of the low carbon transport sector.

  • Vinnies council suspended ‘over bullying’

    “We are an organisation that has social justice at its heart so this was something that could not be overlooked or swept under the carpet – there is a real desire to address these problems.”

    Mr Falzon said he could not give further details of the complaints because they were the subject of an investigation.

    The Australian Services Union, which represents community workers, said it has been hearing complaints from workers at the society for several years.

    It alleged problems followed “changes at the top” nearly five years ago when a new chief executive and human resources manager were appointed.

    “From that time we’ve been at constant war with St Vincent de Paul,” ASU NSW branch secretary Sally McManus said.

    “They adopted a corporate style of management.”

    Ms McManus said the ASU successfully fought an unfair dismissal case of two workers from the NSW branch two years ago and last week it won a back pay claim for $250,000 for members who had not been paid the right rates.

    She said the union was “extremely pleased” that the NSW council had been suspended.

    “It’s rare that you see decisive action taken and I welcome it.”

     

  • Delay on ETS will be costly-report

    Delay on ETS will be costly – report

    Updated: 12:37, Monday July 12, 2010

    Delay on ETS will be costly - report

    Delaying an emissions trading scheme could cost households an extra $60 a year in energy costs, a new report suggests.

    Federal cabinet meets on Tuesday to nut out the government’s latest approach to climate change, likely to be a key election issue.

    Prime Minister Julia Gillard will consider putting a price on carbon, but has ruled out introducing emissions trading before 2013.

    A study by some of the nation’s leading energy providers, produced for the Climate Institute, shows uncertainty or inaction will cost the economy an estimated $2 billion a year by 2020.

    That would add $60 a year to average household power bills.

    ‘A decision to delay doesn’t avoid the cost impacts on electricity prices,’ institute CEO John Connor told ABC Radio on Monday.

    The government must set ‘clear signals’ to the community on its plan to cut carbon emissions.

    ‘We need a system that puts a limit and a price tag on pollution so investors can know certainty.’

    An immediate introduction of emissions trading was the ‘ideal’ scenario, Mr Connor said, but the carbon reduction target needed to be set higher than the government’s dumped scheme.

    The release of the study also coincides with a new poll, commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation, that shows 45 per cent of voters want climate change action.

    Those voters would be more likely to vote Labor if it promised to deliver emissions trading in the next year.

  • Greens policy will save Australians $2 billion- Brown

    Greens policy will save Australians $2 billion – Brown

    Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown says that today’s Climate Institute
    report shows the Greens’ policy of a carbon tax will save households and
    businesses money as power costs soar, helped by federal government and
    opposition inaction.

    “The old parties’ inaction is locking in more expensive electricity
    production which, this report says, means an extra $60 per year per
    household by 2020. This does not factor in the much greater costs to the
    economy of worsening climate change.”

    “I strongly urge the Prime Minister and cabinet, at its meeting
    tomorrow, to adopt the Greens’ carbon tax proposal. It will raise $10
    billion per year to help further offset the impost of price increases,”
    Senator Brown said.

    Media contact: Peter Stahel 0459 133 597

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