Reposted from Free Speech Radio News

Year: 2011
Length: 5:30 minutes (5.03 MB)
Format: MP3 Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)

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Nations are gathering in Durban, South Africa for the next round of climate change talks. Developing nations and those most vulnerable to climate change are calling for strong commitments of emissions reduction and funding from the world’s richer nations. Past meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun have failed to create a lasting accord to confront climate change and scientists warn that time is running out.

A new report from the UN’s agency of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predicts extreme weather will increase in the coming decades, including heavy rainfall and hurricanes, heat waves and droughts.

Today, we go to Nigeria, where climate change is already having an effect on the livelihoods of women in the traditional occupations of farming and fishing.
Sam Olukoya reports from Lagos.

Full transcript:

LEDE: The United Nations Climate Change Conference is due to start in Durban, South Africa, at the end of this month. The conference is aimed at working out an international agreement on limiting emissions of greenhouse gases which are responsible for climate change. Women in low income African societies are among those feeling the worst impacts of climate change. In particular, poverty is growing among African women whose traditional occupation is farming and fishing as changing weather patterns affect their source of livelihood. Sam Olukoya reports from Lagos.

DISC: Actuality of ocean waves

SAM: Ocean waves are eroding Nigeria’s Atlantic coastline and the mostly poor residents of Nigeria’s coastal communities are living with the effects. Scientists say climate change is responsible for the rising sea levels.  Ibeno, a large community in South Eastern Nigeria made up of several small islands is one of the worst hit areas. Entire islands have been submerged, displacing thousands of their inhabitants. Many of those displaced – especially women – say they have become poorer because the displacement makes it difficult for them to continue fishing in a sustainable manner. Amuwa Tade is one of the displaced women.

DISC:  (speaks in Yoruba) Needs voice over

Translation: The Ocean seriously affected us. All the children in school have returned home. They have sent them away from school, because there is no money for their school fees. See the way I am dressed, see the shoes I am wearing. I have not eaten since morning. I am living on my past glory. This is how we have been affected.

DISC: Actuality of a woman clearing weeds.

SAM: A woman clears weeds on her farm in Kano Northern Nigeria. Like their counterparts who make a livelihood from fishing, African women who farm are also facing problems caused by climate change. In Northern Nigeria AND BORDERING REGIONS, declining rainfall and desert encroachment which are both attributed to climate change have seriously affected women farmers.

The West African State of Niger has also been affected.  Aminatou Daouda Hainikoye a lawyer from the country says available water for farming has been declining over the years. Hainikoye, who is a legal advocate for small farmers, says women are at a disadvantage in securing access to the shrinking supply of water for agricultural use.

DISC: Speaks in Hausa (Needs voice over)

Translation: The lands closest to the rivers are the most expensive.  The prices of such lands have been on the increase, because they contain the water that can be used for farming. Now where will poor women get the money to purchase expensive lands? We did a study and we found out that men are the owners of all the lands close to the rivers.

SAM: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says women are the majority of farmers in many developing countries like those of Africa. Experts say the effect of climate change on Africa’s food security would negatively affect the continent’s women farmers because of their role in agriculture. Desmond Majekodunmi is an environmentalist with the Lagos based Nigerian Conservation Foundation.

DISC: You have food scarcity because of the inclement weather, crops would no longer grow as well as they should because crops are used to certain timing schedules of rain and water and now those schedules are being disrupted and this would definitely affect food security and women are on the front line of food procurement and food marketing so it is affecting our women folks

SAM: Industrialized nations are mainly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, but poor countries like those in Africa are the ones bearing the brunt of climate change. Developed nations had in the last years made several promises including the provision of 30 billion dollars between 2010 and 2012, to enable developing nations to adapt to climate change. A report by the International Institute for Environment and Development released ahead of the climate change conference in Durban says the wealthy nations are not fulfilling their promise. The London based international research organization says the implication of this is that poor countries will find it harder to adapt to climate change caused by the actions of others. Sam Olukoya FSRN, Lagos.

image info: photo by go_greener_oz on Flickr, creative commons attribution
http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-3047060508

WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a lawsuit accusing Royal Dutch Shell of human rights abuses, a case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

The plaintiffs — relatives of seven Nigerians killed by the country’s former military regime — sued the Anglo-Dutch energy giant and other firms for apparently enlisting the government to suppress resistance to oil exploration in the Niger Delta in the 1990s.

The case will assess the potential liability of corporations — including multinationals with a US presence — under the Alien Tort Statute, a US law dating back to 1789 which scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The 12 Nigerian plaintiffs charge Shell with “complicity in human rights violations committed against them in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta in Nigeria between 1992 and 1995,” according to their complaint put before the court.

“These violations included torture, extra-judicial executions and crimes against humanity.”

It said Shell “aided and abetted the Nigerian government in committing human rights abuses,” and added: “For the victims of human rights violations such cases often provide the only opportunity to obtain any remedy for their suffering.”

Full article

image credit: Sweet Crude

Read the Reuters piece on the same subject

By Ian Gary, August 18th, 2011

Reposted from Oxfam America

Last year, when Oxfam and allies were celebrating the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act and the provision on oil and mining payment  transparency, we were largely focused on the impact that these new disclosures would have on resource-rich developing countries. It turns out, though, that there could be a big financial benefit for the US Treasury and a country struggling with record deficits.

Few realize that the oil and mining payment disclosure provision – section 1504 or the “Cardin-Lugar” provision – requires reporting by companies in every country of operation, including reporting of payments in the US from production on Federal lands and offshore oil and gas production on the Outer Continental Shelf. The US Interior Department has just told the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that implementation of this provision could be “very useful” in its work to collect oil and gas revenues inside the US.  The Office of Natural Resource Revenue (ONRR) – charged with collecting and disbursing more than $10 billion in oil and gas revenues each year – has written to the SEC to say that how the agency implements the provision could help them “ensure that energy companies are reporting correctly and paying every dollar due to the American taxpayer.”

Full article

Photo caption: President Obama Signs the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Photo by Leader Nancy Pelosi, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

Fresh oil spill seen near Shell pipeline in Nigeria’s restive southern oil delta

By Associated Press, Published: August 21
Reposted from The Washington Post

LAGOS, Nigeria — Community leaders in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta say a new oil spill has been seen near a Royal Dutch Shell PLC pipeline where a fire broke out earlier this week.

The oil sheen could be seen Sunday near the Okordia Rumuekepe trunkline in Bayelsa state, which is operated by Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary. The same trunkline saw a fire break out Friday.

Full article

image source:  guardian.co.uk

Reposted from Platform, August 17, 2011

Today, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) warned that Nigeria stands to lose billions of dollars in oil revenue over the coming years if the new oil law, the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is passed unamended.

“NEITI does not see the rationale for passing a bill that is designed to reduce government revenue from petroleum operations by a minimum of $3 billion annually through inappropriate and unfavourable adjustments to the fiscal provisions,” the agency said in a statement.

“Sadly, the House of Representatives Report establishes fiscal terms with a government share of oil revenues below internationally competitive levels and with a structure that will result in a rapid erosion of government petroleum revenues during the next 5 years.”

I should point out that Nigeria has lost billions to successive corrupt regimes. But that’s another blog post entirely.

Here’s some background on the PIB.

The PIB, presented to the National Assembly in 2008, is Nigeria’s attempt to re-structure its embattled oil industry, primarily to resolve long-standing funding issues and incorporate NNPC, the national oil company. However, the Bill has been subject to substantial mission creep, and could eventually affect a wide range of issues from fiscal terms, gas flaring to host community rights.

Full article

Read the joint position paper on the PIB from Social Action, ERA, and CISLAC and see the latest version of the PIB

UN says clean-up operation following two massive oil spills in the Niger Delta could benefit other African countries developing their oil reserves

By John Vidal
Reposted from  guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 August 2011

Ogoniland is one of the most oil-polluted places on earth but it could become a model for other countries wanting to clean up their environments or avoid making the same mistakes, the UN has said.

“This could be the world’s biggest oil contamination clean-up,” said Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the UN’s environment programme (UNEP) director, Achim Steiner. “It is up to the government of Nigeria what happens now, but [from talks with President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja this week] there appears to be a willingness to act,” he said while in London.

Preliminary cost estimates to decontaminate and restore the devastated ecology of the 1,000 sq km of land and water are nearly $1bn for the first five years, with much more money possibly needed over the full 30 years it will take to clean up the region, said UNEP chief scientist Joseph Alcamo in London.

But he said that if governments and oil companies were prepared to put up the money to act, it could provide work to train tens of thousands of Ogonis, leave the area “pristine” and help many other African countries that were on the point of commercially developing their oil reserves.

São Tomé, Ghana, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia all expect to produce oil in the next 10 years. “One in 10 barrels of oil in the world presently comes from Africa. It is very likely that oil production will increase on the continent. Countries can learn from this painful experience,” said Alcamo.

As well as immediate measures, such as warning Ogoni people if they are drinking from polluted wells and proposing that the oil companies rethink their clean-up procedures, the UN recommended that a global centre for excellence for environmental restoration be set up in Ogoniland.

Full article

image: UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland

By John Vidal

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Reposted from guardian.co.uk

Oil giant faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars following class action suit brought on behalf of communities in Bodo, Ogoniland

The impact of an oil spill near Ikarama in the Niger delta. Photograph: Amnesty International UK

Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up.

Experts who studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say they could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, when 10m gallons of oil destroyed the remote coastline.

Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt in Nigeria.

Papers seen by the Guardian show that following a class action suit in London over the past four months, the company has accepted responsibility for the 2008 double rupture of the Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though the community.

Ogoniland is a small region of the Niger delta which threw out Shell in 1994 for its pollution but then saw eight of its leaders, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed by the government.

The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills, which occurred within months of each other, in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel.

No attempt has been made to clean up the oil, which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland.

According to the communities in Bodo, in two years the company has only offered £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil. The offers were rejected as “insulting, provocative and beggarly” by the chiefs of Bodo, but later accepted on legal advice.

Shell’s acceptance of full liability for the spills follows a class action suit bought on behalf of communities by London law firm Leigh Day and Co, which represented the Ivory Coast community that suffered health damage following the dumping of toxic waste by a ship leased to multinational oil company Trafigura in 2006.

Many other impoverished communities in the delta are now expected to seek damages for oil pollution against Shell in the British courts. On average, there are three oil spills a day by Shell and other companies working in the delta. Shell consistently blames the spills on local youths who, they argue, sabotage their network of pipelines.

“The news that Shell has accepted liability in Britain will be greeted with joy in the delta. The British courts may now be inundated with legitimate complaints,” said Patrick Naagbartonm, coordinator for the Centre of Environment and Human Rights in Port Harcourt.

Full article

by David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund, and Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International – 08/02/11

Reposted from The Hill

Noticeably absent from this week’s debt ceiling deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans were the billions in taxpayer subsidies Congress continues to dole out to Big Oil, despite overwhelming support among Americans to end these handouts and in the face of staggering oil company profits released last week. When it came to taking on Big Oil, Congress and the Obama administration blinked.

Cutting Medicare for low and middle-income seniors? On the table. Closing loopholes for profitable, multinational corporations? Not under discussion.

The world’s largest oil companies announced another round of billion dollar profits last week. BP made $5.6 billion. Shell got even more, with over $8 billion. And ExxonMobil’s profits were $10.7 billion – an astounding $117 million a day from April to June. Gas prices are still at record levels and everyday taxpayers are footing the bill for billions of dollars in wasteful subsidies these companies get every year. Big Oil is making big profits—and the American people are paying the price. In fact, we’re paying it twice – once when we fill up our tanks and once when we pay taxes.

And while the 12-member “Super Congress” that will be appointed as part of the deal would technically put cuts to these subsidies on the table, you can bet oil companies will harness their significant political clout to keep their free money. With just 12 members to focus on—instead of 535–that pressure might be even stronger.

Why do these oil companies have so much sway? Just follow the money. A recent report from Public Campaign Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters found that 93.5 percent (159 of 170) of U.S. House members who received campaign contributions from the political action committees (PACs) of the largest oil companies in the first half of the year voted to maintain these wasteful subsidies. And the three top Republicans in the House – House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) – received a combined $96,000 in dirty energy money from these PACs in the first six months of the year alone.

Full article

photo – Washington DC – Capitol Hill: United States Capitol, by wallyg  Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license. 

Reprinted from Think Progress from the Center for American Progress

GOP Tax Giveaway of the Day: Big Oil Subsidies

Oil from a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline is coursing through the picturesque Yellowstone River as we speak, but Big Oil’s real gusher is located on Capitol Hill. Big Oil’s best friends in Congress make sure that year after year, billions of dollars in taxpayer funds flow into the coffers of the most profitable companies the world has ever known. In return, Big Oil spends millions each year to make sure that its friends keep their seats.

Here’s why it’s time to make the easiest of all choices — the one to end taxpayer-funded giveaways to Big Oil.

WHAT: Wasteful and unnecessary taxpayer subsidies for oil companies

HOW MUCH THEY WASTE: $77 BILLION from 2011-2021

WHO BENEFITS: Oil companies large and small, including the five largest oil companies who raked in $32 BILLION in profits in just the first quarter of 2011. ExxonMobil alone made nearly $11 billion in profits during the first quarter of this year.

WHO ELSE BENEFITS: Big Oil’s friends in Congress benefit from millions in campaign cash from the oil and gas industry. During the 2010 election cycle alone, the oil and gas industry pumped more than $21 MILLION into congressional campaign accounts — more than three-quarters of which went to Republicans. These same Republicans have voted repeatedly — and nearly unanimously — in favor of keeping oil subsidies over the past several months. In addition to lavish spending on direct campaign contributions, the oil and gas industry also spent a whopping $145 MILLION last year to lobby Congress.

DINNER TABLE FAST FACTS:

The average American pays an effective federal income tax rate of 20.4 percent, while ExxonMobil had an effective tax rate of just 17.6 percent over the past three years. That is of course far below the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent.
Even Big Oil CEOs themselves admit that they don’t need the subsidies. ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva told Congress: “With respect to oil and gas exploration and production, we do not need incentives.”

IN ONE SENTENCE: Instead of ending Medicare to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and huge corporations, we need to end the billions in taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil.

Full article

Former Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, photo: The Guardian Nigeria

DPR raises concern over depleting reserves

DESPITE efforts of the Federal Government   to check some cartels that are involved in oil theft, especially in the Niger Delta, their activities are costing the nation 300,000 barrels per day (bpd).

The government is losing this amount of the natural resource at a time that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has expressed the need to search for new oil deposits in order to boost depleting reserves.

The former Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, told The Guardian that government was aware of the situation and would ensure that those who were involved in the theft were brought to book.

He stated:  “Oil theft in the Niger Delta is a very serious matter.  The government has been combating them with military personnel.  The amount of oil they steal is about 300,000 bpd. This is not good at all for the economy.  These people are supported by big cartels of international agencies. They sell this oil cheaply. The government is doing all it can to put a stop to this huge lose. The government is interested in elimination them.”

In 2009, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) Limited disclosed that Nigeria lost about $1.5 billion yearly to crude oil theft.

“Criminal gangs continue to steal oil from our pipelines at an estimated rate of 100,000 barrels a day. Theft and illegal refining cause extensive environmental damage. Sabotage and theft together accounted for more than 80 per cent of the spill volume from SPDC facilities in 2010”, Chairman/Managing Director of SPDC, Mutiu Sunmonu said.

WikiLeaks said recently that a United States diplomatic cable quoting a Nigerian official showed that a member of a government panel on troubles in the nation’s Niger Delta implicated some top political leaders as being the biggest forces behind the theft.

It claimed that the theft also fueled arms sales to the restive region while causing environmental damage and cutting production in a nation crucial to U.S. oil supplies.

Full article