Rob Edwards

Scotland’s major climate polluters exposed

from Sunday Herald, 01 November 2009

Scotland’s worst climate polluters have been unmasked as big-name energy companies including Scottish Power, Ineos, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell and E.ON.

The French multinational, Lafarge, paper mills and landfill sites are also amongst those outed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) for belching the most global warming gases into the atmosphere in 2008.

In a long list of nearly 100 polluters, there are also famous distilleries, food companies, chemical plants, sewage works, glass manufacturers, the Michelin Tyre company and the nuclear submarine bases on the Clyde.

Pollution from some of the major plants has gone up, as at ScottishPower’s Cockenzie coal-fired power station in East Lothian. Its emissions have leapt nearly 60% from 2.8 million tonnes in 2005 to 4.45 million tonnes last year.

But it is still second in the pollution league to ScottishPower’s other coal plant at Longannet in Fife. Emissions from Longannet were nearly 6 million tonnes, a 30% drop compared to 2005.

Africa: the unfolding catastrophe caused by our pollution

from Sunday Herald, 25 October 2009

Bandiagara, Mali

Adama is not happy. He is hanging from the blue-cloth harness of a weighing machine, his spindly limbs waving in the air, fear writ large in his wide eyes, crying.

But his sobs are half-strangled and weak, unlike those of a healthy, full-throated two-year-old. Adama is severely malnourished, and is a patient along with his 35-year-old mother, Amadou, at a hospital in Bandiagara, in the sub-Saharan African republic of Mali.

Adama was admitted last month because the circumference of his upper forearm measured less than 10 centimetres. That is about the size of the thick end of a snooker cue, and is within the danger zone for malnutrition in children under five.

He was also suffering from diarrhoea and pneumonia, and is being treated with drugs and food supplements, thanks to western aid. Out of the weighing harness, he clings to his mother’s pure white shawl, as she feeds another baby girl to whom she gave birth two days ago.

Like thousands of other children in his region, and millions more across the baking heart of Africa, Adama is not the victim of a natural disaster. His thin limbs, his frightened eyes, his gnawing hunger are testimony to something far more disturbing: an unfolding human catastrophe in which we are all implicated.

Unmasked: the billionaire tax-exile behind Hunterston coal plan

from Sunday Herald, 18 October 2009

The man behind a controversial plan for a new coal-fired power station in Scotland is a billionaire tax exile backed by Saudi oil money.

John Whittaker, a publicity-shy property developer who heads the Peel group of companies, is promising to go ahead with a new plant at Hunterston in North Ayrshire against furious opposition - and despite having lost his major investor last week.

Campaigners now fear he could now turn to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for help, and are launching a court action in London this week aimed at preventing the bank from investing in socially or environmentally damaging projects.

Investigations at Companies House have uncovered over 100 different firms registered under the Peel name. The group has assets valued at over £4.5 billion, including Clydeport, Mersey Docks, the Manchester Ship Canal, Liverpool John Lennon Airport and the Trafford shopping centre in Manchester.

Peel’s boss, 67-year-old Whittaker, was born in Bury, Lancashire, but now lives on the Isle of Man, where most of his companies are registered to help reduce taxes. He runs his businesses with the help of his four children, Mark, James, Kate and John.

The ‘myopia’ of ministers over road schemes

from Sunday Herald, 18 October 2009

Scottish ministers are being warned by their own advisers that major road-building schemes - like the new bridge over the Firth of Forth - are short-sighted, and could crash their targets to cut climate pollution.

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), which advises ministers on green policies, is preparing a damning critique of the Scottish government’s transport priorities. To be delivered to ministers next month, it will expose a “significant policy gap” which threatens to derail Scotland’s world-leading climate legislation.

The SDC’s third annual assessment of the Scottish government’s progress towards sustainable development will point out that all the transport measures so far promised by ministers will only deliver half the cuts in carbon emissions needed to meet climate targets.

“Greater alignment between policy objectives based on sustainable development targets and the many transport project decisions made is sorely needed,” says a statement from the commission.

Promises broken as foreign nuclear waste stays in Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 11 October 2009

Over 600 tonnes of foreign nuclear waste is to be kept in Scotland despite repeated promises by governments and the nuclear industry that it would be sent back to the countries from which it came.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the Scottish government has secretly proposed storing the highly dangerous waste at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness. But, under a bizarre radioactive swap scheme, a smaller volume of waste will be returned from England.

The revelation has prompted outrage from anti-nuclear campaigners, who have accused the Scottish National Party (SNP) of breaking its promises to prevent Scotland from becoming the world’s nuclear dustbin.

“It is quite disgraceful that any Scottish government should acquiesce in turning Scotland and the Highlands into a dumping ground for vast quantities of other people’s radioactive waste,” said the veteran anti-dumping campaigner, Lorraine Mann. 

MoD nuclear submarine disposal group hit by resignation

Exclusive, 11 October 2009

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) programme aimed at getting rid of the radioactive hulks of defunct nuclear submarines stored in Scotland is coming unstuck after the resignation of a veteran adviser.

Peter Lanyon, who has represented environmental and peace groups on government advisory groups for seven years, has quit because he says the MoD’s submarine disposal project “lacks integrity”. 

His resignation follows an MoD decision reported last month to sack two public consultation experts from its advisory group. Dr Jane Hunt and Dr Bill Thompson, originally from Lancaster University, have been replaced by a public relations company.

Egyptian radioactive scrap finds a home in England

Exclusive, 11 October 2009

A controversial shipment of radioactive scrap metal from Egypt, stored at a freight depot in central Scotland for nine years, has been sent to the UK’s radioactive waste dump at Drigg in Cumbria.

Internal papers from the UK government’s waste management steering committee, released under freedom of information legislation, reveal that prolonged efforts to persuade the Egyptian government to take back the scrap failed.

Government to ban slicing off shark fins at sea for soup

from Sunday Herald, 11 October 2009

Slicing the fins off endangered sharks and selling them to China for soup - a practice widely condemned as “barbaric” - is to be banned in Scottish waters.

The Scottish government is promising to implement a ban “within weeks” following a campaign from wildlife groups. It is also lobbying the European Commission to close loopholes which have allowed thousands of tonnes of shark fins to be landed, while the rest of the animals’ bodies are dumped back into the sea.

“I have no doubt the Scottish public will abhor this cruel and wasteful activity and will welcome Scotland's leadership,” said the Scottish environment minister, Richard Lochhead.

“Some shark populations are close to extinction, so I am delighted that Scotland is bringing an end to such a barbaric practice. As one of Europe’s most important fishing nations, we have a duty to show that we are serious about protecting the sustainability of our seas.”

Report on Cairngorm funicular fiasco due

07 October 2009

A much-anticipated report on one of Scotland’s longest-running public funding fiascos is likely to cause a stir this week. On Thursday, Audit Scotland is due to publish the results of its investigation into the Cairngorm mountain railway.

The funicular railway, which runs nearly all the way to the summit of Britain’s fifth highest mountain near Aviemore, has been plagued with controversy since it was first proposed in the early 1990s. Lack of visitors meant that it has been struggling to make money.

Trump threatened to sue council over golf plan

from Sunday Herald, 04 October 2009

The American billionaire tycoon, Donald Trump, threatened to sue Aberdeenshire Council for failing to back his luxury golf resort, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

Private correspondence released under freedom of information legislation shows that Trump’s lawyers accused the council of a “flawed decision making process” after it rejected the controversial development at the Menie estate near Balmedie in 2007.

The revelation has prompted accusations from critics that Trump used “strong-arm tactics” to subject the council to a “vicious corporate mugging”. And, they say, it helps explain the embarrassing mess the council managed to get itself into last week over whether or not to sanction the eviction of homeowners to make way for the development.

Just before a council meeting on Thursday, Aberdeenshire’s controlling Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition abandoned a widely-trailed plan to rule out the compulsory purchase of properties for Trump. Instead, to the fury of many councillors, they agreed a motion to take no action.

Pesticide company under fire for funding research into bee decline

from Sunday Herald, 04 October 2009

One of the world’s biggest pesticide companies, Syngenta, has been accused of a “howling conflict of interest” for funding research into the disappearance of honeybees - a problem which some say it may have helped cause.

Syngenta, based in Basel, Switzerland, last year clocked up £7.3 billion worth of sales in more than 90 countries. Among the products it markets to farmers are insecticides which have been blamed for harming honeybees.

It now also co-funds a £1 million project in the UK, announced last week, to research the decline of the bees. But the company insists that its money will not influence the outcome of the research, and dismisses criticisms of its role as “perverse”.

A film due to open in cinemas this week exposes the global plight of the honeybee, and argues that insecticides are partly to blame. Called ‘Vanishing of the Bees’, it is backed by the £9 billion Co-operative retail group, which has banned suspect chemicals from being used on its fresh fruit and vegetables.

According to beekeepers, honeybee populations in the UK crashed by nearly a third in 2008. The implications are alarming, as bees contribute £200 million a year to the UK economy and pollinate one in every three mouthfuls of food that we eat.

Government insulation scheme a ‘pale imitation’

04 October 2009

A new government scheme offering loans to improve home insulation will be too poorly funded to make any real difference, say the Scottish Greens.

The Scottish government is this week expected to unveil a pilot scheme giving householders loans to enhance the energy efficiency of their homes, and cut their fuel bills. Another aim is to reduce the pollution that is disrupting the climate.

Renewables fund under fire for missing out Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 04 October 2009

A £50 million fund set up by the UK government to help develop wave and tidal power has come under fire for failing to fund any Scottish companies. 

The only company to receive a grant so far has been a tidal generation firm based in Bristol, one of whose backers, Rolls Royce, helps run the organisation which gives out the grants.

The situation has infuriated the renewable energy industry in Scotland, which points out that most of the wave and tidal resource is around Scottish shores. And it has been attacked as “pretty dodgy” by the Scottish Greens.

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) was established by the UK government in 2007 to boost clean sources of power. Based at Loughborough University, it is jointly run by government agencies and a group of major private companies including Rolls Royce, EDF Energy and E.ON.