Dear China, it’s time to talk!!!

Despite saying it takes multilateral cooperation seriously, China has not yet responded to civil society concerns in Latin America

Giant Dam in Ecuador built by Chinese corporations

At the end of April, 263 civil
society groups from around the world sent a letter
to the heads of various Chinese institutions about financial aid to help
coronavirus-affected projects connected to the Belt and Road Initiative,
China’s global infrastructure programme. They asked for support not to be given
to projects that had posed social, environmental, climatic or financial risks
before the pandemic struck.

Crucially, in …

The tragic failure of the Sardoba
dam has sparked fresh debate around water conflicts and the need for
cooperation between countries in Central Asia

Traumatic memories of Sardoba dam failure…

At 5.55 am on May 1, after five days
of severe storms, a dam wall at the Sardoba reservoir in the region of
Sirdaryo, Uzbekistan, collapsed and water poured through a breach onto cotton
fields and villages.

To reduce water pressure on the
walls of the reservoir and prevent further collapse of dam walls, its gates
were opened. Water spilled into the Southern Golodnostepsky Canal and its
offshoots, with the intention …

We warned in vain that hydropower construction should be halted to prevent massive outbreak of COVID-19 at Beloporozhskaya hydroelectric station.

A large outbreak of coronavirus was detected in Karelia, at the construction site of the Beloporozhskaya hydropower station, with number of COVID-positive patients hospitalized from the construction site coming to 79 by the morning of June 4. Two months ago Eugene Simonov –international coordinator of the Rivers without Boundaries coalition published a warning to Karelia authorities insisting that precautions should be taken and construction should not be rushed to meet …

The International Hydropower Association (IHA) published its 7th “Hydropower Status Report”. Report illustrates further decline of annually installed hydropower capacity, with “optimistic” estimate of only 15 GW added worldwide in 2019. We still tend to believe that the 12.5 GW figure from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is more accurate, because random check on the IHAs figures shows that to cheer-up report readership results for some countries were exaggerated: by 90 MW in Russia, by 250 MW in Ethiopia, and by 400 MW in Tajikistan, etc. However, our …

Chinese workers celebrate completion of a hydropower project in Uzbekistan. March 2020

Global Civil Society Call on Chinese Authorities to Ensure that COVID-19 Financial Relief is Not Targeted to Harmful Projects along the Belt and Road.

On April 29, 2020, the Rivers without Boundaries along with other 260 civil society groups across the world called on the Chinese government to ensure that COVID-19 related financial relief for struggling Belt and Road projects flows only to high quality investments satisfying specific criteria, and avoid bailing out projects already mired in environmental, social, biodiversity, …

Her Majesty’s Hydropower Construction at Cairngorms National Park (Image by ECOW. 2019)

The Daily Mail reported that the Queen has won over environmentalists an argument about developing 2MW hydropower scheme on River Muick in Scotland. The new hydro which affects natural ecosystems of Cairngorms National Park will supply the Balmoral royal estate and the expected net financial value of generation goes up to 650000 pounds a year. However, the 2020 report from IRENA on development of renewable energy proves that the Queen have chosen a failing unpopular technology, while many …