News digest 21 May – 11 June 2009

Climate change killing 300,000 people a year, report says

It says 90% of these deaths are caused by a “gradual environmental degradation caused by a warming climate that exacerbates the threats of malnutrition, diarrhea and malaria," while the rest are from an increase in natural weather phenomena. It also says that another 325 million people are seriously affected by climate change and four billion more are vulnerable. The full report, titled "The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis", can be found here.

Supermarkets clearing the Amazon?

British supermarkets are being blamed for the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. A three-year investigative Greenpeace report said that big supermarket chains such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Marks and Spencer are responsible for purchasing beef from farms on illegally deforestated land in the Brazilian Amazon. The report also blames Nike, Timberland and Clarks Shoes for buying leather from cattle on the same lands. Greenpeace wants the companies to refuse to buy products sourced from illegally deforestated lands and to ask consumers not to purchase from companies that are responsible for Amazon deforestation. The supermarkets have refuted claims that their beef comes from the Amazon.

UK DECC consultation on how to measure and report greenhouse gases

The British Departments of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) launched a public consultation aiming to help organisations report and control their greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of the UK Climate Change Act of 2008, the consultation was launched with the primary goal of helping organisations calculate their own carbon footprint. Its aim is to outline a "clear step-by-step" approach to calculating a carbon footprint. The voluntary consultation is also supposed to help organisations and businesses identify and then manage sources of greenhouse gas emissions by locating sources of inefficient resource use. By 2012, the emissions reporting from organisations is expected to become mandatory.

New pro-environment US supreme court judge

Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to be a new Supreme Court justice late last month, and her confirmation hearing will likely be in July or August. If confirmed, Sotomayor would join one of the nine justices that make up the United States' highest and most powerful court. A specific 2007 ruling by Sotomayor in a case between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and environmentalist groups is being interpreted by many as a sign that Sotomayor may be more of a friend of the environment than big business. The case was over the EPA's willingness to permit cost-benefit analysis for decisions power plants make when upgrading technology aimed at protecting the environment, and Sotomayor sided with the environmental groups, saying technology, not cost, should be the biggest concern. The ruling was met with strong dissatisfaction from big businesses, who would have been required to spend more on environmental technologies. Sotomayor's ruling, however, was later overturned by the Supreme Court, a sign that Sotomayor could perhaps be adding a new voice on environmental issues to the United States' highest court.

Report: Companies failing to report climate change

The Ceres network of green organisations and investors and Environmental Defense Fund report found that corporations only offered minimal information to investors on the risks and hazards of climate change. Of one hundred global firms with the largest turnover, 59 made no mention at all of climate change and another 28 did not mention potential risks from an increase in sea levels and other climate change risks.

The report comes as support grows amongst US corporations for the first law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The two fields that withheld the most information, the study found, were the insurance and oil industries. In their financial disclosure forms, 18 of 27 insurance companies made no mention of climate change, a striking figure considering the increasing amount of weather-related insurance claims in recent years due to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ivan. In the oil and gas sector, all but one of the 23 surveyed companies made no mention of the potential risk investors face when putting money into sectors potentially affected by global warming. Exxon Mobil, Apache and Anadarko were specifically mentioned as having weak disclosure.

BP alternative energy chief to retire

The highest-ranking female at BP is leaving the company after it announced that it will slash its alternative energy spending from $1.4 billion last year to $500 million-$1 billion this year. Vivienne Cox will be replaced by Katrina Landis, the Chief Operating Officer of the alternatives division. Despite a commitment to raise annual investments in alternative energies to $8 billion by 2015, BP has been criticised for failing to live up to its "beyond petroleum" slogan from 2000. The retirement was announced internally.