On 13 January, Friends of the Earth (FoE) and South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC) filed applications in the high court to take legal action against the government over the construction of a new coalmine in Cumbria, in North-West England. The two organisations have co-operated in designing their legal challenges to dovetail rather than overlap.
The reason for their request for a judicial review is the decision of Levelling Up secretary, Michael Gove, to grant planning…
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was among thousands of campaigners arrested on 17 January during protests in Germany at the expansion of the Garzweiler open-cast coal mine.
Greta was arrested in the village of Lützerath, which had seen a violent eviction by riot police the week before. Lützerath is scheduled to be swallowed up by the expansion of the mine.
The Green party, which is part of the German government, said the activists should accept the compromise which…
This is a moment of huge potential
On one hand, there are many reasons to feel the future is bleak: recent failure of COP27, vicious attacks on migrants, unravelling living standards, widening inequality, crashing biodiversiy, and extreme weather events brought about by worsening climate conditions to name a few. On the other hand, there is a unique opportunity to unite across divides for effective action, and there is an amazing potential for change.
Along with the peace…
Should the peace and climate movements be trying to work more together and, if so, how?
These were two of the key questions posed at the recent ‘War and the climate emergency’ dayschool in Oxford that brought climate and peace campaigners together to learn and reflect in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It’s not hard to find common ground shared by the two movements.
For example, as PN’s editor, Milan Rai, has noted, Russia’s criminal invasion of…
Despite the severity of the climate crisis, oil and gas companies around the world are still on a massive expansion course.
That’s the conclusion of the latest authoritative GOGEL survey of oil and gas exploration and development, in a report launched on 10 November at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt.
GOGEL (the Global Oil and Gas Exit List) is a public database maintained by 51 respected NGOs including Urgewald of Germany.
GOGEL monitors the activities of 901 companies…
‘The ultimate test of this COP is that it has responded to the voices of the climate vulnerable by establishing a fund for loss and damage.’ That was Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s minister for climate change, speaking at the closing session of COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on 20 November, on behalf of most of the Global South – she was representing the G77/China* group.
Here in the UK, Friends of the Earth welcomed the fund as ‘a first step towards wealthy nations providing loss and…
On 10 September, some extra captions and exhibits were added to the Shell-sponsored carbon capture exhibition at the Science Museum, London.
Artist Darren Cullen (AKA Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives) ‘thought it was weird that an exhibition about carbon capture, paid for by an oil company, didn’t once mention that 81% of all the carbon ever captured by this technology has been used by oil companies and pumped back into oil wells to help extract more oil’.
He decided to correct…
British prime minister Liz Truss and her new government are planning to approve a massive new oilfield in the North Sea: Rosebank.
If it went ahead, Rosebank’s annual CO2 emissions would be more than those of the 28 lowest-income countries in the world combined.
#StopRosebank, the new campaign from the people who brought you the successful #StopCambo movement, has launched a petition aimed at Truss and her business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg:
…
On 2 September, Extinction Rebellion (XR), the climate change direct action group, carried out actions at the Westminster parliament in London. Three XR members glued themselves to a chain inside the chamber of the house of commons. Two other campaigners held large banners reading: ‘Citizens Assembly Now’ and ‘Let the People Decide’.
Meanwhile, another two XR activists D-locked themselves by their necks to the gates to the members’ car park and an eighth rebel climbed up the…
On 23 July, the ‘We All Want to Just Stop Oil’ coalition held a ‘mass swarming march’ in Central London. Groups set off from 11 separate locations, causing much traffic disruption, and all converging in Parliament Square for an authorised symbolic mass sit-down. Real Media, who filmed the event, reported that 1,000 people took part.
The coalition is headed by the climate action group Just Stop Oil (JSO). Other members include CND, Disabled People Against Cuts, Fuel Poverty Action,…
Over 400 teachers have said they will not be taking their students to a new gallery at London’s Science Museum if it continues to be sponsored by the massive coal company, Adani, and they will boycott any exhibitions sponsored by fossil fuel companies.
Currently, the Science Museum is sponsored by oil and gas giants Shell, BP and Equinor as well as by Adani.
Fossil Free Science Museum, which organised the open letter, says: ‘These companies are pushing the world further towards…
There were a huge number of climate actions in April and May, organised by Extinction Rebellion (XR) and its spin-off, the Just Stop Oil (JSO) coalition.
JSO reported over 965 arrests by 15 April as a result of two weeks of daily blockades of oil terminals and petrol stations all over the country, including in Birmingham, Essex, London and Southampton.
By 4 May, the total had grown to over 1,200 arrests, according to the group.
JSO demands that the government calls a…
‘The sky is a cornucopia – heaven, not so far from earth. We have to guard that cornucopia against industries and interests that would make it scarce.’
Thus writes anthropologist David McDermott Hughes, on the final page of this enthralling book. It’s simultaneously a call for a new ‘socialism of the wind’ and an in-depth exploration of the social, political and cultural challenges facing the renewable energy revolution.
Two ideas underlie this book.
Firstly, we urgently…
On 1 March, it was confirmed that ClientEarth, Friends of the Earth and Good Law Project can take the UK government to court over its inadequate net zero strategy.
The government’s own baseline forecasts show that the UK’s projected emissions in 2037 will be more than double the levels the government is legally required to achieve under the 2008 Climate Change Act in order to meet its legally-binding carbon budget.
Climate activists have recorded two major successes in their campaign to stop oil company sponsorship of cultural institutions.
Scottish Ballet ended its partnership with BP (formerly ‘British Petroleum’) on 31 January. The ballet company said its partnership deal no longer ‘aligns with the company’s green action plan – to be carbon neutral by 2030’.
Three weeks later, on 22 February, the National Portrait Gallery in London announced that it had also ended its BP sponsorship…
