Interview with Dr Jeff Miley
In a wide-ranging interview with activist academic Dr Jeff Miley of Peace in Kurdistan, Nicholas Hildyard discusses the climate crisis, solidarity, self-determination and the politics of environmentalism:
https://youtu.be/J7uh15mKBs4
Fact-Finding Mission report on the Sardar Sarovar dam
In May 2014, the Indian government authorised the height of the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river in central-western India to be raised. Thousands of people, villages and towns will be submerged. A Fact-Finding Mission report calls for construction work to be halted immediately until all those people affected have been appropriately resettled.
How export credit agencies are offering new subsidies for destructive projects under the guise of environmental protection
ECA-Watch
Northern governments may grant more export credits for large dams by classifying them as "renewable energy". This report details the negative impacts of five large dams and one water privatisation scheme financed with export credits.
The Case for Strengthened Standards
Nicholas Hildyard, The Corner House, UK; and Eliah Gilfenbaum, Environmental Defense, USA
This paper documents new subsidies that ECAs may give for large dams; evaluates the accompanying standards that ECAs may require for dam projects; and identifies future ECA actions if funding for dams is not to have negative environmental and social impacts.
Activism, Expertise, Commons
Larry Lohmann
Seeing social or technical change as the application of new "theory" to "practice" is one of the hazards of 21st-century middle-class life. Middle-class activists could take a leaf from both expert elites and grassroots movements, who both tend to know better.
(Or, rather: What went Right? For Whom?)
Nicholas Hildyard
In July 2000, 19 corporations and individuals were being prosecuted in the Lesotho courts for bribing a top official in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (a scheme intended to divert water from Lesotho to South Africa). This presentation explores the daily institutional practices that actively encourage the flouting of guidelines and anti-corruption regulations. It sheds light on the institutionalised racism that assumes the Third World to be inherently corrupt and corruptible, a view that underwrites bribery.
The Final Report of a Fact-Finding Mission to the Ilisu Dam Region
Ilisu Dam Campaign; the Kurdish Human Rights Project; The Corner House; World Economy, Ecology and Development; Eye on SACE Campaign and Pacific Environment Research Center
The companies that want to build the controversial Ilisu Dam on the River Tigris in the Kurdish region of Southeast Turkey have sought financial backing from the export credit agencies (ECAs) of their countries. In January 1999, the ECAs attached four conditions to be met before they would issue export credits. During 9-16 October 2000, an international Fact Finding Mission of Non-Governmental Organisations from the UK, USA, Germany and Italy went to the region of the proposed dam to assess the Turkish government's progress meeting the four conditions.
The Record of Twelve European Dam Building Companies
Chris Lang, Nick Hildyard, Kate Geary and Matthew Grainger
European dam builders, suppliers and consultants continue to promote and export their technologies to the countries of the South. In doing so, they tend to ignore, misrepresent or downplay many of the negative environmental, social and economic impacts of large dams that have discredited the dam building industry in Europe. This report presents the track record of the major European companies involved in large dams, detailed by company and by dams in Turkey, Lesotho, Paraguay/Argentina/Brazil, Guatemala, Chile, India, Malaysia and China.
Nicholas Hildyard
This presentation challenges four myths about large dams: they provide a cheap and economic source of energy; are an environmentally-benign source of energy; are uncontroversial in Europe; and result from impartial decision-making processes. It poses several detailed questions for the World Commission on Dams.
The Flawed Economics of Large Hydroelectric Dams
Nicholas Hildyard
Popular opposition and changing macro-economic policies have disproved the claim that large-scale hydrolectric dams provide a cheap, reliable and economic source of power.
Larry Lohmann
All development projects follow a three-act dramatic plotline, as development agencies try to impose plans, meet local opposition, and improvise freely in an attempt to overcome resistance.
ABB’s Hydropower Strategy under Review
Nicholas Hildyard
Swedish-Swiss engineering company Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) has supplied generators for hydroelectric dams around the world, accounting for one-fifth of the world’s hydropower capacity. This analysis provides financial reasons why ABB should not continue to be involved in the hydropower sector. It forecasts a shrinking market because of substantial and growing opposition to large dams and insufficient private and public finance to build them. Its findings were circulated to ABB shareholders and financial journalists. In March 2000, ABB decided to sell its hydropower division, mentioning shareholders’ sensitivity to the significant environmental, human rights and social impacts of large-scale dams.
