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OIL

Oil spill clean-up continues in Sweden

The clean-up operation of the oil spill on Sweden's west coast continued on Sunday with more than 110 cubic metres removed so far, in what has been described by the National Coast Guard (Kustbevakningen) as the largest spills to affect Sweden in years.

Oil spill clean-up continues in Sweden

“It is going well, we’ve got rid of almost 150 cubic metres of oil now. The work has been going on around the clock since Friday,” said Jonas Berg of the coast guard to news agency TT.

The clean up efforts following the spill near Tjörn, in western Sweden, had continued well into Saturday night resulting in the removal of 110,000 gallons of oil.

Five coast guard ships, four smaller vessels, an airplane and about 50 coast guard personnel have been involved in the operation at the west coast’s strait between Härön and Kyrkesund.

Surveillance aircraft was sent up Sunday morning to get an overview of how much oil remains and the extent of its spread.

“There is an awful lot,” Jonas Åkerlund, operator with the Western Region’s Coast Guard, told local newspaper Göteborgs Posten (GP) on Sunday morning.

“As of now, the oil has not spread – it remains inside the booms at Härön. It appears we will have good weather today so we hope to remove a lot of the oil during the day.”

Jonas Berg agreed on Sunday afternoon that the coast guard had the situation under control.

The oil slick tracks from a ship collision on September 10th off the Danish west coast.

However, Gothenburg’s Bird Centre (Göteborgs Fågelcentral) had received 15 oiled birds by Saturday afternoon. The extent of the damage to birds and other wildlife still remains uncertain.

“It is difficult to assess how many birds are affected. But presumably it can involve hundreds, perhaps up to a thousand. There may be injured birds on the islands and reefs that can only be reached by boat,” Tommy Järås from the bird centre told GP.

Several of the birds submitted to the centre were beyond salvation.

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OIL

NGOs take Norway to European Court over Arctic oil exploration

Two NGOs and six young climate activists have decided to take Norway to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to demand the cancellation of oil permits in the Arctic, Greenpeace announced on Tuesday.

NGOs take Norway to European Court over Arctic oil exploration
Northern Norway. Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash.

It’s the latest turn in a legal tussle between environmental organisations Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth Norway on one side and the Norwegian state on the other.

The organisations are demanding the government cancel 10 oil exploration licenses in the Barents Sea awarded in 2016, arguing it was unconstitutional.

Referring to the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the organisations claim that the oil licenses violated article 112 of Norway’s constitution, guaranteeing everyone the right to a healthy environment.”

The six activists, alongside Greenpeace Nordic and Young Friends of the Earth Norway, hope that the European Court of Human Rights will hear their case and find that Norway’s oil expansion is in breach of human rights,” Greenpeace said in a statement.

In December, Norway’s Supreme Court rejected the claim brought by the organisations, their third successive legal defeat.

READ MORE: Norway sees oil in its future despite IEA’s warnings 

While most of the judges on the court agreed that article 112 could be invoked if the state failed to meet its climate and environmental obligations– they did not think it was applicable in this case.

The court also held that the granting of oil permits was not contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in part because they did not represent “a real and immediate risk” to life and physical integrity.

“The young activists and the environmental organisations argue that this judgment was flawed, as it discounted the significance of their environmental constitutional rights and did not take into account an accurate assessment of the consequences of climate change for the coming generations,” Greenpeace said.

On Friday, the Norwegian government unveiled a white paper on the country’s energy future, which still includes oil exploration despite a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA recently warned that all future fossil fuel projects must be scrapped if the world is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The Norwegian case is an example of a global trend in which climate activists are increasingly turning to courts to pursue their agenda.

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