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Scientists, Experts Demand ‘Immediate End’ to EU Fossil Fuel Subsidies

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Oil storage tanks and a container terminal are seen in the Port of Le Harve, northern France on June 12, 2023. (Photo: Peter Titmuss/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

“E.U. leaders must make a choice: Stand with the people and the planet, or continue propping up an economy that’s driving us towards climate catastrophe,” said one advocate.

Warning that policymakers in the European Union are undermining the bloc’s own climate goals by continuing to subsidize fossil fuel extraction, climate scientists and other experts from across Europe were among the signatories of an open letter released Wednesday, demanding that officials redirect hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to “turbocharge climate solutions.”

The coalition United for Climate Justice spearheaded the letter, which comes ahead of a planned march in Brussels on Saturday, October 5.

“These subsidies go against Europe’s plans for a sustainable and just transition and fuel the devastating heatwaves we have seen this past summer in our continent,” reads the letter. “Europe is now the fastest warming continent; we have reached a turning point and cannot afford to delay any further.”

Groups including Extinction Rebellion, 350.org, and Greenpeace E.U. pointed to goals the bloc has set in recent years, including the 8th Environmental Action Program, which entered into force in 2022 and included a commitment to “phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.”

The subsidies, which were estimated at more than €400 billion ($441 billion) in 2023, also stand in the way of meeting climate targets put forward in the European Green Deal, said the signatories. The plan aims to make Europe “the first climate-neutral continent,” with no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and “interim targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and by 90% by 2040,” notes the letter.

“This will not happen without an immediate phaseout of fossil fuel subsidies,” said the groups bluntly, “as a step towards a fossil-free Europe.”

By continuing to subsidize fossil fuel projects, they added, the E.U. is also flouting its own Parliament’s declaration of a climate emergency in 2019.

To act in line with the declaration and its climate commitments, said the groups, the E.U. must:

  • Set a timeline for the phaseout of fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, providing technical and financial assistance to member states
    facing challenges in meeting phaseout deadlines and offer incentives for achieving milestones ahead of schedule;
  • Adopt comprehensive methodological guidance for member states that accurately and transparently accounts for both explicit and implicit subsidies associated with fossil fuels; and
  • Develop a binding framework to monitor and report on member states’ progress towards phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, with noncomplying members facing consequences such as financial penalties and reduced access to E.U. funding.

The bloc’s fossil fuel subsidies “distort energy demand, perpetuate dependence on polluting energy sources, and undermine European energy security, while subsidizing industries that contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions,” said the groups.

Phasing out the subsidies would “future-proof the European economy, reducing climate-related financial risks,” they added.

The letter comes weeks after Storm Boris dumped record-breaking rains on European countries including Romania, Austria, and Poland, leading to deadly flooding.

“The E.U. cannot claim leadership on climate action while continuing to support polluting industries with billions,” said Angela Huston Gold, spokesperson for United for Climate Justice. “E.U. leaders must make a choice: Stand with the people and the planet, or continue propping up an economy that’s driving us towards climate catastrophe. The recent disastrous floods in Central and Eastern Europe are yet another wake-up call. We must end our fossil fuel dependency and therefore eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies.”

Also last month, the Portuguese government declared a “state of calamity” over wildfires that killed at least seven people. Last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the E.U.’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) determined the Europe is the fastest-warming continent.

“Year after year, commitments have been made and left unfulfilled, and we can no longer accept inaction,” said the signatories of Wednesday’s letter, who also included Luca Mercalli, president of the Italian Meteorological Society, and Paul Stubbs of the Institute of Economics in Croatia. “Until these necessary changes occur, people will continue to take to the streets to make our voices heard and hold you accountable.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingScientists, Experts Demand ‘Immediate End’ to EU Fossil Fuel Subsidies

40,000 dead in Gaza a ‘milestone the world must be ashamed of’: Irish Premier

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Original artticle republished from MIMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Ireland’s Prime Minister Simon Harris attends a press conference at Government Buildings in Dublin on April 12, 2024 [PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images]

Ireland’s Prime Minister, on Thursday, said that 40,000 dead in Gaza is a “milestone the world must be ashamed of”, Anadolu Agency reports.

“International diplomacy has failed to protect innocent children, some only days old,” Simon Harris said on X.

He called on Israel to stop the bombings in Gaza and asked Hamas to release the hostages.

In addition to his call for a ceasefire in Gaza, Harris urged the EU to reassess its association agreement with Israel.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since a 7 October, 2023 attack by Hamas.

The Israeli onslaught has since killed over 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,400 others, according to local health authorities.

Over 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on 6 May.

READ: Pope Francis calls for ceasefire in Gaza amid ongoing Israeli onslaught

Original artticle republished from MIMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Continue Reading40,000 dead in Gaza a ‘milestone the world must be ashamed of’: Irish Premier

Right to Asylum Must Be Protected in EU, Says Human Rights Coalition

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

The Doctors Without Borders vessel Geo Barents intercepted two small boats full of migrants navigating toward Europe
in the Central Mediterranean on March 16, 2024. (Photo by Simone Boccaccio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“As this legislative cycle starts, the E.U. can and must do better than abandon its commitment to the global refugee protection regime,” said an Amnesty campaigner.

Nearly 100 human rights organizations came together Tuesday to emphasize that members of the European Union “must guarantee the right to seek and enjoy asylum and uphold their commitments to the international refugee protection system.”

The joint statement from groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam came as members of the European Parliament prepare for the July 16 plenary sitting, the first meeting scheduled since the bloc’s June elections, which resulted in the far-right “Patriots for Europe” becoming the third-largest alliance in the legislative body.

The human rights coalition underscored obligations under Article 18 of the E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights and expressed concern about “the recent and increasing attempts by the E.U. and its member states to evade their asylum responsibilities by outsourcing asylum processing and refugee protection risk undermining the international protection system.”

As the groups detailed:

Italy, for instance, is currently seeking to process asylum applications of certain groups of asylum-seekers outside of its territory, from detention in Albania—which risks leading to prolonged, automatic detention, a denial of access to fair asylum procedures with necessary procedural guarantees, and delayed disembarkation for people rescued or intercepted at sea. Others, such as Denmark and Germany, are assessing the feasibility of this type of arrangement. Fifteen E.U. member states and some political groups have endorsed similar shortsighted measures to shift asylum processing outside E.U. territory and encouraged the European Commission to explore ways to facilitate this through further legislative reform, including through a watered-down ‘safe third country’ concept.

These attempts must be seen in the context of parallel containment efforts that seek to stem departures and prevent the arrival of asylum-seekers to E.U. territory through partnership agreements with third countries, with little to no attention to the human rights records of those authorities.

The coalition stressed that “as the extensive track record of human rights violations in partner countries such as Libya demonstrates, the E.U. and Member States have no adequate tools and competencies to effectively monitor or enforce human rights standards outside of E.U. territory.”

A report published in November by Doctors Without Borders features stories of violence that migrants endured in nations including Libya and Tunisia while trying to get to the E.U. That publication also points out that 2023 was the deadliest year for migration in the Central Mediterranean since 2017, due in part to E.U. countries failing to assist those at risk of drowning.

In addition to sounding the alarm about current E.U. policies and practices, the coalition on Tuesday cited examples including Australia’s offshore detention scheme, which “demonstrates how these models have created prolonged confinement and restricted freedom of movement, deeply harming both the mental and physical health of people seeking protection.”

The organizations also pointed to an asylum scheme attempted by the United Kingdom—which left the E.U. in 2020 following the 2016 Brexit vote—and Rwanda, which the statement notes “is not yet in effect following the U.K. Supreme Court declaring it unlawful and in any event is unlikely to be operationalized at any significant scale.”

The U.K.’s failed attempt to forcibly remove people to the African country was “projected to cost a staggering £1.8 million per asylum-seeker returned,” which is equal to €2.13 million or $2.3 million. The coalition called such schemes “not only an unjustifiable waste of public money, but also a lost opportunity to spend it in ways that would truly aid people seeking asylum by investing in fair and humane asylum systems and the communities that welcome them.”

Olivia Sundberg Diez, Amnesty’s E.U. advocate on migration and asylum, said in a statement Tuesday that “attempts by states to outsource their asylum responsibilities to other countries are not new—but have long been criticized, condemned, and rejected for good reason.”

“Just as the U.K.-Rwanda scheme is, rightly, collapsing, the E.U. and its member states should pay attention, stop making false promises, and wasting time and money on expensive, inhumane, and unworkable proposals,” she continued. “As this legislative cycle starts, the E.U. can and must do better than abandon its commitment to the global refugee protection regime.”

The meeting scheduled for next week will follow the Pact on Migration and Asylum that the European Parliament passed in April and the Council of the E.U. adopted in May. The coalition highlighted that “civil society organizations have been clear about their serious concerns” regarding the reforms while also explaining that “the transfer of asylum-seekers outside of E.U. territory for asylum processing and refugee protection is not provided for in the pact, nor within current E.U. law.”

“After the E.U. and member states have spent close to a decade attempting to reform the E.U.’s asylum system, they should now focus on implementing it with a human rights-centered approach that prioritizes the right to asylum per E.U. law and fundamental principles of international refugee law to which they remain bound,” the coalition concluded. “They should not, mere weeks after the reform has passed, waste further time and resources on proposals that are incompatible with European and international law.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingRight to Asylum Must Be Protected in EU, Says Human Rights Coalition

‘No Longer on the Brink’: Top EU Official Blames Israel for Famine in Gaza

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Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell attends a press conference on October 2, 2023 in Kyiv, Ukraine.  (Photo: Eduard Kryzhanivskyi/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

“This famine is not a natural disaster. It is not a flaw. It is not an earthquake. It is entirely man-made,” said Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s foreign affairs chief.

The European Union’s top foreign affairs official on Monday said that after more than five months of Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid and bombardment of Gaza, the U.S.-backed government has pushed the enclave into famine.

Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, demanded that Western governments clearly state the reason that at least two of Gaza’s five governorates have now been identified by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative (IPC) as experiencing famine “with reasonable evidence.”

“In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine; we are in a state of famine, affecting thousands of people,” Borrell said in Brussels at a meeting on humanitarian aid for the besieged enclave. “This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war.”

“By whom? Let’s dare to say by whom. By the one that prevents humanitarian support entering into Gaza,” he said, adding that “Israel is provoking famine.”

Borrell’s remarks signify that the E.U. has now accepted that “that Israel is starving Gaza,” said journalist Owen Jones, with “straightforward genocidal intent.”

The IPC, which was established in 2004 by the United Nations and international humanitarian groups, said Monday that since the analysis it conducted in December—in which it warned of famine by May if a cessation of hostilities did not take place—the conditions needed to prevent such a catastrophe have not been met.

Famine in Gaza’s northern governorates is now projected to take hold between mid-March and May, the IPC said.

“According to the most likely scenario, both North Gaza and Gaza Governorates are classified in IPC Phase 5 (famine) with reasonable evidence, with 70% (around 210,000 people) of the population in IPC Phase 5 (catastrophe),” said the initiative.

The group uses the famine classification when at least one of three conditions has been observed:

  • At least 20% of households have an extreme lack of food;
  • At least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and
  • At least two adults or four children for every 10,000 people die daily from starvation or from disease linked to malnutrition.

At least 27 children in Gaza have now died of malnutrition in recent weeks, according to local authorities, as Israel has attacked civilians seeking humanitarian aid numerous times and has blocked deliveries.

The E.U. said Monday that just 100 tonnes of aid per day are reaching Gaza, compared with 500 tonnes that entered the enclave daily before Israel’s current bombardment.

The entire population of 2.2 million people is now facing high levels of “acute food insecurity,” according to the IPC.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, head of the pediatric department at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, told Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) that the facility is seeing the daily effects of Israel’s blocking of aid.

“Amid the famine in the north, there are many cases of elderly people and especially children showing symptoms of dehydration and malnutrition,” said the doctor. “Twenty-five to 30 children are admitted to the hospital on a daily basis, with half of them suffering from dehydration and malnutrition. One child, two months old, died today because of dehydration and malnutrition. Other children are on the same trajectory unless the situation is addressed soon.”

Meanwhile, he said, medical workers themselves are “suffering from physical weakness and extreme exhaustion” as they try to treat people injured in relentless bombings and gunfire.

“As a medical team managing the hospital, we have not been able to secure even one meal,” said Abu Safiya. “Our staff are worn out working 24/7 without food.”

Borrell pointed to recent comments by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which Scholz warned: “We cannot stand by and watch Palestinians starve.”

“This famine is not a natural disaster. It is not a flaw. It is not an earthquake. It is entirely man-made,” said Borrell. “Chancellor Scholz is saying Europeans cannot sit and watch Palestinian starving, when on the other side of the border there is food for months accumulated in stocks, while on the other side of the road there are people dying of hunger.”

Rose Caldwell, CEO of children’s rights group Plan International, added that the “entirely man-made catastrophe should be a source of shame for the international community.”

“After months of unimaginable trauma and indiscriminate bombing, the children of Gaza are now facing the horror of starvation and the threat of imminent famine,” said Caldwell. “There can be no excuses: preventing access for humanitarian aid is a clear violation of international humanitarian law. The starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is illegal and immoral.”

The IPC has classified only two other humanitarian crises as famines: one in Somalia, which killed 490,000 people in 2011, and one in South Sudan, which killed 80,000 people in 2017.

At least 31,726 Palestinians have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces since it began its bombardment.

“Before the war, Gaza was the greatest open air prison,” said Borrell. “Today it is the greatest open air graveyard.”

Melanie Ward, CEO of MAP, noted that the organization warned in January that its physicians were seeing evidence of severe malnutrition in children.

“World leaders have fiddled at the edges rather than take decisive action which addresses the cause of this starvation,” said Ward. “Now world leaders must insist that Israel immediately opens all land crossings into Gaza, particularly the Karni and Erez crossings, and allows safe and unfettered access for aid and aid workers.”

“Children in Gaza are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever known,” she added, “and their survival depends on more food, fuel, and water entering Gaza immediately, as well as a lasting cease-fire.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘No Longer on the Brink’: Top EU Official Blames Israel for Famine in Gaza

George Monbiot: Britain is becoming a toxic chemical dumping ground – yet another benefit of Brexit

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/18/britain-toxic-chemical-dump-brexit-europe

 Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian

Perhaps our government imagines bulldog spirit will protect us from the dangerous substances that Europe rules unsafe

It’s a benefit of Brexit – but only if you’re a manufacturer or distributor of toxic chemicals. For the rest of us, it’s another load we have to carry on behalf of the shysters and corner-cutters who lobbied for the UK to leave the EU.

The government insisted on a separate regulatory system for chemicals. At first sight, it’s senseless: chemical regulation is extremely complicated and expensive. Why replicate an EU system that costs many millions of euros and employs a small army of scientists and administrators? Why not simply adopt as UK standards the decisions it makes? After all, common regulatory standards make trading with the rest of Europe easier. Well, now we know. A separate system allows the UK to become a dumping ground for the chemicals that Europe rules unsafe.

While negotiating our exit from the EU, the government repeatedly promised that environmental protections would not be eroded. In 2018, for example, the then environment secretary Michael Gove, in a speech titled Green Brexit, claimed “not only will there be no abandonment of the environmental principles that we’ve adopted in our time in the EU, but indeed we aim to strengthen environmental protection measures”. Such pledges turn out to be as dodgy as a £3 coin with Boris Johnson’s head on it.

…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/18/britain-toxic-chemical-dump-brexit-europe

Continue ReadingGeorge Monbiot: Britain is becoming a toxic chemical dumping ground – yet another benefit of Brexit