Children walked out of schools on Friday [15 March] in 2,233 cities and towns in 128 countries, with demonstrations held from Australia to India, the UK and the US, according to the Fridays for the Future website. Further strikes are planned for 12 April.
Last week, the World Meteorological Organization warned that the physical and financial impacts of global warming are accelerating:
According to the report, most of the natural hazards that affected nearly 62 million people in 2018 were associated with extreme weather and climate events.
Some 35 million people were hit by floods.
Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael were just two of 14 "billion dollar disasters" in 2018 in the US.
Super Typhoon Mangkhut affected 2.4 million people in and killed 134, mainly in the Philippines.
More than 1,600 deaths were linked to heat waves and wildfires in Europe, Japan and US.
Kerala in India suffered the heaviest rainfall and worst flooding in nearly a century.
In the face of this, there have been concerted efforts to make ecocide an international crime; making politicians and business leaders criminally liable for the harm they do to others. Currently:
There are no effective safeguards preventing a few powerful people, companies or states from wreaking havoc for the sake of profit or power. Though their actions may lead to the death of millions, they know they can’t be touched. Their impunity, as they engage in potential mass murder, reveals a gaping hole in international law.
Last week, for instance, the research group InfluenceMap reported that the world’s five biggest publicly listed oil and gas companies, led by BP and Shell, are spending nearly $200m a year on lobbying to delay efforts to prevent climate breakdown.
[The crime of ecocide] would force anyone contemplating large-scale vandalism to ask themselves, ‘Will I end up in the Hague for this?'
What has all this got to do with Aggregate Industries and parent company LafargeHolcim? According to a UN study, extractive industries are responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions – and more than 80% of biodiversity loss:
Resources are being extracted from the planet three times faster than in 1970, even though the population has only doubled in that time, according to the Global Resources Outlook, which was released in Nairobi on Tuesday.
Since 1970, extraction of... minerals (particularly sand and gravel for concrete) have surged nearly fivefold from 9bn to 44bn tonnes
The authors said it was essential to decouple economic growth from material consumption. Without change, they said resource demand would more than double to 190bn tonnes a year, greenhouse gases would rise by 40% and demand for land would increase by 20%.
The authors called for "smarter urban planning to reduce the demand for concrete... a cyclical economy that re-uses more materials [and] a switch of taxation policies away from income and towards carbon and resource extraction."
Smarter urban planning? Not on LafargeHolcim's watch:
so u call these prison cells sustainable living/future????— George P. Bassakos (@gbassakos) March 13, 2019
And what are AI and LafargeHolcim doing about carbon emissions? We've previously posted on this, most recently in LafargeHolcim named second worst company for increasing CO2 emissions.
What's AI's latest idea? On 1 April, AI announced a major milestone:
A major milestone! We’re the first #construction materials supplier to achieve #PAS2080 verification for reducing #infrastructure #carbonemissions 👏 Find out how we can help you to design lower carbon solutions https://t.co/7P71zi6WCZ #builtenvironment #sustainability pic.twitter.com/bTPBLpwdcp— Aggregate Industries (@AggregateUK) April 1, 2019
What is PAS 2080 verification?
Following the Infrastructure Carbon Review in 2013 it was identified that infrastructure is responsible for over 50% of the UK’s carbon emissions therefore PAS 2080 was designed to specifically address the management of carbon in infrastructure.
It looks at the whole life cycle of the carbon used on projects and promotes reduced carbon, reduced cost infrastructure delivery and a culture of challenge in the infrastructure value chain where innovation can be fostered.
The BSI verification scheme supports clients in industry by assessing your delivery of projects to PAS 2080 requirements, your measurement and monitoring of carbon against the delivery of a project, and the management of your supply chain, or your role within it.
It helps you to: *Demonstrate your commitment to carbon reduction in the market place *Measure and monitor carbon reduction *Collaborate on projects across the supply chain *Gain a competitive edge when bidding for tenders
With infrastructure still accounting for over half of the UK’s carbon emissions, creating a more sustainable, built environment requires strong leadership in carbon management, early supplier engagement and a real commitment across the value chain to reducing embodied carbon. We are proud to say Aggregate Industries is PAS 2080-verified and are ready to help the industry meet the carbon challenge.
But if helping the industry meet the carbon challenge still means plotting ridiculous and unsustainable multi-million mile haulage schemes – like the one planned for Straitgate – you question whether PAS 2080 isn't just another fig-leaf, another layer of greenwash to hide behind.
