Pulp Mills and the lock in effect

Asia Pulp & Paper is planning to build a huge new pulp mill in South Sumatra, Indonesia, although the company is still trying to publicly deny it.  This will reportedly be one of the world’s biggest pulp mills, with a planned production capacity of up to 2 million tonnes per year. APP is already in contact with large machine building companies in order to source the required equipment.


Building new mills without sufficient sources of plantation fibre already being available will be a disaster for the forests, because history has shown that APP’s pulp mills are not only fed by pulp plantations but by rainforests. If this pulp mill is built, it looks set to generate a huge pulp deficit, which the rainforests of Indonesia will be paying for, for years to come.
A new coal fired power plant locks us into a climate wrecking energy model. The danger is that a new mega-pulp mill will lock APP into a model of forest destruction. Because the financial investments required to build such a mill are enormous, and therefore huge debts are created. These debts can only be paid by running the pulp mill at a certain capacity and speed. APP has already gone bust once, more than a decade ago, by operating to just this expansion model.
APP will need banks and insurance companies to finance this mill. However, banks are risk-averse and are increasingly becoming aware of risks associated with forests and climate. And if there is one company that embodies ‘environmental risk’, it is APP.
A coalition of 60 NGOs and civil society groups have come together to send an appeal to the financial sector not to finance the mill. The appeal is supported by a large range of Indonesian civil society groups and international NGOs and has been sent to more than 40 financial institutions in 10 countries. We will be closely following what these banks do.
This pulp mill might well become the next battleground between APP and the broad coalition of civil society groups that defend the interests of the communities and the inhabitants of the forests. To avoid that, APP must demonstrate that it has access to sufficient plantation sources to both ensure that its existing mills use no rainforest fibre and that a new mill can do the same. But, APP is a long long way from convincing its critics of that.

Hurricane Sandy shows what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic

This week, Shell finally put its 2012 Arctic drilling season out of its misery.  After a summer of snafus and false starts, the window for drilling closed on the global oil giant–until next year when it plans to try once again to exploit Arctic ice melt for profit.
The company has been up there rolling the dice with our global future, betting against the odds that it won’t fail as miserably at Arctic execution as it has at Arctic preparation–that it won’t, for example, accidentally break the equipment it plans to use in case of a spill during a trial run.  While this may seem like a remote, snowy problem for polar bears, native     Alaskans, and environmental hand-wringers, Hurricane Sandy has shown us this week that what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.

Fires burn in Lavallette in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on the New Jersey coast.

While corporate interests invested in burning fossil fuels have tried to keep Arctic destruction out of sight and out of mind for years in the lower 48, extreme weather like this week’s frankenstorm shows us in a visceral and immediate way that Arctic consequences are coming for us.
And it isn’t going to be pretty.
This summer, while Shell practiced drilling for oil, scientists in the Arctic recorded less sea ice than they ever had before.  This seemed like bad news for the narwhal, but just two months later, we see that it’s also bad news for us.
We’re seeing the consequences of Arctic destruction right here on the East Coast, right now.
As everyone knows by now, even if some still choose to deny it, the global warming pollution caused by burning oil, coal, and natural gas trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, warming the planet and melting Arctic ice in bulk.  If we don’t start using the alternative sources for energy we have now, the Arctic will melt away sooner rather than later, and ice melt at the top of the earth will continue to be part of the global feedback loop contributing to the chaos down below.

The tracks of a roller coaster lie in the surf off the destroyed Casino Pier in Seaside Heights on the New Jersey shore in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Rising coastal waters in places like New Jersey create higher baselines for storm surges, which means storm protections built 160 years ago for places like Atlantic City are, as we can see, becoming tragically obsolete.  It’s darkly comic to hear Jon Stewart say on the Daily Show: “Do you ever have one of those days when everywhere you ever loved as a child is under water?”  Soon, it could to be reality for everyone within sight of a coast.  The sea is coming closer to property and people in coastal areas, and the damage from these storms are only going to get worse.
How is this connected to the Arctic?
The increasingly ice-less Arctic is giving us new jet stream patterns. The jet stream that blocked Hurricane Sandy from moving back out to sea is, according to Jennifer Francis, a a research professor at Rutgers, likely a direct consequence of this summer’s Arctic melt.  It’s the exact pattern she says she would “expect to see more of in response to sea ice and enhanced Arctic melting.”
Burning more fossil fuels means less sea ice.  Less sea ice means more blocking jet streams.
And while a blocking jet stream in and of itself isn’t a huge deal, when it is paired with a late season Atlantic hurricane made possible by higher sea temperatures caused by climate change, you have something new and nasty destroying the Eastern Seaboard.
This is the future, brought to you by Shell, Duke Energy, Exxon and other companies betting against reality.  Worse, this is a gamble implicitly endorsed by both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, who continue to remain (mostly) silent about what’s happening all around them.
Hurricane Sandy is a tragedy, plain and simple.  But as we work to support those in immediate peril today, we must remember that disasters like Sandy are not simply acts of nature. A reckless and increasingly desperate industry turns natural disasters into unnatural catastrophes. And if we’re to have a coastal future in America, this industry must be stopped.

Facebook means business in mission to 'Unfriend Coal'

If you’ve followed the effort by Greenpeace International and hundreds of thousands of Facebook users around the world to get the social networking platform to Unfriend Coal, you’ll be heartened by today’s news.
Facebook published its 2011 energy and carbon footprint data and announced a 2015 goal of powering 25% of the platform with renewable energy, setting an important benchmark for the company to fulfill its goal to be fully powered by clean and renewable energy.
The news shows that the company means business and wants the world – including all of you who helped change Facebook – to follow its progress.
Unfortunately, the transparency Facebook exhibited today is still rare among companies who are racing to build our online world, where some of the largest companies behind the cloud, such as Amazon, still refuse to disclose any information about their energy use and mix.
Facebook won’t be able to unfriend coal overnight, and the dirty energy mix for its rapidly growing data centers in Oregon and North Carolina means its footprint will get dirtier before it gets cleaner.
Facebook’s goal of powering 25% of its platform with renewable energy by 2015 appears modest at first, and reflects the challenge Facebook faces in finding a clean supply of electricity from local utilities for those two data centers.
However, Facebook’s siting policy prioritising clean energy for new data centers will help it meet and eventually exceed its goal, and other companies who want a clean cloud should make a similar commitment.
Facebook has also pledged to push the utilities currently selling it dirty energy to move toward cleaner sources; that is the kind of leadership that IT companies will need to embrace in order to build a clean cloud.
Greater transparency from Facebook and others is critical to ensuring that the skyrocketing growth of cloud computing is powered by clean sources of energy.
The aggregate energy footprint of the cloud would already rank fifth among countries in terms of electricity demand and is expected to triple or quadruple in the very near future.
That growth can be the engine that creates a global clean energy economy, but first other companies have to join Facebook in accepting the challenge to move toward clean energy.

Coal mining poses threat to India’s Royal Bengal Tiger

Like India's failing electricity grid system, the Royal Bengal Tiger, the national animal of India, is in serious trouble.
And it won’t take much trouble to undermine the long-term future of this magnificent, but endangered, species, of which just 1,700 still exist in the wild in India.
One of the biggest threats to tigers comes from coal mining. The solution, which would also help to avert another repeat of the massive blackouts that have hit India this week, would be to invest in renewable energy.
But to feed the coal-fired power plants that produce about 80% of India’s electricity, the country currently imports vast amounts of expensive coal, driving up the costs of electricity.
So the government has resolved to expand domestic coal mining, despite the fact this will destroy the habitat of tigers, elephants and leopards, among other species.
Greenpeace India has released a new report, How Coal Mining is Trashing Tigerland, which investigates the threat that coal mining poses for tigers in particular.
A geographic information system (GIS) analysis shows that coal mining in just 13 of the country's 40 major coalfields could destroy more than 1.1 million hectares of the forests that tigers, elephants and leopards call home. These species are found in about half of this vast area of coalfields.
The endangered tiger inhabits a significant chunk of the 13 coalfields. And while the Indian government claims tigers are its conservation priority, it absurdly allows coal mining in Central India where most of the coal reserves lie.
Mining in central India will disrupt a large area of undisturbed habitat for the Royal Bengal Tiger. On top of this, mining would also trash the vital wildlife corridors that connect some of India’s famous tiger reserves.
If India continues to depend on coal, as it seems ready to do, wild tigers and elephants could soon disappear, threatened just as much as the communities that suffer from coal plant pollution, disruption of their way of life and the impacts of climate change.
India’s main argument for relying on coal is that it delivers cheap electricity. But, in fact that is no longer the case.
The clear alternative for India is to build more renewable energy. This would protect the habitat of tigers and other species from coal mining.
Recent reports have estimated that India has enough wind potential alone to meet its electricity needs for the foreseeable future.
In addition, a renewable energy system built on rooftop solar and other technologies could help India deal with another serious problem, its grid system.
This week, the grid system has failed, leaving more than 700 million people without electricity for long stretches. Renewable energy could supply electricity without the need to rely on the major electricity grids that are a chronic problem in India.
A concerted effort in developing a renewable energy system would protect the Royal Bengal Tiger.

"Homeless" Sumatran tigers call to action to save their forest homes

Commuters in this morning’s notorious Jakarta rush-hour did double-takes as hundreds of homeless Sumatran tigers descended on Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry to urge the Government to take action to stop companies like Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) from destroying their forest homes.

Greenpeace activists in tiger suits gathered outside the huge Ministry building, and tiger-shaped crime scene chalk marks decorated the forecourt. Greenpeace is urging Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan to enforce the laws which are meant to protect Indonesia’s forests for the people and for critically endangered species like the Sumatran tiger and Sumatran orang-utan.

Now fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers remain in the wild. To put this into perspective, Sumatra is around twice the size of the UK. Sumatran tigers are being driven to extinction for the sake of toilet tissue, packaging and other paper products. Most of the tissues produced from Indonesia’s forests are for export.

Greenpeace activists also called on the Minister for an update on action to addressthe report we handed to his ministry on 1 March, detailing the illegal processing of CITES protected ramin timber at APP’s Indah Kiat pulp mill in Riau, Sumatra.

The trade in ramin has been strictly regulated since 2001 under Indonesian law and international CITES regulations. Government maps show that about 800,000 hectares (28 percent) of Sumatra’s peatland forest was cleared between 2003 and 2009. Approximately 22 percent of the clearing took place in areas that are currently allocated to APP timber suppliers.

APP’s activities are pushing the majestic Sumatran tiger ever closer to extinction. Tiger habitat destruction in turn pushes tigers closer towards villages and into conflict with humans. Over the last few years,  a number of local people have been killed or injured by tigers hunting for scarce food.

According to the Director General of Indonesia’s Conservation and Forest Protection Agency (PHKA) at least 40 Sumatran tigers died during 2011 .

Since the release of the illegal ramin scandal, APP has been shedding customers around the World including Danone, Mondi, Xerox and many more.

Greenpeace urges Indonesia’s Government to conduct a full investigation into APP’s use of ramin to signal their commitment to enforce forest regulations and to protect the last remaining forests for the people, the climate and the tigers.

The 5 important lessons not learnt from Deepwater Horizon

 

The second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is upon us - and looking at the lessons the oil industry got from it, you’d think it never happened. Here are the most important points governments and oil companies didn’t learn:
1) Apparently the oil industry still knows best. Remember all the congressional hearings, recommendations, pledges to do better in the future that immediately followed Deepwater Horizon? It all amounted to essentially nothing. The US Congress has not adopted a single piece of legislation (not one!) to put stricter controls over oil companies to limit the ever-increasing risks they are taking to drill for more oil. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, governments still seem to think that the oil industry knows best and can police itself.
2) Oil spill plans are not foolproof. Remember the surprising tidbits found in BP’s oil spill response plan after the fact? Like how walruses were some of the local wildlife that might be impacted? Well, Shell’s oil spill response plan for their Arctic drilling operations has just breezed through the approval process, and while they did seem to have at least proofread it, it’s not much better: it currently relies on technology that hasn’t been built yet, admits it won’t be able to clean up oil in thick ice and ignores the risks of a Deepwater Horizon-style blowout late in the drilling season, just before ice starts to return.
3) It takes a lot of capacity to clean up an oil spill. Over 6,000 vessels and tens of thousands of people were needed to respond to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Shell is planning to drill in Alaska this summer and has named just nine ships in their oil spill response plan for the Chukchi Sea. Alaska is far more remote than the Gulf, less populated, and the US Coast Guard admitted that there was “no way we could deploy several thousand people as we did in the Deepwater Horizon.”
4) Out of sight does not mean out of the ocean. Life in the Gulf of Mexico has been significantly hit by oil in the past two years. While beaches may look clean, the story at the bottom of the ocean is different.  A similar spill in the Arctic would be devastating for local wildlife and Indigenous communities.
5) We need to quit oil. It’s almost a tick-box: after every oil disaster in history, there have been inevitable promises, wide op-eds in newspapers, and consensus that the world can’t stay addicted to oil (other tick-boxes include: saying that everyone will be justly compensated, that nothing like this will happen again because security norms will be reinforced, and finding someone else to blame). Yet, nothing happens. We have technology today to reduce our oil consumption, we know how to spark an energy revolution, but we are held back by those who profit from dirty energy.