location: Poland

location: Poland

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Podcast: Into the Wasteland, part 3: Buried in Europe’s recycling
- The European Commission estimates that the illegal handling of recycling and other wastes represents around 15-30% of the total EU waste trade, generating EUR 9.5 billion annually.
- Our team visits a facility in Poland that’s supposed to be handling U.K. recycling but finds it shuttered and infested with rats.
- We also speak with the ‘James Bond of waste trafficking’ who reveals that much recycling is being ‘laundered’ via the Netherlands and shipped on to countries where such resources are often dumped, not recycled.
- This is the final episode in Mongabay’s three-part, “true eco-crime” series, where investigative reporters trace England’s — and Europe’s — towering illegal waste problem.

COP24: Green groups warn of pitfalls in ‘forests for climate’ deal
- A declaration to protect and use forests as a tool to combat climate change has been lambasted by environmentalists.
- The declaration, initiated by the Polish government during the COP24 climate summit, could promote the burning of wood pellets for bioenergy, the environmentalists warn.
- Wood-based biomass is a controversial and hotly debated topic in climate discussions, with scientists finding it emits up to 50 percent more CO2 than coal. But its proponents, including the U.S. EPA, champion it as a “carbon neutral” source of energy.

COP24: Summit a step forward, but fails to address climate urgency
- COP24 ran into overtime over the weekend as delegates rushed to approve the Paris rulebook to set up a detailed mechanism for accomplishing and gauging the carbon reduction pledges made by the world’s nations in Paris at the end of 2015.
- But considering the urgency of action needed – with just 12 years left to act decisively to significantly cut emissions, according to an October IPCC science report – the COP24 summit proved to be less successful than many participants had hoped.
- On the negative side: the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia tried to undermine the gravity of the IPCC science report. Brazil successfully scuttled plans for an international carbon market. And COP24 failed to address the bioenergy carbon counting loophole, which incentivizes the harvesting and burning of trees to make energy by calling the process carbon neutral.
- On the positive side, “1,000 tiny steps” were made, including an improved transparency framework for reporting emissions; regular assessments called Global Stocktake to gauge emissions-reduction effectiveness at national levels starting in 2023; and an agreement to set new finance goals in 2020 to help vulnerable nations adapt to a warming world.

COP24: Sitting down to take a stand for real climate action
- Greta Thunberg, 15, has captured worldwide attention and sparked a youth movement with her no-nonsense demands for world leaders to finally start taking meaningful action to combat climate change.
- Thunberg accuses the current generation of leaders of sacrificing the future of today’s youths, and says that change is coming, whether they like it or not.
- Her protests and presence at the U.N. climate talks in Katowice, Poland, have inspired young people in countries around the world to take a similar stand for climate action.

COP24: Will they stay or will they go? Brazil’s threat to leave Paris
- In October, Brazil elected far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency. During the campaign, he threatened to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, implement extreme environmental deregulation policies, and introduce mining into Amazon indigenous reserves, while also using incendiary language which may be inciting violence in remote rural areas.
- Just days before his election, Bolsonaro contradicted his past utterances, saying he won’t withdraw from the Paris accord. At COP24, the Brazilian delegation has fielded questions from concerned attendees, but it appears that no one there knows with certainty what the volatile leader will do once in office. He begins his presidency on the first of the year.
- Even if Bolsonaro doesn’t pull out of Paris, his plans to develop the Amazon, removing most regulatory impediments to mining and agribusiness, could have huge ramifications for the global climate. The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, stores massive amounts of carbon. Deforestation rates are already going up there, and likely to grow under Bolsonaro.
- Some in Brazil hope that environmental and economic realities will prevent Bolsonaro from fully implementing his plans. Escalating deforestation is already reducing Amazon rainfall, putting aquifers and agribusiness at risk. Agricultural producers also fear global consumer perceptions of Brazil as being anti-environmental could lead to a backlash and boycotts.

COP24: Fossil Fuel Inc.’s outsize presence at talks reflects its influence
- A confrontation between activists and an oil executive at the U.N. climate talks has highlighted just how much influence fossil fuel producers continue to have over global climate policies.
- The confrontation involved the same Shell executive who, days earlier, boasted about the company influencing one of the key provisions in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
- Fossil fuel companies, from oil producers to coal operations, are enjoying a prominent presence at the climate talks in Poland, including as sponsors and as speakers at events throughout the summit.
- Activists have blasted the U.N. for giving the companies such an important platform, saying that it only confirms their long-held suspicions that the very corporations contributing to the climate crisis are the same ones pushing supposed solutions to the problem.

COP24: Trumpers tout clean coal; protesters call it ‘climate suicide’
- As in 2017, the Trump administration delegation was again at COP, seriously praising coal as a climate solution in a public presentation Monday – but behind the scenes the U.S. delegation is reportedly less incendiary and more cooperative. The Polish government is also heavily promoting the dirtiest of fossil fuels at the two-week-long Katowice event.
- But protestors, subnationals and NGOs are having none of it. COP24 participants treated the Trump administration coal public presentation with outrage, as a freakish sideshow and a joke. They used the event to send the message that decarbonization is the only way forward – as a means of curbing climate change, while boosting local economies and creating jobs.
- “It’s ludicrous for Trump officials to claim that they want to clean up fossil fuels, while dismantling standards that would do just that,” said Dan Lashof, director, World Resources Institute US.
- “More and more companies are committing to renewable energy, reducing emissions, and striving for a just [energy] transition that protects the wellbeing of all workers,” said Aron Cramer, CEO of BSR, a sustainability consulting firm in San Francisco.

COP24: US, Russia, Saudis downplay IPCC report in display of disunity
- The U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait rejected language strongly affirming the severity of global warming at the COP24 summit in Poland on Saturday night. The United States is in the process of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, while Russia has failed so far to ratify the accord.
- Some fear this could signal further obstruction this week by major oil producing nations as national leaders arrive at COP24 to wrestle with resolving a host of difficult issues, including an upping of Paris carbon-reduction pledges, completion of the Paris Rulebook measuring energy production, transportation, agriculture, and deforestation to curb climate change.
- Also, to be worked out, transparency rules on emissions, and plans for wealthy nations to help support poor nations adapt to climate damage. This daunting agenda isn’t helped by the leadership void created when the U.S. pulled back from the Paris agreement after Democrat Barack Obama was replaced as president by Republican Donald Trump.
- At COP24, Tom Steyer, a prominent U.S. environmental activist, said that “nothing short of transformational politics” in the United States will get international climate action back on track. He sees U.S. leadership as essential to preventing the worst impacts of global warming. But such a sea change won’t likely come until after the 2020 presidential election.

COP24: Human rights concerns cast a shadow over U.N. climate summit
- A set of guidelines for putting the landmark Paris Climate Agreement into action has omitted references to human rights, a move that activists blame on the U.S. delegation at the ongoing climate summit in Katowice, Poland.
- A top U.N. official and activists have denounced the omission, warning that no meaningful climate action can be taken without due reference to and respect for human rights, particularly those of indigenous peoples.
- The Katowice talks have also been marred by reports that more than a dozen activists have either been denied entry into or deported from Poland, prompting concerns about who is allowed a voice at the discussions.

COP24: Coal casts a shadow over U.N. climate talks in Poland
- Activists have questioned the integrity and effectiveness of the U.N. climate talks in Poland, in light of its close associations with the coal industry.
- Among the event’s sponsors are three Polish coal companies, and in his opening speech, the Polish president said his country’s continued use of coal did not go against efforts to tackle climate change.
- Activists say the influence of the coal lobby at the conference amounts to greenwashing and could undermine the effectiveness of any outcome from the discussions.

COP24: World’s nations gather to grapple with looming climate disaster
- Representatives from nearly 200 nations gathered in Katowice, Poland on Sunday for COP24, the annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties, to move forward on climate action. The goal: keep global temperatures from rising less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
- Unfortunately for the planet, the COP mechanism has stalled since its 2015 triumph in Paris when the world’s nations agreed to work together to cut carbon emissions. To date, just seven nations, most of them tiny, are on track to reduce emissions to meet the 2 degree Celsius goal, while the U.S. is on track to withdraw from the accord by 2020.
- Today, subnationals – cities, states, regions, businesses, faith organizations, indigenous groups, and NGOs – are providing much of the initiative and impetus for cutting emissions. They are working together in a variety of ways, to reduce deforestation and improve agricultural land use, for example. They will have a major presence at COP24.
- But while subnational efforts are commendable and important, they are not near enough, experts say. With the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and other scientific organizations, publishing increasingly dire forecasts, urgently calling for climate action, it is vital that nations prioritize climate action and move quickly to decarbonize their economies.

After logging, activists hope to extend protections for Bialowieza Forest
- Bialoweiza Forest straddles Poland and Belarus and is Europe’s largest remaining lowland old growth forest, home to wildlife that has disappeared from much of the rest of Europe. In March 2016, the government approved a plan to triple industrial logging in Poland’s Bialoweiza forest. The government argued it was the only way to combat a spruce bark beetle outbreak, but environmentalists believed that was largely an excuse to give access to the state-run logging regime.
- According to watchdog organizations, loggers cut 190,000 cubic meters of wood in 2017. This amounts to around 160,000-180,000 trees and affects an area of about 1,900 hectares. It also represents the most trees cut in the forest in any one year since 1987 when Poland was under a communist government.
- In May 2018, Europe’s highest court ruled the logging illegal, noting that the government’s own documents showed that logging was a bigger threat than the beetles, which are a part of natural, cyclical process that is likely exacerbated by climate change. Poland, threatened with high fines, backed down—and the logging stopped.
- Activists and environmentalists are calling for expanding national park status – which currently applies to just a small portion of Poland’s portion of the forest – over its entirety. But they worry a government panel of experts will once again push to open Bialoweiza to logging.

Mothers vs. loggers: the destruction of Białowieża Forest splits Poland
- A bark beetle outbreak has led Polish officials to begin large-scale logging across old-growth Białowieża Forest, home to bison, wolves and a rich cultural history.
- The logging is opposed by everyone from scientists to the UN to the European Commission to a group of mothers concerned about the world their children will inherit.
- The European Commission has recently declared that all logging should cease.

Ignoring scientists, Poland begins logging famous primeval forest
- Unlike the rest of Poland and much of Europe, a significant portion – approximately half – of Bialowieza Forest has never been knowingly logged.
- The forest is home to wildlife like wolves, moose, and lynx. It served a pivotal role in bringing back the European bison, which had been hunted to extinction in the wild.
- Now, Poland’s new far-right government is planning on opening up parts of Bialowieza Forest to loggers, in a purported effort to fight spruce beetle infestation.
- But scientists and environmentalists are criticizing the move, saying it isn’t scientifically valid and is simply a ploy to access the forest’s timber reserves.

The triumph of the bison: Europe’s biggest animal bounces back a century after vanishing

We’d been hiking through deep snow all day with the mercury well below zero, not an uncommon occurrence during winter in eastern Poland. Still I was sweating, covered in several layers and walking with greater strides than I was used to. We stopped once for lunch, taking our repast on a snow-covered log, eating our […]
Stuff of fairy tales: stepping into Europe’s last old-growth forest

On bison, wolves, and woodpeckers: the wonder of Europe’s only lowland virgin forest. Bialowieza Forest at dawn. Old-growth forest is characterized by ancient trees, tall canopies, little undergrowth, and a huge amount of dead wood. Photo by: Lukasz Mazurek/Wild Poland There is almost nothing left of Europe’s famed forests, those that provided for human communities […]
Citizen groups walk out of UN Climate Summit to protest lack of ambition

Australia, Japan and Poland blamed for sabotaging UN Climate Summit talks. Thirteen citizen groups—including Oxfam, Greenpeace, and WWF—have walked out of ongoing climate talks in Warsaw to protest what they view as a lack of ambition and long-stalled progress on combating global climate change. Nearly 200 governments are currently meeting in Warsaw, Poland at the […]
UN talks tough to global coal industry

Yesterday, at the International Coal and Climate Summit—just a couple miles from the ongoing UN Climate Summit—Christiana Figueres delivered a speech unlike anything ever heard at a coal industry meeting before. Figueres, the Executive Director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), took time off from wrangling world leaders and officials toward a […]
Burning coal responsible for over 20,000 deaths a year in Europe

Air pollution from Europe’s 300 largest coal power stations causes 22,300 premature deaths a year and costs companies and governments billions of pounds in disease treatment and lost working days, says a major study of the health impacts of burning coal to generate electricity. The research, from Stuttgart University’s Institute for energy economics and commissioned […]

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