Both ENDS
On Friday, the long awaited policy note by Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sigrid Kaag was published. The note was the outcome of a process of consultation, scientific analysis and much discussion within and outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We searched for the spirit underlying it: What trends does this minister consolidate and deepen? What is new? Are those new aspects a superficial change of discourse or a genuine break with the past? On what issues is the paper silent and what do those silences tell us?
Large-scale infrastructural projects have detrimental effects on local people and the environment, while their benefits are felt elsewhere. Both ENDS is working to ensure that local people have a greater say in decision-making and is investigating the way these projects are funded.
In Ghana, the effects of climate change are already tangible, just like in many countries around the world. How to ensure that these different experiences are heard and known by the Ghanaian government so that it will take actions that have a positive effect on people and their environment? And how to make local communities aware that they can hold the government accountable - and even have the responsibility to do so? During COP26 in Glasgow we spoke with Kenneth Nana Amoateng (47) and Richard Matey (30). Kenneth works at the AbibiNsroma Foundation, a local NGO, and took it as his mission to advocate for a healthy environment, climate change, and to give young people opportunities. Richard is part of that younger generation and works at the Alliance for Empowering Rural Communities in Ghana.
By Carolina de Moura
Six years ago, Brumadinho tailings dam I, from the Paraopeba Complex, owned by mining company Vale, collapsed. January 25th, 2019, forever changed the lives of thousands. The scars remain open, and the quest for justice, remembrance, and prevention of future mining crimes endures despite all adversities. This was manslaughter coupled with socio-environmental devastation of proportions difficult to measure. These are irreparable losses and damages that could have been avoided if it wasn’t for the greed, negligence, and irresponsibility of decision-makers at Vale, the German certification firm Tüv Süd, and the state of Minas Gerais.
The Green Climate Fund aims to support transformational pathways to climate-resilient development, intends to reach those most vulnerable, and commits to a gender-sensitive approach. This session presents an important way of putting these commitments into practice: by engaging small grants funds. These funds can provide the much needed channel between large international institutions and local communities adapting to climate change, and assure financing reaches women and men to contribute to transformative climate action. But how to make this shift in how financing is delivered? The audience will be actively engaged in the discussion to come to concrete suggestions to strengthen local access and gender responsiveness of climate finance.
With our Wetlands without Borders program, we work towards environmentally sustainable and socially responsible governance of the wetlands system of the La Plata Basin in South America.
New research by Both ENDS, Fossielvrij NL and urgewald shows that, in 2017, pension fund ABP invested 500 million euros more in coal, oil and gas than in the previous year – a total of 10.9 billion euros. These investments in fossil fuels not only stand in sharp contrast to ABP's claim that it has achieved substantial successes in its climate policy, but are also in flagrant violation of the Paris climate agreement. Unlike international forerunners among pension funds, ABP continues unabated to invest in the fossil energy sector.
