Greenpeace Blog

France ups the stakes with a green "revolution"

Posted by bex — 30 October 2007 at 11:49am - Comments

A tad belated but I just couldn't let this one pass. Last week, these words emerged from France's environmental policymaking forum:

"From now on, every major public project, every public decision will be judged on its effect on climate, and on its carbon cost. Each public decision will be judged on how it affects bio-diversity. The onus won't be on ecological decisions to prove their merit, but on non-ecological projects to prove they can't be done any other way. Non-ecological decisions must be taken as a last resort. It's a total revolution in the way we govern our country."

Article tagged as: climate change, france, GM food, nicolas sarkozy, precautionary principle

Indonesia gets its own climate change camp

Posted by jamie — 24 October 2007 at 1:42pm - Comments

The Forest Defenders Camp in Sumatra, Indonesia

Climate change and deforestation are inextricably linked. Forest destruction contributes around one-fifth of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire global transport sector, and the problem is so severe that Indonesia and Brazil are ranked third and fourth respectively in the list of top emitting countries, mainly because of deforestation.

It's against this background that our latest Forest Defenders Camp opened a couple of weeks ago on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, located on the frontline where the peatland forest is being cleared for palm oil plantations. Palm oil is used in hundreds of food and cosmetic products, as well as biofuels.

Article tagged as: climate change, deforestation, forest defenders camp, forests, indonesia, palm oil, sumatra

Why you should act on climate change (whether or not you believe it's real)

Posted by bex — 23 October 2007 at 2:28pm - Comments

Thanks to a few of our Facebook friends for this one - why it makes sense to act on climate change, whether or not you believe it's real:

 

 

Article tagged as: climate change, videos

Brown's plans to scupper Europe's climate deal

Posted by bex — 23 October 2007 at 11:55am - Comments

Gordon Brown
Update: our executive director John Sauven has written on why Gordon Brown's reluctance to embrace the economic and environmental potential of renewable energy technology is costing us time, money and could eventually cost us the climate here.

 

British prime ministers have a longstanding tradition of taking on the less savoury characteristics of their US counterparts pretty soon after coming to office. For Blair, it was a propensity towards using weapons of mass destruction. For Brown, it's trying to scupper vital climate change deals.

On the same day that scientists have shown that carbon emissions are accumulating far more quickly than predicted, leaked documents reveal that Labour wants to work with the nuclear-obsessed French and the climate-sceptic Polish presidents to undermine a vital European deal on renewable energy. The deal - to generate 20 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020 - was only finalised by European leaders including Tony Blair earlier this year.

Article tagged as: climate change, gordon brown, nuclear power, renewable energy

Greenpeace activists held captive in the Amazon

Posted by jamie — 18 October 2007 at 11:26am - Comments

A mob led by loggers prevents Greenpeace activists from leaving Brazilian government offices

A mob led by loggers prevents Greenpeace activists from leaving Brazilian government offices ©Greenpeace/Rodrigo Baleia

There's been further friction in the Amazon between Greenpeace staff and angry loggers and townspeople. It's all ended peacefully but the situation was tense and they were holed up overnight under police protection. This from Reuters:

Police escorted a group of Greenpeace activists from a remote town in the Brazilian Amazon on Wednesday after hundreds of loggers and townspeople besieged them overnight in protest against an anti-global warming campaign, the environmental organization said.

Article tagged as: agriculture, amazon, brazil, deforestation, forests, south america

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