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Breakfree Action: Ogoni clean-up signposts end to dirty energy – Activists

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Breakfree Action: Ogoni clean-up signposts end to dirty energy – Activists

On Thursday, March 30, 2017, hundreds of climate activists as well as concerned and affected Nigerians joined ongoing actions around the world to press home the need to address the world’s dependence on fossil fuels which, according to them, poisons the planet and threatens to eliminate mankind.

Ogoniland-Spill
Land degradation from oil spill in Ogoniland, Nigeria

According to activists Nnimmo Bassey, Celestine Akpobari, Ken Henshaw and Emem Okon, the problem is even more pungent in Nigeria where the effects of fossil fuel-related pollution and climate changes therefrom are emerging as a major disaster.

They stress that, from sea level rises that threaten to consume whole coastal lying communities to crude oil pollutions which continue to deprive many of viable livelihoods, the continued extraction and dependence of fossil fuels has devastating consequences for Nigeria and especially the Niger Delta.

They spoke at the Mass Breakfree Actions in Ogoni, Rivers State.

Recently, the city of Port Harcourt and its environs in Rivers State has been plagued with massive soot, an outcome of incomplete hydrocarbon combustion processes. For months, the people have had to breathe the polluted air while interacting with it on their skin, clothes and food items. The immediate and long term medical consequences of this will be severe, say experts.

The activists submitted in a statement that, while the government at the federal and state levels have failed to arrest the problem, or even confirm the source of the new threat, “the people of the Niger Delta continue to live with routine gas flaring and routine oil spills while oil companies and government officials trade blame and the situation persists.”

The statement reads in part: “Rather than improve the lot of the people, oil and gas extraction has been the source of conflict, livelihood losses, social imbalance, environmental pollution and health threats. Indeed, due to soil air and water pollution which the people of the Niger Delta region are exposed to, life expectancy has dropped in the region. Despite several decades of oil extraction, Nigeria still fares miserably on all development indices, certainly worse than other less endowed countries.

“On all key global development indicators, Nigeria fares badly. It tilts on the periphery of a failed state according to reports; it has one of the lowest electricity accesses in the world despite its huge crude and gas deposits, failing infrastructures, failing healthcare, failing educational systems, etc. It begs the question to ask, what has been the benefit of Nigeria’s fossil fuels?

“According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released after an assessment of environmental pollution in Ogoniland, the area has been so polluted that it might take up to 30 years of clean-up and remediation activities to bring it back to its pre- crude oil condition. Indeed, benzene, a chemical which causes cancer and other heart related diseases is contained in the water the people drink 900 times above safe levels.

“Crude oil extraction and its attendant environmental and social problems continues not for a lack of alternative, but because the government has refused to explore other cleaner, cheaper and viable energy sources. Other countries are gradually moving away from fossil fuel as a source of energy, while Nigeria is increasingly embedding itself in this outdated practice.

“It is this spirit of the need to stop the extraction of fossil fuel and begin the exploration of other cleaner and renewable sources of energy that informs the Break Free from Fossil Fuels movement. Break Free from Fossil Fuels is a wave of escalated citizen led actions to keep coal, oil and gas in the ground.”

Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), sees the action as timely. He said: “Coming at this time, the Break Free action is an opportunity for us all to remind the Nigerian state that the clean-up of Ogoni environment should be seen as a step towards our turning away completely from dependence on polluting or dirty energy sources.”

Key organiser of the Break Free movement and Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, disclosed: “The time has come to make fossil fuels history and give our environment and peoples a chance to recover from decades of unrelenting oil pollution. By our actions we are standing in solidarity with communities in the oilfields of the Niger Delta, and other impacted communities around the world, demanding that our appetite for dirty energy must not be allowed to destroy the planet and future generations.”

Celestine Akpobari of the Ogoni Solidarity Forum stated: “If there are still people who doubts the devastating effect of the fossil fuel business on the environment, citizens’ livelihoods, well-being and their very life, the terrible experience of Ogoni, tells it all. If the Ogoni people had a second chance, they will choose their environment over crude oil.  They will prefer to keep their sons and daughters including Ken Saro Wiwa and thousands of others who became victims of this deadly business. Breaking free from fossil fuel will save the world from having another Ogoni.”

According to Ken Henshaw of Social Action and member of Nigeria organising team of the Break Free campaign, “this global campaign is the type of citizens’ led shock therapy that is needed to make the world realise that our dependence on fossils is destroying our only habitable world. Fossil fuels may seem attractive and something we cannot do without, but so did stone seem just before mankind moved away from the Stone Age; so did typewriters before we moved over to computers. A global dependence on fossil fuel is simply no longer sustainable, especially in the face of increasing threats to global existence on the one hand, and the availability of viable, safer and more sustainable alternatives”.

The Breakfree from fossil fuel event took place at the Ken Saro Wiwa Peace and Freedom Centre in Bori, Rivers State.

Experts predict Trump’s promise to bring back coal jobs ‘will not be kept’

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Experts predict Trump’s promise to bring back coal jobs ‘will not be kept’

Lifting a moratorium against leases for coal mining on public lands will not create demand for coal as power companies continue to shift to natural gas and other energy sources, experts say

Trump-coal
With coal miners gathered around him, Trump signed an executive order rolling back a temporary ban on mining coal and a stream protection rule imposed by the Obama administration

President Trump lifted a moratorium on federal coal leases on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 paving the way for excavation of a fossil fuel on public land in the West that few mining companies seem to want.

With coal miners gathered around him, Trump signed an executive order rolling back a temporary ban on mining coal and a stream protection rule imposed by the Obama administration. The order follows the president’s campaign promise to revive the struggling coal industry and bring back thousands of lost mining jobs in rural America.

“I made them this promise,” Trump said, “We will put our miners back to work.”

But industry experts say coal mining jobs will continue to be lost, not because of blocked access to coal, but because power plant owners are turning to natural gas. At least six plants that relied on coal have closed or announced they will close since Trump’s victory in November, including the main plant at the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona, the largest in the West. Another 40 are projected to close during the president’s four-year term.

As power companies switch fuels, “the amount of coal in the national energy generation mix (both Fuels and Electricity Generation) has declined by 53 percent since 2006,” according to a Department of Energy report released in January. Over the same period, electricity generation from natural gas increased 33 percent.

The shift was mirrored by employment, with jobs in natural gas and other cleaner energy resources rising and coal jobs declining, the report said. It cited a Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis showing that coal mining and support employment declined by nearly 40 percent between March 2009 and March 2016.

Coal-US
A bulldozer operates atop a coal mound at the CCI Slones Branch Terminal June 3, 2014, in Shelbiana, Ky. Photo credit: Luke Sharrett/Getty Images

In this shaky financial environment, coal companies are struggling. Two of the largest, Contura and Arch Coal, emerged from bankruptcy only recently, and another giant, Peabody Energy, recently filed a reorganization plan for its path out of bankruptcy, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

As Trump vowed to resurrect the coal industry and mining jobs in remarks at the Environmental Protection Agency, he promised to increase production of the resource that experts say is killing them. “We will unlock job producing natural gas, oil and shale energy. We will produce American coal to power American industry.”

The IEEFA disagreed. “Promises to create more coal jobs will not be kept – indeed the industry will continue to cut payrolls,” the group said in its 2017 U.S. Coal Outlook. “These losses will be related in part to the coal industry’s long-term business model of producing more coal with fewer workers.”

The industry has a fundamental problem it has not addressed even as businesses fail, the IEEFA said: “Too many companies are still mining too much coal for too few customers.”

Coal has another problem that dogs power companies: health. Studies have shown that the risk of death from heart disease, including heart attacks, was five times higher for people who breathed pollution from coal emissions over 20 years than for those who were exposed to other types of air pollution. Burning coal releases fine particles with a potent mix of toxins, including benzene, mercury, arsenic and selenium.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) found that seven million people died from breathing air pollution in 2012, one in eight of the total number of global deaths. The 2014 study said air pollution, including coal, “is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk” and that “reducing air pollution could save millions of lives.”

In addition to enforcing a moratorium on leases, the Obama administration sought to protect water near mining sites by forcing coal companies “to avoid mining practices that permanently pollute streams, destroy drinking water sources … and threaten forests.” That rule was also scuttled by a recent congressional resolution that the president signed.

The National Mining Association slammed Interior when the rule was imposed in December, saying Obama administration officials failed to engage mining states such as Wyoming, Montana and Nevada during its development, leading to a win for “extreme environmental groups and a loss for everyday Americans,” said Hal Quinn, the association’s president and chief executive.

He applauded the congressional resolution and Trump’s signature demolishing a rule that placed “obstacles in the path of responsible mining and other necessary activities that depend on federal land while at the same time marginalising the participation of states and local stakeholders.”

During the signing ceremony, Trump also touched on the resolution he signed. “We’ve already eliminated a devastating, anti-coal regulation, but that was just the beginning,” he said. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal, going to have clean coal, really clean coal.”

Paul Bledsoe, a lecturer at American University’s Centre for Environmental Policy, an Interior official under President Bill Clinton, called Trump’s attempt at job creation “sheer nonsense.” Coal’s decline is too steep.

“No company will bid on new leases when there’s already a glut of unwanted coal on the market,” Bledsoe said. “Trump’s false promise that he can bring back coal is really exposed as so much coal dust and mirrors by this executive order, since utilities will continue to use natural gas instead of coal.”

By Darryl Fears, The Washington Post

Federal varsity partners group on food security

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Federal varsity partners group on food security

As a means of supporting the call for economic diversification through agriculture in order to ensure food security, generate employment and increase foreign exchange earnings for the nation, the Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo (FUNAI), Ebonyi State on Wednesday, March 29, 2017 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with an Abuja-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Food for All Initiative (FFAI), for the establishment of a university farm.

FUNAI
The VC, Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba, signing the MoU on behalf of the university

Speaking during the event organised under the auspices of the Faculty of Agriculture of the university, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba, stressed the importance of agriculture in economic development, noting that agricultural activities could be the panacea to the burden of hunger and poverty in the nation if relevant stakeholders take advantage of the vast arable land the country is endowed with.

Professor Nwajiuba further explained that the Faculty of Agriculture was established in the University with over seven academic programmes to serve as agricultural research hub where research findings and new developments in the sector would be made available to farmers at no cost within the immediate university environment and beyond for improved farming and bounty yields.

FUNAI-MoU
For food security: L-R: University Librarian, Dr. O. O Adediji; SA to VC on Linkages and Advancement, Mr. Chris Uwadoka; Representative of FFAI, Mrs. Nnenna Okoro; and colleague; VC, Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba; Registrar, Mrs. Odisa Okeke; DVC, Prof. Sunday Elom; and Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Prof. Jonny Ogunji, after the signing ceremony at the VC’s Conference Room

He maintained that universities are established to provide solutions to problems in the society, adding that FUNAI would surely live up to expectations in that regard, hence the wide range partnerships the university has been entering with local and international organisations

Giving insight into the partnership, FFAI’s spokesperson, Nnenna Okoro, said the organisation was targeting the entire six geopolitical zones of the country, noting that FUNAI was chosen in the Southeast due to the availability of arable land and eco-friendly activities in the area. She further stressed that the organisation would also be providing technical services to the university farm.

Expressing their readiness for the take-off of the farm, the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Prof. Johnny Ogunji, said the faculty was fully equipped with relevant resources for accelerated food production. He noted that the beauty of the partnership was that it would also provide jobs and serve as laboratory for practical oriented courses to the students of the Faculty, adding that students who work in the farm will be adequately remunerated.

The MoU is said to beyet another milestone in the administration of Prof. Nwajiuba, in an apparent drive to make FUNAI “an institution that grooms and turns out responsible citizens and solution providers as graduates”.

GM cotton: Burkina Faso settles dispute with Monsanto

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GM cotton: Burkina Faso settles dispute with Monsanto

Burkina Faso’s cotton companies and growers seem to have settled their long dispute with Monsanto Seed Company over their revenue losses allegedly caused by the introduction of genetically modified (GM) cotton.

GM-Cotton
The GM Bt Cotton failed in Burkina Faso, with farmers making claims from Monsanto

Among the world’s poorest countries, Burkina Faso, which began the nationwide introduction of cotton containing Monsanto’s Bollgard II trait in 2008 to fight against pests, is Africa’s top cotton producer.

However, a decline in quality of cotton, which lowered the crop’s value on the global market, was blamed on Monsanto by the country’s cotton companies and the national farmers union. They demanded $76.5 million in compensation from Monsanto and withheld nearly $24 million in royalties.

A report by Reuters states that “the agreement, which includes the dividing up of royalties withheld by Monsanto’s Burkina Faso partners, brings to an end a collaboration that had at one time promised to offer the company a foothold in Africa.”

The managing director of SOFITEX, Wilfried Yameogo, stated that his company agreed to accept 25 percent of royalties as part of the agreement reached with Monsanto, even as Monsanto would not confirm the settlement amount and said the agreement terms were confidential.

The Creve Coeur-based seed giant has previously acknowledged changes in cotton fiber length, but said a fiber quality is influenced by both environmental conditions and genetic background.

Burkina Faso did not renew its contract with Monsanto last year and this season returned to its conventional cotton strain.

Monsanto has since exited its cotton business in Burkina Faso, citing difficulties securing a “reasonable return” on its investment, spokeswoman Christi Dixon said.

By Abdallah el-Kurebe

Dalung reads riot act over Federations’ elections

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Dalung reads riot act over Federations’ elections

Minster of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, wants Sports Federations in the country to strive towards changes in their votes ahead of the forthcoming Federation elections.

Solomon-Dalung
Solomon Dalung

Dalung said that the ministry would only work with board members elected from acceptable congresses.

The minister, who was in Uyo, capital of Akwa Ibom State for the state’s Youth Sports Festival, advised individuals aspiring for positions in Sports Federations to be democratic as the elections draws near.

“There is going to be a level playing ground. Everybody should go there and demonstrate who he is and the support he has to lead the federations,” Dalung said.

The guidelines for the Federations elections billed to hold in April would be released early in the month.

Meanwhile, the Director of Grassroots Sports Development in the Minister of Sports, Dr Ademola Are, said the future of athletes discovered from the National Youth Games is bright.

Are gave the assurance on the backdrop of the fact that there are international tournaments to showcase such talents.

He said the talents discovered from last year’s games would represent Nigeria in the Youth Olympics this year.

The last Youth Games was held in Ilorin, Kwara State last August.

By Felix Simire

Rivers United suspends manager, Eguma, for lateness

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Rivers United suspends manager, Eguma, for lateness

For failing to arrive at match venue on time, the Technical Manager of Rivers United, Stanley Eguma, has received a one-match ban.

Stanley-Eguma
Stanley Eguma

In a letter signed by the management of the team, Eguma’s suspension is coming after he was reported to have arrived at Wednesday’s match venue 18 minutes into the game between Rivers United and Plateau United, which ended goalless.

Eguma will not be part of the team when Rivers United files out against Gombe United at the weekend.

Meanwhile, results of the Week 16 mid-week matches played at various venues across the country have seen MFM returning to the top spot of the Nigeria Professional Football League table with a 2-1 victory over Abia Warriors of Umuahia at the Agege Stadium.

The Lagos side now has 30 points ahead of Plateau United, who held Rivers United to a goalless draw in Port Harcourt.

El-Kanemi Warriors of Maiduguri is in third position after losing 0-1 away to Shooting Stars of Ibadan, while at the Sani Abacha Stadium in Kano it ended 1-1 between Pillars and Nasarawa United.

Wikki Tourist of Bauchi stayed at home to tame Enyimba of Aba 1-0. Struggling champions Rangers at home failed to break newly-promoted Remo Stars, as encounter ended 1-1.

Sunshine Stars of Akure defeated Katsina United 2-0, as the game between Gombe United and ABS ended 1-1 in Ilorin.

FC ifeanyi Mbah of Nnewi edged visiting Niger Tornadoes of Minna 1-0.

By Felix Simire

Why Trump’s climate reversal action wasn’t a surprise

Michael Simire
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Why Trump’s climate reversal action wasn’t a surprise

President Donald Trump’s action on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 to cancel the Clean Power Plan wasn’t a surprise. It had been promised for weeks, part of Trump’s effort to roll back former President Barack Obama’s efforts aimed at combating climate change.

coal-power-station
Fossil fuel pollution from a coal power station: President Donald Trump says his administration is putting an end to the war on coal

Still, it marks a major milestone in the national and international debate. The former mandate for electricity providers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t mesh with the new president’s vision for the nation’s energy future.

“My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” Trump said on Tuesday. “I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy to reverse government intrusions and to cancel job killing regulations.”

While previous environmental policy shifts from Trump have sent shock waves west to California, this one hardly registered for the Golden State.

As Chris Megerian explains, California is already on its own path toward historic milestones on renewable energy – a direction largely unaffected by Trump’s action.

Still, that didn’t stop the state’s leaders from lashing out at the decision, an about-face that raises questions about the future of U.S. commitment to the international climate agreement forged in Paris in late 2015.

The lack of immediate impact in California from Trump’s decision didn’t stop the state’s chief champion for the cause from taking aim at the president.

“It defies science itself,” Governor Jerry Brown said on Tuesday. “Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump’s mind, but nowhere else.”

Brown teamed up with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to pledge that California and New York would continue working to slash emissions. Both states have set ambitious targets for fighting global warming.

Meanwhile, Trump could face a legal blowback from California and its allies around the country. In a joint statement on Tuesday, Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra and his counterparts from other states said they were willing to fight Trump in court.

By John Myers, Los Angeles Times

Waterfronts demolition: Lagos withdraws from court-ordered mediation process

Michael Simire
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Waterfronts demolition: Lagos withdraws from court-ordered mediation process

The Nigerian Slum/Informal Settlement Federation (Federation) – comprising dozens of waterfront communities and scores of other informal settlements across Lagos – on Wednesday, March 29, 2017 expressed regret at the decision of the Lagos State Government to withdraw from the court-ordered mediation process that had presented a small glimmer hope of finding a win-win alternative solution to the threat of forced eviction hanging over 300,000 Lagosians living in waterfront communities across the state.

makoko-lagos
Makoko, a waterfront slum community in Lagos.

In late October 2016, after trying to engage the Lagos State Government unsuccessfully, 15 waterfront communities approached the Lagos State High Court to seek protection of their fundamental rights against the threat of eviction issued by the Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode.

A breakthrough came when, on January 26 2017, Honourable Justice S.A. Onigbanjo of the Lagos State High Court issued a landmark ruling, finding that demolitions on short notice without providing alternative shelter for persons evicted constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Section 34 of the 1999 Constitution, and ordered the parties to attempt mediation through the Lagos State Multi-Door Court House.

“We came to mediation process in good faith and put forward workable proposals regarding alternatives to demolition and forced eviction that could address the various excuses the State Government has tried to use to justify its intention to demolish our homes. Even after the state government went back to continue demolishing one of our communities, Otodo Gbame, forcibly evicting 4,700 residents in violation of a court order, we still came back to the roundtable on 29 March 2017 to at least hear what the state government had to say,” the Federation declared in a statement made available to EnviroNews on Wednesday.

The group added: “It was therefore a great shock to us that the state government decided to unilaterally withdraw from the mediation process and give up on the possibility of any resolution through dialogue. This step is also at extreme odds with the public statement made by the Lagos State Commissioner of Information on 22 March 2017 affirming the government’s ‘unflinching commitment to the development of Lagos State as an ideal megacity that is sensitive to the needs of the public as well as open and continuous dialogue’.

“Waterfront communities across Lagos are home to hundreds of thousands of hard-working, law-abiding citizens. This is where we live and where many of us work. Our businesses – from fishing to sand dealing – and our labour add to the Lagos economy. We are the engine of the Lagos economy and we have a right to the city. We do not have any other home.

“Since last year, the government has tried to offer so many excuses for wanting to destroy our homes and take over the waterfronts. We have proffered alternative ways of resolving each of these concerns, but it seems the Government is not ready to listen nor is it really dedicated to trying to find lasting, citizen-centered solutions to complex urban problems.

“Evictions do not make Lagos safer. Instead, they push the urban poor into deeper poverty through homelessness and loss of livelihoods. Worsened poverty only exacerbates crime. Evictions are not the answer. We need to partner to find lasting solutions to insecurity.

“Evictions will not make Lagos the “ideal megacity” it aspires to be. Lagos is a megacity by virtue of its population. We, the urban poor, are part of that population. It seems that Lagos wants we, the urban poor, to simply disappear. We cannot and will not disappear.

“But, if we had support and partnership from our government such as can be seen in other megacities in the global south, we could develop our communities through in situ slum upgrading and social housing. Indeed, Federation is building community-financed environmentally sustainable toilet solutions to improve sanitation and public health in our communities. Federation is developing a social housing scheme and planning towardin situ slum upgrading. We are learning from the successes of peers in cities around the world.

“Why should the government we elected into power turn its back on dialogue with us when we are still at the table? When we came to the table despite the massive impunity and violation of our members’ human rights perpetrated by the state government with the callous demolitions and violent attacks on Otodo Gbame on 9-10 November, displacing 30,000 people, and on 17, 21, 22 and 26 March 2017, displacing another 4,700?

“Instead of dialoguing with us to find win-win solutions, this government wants to drive the poor from the city by demolishing our homes, taking over our lands, destroying our livelihoods and, very soon, getting rid of our principal means of transportation.”

‎GMOs: Senegal supports adoption of agric biotech

Michael Simire
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‎GMOs: Senegal supports adoption of agric biotech

President Macky Sall of Senegal has thrown his weight behind the adoption of agricultural biotechnology in the country.

Macky-Sall
Macky Sall, President of Senegal

He made the declaration during the 2017 Annual Session of the Senegal National Scientific and Technical Academy (ANSTS‎) on the situation, implications and perspectives of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in the country.

At a session chaired by him, President Sall made it clear that he supported the implementation of biotechnology in Senegal provided necessary measures to minimise risks were taken.

“I must say very clearly that I am for the use of GMOs based on the precautions taken and based on a dynamic regulation, otherwise we would be against progress. We must decide and step forward. We need to move forward because we have food security imperatives.

“This is a society choice that engages the future of our nation. It must be taken with full knowledge of the facts, while respecting the interests of present and future generations.‎ Our new strategy for economic and social development is based on the science and technology sector, which is essential for the progress and well-being of the people. That is why I want to seek the ‘informed opinion of the Academy’ on the issue of GMOs which remains an important development issue.

“It is undeniable that GMOs can help meet current challenges, such as food insecurity, public health issues, natural resource conservation and climate change,” he stressed.

The President agreed that it was because biotechnology was an opportunity to effectively respond to these challenges that he agreed with ANSTS that “the precautionary principle must not lead to inertia. There is also a need to amend the 2011 law regulating biosafety.”

Sall instructed the Minister of Environment and other stakeholding government institutions to help speed the process of revising the biosafety law, which was currently unworkable.

“We need serious thought to develop a strategy to maximise the use of GMOs, while mitigating the risks associated with them. ‎That is why it is necessary to strengthen the National Biosafety Authority and to have an appropriate legal system combined with an efficient information system based on objective scientific values to assess the cost/benefit/risks ratio,” he further stressed.

Vice-Chair of the Academy, Ms. Yaye Kene Gassama, presented the findings of a study carried out by the institution on the opportunities and risks for adopting biotechnology in Senegal.

According to her, “It is scientifically proven by notable international institutions that GMOs are safe food and feed,” adding however that precautious measures needed to be taken to minimise potential environmental risks.

On socio-economic concerns, Gassama said that “based on the study, 68% of the population in the country support the adoption of GMOs, 21% are against and 11% had no expressed opinion.”

The Session was an opportunity for the Regional Office of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in Dakar to access up-to-date information on the status of biotechnology and scientific research in the country as well as meet members of the scientific community and decision makers of the country.

For the African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE), which has been supporting Senegal, it was an achievement.

“The academic session has paved the way for a quick revision of the restrictive biosafety law in the country and for a smooth adoption of biotechnology in the country for several years. The necessary resources should be allocated to facilitate the process and especially to support ANB with adequate equipment and capacity building.

By Abdallah el-Kurebe

India bans sale of inefficient, highly polluting vehicles

Michael Simire
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India bans sale of inefficient, highly polluting vehicles

The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday, March 29, 2017 banned the sale and registration of Bharat Stage (BS)-III emission norm-complaint vehicles from Saturday, April 1, saying the health of millions was more important than commercial interests.

The Supreme Court’s Wednesday order affecting BS-III vehicles came on a plea by the Environment Pollution Control Authority in India. Photo credit: AP File Photo/Industan Times

The decision could deal a Rs 12,000-crore blow to auto manufactures as about 820,000 vehicles, most of them two-wheelers, are lying unsold.

India will switch to the more efficient and stringent BS-IV norms, already in place in some parts of the country, including Delhi, from April 1.

“The number of such vehicles may be small compared to the overall number of vehicles in the country but the health of the people is far, far more important than the commercial interests of the manufacturers,” a bench of justice Madan B Lokur and justice Deepak Gupta said, rejecting the plea of automobile firms for time to dispose of BS-III vehicles.

The court, which has passed several orders to check pollution, said the manufacturers were aware that from April 1 they would be required to manufacture only BS-IV vehicles but they failed to take sufficient pro-active steps.

The ruling came on a plea by the environment pollution control authority (Epca), which petitioned the court that only BS-IV vehicles should be sold in the market. Most automobile companies except Bajaj opposed the plea.

The objective behind a cleaner fuel technology would not be achieved if older vehicles continue to flood the market, said Epca, a Supreme-court appointed autonomous body that advises government on ecological issues.

The court also rejected the Centre’s argument that the BS-IV rollout only banned manufacturing and not the sale of the BS-III vehicles.

The biggest difference between the two is the emission of carbon particulate matter, a major air pollutant. While BS-III vehicles emit 2.30gm of carbon monoxide per kg of fuel, the emission drops to 1gm per kg in BS-IV vehicles.

Transition to BS-IV could lead to a substantial drop in particulate matter emissions. For instance, new trucks could see an 80% drop in emissions and cars by 50%, Epca told the court.

Similarly, hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions – a big concern for two-wheelers – could drop between 41 and 80%, depending on the engine size, it said.

The norms have to be followed by auto makers as well as fuel companies. The solicitor general told the court that BS-IV fuel would be available across India from April 1.

Industry would abide by the order, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) president Vinod K Dasari said.

The industry had been ready with BS-IV manufacturing since 2010 but the sale of these vehicles was not possible nationwide due to lack of BS-IV fuel, Dasari said.

India has set a deadline of 2020 to switch to BS-VI norms, giving a miss to stage V. But the leap, which will include technology upgrade, will make vehicles pricier – petrol cars by Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 and diesel ones could cost up to Rs 1 lakh more.

Courtesy: Industan Times

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