Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for March 29, 2025. №73

Dear friends and co-fighters!

Welcome to the next issue of Positive News.

Let you spread it among your friends and co-fighters in your countries and around the Earth.

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Sviatoslav Zabelin, SEU coordinator

Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for March 29, 2025. №73

Banner image:  The Pykhya-Kirvemaa Nature Reserve was established by the Decree of the Government of Estonia No. 137 dated September 5, 2007.  Since 2004, the reserve has been part of the Natura 2000 nature conservation network. The purpose of the reserve is to protect glacial landforms, swamps, lakes, biocenoses and rare species of flora and fauna. The area is 13,157.9 hectares. Due to the great contrasts of heights, this area is also called "Estonian Switzerland".

A new MIT-led study confirms that the Antarctic ozone layer is healing, as a direct result of global efforts to reduce ozone-depleting substances. Scientists including the MIT team have observed signs of ozone recovery in the past. But the new study is the first to show, with high statistical confidence, that this recovery is due primarily to the reduction of ozone-depleting substances, versus other influences such as natural weather variability or increased greenhouse gas emissions to the stratosphere. "There's been a lot of qualitative evidence showing that the Antarctic ozone hole is getting better. This is really the first study that has quantified confidence in the recovery of the ozone hole," says study author Susan Solomon, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Chemistry. "The conclusion is, with 95% confidence, it is recovering. Which is awesome. And it shows we can actually solve environmental problems." The new study appears in the journal Nature. Graduate student Peidong Wang from the Solomon group in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) is the lead author. His co-authors include Solomon and EAPS Research Scientist Kane Stone, along with collaborators from multiple other institutions. Read more

Efforts to stop the critically endangered African penguin from going extinct took a step forward on Tuesday after South African conservationists and fishing industry groups reached a legal settlement on no-fishing zones around six of the penguins’ major breeding colonies.

African penguins at the colony on Robben Island, near Cape Town. Photograph: Awie Badenhorst/Alamy

Sardine and anchovy fishing will not be allowed for 12 miles (20km) around the penguin colony off Cape Town on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and Bird Island, across the bay from Gqeberha, also known as Port Elizabeth. There will be more limited closures around four other colonies, according to a court order formalising the agreement. Conservationists and the fishing industry had been at loggerheads for years over how much commercial fishing contributed to the African penguin population’s precipitous decline and to what extent fishing restrictions would arrest the fall. Read more

The Constitutional Court of Ecuador has determined that coastal marine ecosystems have rights of nature, including the right to “integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes,” per Chapter 7, Articles 71 to 74 in the country’s constitution. This is not the first time that Ecuador has established legal rights for nature. In fact, Ecuador was the first country in the world to establish that nature held legal rights, Earth.org reported. In 2008, Ecuador added rights for Pacha Mama, an ancient goddess similar to the Mother Earth entity, in its constitution. 

The law included a series of articles establishing that nature has the right to restoration and that the government will take precautions and restrictions against people harming or destroying ecosystems, according to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.Read more

New Zealand has formally granted a mountain legal personhood for the first time, recognizing not only its importance to Māori tribes but also paving the way for its future environmental protection. The law, passed in January, notes that the mountain, located in Taranaki on New Zealand’s North Island, will be called by its Māori name Taranaki Maunga (maunga meaning mountain) instead of its colonial name Mount Egmont. Egmont National Park will be called Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki. The law also recognizes Taranaki Maunga and the surrounding peaks as a legal person named “Te Kāhui Tupua,” with “all the rights, powers, duties, responsibilities, and liabilities of a legal person.” Read more

Greenpeace and Uplift challenge against approval of Rosebank oil field north west of Shetland and the Jackdaw gas field off Aberdeen upheld. A judge has upheld a legal challenge by environmental campaigners against the decision to grant consent to two new oil and gas fields in the North Sea. Greenpeace and Uplift brought the challenge at the Court of Session in Edinburgh over decisions to give approval to the Rosebank oil field north west of Shetland and the Jackdaw gas field off Aberdeen. They argued the UK Government and North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) had acted unlawfully when granting consent to the projects, as environmental impact assessments did not take into account downstream emissions resulting from the burning of the extracted fuels. Read more

The net zero sector is growing three times faster than the overall UK economy, analysis has found, providing high-wage jobs across the country while cutting climate-heating emissions and increasing energy security. The net zero economy grew by 10% in 2024 and generated £83bn in gross value added (GVA), a measure of how much value companies add through the goods and services they produce. The analysis, by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), found that 22,000 net zero businesses, from renewable energy to green finance, employ almost a million people in full-time jobs. The average annual wage in the businesses – £43,000 – was also £5,600 higher than the national average. The analysis showed economic growth and climate action go together, said the report’s authors, and improve lives and livelihoods. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was criticised in January for suggesting economic growth was more important than net zero, but said more recently: “There is no tradeoff between economic growth and net zero. Quite the opposite. Net zero is the industrial opportunity of the 21st century.” Read more

Clean Industrial Deal. A plan for EU competitiveness and decarbonisation.  Faced with high energy costs and fierce global competition, European industries need urgent support. The Clean Industrial Deal outlines concrete actions to turn decarbonisation into a driver of growth for European industries. This includes lowering energy prices, creating quality jobs and the right conditions for companies to thrive. The Deal presents measures to boost every stage of production, with a focus on:  energy-intensive industries such as steel, metals, and chemicals, that urgently need support to decarbonise, switch to clean energy, and tackle high costs, unfair global competition, and complex regulations; the clean-tech sector which is at the heart of future competitiveness and necessary for industrial transformation, circularity, and decarbonisation. Read more

Positive, hopeful, lovely places’: how Britain’s repair shops are cutting waste and giving devices a new lease of life. Boom in fixing rather than throwing away items creates jobs and cuts waste, emissions and costs. The Fixing Factory in Camden is one of a range of repair options springing up around the UK – from repair shops to pop-up cafes or repair hubs – that is trying to meet the growing demand for fixing rather than throwing away broken possessions. Advocates say the trend has several upsides – from cutting household costs to reducing waste, tackling emissions and creating jobs. Fiona Dear from the Restart Project, one of two groups behind the Fixing Factory in Camden, says: “There is so much resource that goes into making these electrical products that for some, like laptops and phones, up to 80% of their lifetime emissions come before they even get into the customers’ hands. So if you don’t keep them going for as long as possible we are just wasting all those resources.” Read more

People in London have been breathing significantly cleaner air since the expansion of the ultra low emission zone (Ulez), a study has found. Levels of deadly pollutants that are linked to a wide range of health problems – from cancer to impaired lung development, heart attacks to premature births – have dropped, with some of the biggest improvements coming in the capital’s most deprived areas. Sadiq Khan had faced severe opposition to the 2023 expansion of Ulez to outer London boroughs. But on Friday as the report was published, the mayor of London said the scheme had driven down pollution, taken old polluting cars off the roads and brought cleaner air to millions more people. Read more

A jury in Georgia, USA has ordered Monsanto parent Bayer to pay nearly $2.1 billion in damages to a man who says the company’s Roundup weed killer caused his cancer, according to attorneys representing the plaintiff. The verdict marks the latest in a long-running series of court battles Monsanto has faced over its Roundup herbicide. The agrochemical giant says it will appeal the verdict, reached in a Georgia courtroom late Friday, in efforts to overturn the decision. The penalties awarded include $65 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages, law firms Arnold & Itkin LLP and Kline & Specter PC said in a statement. That marks one of the largest verdicts reached in a Roundup-related case to date. Plaintiff John Barnes filed his lawsuit against Monsanto in 2021, seeking damages related to his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Arnold & Itkin attorney Kyle Findley, the lead trial lawyer on the case, said the verdict will help put his client in a better position to get the treatment he needs going forward. Read more

According to the Global Energy Review 2025 of the International Energy Agency, last year the growth of renewable energy capacity on a global scale increased by 25% and amounted to approximately 700 gigawatts (GW). This is the 22nd consecutive year in which there has been a record increase in renewable energy capacity, according to the IEA. Solar power grew by 550 GW (+30%) in 2024, bringing its global installed capacity to 2.2 terawatts (TW). The increase in wind power capacity in 2024 amounted to about 120 GW, which is approximately the same as in 2023. The IEA also reports that global energy consumption increased by 2.2% in 2024, well above the average annual growth rate of 1.3% seen in the period 2013-2023. At the same time, it is emphasized that even developed economies have returned to an increase in energy consumption. The agency notes that worldwide electricity consumption increased by 4.3% last year, or almost 1,100 TWh, driven by higher demand for cooling in record global temperatures, increased industrial electricity consumption, electrification of transportation, and the rapid expansion of data centers and artificial intelligence. Read more

Forest advocates, who launched a campaign to derail Vattenfall’s plans in 2019, declared victory. They note that burning wood pellets to make energy produces more carbon emissions per unit of energy than coal, despite industry claims that the technology is carbon neutral. Increasing scientific evidence shows that burning forest biomass for energy is a false climate solution that increases deforestation and biodiversity loss, while releasing significant carbon emissions at the smokestack — worsening climate change.  In a recent pivot, EU officials now seem more willing to admit the error of past carbon neutrality claims for wood pellet burning power plants, though they now say those emissions can be eliminated by installing Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BCCS) at the facilities — an untested, unready technology, scientists say. Read more

12.01 | В мире Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for January 12, 2025. №72

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