Rob Edwards

House of Lords fails to block plan for fracking under homes without consent

from The National, 27 November 2014

The entire House of Lords has been accused of missing the chance to block the UK government’s plan to allow companies to frack for gas under people’s homes without their consent.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has pointed out that an objection from a single peer in the House of Lords could have stymied the government amendment removing the right of property owners to object to drilling under their land. The SNP does not sit in the Lords on principle. 

According to the standing orders of the House of Lords Grand Committee, a single voice against an amendment results in its rejection. But when the committee considered the fracking proposal on 14 October it went through without objection.

If it becomes law, the proposal would let companies prospecting for underground gas or oil to drill 300 metres or more below properties across the UK without requiring the owners’ permission. The Grangemouth multinational, Ineos, announced last week that it was investing up to £640 million in fracking for shale gas, and has a licence to explore 742 square miles of central Scotland. 

Fracking is a way of fracturing rocks deep underground by injecting high-pressure liquids into them so that trapped shale gas can escape. There are also highly controversial plans to exploit other forms of underground gas, including coalbed methane in Falkirk and coal gasification under the Firth of Forth.

Scotland urged to boycott “dirty coal” from Colombia

from Sunday Herald, 26 October 2014

Scotland is being urged to stop burning “dirty coal” from Colombia and to pull the public sector’s multi-million pound investments in a big mining corporation that’s involved. 

Victims of the vast Cerrejón mine in the La Guajira region of Colombia are due in Glasgow, Edinburgh and South Lanarkshire this week. The mine, which covers 69,000 hectares, has forcibly displaced farming communities, polluted water supplies and destroyed sacred sites, they say.

“The coal which is used to warm your houses on cold nights is the same coal which has taken our homes from us,” says Rogelio Ustate from the Federation of Communities Displaced by Mining in La Guajira (FECODEMIGUA).

"The coal that comes from Cerrejón is dirty coal, stained by the blood and sweat of the people of La Guajira. In Europe, people enjoy light at the suffering of these communities.”

He alleges that children have died because river water has been contaminated, and that people are dying of thirst while the mine used huge amounts of water. “Coal mining in Colombia has led to the destruction of the social fabric, the loss of ancestral or traditional medicine and the destruction and disappearance of sacred sites," he says.

Big oil’s £1bn tax breaks should fund renewables after independence, say Greens

Exclusive, 14 September 2014 

Massive £1 billion tax breaks given to big oil companies in the North Sea every year should be diverted to renewable energy and improving social services under independence, says a new report from the Scottish Green Party. 

The party has made the first estimate of all the UK government’s subsidies provided to oil and gas corporations to encourage development. A complex web of allowances and tax relief rewards them with at least £1.15bn annually, it reckons, equivalent to £190 for every Scot.

This sum of money could be used to employ 25,000 extra teachers or 28,000 extra nurses, or to fund 25 hours a week of free childcare for every three and four year old in Scotland, the party points out. Instead of fuelling private company profits, it could be invested in publically-owned wind and solar schemes.

In a bid to radically alter the terms of the conventional oil arguments, the Scottish Green Party is also publishing a second report today urging that oil companies be taken into public ownership, as in Norway. Oil extraction should also be slowed down to help minimise disruption to the world’s climate, the report says.

According to the Green MSP, Patrick Harvie, the huge public subsidy given to multinational oil companies had been overlooked until now. “Now that figure's out in the open we should consider the logic of continuing such massive tax breaks,” he said.

Scotland should welcome wildlife invasion from England, says expert

from The Herald, 08 September 2014

An independent Scotland should welcome a natural invasion of plants and animals from England and not reject them as alien because they come from a foreign country, says a leading wildlife expert.

Professor Chris Thomas, a biologist from the University of York, is warning that labelling as non-native birds, butterflies and other species that move north because of global warming would create “one big headache”. 

He points out that if Scotland becomes an independent country it will have to decide whether to classify thousands of species that only occur south of the border as alien. Other countries signed up to international agreements to protect wildlife have developed policies for non-native species.

But Thomas argues that it would be a bad idea to define English plants and animals as alien, and resist their arrival in Scotland. The rising temperatures caused by climate pollution are driving many species north, he says, and they should be welcomed. 

Among the species that could cross the border is the Essex skipper butterfly, which is seen as an invasive species in North America. Historically a native of southern England, it has been spreading northwards and was recently seen in southern Yorkshire.

Green bank under cross-party fire for backing big biomass

from Sunday Herald, 22 June 2014

The UK government’s new Green Investment Bank in Edinburgh is facing its first protests for backing the burning of millions of tonnes of wood from abroad in power stations.

MSPs from three political parties, environmental groups and community representatives have this weekend written to the bank saying they are “deeply concerned” that it is supporting big biomass plants. Demonstrations are also planned at its annual meetings in Edinburgh and London this week.

The bank has loaned £50 million to help the UK’s largest power station, Drax in North Yorkshire, switch from burning coal to burning wood. But critics say this will mean having to import up to 15 million tonnes of trees a year from North America and is a “false solution” to climate pollution.

There are also fears that the bank could rescue floundering plans for new wood-burning plants at Grangemouth and Rosyth. The controversial proposals have planning permission, but the developers, Forth Ports and the energy company SSE, pulled out in March.

A joint letter to the bank signed by 18 organisations and individuals says that backing polluting biomass plants undermines the bank’s credibility as an environmentally responsible investor. It urges the bank to revoke its loan for Drax, and rule out financial support for plants at Rosyth and Grangemouth. 

For the sake of my people, Scotland must fulfil its climate promise

Comment, from Sunday Herald, 08 June 2014

by Yeb Sano, climate change commissioner for the Philippines

If more communities are to avoid the destructive impacts of storms and typhoons caused by climate change - like the one that devastated my homeland - then developed countries like Scotland must deliver on their promises to cut their emissions. They need to set a positive example, demonstrating that a transition to a low carbon economy is not only achievable, but highly desirable.

No one can forget the images of the Philippines in November 2013: scenes of destruction, boats beached on the shore, vast areas littered with rubble and debris, streets no longer recognisable, people mindlessly walking around immense wastelands of mud and debris looking for the remains of their houses and for signs that their loved ones are alive.

Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), the most powerful storm to have ever made landfall, caused massive devastation in my family’s home town and hundreds of other towns. It claimed many thousands of lives, flattened millions of homes, and left many with nothing but the clothes they had on their backs and an already poor country with a clean-up bill of $36bn.

At the time, I was away from my home, negotiating for my country at the UN’s international climate change conference in Warsaw, Poland, unsure of even my own family’s fate. In the UN world of climate jargon and acronyms, it felt important to me to highlight the real human effects of climate change in plain English.

Ministers under pressure to cut climate pollution as targets missed for third time

from Sunday Herald, 08 June 2014

The Scottish government is coming under mounting pressure to make new cuts in climate pollution as it faces failing to meet its statutory targets for reducing emissions for the third year running.

An unprecedented alliance of all the opposition parties is privately urging Scottish ministers to agree moves that would cut carbon pollution from vehicles, farms, houses and government.

At the same time, a Philippine diplomat Yeb Sano, famed for weeping and fasting at the world’s last major climate summit, has made a passionate plea for Scotland to keep its promises and abide by its climate law.

On Tuesday, ministers are due to announce long-awaited figures on Scotland’s carbon emissions for 2012. They are widely expected to show that, as in 2010 and 2011, emissions will not have been reduced in line with the levels required under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act.

This was predicted by the UK’s expert Committee on Climate Change, which warned in March that emissions in Scotland were likely to have increased in 2012. A combination of a cold winter, burning more coal in power stations and a small increase in economic activity “would suggest a level of emissions higher than the target in this year,” it said.

Burning North Sea oil might bring wealth – and climate disaster

from New Scientist, 28 May 2014

As dusk falls, Grangemouth starts to glow. Cloaked in clouds of steam and lit by flares like giant candles, Scotland's biggest oil refinery has a strange beauty.

Situated roughly halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow on the Firth of Forth, the 700-hectare petrochemical complex is a vital hub of UK oil production. Should Scotland vote for independence, it will be one of the new government's key assets.

According to the industry, there are between 15 and 24 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas left under the North Sea. About 42bn barrels have been extracted since production began there in 1967.

Because prices have risen, 24bn barrels could be worth £1.5 trillion – more than the value of all the oil and gas extracted so far. "That gives us one of the best financial safety nets of any country in the world," the Scottish government says.

If the UK's Trident nuclear submarine base moves from the river Clyde after independence – as Scottish nationalists say it must – then prospecting off the west coast could begin too. It is currently banned in case it interferes with naval operations there.

Waste land across Glasgow to be assessed for solar energy farms

from Sunday Herald, 27 April 2014 

It may be hard to believe, but sunshine is now in line to help transform Glasgow into one of the world’s greenest cities.

Glasgow City Council is about to launch a project to identify sites for small solar farms on 400 patches of wasteland scattered across the city. The plan is to install arrays of solar panels to generate clean electricity on vacant or derelict sites owned by the council.

Despite the sun’s relatively rare appearance in the sky over Scotland’s largest city, experts say that tapping its rays for power in this way can play a vital role in ensuring a low-pollution future for Glasgow. 

The initiative has been enthusiastically welcomed by renewable energy experts and companies, who see a bright future for solar power across Scotland. Edinburgh is looking at putting solar farms in disused quarries and on pit bings, and 16 major solar electricity projects have won planning approval elsewhere in Scotland in the last two years.

Scotland already has 116 megawatts of solar capacity from more than 31,000 installations, mostly panels on the roofs of peoples’ homes (see tables below). But this is now seen by many as just the start.

Glasgow council has teamed up with Strathclyde University to conduct a comprehensive survey of 550 hectares of city land that is currently not being used. Sites will be assessed for technical and policy constraints to see which ones could accommodate mini solar farms. 

Solar farms are arrays of photovoltaic (PV) panels installed on the ground and designed to capture the sun’s radiation and turn it into electricity. According to the solar industry, just one hectare of panels can produce enough electricity to power up to 150 homes.

Climate pollution will bring war, famine and poverty, warns leaked UN report

from Sunday Herald, 30 March 2014

The world is heading for more wars, more famine and more poverty because of the damage pollution is wreaking on the climate, according to the latest leaked report from United Nations (UN) scientists. 

Hundreds of millions of people could be displaced by rising sea levels, crop yields could drop by up to a fifth, and communities around the world could be devastated by floods, storms and heatwaves, the report says. Many species of wildlife could face extinction as global temperatures are driven upwards by emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The report, written by more than 70 experts from 30 countries, is due to be published tomorrow by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following final negotiations at a meeting in Yokohama, Japan. Drawing on thousands of scientific studies, it is the most authoritative account to date of the manifold dangers of man-made climate change.

The Sunday Herald has seen a 40-page internal draft of the ‘Summary for Policymakers’, dated 25 March 2014. Though riddled with minor alterations and still under discussion, it gives a clear indication of what the IPCC is planning to say.

The report highlights eight major worldwide risks, including deaths, injuries, illnesses and disrupted livelihoods from floods, extreme weather events, food scarcity and water shortages. Livelihoods that depend on fishing and on endangered species could also suffer, it says (see table below).

“Throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts will slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps,” the draft report says.

Scotland needs an Arctic policy after UK snub, say experts

from Sunday Herald, 02 February 2014

The Scottish government should develop its own policy on the Arctic after it was snubbed by Westminster, say experts and environmentalists.

Scottish ministers were not consulted by the UK government when it drew up its first strategy on conservation and development in the Arctic last year. Now they are coming under growing pressure to come up with their own. 

Tensions between the need to protect the polar region’s fragile environment and the demand to exploit its valuable resources are increasing as global warming melts the ice cap. Last week the UK oil giant, Shell, shelved controversial plans to drill in the Alaskan Arctic this summer.

The UK government produced its Arctic strategy in October after five years of consultation. It endorsed plans to exploit oil, gas and other minerals, but said there should be high environmental standards.

But now the strategy has come under fire for being “overly timid” so as not to offend other countries. In a paper published today by the Scottish Global Forum think tank, former British diplomat, Professor Alyson Bailes, highlights “weaknesses” in the UK approach.

Revealed: the £1.4 billion that the public sector pours into pollution, tobacco and weapons

from Sunday Herald, 19 January 2014 

More than 430 public bodies in Scotland are investing over £1.4 billion in pollution, tobacco and weapons despite the dangers posed to the planet, human health and life around the world.

A major investigation by the Sunday Herald reveals that public sector pension funds are supporting more than a hundred big corporations blamed for wrecking the climate, causing cancer and profiting from conflict. 

Amongst the groups backing major climate polluters is the government’s Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which champions moves to cut climate pollution. Amongst those funding big tobacco are health groups, cancer hospices, schools and universities.

Two public pension schemes are putting millions of pounds into an electronics company that has been shunned by other public investors because it makes controls for US military drones accused of illegally killing more than 400 civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The revelations have shocked trade unionists, pension-holders and campaigners, who are now calling for a major overhaul of public investments. “Many people work in the public sector because they want the world to be a better place,” said Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland.

“They will be appalled to find out the scale on which their money is being used to fund climate change, big tobacco and arms companies. Whether it is health workers or those working for the environment, in many cases funding these companies directly conflicts with the aims of the organisations offering these pensions.”

Flooding threatens vital transport, health and nuclear facilities, warns Sepa

from Sunday Herald, 12 January 2014 

Airports, power stations, key road and rail links, nuclear bases and the Scottish government’s Edinburgh headquarters are all at risk of flooding, according to maps compiled by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

A huge industrial complex, a major hospital, a vital sewage works and a prison are also in danger of inundation, along with shopping centres, Murrayfield Stadium, the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre and the BBC headquarters in Glasgow.

Officials warn that the risks are likely to increase as global warming triggers heavier rainfall, fiercer storms and higher sea levels. The Met Office is already predicting that 2014 will be one of the world’s warmest years on record.

Sepa has produced “indicative” maps revealing the areas of Scotland most at risk from flooding by rivers and the seas. These are due to be publicised and augmented this week, highlighting specific hazards for people, property and public services. 

This follows a Christmas and New Year that have seen parts of Scotland and the rest of the UK suffer a sustained battering from a series of storms, strong winds and high tides. Last month Scotland endured the wettest December since records began in 1910, and measured the lowest bad-weather pressure system in the UK since 1884.

Climate pollution will hurt the Scottish fishing industry, say scientists

from Sunday Herald, 29 December 2013

Global warming could cut commercial fish catches around Scotland by 20 per cent while they increase by ten per cent around the south of England, according to a new study by over 150 government and university scientists.

Gradually rising temperatures caused by climate pollution could drive porpoises, minke whales and white-beaked dolphins away from Scotland's shores. The sea will also become increasingly acidic, which could harm some marine wildlife, the study says. 

The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership has released its report card for 2013. It summarises the latest research from more than 50 leading UK science organisations, including Scottish Natural Heritage, Marine Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

The report points out that over the last 30 years landings of cold-water fish like cod, haddock and whiting from the North East Atlantic have halved. Over coming decades, it predicts that this trend will continue. 

Northern UK seas like the central and northern North Sea will become “up to 20 per cent less productive, with clear implications for fisheries,” it says. But at the same time southern seas like the English Channel and the Celtic Sea will become up to ten per cent more productive.

Councils risk repeating mistakes on opencast coal clean-up failures

from Sunday Herald, 15 December 2013

Local authorities are in danger of repeating past mistakes by failing to make sure that opencast coal companies put aside enough money to clean up the mess they make, a leading industry expert is warning.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that councils were alerted seven years ago that they would face a major crisis funding the restoration of old mines if coal firms went bust. But the warning - which has proved eerily accurate - fell mostly on deaf ears.

Councils were consulted on a damning but unpublished study in 2006 exposing multiple flaws in the system of insurance bonds meant to cover the costs of restoring ruined landscapes. The study was conducted by Rod Smith, a coal industry specialist who has managed and advised on opencast sites in Scotland for 37 years.

He is now concerned that the scheme for restoring the new opencast mine planned for Cauldhall Moor, south of Edinburgh, may be deficient and could unravel. The mine, near Penicuik, was given the go-ahead by Midlothian Council last month.

Smith’s study, which has been passed to the Sunday Herald, will provide vital evidence to an investigation under way by Audit Scotland. MSPs, environment and community groups are also demanding an inquiry by the Scottish Parliament.

Letting the rivers run naturally to save homes from being flooded

from Scottish Wildlife Trust magazine, November 2013

Near Cringletie in the Scottish Borders, the river is starting to meander again. For the first time in two centuries, Eddleston Water is being allowed to flow down to join the Tweed in Peebles as it once used to - gently, lazily and naturally.

Since the early 19th century the water has been progressively straitjacketed. Cutting through the green, curving countryside, it has looked like an unnatural slit in the earth, sliced straight by human hand parallel to the A703.

But in August, the Scottish environment minister, Paul Wheelhouse MSP, donned a bright blue hardhat and sat in a shiny orange mechanical digger to oversee the opening of a new bend in the river. It’s called “re-meandering”, and it’s modern-day engineers trying to undo the damage that’s been done by their predecessors.

In the past, to recoup land for roads, railways, buildings and farms, rivers have been redirected, realigned, and remade. The trouble is that this has tended to make them flow faster, moving more water, more quickly and causing floods in communities downstream.

Eddleston Water frequently floods Cuddyside in Peebles, which is why it is highlighted by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) as an area of high flood risk. In 2012 the river burst its banks as many as six times after heavy rain, causing much disruption and upset to local residents.

Go-ahead for new opencast coal mine despite fierce opposition

from The Herald, 18 November 2013

A plan for a massive new opencast coal mine near Edinburgh looks likely to get the green light this week, despite fierce opposition from environmental groups and outrage from local residents.

The mine at Cauldhall near Penicuik is the first to be proposed since Scotland’s two major coal companies went bust, leaving dozens of old opencast mines across the country without enough money to clean them up as had been promised.

Opponents say the new mine should be rejected until they are clear assurances that landscape restoration will be funded. Its proponent, however, says there will be legally-binding restoration guarantees in place before work starts.

Midlothian Council planning officials are recommending approval at a meeting on Tuesday for a bid by the coal company, Hargreaves, to extract ten million tonnes of coal over the next 13 years at Cauldhall. Most of the 500-hectare site is owned by the Earl of Rosebery as part of Dalmeny Estates.

“It is unthinkable another mine could be consented before we even know what went catastrophically wrong in the regulation of existing sites,” said Aedán Smith, head of planning at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland. “When you are in a hole, you should stop digging.”

Big six under fire for blaming price rises on green costs

from Sunday Herald 17 November 2013

The big six energy companies have been accused of misleading the public by blaming green charges for rising gas and electricity bills. But in fact it’s the increasing cost of fossil fuels - particularly gas - that is mainly responsible for recent price rises, say critics.

They point to a UK government analysis showing that charges for insulating homes and supporting renewables make up only nine per cent of the average household energy bill. The cost of buying electricity and gas on the wholesale market accounts for nearly half the bill.

The major energy companies highlighted green charges as one of the reasons for introducing price increases averaging eight per cent over the last few weeks. This prompted the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to promise a “roll back” of green charges, and speculation that the Chancellor, George Osborne, will cut them back in his autumn financial statement on 5 December. 

But an authoritative analysis by the Westminster Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) shows that only £112 of the annual average household energy bill of £1,267 is due to so-called green charges. These include £47 to help low-income households insulate their homes, £30 to support wind and other renewable energy sources and £11 for warm home discounts for pensioners. 

By far the biggest portion of the bill – £597 – comes from the cost of buying wholesale energy to distribute to customers. Then there’s £257 to pay for the distribution networks, £240 to cover supply costs and profits and £60 for value added tax (see table below).

Bid to ‘sell off nature’ to companies under fire

from The Guardian, 13 November 2013

A major international conference in Edinburgh aimed at conserving wildlife is coming under fierce attack from campaign groups for trying to sell off nature to multinational corporations.

The first ‘World Forum on Natural Capital’ later this month is due to attract business and conservation leaders from across the globe to debate how to give natural resources a monetary value in order to try and protect them. It is due to be addressed by the First Minister, Alex Salmond.

But it has now sparked unexpected opposition from a coalition of environmental and development groups across Europe. They are planning a “counter forum” to combat the idea that nature should become a commodity to be traded by business.

The official conference may also attract some street theatre lampooning the idea of natural capital, though organisers stress that there are no plans to disrupt proceedings. In addition, the world forum’s headline sponsor, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), has drawn criticism from environmental groups concerned at the bank’s multi-billion pound backing for climate-polluting companies.

Revealed: the 185 big companies that are failing the planet

from Sunday Herald, 20 October 2013

More than half of Britain’s top 350 companies are failing to play their part in cutting the pollution that is wrecking the global climate, according to an authoritative new survey.

The companies that have scored badly, failed to disclose information or failed to respond at all include many famous names. Among them are Domino’s Pizza, Wetherspoon, Bovis Homes, Cairn Energy, Wood Group, National Express, Eddie Stobart and the London Stock Exchange.

Others include Dixons, Halfords, JD Sports, ITV, Moneysupermarket.com, Babcock and A. G. Barr, the makers of Irn Bru. There are also less well-known but influential finance and manufacturing companies like Jupiter Fund Management, Rathbones, Renishaw and Victrex, as well as a host of others.

“There is an urgent need for those companies who are failing to address the problem of climate change, or doing so only half-heartedly, to face up to the threat their inaction poses not only to their own business, but the planet as a whole,” said Lang Banks, the director of WWF Scotland.

“The poorest performing firms and industry laggards need to shape up, change their ways, and quickly become part of solution. The science around climate change is clear. The alarm bells are ringing. We need action and we need it now.”