Good News for the Biosphere at-a-Glance!
EU Lawmakers Agree to Ban Generic Green Product Claims Like “Climate Neutral”
Some environmental claims are not reliable, and consumer trust in them is extremely low. Consumers can be misled, and companies can give a false impression of their environmental impacts or benefits - a practice known as greenwashing. With a proposed new law on green claims, the EU is taking action to address greenwashing, and protect consumers and the environment. Ensuring that environmental labels and claims are credible and trustworthy will allow consumers to make better informed purchasing decisions. It will also boost the competitiveness of businesses who are striving to increase the environmental sustainability of their products and activities. Read the proposed Directive here.
UN Seeks Intervention with World’s Largest Oil Company on its Climate Change Impacts
A United Nations human rights body wants Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, to respond to claims that its activities and plans are "adversely impacting ... human rights in the context of climate change. The letter sent to Aramco by the UN states “The intervention may relate to a human rights violation that has already occurred, is ongoing, or which has a high risk of occurring.” The letter goes on to say “In this connection, we would like to bring to the attention of Saudi Aramco information we have received concerning its’s business activities which appear to be contrary to the goals, obligations and commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change and which are adversely impacting the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, including through Saudi Aramco’s maintained crude oil production, exploration for further oil and gas reserves, expansion into fossil fuel gas, and misrepresentation of information.” Read full letter here
In a Historic Vote, Ecuadorians Reject Oil Extraction in Parts of Amazon
Ecuadorians voted on August 17th to ban oil drilling in a part of the Amazon rainforest that's considered one of the most biodiverse regions in the world and is home to some of the last Indigenous peoples living in isolation. The results of the historic referendum will require Ecuador's national oil company, Petroecuador, to close all of its active oil wells and remove all infrastructure from a portion of Yasuní National Park within a year. Yasuní, located along the eastern portion of Ecuador's border with Peru, was designated a UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) biosphere reserve site in 1989, it holds hundreds of thousands of distinct species that inhabit the 2.5 million-acre area, including at least three that have not been found anywhere else around the world. YASunidos, an Ecuadorian environmental collective that has been working to end oil drilling in the park for around a decade, said the vote marked the first time a country decided "to defend life and leave oil underground." Read more here.
Leading Organizations are Documenting Their Biodiversity Net Losses or Gains
Tremendous advances in DNA technology have made it much easier for organizations to validate their progress on biodiversity goals. According to companies like Nature Metrics environmental DNA (eDNA) provides biodiversity data in unprecedented detail to help inform robust decision-making. Feeding into all stages of the mitigation hierarchy, this helps track progress towards goals such as Net Positive Impact or No Net Loss of biodiversity and ensure the best outcomes for nature. Water, soil and air samples can be collected by non-specialist on-site personnel to enable cost-efficient year-round monitoring.
Our Biosphere - Is defined as that part of the Earth in which living organisms exist (the entire zone of life). As such, it is viewed as all the places that support life and includes the overlapping zones of the atmosphere, the upper part of the geosphere, and all of the hydrosphere. Or more simply; any place on Earth where life can exist. Not protecting our Biosphere is the root cause for most of the critical environmental, social and economic disasters we face today in the Anthropocene Era.
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