The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is preparing for a massive clean up operation of oil spills in the Niger Delta, including in Ogoni. UNEP’s Country Director, Turhan Saleh said the clean up work would be the most challenging task the organization has undertaken in recent years.
Pollution
Eighteen Years Ago…
On March 24, 1989 eleven million gallons of North Slope crude oil began pouring out of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker into the pristine waters of Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Hundreds of thousands of fish, seabirds, bald eagles, otters, seals and whales were maimed and killed. The native communities whose lives depended on those waters … Read More
Oil Giant “Knew Tanker Was a Risk”
The French oil company Total and 14 other defendants were accused yesterday of criminal responsibility for one of Europe’s most calamitous oil spills, the wreck of the Erika. Total is accused of agreeing to use the ship even though it failed to satisfy its own safety rules. The four-month trial – the most complex of … Read More
Sir John’s Toxic Legacy
We don’t want to overdo the concept of “irony” on the blog. But here are a couple to make you think. Here’s the first one: BP’s retiring CEO, Sir John Browne’s, is set to walk of with a retirement pot of $140 million. Not bad eh? We know he leaves behind chronic failures in BP … Read More
EU Bows to Car Lobby on Pollution Limits
No surprises here really. The European Commission has missed a vital chance to impose tough curbs on CO2 emissions from cars after fierce lobbying from the car lobby, especially German manufacturers. Instead the Commission will opt today for a blueprint on emission limits that avoids placing the maximum burden on car-makers.
Meanwhile Eighteen Years On…
Just as Exxon Mobil posted the largest annual profits by an American company of just under $40 billion, the dark side of oil was exposed again. Eighteen years on, a new study by US government scientists has found that crude oil is still polluting the Alaskan waters near where the Exxon Valdez ran aground.
Oil Leak Exposes Weaknesses in World Bank Pipeline
The World Bank-backed Chad-Cameroon pipeline, that brings oil from landlocked Chad along a 1,100km-pipeline to Cameroon, has run into trouble after springing a leak. Local Cameroonian NGOs, the Centre for Environment and Development (CED) and the Network for the Fight Against Hunger, have alleged that there was a delay in detecting the leak and the … Read More
Environmental Disaster Off Devon Coast
Thousands of blackened and oiled sea-birds have been recovered from the sea and coasts surrounding the stricken container ship, MSC Napoli, which is beached off the Devon coast in South West England. Some 200 tonnes of oil has formed a five-mile slick and local environmentalists are warning that the breeding population of the guillemot, which … Read More
BP: Report to Heavily Criticise Safety Performance
A scathing report will be released today that criticizes safety and management practices at BP’s American operations, after an investigation at a Texas refinery nearly two years ago which killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others. The report, by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State, will state: “BP has not always … Read More
Gates Foundation & Big Oil
The LA Times is running a great series on the underbelly on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation by looking at the Foundation’s investment portfolio. “In a contradiction between its grants and its endowment holdings”, the Times investigation found that “the foundation reaps vast financial gains every year from investments that contravene its good works”.