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Equatorial Guinea lies on the west coast of Africa above Gabon. Sightings of the gorillas were made within the Monte Alen National Park. In the past gorillas with plentiful in this area that horrific poaching was thought to have eradicated them from this part of Africa.
Polar bears retreat into dens under the snow in order to have their cubs. Until recently this was an entirely sensible thing to do as these stems would survive very effectively until warm enough for the bear’s to emerge.
Back at the beginning of 2017 a vast peatland was discovered deep in the Congo Basin. Storing an astounding amount of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 3 years of world carbon emissions, covered by primary rainforest that was completely undisturbed with large populations to the forest elephants and gorillas this was a real success story. Despite storing so much carbon is there only accounts for 4% of the Congo Basin
Fast forward 3 years, and there is a new and less encouraging story in the Press. Intention is to drain portions of this area so as to be able to drill through it and access the oil underneath. While this would not release carbon emissions equivalent to the world’s population it would be equivalent to Japan’s entire CO2 emissions.
It is thought that this peatland bog sits over 395 million barrels of oil.
While it is frustrating that this country is going back on on agreements it made, it really is in trouble. As with many countries in Africa it has borrowed much money from the rest of the world during various catastrophes, this amount of oil with completely change the country’s finances.
Congo brazzaville president Denis Sassou-Nguess said that the work would not destroy the forest all the majority of the peatland and as the oil reserves lie on the edge of this vast area ( this area is an equivalent size to England). However analysis done on reports from their country re done by their own scientists estimate at the area that would need to be drilled which store release more than 1 gigaton.
There is also arguments as to how much all there really is there. After initial surveys were done both Total and Shell rejected the offer to be involved in extracting the oil. An expert from Shell argued that there was nowhere near as much oil as the government was claiming and that therefore for the risk reward balance was not good enough to be worth continuing. With all this risk it is highly unlikely that any Western Business or bank would be willing to invest, unfortunately there are substantial numbers of banks in places such as China who do not worry about the same things. Time will tell if sense prevails in this issue.
Perhaps this country could agree to set aside twice as much land lost in this reserve elsewhere in the country? There are many unprotected areas of pristine rain forest in this country. If the country where to do something like this they could reassure the global community that they take conservation seriously while at the same time developing this oil field.
The Gathering of world leaders and ultra wealthy at Davos in Switzerland has just occurred. There is a great deal of talk about the environment and cutting climate warming gases such as CO2 ( attendees that increasingly aware of the hypocrisy of a riding on private jets to an event like this).
At this event five young environmental campaigners had come to speak to people and they were photographed together. Unfortunately despite the above picture showing all 5, associated Press made a copy available to its members in which the only African woman in the group Vanessa Nakate was cut out of the picture. While associated Press argued that they had nearly at the picture so is to remove the building from the background and it has not gone down well. Africa is responsible for a very small portion of the carbon emissions of the planet.
A recent analysis has shown that the the Dam that would cover 90% of the Tapanuli orangutan population has had the prospects of positive outcomes hugely hyped by it’s backers, and minimising negative facts about the Dam have been buried.
The region is already well connected to the grid with almost all Communities already served. Due to the astounding amount of Forest that would be lost if this damn were to be created, if it were to ever reduce carbon emissions it would take many decades if not centuries for the carbon cost of the dam to be offset by the electricity it creates. Given that in order to stop catastrophic climate change we need to be cutting carbon emissions now it will not help in this fight whatsoever.
For over a decade there has been an argument in the UK about adding additional Airport runways to the area around London.
Certainly it is true that Heathrow Airport is close to capacity. Indeed from many parts of London you can see the planes coming in and usually you can see two or three in the sky at the same time on approach to the runway.
More than 90% of this 2 billion pounds energy infrastructure deal that the UK has done in Africa over the last week is in oil and gas extraction. Boris Johnson open the summit talking about how we breathe the same air and how the climate emergency means we must stop business as usual as carbon emissions heat the planet.
1.2 billion pounds of this will be spent on oil production in Kenya with the majority of the rest going to Tunisia Morocco and Nigeria fossil fuel projects. Just 8% or 161 million pounds went to to green projects being split between a new solar farm in Kenya and the solar powered irrigation pumps in Uganda.
We are supposed to be hosting un global climate summit in Glasgow this coming November. You would think that the government would therefore be working towards the cleanest deals possible. This is an embarrassment to the UK and I hope that come November that is clear.
Given the forward thinking of the Guardian on environmental issues, we would would be reasonable to suppose that they had put a ban on fossil fuel advertising in place a significant time ago.
However they have now put this ban in place. If bans on fossil fuel advertising are replicated in other parts of the economy this could possibly accelerates the end of fossil fuels anyway.
I suppose as the saying goes better late than never ( it’s alarming to say that about a newspaper that is leading the way but these moves should have occurred a decade ago as the science became clear)
The heartland Institute is pushing forward a young woman named Naomi Seibt as a counter to Greta Thunberg. I am intentionally not including a photo. One is easily found but who it is, is irrelevant. The Heartland institute has recognised how powerful Greta Thurnbergs mesage has been over the last few years and is trying to line up someone against her that looks similar. Don’t be taken in, this is a young person arguing for the status quo to be retained, but with no knowledge or facts on her side. The Heartland institute is well known for pushing dubious or blatantly false arguments, and frankly anyone they like would be someone that I would not take seriously.
Drax coal power station is the largest remaining coal generator in the country and has stated that from next year they are going to stop burning coal and switch to biomass. This is a fantastic milestone and should be celebrated.