pROS AND CONS OF NUCLEAR POWER IN CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION
Is the use of Nuclear Power part of the solution to help transition to a de-carbonized form of renewable sources?
Category: Blog
EU mandatory human rights due diligence
By Ella Bailey
Readers passionate about human rights may be familiar with that sinking feeling when they open their inbox to find a new petition about another abuse committed, another person facing the death penalty, another innocent imprisoned on unfounded charges, another pipeline, another dirty deal. When will Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe get home? When will we stop investing in destructive industries? Emails pour in every week from Amnesty, Reprieve, SumOfUs – the list goes on. But sometimes, just often enough to keep from losing heart, there is a silver lining.
Stolen Childhoods – youth activism in the climate crisis
From Fridays for Future school strikes to her now infamous speech in the UN, you’d be hard pushed to find anyone who hasn’t heard of Greta Thunberg as the face of youth climate action. But Greta is not alone. Her outraged cries of “how dare you!” in the UN echo the shouts of children across the globe whose childhoods are being decimated by the devasting effects of climate change and whose futures on this planet look uncertain at best.
Whilst youth activists call louder than ever for our world leaders to take more radical climate action, the question arises – will they listen?
New life for old goods – the eu’s battle with our IRREPARABLE electronics
By George Bandy
How long should we expect our electronics to last? And what can we do when they break? These are not only questions for ensuring happy customers but are also an essential part of tackling overconsumption and excessive waste. Unfortunately, two things with which Europe is very familiar.
extinguishing the flares of death: how the escazú agreement may enhance rights protection and access to justice
By Dorothy Puga
At 400 °C, around 447 gas flares, known as ‘flares of death,’ are constantly burning in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, a long-standing practice by which the oil industry burns the byproducts of their oil extraction activities. Reports have confirmed that flaring results in highly pollutant gases like methane, which “erupt as a giant flame from a vertical gas pipe just meters from an oil well head.” Aside from constituting an environmentally detrimental practice, gas flaring is most likely responsible for the high cancer rates in the area, mainly populated by Indigenous communities. On January 26, 2021, an appeals court in Ecuador ruled in favor of nine children by declaring gas flaring unconstitutional and finding a violation of Ecuador’s international obligations under the Paris Agreement and the plaintiffs’ right to a healthy environment.
Interview conducted and written by Keila McFarland Dias
Business and Human Rights lawyer Camila Manfredini de Abreu represented the victims of the Fundão Disaster in a case against BHP, the Anglo-Australian mining company that operates in Brazil by the contractor Samarco. On 5 November 2015, the Fundão tailings dam collapsed in Minas Gerais, Brazil, unleashing approximately 60 million cubic metres of toxic waste, which became the nation’s most devastating environmental disaster.
Continue reading “Environmental Destruction, Business and Human Rights”
CLIMATE CHANGE, INTERSECTIONAL JUSTICE AND PEOPLE ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM
By Celina Pinagé (English and Portuguese versions)
In recent years, the narrative revolving around climate change has been amplified to encompass dialogues concerning groups and communities that are disproportionately burdened by the environmental crisis. However, there is virtually no consideration when it comes to how people on the autism spectrum are affected by environmental hazards caused by global warming.
Continue reading “Climate change and people on the spectrum”
A green future for cryptocurrency?
By George Bandy
Whether it’s been the uncertainty surrounding traditional stock investments, challenges faced by national authorities in the wake of the pandemic, public endorsement by celebrities and financial institutions, or the more primal lure of making a small fortune overnight, interest in cryptocurrency has skyrocketed since the beginning of the year and sees its adoption inch further into the mainstream.
World Consumer Rights Day: bringing people together in the fight against plastic
By Thaís Mota
Created to highlight the power and rights of consumers for a safe, equal and sustainable market for all, World Consumer Rights Day, celebrated today (15/03), has the theme of Tackling Plastic Pollution and unites people in a global consumer movement. The campaign’s intention is to support consumers in mobilising companies, governments and society to make combatting plastic toxic waste and adhering to sustainable consumption an easy (and accessible) choice for all members of society, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds.
a MAN-MADE PROBLEM WITH A FEMINIST SOLUTION: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND GENDER JUSTICE
When it comes to the dialogue surrounding climate change, the focus tends to lie on how the environment is put in jeopardy and how the future generations will suffer from the burden of this crisis. However, the neglect toward the ‘less evident’ threats posed by climate change is long-standing: have we stopped to contemplate how climate change greatly and directly affects the lives of women, aggravating gender inequality through heat waves, rising sea levels, extreme storms, and other climate-related disasters? The UN has reported that out of 100 people suffering from climate change, 80 of them are women, in light of this, the following question becomes imperative to analyse: why does climate change disproportionately burden women?