The Gibraltar Heritage Trust (GHT), Environmental Safety Group (ESG) and Gibraltar Ornithological & Natural History Society (GONHS) note plans to develop housing along the slope to the south of Both Worlds.  

Since it was replenished with sand, Sandy Bay has become a very popular beach both for locals and as part of Gibraltar’s more adventure-focused tourism offering.  Part of its appeal lies in its location and quite natural setting, framed by the slopes and Rock above, and the rocky shoreline to its north and south.  The land that is targeted for development currently consists of open, flower-filled habitat and includes WWII military structures.  It is enjoyed not just by beach-goers but also by the many people who walk by whilst exercising.

Our organisations are concerned that as depicted, the development would result in a very significant loss of public amenity, including for beach users.  The buildings would encroach on the beach itself and we consider this completely unacceptable.  The ramp down to the beach would be used for vehicular access to the development, making access trickier for users.  The loss of any natural habitat or heritage structures will without a doubt be detrimental to the enjoyment of the area by the public.

The three organisations will be following this proposal very closely.  Although the public consultation period for comments to the Development & Planning Commission is now closed, we urge all concerned members of the public to make their views known to the Town Planner or our organisations.

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.

The ESG was shocked and saddened to witness the spread of heavy, thick marine oil throughout the harbour area caused by an accident at sea from a vessel taking bunker fuel off the South Mole.

It believes a full investigation into the cause of the spill must be carried out by the Port Authority to establish the extent of the spill and level of supervision in place during this particular transfer.

The coordinated action by the Port, Department of the Environment and different entities involved in the Command Centre, has helped remove the worst of the oil spill although there still remain a few significant hotspots. These include the bathing pavilion area among others. Land based cleaning will follow but it will be some time before the impacts from this oil spill are fully known and pollution caused by it, disappear entirely.

The threats to birds and sea life are obvious and the ESG demands that every effort is made by the authorities to establish precisely what happened following the apparent valve failure. It would like to know whether a full investigation has started into all aspects of the fuel transfer?

With the significant season for diving birds underway the ESG is particularly concerned by this spill and would like to hear about all the steps that will be taken to ensure this does not happen again. We would like to know the volume of oil that was leaked and the speed in which the oil contingency response was initiated. 

Finally the group expects that ‘polluting paying regulations’ will be fully applied once the investigation is completed to cover the costs of the clean up and impact on the environment which will continue for some time given the very challenging nature of cleaning up an oil spill. 

A number of birds have been taken in for treatment so far. 

If anyone spots a soiled bird please do not approach but contact the Environmental Protection Team on 58009620 immediately.’

It’s not been a full year since we began experiencing the full challenge and restrictions from the coronavirus that has provoked such unease, change in life circumstance, and tragedy. We hope that change is coming and that a semblance of normality will soon resume.

As issues of interest and concern to the ESG have been announced in the press recently, we felt this is a good opportunity today to run through some of these in our radio newsletter.

Last week we heard about the issuing of an LNG Bunkering Licence to Shell to operate from the Gibraltar Port Authority. While this prospect was raised a number of times during the early Power Station negotiations and technical preparations, we believe there remain a number of questions that should be answered. Where the storage for such a service comes from? What the short, medium to long-term plans are to balance LNG and Diesel bunkering capacity given our restricted anchorage facilities?  How will this impact the growth in business on the main carbon impacting activity in Gibraltar during a period of global divestment in fossil fuels? And how we must include this activity in our Climate Action Plans. Please visit our website for a full statement on this issue.

Last week also saw a very positive development on the legislation of the increase in Energy Performance Certificate criteria for renewable energy use in major buildings. This is a solid step in recognising the major impact that large-scale development has on our carbon footprint. While not meeting our call fully for an entire building project to be measured in carbon terms from the first brick laid, it nevertheless brings a necessary reality check to these major structures we are seeing and how sustainable they are.

This measure falls within Gibraltar’s climate targets and we hope to see the release and publication of the full Climate Action plans which has seen serious delay due to Covid, to follow this positive step.

With COP26 Climate Conference taking place in Glasgow later this year especially in light of renewed USA support we sincerely hope that a line will be drawn in the sand with less hot air and frustration and meaningful actions rolled out. 

The world needs good news right now and turning a corner on climate action would be very good news indeed.

Thanks for listening.

The ESG notes that Shell has been awarded an LNG bunker licence for ship-to-ship operations in Gibraltar. 

It also realises that the Gibraltar Government has always maintained its support for this and for Shells interest in pursuing this course of action.

The group has from the start of Shells presence in Gibraltar advocated highest standards and transparency from the company, and sought the same assurances from the Gibraltar Government believing the safety of the community to be of paramount importance. While it understands that burning LNG as opposed to Diesel will have environmental benefits it does not eliminate Greenhouse Gas emissions or air pollution altogether. Until such time as LNG totally replaces Diesel there will be an increase in pollution arising from this new licence.

With Shell describing Gibraltar as one of the busiest ports in Europe it follows that from a climate change perspective this activity should be fully accounted for, including on its overall carbon impacts today, and for the next 10 and 20 years of the Climate Emergency. At present these are not recorded within City Emissions for action but as ‘Other emissions’.

The group also asks where the supply of LNG will come from for the servicing of ships and tankers entering our Port? It also expresses concern that under normal circumstances our western anchorage points are extremely busy. This means that there will be even more ships being bunkered around our coastline, at least until LNG replaces Diesel as the fuel of choice in the Global Maritime World.

The ESG will be taking up all these concerns directly with the Port and the Environmental authorities.

An end of year round up from us as we face a somewhat uncertain future with the imminent departure from the EU round the corner.

Apart from border fluidity and economic concerns we also have setbacks for the environment as we will no longer have EU institutions to fall back on regarding regional and cross border environmental impacts.

The ESG, together with NGOs from Gibraltar and Spain, have over the years filed a number of Complaints to the European Commission on breaches of environmental regulations and standards, principally down to the rapid growth and expansion of the petrochemical complex and Oil Refinery in the Campo area and excesses of harmful air pollution .

We understand our Government has tabled several concerns on the environmental front with its UK counterparts and we have submitted information on issues that, from our perspective, will stand to worsen without European oversight on matters of cross border pollution.

The ESG will monitor the situation and is also in close contact with our colleagues across the border. By the time we do our next radio newsletter we may certainly know the type of Brexit, and depth of changes we will experience after the 31^st December.

As we have stressed in lengthy articles and interviews published recently, in local media, October’s OTWO, and INSIGHT magazine in December, we realise that Covid, on top of Brexit, is clearly and understandably occupying the minds of our leaders and so have had to accept that deliverance of some large projects will have taken a back seat.

Nonetheless we shall resume our lobbying at the start of 2021 to ensure that Gibraltar continues to focus on climate targets, significant traffic changes, intensifies its roll-out of renewable energy programme, improves impacts from shipping and produces a draft development plan for public feedback to enable the community to both influence and understand the trajectory for development in Gibraltar from an ‘official’ standpoint. Clearly adequate infrastructure, energy, waste management and sewage treatment must accompany our ever-growing built environment– we should not continue to build without such support and foundation that makes us more sustainable.

You can find more info on these matters and press releases on our website www.esg-gib.net including the welcoming of the new Post Office Electric Fleet.

A reminder that the final 2020 DPC mtg takes place on the 17^th December at 9.30am. These meetings are public and live streamed and you can find the link at DPC Gibraltar, Agendas, with the 17^th December meeting already carrying the link.
Have yourselves a safe, green and peaceful Christmas.

Best wishes from all at the ESG.