Press

The European Union’s proposed batteries regulation should require importers and manufacturers to source the bauxite, copper, and iron used in batteries responsibly, a coalition of 16 organizations said today. The coalition includes Amnesty International, Earthworks, Finnwatch, Germanwatch, Human Rights Watch, Inclusive Development International, INKOTA, PowerShift, RAID, SOMO, and Transport & Environment, as well as human rights and environmental activists from producer countries.

The legislative proposal presented today by the EU Commission to exclude deforestation in the supply chains of companies operating in the EU market does not go far enough, according to the environment and development organisation Germanwatch. Katharina Brandt, policy advisor for agriculture at Germanwatch, says: "If we want to curb the climate crisis and stop the global extinction of species, savannahs and wetlands must not fall victim to the cultivation of soy for industrial livestock farming in Europe."

Scandinavian countries are leading the way in climate protection, together with Morocco and the United Kingdom. Leaders Denmark, Sweden and Norway occupy ranks four to six in the new Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2022, presented today by Germanwatch, NewClimate Institute and Climate Action Network (CAN). Places one to three again remain vacant because no country’s measures, thus far, have been sufficient to achieve an overall ‘very high’ rating with none following a path necessary to keep global warming within the 1.5°C limit.

In its decision today, the Federal Constitutional Court has largely accepted the constitutional complaint of nine young people for a humane future: Freedoms and fundamental rights are already being violated today by insufficient climate protection. The legislator must adapt the Federal Climate Protection Act by the end of 2022. Lawyer Dr. Roda Verheyen (Hamburg), who represents the young people, comments on the decision: "Today, the Federal Constitutional Court has set a globally remarkable new standard for climate protection as a human right.

The Coronavirus pandemic has delayed the collection of evidence in the trial between the Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya and the German utility RWE at the Upper State Court in Hamm (Germany). Nevertheless, a new scientific study is providing credence to the legal claim: a prestigious team of researchers has used climate models to demonstrate that the risk of glacial lake flooding affecting the city of Huaraz is almost entirely due to anthropogenic climate change.

Bonn/Berlin (25th Jan. 2021). Vulnerable people in developing countries suffer most from extreme weather events like storms, floods and heat waves, while the impacts of climate change are visible around the globe. Being the deadliest and costliest tropical cyclone in the South-West Indian Ocean, tropical Cyclone Idai was labelled “one of the worst weather-related catastrophes in the history of Africa” by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2021 published today paints a mixed picture of progress by the European Union (EU) on climate action. While the Scandinavian EU countries, Portugal and the EU as a whole rank high on the index with relatively good indicators, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic stand out as outliers on climate progress within the bloc. In the overall ranking, the EU has improved from the 22nd place last year to the 16th place this year, almost exclusively thanks to a much better rated climate policy. The CCPI analyzes and compares climate protection across 57 countries (plus EU as a whole) with the highest emissions, which together account for 90 percent of global emissions.

More than every second chicken meat sample (51 per cent) from the three largest poultry companies in Europe is contaminated with resistance to one or even several antibiotics at the same time. On average, more than every third chicken (35 per cent) even carries antibiotic-resistant pathogens with resistance to critically important antimicrobials highest priority into the food chain. These are the alarming results of a study published October 27.
The study tested 165 chicken meat samples from the three companies, purchased in Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands, and Spain.

The EU Regulation on the responsible supply of tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold (3TG) from conflict-affected and high-risk areas (CAHRA) is a crucial first step towards supply chains free from human rights abuse. The EU Regulation on the responsible supply of 3TG from conflict-affected and high-risk areas (CAHRA) was approved in 2017 and will enter into force in 2021. Before this date, the EU member states need to adopt measures to ensure the implementation of the Regulation. However, the first implementation measures being discussed by member states risk diluting the efficacy of the Regulation by concealing the list of companies subjected to it.

In a press conference on Thursday 12 December, the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison reacted on Australia’s very low ranking in the Climate Change Performance Index 2020. Our comment.