Prospects for vulnerable communities in the global South look dire, as wealthy countries refuse to pay up for the climate damage they have caused and Northern governments and corporations push forward carbon trading, says Friends of the Earth International as another round of deeply disappointing world climate talks draw to a close.
European governments today adopted to a target of zero net carbon emissions by the year 2050.
Responding to this new long-term goal approved by heads of state and government at a summit in Brussels, Susann Scherbarth, climate justice spokesperson for Friends of the Earth Europe said;
In only her second week in office, new European Commission President von der Leyen has today set out a major environmental package to set the EU on a new environmental and climate path.
An obscure investment treaty, the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), could undermine the goals of Europe’s Green Deal, unless it is fundamentally revised in negotiations that trail its annual conference this week in Brussels, over 250 civil society organisations and trade unions warn.
System change: Europe’s environmental and climate warning signals are flashing red according to a comprehensive ‘State of the Environment’ survey published by the European Environment Agency (EEA).
A European Citizens' Initiative launches today to phase out synthetic pesticides by 2035, support farmers, and save bees and nature. If it gathers one million signatures by September 2020, the EU Commission and Parliament must consider turning the campaign's demands into law.
90 organisations from 17 EU countries are jointly launching the campaign, with the support of organic farming associations.
As community renewables grow in western Europe, what about central and eastern regions?
A socially fair energy transformation means putting renewable energy into the hands of communities and people. The transition to 100% renewable energy, must benefit people too – not just big corporations - we must take power back from Big Energy. Big energy companies have consistently acted in their own financial interest, instead of the planet and sharing the wealth from renewable energy with communities.
Friends of the Earth Switzerland and Norway today handed in 100,000 signatures to the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse at their headquarters in Zurich, demanding they stop financing a disastrous mining project in Norway.
Credit Suisse is facilitating financing for three companies that are dumping – or plan to dump – more than 810 million tonnes of toxic mining waste in a beautiful Norwegian fjord, as well as waters off the coast of Papua New Guinea and Turkey.
A year and a half ago, Friends of the Earth began a lawsuit against Shell in the Netherlands, led by Milieudefensie / Friends of the Earth Netherlands. We served Shell legal papers summoning them to court for climate crimes.
This week we received Shell's response. What we can already see from their arguments is that Shell believes it is already doing enough to combat the climate emergency.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) tonight adopted its new energy lending policy, which would see it end funding to most new fossil fuel projects from the end of 2021 – in a big step forward in the campaign for a fossil-free Europe.