Joe Sandler Clarke

Shell Worked With Myanmar Despite Fears Of ‘Reputational Risk’ Posed By Rohingya Violence

Documents from the Foreign Office show oil company was aware of unrest in Rakhine State as far back as 2015.

Joe Sandler Clarke
By Joe Sandler Clarke
Smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, Sept. 7, 2017. Journalists saw new fires burning Thursday in the Myanmar village that was abandoned by the Rohingya, who fled attacks from Myanmar's armed forces after brutal attacks which included burning villages and slaughtering fleeing civilians. (AP Photo)

Shell worked with the government of Myanmar after securing lucrative oil blocks, despite seeing the ongoing ethnic violence against the Rohingya people by the country’s armed forces as a “reputational risk”, according to documents obtained by Unearthed. A recent spate of murders against the Muslim ethnic minority in western Myanmar, formerly

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The UK’s Wind Energy Experiment Is Paying Off In Big Ways

After the latest price drop, it appears that offshore wind is not only far cheaper than new nuclear but competitive with gas.

Joe Sandler Clarke
By Joe Sandler Clarke
Pictured is the Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm near Suffolk, United Kingdom. (Photo/NHD-INFO via Flickr)

Energy from offshore wind just got a lot cheaper. The cost of subsidies for new offshore wind farms has halved to £57.50 per megawatt hour (MWh) since the last government auction in 2015, after two developers – Denmark’s Dong Energy and Spain’s EDP – bid aggressively for subsidy contracts to build new farms in 2022-23. The results of the auction

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BP’s Solution To Amazon Reef Spill Is A Coral Killing Chemical

Corexit is a chemical dispersant which was used extensively during the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, despite evidence that the chemical had harmful effects on sea life in the Gulf of Mexico, BP plans to use it in the case of a spill in the sensitive ecosystem of the Amazon Reef.

Joe Sandler Clarke
By Joe Sandler Clarke
This Wednesday, April 21, 2010 aerial photo shows oil in the Gulf of Mexico, more than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns.

BP plans to use chemicals that kill off coral larvae in the event of an oil spill near a unique coral reef in the mouth of the Amazon river. The British oil giant intends to drill in the region in August 2018. The company’s environmental impact assessment (EIA), submitted to the Brazilian authorities for the project, submitted in 2015, states it

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New Evidence Shows Bayer, Syngenta Fought Scientists For Data On Bee Study

The pesticide giants also encouraged the academics to study their own research on bees, which showed no harm from their products; only to be rebuffed by researchers.

Joe Sandler Clarke
By Joe Sandler Clarke
Central Illinois corn and soybean farmer Tim Seifert loads his field planter with Syngenta insecticide for refuge corn while planting DEKALB seed corn, left front, for spring planting .

Bayer and Syngenta repeatedly asked scientists to give them raw data on a major new study which found that neonicotinoid pesticides cause harm to bees before it was published, according to emails obtained under Freedom of Information (FOI) rules. Both companies cited their position as co-funders to try to get information from researchers at the

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UN: Brazil Backsliding On Indigenous Rights, Environmental Protection

Under the embattled President Temer, “the rights of indigenous peoples and environmental rights are under attack in Brazil.”

Joe Sandler Clarke
By Joe Sandler Clarke
A Pataxo indigenous woman performs in front of police during the Indigenous Peoples Ritual March outside the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, April 27, 2017. (AP/Eraldo Peres)

A United Nations human rights expert has warned that Brazil is going through a “dangerous time”, as the country experiences political turmoil putting indigenous rights and environmental protection at risk. John Knox, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, told Energydesk that proposals under consideration in the country’s

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Killings Of Indigenous People, Environmental Activists Increase In Temer’s Brazil

“Given all the political instability in Brazil since last year, those who are looking for accumulating land, in whatever way they can, have found an opportunity to accelerate the process and apparently they feel quite convinced of impunity.”

Joe Sandler Clarke
Sam Cowie
By Joe Sandler Clarke
And Sam Cowie
A Pataxo indigenous woman performs in front of police during the Indigenous Peoples Ritual March outside the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, April 27, 2017. (AP/Eraldo Peres)

There has been a significant increase in the number of indigenous people and environmental activists killed over land disputes in Brazil, as human rights experts warn of a dangerous political mood in the nation. New research shared with Energydesk by Brazilian human rights NGO Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT), shows that 37 people have been

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Scheme To Protect Second Largest Rainforest Threatened By Corruption, Politics

Africa’s Congo Basin rainforest is one of the few pristine forest environments left on earth and home to gorillas, forest elephants and bonobos.

Joe Sandler Clarke
By Joe Sandler Clarke
Children of a logger in the wait to be transported along the Lomami River, a tributary of the Congo River. Approximately 40 million people in the DRC depend on the rainforest for their basic needs, such as medicine, food or shelter. (Photo: Greenpeace/Jiro Ose)

A UK-backed deal to protect the world’s second largest rainforest is struggling, just over a year since it was signed and amid rising concerns over deforestation, corruption and political instability. Back in April 2016, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) signed a landmark deal to protect its vast rainforest. Stopping deforestation there

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