The 2025 Interconnected Disaster Risks report shifts focus from diagnosing problems to mapping out solutions. It establishes that many of today’s solutions are surface-level fixes, and that to create lasting change, we need to question the societal structures and mindsets that perpetuate these challenges. The report offers a more holistic …
Protests are mounting in Germany over a pipeline being built in Ecuador. At a recent summit in Sassenberg, Germany, about 40 non-governmental organisations and a number of German politicians vowed to step up the campaign against the Ecuador Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (Oleoducto Crudos Pesados or ocp) pointing out its …
strong winds and rain hampered the cleanup of an oil spill from a tanker off the Spanish coast. The tanker, laden with more than 70,000 tonnes of fuel oil, snapped into two and sank recently. The slick has blackened the coastline of Galicia, thrown 1,000 Spanish fisherfolk out of work …
The post-war boom had brought gas-guzzling vehicles, expanding highways and mushrooming suburbs in the industrialised countries, especially the US. This boom was fuelled by oil - the industrialised economies depended almost entirely on intensive use of fossil fuels. The world learned about its dependence on oil in 1973. The Yom …
The Caspian region has possibly the third largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world (after the Persian Gulf and western Siberia), estimated to be up to 15 per cent of the total reserves of the world. Hardly any of this potential has been tapped as yet, and it …
India's prominence in the energy market is that it is the world's sixth largest energy consumer - and yet woefully short of energy sources. It has large coal reserves but the worrisome part is petroleum, which accounts for about 30 per cent of the total energy. India produces only 30 …
"One of the ironies at the turn of the century is that, in an age when the pace of technological change is almost overwhelming, the world will remain dependent, out to the year 2020 at least, essentially on the same sources of energy - oil, natural gas, coal - that …
The US President George W Bush is raring to launch an attack on Iraq. Whether it has weapons of mass destruction or not, Iraq certainly has the world's second largest reserves of petroleum after Saudi Arabia. Thanks to UN sanctions, it produces a mere fraction of its potential. The US, …
"Not since the rise of the railroads more than a century ago has a single industry [energy] placed so many foot soldiers at the top of a new administration." - Newsweek, May 14, 2001 George W Bush took over as president of the US on January 20, 2001. Within two …
controversy about the viability of using carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery was once again in the forefront recently with the starting of a Canadian project's new phase in which around 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be injected into a reservoir located in Rejina for recovering oil. With …
Under siege • 38 per cent of Africa's coastal ecosystems are threatened by development-related activities. Population densities reach 500-1,000 inhabitants per square km along the Nile delta • Almost 25 per cent of Canada's and about 55 per cent of the USpopulations live in coastal areas. The US coastal population …
oil spills could mean far worse for the environment than they have been blamed for till date, shows a recent study conducted in the Galapagos Islands located off the coast of Ecuador. In January 2001 the tanker Jessica, belonging to Petrocomercial, an arm of the Ecuadorian state oil company, had …
Following the failure of the coastal states' meeting to reach a consensus on dividing energy-rich seabed, Iran made it clear that it would prevent any oil exploration by other countries in a sector of the Caspian Sea which it claims as its own. "The oil ministry will not allow anyone …
Despite its environmental impact, China has begun building a 4,200-kilometre gas pipeline costing us $18 billion. Its aim: boosting economic growth in the impoverished western provinces and delivering fuel to the booming eastern city of Shanghai. The pipeline's trial construction has already kicked off in fragile wetlands and on the …
Whales and dolphins could be dying because of noise pollution. Researchers from the Navy Marine Mammal Programme in San Diego, USA, claim that noise from the US navy sonar and explosives tests as well from tankers and oil exploration activities is causing mammals to dive deeper, thereby, increasing their chances …
In a move that will see the world's deepest oils drilled off the East African coast, the Kenyan government has signed an exploration treaty with a uk- based company. Although the move is likely to expand Kenya's fuel supply and get the government out of the mess caused by the …
A Pakistani court recently rejected a petition filed against a license awarded to Britain's Premier Oil for exploring gas in Kirthar National Park, the country's largest national park. "It is a bit of a blow, but not unexpected. We intend to appeal in the Supreme Court,' said Farhan Anwar of …
Poor management of Nigeria's environment is costing the country around us $5 billion a year in ruined land and lost forests, an ecology expert claims. Muhtari Aminu-Kano, executive director of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (ncf) said that much of the damage resulted from oil and gas extraction in the Niger …
A US federal judge rejected a request to extend protection to beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet. This ruling was given in response to a lawsuit filed by six environmental groups and an Alaska Native from the Cook Inlet region. They wanted the whale population listed as endangered because pollution …
