| KERRY GROUP URGED TO PUBLICLY RELEASE GREENHOUSE GAS FIGURES |
| RANKED 294 OF 300 LARGEST EU COMPANIES Friends of the Irish Environment are urging the Kerry Group to publicly release its greenhouse gas emission figures as the Company is ranked 294th in a new UK Report on the 300 largest companies in Europe. The Report shows that the Kerry Group failed to provide ‘public, complete, and verified' data for their Scope 1 & 2 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions under The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol). The information is also not available in their recent Annual Report. A spokesman for Friends of the Environment said that ‘the lack of publicly available data will have significantly impacted unfavourably on the Kerry Group's ranking.‘ // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 28/04/2011 ( Reads : 332 ) | Comments (0) | Greenhouse Gas |
| Earth Hour 2010 begins in China |
| Earth Hour officially kicked off on February 1st in China with a major show of support from Chengdu, the first city in the country to commit to turning off its lights. Chengdu, among the world's mega cites with over 13 million resident, is the hometown to the Giant Panda, an ancient species that has been living in Chengdu for more than 8 million years and is the symbol of WWF, who promote Earth Hour worldwide. After the disappointment of Copenhagen, Earth Hour is the one hour when people across the globe can show how by working together we can make a difference in the fight against climate change. March the 27 at 8.30 PM... // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 03/02/2010 ( Reads : 695 ) | Comments (0) | Greenhouse Gas |
| IFA goes nuts about Meat Free Mondays |
| The IFA's response to Paul McCarthy's suggestion that Meatless Mondays would require ploughing grasslands and losing carbon sinks is pure hot air. Irish grasslands are called ‘permanent pastures' but they are regularly reseeded because as Teagasc says, they are ‘significantly more productive than old pastures'. Farmers are recommended to regularly plough, till, and reseed - a far cry from a permanent carbon sink. A meat based diet takes two and half times more land than a vegetarian diet and five times more land than a vegan diet. And we haven't even mentioned the ingredients in cattle feed. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 03/12/2009 ( Reads : 766 ) | Comments (0) | Greenhouse Gas |
| BUY A TONNE OF CARBON CREDITS |
| Buy a ton of Europe's Kyoto Protocol carbon credit allowance and retire it!
Friends of the Irish Environment are purchasing carbon emissions trading credits approved under the EU Directive and are offering to retire them as an unusal 'green' gifts.
The recent budget allocated €20m for carbon credits which must be purchased on the European exchange to compensate for Ireland exceeding its Kyoto greenhouse gas limits.
A carbon tax would have reduced the country's Kyoto overshoot - and it would have raised money to buy the remaining necessary pollution credits to meet targets from the companies that produced the greenhouse gases. Personal carbon trading allowance 'credit cards' would mean that the indiidual would pay for his own emmissions alone. The Government has approved neither.
Making one tonne of cement produces one tonne of greenhouse gases - but as it stands now, the cost is not added to the price of a bag of cement but instead paid by the public in its taxes. The polluter is not paying.
Read the Irish Times on the tonne of credits we sent to the Minister for the Environment!
Purchase Online From Our Secure Site
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| Posted By the editors on 05/12/2005 ( Reads : 1948 ) | Comments (0) | Greenhouse Gas |
| MARCH 18: Regional flights damaging environment |
| FIE has lodged formal complaints with the European Commission's Regional Directorate and the Environmental Directorate as well as the Irish Minister for Transport objecting to the use of Public Service Obligations to subsidise short distance flights from Dublin. Subsidies already range from €53 each way for Dublin-Galway to €290 per passenger each way for Knock-Dublin. Four of the routes for which tenders are being sought compete directly with a direct rail service to Dublin while rail passenger subsidies are under €5 per passenger. Subsidies for internal short haul flights are a socially regressive transfer of wealth from the exchequer to the higher income users of the service as well as contradicting stated public policy of favoring public transport.
Read our arguments. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By the editors on 18/03/2005 ( Reads : 2027 ) | Comments (0) | Greenhouse Gas |
| 8 MARCH: FIE CALLS ON FINE GAEL OVER AVIATION SUBSIDIES |
| Friends of the Irish Environment has called on Fine Gael to rethink its call for EU aviation subsidies. The call follows Fine Gael's MEP Senator Jim Higgins claim that Commissioner for Regional Policy, Mrs. Danuta Hubner had indicated that European Regional Development funds could be used for the development of infrastructure and services at regional airports.
Read Our Press Release
and
Report on Fossil Fuel Subsidies // Read More // | |
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| Posted By the editors on 08/03/2005 ( Reads : 2074 ) | Comments (0) | Greenhouse Gas |
| 31 JANUARY: NOTICE ON NUCLEAR DEBATE |
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GREEN GROUP REAFFIRMS NUCLEAR OPPOSITION
It was suggested on Saturday's RTE radio's nature programme 'Mooney Goes Wild' that Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] was reconsidering its opposition to nuclear power.
It appears this confusion arose because of Friends of the Earth's [FoE] Director's comments recently about reconsidering the organisation's position in the wake of James's Lovelock's (author of 'Gaia') widely-reported decision last autumn to support nuclear fuel to replace fossil fuels and so slow down global warming. 'They will change their position within five years' a member of the panel asserted.
FIE emailed in a question for the panel: 'Ask them how long nuclear fuel will last?' Their expert indicated that was a good and unconsidered point. The reply suggested that if all those who are considering using nuclear fuel did so, the world's supply of nuclear fuel would be exhausted 'in 50 years'.
In fact, on 1994 consumption levels assured resources of uranium will last for 54 years. [NEA/OECD, Red Book, 1995] The use of breeder reactors, reprocessing and the possible inclusion of thorium must be weighed against the increased demand since 1994 and the present proposed explosion of the use of nuclear power.
It also creates hazardous waste which will be a burden for future generations. The total volume of radioactive waste produced from reprocessing 4 cubic metres of spent nuclear fuel is 642 cubic metres. This waste is 100 million times more radioactive than uranium ore. The whole process is vulnerable to human error and to political violence.
The use of nuclear fuel is not sustainable. It is a problem, not an answer to anything.
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| Posted By the editors on 31/01/2005 ( Reads : 1894 ) | Comments (0) | Greenhouse Gas |
| FEBRUARY 23: FIE CLAIMS EPA CARBON PLAN FAILS TO MEET EU RULES |
| FIE CLAIMS EPA CARBON PLAN FAILS TO MEET EU RULES
The absence of the 'additional plans' which the Government proposes for Ireland to meet its Kyoto targets means that today's EPA carbon plan fails to meet EU rules. These rules require that all the emissions reduction measures planned are specified. This is so that the EU can judge the effectiveness and credibility of the plan and to ensure that member states are not giving illegal state aid to big industries by allocating to them higher emissions rights than are consistent with meeting the Kyoto target.
FULL PRESS RELEASE // Read More // | |
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| Posted By the editors on 23/02/2004 ( Reads : 1831 ) | Comments (0) | Greenhouse Gas |
