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.
Today Friends of the Earth Netherlands received Shell's long awaited re-sponse to the legal summons demanding it acts on climate change. While lawyers still need to study the 272 page legal document in detail, the response shows that Shell does not intend to meet the plaintiffs' demands.
Friends of the Earth Netherlands' Director Donald Pols says, "Shell once again takes no responsibility for the disproportionate role it plays in aggravating the climate crisis. Shell is undermining the world's chanc-es to stay below 1.5°C."
91 climate activists from Friends of the Earth France and Action Non-Violente COP21 have today forced the cancellation of the second day of the European Annual Gas Conference (EAGC) in Paris.
In one of the last acts of President Juncker’s administration, the European Commission has today backed 55 new climate-damaging fossil fuel projects, as part of a list of priority energy projects - a move that flies in the face of the climate emergency say Friends of the Earth Europe and Food & Water Europe.
*UPDATE*
On 31 October 2019, Hnuti Duha / Friends of the Earth Czechia celebrated after the Czech Parliament signed off on a few important legal reforms to the Czech forest law that will help create more living forests. The changes should ensure that more dead wood is left on the forest floor, and stocks of deer and other forest animals for hunting are reduced. These reforms should help improve the natural restoration of Czechia's dying forests. But the fight for resilient forests is not over and other changes now need to be made.
Civil society organisations demand fossil free politics
The world’s five big oil and gas majors and their lobbyists have spent at least 251 million euros lobbying the EU since 2010, new research reveals – as almost 200 civil society organisations demand fossil free politics.