radiofree.asia

Category: pollution

  • Why activists distrust this plan to cut emissions from cars and trucks

    Life is gray around P.T. Barnum Apartments, a housing complex for low-income residents in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Monica Jackson grew up and lived until recently. Within just a few minutes’ walk of the community are a highway, an asphalt plant, a waste-to-energy plant, and a sewage treatment plant. You can’t get a single breath of fresh air, Jackson said, and the noise pollution is inescapable.

    “It’s a depressing area,” she said.  “You can smell something being burnt all the time, you can smell the feces from the sewage sludge plant, you can smell the exhaust from all the trucks. You smell the garbage from all the trucks that come off the highway, just going into the waste management plant. It’s just sick.”

    The proponents of an interstate partnership called the Transportation and Climate Initiative say that their plan to reduce emissions from the transportation sector will help neighborhoods like Jackson’s. But many environmental justice advocates worry the initiative will leave overburdened communities behind. First conceived in 2010, this collaboration of 13 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, plus Washington, D.C., is working to lower carbon emissions from the transportation sector through a cap-and-invest system called TCI-P (the P stands for “Program”). 

    Cap-and-invest programs set a limit (or cap) on overall emissions that lowers each year. Polluters — gasoline and diesel suppliers, in TCI-P’s case — must purchase permits for the greenhouse gases they emit, forcing them to either reduce emissions over time or buy permits from other polluters who do so. The goal is to drive down emissions and pollution while generating revenue to be invested back into clean solutions like improving public transportation, building electric vehicle infrastructure, and providing safer bike lanes and sidewalks. 

    In December, four jurisdictions — Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and D.C. — officially committed to TCI-P, while eight states continue to formally participate in the planning process and can join at any time. (New Hampshire and Maine opted out of the program.) But TCI-P has long drawn the criticism of environmental justice advocates who say that the program won’t do enough to reduce pollution in low-income communities of color and cite persistent exclusion from the decision-making process. Although TCI leaders incorporated equity commitments into the program last year, many environmental justice groups remain unimpressed and are pressuring their home states to step back.

    “To walk something as big as this back, it’s probably a little discomforting and disconcerting for supporters,” said Renae Reynolds, the transportation planner for the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. “But for the environmental justice community, it is not in our best interest to make policymakers feel comfortable with the decisions that they’ve made when we know that they are not going to result in good outcomes for us.”

    Supporters of TCI-P highlight that it will cut greenhouse gas pollution from the region’s vehicles by an estimated 26 percent and generate more than $3 billion in revenue between 2022 and 2032. The initiative intends to provide communities with cleaner air and more green programs, but many environmental justice advocates don’t buy it. 

    One of the TCI-P equity commitments dedicates a minimum of 35 percent of funds toward overburdened and underserved communities, but environmental justice groups are worried that the money will get raided by state governments to fill holes in their budgets. That’s what happened to tens of millions of dollars generated by a cap-and-invest program for the power sector in the region, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. Trust in cap-and-invest was also corroded by an economy-wide program in California, implemented in 2013. It has been criticized by environmental groups for failing to address the pollution faced by low-income areas and communities of color. 

    The environmental justice conversation around TCI-P is permeated with a distrust of market-based emissions reduction strategies. Cap-and-invest is an “elaborate scam” in the eyes of Basav Sen, climate justice project director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a D.C.-based think tank. Giving companies permits to pollute, he said, is out of concern for the polluters, not communities. “Why would anyone care about making pollution as cheap for polluters as possible?” he asked. “Ultimately, if you want to address the failure of the neoliberal market system, the only way out of it is to regulate it.”

    TCI is directed by state and district agencies within the participating jurisdictions and supported by the Georgetown Climate Center. James Bradbury, mitigation program director at the Georgetown Climate Center, said that the environmental justice impact of California’s cap-and-invest program is often mischaracterized. While disadvantaged communities in the Golden State are still disproportionately exposed to pollution, there is evidence that their exposure has been reduced more than in other communities, narrowing the pollution exposure gap, he said. 

    Bradbury also said that California’s program was never meant to solve every issue with pollution, and neither is TCI-P. States can enact complementary policies around cap-and-invest to build out their climate strategy. At the state level, Bradbury said, local communities and advocates “really have an opportunity to shape what’s enforceable and what’s binding.”

    “Every time I’ve heard an alternative put forward, it’s not actually an alternative,” Bradbury said. “It’s another policy that is fine and great. There’s nothing that prevents that from happening and implementing TCI.” 

    The environmental justice groups that Grist spoke to proposed numerous TCI-P alternatives, including legislation or regulations to halt highway and roadway expansion, invest in affordable public transit, electrify diesel trucks, and change land-use patterns to take sources of pollution like highways and distribution warehouses out of overburdened communities. These groups are advocating for policies that prioritize and offer an immediate benefit to frontline communities, said Maria Lopez-Nuñez, deputy director of organizing and advocacy at the New Jersey-based justice group Ironbound Community Corporation. 

    “This idea that we’re going to get the money and then invest it later shows that the people who created TCI don’t live in an environmental justice community,” she said.

    Environmental justice advocates also worry that TCI-P’s plans to electrify transportation without regulating the power sector in tandem will move the source of pollution from tailpipes to gas-fired power plants generating the electricity necessary to power electric vehicles. These plants have disproportionate health impacts on low-income communities of color. Lopez-Nuñez is concerned the funds from TCI-P will be funneled into tax incentives for personal electric vehicles rather than improving affordable mass transit. “We need to make sure that public transportation is free,” she said. “That’s how you reduce vehicle miles traveled, not by trying to electrify private cars.”

    Most of these concerns are underpinned by deep frustration with feeling unheard at the decision-making table. Frontline community members should have been included in TCI conversations since the inception of the collaboration in 2010, Lopez-Nuñez said, and their vetoes of the program in recent years should have been taken more seriously.

    “We were saying no, and apparently no does not mean no. It just meant ‘How about this way? How about that way?’” Lopez-Nuñez said. “It feels like a violation of our community concerns to push TCI on communities who have said no over and over for years.”

    Pete Rafle, communications director for Georgetown Climate Center, said that TCI, the overall collaboration, is often conflated with TCI-P, the cap-and-invest program itself. While TCI has been working together since 2010, work on TCI-P began in 2015. There were public listening sessions and workshops across the region in 2019, he said. “I understand that the perception is that somehow there was a conversation going on that [environmental justice groups] were not part of,” Rafle said. “The actual timeline is a little different from that from the states’ perspective.”

    In an effort to address environmental justice and equity concerns, TCI has also addressed equity questions on its official website and added several commitments to TCI-P, including ones to monitor air pollution in overburdened communities and require participating jurisdictions to establish diverse advisory boards.

    But even environmental justice advocates involved in establishing those advisory boards still feel they are struggling to have their voices heard. Sharon Lewis, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice, is involved in the design of Connecticut’s TCI-P Equity and Environmental Justice Advisory Body. She said she frequently interacted with multiple people who had been involved in the TCI process since 2010, but none of them ever told her about the program, despite her role as an environmental justice leader in the state. It was only in December 2020, after Connecticut had committed to TCI-P, that she received a call from the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, or DEEP, commissioner, Katie Dykes, notifying her of the program. (To Dykes’ credit, she did not realize this was the first time Lewis was hearing of TCI-P, Lewis said.) 

    According to Will Healey, DEEP’s media relations manager, this call was part of an intensive phase of individual stakeholder outreach that took place after the state committed to TCI-P. Since then, state officials have regularly engaged environmental justice advocates in program design and implementation, he said. In response to this feedback, Connecticut has raised the minimum investment in overburdened and underserved communities from 35 percent of TCI-P revenue to 50 percent.

    Lewis still feels like she constantly has to battle to keep environmental justice at the forefront of Connecticut’s environmental justice advisory body. She thinks the advisory body should be 100 percent made up of members from overburdened and underserved communities, rather than experts from other communities. 

    “If you’re going to advise on equity and environmental justice, how can you sit on that body if you have no experience with or no understanding of inequity or environmental injustice?” Lewis said. “I have to constantly educate folks because people think that environmental justice communities are comprised of people with no education.”

    Today, the future of TCI-P as a regional program is uncertain. In December, the Sierra Club announced that in solidarity with environmental justice communities, it would no longer support TCI-P. It also called the program’s targeted 26 percent reduction in emissions by 2032 “too weak.” And it remains unknown whether the eight states that committed to continued collaboration with TCI will actually sign on to the cap-and-invest program.

    Lopez-Nuñez described the four jurisdictions currently committed as a “lackluster showing.” Without commitments from the larger states in the region, like New York and Pennsylvania, TCI-P is a “patchwork,” according to Sen.

    Despite the uncertainties, some environmental justice advocates in TCI-P states are trying to make the best of the situation. A bill is moving ahead in the Connecticut state legislature to iron out the details of the state’s implementation of TCI-P, and several environmental justice advocates testified at a Connecticut General Assembly public hearing in early March in support of it — if certain amendments are made. Nicole Wong, a campaign manager for Dream Corps Green For All, encouraged the state to incorporate diverse hiring and contracting standards to ensure employment for underrepresented groups and to guarantee localized emissions reductions in areas facing the worst air quality.

    Monica Jackson, who lived in the polluted Connecticut housing complex, wants to believe the state has genuine environmental justice intentions in implementing TCI-P. But it’s difficult to fully trust them when she’s seen injustice endure in her area for generations. “Our leaders know it, these companies know it,” Jackson said. “And now we have to wait for money to fix it? It should have been here already.”

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why activists distrust this plan to cut emissions from cars and trucks on Apr 2, 2021.

    This post was originally published on Grist.

  • In Louisiana, Activists May Be Winning a Battle Against Environmental Racism

    Chemical plants and factories line the roads and suburbs of the area known as "Cancer Alley," as seen from above on October 15, 2013.

    Energy industry analysts have declared that the massive petrochemical complex proposed by Formosa Plastics in Louisiana’s St. James Parish is “financially unviable” due to market conditions, legal and regulatory uncertainty, and a groundswell of political opposition and accusations of environmental racism that are gaining international attention. Activists are eyeing a rare victory for environmental justice in the industrial corridor along the Mississippi River known as “Cancer Alley” for its concentration of polluters. However, the fight is not over yet.

    The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a cleaner energy think tank funded by mainstream foundations, urged Formosa in a report this week to abandon its proposal to build a multibillion-dollar petrochemical complex in Cancer Alley. The complex would manufacture chemicals to make plastic products such as throwaway bottles and AstroTurf on the outskirts of Welcome, Louisiana, a small and majority-Black community where local activists have received international recognition for their campaign against the project.

    Residents near the proposed site already live with more toxic air pollution than 99 percent of the United States, and if Formosa builds the sprawling petrochemical complex, cancer-causing emissions could double in St. James Parish and triple near Welcome.

    The proposed complex “would cause Formosa to make the wrong products, at the wrong time, at the wrong price, in the wrong place, and with the wrong financial calculus,” said Tom Sanzillo, IEEFA director of financial analysis and co-author of the report, in a statement.

    Formosa was lured to Louisiana by lucrative tax breaks and pro-industry politicians as the petrochemical industry rushed to build new plastics manufacturing plants and soak up a glut of fossil fuels created by the fracking boom. However, the company faces rising costs and stiff opposition from residents who have organized protests and worked with environmental groups to challenge Formosa’s permits in court.

    Activists have drawn international attention to Cancer Alley, where industry has a long history of polluting and displacing low-income and Black communities. Sharon Lavigne, a Welcome resident and co-founder of RISE St. James, a faith-based environmental justice group opposing Formosa, has testified before Congress and most recently the United Nations. Burial sites have been found on the former plantation grounds Formosa bought to build the complex, and members of community believe their ancestors were buried there after working the plantation fields as slaves. Lavigne says the community wants a memorial erected to their ancestors, not a massive petrochemical plant nearby.

    Last week, Democratic lawmakers in the House urged the Biden administration to revoke key permits for the Formosa project, and President Biden recently mentioned Cancer Alley by name when issuing executive orders on climate change and pollution. At the United Nations, a panel of experts recently declared that environmental racism in Cancer Alley must come to an end.

    “Formosa is goliath, RISE St. James is David,” Lavigne said on Facebook Live after testifying before a UN environmental justice panel on Thursday. “David is going to win this fight.”

    Meanwhile, the market for Formosa’s products looks much smaller than it did when the company first arrived in St. James a few years ago, according to IEEF. The petrochemical industry is rapidly expanding its capacity to manufacture plastics from fossil fuels, especially in China, which could diminish demand for exports from the U.S. Globally, economies may not recover fast enough from the COVID-19 pandemic to create enough demand for the basic chemicals to make plastics that would be manufactured by Formosa in Louisiana. Long-term demand for “virgin plastics” is also expected to drop as recycling and bans on single-use plastics become more widespread.

    The cost of building the complex is also growing, putting a dent in any future profits for Formosa. The estimated cost of construction has jumped by about 24 percent from $9.7 billion to $12 billion and could rise even higher with prices for raw materials like copper and steel, according to the report. Meanwhile, IEEFA estimates the complex’s annual revenues would be roughly $2.5 billion, about 20 percent lower than predicted by the company’s consultants in 2018.

    Formosa says construction of the project — dubbed the Sunshine Project for its proximity to the Sunshine Bridge — has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made it difficult for the company to evaluate construction costs before moving forward. The legal challenges have also contributed to the delay, according to a statement emailed to Truthout by FG LA, the division of Formosa Plastics operating in Louisiana.

    Thanks to activists’ efforts, key permits for the project are held up in court, creating further uncertainty around the project. Last year, a state judge ordered state regulators back to the drawing board and the Army Corps of Engineers suspended a crucial permit after environmental attorneys argued the agencies failed to fully consider how pollution from the complex would impact an already overburdened majority-Black community. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is coming under increasing pressure to address environmental racism and curb production of throwaway plastics that choke oceans and pile up in landfills and communities.

    Formosa is on the rocks in St. James Parish, but the company has not pulled out yet. The company says it has “deferred major construction” until after the pandemic subsides or when vaccines become readily available. At this time last year, RISE St. James reported that the company had begun construction in violation of Louisiana’s COVID stay-at-home order, and construction quickly came to a halt, according to Lavigne. Despite the poor financial outlook published by IEEFA, a Formosa spokeswoman told Truthout that the company remains “committed to the project and continues to monitor all relevant factors closely.”

    “We are watching them, every which way, and we will not allow them to come into St. James and destroy our lives and upset our way of living and pollute us even more,” Lavigne said.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • News on China | No. 43

    The post News on China | No. 43 first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Tahitian academic says Paris must pay for impacts of French nuclear tests

    RNZ Pacific

    A Tahitian academic living in Auckland whose family and home island of Mangareva were impacted on by three decades of French nuclear weapons tests says Paris must pay for the full extent of health and other damage caused.

    Ena Manuireva is a doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology.

    He responds to RNZ’s Koroi Hawkins about the recent revelations by the Moruroa Files investigation and a new book, Toxique, that the impact of the the 193 nuclear tests in Polynesia was far worse than previously admitted by French authorities.

    Ena Manuireva
    Ena Manuireva … doctoral research on the nuclear testing impact on the Gambiers.

    Transcript
    On a more personal level a Tahitian whose family and home island was impacted by French nuclear weapons tests says Paris must pay for the full extent of the fallout.

    Maururu Ena, thanks for joining us on the show. So you were born in Mangareva in 1967 just one year after the French started testing nuclear weapons in French Polynesia?

    [More later]

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

     

    Moruroa atoll 6 June 2000
    Part of Moruroa atoll four years after the French nuclear testing was halted in 1996. Almost all the installations that sheltered up to 3000 people for 30 years have been dismantled , giving the natural vegetation a chance to grow again. Image: Eric Feferberg/AFP/RNZ

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Highlighting The Too-Often Invisible Labor Of Mothers, Who Protect Us And Lead Us

    This week two major publications were released that highlight public health impacts on people living next to oil and gas operations. The Environmental Health News released their investigation looking at how chemicals associated with oil and gas are present at levels 90 times higher than the average in families’ urine, including samples from children. The New Yorker published “When the Kids Started Getting Sick” by Eliza Griswold, a deep dive on the increase in rare bone cancers in the region. 

    These articles highlight the reality of so many in our communities, and because they reflect that lived reality, they hit home. For that reason, this blog goes a bit beyond simply providing information. 

    The post Highlighting The Too-Often Invisible Labor Of Mothers, Who Protect Us And Lead Us appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • US Military Exposed 600,000 To Toxins In Japan And Micronesia

    Most Americans trust the military; a 2020 poll found 72 percent with “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in that institution, edged out only by small business. Many were likely picturing enlisted persons, but their trust often extends to the leadership, both uniformed and civilian. However, those making life-and-death decisions for both U.S. troops and people of other countries — even in the absence of war — deserve our serious scrutiny.

    A new book, Poisoning the Pacific, examines the military’s long role in the environmental degradation of East Asia and Pacific islands, severely impacting the health of the region’s people and U.S. personnel stationed there. Author Jon Mitchell is a Tokyo-based journalist, and much of his book focuses on Japan, especially its southernmost prefecture of Okinawa.

    The post US Military Exposed 600,000 To Toxins In Japan And Micronesia appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • MEPs back law to hold firms to account for environment and human rights abuses

    Big majority in EU parliament vote for corporate due diligence along entire supply chains, which will include UK businesses

    The EU took a step closer to holding companies to account for environmental damage and human rights abuses committed by their subsidiaries and suppliers overseas, with a vote in the European parliament on Wednesday.

    MEPs voted by a large majority, 504 to 79 (with 112 abstentions), to push forward with proposed legislation that would require companies to conduct due diligence throughout their supply chain, to root out abuses and environmental harm such as deforestation and pollution.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Moruroa Files – how cutting edge science, secret documents and journalism exposed a Pacific lie

    Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    Cutting edge nuclear science, a trove of declassified documents, and investigative journalism have exposed the human and environmental impacts of French nuclear testing in the Pacific in a new book and web microsite/database.

    Between 1966 and 1996, France conducted 193 atmospheric and underground nuclear weapons tests in Polynesia in the southern Pacific Ocean.

    These nuclear explosions profoundly affected the environment and health of local indigenous Maohi people and of French veterans involved in the testing programme.

    Using an archive of 2000 pages of declassified French government documents, hundreds of hours of computer simulations of the nuclear tests and fallout predictions, dozens of interviews in France and Polynesia, the book Toxique presents the results of a two-year long study on the consequences of French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the continued struggle of local communities and veterans to seek justice and compensation.

    It sheds unprecedented light on the radiological and environmental contamination of the people of the Pacific through scientific research, journalism, and storytelling.

    It challenges existing official narratives of the consequences of the test, and reveals that more could have been done to protect the public and that justice is owed.

    The book, authored by Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, has a parallel microsite and database – Moruroa Files: Investigation into French nuclear tests in the Pacific.

    Unprecedented collaboration
    “This work is the result of an unprecedented collaboration between a Princeton University nuclear expert, INTERPRT, a collective of architects specialising in the forensic analysis of environmental crimes, and investigative journalists from the media Disclose.

    Classified until 2013, the archives were finally made public as a result of a long legal battle between the French state and the victims of the nuclear tests.

    Toxique
    Toxique … the book of the investigation. Image: APR screenshot

    Until now, the documents have never been studied in their totality. The research team reorganised them by date and subject matter and have now filed them into a database that can be accessed by victims of the tests, researchers and the wider public.

    Along with the study of the documents, the team carried out interviews with more than 50 people, including 18 inhabitants of Polynesian atolls, 16 former military personnel, as well as with magistrates, scientists and organisations from civil society in both French Polynesia and mainland France.

    Using 3D modelling tools and the visualisation of data, we have reproduced, for the first time ever, the events that followed the most contaminating of France’s atmospheric nuclear explosions carried out between 1966 and 1974.

    The team also re-evaluated the extent of the radioactive contaminations these caused, and in which the civilian populations were the principal victims.

    Moruroa Files 2
    Moruroa Files … the Moruoa atoll bunker pictured in the investigation. Image: APR screenshot

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Investigation Into Chemical Exposure From Fracking Provokes Call For Rapid Phaseout

    “While financial analysts, policymakers, and massive corporations squabble over the finer points of the fracking debate, families living amidst the wells day in and day out live in constant fear about what the industry might cost them—if they had another child, would they need to worry about birth defects? Are these exposures increasing their kids’ cancer risk? Would it be safer to move to a place far away from all of this, even if it would also mean being far from their extended families, friends, and communities? And even if they could move, how far would they have to go to feel safe?”

    Those are just some of the questions facing the western Pennsylvania families featured in a report published Monday by Environmental Health News (EHN), a publication of the nonprofit Environmental Health Sciences. Five families from the region participated in a pilot study on the chemicals commonly found in emissions from fracking sites.

    The post Investigation Into Chemical Exposure From Fracking Provokes Call For Rapid Phaseout appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Climate Change Commission calls on NZ to take ‘immediate, decisive action’

    ANALYSIS: By James Renwick, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission this week released its long-anticipated advice to the government on how to reshape the economy to meet the country’s domestic and international climate change obligations.

    The document sets out three emissions budgets, covering 15 years to 2035 in five-yearly plans. It also provides advice on the direction policy should take to achieve the country’s 2050 net-zero goal.

    New Zealand’s net emissions rose by 57 percent between 1990 and 2018, placing it among the poorest performers in the OECD.

    As one of New Zealand’s six climate change commissioners I have been part of the process of making a clear case to government that we must take “immediate and decisive action on climate change” across all sectors.

    The commission’s priorities include a rapid shift to electric transport, accelerated renewable energy generation, climate-friendly farming practices and more permanent forests, predominantly in native trees.

    It also says New Zealand must raise its pledge under the Paris Agreement, known as the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), because its current commitment is not compatible with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels.

    Ambitious but realistic carbon budgets
    The good news is the draft carbon budgets are achievable, with technologies that already exist.

    The commission’s advice is built around 17 recommendations that cover many sectors of the economy. One of the key messages is that Aotearoa New Zealand cannot plant its way out of trouble but needs to make real cuts in emissions and eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

    Most of the solutions are well known. We need to reduce emissions from transport, from energy and industry, from agriculture and from waste.

    Reducing transport emissions is crucial as the sector was responsible for 36.3 percent of New Zealand’s emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases in 2018 and accounts for most of the growth in emissions over the past 30 years.

    Recommendations for the transport sector include electrification of the vehicle fleet, improved public transport networks and better integration of active transport (walking and cycling).

    A rapid increase in electric cars would reduce emissions from private and commercial transport, while supporting low-carbon fuels like “green” hydrogen and biofuels would help the freight sector (including heavy trucks, shipping and aircraft).

    Part of the transport story is urban planning — changing how people and goods move around. The commission recommends limiting urban sprawl, making walking and cycling safer and easier and shifting more freight from road to rail or shipping.

    The commission also calls for rapid decarbonisation of electricity generation, and energy generally, to phase out the use of coal. Between now and 2035, it estimates New Zealand could cut transport emissions by 47 percent and those coming from heat and electricity generation by 45 percent.

    Emissions from agriculture
    Methane accounts for 43.5 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, and more than 80 percent of total methane comes from cud-chewing farm animals. But the short-lived nature of methane in the atmosphere means we do not need to reduce methane emissions so fast.

    The Zero Carbon Act calls for a 24-47 percent reduction in methane emissions by 2050, compared to net-zero for carbon dioxide.

    Cows ready to be milked
    Emissions from farm animals account for more than 80% of New Zealand’s methane emissions. Image: Brendon O’Hagan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    The commission’s advice is that biogenic methane emissions can be reduced by 19 percent by 2035 while further improving productivity in the sector through better feed, fewer but more productive animals and continued research into emission-reducing technologies.

    The commission calls for real cuts in emissions rather than offsets through tree planting, but argues forestry should continue to play an important role in the long-term storage of carbon, for example if timber is used in buildings or furniture and to provide bioenergy.

    It recommends a shift towards more permanent native forests to improve long-term carbon storage, biodiversity and soil retention.

    Waste is another sector with significant potential to cut emissions. Per head of population, New Zealanders throw away roughly twice what an average OECD citizen does. The commission recommends moving towards a circular economy, where resources are valued and reused.

    In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the main issue in the waste sector is methane release from decomposing solid waste. Capturing that gas at source could reduce methane emissions by 14 percent by 2035.

    Cost of a fair transition
    The commission’s draft budgets recommend an overall reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions of 36 percent by 2035, starting with 2 percent by 2025 and 17 percent by 2030. It estimates the cost of achieving this is less than 1 percent of projected GDP, much lower than was initially thought.

    The payoffs for public health, for our environment and biodiversity make this a good investment, let alone the huge avoided costs from unchecked climate change.

    The commission’s recommendations will go through a public consultation process until March 14, and the government has until the end of the year to decide which parts of the advice it takes on board.

    An important aspect of the advice is inclusiveness and support for all sectors of society as we move to a low-emissions future. The commission takes a te ao Māori (Māori world view) approach, making it clear that Aotearoa must have an equitable and fair transition.The Conversation

    By Dr James Renwick, professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Climate Change Commission calls on NZ to take ‘immediate, decisive action’

    New Zealand’s net emissions rose by 57 percent between 1990 and 2018, placing it among the poorest performers in the OECD. Image: The Conversation/Lynn Grieveson via Getty Images

    ANALYSIS: By James Renwick, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission this week released its long-anticipated advice to the government on how to reshape the economy to meet the country’s domestic and international climate change obligations.

    The document sets out three emissions budgets, covering 15 years to 2035 in five-yearly plans. It also provides advice on the direction policy should take to achieve the country’s 2050 net-zero goal.

    New Zealand’s net emissions rose by 57 percent between 1990 and 2018, placing it among the poorest performers in the OECD.

    As one of New Zealand’s six climate change commissioners I have been part of the process of making a clear case to government that we must take “immediate and decisive action on climate change” across all sectors.

    The commission’s priorities include a rapid shift to electric transport, accelerated renewable energy generation, climate-friendly farming practices and more permanent forests, predominantly in native trees.

    It also says New Zealand must raise its pledge under the Paris Agreement, known as the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), because its current commitment is not compatible with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels.

    Ambitious but realistic carbon budgets
    The good news is the draft carbon budgets are achievable, with technologies that already exist.

    The commission’s advice is built around 17 recommendations that cover many sectors of the economy. One of the key messages is that Aotearoa New Zealand cannot plant its way out of trouble but needs to make real cuts in emissions and eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

    Most of the solutions are well known. We need to reduce emissions from transport, from energy and industry, from agriculture and from waste.

    Reducing transport emissions is crucial as the sector was responsible for 36.3 percent of New Zealand’s emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases in 2018 and accounts for most of the growth in emissions over the past 30 years.

    Recommendations for the transport sector include electrification of the vehicle fleet, improved public transport networks and better integration of active transport (walking and cycling).

    A rapid increase in electric cars would reduce emissions from private and commercial transport, while supporting low-carbon fuels like “green” hydrogen and biofuels would help the freight sector (including heavy trucks, shipping and aircraft).

    Part of the transport story is urban planning — changing how people and goods move around. The commission recommends limiting urban sprawl, making walking and cycling safer and easier and shifting more freight from road to rail or shipping.

    The commission also calls for rapid decarbonisation of electricity generation, and energy generally, to phase out the use of coal. Between now and 2035, it estimates New Zealand could cut transport emissions by 47 percent and those coming from heat and electricity generation by 45 percent.

    Emissions from agriculture
    Methane accounts for 43.5 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, and more than 80 percent of total methane comes from cud-chewing farm animals. But the short-lived nature of methane in the atmosphere means we do not need to reduce methane emissions so fast.

    The Zero Carbon Act calls for a 24-47 percent reduction in methane emissions by 2050, compared to net-zero for carbon dioxide.

    Cows ready to be milkedEmissions from farm animals account for more than 80% of New Zealand’s methane emissions. Image: Brendon O’Hagan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    The commission’s advice is that biogenic methane emissions can be reduced by 19 percent by 2035 while further improving productivity in the sector through better feed, fewer but more productive animals and continued research into emission-reducing technologies.

    The commission calls for real cuts in emissions rather than offsets through tree planting, but argues forestry should continue to play an important role in the long-term storage of carbon, for example if timber is used in buildings or furniture and to provide bioenergy.

    It recommends a shift towards more permanent native forests to improve long-term carbon storage, biodiversity and soil retention.

    Waste is another sector with significant potential to cut emissions. Per head of population, New Zealanders throw away roughly twice what an average OECD citizen does. The commission recommends moving towards a circular economy, where resources are valued and reused.

    In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the main issue in the waste sector is methane release from decomposing solid waste. Capturing that gas at source could reduce methane emissions by 14 percent by 2035.

    Cost of a fair transition
    The commission’s draft budgets recommend an overall reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions of 36 percent by 2035, starting with 2 percent by 2025 and 17 percent by 2030. It estimates the cost of achieving this is less than 1 percent of projected GDP, much lower than was initially thought.

    The payoffs for public health, for our environment and biodiversity make this a good investment, let alone the huge avoided costs from unchecked climate change.

    The commission’s recommendations will go through a public consultation process until March 14, and the government has until the end of the year to decide which parts of the advice it takes on board.

    An important aspect of the advice is inclusiveness and support for all sectors of society as we move to a low-emissions future. The commission takes a te ao Māori (Māori world view) approach, making it clear that Aotearoa must have an equitable and fair transition.The Conversation

    By Dr James Renwick, professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

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    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Climate Change Commission plan ‘big challenge’ for New Zealand

    By Craig McCulloch, RNZ News deputy political editor

    New Zealand is heading for a major upheaval under a landmark plan to combat the climate crisis – but the sectors in line for the most serious change are already showing signs of resistance.

    The Climate Change Commission has released a draft blueprint with recommendations on how to slash emissions to ensure the country is carbon neutral by 2050.

    Among the blueprint proposals:

    • a ban on conventional car imports,
    • slashing livestock numbers by about 15 percent,
    • the closure of Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, and
    • a ban on gas hobs in new houses.

    The government calls it this generation’s “nuclear-free moment” – radical reform required in the face of rising global temperatures.

    “It will be a challenge, but if we rise to the challenge then the opportunity that is in front of us is huge,” Climate Change Minister James Shaw said.

    A huge opportunity with huge ramifications – and the challenge different for different sectors.

    Coal, oil and gas industries hit
    Under the plan mapped out by Climate Change Commission, the coal mining and oil and gas industries will be hit hard – up to 1100 jobs gone by 2035.

    “That depends on whether or not you think that the future, that the Commission has painted, will come to pass and I’m not convinced,” John Carnegie, head of oil and gas lobby group PEPANZ, said.

    By and large, Carnegie said he found the report thoughtful and nuanced.

    But its recommendation to stop gas connections being installed in new homes – he calls a distraction – one which would cost consumers a lot for little upside.

    “There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge between now and 2035, and we’re quite confident that there’s going to be a role to play for oil and gas in the New Zealand economy going forward,” he said.

    New Zealand’s roads are set for a shake-up too under the commission’s vision, with a proposed ban on any new petrol cars coming into the country at some point between 2030 and 2035.

    By that end date, it wants two fifths of the light vehicle fleet to be electric.

    ‘Monumental shift’
    Motor Industry Association chief executive David Crawford called it a “monumental shift”.

    “It’s a very tough task, but it does start to focus the mind for New Zealanders about what we need to do if we are going to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.”

    For Crawford, the timeline for the import ban may be too ambitious – outpacing other countries and car manufacturers too.

    He says consumers will need incentives of some sort to shift New Zealanders to electric vehicles – like the feebate scheme spiked by New Zealand First last term.

    “If you want to move faster than the market, you need some government assistance to do that,” he said.

    Afternoon rush hour traffic out of central Auckland.
    The Climate Change Commission wants two fifths of New Zealand’s light vehicle fleet to be electric by 2035. Image: 123rf.com

    Agriculture adjustment
    The agriculture sector, too, is in line for some adjustment.

    Federated Farmers likes the Commission’s shift away from mass planting of pine – and the way methane is treated separately from carbon dioxide.

    Even so, president Andrew Hoggard said the methane targets proposed looks too high.

    He also questioned the plan to cut stock numbers – while maintaining production.

    “It’s not an easy shift, sometimes we don’t live in a perfect world and sometimes best intentions, it’s not that easy to achieve.”

    The final report will go to the government before the end of May – then it will need to decide what to do with it.

    Report gives Shaw ‘great deal of hope’
    Climate Change minister James Shaw told RNZ Morning Report the biggest challenge the government faced over the report was getting the balance right between different industry sectors.

    “Every sector is going to be saying ‘it’s too tough, you need to go harder on another sector’ but then how do you balance it out?

    “I think that the commission has done a pretty good job of that in their draft advice. But it is going to come as a bit of a shock to some people.”

    Shaw said New Zealand would not meet its targets under the Paris Agreement if it did not enact the Commission’s plan.

    He said he also took a great deal of hope from what the report said.

    “Although it is a very steep decline in emissions over the coming 10,15 years, the report does say that we have the technology available today, it doesn’t require any new kind of magic science to show up in the next 15 years, and also, the cost of the transition is far, far lower than we had previously estimated.”

    Shaw said the government will ensure regions that rely heavily on fossil fuels for employment, such as Taranaki, have alternative options for work.

    Five-year budgets the key
    “That is the importance of having these five year budgets and having three in place at any one time, so you’ve always got a 15-year forward view, that gives businesses a long enough time horizon to be able to make plans and to invest in alternatives.

    “It (also) gives the government enough time to put in place transition plans and work with workers and industries and unions and local communities on those transitions.”

    Shaw said the report also had good news for farmers as well.

    “Up until yesterday, our projections were that we would need about 1.1 million hectares of land converted to forestry in order to act as a carbon sink.

    “What the commissioner saying is that we need to press on actual reductions at source much, much harder than on offset forestry, and they’re talking about limiting forestry to something like just over 700,000 hectares. That should address one of the key complaints that farmers have had about the plans so far.”

    Shaw added that Transport minister Michael Wood was looking at incentive schemes for electric vehicles.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • We are the 1% – the wealth of many Australians puts them in an elite club wrecking the planet

    ANALYSIS: By Alex Baumann, Western Sydney University and Samuel Alexander, University of Melbourne

    Among the many hard truths exposed by covid-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already huge fortunes by 27.5 percent.

    And as many ordinary people lost their jobs and fell into poverty, The Guardian reported “the 1 percent are coping” by taking private jets to their luxury retreats.

    Such perverse affluence further fuelled criticism of the so-called 1 percent, which has long been the standard rhetoric of the political Left.

    In 2011, Occupy Wall Street protesters called out growing economic inequality by proclaiming: “We are the 99 percent!”. And an Oxfam report in September last year lamented how the richest 1 percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of humanity.

    But you might be surprised to find this 1 percent doesn’t just comprise the super-rich. It may include you, or people you know. And this fact has big implications for social justice and planetary survival.

    People crossing the street in Sydney
    Many everyday Australians have a net worth that puts them in the world’s richest 1 percent. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock

    Look in the mirror
    When you hear references to the 1 percent, you might think of billionaires such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos or Tesla founder Elon Musk. However, as of October last year there were 2189 billionaires worldwide — a minuscule proportion of the 7.8 billion people on Earth.

    So obviously, you don’t have to be a billionaire to join this global elite.

    So how rich do you have to be? Well, Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report in October last year showed an individual net worth of US$1 million (A$1,295,825) – combined income, investments and personal assets — will make you among the world’s 1 percent richest people.

    The latest official data shows Australia’s richest 20 percent of households have an average net worth of A$3.2 million. The average Australian household has a net worth of A$1,022,200, putting them just outside the world’s richest 1 percent.

    Aerial view of suburban Australian homes
    The net worth of many Australians puts them in the global elite. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock

    If you’ve just done the sums and fall outside the 1 percent, don’t feel too sorry for yourself. A net wealth of US$109,430 (A$147,038) puts you among the world’s richest 10 percent. Most Australians fit into this category; half of us have a net worth of A$558,900 or more.

    What does all this mean for the planet?
    It’s true the per capita emissions of the super-rich are likely to be far greater than others in the top 1 percent. But this doesn’t negate the uncomfortable fact Australians are among a fraction of the global population monopolising global wealth. This group causes the vast bulk of the world’s climate damage.

    A 2020 Oxfam report shows the world’s richest 10 percent produce a staggering 52 percent of total carbon emissions. Consistent with this, a 2020 University of Leeds study found richer households around the world tend to spend their extra money on energy-intensive products, such as package holidays and car fuel. The UN’s 2020 Emission Gap Report further confirmed this, finding the top 10 percent use around 75 percent of all aviation energy and 45 percent of all land transport energy.

    It’s clear that wealth, and its consequent energy privilege, is neither socially just nor ecologically sustainable.

    Man with one shiny shoe and one scruffy shoe
    Global wealth disparity is not just or sustainable. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock

    A potential solution
    Much attention and headlines are devoted to the unethical wealth of billionaires. And while the criticism is justified, it distracts from a broader wealth problem — including our own.

    We should note here, one can have an income that’s large compared to the global average, and still experience significant economic hardship. For instance in Australia, the housing costs of more than one million households exceed 30 percent of total income – the commonly used benchmark for housing affordability.

    Here lies a central challenge. Even if we wanted to reduce our wealth, the enormous cost of keeping a roof over our head prevents us from doing so. Servicing a mortgage or paying rent is one of our biggest financial obligations, and a key driver in the pursuit of wealth.

    But as we’ve shown above, as personal wealth grows, so too does environmental devastation. The rule even applies to the lowest paid, who are working just to pay the rent. The industries they rely on, such as retail, tourism and hospitality, are themselves associated with environmental damage.

    Existing economic and social structures mean stepping off this wealth-creating treadmill is almost impossible. However as we’ve written before, people can be liberated from their reliance on economic growth when land – the very foundation of our security – is not commodified.

    For social justice and ecological survival, we must urgently experiment with new land and housing strategies, to make possible a lifestyle of reduced wealth and consumption and increased self-sufficiency.

    This might include urban commons, such as the R-Urban project in Paris, where several hundred people co-manage land that includes a small farm for collective use, a recycling plant and cooperative eco-housing.

    The R-Urban project in Paris
    The R-Urban project in Paris, which includes a small farm. Image: The Conversation/Flickr

    Under a new land strategy, other ways of conserving resources could be deployed. One such example, developed by Australian academic Ted Trainer, involves cutting our earnings sharply – with paid work for only two days in a week. For the rest of the working week, we would tend to community food gardens, network and share many things we currently consume individually.

    Such a way of living could help us re-evaluate the amount of wealth we need to live well.

    The social and ecological challenges the world faces cannot be exaggerated. New thinking and creativity is needed. And the first step in this journey is taking an honest look at whether our own wealth and consumption habits are contributing to the problem.
    The Conversation

    Dr Alex Baumann is a casual academic, School of Social Sciences & Psychology, Western Sydney University and Samuel Alexander, Research fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Air pollution will lead to mass migration, say experts after landmark ruling

    Call for world leaders to act in wake of French extradition case that turned on environmental concerns

    Air pollution does not respect national boundaries and environmental degradation will lead to mass migration in the future, said a leading barrister in the wake of a landmark migration ruling, as experts warned that government action must be taken as a matter of urgency.

    Sailesh Mehta, a barrister specialising in environmental cases, said: “The link between migration and environmental degradation is clear. As global warming makes parts of our planet uninhabitable, mass migration will become the norm. Air and water pollution do not respect national boundaries. We can stop a humanitarian and political crisis from becoming an existential one. But our leaders must act now.”

    In recent years, Bangladesh has become one of the worst countries in the world for air pollution. According to the World Health Organization, Bangladesh is in the top 10 countries for concentrations of PM2.5, the harmful pollution particles in the air.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Tibetans Forced Into A Life Of Slave-Labor Misery

    Tibetans Forced Into A Life Of Slave-Labor Misery

    Image: researched by @tibettruth

    This post was originally published on TIBET, ACTIVISM AND INFORMATION.

  • Editor tells how US nuclear testing legacy ‘festers on’ in Marshall Islands

    By RNZ Saturday Morning

    The US detonated its largest nuclear bombs around the Marshall Islands in the 1940s and 50s – but the Marshallese are still campaigning for adequate compensation.

    The Marshall Islands are two chains of 29 coral atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean between Papua New Guinea and Hawai’i.

    Following the tests, whole islands ceased to exist, hundreds of native Marshallese had to be relocated off their home islands and many were affected by fallout from the testing.

    In 1977, US authorities put the most contaminated debris and soil into a huge concrete dome called the Runit Dome, which sits on Enewetak Atoll and houses 88,000 square metres of contaminated soil and debris.

    It has recently received media attention as it appears to be leaking, due to cracking and the threat from rising sea levels, while some Marshallese have fears it may eventually collapse.

    However, American officials have said it is not their problem and responsibility falls on the Marshallese, as it is their land.

    The US has cited a 1986 compact of free association, which released the US government from further liability, which will go up for renegotiation in 2023.

    Meanwhile, the Marshallese continue to campaign for adequate compensation from the US.

    First hand experience
    Giff Johnson, editor of the country’s only newspaper, Marshall Islands Journal, and a RNZ correspondent,  has experienced the unfolding legacy of US nuclear testing first hand. His wife Darlene Keju, an outspoken advocate for test victims and nuclear survivors, herself died of cancer in 1996.

    The Runit Dome was constructed in 1977 on Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands to temporarily store radioactive waste produced from nuclear testing by the US military during the 1950s and 1960s. Image: RNZ

    While Johnson said said suggestions that the Rumit Dome – nicknamed “The Tomb” by locals – was about to collapse were alarmist, there were still major concerns surrouding it.

    “I wouldn’t say the dome is on the verge of collapse, there’s concern about its leaking, about cracks, and also about the overall contamination of that atoll,” he said.

    “The issue is it’s got plutonium, which has a half-life of 24,000 years, and how long does concrete last?”

    Describing the structure as a “symbol of the nuclear legacy here”, Johnson said that US government scientists had reported there was already so much contamination in the area that it would be difficult to find what leakage from the dome had added.

    The United States has continued to refuse to accept responsibility for the Runit Dome’s condition, despite its history of nuclear testing in the country.

    In 1954, the US carried out their first nuclear weapon test, Castle Bravo, at Bikini Atoll in 1954 – which resulted in the contamination of 15 islands and atolls. Only three years later, residents on the affected atolls of Rongelap and Utirik were encouraged to return to their homes, so researchers could study the effects of radiation.

    Full compensation never paid
    “The nuclear weapons test legacy is the overriding issue in the Marshall Islands with the United States and it remains a festering problem, because US compensation and medical care and so forth was only partial for what was needed,” Johnson said.

    The first compact to free association between the Marshall Islands and the US contained a compensation agreement, including the establishment of a nuclear claims tribunal to adjudicate all claims. While it determined there was a large amount of compensation due to Marshallese on various atolls, this has never been paid out, apart from funding of $150 million in 1986.

    Since then, the US has accepted no more liability on nuclear compensation, as the compact resulted in the Marshall Islands being an independent country, able to join the United Nations.

    However, Johnson said the US Congress had taken a different position on this.

    “For example, while the US executive branch would say, well the Marshall Islands is in charge of all the former nuclear test sites, the US Congress a few years back passed legislation requiring the US Department of Energy to monitor the Runit Dome, where so much radioactive waste is stored.”

    There have also been big differences in the treatment of Marshallese nuclear victims and those in the United States

    “The US used Bikini and Enewetak  to test its biggest hydrogen bombs,” Johnson said.

    “While it maintained a nuclear test site in Nevada, it only tested relatively small nuclear devices there, because it simply could not test hydrogen bombs in the continental United States – Americans wouldn’t have stood for it.”

    Not long after the 1986 free association compact ended American responsibility for nuclear compensation in the Marshall Islands, the US Congress enacted a radiation compensation act for Americans – which Johnson said really emphasised the unfairness of the situation.

    ‘Long story short’
    “Long story short, they appropriated $100 million and then they ran out, the US Congress appropriated more, again ran out, appropriated more and fast-forward to 2020 and they’re over $2 billion in compensation awarded to American nuclear victims.

    “Then the question comes, that if they’re willing to just keep recapitalising the compensation fund for American nuclear victims, why aren’t they able to reinstitute the compensation fund for Marshallese, who were exposed to far more nuclear fallout than the downwinders in Utah and Nevada?”

    Johnson also had concerns about the lack of a baseline epidemiological study by the US, following the tests. Studies on the affects of radiation centred around thyroid issues, but many islanders have reported cancer, miscarriages and stillbirths in the years following.

    His wife Darlene Keju died of breast cancer, which also affected her mother and father – she grew up on one of the islands in the downwind zone of the tests.

    The US had never looked at rates of cancer, or studied the differences between low fallout and high fallout areas, he said.

    Johnson hoped the nuclear legacy between the countries could be worked out amicably, but he was not too optimistic.

    “The original compensation agreement was negotiated in a period of the Cold War and the US did it in an adversarial way with the Marshall Islands, which had no standing because it wasn’t a country at the time, information was withheld, they didn’t know what they know today, and it needs to be worked out, a suitable decent fair agreement needs to be sorted out.”

    An aerial shot of the Enewetak Atoll
    An aerial shot of the Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, after it was used for the first ever hydrogen bomb test. Image: RNZ/AFP/US Department of Energy

    ‘Black mark’ on good relationship
    Despite this tension, Johnson said the Marshallese did not harbour anti-American sentiment and the compensation issues were a “black mark on an otherwise good relationship” between the two countries.

    He said around 30 to 40 percent of all Marshallese were living in the US.

    “The Marshall Islands, since WWII, has had a very long standing high regard and strong relationship with the US that came out of the end of the Japanese period of militarism and the execution of many islanders and privation, into a period where the US fostered democratic institutions, created opportunities for education, providing scholarships, opening the door to people going to the US and the unpacked treaty really put this together, in terms of the relationship that’s of benefit to both sides.”

    However, ongoing tensions between the US and China may help the Marshall Islands in their push for further compensation.

    “In the current situation where we have the US continuing to be in an uproar over China … that has elevated the strategic importance of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau – the three north Pacific countries that are all in free association with the US. It does give the Marshall Islands a bit more leverage in negotiating and talking with Washington.

    “Possibly the changing geopolitical situation out here might offer an opening to get some interest to try to amicably do something to resolve the whole thing,” Johnson said.

    But the nuclear legacy is not the only issue affecting the island – climate change is looming large and reports by US scientists have said that the Marshall Islands could be uninhabitable by the 2030s, due to rising sea levels.

    “Because the Marshall Islands has such little land, these are really small islands, it magnifies the importance of land to Marshallese people,” Johnson said.

    “I think people care about their islands and want to find a way to make them liveable for the long term, but that may depend on the world community to a great extent now.”

    This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

    Ivy Mike bomb test at Enewetak Atoll
    Ivy Mike (yield 10.4 mt) – an atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the US at Enewetak Atoll on 1 November 1952. It was the world’s first successful hydrogen bomb. Image: RNZ
    Map of Marshall Islands
    Map of the Marshall Islands. Source: RNZ

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Video: Based on a True Story

    This short film was produced by the Glassbreaker Films team at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Glassbreaker Films is an all-female group of filmmakers working to promote gender parity in investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking. The initiative is funded by The Helen Gurley Brown Foundation.

     

    The 2000 film “Erin Brockovich” seemed like a successful David versus Goliath story. A single mom of three took on PG&E for contaminating drinking water in Hinkley, California, and came out victorious, suing and winning $333 million from the giant utility company. But whatever became of the tiny town?

    For the roughly 600 residents who received part of that payout, the ending wasn’t all happy. Residents who lived there in the ‘90s, such as Roberta Walker, say they suffer from residual health problems. And while they can’t disclose how much money they received from the lawsuit, they say it wasn’t enough to keep them afloat for long. Now, 21 years after the lawsuit, it seems the same public health hazard continues to affect the welfare of Hinkley residents.

    From natural disasters to national tragedies, the media swarms around major stories, hurling those affected into the spotlight. But what happens after the cameras are gone and the country moves on to the next headline? The Aftermath revisits stories that once dominated the news, investigating where people are now and what has happened since, to tell the story after the story.

    For more on The Aftermath series: revealnews.org/theaftermath

    This post was originally published on Reveal.