corruption – Page 26 – Desdemona Despair

Australia’s Minister for International Development Alex Hawke at the official opening of the Pacific Islands Forum in Funafuti, Tuvalu, Tuesday, 13 August 2019. Hawke says Australia will not agree to any demand from the Pacific Islands Forum to shut down coal-fired power or mining. Photo: Mick Tsikas / AAP Image

September 5, 2019

Australia tells Pacific leaders: we won’t budge on coal – Australia’s “carbon loophole” is seven times larger than the annual emissions of its Pacific neighbors

By Rebecca Gredley 14 August 2019 TUVALU (AAP) – Prime Minister Scott Morrison is due to touch down in Tuvalu’s capital of Funafuti on Wednesday, joining Minister for the Pacific Alex Hawke. Hawke says coal is a “red line issue” for Australia in negotiations with its smaller island neighbours. “Australia’s position on coal is we […]

Aerial view of the Abbot Point coal port run by Adani Group. A report on 29 August 2019 by IEEFA Australia has found the Adani Carmichael coal project is “unviable” without $4.4 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies. Photo: Greenpeace

September 4, 2019

Adani coal mine “unviable” without $4.4 billion in subsidies from Australia taxpayers – Mine will receive subsidies and tax concessions for more than 30 years – “This project is entirely contrary to Australia’s international commitments under the Paris Agreement”

By Ben Smee 28 August 2019 (The Guardian) – Australian governments will give $4.4 billion in effective subsidies to Adani’s Carmichael coal project, which would otherwise be “unbankable and unviable”, a new analysis has found. The report, by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, concluded that the project would benefit from several Australian […]

Krimej village indigenous Chief Kadjyre Kayapo, of the Kayapo indigenous community, pauses on the path opened by illegal loggers on the border between Menkragnotire indigenous lands and the Biological Reserve Serra do Cachimbo in Altamira, Para state, Brazil, Saturday, 31 August 2019. He wears a traditional headdress and a necklace reading “Jesus Christ” in Kayapo language. Much of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is done illegally -- land grabbers burn areas to clear land for agriculture and loggers encroach on national forests and indigenous reserves, and Kayapo says he does not want loggers and prospectors on his land. Photo: Leo Correa / AP Photo

September 2, 2019

Indigenous leaders in Brazil’s Amazon try to thwart loggers and miners – “What is being done here is an atrocity against us”

By Leo Correa 1 September 2019 ALTAMIRA, Brazil (AP) – An indigenous leader in Brazil’s Amazon says he will do what he can to stop loggers and prospectors encroaching on his people’s land. Kadjyre Kayapo, his son and other companions searched in recent days for signs of trespassing in the lush rainforest of the Kayapo […]

Gas storage tanks receiving natural gas from feeder pipelines before compression for transport in high-pressure pipelines at the Haynseville shale formation, Texas. This photo was taken with a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera tuned to the infrared spectrum of methane, allowing visualization of methane, which is invisible in the normal camera view and to the naked eye. Photo: Sharon Wilson / Howarth, 2019 / Biogeosciences

August 29, 2019

U.S. proposes easing rules on methane emissions from oil and gas production – Latest rollback “highlights the Trump administration’s complete contempt for our climate”

By Ellen Knickmeyer 29 August 2019 WASHINGTON (AP) – Oil and gas companies could face far looser oversight of emissions of potent climate-changing methane gas under a proposal expected from the Trump administration as soon as Thursday, oil industry and environmental groups said. The government’s plan would ease requirements on oil and gas sites to monitor for […]

Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro gestures during the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association's Unica Forum 2018 in São Paulo, 18 June 2018. Photo: Miguel Schincariol / Getty Images

August 27, 2019

Humans bicker while the rainforest burns: Brazil rejects G-7 aid pledged to fight Amazon fires, but Bolsonaro might accept offer if Macron apologizes

By Guy Davies 27 August 2019 LONDON (ABC News) – A senior government official said Brazil would reject the $22 million G-7 countries promised to help fight the wildfires raging in the Amazon. Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni told Globo News, a Brazilian publication, that Brazil would reject the $22 million aid package, suggesting that the money […]

Aerial view of a wildfire burning in the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Brazil, 26 August 2019. The Brazilian state of Rondonia has 6,436 fires burning so far this year in it, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Photo: Natalie Gallón / CNN

August 26, 2019

Flying above the Amazon fires, “all you can see is death”

By Nick Paton Walsh and Natalie Gallón 26 August 2019 Porto Velho, Brazil (CNN) – The smoke is so thick, at times the Cessna airplane had to climb to stay out of it. At times your eyes burn and you close the air vents to keep the cabin habitable. Sometimes it is so bad, it […]

Donald Trump’s empty chair at the G7 talks on the climate emergency on Monday, 26 August 2019. Photo: POOL / Reuters

August 26, 2019

Trump skips G7 talks on climate crisis and Amazon wildfires – Trump team calls global warming a “niche issue”

By Angelique Chrisafis 26 August 2019 BIARRITZ, France (The Guardian) – Donald Trump did not attend Monday’s crucial discussion on climate and biodiversity at the G7 meeting of international leaders in Biarritz, missing talks on how to deal with the Amazon rainforest fires as well as new ways to cut carbon emissions. Reporters noticed at […]

A Rio Branco fireman fights a wildfire in Rio Branco, Amazonian State of Acre, Brazil, on 17 August 2019. Photo: Rio Branco Firemen handout / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

August 24, 2019

Hundreds of new fires in Brazil as world outrage grows over Amazon destruction – Bolsonaro reverses course and mobilizes armed forces – Brazil agricultural industry fears global boycott – “Today, because of Bolsonaro, all our work is turning into ashes”

24 August 2019 (AFP) – Hundreds of new fires are raging in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil, official data showed Saturday, amid growing international pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro to control the worst blazes in years. Multiple fires were seen across a vast area of the northwestern state of Rondonia on Friday when AFP […]

Aerial view of brine pools at the SQM lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama desert of northern Chile, 10 January 2013. Photo: Ivan Alvarado / Reuters

August 24, 2019

Farmers in Chile losing freshwater battle with lithium mines – “We’ll be left here with no water, no animals, no agriculture – with nothing”

By Grace Livingstone 15 August 2019 SANTIAGO, Chile (BBC News) – Out of habit, Sara Plaza smiles when her photo is taken, but when she talks about what has happened to the land around her home, tears start to run down her face. “There used to be beautiful lagoons down there, with hundreds of flamingos,” […]

Satellite view of wildfires in South America on 21 August 2019. Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest hit a record number in 2019, with 72,843 fires detected in August by Brazil’s space research center INPE. Graphic: INPE

August 22, 2019

Record number of fires burning in Brazil rainforest – Bolsonaro blames conservationists, after he defunded environmental agencies

21 August 2019 (BBC News) – Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, new space agency data suggests. The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018. It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro sacked the head of the […]