Episode 06 Text and Sources

Hear the episode here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/14101666/episode-06-redlight-pinellas-bruce-birth

Broken Planet Headlines 6

1.  Beginning with recent science, a new report from the UN Environment Program suggests that rapid action to cut methane emissions could shave 0.3 degrees Celcius off global temperatures by 2045.  The Global Methane Assessment details measures targeting agriculture, fossil fuel production and the waste industry that could cut current emissions by almost half by the end of this decade. A report last month from the UN's World Meteorological Association found that the world was 1.2 degrees above a 19th century baseline while the Paris Agreement commits signatories to keeping global temperatures below 1.5 degrees.  Methane is a potent warming gas but only remains in the atmosphere for around a decade before breaking down.  Last month the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that methane emissions in 2020 showed their highest annual increase since measurements began in 1983.

The UNEP report follows a study published in the journal Climatic Change in March that found big meat and dairy companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying against climate change measures, funding political campaigns and funding dubious research that plays down the link between livestock and climate breakdown, echoing the tactics of the fossil fuel industry.  Livestock is responsible for around a third of all human-induced methane emissions.

The U.S. Senate voted recently to overturn a Trump administration rule that got rid of methane emissions standards for the oil and gas sector.  Three Republicans joined the majority of Democrats to pass the measure, which now goes to the House.  Measurements released at the end of April found that the Appalachian Basin was the biggest source of methane emissions in the U.S.  Additionally, the state of California recently announced it would stop issuing fracking permits by 2024.  Finally in methane news lawmakers in Michigan are proposing a $250 million fund for utilities to use for natural gas projects, partially in response to the potential impending shutdown of the Line 5 pipeline through the state.

2.  A number of updates now on coal power around the world.   The American Electric Power utility has announced a retirement date for its coal-fired power plant in Rockport, Indiana, of 2028.  The plant is the 8th largest coal plant in the country by generating capacity and is only one of two in the top 10 to have even a remotely firm retirement date, despite also being the youngest plant on the list and President Joe Biden's stated wish for a carbon free power sector by 2035.  As coal use declines overall larger coal plants have been less likely to close than smaller ones in the U.S. due to economies of scale and state regulatory systems that guarantee utilities a certain level of returns.  It's speculated that one reason for the announced closure, which AEP has stated it may even move forward further, is to avoid paying for a billion dollars in pollution controls prescribed by a federal judge.  New research from the group Energy Innovation finds that around four-fifths of all U.S. coal plants are either scheduled to close by 2025 or are no longer cost competitive with new local renewable capacity.

Announcements indicating an acceleration away from coal have also come in recent weeks from Greece, Japan and Chile.  Greece's biggest energy company, the Public Power Corp, stated that a plant due for completion next year will stop burning coal in 2025 and switch over to natural gas.  Environmentalists are now speculating whether the plant will end up burning coal at all for such a short period of time and are urging the company to skip over gas to renewables.  Two planned coal plants in Japan were abandoned during April.  One of the companies involved said it may instead build a biomass facility.  In addition Japans largest lender, Mitsubishi, announced last month that it would stop financing upgrades for coal plants.  Finally the government of Chile has announced it will be closing half its coal plants by 2025 ahead of a 2040 carbon-free target for the power sector.  Several of the plants will be converted to run on gas and biomass.  Six coal plants have been closed in the country in the last few years.

3.  Poland has reached a deal with coal unions to phase out coal by 2049, complete with worker severance payments, ahead of an EU-wide 2050 net-zero emissions target.  Poland employs over half of the entire coal workforce in Europe and currently gets 70% of its electricity from the fuel, but states that it intends to reduce that number to 11% by 2040.  However, the government also recently extended the life of a coal mine near the border with the Czech Republic until 2044.  It's at least the second time that the life of the mine has been extended and the European Commission has warned Poland that it stands to lose out on substantial EU green transition funds due to the decision.  The EU Court of Justice is expected in the coming months to decide whether the mine should be closed immediately following a lawsuit from the Czech Republic over drinking water concerns.  

Last year a report on the so-called "lignite triangle" of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic predicted that most coal units will become permanently unprofitable by the latter half of this decade, with the Polish government now planning to nationalise flagging coal power plants, supposedly to give state-owned energy companies room to invest in alternatives.  On the 4th of May the price of carbon in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme rose above 50 Euros a tonne for the first time ever.  Last week eleven European Union countries signed a declaration calling on the EU to stop funding fossil fuels across the bloc.

4.  An initiative of the UK and Canadian governments, the Powering Past Coal Alliance, has been labelled by the author of a recent assessment as "a greenwashing engine for financial institutions" and "not fit for purpose."  The alliance, made up of 36 national governments and various other partners, requires that wealthy nations show a pathway to eliminating coal by 2030, and poorer states by 2050.  But many of the member states are moving forward with plans to expand or continue coal development and use including the UK, Canada, Germany and Mexico.  The report from the NGO Reclaim Finance also suggests moving the phase out target date for poorer countries forward to 2040.

Another new report focused on the UK shows that banks based in the country provided almost 22 billion pounds in financial services to coal-affiliated companies in 2019, slightly higher than the amount in 2016, the year after the signing of the Paris Agreement.  Additionally, an investigation from websites The Independent and DeSmogBlog finds that multiple non-executive directors at three UK banks have present or past employment ties to companies working in the global coal supply chain.  Finally in UK coal the county council of Cumbria has announced an official position of neutrality on the decision of whether to approve a controversial new deep pit mine in the area.  The council originally approved the mine in October, but after a climate backlash the government declared in March that it would be making the final decision.  The lack of support from the local council makes it less likely that the project - which would be the first of its kind in the UK in decades - will ultimately go ahead.

5.  A coalmine in the Australian state of New South Wales has been given an approval for expansion by the states' Independent Planning Commission.  Opposition from local landowners and the local council appears to have fallen on deaf ears, with one local farmer claiming the commission “had not listened to one single word we said.”  The mining company, Mangoola Coal Operations, will now be permitted to dig up 52 million additional tonnes of coal in what is essentially a brand new pit, despite being framed as an expansion.  In other news from New South Wales a mine owned by the company Whitehaven has had a legal challenge against it dropped.  The mine was approved in 2013 but ordered to buy - and independently verify the protection of - endangered land elsewhere as an "offset" for the woodlands destroyed by the operation.  After multiple extensions the conservation group South East Forest Alliance filed proceedings in federal court in 2020, but has now dropped the case because Whitehaven has offered to protect more land.  The company now has another 3 years to finishing meeting that requirement. 

Meanwhile the company Energy Australia has committed to building a power plant in New South Wales capable of running on gas and green hydrogen, to compensate for the closure of a coal plant scheduled for 2023.  The federal government has not ruled out backing another gas-fired plant in the state to plug what it controversially claims will be an energy shortfall.  It's also expected this week to formally announce the establishment of a AU$600 million recovery and resiliency agency to help deal with natural disasters.  A new report from the progressive think tank the Australia Institute finds that coal mining companies operating in New South Wales's Hunter Valley have made security deposits with the state government for rehabilitating mining sites of AU$3.3 billion, but estimates show that the full cost of filling in the regions mining voids is between $11 and $25 billion.  The report also found that mines in Hunter Valley were only operating at two thirds of their legal capacity in 2020, undermining arguments in favour of new mines.  Finally in coal news from Australia the investment bank Macquarie has announced that it will exit coal financing by the year 2024.

6.  Germany's highest court has ruled that current climate change law in the country is insufficient.  The Constitutional Court said that Germany's target of a 55% cut by 2030 placed too much of a burden on younger generations to cut emissions after that date, and offered too little detail on how those cuts would be achieved.  The government now has until the end of next year to revise the law but within barely a week of the ruling, the government proposed moving its net-zero target forward 5 years to 2045, bumping the 2030 target up to 65%, and creating an interim target of an 88% cut by 2040.  No specific details have yet been provided on how the cuts will be made.  The ruling coalition is hoping to finalise these reforms before September's federal election, where the Green Party is for the first time expected to be a major player.

A report last month from the German Institute for Economic Research found that plans for natural gas build-out threatened to violate the country's Paris Agreement commitments.  Germany also has a goal to phase out coal use by 2038, well beyond the 2030 deadline for rich countries that are a part of the Powering Past Coal alliance.  In the UK a new lawsuit from three young people alleges that an inadequate government roadmap for decarbonisation threatens their human rights. 

7.  Plans for a 27 billion pound road expansion program in England are facing new challenges, with the UK government's Treasury department now demanding more justification for new roads from the Department for Transport.  The department is also being taken to court by environmentalists who claim ministers are ignoring commitments made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since the road building plans were proposed.  Last month two former government advisers warned that emissions from the program would be 100 times higher than the government was claiming.  Critics also cite the massive increase in remote work due to the pandemic and Brexit uncertainties as reasons to abandon the plans.  A new study in the science journal Transportation Research finds that expansions to a section of London's ring road motorway, the M25, led to a 23% increase in traffic but no increase in speeds after the first year.

Meanwhile in the U.S. state of Florida a series of three controversial toll roads have been cancelled.  Two years ago Florida lawmakers ordered the state Department of Transportation to construct the roads but in late April the Florida House voted 115-0 to repeal the majority of the project.  The roads were fiercely opposed due to their estimated price tag of tens of billions of dollars and their placement running through sensitive rural habitats.  The language of the repeal bill leaves room for two of the three roads to go ahead in some other form.  A recent report, analysed in Climate Breakdown episode 3, found that Florida has consistently ranked as the most dangerous state in the U.S. to be a pedestrian, with almost 6,000 deaths during the decade of the 2010s.  Transport advocacy groups argue that far too much is spent on building new roads nationally as opposed to maintaining existing ones.  According to the American Society of Civil Engineers around 43% of American roads are classified as being in poor or mediocre condition, with only 42% in good condition, costing the average motorist over $1,000 a year in wasted time and fuel.  In recent weeks Florida representatives in Congress reintroduced a bill to permanently ban offshore oil drilling around the state as the current moratorium on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico is due to expire next year.  Many of the same members of Congress wrote to the Department of the Interior in April to urge a denial of permits for oil drilling in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve.

8.  The oil and gas giant Total has made the decision to indefinitely suspend a $20 billion liquid natural gas pipeline in Mozambique, due to an escalation of violence in the project's immediate area.  The UK and U.S. have come under criticism for providing billions in financial backing to the pipeline, with lawyers from Friends of the Earth UK claiming that the project has increased levels of violence as various actors seek to exploit the newly discovered gas.  According to the UN conflict in Mozambique since 2017 is thought to have killed or injured tens of thousands of people and displaced around 700,000.  Total, along with fellow European oil majors Shell and BP, have all reported profits of at least $3 billion for the first quarter of this year, a massive increase over 2020. 

9.  And finally, construction on the expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline in Western Canada has been halted until August due to the discovery of nesting hummingbirds during tree felling.  The birds - which are protected under Canada's Migratory Birds Act - were spotted on April 12th by a local conservation group who believe there may be thousands of nests along the 700 mile route.  The project is owned by the Canadian government and is intended to triple the capacity of the 1950s era line.  In other news the Canadian Energy Regulator has granted a request from the government-owned Trans Mountain Corporation to keep its insurers' identities a secret.  In its request to the agency Trans Mountain argued that pressure on insurers from indigenous communities and environmental groups was causing a "material loss" to the company, with a recent study finding that the pipeline is likely to cost the Canadian government nearly $12 billion.  The original pipeline runs through territories that were never ceded by the local indigenous populations.  

 

Redlight Pinellas

 

In episode 6 we have a dedication to a late friend of mine, Reverend Bruce Wright, with a clip from his project The Revolutionary Road Radio Show from 2014.  The infamous activist had me in the studio as a guest to discuss a failed transportation referendum in Tampa Bay, and he also spoke about how it related to the Black Lives Matter protests happening at that time.  He would have been 60 on May 10th. 

Hear Bruce's show here: http://internetradiopros.com/revolutionary/
Hear the full December 2014 episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppXEKibzJSE