Keywords: Earth Hour / Litter / Climate Change Strategy / Energy / Traffic & Idling / Cycling

Earth Hour will be taking place this Saturday the 27^th March. Each year communities are invited to switch off their lights for an hour from 8.30pm local time and w have encouraged Gibraltar to participate in this awareness campaign for many years. Of course, it’s not about switching off, is it, its about reviewing your lifestyle, the impact you and your family have on the planet and how you can improve this too. Importantly though governments and businesses are also reminded of the global challenges from resource depletion to climate change and need for real action.

So this Saturday – do your bit and encourage others to also participate in the switch off and any other project running that helps the environment.

A quick one on litter – with the better weather upon us, more people are enjoying the beaches but sadly a few refuse to use bins provided and leave all their garbage behind. This calls for more policing and deterrents-   how else will litterers understand that such behaviour is just not acceptable! It is dirty, an eyesore, degrades the amenity for others, and threatens the natural environment too. So please, use the bins, or take it home – it’s not cool to litter. We shall be pressing for action under our CUTW Campaign.

We again call upon Government to please release their Climate Change Strategy  – a roadmap to a cleaner and healthier environment as well as tackling our carbon impacts in all areas – We hope this will include shipping and bunkering responsible for the largest share of carbon emissions in Gibraltar by far. We understand this was to be published at the end of March.

Green energy is a major issue for global warming and Gibraltar is not exempt from the pressure to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy. It is positive to see the rollout of solar capture throughout many parts of our community and the ESG hopes plans for further expansion will follow asap. Shore power for local businesses and visiting vessels has been announced but not yet in place. This would enable vessels to switch off at berth and connect to our electricity grid – it would cut down on noise and air pollution so we hope this will be prioritised as we continue to build housing estates ever closer to the port area.

A report has been circulating in social media over intolerable levels of noise produced at the Morrison’s Car park recently with running engines for refrigerated trailers. Should this repeat best advice is to report directly to the Environmental Agency charged with responsibility to tackle noise disturbance and nuisance to follow up and eliminate this problem. Call 200-70620 and email: admin@eag.gi .

Traffic and idling is a real bugbear for us. We would also like to see greater effort in reducing unnecessary vehicle use to allow more space and cleaner air for walking and cycling. Combined with the eventual departure of polluting 2 stroke bikes, second hand buses, out-dated commercial and construction vehicles off our streets and early introduction of green transport using clean fuels, we could really see major changes in air quality and our physical environment in beautiful Gibraltar.

Back to cycling we wanted to highlight and support an upcoming Cycle Awareness event taking place on Good Friday 2^nd April. Details of the event led by the OTWO Magazine and Ebike can be found on Facebook and in the general media, as well as links on our website.

For more visit website: www.esg-gib.net

Thanks for listening.

Keywords: Oil Spill / Climate Change and Public Debates

ESG Radio Newsletter 11^th March 2021  – With Spring now apparent, signs are with us that the grip of the Covid virus is thankfully diminishing. Thanks to those giving their all in helping make this happen.

On the environmental front things have certainly built up. The recent oil spill was a sharp interlude in Covid headlines as Gibraltar’s coastline began to see evidence of a bunkering transaction that had gone wrong, albeit for a few minutes, with supposedly a few tons spilt. Sounds more serious than litres, doesn’t it? Oil is a very toxic substance to the natural environment and the authorities, agencies and NGOs maintained a very close eye on the spill and clean up proceedings made harder by the nature of our artificial coastline that was mostly affected within the harbour.

Back in October 2008 the ESG were involved in the follow up to the larger FEDRA oil spill. Then, 170 tons of the ships own running fuel, leaked into our beautiful waters after it had slammed repeatedly into Europa Point cliffs during a major storm. That oil spill took around 3 months to clean up, several million pounds worth of costs and saw the start of a major technological and resource overhaul of the Port Authority and its operations.

This serious upgrade in our Port management stds has clearly brought about a safer overall environment from the shipping activity in our port. Nevertheless, the spill happened and its smelly and sticky presence now all but removed from our shores, although the clean up continues. We welcome the fines and cost recovery for the clean up operation but think it’s also critical to understand what took place in the immediate aftermath of the spill. What oversight was in place by both the client and supplier vessel and what emergency protocols were applied? Press reports suggest a time lag, which has not yet been fully explained. During this time the oil moved about and hit land at various points. We would like to see the results of the full investigation into the spill and the emergency response to better understand what transpired and whether lessons will have been learnt.

According to marine experts less visible impacts from this spill will continue to impact negatively on our marine environment for some time to come and believe all efforts must be made to eliminate future threats. 

Climate Change is once again making headlines with major climate conferences round the corner. The ESG recently issued a press release calling upon our Government to set out its own clear strategy on reducing our Carbon activity. We understand the major toll from Covid on all resources but believe Climate Change is a far larger threat, on which targeted action cannot be postponed any longer. We would also like to see public debate and support on this major issue to ensure that economic recovery from Covid works hand in hand with a green agenda, led by Government policy, and supported at cross party level. Once Covid allows for larger gatherings the ESG looks forward to resuming our own public debates on these issues. Visit esg-gib.net for more on other issues, press releases etc. Thanks for listening.

You can catch up and or engage on issues to do with mobile masts emissions and more.

Please visit: https://www.facebook.com/MobilePhoneMastConcernGibraltar

The ESG welcomes the message that the Minister for the Environment, Dr John Cortes, gave during a recent virtual meeting, a precursor to the COP26-the Climate Change Summit, which will take place on 1^st November of this year. Dr Cortes, representing the British Overseas Territories, warned that the restoration of the global economy should not take priority over the climate crisis and biodiversity. 

The ESG recognises that the Covid pandemic has had a disastrous effect on the world economy, which needs to be redressed, but it is also very aware that the full blown consequences of climate change would be immeasurably worse than those caused by the pandemic.

The Climate Emergency declaration in Gibraltar included a commitment to report to Parliament by the end of 2019, with a climate emergency action plan. Now that things seem to be returning to some normality, we need to reset climate action as a priority. The Climate Change Act requires the establishment of a climate change committee; we need to see the emissions reduction targets for 2030 and 2045, as well as progress targets for each 4 year period.

Whilst the ESG understands that the covid pandemic has upended all previous plans, we would welcome an update on these matters and a renewed commitment from Government that it intends to honour these obligations and ensure that Gibraltar’s economic recovery is environmentally sustainable.