25 November 2021 - NPWJ News Digest on Environmental Justice & Human Rights

Articles

Environmental activists face ‘fever pitch’ of repression from Australian governments, report says
The Guardian, 25 Nov 2021

A joint report by human rights bodies and environment groups has found activists are increasingly facing repression by Australian governments. The report comes as the ABC publishes allegations VicForests carried out a campaign of surveillance against anti-logging protesters. The report by the Human Rights Law Centre, Greenpeace Australia Pacific and the Environmental Defenders Office, published on Thursday, tracks how pressure from business interests, legal changes and policing tactics have converged to create an environment of repression for those protesting inaction on the climate crisis.

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Canada environmental groups threaten defamation suit against Alberta Premier
Jurist, 24 Nov 2021

A coalition of eight Canadian environmental groups has threatened to sue Alberta Premier Jason Kenney for defamation after he publically stated that an inquiry found the groups spread misinformation about the province’s oil and gas industry. According to The Canadian Press, the coalition, consisting of groups like the Dogwood Initiative, Greenpeace Canada and Sierra Club Canada, sent a letter to Kenney on Monday demanding that he apologize or retract the statements, or face legal action.

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Colombia's indigenous activists protect the environment. Now they too are under threat
CNN, 23 Nov 2021

Fighting against climate change is often a matter of who controls the territory. In the indigenous reservation of Tacueyó in Colombia's southwestern department of Cauca, that is the role of the indigenous guards, a voluntary, unarmed organization that controls access to the community and administers local justice in place of the regular police.

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EU drafts plan to cut methane emissions from oil and gas industry
Reuters, 22 Nov 2021

The EU has drafted legislation to reduce methane emissions by forcing oil and gas companies to report their output and find and fix leaks of the gas that is the second-biggest cause of climate change, according to a draft seen by Reuters on Monday. Oil and gas operators in the European Union would have to submit estimates for the methane emissions of their installations within 12 months after the regulation comes into force, the draft legislative proposal said.

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The ‘net zero’ myth
Al Jazeera, 22 Nov 2021

Earlier this month, the world’s leaders got together to small talk about the weather and to big talk about the climate at the 26th edition of the UN’s climate change conference (COP26) in Glasgow. On the sidelines, activists (myself included) campaigned to persuade governments to replace platitudes with attitude, inaction with action.

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Guyana to request stronger financial guarantees from oil operators -official
Reuters, 22 Nov 2021

Guyana is getting ready to raise requirements on oil operators to protect the nation against spills and future removal costs of production platforms, the head of its environmental agency told Reuters. Guyana currently requires financial assurance, a type of insurance, to cover emergency responses to accidents. Financial assurance is also used at times in some other countries to cover decommissioning infrastructure, especially offshore oil rigs.

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COP26 focused on long-term climate goals. But what does this decade hold?
Open Democracy, 20 Nov 2021

In the week since COP26 wrapped up, there has been much reflection on the results. Have we done enough to ward off looming disaster? Some progress was certainly made, but it must be put into context. Before the summit, there was a strong recommendation from the IPCC to focus on immediate cuts in emissions, so what happened to that? The key requirement set out by the UN was to reduce global carbon emissions throughout the 2020s by more than 7% a year, a reduction of around 50% by 2030.

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