Posted by jamie — 24 October 2007 at 1:42pm
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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.
Posted by bex — 23 October 2007 at 11:55am
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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.
Gordon Brown is secretly plotting to scupper a vital European climate change deal in a manner reminiscent of George Bush's attacks on the Kyoto Protocol.
Phew, what a couple of days - there are lots of exhausted (not to mention dust covered) faces in the office today.
On Monday morning, we took over Kingsnorth coal fired power plant to say no to a new coal rush in the UK, and yes to a sane, clean energy future. That evening, E.ON served an injunction and the people locked onto the conveyor belt were arrested and taken into custody. Meanwhile, the climbers on the chimney began painting a message to Gordon, going strong until the light failed them.
