Aid workers in Madrid enjoy a photo exhibition of the humanitarian crisis in Sahel. Image: Ceas
Aid workers in Madrid enjoy a photo exhibition of the humanitarian crisis in Sahel. Image: Ceasefire MagazineHow the UK’s energy security panic affects the Sahel | As the British public panic about how energy prices will affect them during the recession, Luqman Onikosi investigates the impact of the West’s pursuit of energy on people and environments across the SahelWhile the economic crisis grabs UK headlines, the energy crisis, a key component of global and domestic markets, presents a far greater, though underreported catastrophe.The gap which the energy crisis has created between UK energy demand and supply (from fossil fuel) and how the UK government is striving to bridge this gap provides clues to the long- term future of the UK economy. Basing economic prediction on uninterrupted production flow of the supply of fossil fuel to the UK will inevitably lead to environmental crisis.Although Britain and other industrialised nations are in a position to be more concerned with their economies, many parts of the Global South, including parts of Africa, are experiencing mass migration due to the ways in which vast socio-cultural livelihoods are connected to the ecosystems, damaged or destroyed through oil spillage, gas flaring, deforestation, international logging, desert encroachment and conflict.The current economic crisis is given so much political attention because the economic system has a direct impact on an individual’s real income, savings, investment and consumption, while energy is considered an integral, and therefore non-negotiable, part of the supply of consumption.Around the turn of the millennium, the energy gap was forecast to rise largely due to the inability of coal fired power stations to fulfil the clean air requirements set by the of the European Large Combustion Plant Directive in 2001. A desperate attempt to reduce the energy gap saw the UK government extend all its old Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR) nuclear power station by average seven years to 2023, except for Magnox reactor at Wylfa, which is scheduled to close in 2014.But by the time issues around energy trickle down to the general public, economic crisis means that many families will struggle to finance the heating of their homes. Due to the bad winter in the UK in 2012, energy prices, which were introduced in November of that year, more than 3 million Npower customers saw their gas and electricity prices increase by 8.8%-9.1%, while British Gas put an extra £80 on to its typical annual dual fuel bill after an average increase of 6% affecting 8.5 million customers. In an attempt to challenge the energy bills that are spiralling out of control, Age UK reported that about 24,000 deaths in the last winter alone was recorded, as many vulnerable people try cut back on their heating.Continue readingFurther reading:Blood money: UK’s £12.3bn arms sales to repressive statesUK Seabed Resources joins deep-ocean mineral-mining rushBiomass: Dirty & Destructive -- source link
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