Category Archives: Environment

Evidence grows of forced labour and slavery in production of solar panels, wind turbines

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A ‘certificate of origin’ scheme could counter concerns about renewables supply chains, says Clean Energy Council

The Australian clean energy industry has warned of growing evidence linking renewable energy supply chains to modern slavery, and urged companies and governments to act to eliminate it.

A report by the Clean Energy Council, representing renewable energy companies and solar installers, has called for more local renewable energy production and manufacturing and a “certificate of origin” scheme to counter concerns about slave labour in mineral extraction and manufacturing in China, Africa and South America.

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About 2.6 million Uyghur and Kazakh people have been subjected to coercion, “re-education programs” and internment in the Xinjiang region of north-west China, which is the source of 40-45% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon. A report by the United Nations office of the high commissioner for human rights three months ago found Xinjiang was home to “serious human rights violations”, and the US has listed polysilicon from China as a material likely to have been produced by child or forced labour.

On batteries, there were major issues with the mining of between 15% and 30% of the world’s cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Amnesty International found that children, some as young as seven, were working in artisanal cobalt mines, often for less than $2 a day. Mining conditions were reportedly hazardous, and workers often did not have adequate protective equipment and were exposed to toxic dust that contributed to hard metal lung disease.

On wind energy, there had been rapid growth in demand for balsa wood used in turbine blades that had reportedly led to workers in Ecuador’s Amazon region being subject to substandard labour conditions, including payment being made with alcohol or drugs. The demand for balsa has also reportedly increased deforestation, and affected the land rights of Indigenous people in Peru. Some balsa wood suppliers have more recently provided Forest Stewardship Council certifications, which verifies responsible forest management and fair wages and work environments.

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Tories will not reach ‘embarrassingly poor’ nature targets by 2030, Labour says

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Opposition to unveil plan to reverse biodiversity loss rather than simply halting it, which is government’s current target

The government will not be able to achieve its nature targets by 2030, even though they are “embarrassingly poor”, the shadow environment minister and leading wildlife groups have said.

Next week at the Cop15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, Alex Sobel will be discussing Labour’s “science-led, joined-up plan to tackle the climate and ecological emergency”. The plan will aim to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, rather than simply halting it, which is the government’s current target.

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Native mussel numbers down almost 95% since 1960s, Thames survey finds

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Scientists trying to replicate 1964 study say results reveal alarming deterioration in river’s ecosystem

A survey of mussels has revealed an alarming deterioration in the River Thames ecosystem since the 1960s, according to a study.

Scientists attempting to replicate a 1964 survey of freshwater bivalves in a stretch of the Thames near Reading found striking results, as native mussel populations had crashed by almost 95%. One native species, the depressed river mussel, had vanished completely, and the remaining species were much smaller for their age, reflecting slower growth.

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UK households have cut energy consumption by 10%, say suppliers

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E.ON reports up to 15% drop as Grant Shapps writes to firms customers cutting back on energy use should not face direct debit rise

Britons have cut their gas and electricity use by more than 10% since October in the first evidence of the impact of the energy crisis on household habits, according to two of Britain’s biggest suppliers.

E.ON, Britain’s second-largest supplier, and the owner of Utility Warehouse have reported “double-digit” declines in recent weeks.

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Climate concern the main reason voters swung to independents at federal election, study finds

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Nearly half of voters who switched to an independent candidate at 2022 election did so because of climate fears, researchers say

Concern about the climate crisis was the No 1 issue that prompted Australians to switch their vote to an independent candidate at this year’s federal election, according to in-depth social research.

It was the No 2 issue that led to people to swing to Labor, behind concern about the cost of living – including affordable housing.

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Criticism mounts of ‘climate killer’ modern art museum in Berlin

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Calls for construction on Museum of the 20th Century to be halted until energy efficiency issues addressed

A vast modern art museum under construction in Berlin has been castigated by conservation experts and architecture critics for its poor environmental credentials, as the energy crisis intensifies scrutiny of the efficiency of new buildings.

The Museum of the 20th Century, designed by the Swiss star architects Herzog and de Meuron, is intended to propel the German capital into the top tier of world cities for modern art, competing with New York’s Moma and London’s Tate Modern.

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‘Tangled mess of inaction’: hundreds of threatened species recovery plans expiring in next six months

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Growing list facing extinction and underresourcing of conservation means plans have not been updated

Hundreds of plans for the recovery of threatened species will reach their use-by date in the next six months as the government considers how to reform Australia’s flawed system of environmental protections.

Documents released to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws detail how underresourcing, disagreement with state governments, and the growing list of species threatened with extinction have constrained the federal environment department’s ability to get on top of a backlog of conservation work.

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Fears for all Ukraine’s nuclear plants after emergency shutdowns

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Russian attacks cut off essential power to the stations last week, forcing all four of them into high-risk mitigation procedures

There are growing fears that Russia’s relentless targeting of Ukraine’s electricity grid will threaten the safety of the country’s nuclear power plants, in the wake of an unprecedented emergency shutdown on Wednesday.

Petro Kotin, the president of Ukraine’s nuclear power company, Energoatom, said that all safety mechanisms had worked as intended on Wednesday, but two generators were damaged in the process, delaying the restart of two reactors. Kotin said repeated shutdowns caused by more Russian missile attacks could cause extensive damage, with a potentially severe impact on Ukraine’s power supply and possibly on nuclear safety.

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Alok Sharma backs bid to lift ban on onshore windfarms in England

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Tory MP becomes latest member of party to get behind push to drop moratorium imposed in 2014

The president of the Cop26 climate summit Alok Sharma has become the latest Conservative party MP to support lifting the ban on new onshore windfarms.

Sharma has joined his former boss Boris Johnson, who nominated him for a peerage, in backing an amendment to government legislation in an attempt to drop the moratorium on onshore wind.

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Gordon Brown says China must pay into climate fund for poor countries

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Former prime minister says US and Europe will pay biggest share of loss and damage fund, but China must too

China must pay into a new fund for poor countries stricken by climate-driven disaster on the basis of its high greenhouse gas emissions and large economy, the former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has said.

“America and Europe will have to provide most, but China will have to contribute more too,” he told the Guardian.

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Rocket launches pose extinction-level threat to SA’s tiny southern emu wren, conservationists warn

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Tanya Plibersek could list the bird as endangered amid concerns about proposed rocket launch site

A tiny southern emu wren, which conservationists fear is under threat from rocket launches, could be listed as endangered within days.

Conservationists say planned rocket launches on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia pose an extinction-level threat to the wren, one of Australia’s smallest birds.

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China’s 26-storey pig skyscraper ready to slaughter 1 million pigs a year

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The world’s biggest single-building pig farm has opened in Hubei province, but critics say it will increase the risk of larger animal disease outbreaks

On the southern outskirts of Ezhou, a city in central China’s Hubei province, a giant apartment-style building overlooks the main road. But it is not for office workers or families. At 26 storeys it is by far the biggest single-building pig farm in the world, with a capacity to slaughter 1.2 million pigs a year.

This is China’s answer to its insatiable demand for pork, the most popular animal protein in the country.

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Alarming manatee death toll in Florida prompts calls for endangered status

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Mammals were downgraded from endangered to threatened in 2017, even as pollution and habitat loss drive starvation

The deaths of almost 2,000 manatees in Florida’s coastal and inland waterways over the last two years has provoked an alliance of environmental groups to demand an urgent reclassification of the species to officially endangered.

The advocates, led by the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity, insist the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) made a critical error in 2017 by prematurely downgrading the status of the giant aquatic mammals from endangered to merely threatened.

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The littlest rat catchers: New Zealand schoolchildren trap and kill 600 pests in 100 days

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As part of an attempt to rid Stewart Island of the rodents, children as young as five have taken part in a rat catching competition, with remarkable results

In a tiny school on the southern-most tip of New Zealand, the children are lining up their kill.

Big brown rats with long tails, their stomachs caked in blood. Smaller rats, stiff from the refrigerator, tails in a tangle.

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‘Point of no return’: Chris Packham leads calls for Rishi Sunak to attend Cop15

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Conservationist says if world leaders do not go to the summit a strong deal to halt and reverse nature loss is at risk

Chris Packham is urging the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to attend a key nature summit to protect the planet for the sake of his great-grandchildren because we are “very close to the point of no return”.

The Cop15 biodiversity summit being held in Montreal from 7-19 December is the nature equivalent of the recent Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, with governments from all over the world expected to agree targets to halt the destruction of the natural world. But world leaders are not expected to attend the once-in-a-decade meeting where the next 10 years of targets will be agreed.

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Sales boost for B&Q and Screwfix owner amid rush for energy-saving products

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Kingfisher says sales of loft insulation roll more than double while smart thermostats rose by nearly a third

The B&Q owner, Kingfisher, has reported higher sales as fears over higher gas and electricity costs boosted demand for energy-efficient products including insulation roll and smart thermostats.

The retail group, which also owns the hardware trade supplier Screwfix, said customers who invested in a raft of energy-saving DIY products helped increase group sales by 0.6% to £3.3bn in the three months to October. When stripping out the impact of the weaker pound, sales were up 1.7%.

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Dutton given official warning by Speaker – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

How can strengthening federal laws stop the destruction of sacred heritage sites?

Tanya Plibersek:

I think I think it’s really worth having a look at the two inquiries that the the parliament undertook into the Juukan Gorge destruction because it describes not just the failure of laws, but the failure of process and the failure of people to listen and that happened at the commonwealth level and it also happened at the West Australian state government level.

The other thing that it describes is a company that paid lip service to consultation and really, you know, really didn’t do what it should have done when Aboriginal people said you can’t blow up caves that are 46,000 years old, that have examples of continuous use and habitation that you know, the site of finds like a 4,000-year-old hair belt, and tools that are tens of thousands of years old.

There’s absolutely a sense of urgency to ensure that this sort of cultural heritage destruction doesn’t happen again.

I completely agree with that, but a very strong message from the the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance is also that they genuinely want to sit at the table to work through these issues in partnership and cooperation.

Yeah, I’m not going to put I’m not going to put a timeline on it yet. I think that’s something that we determined as we work through the complexity of these issues, and there are a lot of complexities involved.

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Kenyan government halts baobab exports to Georgia after outcry

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President orders Ministry of Environment and Forestry to launch investigation over contractor’s licence for removing trees

The Kenyan government has halted the transportation and export of Kilifi baobabs to Georgia and ordered an investigation into how a foreign contractor received permission to transport the ancient trees out of the country.

Kenya’s president, William Ruto, ordered the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to investigate whether Georgy Gvasaliya had the proper licence to take the trees out of Kenya under the Nagoya protocol, an international agreement that governs the conditions for the export of genetic resources, which has been incorporated into Kenyan law.

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Flood could cut off NSW town of Moulamein ‘through December’, authorities say

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About 85% of the town’s 484 residents chose to stay despite being told to evacuate, with roads out expected to be closed for several weeks

Hundreds of residents of the small Riverina town of Moulamein have elected to stay and defend their properties against the rising flood waters even though authorities have warned they may be isolated into December.

The State Emergency Service warned the whole town to evacuate by 2pm Tuesday or face weeks being cut off as the Edward River, which joins with the swollen Billabong Creek in the town, was expected to peak at 6.2 metres on Thursday.

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Australia politics live: Qantas plays ‘hardball’ on workplace relations, Shorten says; Karen Andrews makes emotional speech on domestic violence

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Liberal MP Karen Andrews addressed the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in parliament. Follow all the day’s news

Independents to launch report on whistleblower protections

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has been arguing for more protections for whistleblowers for years. The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has proposed new laws to boost whistleblower protections, but there are still calls the law needs to go further.

Protecting Australia’s Whistleblowers: The Federal Roadmap draws on landmark research and synthesises three decades of reviews to outline a comprehensive, 12-step roadmap for better protecting and empowering whistleblowers.

Establishment of a whistleblower protection authority to oversee and enforce Australia’s whistleblower protections;

Upgraded whistleblower protections for Australian public servants in line with domestic and international best practice, including a positive duty to protect whistleblowers and steps to make it easier for whistleblowers to enforce their rights;

Consolidation and harmonisation of whistleblowing laws across the private sector in one new single law covering all non-public sector whistleblowers; and

Stronger, simpler protections for whistleblowers who make disclosures to the media and members of parliament.

The mortality ratios from Covid in Australia are quite similar to those estimated in other advanced nations. As a share of the population, fewer people died from Covid in Australia than in most other affluent nations. Yet among those who died, the same health inequalities can be seen in Australia as in other advanced countries.

What might have driven the socioeconomic disparities in Covid mortality? And why might many of those disparities have been largest in the Delta wave? As I have noted, disadvantaged people may be less able to work remotely, more reliant on public transport, and more likely to live in crowded households. Uptake of vaccination and antiviral treatments have varied across society as vaccines and treatment became increasingly available. Another factor is that successive Covid waves have had varying degrees of severity. A final factor is that in the years since Covid began, population immunity has steadily risen.”

Across all waves of the pandemic, deaths from Covid were highest among those aged 80‑89 years. The median age of those who died from Covid was 87.4 years for females and 83.6 years for males. Males had a higher number of registered Covid deaths than females. For every 100 female Covid deaths, there were 126 male Covid deaths. Around 3-quarters of all Covid deaths occurred in Victoria and New South Wales.

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