Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

UK quits treaty that lets oil firms sue government

2 hours ago

The UK has withdrawn from an international treaty that lets fossil-fuel companies sue governments pursuing climate policies for billions in compensation for lost profits.

The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is meant to make it easier and cheaper to trade energy between countries.

But signatories have struggled to reform it - and late on Wednesday, the UK quit the treaty calling it "outdated".

Green campaigners welcomed the news.

Energy Security and Net Zero Minister Graham Stuart said: "Remaining a member would not support our transition to cleaner, cheaper energy and could even penalise us for our world-leading efforts to deliver net zero."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68369916

[weatheriscool]

[Time_Traveller]

EU Policy. Right-wing in last-ditch bid to torpedo nature restoration law

23/02/2024 - 16:08

Despite latest efforts from center-right lawmakers to block the bill, Socialists, Greens and The Left are eager to see the adoption of the nature restoration.

The European Parliament will vote next week on legislation intended to reverse decades of ecosystem degradation, but right-wing groups want to renege on a recent political agreement with EU governments and reject the law out of hand instead of giving it the expected rubber stamp.

The Nature Restoration Law, provisionally agreed with the EU Council last November after months of highly politicised negotiations, requires action to improve biodiversity across 20% of all EU land and sea by 2030 and the incremental restoration of all degraded ecosystems by 2050, alongside other measures such as opening up 25,000km of free-flowing rivers and planting at least three billion new trees.

Yet after a considerable watering down from the European Commission’s proposal, announced in June 2022, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the Identity and Democracy (ID) groups in parliament both introduced last-minute amendments to the law on Tuesday (February 21) calling on the parliament to reject the law as a whole.

The ECR has also tabled a set of six amendments that would greatly water down the legislation, such as limiting its effect to protected Natura 2000 areas, EU special conservation zones. The adoption of any of the amendments would mean re-opening talks with member states, effectively pushing the adoption of the bill into the next mandate after the EU elections in June.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/02/ ... ration-law

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[Time_Traveller]

UK gives £600m backing to Jim Ratcliffe’s ‘carbon bomb’ petrochemical plant

Thu 29 Feb 2024 15.35 GMT

The UK government is providing a €700m (£600m) guarantee for the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe to build the biggest petrochemical plant in Europe in 30 years that will turbocharge plastic production.

The huge petrochemical plant has been described as a “carbon bomb” by campaigners. Being constructed in the Belgian city of Antwerp by Ratcliffe’s company Ineos, it will bring plastic production to Europe on a scale not seen before, just as countries are trying to negotiate a binding global treaty to tackle the growing problem of plastic pollution.

More than 350m metric tonnes of plastic waste is produced a year, and by 2060 plastic waste is set to increase to 1bn metric tonnes. Antwerp is a key production centre for plastic in Europe and has created pollution from plastic pellets and emissions that supercharge global heating, campaigners say.

But despite admitting the plant’s adverse impact on climate, biodiversity, the environment and the risks to social and human health, the British government has provided financial guarantees of €700m to support the building of Project One in Antwerp.

The support from the UK government’s export finance department, an arm of the Department for Business and Trade, to Ratfliffe, now a high-profile part-owner of Manchester United Football Club, exceeds that promised by the same department for countries in Africa and the Middle East to adapt to climate breakdown.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ical-plant

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

One of the world's most populated cities is nearly out of water

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topst ... r-BB1jjfU7