Mighty Earth Calls Out EPA on Dirty Biofuels Proposal

L'Amazonie est en train de brûler. Début juillet, les dernières données officielles sur la situation au Brésil alertent sur le fait qu’au cours des six derniers mois, la déforestation en Amazonie brésilienne a atteint son taux le plus élevé depuis des années, avec près de 3 750 kilomètres carrés de forêt qui ont été détruits. Dans le Cerrado brésilien, il n’y a jamais eu autant d'incendies depuis 2004. D'autres pays d'Amérique latine ont connu des catastrophes similaires cette année. La quasi-totalité de cette déforestation est liée à l'industrie de la viande. La chaîne d'approvisionnement de Carrefour à la fois leader de la grande distribution au Brésil et distributeur majeur au niveau mondial, probablement plus qu’aucune autre.

昨日、日本政府は海外石炭ファイナンスの終了を発表し、マタバリ2石炭火力発電所事業の中止が決定しました。マタバリ2石炭火力発電所事業は、日本が石炭ファイナンスを辞められずにいることの象徴でした。世界的なキャンペーンが展開された後、2月28日に住友商事が建設請負から撤退したことで、このプロジェクトが中止される可能性が高くなっていました。

Yesterday, the Japanese government announced an end to their overseas coal finance, resulting in the cancellation of the Matarbari 2 coal power plant. 

Might Earth Report Underscores Investor Concerns at Fossil Fuel Dependence
(Washington D.C) –Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Corporation will face unprecedented investor pressure at its Annual General Meeting on June 18 for its failure to take adequate steps to reduce its massive global carbon emissions footprint, the Washington, D.C. environmental campaign organization Mighty Earth said today.

Will world leaders show the necessary vision and political will to make heavy industry decarbonization a reality?

Automakers increasingly recognize that reducing the carbon footprint of their products must go beyond electrification and address the use of steel in their products.

The world's top supermarket and fast-food companies are largely ignoring the environmental and human rights abuses caused by their beef products.

The paltry scope of JBS's latest pledge demonstrates the need for us to keep the pressure on.

The global steel production sector made an important symbolic move toward tackling its massive carbon emission problem with ArcelorMittal’s unveiling of a new decarbonization initiative

We’ve waited far too long to reach this moment when movement for climate action is within reach and on the Administration’s agenda. And we’re determined to keep it there.

The International Energy Agency has squandered its unique opportunity to set the stage for the decarbonization of steel.

Urgent action is needed to stop deforestation in the Amazon, protecting the livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples and the keeping the Amazon from ecosystem collapse due to decades of destruction.

New York Times report, public announcements by major companies highlight risks to Indonesia’s economy

Holding a cocoa company accountable for 2,000 hectares of primary forest deforestation, illegal trafficking of forest and wood products, and obstruction of justice.

Mighty Earth joins with NGOs representing millions of Europeans to ask for radical change to align farm subsidies with the European Green Deal.

The only way these companies will change their practices is if the grocery stores that people trust – Metro, Costco, Casino, and Ahold Delhaize stores like Giant, Food Lion, and Stop & Shop – stop buying from the arsons of the Amazon.

A renewed effort to reduce deforestation, halt unsustainable fishing practices, clamp down on waste plastics, eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies, and accelerate the transition towards sustainable food production systems and circular economies.

Environmental groups are celebrating today’s dissolution of Maizuru Green Initiatives GK, a company set up to build a palm oil burning power plant in Maizuru City, Japan.

All companies receiving bailout funds should be committed to the European Green Deal, the Paris Agreement, and to achieving net zero carbon neutrality by 2025. Businesses seeking EU bailout support should also have robust policies and practices in place that recognize and ensure workers' rights throughout their supply chains.

Global coalition calls on CGF to take ambitious, immediate action to protect forests, the climate, and human health

Japanese conglomerate plans to continue work on disastrous coal plant project in Bangladesh despite climate, public health, budgetary, and environmental concerns

The first Matarbari coal plant is a disaster – it is expensive, a bad investment, and an embarrassment to Sumitomo and Japan. Here are ten reasons why a second plant should never see the light of day.

We stand in solidarity with those targeted by police violence and the protesters demanding justice.

Action is necessary to stop the bulldozing of the Amazon and the killing of Indigenous people

Their customers - and the world - expect these brands not just to call for action, but to act.

Proposal for an EU-funded vehicle renewal scheme would likely increase car ownership and could pose serious public health risks

EU should publish its new "Farm to Fork" strategy to transition European agriculture towards a greener, healthier future.

In response to the Trump Administration's rollback of Obama era fuel efficiency rules, Mighty Earth Chairman, Henry Waxman, has released a statement.

Steel and concrete industries targeted by their top customers for dramatic GHG emissions reductions in next ten years

As the international community gathers in Madrid to discuss next steps in the fight against global climate change, a new report is exposing how Japan’s policies are empowering a major corporation that embraces and invests in dirty energy sources like coal and biomass.

Successful implementation is a less likely outcome than another pained acknowledgement that they will fail to meet the goal

ResponsibleSteel's Executive Director calls Mighty Earth "critical" in development of new standard

Steel is currently the largest source of industrial carbon emissions.

We are going to need all kinds of technical solutions -- like EC3 -- to reduce embodied carbon from construction.

Solving the climate crisis requires the leadership to not only advance solutions but to also reject false ones

Switching to clean electricity is good for business, good for the climate, and good for clean energy jobs.

Brands can continue sourcing from Cargill, or they can maintain a reputation as environmental leaders -- but they can't do both.

The global architecture community is coming together to embrace an exciting vision

We don't have the luxury of trusting corporate pledges anymore. It's time for real, concrete action. Not one year from now, not 10 years from now. Right now.

Without urgent action immediately, embodied carbon will be responsible for at least half of total new construction emissions between now and 2050. There is no time to lose.

On September 5, activists across the world joined the Global Day of Action for the Amazon to hold governments and companies that stand to profit from the fires in the Amazon accountable for their role in this environmental destruction.

New analysis from Mighty Earth shows the incentives for the Amazon's destruction come from international agribusinesses like JBS and Cargill.

Mighty Earth joined today a host of other civil society organizations, pleading the EU to step up to the plate and address its own complicity in current Amazon fires & deforestation crisis.

As the Amazon continues to burn at a record rate, Mighty Earth CEO Glenn Hurowitz has released a statement.

Top 20 companies are not on pace to hit critical emissions reductions needed for 1.5-degree threshold

New government data shows that 1,345 sq km of the Brazilian Amazon have been cleared in the month of July alone, an area greater than the city of Los Angeles. In response to this announcement, Mighty Earth CEO Glenn Hurowitz released a statement.

At this point, it’s irresponsible to take Cargill at their word. Cargill should be judged on implementation, not commitments.

New report documents US-based agribusiness giant's "ineptitude and incoherence at a grand scale."

Environmental organization joins ResponsibleSteel, which will set standards and certification plans for industry by 2020

"Just because government isn’t doing its job doesn’t mean the job doesn’t have to be done."

It’s a shame that Pruitt is backing away from his agency’s proposal to reduce biodiesel levels. We don’t agree with the EPA on much of anything, but we did agree on this.

The National Biodiesel Board offered Congressional members and staff free French fries today, but the group’s touting of used cooking oil misrepresents the real-world reality of biodiesel production. Environmentalists and their animal ‘friends’ attended the event to share information about the strong links between biodiesel and deforestation.

A growing coalition of environmental and anti-hunger groups, including former Congressman Henry Waxman, now chairman of Mighty Earth, urged the EPA today to reconsider and reduce mandates for conventional, food-based biofuels. Over 40,000 individuals also commented to EPA in support of reducing volume levels.

Last week, Ecology Minister Nicolas Hulot laid out France’s new “climate plan” which includes greater efforts to protect the world’s tropical rainforests in the Amazon, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.

A proposal released last week by the EPA includes troubling news for tropical forests and other ecosystems threatened by encroaching industrial agriculture.

“Just because Congress says burning trees for electricity is carbon neutral doesn’t mean that it is. This provision repeats some of the same mistakes in the Renewable Fuel Standard that has had massive unintended negative consequences for forests, the climate, and consumers. By incentivizing dirty energy, this policy will disadvantage truly clean renewables like wind and solar. "

BREAKING: the proposed amendment to federal legislation that would incentivize burning of biomass by declaring it “carbon-neutral” seems to be officially dead.

Today, the Sierra Club released a report analyzing a proposal from Portland General Electric (PGE) to convert the state’s last coal plant in Boardman, Oregon into one of the world’s largest biomass facilities. The report finds that the proposal may pose major implications for air quality, forest health, and carbon reduction goals.

As a massive Oregon power plant gears up to convert from burning coal to burning trees, a Congressional fight over whether or not forest biomass is carbon neutral is more than just theoretical.

Former California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman is criticizing language in the fiscal 2017 Interior Department and U.S. EPA spending bill he said would amount to a "loophole" that ignores carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of biomass for energy.

The U.S. auto industry has met President Barack Obama’s tough fuel economy and carbon pollution standards. But rather than celebrating this triumph of American engineering and using it as a platform to achieve needed new gains, some auto companies want to roll back the next phase of tougher emissions and efficiency standards.

A group of leading law professors who work on climate have published a game-changing new legal analysis. It finds that the Paris climate agreement unlocks a previously unused Clean Air Act provision that enables broad authority to use market-based mechanisms to reduce carbon pollution nationwide.