Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday (30 June) that it uncovered new evidence of the indiscriminate use by Ukrainian forces of banned anti-personnel landmines against Russian troops who invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The group called on Ukraine’s government to follow through with a commitment made earlier this month not to employ such weapons, investigate their suspected use and hold accountable those responsible.
“The Ukrainian government’s pledge to investigate its military’s apparent use of banned anti-personnel mines is an important recognition of its duty to protect civilians,” Steve Goose, Human Rights Watch’s arms director, said in a statement.
HRW said it shared its findings with the Ukrainian government in a May letter to which it received no response.
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Category: politics
Human Rights Watch reports new evidence of Ukrainian use of anti-personnel landmines
Sewage scandal goes to the High Court
https://envirotecmagazine.com/2023/07/03/sewage-scandal-goes-to-the-high-court/
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage) On Wednesday 5 to Thursday 6 July, the High Court will hear a legal challenge that aims to force the Government to toughen up its plan for reducing sewage dumped in England’s rivers and seas. Good Law Project is supporting the Marine Conservation Society, Richard Haward’s Oysters and surfer and activist Hugo Tagholm as they argue that the Government’s strategy is inadequate, allowing water companies to pollute waters and beaches for another 27 years.
England’s sewers were designed with 14,500 storm overflows to stop them becoming overwhelmed, allowing a mixture of surface water and sewage to be discharged during heavy rainfall. But according to the Environment Agency, these overflows are now used on a routine basis. Water companies discharged untreated sewage through storm overflows more than 300,000 times in 2022 for a total of 1.7 million hours.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) published the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan to tackle this in August last year. It imposed a deadline of 2035 for reducing the sewage flowing into bathing waters and areas of ecological importance, but gave companies until 2050 to stop discharges elsewhere.
This legal challenge, which has been backed by cross-party MPs, aims to force the Government to bring forward these deadlines and introduce tougher targets.
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https://envirotecmagazine.com/2023/07/03/sewage-scandal-goes-to-the-high-court/
Top oil and gas companies have made “almost no progress” towards Paris Agreement goals: report
https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/industry/oil-and-gas-companies-behing-on-paris-deal/
The CDP’s Oil and Gas Benchmark report assessed 100 oil and gas companies on low-carbon transition and just transition indicators.
Top oil and gas companies have made “almost no progress” in reaching the climate goals agreed as part of the 2015 Paris climate summit, environmental disclosure non-profit CDP said on Thursday.
The CDP’s Oil and Gas Benchmark report, published with the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), assessed 100 oil and gas companies. The assessment was based on low-carbon transition and social and just transition indicators.
While none of the companies perform well on all indicators, Finland-based Neste is ranked first, followed by French company Engie, oil giant TotalEnergies, Spain’s Naturgy Energy and Italy’s Eni. In May this year, TotalEnergies announced its plan to keep its scope 3 emissions below 400 million tonnes. However, the company scored 19.4 out of 60 on CDP’s low-carbon transition indicator, and 9.4 out of 20 on just transition.
According to the report, the operating emissions from the oil and gas sector added up to 5.1 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO₂ in 2022. None of the companies assessed by CDP can cut their emissions “at a rate sufficient to align with a 1.5°C pathway over the next five years”, it said.
The report observes that most companies fail to disclose their capital investment in low-carbon technologies. Currently Neste is the only one with investments sufficient to meet the climate goals. Further, despite seven major oil companies disclosing a profit of $380bn in 2022, investments in low-carbon transition fall short significantly.
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https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/industry/oil-and-gas-companies-behing-on-paris-deal/
Extinction Rebellion UK target Wood Group for “utter contempt” for UK taxpayers
Extinction Rebellion UK protest at Wood Group Aberdeen 3 July 2023 Extinction Rebellion are protesting the Wood Group’s Aberdeen and Staines offices after Wood Group significantly reduced it’s renewables operations and expanded it’s fossil fuel operations weeks after receiving a £430m government-backed “green transition loan” in 2021.
… After receiving the £430m loan, Wood grew its upstream oil and gas business by 17% so that it accounted for more than $3bn (£2.4bn) in revenue in 2022, up from $2.6bn in 2021, according to an analysis of the company’s financial results by the Guardian and the investigative journalism organisation Point Source.
Over the same period the company reduced the size of its renewable, hydrogen, and carbon capture business units by 35% so that they only accounted for revenues of $222.8m in 2022, down from $344.6m in 2021.
The five-year loan, which was the first of its kind and was designed to help Wood transition away from fossil fuels, was announced in August 2021 by Liz Truss when she was international trade secretary.
At the time, Truss said the engineering company had “already made great strides in repositioning its business for a low-carbon future”.
After being awarded the loan, Wood announced a string of at least 20 major contract awards for work on oil, gas and petrochemical infrastructure.
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Millions of households’ face fuel poverty as government support scheme ends, warns charity
‘Without more support too many will continue to rack up unmanageable debts or try and survive in unheated homes causing ill health, misery, and avoidable death.’
Image of cash and pre-payment meter key …
The National Energy Action (NAE), which works to provide support to those who cannot afford to heat their home, says around 6.6 million households across Britain will be in fuel poverty. The charity warns that despite cost-of-living payments for households on mean-tested benefits, vulnerable families will not receive any government support.
The charity cautions that households who aren’t on qualifying benefits – or aren’t on benefits at all – will miss out. This may include people who are severely in debt, those on low incomes who need to spend more energy at home due their disability or the inefficiency of their homes, unpaid carers, households on low incomes who have seen a drop in their incomes due to a recent bereavement, or households that, until this year, were eligible for wider assistance from programmes like the Warm Home Discount but are now no longer able to access energy rebates.
Adam Scorer, chief executive of the NEA, warns that despite retail prices falling from July, many of the people the charity helps are still struggling. Scorer notes how two-thirds of households across Britain will no longer benefit from any assistance to offset the impacts of the energy crisis and Ofgem’s price cap will offer ‘limited protection to these households.’
“Millions of vulnerable people miss out on cost-of-living payments as they aren’t on the right benefits or no benefits at all. These people need additional help but are being left to manage bills that are still on average over £1,000 per year more expensive compared to the start of the crisis,” said Scorer.
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