The November 2011 edition of AEFJN's Forum for Action is now online. It contains articles on the ethical responsibility of the Church on the climate issue, on the clean up of the Ogoniland oil spills, which will take decades, on the spread of Libyan arms in the Sahel, on the production of medicines in Africa and on the EU's attempt to force African countries to sign EPAs.
The national election campaign officially started the 28th October in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), exactly one month ahead of historic presidential and legislative elections, scheduled for November 28 2011. 41 humanitarian and human rights organizations, among them AEFJN, have expressed concern about the high political tension and deteriorating security situation. They have called upon all Congolese and international actors involved to take urgent measures to prevent electoral violence, better protect civilians and ensure credible, free and fair elections.BIOFUELS: EC doesn't meet the problem
On 10 June, the EC issued its Communication on sustainability criteria for agrofuels
(http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ%3AC%3A2010%3A160%3ASOM%3AEN%3AHTML)
Three
comments:
- Positive: plantations of palm oil are not recognized as "continuously forested areas." The industry lobby responded by publishing studies of negative impacts on the poor that anti palm oil campaigns should have brought about.
- Negative: The factor of indirect land use change (ILUC) is not taken into account. The methodology for calculating the carbon emissions of biofuels throughout their life cycle is described as "imperfect and incomplete" by the Greens and several environmental NGOs.
- Negative: the units of biofuel production installations in operations on 23 January 2008 are exempted of GHG emission threshold.
Reminder: On March 8, a
coalition of environmental organizations had sued the EC for failing to
disclose several studies on the impact of ILUC. The case was handled by
the General Court of the EU, second highest court of appeal in EU
(formerly known as the Court of First Instance). The Commission must
respond by July 4. (http://www.transportenvironment.org )