Mae Cymru wedi cymryd camau pendant yn erbyn cloddio am lo yn y blynyddoedd diwethaf. Defnyddiwyd Deddf Cymru 2017 i rwystro estyniad i waith glo brig Nant Helen. Mae angen gweithredu tebyg nawr yn erbyn pwll glo tanddaearol Aberpergwm.
Mae Energybuild Cyf. yn ymestyn ei bwll glo golosg Aberpergwm ac am barhau i wneud hynny tan 2039. Mae hyn yn mynd yn groes i Ddeddf Llesiant Cenedlaethau’r Dyfodol drwy waethygu’r argyfwng hinsawdd a fyddai’n effeithio ar y genhedlaeth nesaf o amgylch y byd, yn ogystal â niweidio enw da Cymru’n rhyngwladol.
Mae gwaith dur Port Talbot yn bwriadu datgarboneiddio drwy drawsnewid i wneud dur newydd o fetel sgrap heb ddefnyddio glo; fel arall bydd yn rhaid iddo gau, gan ddiswyddo ei staff, a’r rhai mewn cadwyni cyflenwi. Does dim lle i fwy o gloddio am lo yn y Gymru fodern.
Mae glo’n cael ei gymysgu yng ngwaith dur Port Talbot ac, o’r herwydd, nid yw cloddio mwy o lo yng Nghymru’n lleihau’r swm a echdynnir mewn mannau eraill. Mae’n rhaid i fwy o lo gael ei fewnforio o hyd i’w gymysgu â glo Cymru mewn gweithfeydd dur, gan allforio rhai o’r problemau amgylcheddol a chynnal diwydiant anghynaliadwy yn hytrach na chwilio am atebion hirdymor.
Mae cyllid Energybuild Cyf. yn dangos y gallai’r cwmni hwn werthu’r pwll os yw’n gallu ymestyn. Gallai’r cwmni newydd wneud y mwyaf o echdynnu glo a gwerthu’r glo i’r cynigydd uchaf, neu ddiswyddo nifer fawr. Mae yna ffyrdd eraill o wneud dur a ffynonellau eraill o hidlo dŵr yn lle glo carreg.
Mae dau gynnig arall i ehangu pyllau glo yng Nghymru y mae angen i’r llywodraeth eu hatal, a hefyd sicrhau bod safleoedd mwyngloddio blaenorol yn cael eu hadfer yn llawn.
Glo yw treftadaeth Cymru, nid ein dyfodol.
Wales has taken decisive action against coal mining in recent years. The Wales Act 2017 was used to block the extension of Nant Helen opencast coal mine. Similar action is now required against Aberpergwm underground coal mine.
Energybuild Ltd are extending its Aberpergwm coking coal mine and want to continue to do so until 2039. This goes against the Well-being of Future Generations Act by worsening the climate crisis which would affect the next generation around the world, as well as damaging Wales’ reputation internationally.
Port Talbot steelworks is looking to decarbonise by converting to make new steel from scrap metal without using coal; otherwise it will have to close, making its staff, and those in supply chains, redundant. There’s no place for more coal mining in a modern Wales.
Coal is blended at Port Talbot steelworks and, as such, mining more coal in Wales does not reduce the amount extracted elsewhere. More coal still has to be imported to be blended with Welsh coal at steelworks, exporting some of the environmental problems and propping up an unsustainable industry rather than looking for long term solutions.
Energybuild Ltd’s finances show that this company may well sell on the mine if it is able to extend. The new company could maximise coal extraction and sell the coal to the highest bidder, or make a large number of redundancies. There are alternative ways to make steel and alternative sources of water filtration to anthracite coal.
There are two further coal mine expansion proposals in Wales which the government needs to prevent, while ensuring that previous mining sites are fully restored.
Coal is Wales’ heritage, it isn’t our future.
This webinar draws on the recently launched report, ‘Coal Mine Restoration in South Wales’, revealing the injustices and broken promises surrounding the restoration of 7 opencast coal mines in South Wales. It serves as a stark warning for any future coal mine proposals.
The webinar will offer a whistle-stop overview of the desk-based and primary research findings, with key analysis and recommendations. You'll see photo evidence that's been exclusively shared with us of the current state these former coal mines are in.
This webinar was first run in December 2022
Time: 11am-12'noon (1 hour)
Date: Tuesday 14th February 2023
Eligibility: this webinar is intended for staff at relevant councils in South Wales
Registration required: contact us for details.
The research finds that mining companies have consistently evaded millions in restoration costs, and Local Planning Authorities struggle to keep promises made to local communities impacted by unrestored or poorly restored coal mines. Field research indicates that even those sites which Local Planning Authorities claimed to be fully restored contain uncovered and leaking storage tanks of industrial chemicals, abandoned warehouses, concrete platforms, and no-go zones sectioned off with barbed wire.
The ‘Coal Mine Restoration in South Wales’ report updates a 2014 Welsh Government report, ‘Research into the failure to restore opencast coal sites in south Wales’ on the state of restoration across Wales, which flagged these sites as liabilities for being left unrestored or poorly restored.
See our English language version of this webpage.
Mae Cymru ar fin penderfynu a ddylid ehangu pwll glo brig mwyaf y DU gan bron i 4 blynedd a 2 filiwn tunnell o lo. Bydd hyn yn gyrru newid hinsawdd gan bron i 6 miliwn tunnell o CO2 a 16,000 tunnell o fethan.
Mae pwll glo Ffos-y-fran ym Merthyr Tudful sy’n chwalu’r hinsawdd yn echdynnu hyd at 50,000 tunnell o lo bob mis – sef glo y dyfarnodd Llys Cyfiawnder Ewrop ei fod yn creu gormod o lygredd i’w losgi yn hen orsaf bŵer Aberddawan, ac sydd bellach yn cael ei losgi’n bennaf mewn gwaith dur. Mae hyn yn rhwymo gwaith dur TATA i fod yr 2il safle mwyaf llygredig yn y DU!
Mae deisebwyr yn mynnu bod Llywodraeth Cymru:
Pam mae hyn yn bwysig?
Pan roddwyd caniatâd gan Lywodraeth Cymru yn 2005, cafodd y gymuned leol ym Merthyr Tudful, a oedd wedi brwydro’n ffyrnig yn erbyn y cynnig, addewid y byddai mwyngloddio’n dod i ben ar ôl 15 mlynedd, ar 6ed Medi 2022 ac y byddai’r gwaith o adfer y tir wedi’i gwblhau ychydig flynyddoedd yn ddiweddarach. Ond adroddir nad yw mwyngloddio glo wedi dod i ben, gan ddifetha’r heddwch hir-ddisgwyliedig i’r gymuned leol sy’n gallu gweld a chlywed y pwll glo o’u cartrefi. Ac yn awr mae'r cwmni mwyngloddio wedi gwneud cais i ehangu'r pwll glo am 9 mis, ac wedi dweud y bydd yn ceisio am 3 blynedd arall o gloddio am lo, (a phwy a ŵyr beth y tu hwnt i hynny...?).
Bydd hyn nid yn unig yn hybu newid yn yr hinsawdd gan bron i 6 miliwn tunnell o CO2 a 16,000 tunnell o fethan, ond hefyd yn achosi dioddefaint i’r trigolion cyfagos trwy’r ffrwydradau pellach, llygredd sŵn a llwch. Ar ben hyn, bydd y gwaith adfer hir-ddisgwyliedig ar y tir yn cael ei wthio yn ôl gan flynyddoedd, gyda phryderon na fydd byth yn digwydd.
Sut y cyflwynir y ddeiseb
Bydd y ddeiseb hon yn cael ei chyflwyno i Julie James, Gweinidog Newid Hinsawdd Cymru.
See our Welsh language version of this webpage.
Wales is about to decide whether to expand the UK’s largest opencast coal mine by nearly 4 years, emitting almost 6 million tonnes of CO2, and 16,000 tonnes of methane from the coal mine itself.
The climate-trashing Ffos-y-fran coal mine in Merthyr Tydfil extracts up to 50,000 tonnes of coal every month – coal that the European Court of Justice ruled was too polluting to be burned in the old Aberthaw power station, and is now burned mainly at steelworks. This locks TATA steelworks into being the UK’s 2nd most polluting site!
We demand that the Welsh Government:
When permission was granted by the Welsh Government in 2005, the local community in Merthyr Tydfil, who had fought the proposal fiercely, were promised that mining would end after 15 years, in September 2022 and that restoration of the land would be complete by the end of the following year. Yet it’s reported that coal mining hasn’t stopped, ruining the long-awaited peace for the local community who can see and hear the coal mine from their homes. And now the mining company has applied to expand the coal mine by 9 months, and has said it will for a further 3 years of coal mining, (and who knows what beyond that...?).
This will not only fuel climate change by almost 6 million tonnes of CO2, but inflict explosive further blasting, noise and dust pollution on nearby residents. On top of this, the long-awaited restoration of the land, will be pushed back by years, with concerns that it will never happen.
We sometimes hear from people that they are worried coal may be a necessary evil to keep us warm this winter. But the worst effects of this energy crisis was, and to some extent is, avoidable. Low-hanging fruit include home insulation, community-owned renewable energy generation, and an effective windfall tax on profiteering energy companies. These measures can be rapidly deployed, and we’ve seen from Covid what the Government can achieve big changes when there is political will to. Coal is not, and for the sake of our future, cannot be, the answer to how keep warm this winter. That is why half the demands of the Warm This Winter campaign centre around renewable energy and excluding fossil fuels as the way we will access affordable energy this winter and in future years.
The Warm This Winter campaign’s 3rd demand is access to cheaper energy—“Clean, renewable energy is now nine times cheaper than gas and can be brought online quickly”. Subsidy-free solar, in particular, has been demonstrated as cheaper than its fossil fuel alternatives. Prices have fallen dramatically for renewable energy since introduction – whereas fossil fuels continue to rely on huge Government subsidies, infrastructure, and underwriting of risk.
The 4th demand of the Warm This Winter campaign is to cut out fossil fuels as “it keeps us locked into an unaffordable energy for far longer than necessary”. The UK Government sells our natural resources to companies that extract it and sell it back to us at unaffordable prices to generate huge profits for themselves—never more so than in 2022.
The energy crisis has created a swing in vocal public support for coal mining since the energy crisis, and with it, political support for coal mine applications has grown in the highest echelons of Government. The Government has sent mixed signals recently on whether it will approve or reject the Whitehaven coal mine application, which has now been delayed by a further month to before the 9th December 2022.
It is particularly clear that the Government is using the energy crisis as an excuse to abandon its climate commitments wholesale since it’s citing the energy crisis for renewing its support for coal mine applications… that have nothing to do with power generation. All the current coal mine applications are to mine coal for industry—not power generation.
The Government will hand over £420 million in tax money to profiteering energy companies to keep old coal power stations, like West Burton, and coal units, like Drax, chugging along this winter. These power stations and units were scheduled for closure in 2022, but now these dirty, dusty relics will be stoked with thousands of tonnes of imported coal, paid for with our taxes. In fact this move is expected to generate so much pollution that the Government has instructed the Environment Agency to ignore its responsibility to enforce pollution limits when it comes to coal fired energy production this winter. People living locally to these power stations will pay the price in potentially dangerously poor air quality, but we will all pay the price in our taxes and in our future compromised by the climate change a reliance on coal fuels.
Rolling out home insulation tackles the energy crisis and bills not just this year, but for many years to come—and the impact is immediate. It would also help the Government get back on track with its climate commitments as housing is responsible for 19% of the UK’s carbon emissions. This should be a top priority for Government in tackling the cost-of-living crisis and energy crisis together this winter.
In 2012, the UK insulated 2.3 million loft or cavity walls. But a shift in Government policy saw uptake drop by 90%. This Government decision to cut support for home insulation after 2012 has cost taxpayers, like me and you, £1 billion in energy bills this year. If the Government had maintained the same level of support, nearly 50% of UK homes could have been insulated by now. A more recent scheme by the UK Government collapsed, and was blasted by the Audit Office for being “botched”. This would have significantly reduced the energy crisis this winter, along with our bills. Households living in homes with poor efficiency ratings will pay around £1000 more this winter.
The British public overwhelmingly support the rollout of renewables, with 78% supporting solar power, 75% offshore wind, and 70% onshore wind. Unlike non-renewable sources of power like nuclear power stations, renewable energy infrastructure can be rapidly scaled up and brought online. With clear public support, the Government could rapidly accelerate renewable energy roll-out that isn’t vulnerable to shifts in geopolitics and global supply chains.
Because renewable energy is modular—one wind turbine or one solar panel can be bought and set up, or 1000s—its more affordable for communities buy their own equipment and become power generators, with the profits returning to those communities rather than disappearing into the pockets of big business. The Government acknowledges the value of community-owned renewable energy, but isn’t doing enough to encourage it. Instead, the Government dropped the Social Investment Tax Relief for community energy and has failed to provide the financial guarantees it provides to other energy projects like nuclear power stations. If the UK faced this winter with a resilient network of renewable energy zones, our dependence on gas and fossil fuels would have been much lower, and energy prices would be more insulated from Russian sanctions, geopolitics, and global demand and supply shifts.
The Government imposed a windfall tax in May 2022 as a one-off tax on the record profits made by energy companies that are due to lifted Covid restrictions and supply concerns around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, BBC reported: “BP reported its biggest quarterly profit for 14 years, making £6.9bn in the three months to June. Shell recorded even higher second quarter profits of £9bn and made £8.2bn in the following three months. The majority of the April to June takings won't be hit by the government's windfall tax, as it only applies from 26 May”. The Guardian reported “Shell has paid zero windfall tax in the UK despite making record global profits of nearly $30bn (£26bn) so far this year”. Yet the Government has resisted pressure to tax these record profits and redistribute to cushion energy prices, so less of the UK have to choose between food and heating this winter.
Analysing 30 leading primary insurers and reinsurers, assessing their policies on insuring and investing in coal, oil, gas, the 6th Annual Scorecard cuts through the greenwash and sorts the meanest from the greenest. The report highlights progress and loopholes, calls out leaders and laggards, and identifies challenges and opportunities for the year ahead.
The number of coal exit policies has grown from 35 to 41 this past year, with major US insurers known for their role in fossil fuels AIG and Travelers finally getting on board. The market share of insurers with coal exclusions has reached 62% in the reinsurance and 39% in the primary insurance markets.
In terms of new power stations, this is good news: according to the report many of the key laggards that are continuing to underwrite new coal projects lack the capacity and expertise involved in insuring complex large-scale new coal power plants.
There is still a lot of work to do: many companies still have no policies excluding coal, and some of those that do extend only to power stations and thermal coal mines, not coking coal mines. Meanwhile Lloyds of London's coal exclusion guideleines are non-mandatory, and they take on 40% of the global energy market.
Insurance company restrictions on oil and gas are only just starting to catch up with those on coal. The new report shows 13 companies have adopted oil and gas restrictions, compared with 41 on coal.
Be it in the IPCC’s 1.5°C report, the IEA’s Net Zero Roadmap or the One Earth Climate Model, climate scientists are clear that there is no space for any new coal, oil or gas projects in credible pathways to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Yet most insurance companies have not taken this scientific evidence on board and continue to offer support to projects and companies expanding oil and gas production
Some insurers like Liberty Mutual, Chubb and Tokio Marine have adopted some restrictions on coal but actively insure the expansion of the oil and gas industry.
For the second year running, companies were ranked on their policies of Free, Prior and Informed consent: i.e. do they support projects that are in conflict with communities, and respect the right of communities to say no?
In summary, very few of them commit to anything like this.
While Allianz and Swiss Re mention of the right to Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) in their policies, AXIS Capital was the first insurer to adopt an explicit policy “to not provide insurance coverage on projects undertaken on indigenous territories without FPIC” in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The policy marks an important breakthrough for the recognition of Indigenous rights and other insurers should emulate it.
“So far, there hasn’t been real regulatory pressure. And there hasn’t been market pressure … as in the short term, it’s still a profitable business. So we think public pressure has really made an essential difference”
- Lindsay Keenan, Insure Our Future (the Guardian)
As part of the StopEACOP Coalition, we've been mobilizing to persuade insurers at Lloyds of London to drop the contraversial East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline.
Not only does this make the pipeline harder to finance, it also informs insurance companies about the damaging impacts of oil and gas pipelines, and is part of the movement to shift the whole industry away from fossil fuels.Sign up here to commit taking regular action with us - it's easy to do from home!
Along with our partners in the #StopEACOP coalition, Coal Action Network has been targetting insurers to turn the tide on fossil fuel insurance. This month, QBE, Suncorp, Generali, Aspen and Helvetia stated that they will not be providing insurance support to the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).
They follow five other insurance companies who ruled out the project in recent months, making 18 insurance companies who have ruled it out overall. QBE and Suncorp are two of Australia's biggest insurers. Generali is Italy's biggest insurer.
In addition, Italy’s largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo, Germany’s second largest bank DZ Bank, as well as Natixis from France, have joined the growing list of banks that have ruled out direct finance for the EACOP project, bringing the total to 24. Spanish bank Santander is also understood not to be financing the project, which would be precluded as part of the bank's Environmental, Social and Climate Change Risk Management Policy.
Is the EACOP project looking less and less viable? There are now no French banks backing EACOP (Total Energies being a French company), and these refusals are coming from the company's former backers.
“With so many of Total’s financiers out of the running to join the $2.5 billion project loan the EACOP needs to proceed, the pressure is growing on those few that remain. This includes South Africa’s Standard Bank, Japan’s SMBC and MUFG, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China, as well as UK’s Standard Chartered, which as chair of the Net Zero Banking Alliance should not be going anywhere near new oil projects of any kind, especially not one as mired in human rights and environmental damage as this.”
-Ryan Brightwell, Campaign Lead Banks and Human Rights at BankTrack
EACOP has been condemned by the European parliament for its associated human rights abuses in Uganda and Tanzania. The pipeline and associated Tilenga oil field are expected to displace almost 118,000 people in Uganda and Tanzania, and since last week nine peaceful protestors were arrested following a student-led peaceful demonstration against EACOP in Kampala, Uganda.
“Lending or underwriting to projects that are mired in human rights violations, lacking in free prior and informed consent is wrong, shameful and unacceptable. The (re)insurers and banks that are still considering or are committed to underwriting EACOP cannot claim innocence, they are on the side of the human rights violators and this therefore makes them complicit.”
-Omar Elmawi, co-ordinator of the StopEACOP
Many of the insurance companies which have failed to rule out insurance for EACOP have syndicates at Lloyd’s of London, where the companies behind EACOP have reportedly been looking for insurance cover. These include Arch, AIG, and Chubb to name a few. These insurers must rule out EACOP immediately, to stand against the human rights abuses that are taking place in the name of this climate-wrecking pipeline. Lloyd’s Council urgently needs to commit the marketplace to policies ruling out new fossil fuel projects in alignment with the science on keeping global temperatures below 1.5C warming.
Companies who have not responded to the campaign's requests for comment are:
Aegis London, AIG, Arch, Brit, Canopius, Chaucer, Chubb, Cincinnati, Liberty Mutual, Lancashire Syndicates and Tokio Marine Kiln.
All of these have syndicates at Lloyds of London. The Lloyds council is responsible for regulating the Lloyds Marketplace (see Lloyds explainer here), and could bring in measures to stop fossil fuel projects, and those with human rights abuses, from being targetted.
We can see these tactics are working. But we need all insurance companies to rule out EACOP, and stop the toxic pipeline at its source. Next, we want Arch insurance to rule it out, and we know that constant pressure works.
Sign up here to commit taking regular action with us - it's easy to do from home!
Ffos-y-fran (pronounced in English as Foss-uh-vran and also known as the 'Ffos-y-Fran Land Reclamation Scheme') is a large opencast coal mine in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, mining primarily thermal coal. Mining company Merthyr Ltd (previously, Miller Argent) was awarded planning permission in February 2005 on appeal and began opencast coal mining. Planning permission for the opencast coal mining came to an end on 06th September 2022 (confirmed by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council to Coal Action Network under a Freedom of Information request).
The two planning conditions that Merthyr Ltd are pressuring the Council to throw out are:
Merthyr Ltd want to delay its restoration responsibility and extend mining its dirty coal from the Ffos-y-fran opencast initially by 9 months (06 June 2023), but then by a further 3 years. The 9 month extension is to give the coal operator enough time to mine a further 240,000 tonnes of coal and submit an application for a 3 year extension but during this time, it’ll be mining as much coal as it can. See all the application documents at P/22/0237.
So, how does Merthyr Ltd seek to justify breaking its promise to the Council and local communities to restore and end opencast coal mining?
In a personally signed letter to the Council, Merthyr Ltd’s Director, David Lewis, claims production was reduced due to lockdowns so not all the coal could be mined in the void that was expected to be by the deadline of the 06 September 2022, so a time extension should be awarded to “ensure the full reserve can be realised”.
There are two issues with the justification attempted in Lewis’s letter:
Via repeated Freedom of Information Requests, Coal Action Network eventually succeeded in forcing the Council admit only £15 million had been deposited by Merthyr Ltd into the escrow account for restoration. In 2018, restoration was estimated to cost £62 million, meaning there is roughly a £47 million shortfall (depending on how much of the site has been restored alongside coal mining since 2018). This is shortfall is highlighted by Merthyr Ltd in its Planning Statement for the time extension: “As the Council is fully aware, there are insufficient funds within the Escrow and restoration fund to allow for the full and successful implementation of the current restoration strategy for the site.”
Merthyr Ltd’s solution is “that the additional time to finish extraction and restoration will enable a more sustainable and modernised restoration scheme”. Although Merthyr Ltd promised to fund and carry out a restoration strategy as a condition to it gaining planning permission, the company now uses its failure to fulfil this condition as a reason to let it mine more coal. And by “modernised”, Merthyr Ltd almost certainly mean cheaper restoration scheme.
Merthyr Ltd transferred most the of the land ownership to Geraint Morgan Legacy Limited of which David Lewis is the sole Director. If the Council attempts to recover the £47 million shortfall for restoration, and Merthyr Ltd cannot pay, responsibility may lie with the landowner, which appears from its Companies House records to only have £2 million in the bank. Merthyr Ltd may reap the profits from years of mining, and the Council could be face bankruptcy to pay the remaining shortfall for restoration.
Similar situations have been seen with other mining companies (most notoriously by Celtic Energy) holding Councils to ransom for permitting more coal mining by threatening to fold or transferring the liability to shell companies, knowing Councils can’t afford to fund the massive costs involved in restoring ex-coal mining sites.
Merthyr Ltd have known for years that planning permission at Ffos-y-fran would expire on 06 September 2022, yet attempts to leverage the fact that it has seemingly failed to support its workers to reskill or find alternative employment as a reason to extend the planning permission: “…it will ensure that current employees have a further 9 months to weather the cost of living crisis and look for alternative means of employment” (Planning Statement).
Incredulously, Merthyr Ltd even goes beyond this neglect towards its workers, to use its own lack of business strategy as it approached the known end of planning permission as a rationale for permitting the initial 9 month extension to allow “…the operators of the mine to look at other investment possibilities.”
Merthyr Ltd’s Planning Statement attempts the justification commonly used be coal mining companies in the UK: “The transport emissions for each tonne of UK coal delivered to Port Talbot are typically five times lower than coal imported from abroad” and therefore, less CO2 is emitted overall if coal is mined and used in the UK. This argument relies on the idea that more coal mining in the UK would displace the same amount of coal being mined in another country, and the coal mined in the UK would be used in the UK.
Coal-laden HGV leaving the Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine on 13/09/2022
Coal operators are notorious for making lofty claims about the unrivalled quality of coal they would mine—this is to circumvent the presumption against new coal extraction in planning decisions, hoping to fit into the loophole made for exceptional need and economic value.
Merthyr Ltd has rebranded its thermal coal as “dry steam coal”, a term that doesn’t seem to be widely used by anyone except Merthyr Ltd and its trade customers. In reality, this is just thermal coal, and used to be primarily sold to RWE’s Aberthaw coal-fired power station. However, Aberthaw had to stop burning coal from Ffos-y-fran to generate electricity because the European Court of Justice ruled the toxic nitrogen oxides it emitted were too high.
With the loss of this customer, Merthyr Ltd invested £10 million in machinery to refine some of its lower grade coal to ‘metallurgical’ coal that could be used in steelworks in 2015.
Merthyr Ltd has clearly been studying other coal mine applications in the planning system, and likewise in its Planning Statement emphasises Port Talbot Steelworks’ reliance on coal, claiming its thermal coal is needed in the vaguely worded “steel manufacturing process”.
Like most coal operators, Merthyr Ltd (and former coal operators) like to change the rules along the way. The original coal operator agreed to all the conditions attached to the original planning permission in 2005, but in 2008, the coal operator wanted to rip up condition 37 requiring col to leave the site by freight train. The coal operator applied for a 'S73' change to use HGVs to transport 100,000 tonnes of coal each year by road, rather than rail. The company pragmatically reduced this to 50,000 tonnes but HGVs loaded with coal on the roads is dirty and dangerous, so the Council rejected the attempt to change this condition. The company didn’t accept this, and won the right to change this condition on appeal in May 2011 (APP/U6925/A/10/2129921)
Merthyr Ltd want to change the rules again with this 'S73' application for a time extension to mine more coal and delay the promised restoration. Each time the coal operators change the rules, it’s inevitably the local communities living in Merthyr Tydfil that pay the price. Enough is enough.
Latin America's biggest coal mine, Cerrejón, is being blocked by protesting members of communities which have been displaced and polluted by coal mining.
The mining multinational Glencore, has not complied with their commitments including to provide clean water for displaced indigenous and afro-descendant communities.
In La Guajira, a remote region in northern Colombia, community defenders are endangering their lives by stepping into a non-violent confrontation with the mining company; activists here are routinely targetted with violence. We must show that the world is watching and that we support the coal-affected communities' demands.
Three actions you can take in solidarity with the communities:
1. Add your voice to demand Glencore respects protestors and meets their demands
2. Attend the blockade via facebook as a show of international solidarity, organised by Colombia Solidarity Campaign
3. Tweet @Glencore so they hear the communities demands:
Glencore must:
- Meet with the communities represented at the Cerrejón blockade and return to dialogue with them
- Comply with the government order to provide safe drinking water for communities displaced by Cerrejon and to stop polluting the lands of nearby communities
- Ensure the safety of the community defenders
The defenders will not back down until they get an audience with Glencore. They are asking for international solidarity to get the company's attention and to stay safe.
The communities south of Cerrejón have been impeding the progress of Latin America's biggest coal mine for over 30 years through the courts and local government. Now they are taking non-violent action to stand their ground.
We all owe them our suppoort for their decades long struggle to keep fossil fuels in the ground while safeguarding their right to territorial lands from European colonisation.
Talanx, Germany's third largest insurer, is the latest (re)insurance company to confirm to the #StopEACOP Coalition that they will not (re)insure the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). They join 11 other (re)insurers, including 4 of the world’s biggest (re)insurance companies - Munich Re, Swiss Re, Hannover Re, and SCOR.
Talanx follows fast in the steps of three other (re)insurers (Argo Group, Axis Capital and RSA Group), who last week also confirmed they would not be involved in underwriting EACOP.
In an email to a member of the StopEACOP campaign, Talanx's Group Strategy and Sustainability Manager, Dr. Jan-Philippe Lüdtke, stated:
"I can now confirm that there is and will be no involvement in EACOP by Talanx or any of its subsidiaries."
This statement implies that Talanx subsidiary, Lloyd’s of London member Argenta Insurance, will also stay away from the controversial EACOP project.
The total number of (re)insurers who have confirmed they would stay away from EACOP is currently 13.
Despite recent media reports claiming that the EACOP has been fully insured through a local consortium, the #StopEACOP Campaign maintains that the project needs substantial international insurance and reinsurance to proceed. See the full statement here.
“More and more (re)insurers are learning about the many problems that EACOP is bringing to the people of Uganda and Tanzania and the health, social, and climate impacts that the pipeline will leave in its wake, and they are wisely distancing themselves from the project. It is time for other (re)insurance companies to follow suit and refuse to be accomplices to such dreadful projects that are premised to only benefit the oil companies Total and China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) at the expense of everyone else,”
- Samuel Okulony, Chief Executive Officer, of Ugandan-based Environment Governance Institute (EGI).
The EACOP project is a climate bomb. Its direction depends on the decisions (re)insurers make today. They have the power to save humanity, to rescue the thousands of people being displaced in Africa, to save the source of the longest river in the world, to save biodiversity that is on the verge of extinction which includes elephants, chimpanzees, giraffes, birds, insects, reptiles, forests, game reserves, rivers and waterfalls that people pay to visit in Africa. All these and more are at their mercy,”
- Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, climate activist and founder of Fridays For Future- Uganda.
“We now have 20 banks, 4 export credit agencies and 13 (re)insurance companies that have confirmed to us that they will not give project financing or underwrite EACOP. The other insurers and banks still considering any involvement in EACOP, like Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Standard Bank-South Africa, and Sumimoto Mitsui Banking Corporation, are putting corporate needs and profits before people’s lives, nature and climate. It is time they choose sides. The whole world is watching and hoping they do what’s right – which is putting people’s lives before corporate greed.”
- Omar Elmawi, Coordinator of the #StopEACOP Coalition
Now Talanx CEO Torsten Leue must adopt a more comprehensive policy that excludes not just EACOP but all other new oil and gas projects. Talanx currently lags behind not just its major rival Allianz but also its own subsidiary Hannover Re, both of which adopted more comprehensive policies earlier this year.
“It is good to see Talanx HDI finally join the growing group of insurers who are snubbing EACOP. However, it is also imperative for the company to produce a sensible, comprehensive oil and gas policy that goes beyond oil sands alone. Instead of publicly advertising its expertise as an insurer of onshore and offshore fossil fuel extraction, Talanx HDI ought to swiftly exclude the complete unconventional sector, and in general, all new projects along the oil & gas value chain to then decisively phase out fossil fuels in line with climate science.”
- Regine Richter, Finance and Insurance Campaigner at Urgewald
