Dams and hydropower schemes create major loss and damage, including producing significant amounts of methane, biodiversity loss, and community displacement. In a warming world, droughts and flooding make hydropower an unreliable energy choice and an increasing danger to downstream communities. An urgent shift away from false solutions that harm people and ecosystems is essential. For…
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Yesterday, the Legislative Assembly of the State of Mato Grosso in Brazil approved the law draft that prohibits the construction of dams along the entire length of the Cuiabá River. The draft was authored by state deputy Wilson Santos (PSDB) and was created in response to the proposition of six dams on the river that…
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Originally published in Alternet by Josh Klemm and Eugene Simonov Not only does hydroelectric power fail to prevent catastrophic climate change, but it also renders countries more vulnerable to climate change while emitting significant amounts of methane, one of the worst greenhouse gases. A river is a spectacular living corridor that feeds forests, fisheries, coastal ecosystems, and…
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By Ayesha DSouza, South Asia Program Coordinator. Mega Hydropower projects continue to be pushed in the fragile Indian Himalayas, often at the cost of the local communities and disguised as the only solution to local issues of development. One such place is Dzongu, the land of the Lepcha community in North Sikkim. Already home to…
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Por Isadora Soares Con sus 77 km de extensión, el hermoso paisaje del río San Pedro, en el sur de Chile, esconde la lucha silenciosa de la región contra el ya avanzado proyecto de construcción de la Central Hidroeléctrica San Pedro, proyecto que está interrumpido desde 2009. La animación de poco más de cinco minutos…
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For Immediate Release: November 9, 2021 For Spanish: https://intlrv.rs/3C4CUOS For Portuguese: https://intlrv.rs/3qoyD6A Glasgow, Scotland – As negotiators convened at COP26 in Glasgow attempt to break the deadlock on emissions cuts and financing mechanisms, a diverse set of voices are calling for the UNFCCC to exclude hydropower from consideration, citing dams’ grave human rights and climate…
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***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*** Manila, Philippines –Civil society groups across South, Southeast and Central Asia are raising the alarm as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) gears up to announce a new Energy Policy that — unless recalibrated — will fail to reflect the realities of climate science and local peoples’ burning concerns. On September 6th, the…
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Last week, the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) announced their approval of a new bond certification scheme for hydropower.1 This represents an unfortunate setback for the climate and for meaningful efforts to address the climate crisis. As our written submissions into the process pointed out,2 the CBI hydropower standard will generate no tangible climate benefit and…
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Rulings loom as UNGA meets on biodiversity OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA—A new report by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, Earth Law Center, and International Rivers finds that a movement to grant legal rights to rivers and nature is rapidly gaining momentum globally. The report examines how the ancient notion that nature possesses basic rights…
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By: 276 civil society organizations On behalf of 276 civil society organizations from around the world, we are calling upon the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) to abandon the certification of destructive hydropower projects as climate-friendly. The proposed hydropower criteria developed by CBI and its technical working group fall far short of acceptable standards and practice, and…
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By: Michael Simon This article was originally published on the International Business Times This month, the 3,000 inhabitants of Hasankeyf, Turkey, await rising floodwaters that will permanently drown their 12,000-year-old village. With it will go a unique ecosystem and countless cultural artifacts from millennia of human history. Hundreds of miles downstream, the marshes thought to…
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