LONDON (AP) — A judge on Friday rejected plans for the United Kingdom’s first new coal mine in three decades, delivering a victory for climate groups who challenged the project's claim it would have zero impact on global emissions.
High Court Justice David Holgate's decision follows a June ruling by the U.K. Supreme Court that said planners reviewing oil well-drilling permits must consider the greenhouse gas emissions from burning the extracted oil.
“The assumption that the proposed mine would not produce a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, or would be a net zero mine, is legally flawed," Holgate said.
Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change, a local group, challenged the government’s approval of the plan for the mine’s development in a coastal town in England’s northwest Cumbria area.
The developer, West Cumbria Mining, defended the proposal in court after the Labour government, which was elected to power in July, dropped its support for the project approved by their Conservative predecessors.
“This is fantastic news and a huge victory for our environment and everyone who has fought against this climate-damaging and completely unnecessary coal mine," said attorney Niall Toru of Friends of the Earth. “The case against it is overwhelming: it would have huge climate impacts, its coal isn’t needed and it harms the U.K.’s international reputation on climate."
The ruling sends the decision back to the government for reconsideration.
The mining company, which had promoted the project as a net-zero positive, said it would consider the ruling but declined to comment.
When the Conservatives approved the plan in 2022, environmentalists said it was a backward step and would make it harder to achieve a goal of generating 100% of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 and reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The left-leaning Labour government has also distanced itself from its predecessor's emphasis on oil and gas exploration. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced plans to increase wind power generation and pledged to not issue new oil drilling licenses in the North Sea.
The mine on the site of a shuttered chemical plant in Whitehaven, a town 340 miles (550 kilometers) northwest of London, would have extracted coking coal used in steelmaking rather than producing electricity.
Opponents said the coal would no longer be needed domestically as Britain's largest steelmaking operation in Port Talbot, Wales, owned by India’s Tata Steel, transitions from coal-fired blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces, which emit less carbon.
Follow AP’s coverage of the climate and environment: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
FILE - An aerial view of the the site of a proposed new coal mine near the Cumbrian town of Whitehaven in northwest England, Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. A London judge rejected on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, plans for the United Kingdom’s first new coal mine in three decades, delivering a victory Friday for climate groups who challenged the project's claim it would have zero impact on global emissions. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Thirty years after world leaders adopted a historic blueprint to achieve gender equality, a new United Nations report says women’s and girls’ rights are under attack and gender discrimination remains deeply embedded in economies and societies.
The report released Thursday by the U.N. agency focused on women’s rights and gender equality found that nearly one-quarter of governments worldwide reported a backlash to women’s rights last year.
The number of countries reporting a backlash is likely underreported and reflects “an increasingly hostile environment,” UN Women’s policy and program director Sarah Hendriks said at a news conference.
“It is not a new phenomenon,” she said. “What is new is that it’s gaining in greater speed and scale and velocity,” especially in very patriarchal and traditional nations where men play a dominant role.
The 35 countries reporting a backlash on gender equality came from across the globe and include Spain, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Philippines, Brazil, Peru, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Australia, Mongolia, South Africa, Mali and Zimbabwe.
Despite some progress, including on girls’ education and access to family planning, UN Women said a woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by a partner or family member and that cases of conflict-related sexual violence have increased by 50% since 2022. The report, released ahead of International Women’s Day on Saturday, also noted that only 87 countries have ever been led by a woman.
“Globally, women’s human rights are under attack,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “Instead of mainstreaming equal rights, we’re seeing the mainstreaming of misogyny.”
He said the world must stand firm “in making human rights, equality and empowerment a reality for all women and girls, for everyone, everywhere.”
The 189 countries that attended a 1995 Beijing women’s conference adopted a landmark declaration and 150-page platform for action to achieve gender equality, calling for bold action in 12 areas, including combating poverty and gender-based violence and putting women at top levels in business, government and at peacemaking tables.
It also said for the first time in a U.N. document that human rights include the right of women to control and decide “on matters relating to their sexuality, including their sexual and reproductive health, free of discrimination, coercion and violence.”
In the new review, which includes contributions from 159 countries, UN Women said countries have taken many steps forward on gender equality and women’s rights in the past five years but that such rights still are facing growing threats worldwide.
On the positive side, the report said some 88% of countries have passed laws to combat violence against women and established services to help victims in the past five years. Most countries have banned workplace discrimination, and 44% are improving the quality of education and training for girls and women, it said.
Yet gender discrimination is deeply embedded, with wide gaps in power and resources that restrain women’s rights, the report said.
“The weakening of democratic institutions has gone hand in hand with backlash on gender equality,” UN Women said.
It warned that “anti-rights actors are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues” and seeking to block or slow legal and policy gains they can’t roll back.
UN Women said almost 25% of countries reported that backlash on gender equality is hampering implementation of the Beijing platform.
According to the report, women have only 64% of the legal rights of men, and while the proportion of female lawmakers has more than doubled since 1995, three-quarters of lawmakers are still men.
UN Women also said women aged 15 to 24 lag behind other age groups on access to modern family planning; maternal mortality ratios have remained almost unchanged since 2015; and 10% of women and girls live in extremely poor households.
The U.N. agency said cases of conflict-related sexual violence have increased 50% since 2022 — and women and girls are victims of 95% of these crimes.
UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous said that based on the report’s findings, the agency has adopted a roadmap to bring the world closer to the U.N. goal of achieving gender equality by 2030.
It calls for a digital revolution ensuring equal access to technology for all women and girls; investments in social protections, including universal health care and quality education to lift them out of poverty; and zero violence against girls and women. The roadmap also includes equal decision-making power for women and financing for “gender-responsive humanitarian aid” in conflicts and crises.
Lederer was AP's lead reporter at the 1995 U.N. women's conference in Beijing.
FILE - Flags fly outside the United Nations headquarters Sept. 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Jennifer Peltz, File)
