An MP from Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, has spoken out strongly in favour of coal extraction regardless of any environmental damage it may cause. The senior leader also criticised those protesting coal extraction, especially...
African nations led by Somalia, Mauritania and Sudan have the most precarious water supplies in the world while Iceland has the best, according to a survey that aims to alert companies to investment risks. The ranking, compiled by British-based risk consultancy...
A potentially highly significant “development” has just been announced in China. At first sight, it relates only to changes in methods of refining nickel, primarily in the manufacture of stainless steel. But, if verified, the process has profound (and...
Despite recent attempts to restyle itself as a green institution, the World Bank’s energy lending suggests that it remains wedded to fossil fuels. Meanwhile, independent evaluators and civil society groups have raised serious concerns about the developmental...
Barrick is a Canadian company but London-based AXA Investment Managers UK Ltd had over $10 million invested in the company in 2007, BlackRock Commodities Income Trust plc has invested in the company, and the company also has connections with Millhouse Capital,...
BP’s Dumb Investors George Monbiot says that the companies now threatening to sue BP have only themselves to blame. His argument has implications for those who continue to invest in other extractives companies, including mining companies, about whose activities they...
Offshore Drilling Backlash May Boost Shale, Oil Sands The massive Gulf oil spill may hasten the development of shale gas and oil sands, North America’s two most important emerging energy sources. The risk of pursuing deepwater oil reserves dwarfs the...
Open-pit metal mining has been banned in the Argentinian province of Chubut since April 2003. Law 5001, passed by provincial legislative power following the Esquel referendum, resulting in the cancellation of Meridian Gold’s proposed gold mine. Nonetheless,...
Five years ago, a World Bank study entitled “Where is the Wealth of Nations?” raised a basic question: have most models, previously marshalled to assess the value of mineral wealth, been fatally flawed because they didn’t account for irreversible...
For generations, the Kondh of Orissa, in India, have lived on a fertile mountain which they revere as a god. But since the arrival in 2008 of a British aluminium refinery, their land has been poisoned and the villagers imprisoned. Now, the tribes people are making...
Felix Padel and Samarendra Das’s recent book Out of this Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel, which essentially deals with the impact of bauxite mining and the manufacture of aluminium on the tribals of Orissa, has been published at a time when the...
A major union expects others to join its campaign to “starve” Australia’s uranium industry of workers. The Electrical Trades Union has banned its members from working on uranium mines, nuclear power stations or any other part of the nuclear fuel...
