Victory for Niger Delta Farmers: Court Rules Against Shell

Victory for Niger Delta Farmers: Court Rules Against Shell

by | Dec 26, 2015 | Lobbying, Toxification

By Deirdre Fulton / Common Dreams
Featured Image: Alali Efanga & Chief Fidelis Oguru from Oruma, two plaintiffs in the Dutch court case against Shell. (Photo: Milieudefensie/flickr) 

In a potentially precedent-setting ruling, a Dutch court said Friday that Royal Dutch Shell may be held liable for oil spills at its subsidiary in Nigeria—a win for farmers and environmentalists attempting to hold the oil giant accountable for leaks, spills, and widespread pollution.

The ruling by the Court of Appeals in the Hague, which overturns a 2013 decision in favor of Shell, allows four Nigerian farmers to jointly sue the fossil fuels corporation in the Netherlands for causing extensive oil spills in Nigeria.

The scars of those disasters are still visible in the fields and fishing ponds of three Nigerian villages. In one village, drinking water has been rendered non-potable, while in another, an entire mangrove forest has been destroyed.

Alali Efanga, one of the Nigerian farmers who, along with Friends of the Earth Netherlands, brought the case against Shell, said the ruling “offers hope that Shell will finally begin to restore the soil around my village so that I will once again be able to take up farming and fishing on my own land.”

Beyond that, the court’s decision “is a landslide victory for environmentalists and these four brave Nigerian farmers who, for more than seven years, have had the courage to take on one of the most powerful companies in the world,” said Geert Ritsema, campaigner at Friends of the Earth Netherlands. “This ruling is a ray of hope for other victims of environmental degradation, human rights violations, and other misconduct by large corporations.”

Indeed, as Amnesty International researcher Mark Dummett said in advance of the ruling: “This case is especially important as it could pave the way for further cases from other communities devastated by Shell’s negligence.”

“There have been thousands of spills from Shell’s pipelines since the company started pumping oil in the Niger Delta in 1958,” Dummett said, “with devastating consequences for the people living there.”

Decrying the “incredible levels of pollution” caused by the activities of Shell and its subsidiaries, environmentalists Vandana Shiva and Nnimmo Bassey said at a media briefing in July that “weekends in Ogoniland are marked by carnivals of funerals of people in their 20s and 30s.”

Citing a 2011 United Nations Environmental Programme assessment, they noted that in over 40 locations tested in Ogoniland, the soil is polluted with hydrocarbons up to a depth of 5 meters and that all the water bodies in the region are polluted.

The UN report, they said, also found that in some places the water was polluted with benzene, a known carcinogen, at levels 900 above World Health Organization standards. “With life expectancy standing at about 41 years, the clean up of Ogoniland is projected to require a cumulative 30 years to clean both the land and water,” they said.

In another historic victory for the plaintiffs, the Hague court on Friday also ordered Shell to give the farmers and environmental activists supporting their case access to internal documents that the court said could shed more light on the case.

Channa Samkalden, counsel for the farmers and Friends of the Earth, said it was “the first time in legal history that access to internal company documents was obtained in court…This finally allows the case to be considered on its merits.”

The court will continue to hear the case in March 2016.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Cherine Akkari: Mercury a growing global concern

by | May 20, 2013 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification

By Cherine Akkari / Deep Green Resistance

Mercury is an element which is naturally present in our environment. It is also known as quicksilver. It is a heavy, silvery-white metal which is liquid at room temperature and evaporates easily. Mercury is usually found in nature in the form of cinnabar, used in the past as a red pigment. Cinnabar, a natural form of mercury, can be found in metals, such as lead and zinc, and in small amounts in a wide range of rocks including coal and limestone. The other source of mercury comes from human activities. About half of the global anthropogenic mercury emissions come from the burning of coal, metals production and the production of cement. [1] About 2,600 tons are emitted from anthropogenic sources. [2]

Mercury mostly resonates to us, humans, through its organic compound ‘methylmercury’ (MeHg), which is only found is aquatic habitats. Around 1914, methylmercury became commercially important as a crop fungicide and its worldwide use has lead to several food poisoning incidents. [3] However, it wasn’t until the early 1950s that methylmercury became recognized as a well-known thread, after years of the chemical company Chisso discharging it into Minamata Bay, Japan. [3] Over 17, 000 people were certified as disease victims. Symptoms can range from ataxia, muscle weakness and damage to hearing and speech, to insanity, paralysis and death.

What is new about mercury?

In January 2013, more than 140 countries have adopted the first global, legally binding treaty, known as the Minamata Convention on Mercury, to prevent the release of anthropogenic mercury. Later on, in October 2013, Minamata will be in the news again to ratify the treaty.

Why is mercury hazardous?

Mercury is tasteless and odorless, so when it does get into the environment it’s not easy to spot. And as the only metal on Earth that can be found in a liquid form at room temperature, mercury is often used in barometers, thermometers and in any household items like cosmetics, antiseptics and skin lightening creams. It can also be combined with other metals to create special alloys called amalgams, which can be silver or gold. [5]

Moreover, mercury poisoning is not a local issue. Most of the world’s estimated 600,000 tonnes of mercury deposits are found in a handful of countries, including China, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Slovenia, Spain and Ukraine. [6] Of course, the US is not excluded. [5]

The biggest anthropogenic sources of mercury are coal fired power plants, and artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), together emitting a minimum of 1000 tonnes per year.

What about the treaty?

Unfortunately, the treaty only provides soft measures like awareness raising, advocacy, and the provision of information, so as to encourage reductions of anthropogenic mercury emissions. Although the treaty is ‘legally binding’, it encourages governments to set out strategic reduction schemes on the facility in Minamata rather than on a national basis

On top of this, the treaty does not require identification or remediation of contaminated sites, does not require polluters to pay for health damages or environmental clean-up, and does not provide protection from similar disasters occurring anywhere in the world. In fact, the treaty is not expected to reduce global levels of mercury in fish and seafood at all. [7]

A look into the future

With global warming at 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 1,199 new coal-fired plants are being proposed globally. [8] It seems our addiction to fossil fuels is not going to end.

Mercury emissions are not expected to fall until the 2020s, while the treaty itself is expected to increase anthropogenic emissions.

The rising global concern is methylmercury poisoning growing in combination with ongoing climate change and water scarcity – in particular with regard to coal fired power stations, with their high CO2 emissions and significant use of water for cooling.

Talking about clean coal (or clean coal technology)?  In the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Energy report honestly said: “There is no point in pretending that coal is what it is not, nor that it is not what it is. Coal is naturally endowed with the elements and minerals of the living organisms that define its primordial origins, and that means the carbon for which it is valued. But, to some degree, it also means sulfur, and nitrogen, and incombustible impurities. It is an incontrovertible fact that the uncontrolled burning of coal will release into the environment carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), particulate matter, and ash.

It is the business of the Clean Coal Technology Program to develop the means of burning this coal with attendant minimal emissions of these undesirable pollutants; we know that there can never be none. So, if not literally “clean” coal, then certainly we mean “cleaner” coal, and it is in this sense that the Program uses the shorthand term, Clean Coal Technology”. [9]

According to Rob Dietz, regular contributor at The Daly News, “clean coal means that miners have struck it rich — that they’ve found a seam of coal that, when burned, produces only a lemony fresh, green vapor”. [10]

The hard work lies in changing the current state of our economy. We need to be confronting the root causes of our environmental problems, which are population growth and a false economic paradigm triggered by capitalism, rather than simply the symptoms alone. As Albert Bartlett, the physicist and activist, has said: “Smart growth destroys the environment. Dumb growth destroys the environment. The only difference is that smart growth does it with good taste. It’s like booking passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same.”

[1] UNEP, United Nations Environment Programme, (2013). http://www.unep.org/PDF/PressReleases/Mercury_TimeToAct.pdf

[2] Honda, S., Hylander, L., & Sakamoto, M. (2006). Recent advances in evaluation of health effects on mercury with special reference to methylmercury: A minireview. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 11 (4), 171-176

[3] Barrett, J. (August, 2010). An Uneven Path Forward: The History of Methylmercury Toxicity Research. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Environmental Health perspective, 118(8): A352

[4] Schlein, L. (19 January, 2013). More Than 140 Nations Approve Global Treaty to Cut Mercury. Voice of America: http://www.voanews.com/content/first_global_legally_binding_treaty_on_mercury_adopted/1587234.html

[5] Griesbauer, L. (February, 2007). Methylmercury contamination in fish and shellfish. CSA Discovery Guides:

[6] USGS (2012). Mineral Commodity Summary. United States Geological Service. Available from http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/mercury/mcs-2012-mercu.pdf

[7] Kennedy, R., and Yaggi, M.(10 January, 2013). Mercury poisoning is a growing global menace we have to address. The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/10/mercury-poisoning-global-menace-treaty

[8] Yang, A., and Cui, Y. (November, 2012). Global Coal Risk Assessment: Data Analysis and Market Research. World Resources Institute: http://www.wri.org/publication/global-coal-risk-assessment

[9] Miller, L. (n.d.). Clean coal technologies, clean air legislation and national energy strategy. U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Fossil Fuel Energy (FE-22). Retrieved from http://web.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint%20archive/Files/Merge/Vol-35_4-0003.pdf

[10] Moronic Oxymorons in the Age of Climate Change. Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (casse). The Daly News. Retrieved from http://steadystate.org/moronic-oxymorons-in-the-age-of-climate-change/

Carbon emissions estimated to reach record 35.6 billion tons in 2012

by | Dec 3, 2012 | Climate Change

Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are set to rise again in 2012, reaching a record high of 35.6 billion tonnes – according to new figures from the Global Carbon Project, co-led by researchers from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The 2.6 per cent rise projected for 2012 means global emissions from burning fossil fuel are 58 per cent above 1990 levels, the baseline year for the Kyoto Protocol.
By University of East Anglia

This latest analysis by the Global Carbon Project is published today in the journal Nature Climate Change with full data released simultaneously by the journal Earth System Science Data Discussions.

It shows the biggest contributors to global emissions in 2011 were China (28 per cent), the United States (16 per cent), the European Union (11 per cent), and India (7 per cent).

Emissions in China and India grew by 9.9 and 7.5 per cent in 2011, while those of the United States and the European Union decreased by 1.8 and 2.8 per cent.

Emissions per person in China of 6.6 tonnes of CO2 were nearly as high as those of the European Union (7.3), but still below the 17.2 tonnes of carbon used in the United States. Emissions in India were lower at 1.8 tonnes of carbon per person.

Prof Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and professor at UEA, led the publication of the data. She said: “These latest figures come amidst climate talks in Doha. But with emissions continuing to grow, it‟s as if no-one is listening to the entire scientific community.”

The 2012 rise further opens the gap between real-world emissions and those required to keep global warming below the international target of two degrees.

“I am worried that the risks of dangerous climate change are too high on our current emissions trajectory. We need a radical plan,” added Prof Corinne Le Quéré.

The analysis published in Nature Climate Change shows significant emission reductions are needed by 2020 to keep two degrees as a feasible goal.

It shows previous energy transitions in Belgium, Denmark, France, Sweden, and the UK have led to emission reductions as high as 5 per cent each year over decade-long periods, even without climate policy.

Lead author Dr Glen Peters, of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway, said: “Scaling up similar energy transitions across more countries can kick-start global mitigation with low costs. To deepen and sustain these energy transitions in a broad range of countries requires aggressive policy drivers.”

Co-author Dr Charlie Wilson, of the Tyndall Centre at UEA, added: “Public policies and institutions have a central role to play in supporting the widespread deployment of low carbon and efficient energy-using technologies, and in supporting innovation efforts”.

Emissions from deforestation and other land-use change added 10 per cent to the emissions from burning fossil fuels. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere reached 391 parts per million (ppm) at the end of 2011.

These results lends further urgency to recent reports that current emissions pathways are already dangerously high and could lead to serious impacts and high costs on society. These other analyses come from the International Energy Agency, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Bank, the European Environment Agency, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

From University of East Anglia: http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2012/December/global-carbon-emissions

Report finds half of earth’s wetlands destroyed since 1900

Report finds half of earth’s wetlands destroyed since 1900

by | Oct 18, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Agence France-Presse

An alarming 50 percent of the world’s wetlands have been destroyed in the last 100 years, threatening human welfare at a time of increasing water scarcity, a new report said.

Wetlands serve as a source of drinking water and provide protection against floods and storms, yet they have been decimated to make space for housing, factories and farms or damaged by unsustainable water use and pollution.

“In just over 100 years we have managed to destroy 50 percent of the world’s wetlands,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

“It is a startling figure,” he said at a UN conference in Hyderabad.

The report, compiled by an ongoing research project entitled TEEB, or The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, said coastal wetland losses in some regions, including Asia, have been happening at a rate of 1.6 percent per year.

“Taking mangroves as an example, 20 per cent (3.6 million hectares) of total coverage has been lost since 1980, with recent rates of loss of up to one percent per year,” said the report released Tuesday.

“We need wetlands because our existence, our food and our water is at stake,” said Ritesh Kumar of the environmental group Wetlands International.

Wetlands are known to cover about 13 million square kilometres (five million square miles) of the Earth’s surface, and are a natural sink for Earth-warming carbon dioxide, act as fish nurseries and are important tourist attractions.

In the United States alone, wetlands are estimated to provide $23 billion worth of storm protection every year, the report said.

The report was released at a conference of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, where environment ministers will hold three days of talks from Wednesday to try and raise funds to stop the decline of Earth’s natural resources.

From The Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/17/half-of-all-wetlands-destroyed-since-1900-threatening-human-welfare/

Human Supremacy Where You Might Least Expect It

Human Supremacy Where You Might Least Expect It

by | Oct 31, 2024 | ANALYSIS, Human Supremacy, The Problem: Civilization

By Elizabeth Robson / RadFemBiophilia’s Newsletter

 

In general, the United Nations (UN) Biodiversity Conference gets far less press than the UN climate change conferences, but I’ve seen more news items for this year’s Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP 16) than I have for previous biodiversity COPs. Still, I didn’t initially pay it much attention, because I’ve become so leery of these annual (for climate change COPs) and biannual (for biodiversity COPs) UN affairs. Why? Because, so far at least, these meetings have amounted to mostly good vibes, with little to no action that has any meaningful consequence in protecting the natural world.

This year’s biannual Biodiversity COP is in Cali, Colombia, a country with the dubious distinction of topping the list of the number of environmental activists killed by country in both 2022 (60) and 2023 (79). It runs until November 1, 2024.

I decided to take a deeper look at the biodiversity goals of these UN meetings at the prompting of two friends who both shared news items related to this year’s COP; one with a dismal “Expect less than nothing from COP 16. Much less.” and the other with a much brighter “Protection of nature efforts are being attempted globally.” outlook.

I learned that the outcome of the previous biodiversity conference, COP 15, is the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This is an agreement among COP 15 parties that “sets out an ambitious pathway to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050.”

It’s important to note that the framework “supports the achievement of the [UN] Sustainable Development Goals.” I’ll come back to this point later on.

COP 16 will build on previous work by asking the participating parties to agree on a plan for meeting the goals and targets agreed to in the GBF from COP 15.

So, to understand the goals of these biannual biodiversity conferences, we must take a look at the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) from COP 15.

~~~

The GBF (PDF) opens with “Biodiversity is fundamental to human well-being, a healthy planet, and economic prosperity for all people…”. This might sound good to most peoples’ ears, but to me, it sets the tone of “for all people” that suffuses the rest of the document—one that is human supremacist to its core.

The agreed upon outcomes specified in the framework are described in the vision, the mission, four goals and 23 targets. Let’s take a look.

The vision: “A world of living in harmony with nature where ‘by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.’”

This clearly states that the primary goal of biodiversity is benefits for all people.  There is no indication here that nature and living beings exist for their own sake. There is no recognition of the rights of non-human beings, including wildlife and ecosystems. Biodiversity is seen as something to be “wisely used” (by humans) so that we can continue to get the benefits of “ecosystem services.”

“Sustaining a healthy planet” sounds nice, but is incredibly vague and seems secondary to the “benefits essential for all people.”

The mission: “To take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet by conserving and sustainably using biodiversity and by ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources, while providing the necessary means of implementation.”

Halting biodiversity loss and putting nature on a path to recovery would be fantastic. Especially for nature. But no, this isn’t a mission for nature’s sake at all. It is “for the benefit of people.”

“Ensuring … benefits from the use of genetic resources” is interesting. It seems a bit out of left field until you understand that this means the genetic material from plants, animals, and microorganisms, which holds potential value for research, development, and commercial applications.

In other words, the authors of this framework see the natural world as a source of genetic materials to use for making a profit. That is, they objectify the natural world in the extreme, reducing living beings to genes, with the goal of conserving biodiversity to make more opportunities to profit from those genes.

Well, at least we know what their priorities are! And again, we see no understanding or recognition that nature and living beings exist for their own sake, and have the right to do so.

The Goals and Targets described in the framework flow from this vision and mission, so we can assume they will have similar issues, and they do.

The four Goals are identified as Goals A through D.

Goal A sounds good—to maintain, enhance, and restore the integrity of ecosystems—until you get to the last paragraph, which clarifies the point to all the lovely sounding language that precedes it: “The genetic diversity within populations of wild and domesticated species, is maintained, safeguarding their adaptive potential.”

We already know that the primary purpose of that “genetic diversity” is “genetic resources” for the “benefit of all people.”

Essentially, the point of Goal A is to maintain and restore ecosystems so we can get as many “genetic resources” as possible to make a nice hefty profit. Got it.

Goal B is worse:

“Biodiversity is sustainably used and managed and nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services, are valued, maintained and enhanced, with those currently in decline being restored, supporting the achievement of sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations by 2050.”

So, we are to value “nature’s contributions to people.” What about nature’s contributions to itself? Apparently those don’t matter. This goal reduces nature to “ecosystem functions and services” that are useful to people and to “sustainable development.” (See the last section below for more on “sustainable development.”)

Basically this is saying that biodiversity is for people; that ecosystems are “services” for people. “Present and future generations” are generations of people, not of wildlife and ecosystems.

Goal C elaborates on the reduction of nature to “genetic resources” for people and profit, saying that “the monetary and non-monetary benefits from the utilization of genetic resources and digital sequence information on genetic resources… are shared fairly and equitably” among people.

Are you starting to get the picture now?

Their Targets are similarly problematic.

Target 1 is to “Ensure that all areas are under participatory, integrated and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning and/or effective management processes.” In other words, humans should “manage” all areas on the planet for—per their goals—people.

Don’t wild beings get a single square inch of the planet to manage (or just live in) for themselves that isn’t managed by people? Apparently not.

Target 2 is to “Ensure that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and marine and coastal ecosystems are under effective restoration, in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity.”

So we are to restore ecosystems, not because nature needs intact ecosystems to survive and thrive, but rather to enhance “ecosystem functions and services” (that benefit humans, as earlier established) and “ecological integrity and connectivity” (for genetic resources to benefit humans, as earlier established). It’s all for people.

I won’t bore you with all 23 Targets, but allow me just one more.

Target 9 is to “Ensure that the management and use of wild species are sustainable, thereby providing social, economic and environmental benefits for people…” (emphasis added).

I’m sure you have the picture now.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals

We should not be surprised by the human supremacy at the heart of these biodiversity goals. This is a UN program, and as stated by the UN and in the GBF itself, the framework is “a contribution to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” which is itself a human supremacist agenda.

Before we go further, we should talk about what “sustainable development” means. The definition of “sustainable” is “able to be maintained at a certain rate or level,” according to the Oxford Dictionary. The UN defines “development” as “a multidimensional process that aims to improve the quality of life for all people.”

The UN’s Quality of Life Initiative defines “quality of life” by a broad range of factors including health, work status, living conditions, and command of material resources.

We can thus understand the UN’s “sustainable development” as development that improves the health, work status, living conditions, and command of material resources for all people in a way that can be maintained at a certain rate or level.

Looking at the UN’s list of Sustainable Development Goals, we see included in that “affordable and clean energy,” “industry, innovation, and infrastructure,” “sustainable cities and communities,” “decent work and economic growth”, and so on.

Development usually means converting nature into commodities for human use, whether that’s converting a wetland into a parking lot, a river into electricity via a dam, or a forest into timber. These are the activities that drive economic growth, that are required for “affordable energy,” “industry,” and “infrastructure,” and the typical outcome of “innovation” is doing these things faster.

So “sustainable development” really means sustaining the conversion of nature into commodities at a certain rate or level.

If that certain rate or level looks anything like our lives here in the developed world, this is clearly impossible. Humans already use 1.75 Earth’s worth of “resources” (with the developed world using the vast majority of those “resources”), and so we are drawing down Earth’s carrying capacity at a rapid pace. There will be no sustaining anything at the current rate and level in the near future, given how quickly we are drawing down Earth’s carrying capacity now.

I hope it’s clear to you that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is all about people, and that it comes at the expense of the natural world. If you doubt that the agenda is entirely human supremacist, I would urge you to spend some time reading this substack and others about the impacts of “industry, innovation, and infrastructure” on the natural world and about how economic growth is incompatible with a living planet (e.g. my article about Ecological Overshoot and some of the resources I point to from there).

Returning to the GBF, we find that Section C affirms the role that the biodiversity framework plays in these Sustainable Development Goals by specifying that the framework is to be “understood, acted upon, implemented, reported and evaluated, consistent with” the “Right to development” (among other considerations):

“Framework enables responsible and sustainable socioeconomic development that, at the same time, contributes to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.” (emphasis added).

The framework was doomed from its start by virtue of this “right to development.”

~~~

It might be tempting to believe that a global conference on biodiversity would put the needs and interests of the natural world first, but we would be mistaken in that belief. Reading the details of the vision, mission, goals, and targets of the GBF, we can clearly see that human needs are prioritized and that the entire framework is structured around protecting biodiversity for the benefit of people.

This is a human supremacist framework. That it is should not be surprising, as human supremacy is the primary and most pervasive ideology held by humans.

 

Banner by Shutterstock/Molishka from COP16 UN-HABITAT