Greenpeace Blog

Four thousand tonne oil spill in the North Sea

Posted by bex — 12 December 2007 at 4:49pm - Comments

Some bad news from our Nordic office: around 4000 tonnes of raw oil has leaked into the North Sea, in the second largest oil spill in Norwegian history.

25,000 barrels-worth of oil leaked into a key herring and mackerel ground and is now drifting northwards. The waves are too high for any oil lenses to work, and a lot of the oil's being washed underwater.

The accident happened when a pipe broke during the loading of oil from the Statfjod A platform in bad weather.

There's more on Reuters.

Article tagged as: climate change, north sea, oil, oil spill

Bali: a road map or a dead end?

Posted by bex — 12 December 2007 at 4:10pm - Comments

Last night, on the tenth anniversary of the most far-reaching environmental treaty ever signed, Ban Ki-Moon said:

"Today we are at the crossroads; one path leading towards a comprehensive new climate agreement, and the other towards oblivion."

And until yesterday, things were pottering along OK at the Bali negotiations. We were waiting for ministers from around the world to inject a sense of urgency into the negotiations, and to secure the much-needed commitments for industrialised countries to cut emissions by 25 to 40 per cent by 2020, and for all countries to halve emissions by 2050.

Article tagged as: bali, ban ki-moon, climate change, kyoto protocol

World Bank ditches shares in Congo-trashing company

Posted by jamie — 10 December 2007 at 6:20pm - Comments

Forest canopy in the Congo rainforest

There have been some great developments around our Congo rainforest campaign, as the FT reported on its website this morning that one of the arms of the World Bank will offload the shares it owns in a company known to be destroying the forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has announced that it will divest its holdings in Olam International, a Singapore-based company which has operations in the DRC. The Congo report we released earlier this year showed how Olam was holding forest land granted in breach of the current moratorium which the World Bank itself helped establish and that it was also trading in dodgy timber. As a result, Olam has since given back its forest holdings to the DRC government, but it still buys illegal timber cut by local companies.

Article tagged as: africa, congo, deforestation, DRC, forests, IFC, illegal timber, moratorium, OLAM, world bank

Another legal threat for the government over nuclear plans

Posted by jamie — 10 December 2007 at 3:59pm - Comments

When you make a mistake, you tend to learn from the experience so you can avoid making similar blunders in the future. Not so the current government which, if it backs a new generation of nuclear power stations, could once again find itself at odds with the law.

Back in February, we took the government to the High Court over its first attempt to hold a public consultation on the future of nuclear power. The court found in our favour, ruling that the consultation was "unlawful" and "seriously flawed". It forced ministers back to the drawing board for a second consultation but once again it's been shaped and guided by a predetermined outcome: the UK will have new nuclear power stations. Members of the public who attended the consultation meetings posted messages on this site about how they felt attendees were lead into finding in favour of nuclear power.

Article tagged as: climate change, consultations, nuclear power, nuclear waste

Here come the Tories to launch their green energy policy

Posted by jamie — 6 December 2007 at 7:42pm - Comments

David Cameron launches his new policy on green renewable energy

David Cameron speaking at today's launch of the Conservative's green energy policy © Greenpeace/Daniel Beltra

We're used to having some unusual people descending on our offices, but today's visit by David Cameron and several other members of the shadow cabinet is the most leftfield (or should that be rightfield?) visitation for some time. But they were here to launch a new policy that uses many of our own demands for renewable energy, a vital component in the struggle to limit the impacts of climate change.

Article tagged as: climate change, conservatives, energy, renewable energy

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