Volvo Leaves Mining Association Over Its Lobbying Against Climate Change Policies

Volvo said that the company would end its relationship with the National Mining Association after learning of the mining lobby group’s efforts against President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Speaking to journalists with Swedish public broadcasting station SVT at the Paris climate change talks yesterday, Volvo’s sustainability director called the National Mining Association’s lobbying efforts “quite crazy” and said, “We have chosen to go out, because you made us aware of this. It was an easy decision, when we see how they express themselves.” (Google translation of the SVT coverage and the original story in Swedish)
Volvo’s decision to leave the National Mining Association (NMA) was confirmed Thursday by Kina Wileke, Senior Vice President of Volvo Group in an email to Greenpeace: “I can confirm that Volvo is leaving NMA. We do not share the NMA's view on climate change nor their opinion about the politics on climate change driven by American policy. On the contrary, we support the U.S.”
In response, Greenpeace climate and energy campaign director Kelly Mitchell said:
“Volvo deserves praise for deciding to immediately end its relationship with the National Mining Association after discovering the mining lobby group’s attacks against President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Any company working to support global efforts to address climate change should reject the National Mining Association’s attacks on these critical policies that would reduce carbon pollution, as well as air and water pollution from mining and burning coal."
Another Swedish company, SKF, also said yesterday that it would leave NMA and has since been removed from NMA’s member list. Siemens recently distanced itself from NMA’s efforts against U.S. climate policy, but did not leave the lobby group and EnergyDesk reported today that PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young did not respond to requests for comment about their membership in NMA.
The National Mining Association, a U.S. coal and mining industry lobby group, sued the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to block the Clean Power Plan, a key component of U.S. commitments in Paris to reduce carbon pollution. NMA has publicly applauded Congressional efforts to block the Clean Power Plan and published a flawed report with misleading calculations about the costs and benefits of the Clean Power Plan. NMA President Hal Quinn urged state governors to reject the Clean Power Plan and NMA spokesman Luke Popovich stated that “The president is on the wrong side of history,” in response to President Obama's efforts to restrict financing for overseas coal plants.
NMA has also fought against the Interior Department's Stream Protection Rule that would protect communities from particularly destructive coal mining practices, as well as against proposals to begin reforming the U.S. federal coal mining program.
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- Redwoods are the world's tallest trees.
- Now scientists have discovered they are even bigger than we thought.
- Using laser technology they map the 80-meter giants.
- Trees are a key plank in the fight against climate change.
They are among the largest trees in the world, descendants of forests where dinosaurs roamed.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
<p><span>Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.</span></p><p>The results are striking: suggesting the trees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested.</a> Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a process known as reiteration</a>.</p>New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
<p>Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/carbon-sequestration-natural-forest-regrowth" target="_blank">growth could absorb billions of tons</a> of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.</p><p>"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank"> in the journal Nature</a>. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."</p><p>Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage</a>, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.</p>Carbon Capture Champions
<p><span>Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302584" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare</a><span>, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.</span></p><p>While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute</a>, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).</p>Pixabay
<p>Although <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/1420/files/original/Deforestation_fronts_-_drivers_and_responses_in_a_changing_world_-_full_report_%281%29.pdf?1610810475" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years</a>, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.</p><p><span>That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (</span><a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a><span>) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its </span><a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf09AAC/trillion-trees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform</a><span> to support the project.</span></p><p>That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.</p><p>"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to <a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a>. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."</p><p><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor">Reposted with permission from the </em><span><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/redwoods-store-more-co2-and-are-more-enormous-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></span></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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