Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Greenpeace Statement –

As flood warnings and alerts remain in place across large swathes of Great Britain, Greenpeace warns that over 866,000 homes – equivalent to the total of those in Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield – could be at ‘high’ or ‘very high’ risk from increased levels of severe flooding fuelled by climate change by the year 2080.

Analysis by Geosmart – a company specialising in flood risk assessments – commissioned by Greenpeace, compares the level of flood risk faced by every region and local authority across Britain, should global temperatures increase by 2.4°C above pre-industrial levels. 

A 2.4°C increase by 2080 aligns with the mid-range projection by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which estimates that global temperatures could reach 2.7°C by 2100, based on current levels of emissions. 

At this level of warming, 866,000 homes will face a ‘high’ or ‘very high’ risk of flooding from rivers, the sea, rainfall and groundwater.  This is three and a half times higher than the 253,000 homes facing the same level of risk in 2020, according to the latest available data.

In a 2.4°C world,  over 40% of homes in the South East and East of England, East Midlands and Scotland will be at some risk of flooding. 

Commenting on the analysis, Philip Evans, Greenpeace UK’s senior climate campaigner, said: 

“The economic cost of the storms and floods battering Britain are sky-rocketing. Our data clearly shows more and more homes will face rising flood risk due to extreme weather events. Already, homes in some areas are becoming uninsurable, and in certain cases, insurers are abandoning towns, leaving councils to pick up the tab.”

“Britain is taking a soaking while oil giants like Shell are raking in billions. Taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for Big Oil’s greed. It’s time they were made to foot the bill for the climate breakdown fuelled by their dirty industry. ” 

For more information, contact the Greenpeace UK Press Office – press.uk@greenpeace.org or 020 7865 8255

Notes to editors:

GeoSmart doesn’t just look at whether a house might get flooded, they also calculate the Average Annual Loss. This is a way of predicting how much, on average, a homeowner might have to spend on flood repairs every year over a long period of time. This takes into account both the predicted frequency of flooding events, and the depth of the water. Assuming it costs, on average, £300,000 to rebuild a house from scratch, a resident in a ‘high’ risk area could expect a repair bill over £750 each year, while someone in a ‘very high’ risk area could expect to spend over £1,500 each year on repairs. In reality, these costs would be occasional and could be much higher in a given year.

Regional breakdown of homes at risk of flooding by 2080 based on Geosmart analysis, based on a 2.4°C Global temperature increase.

Region	Total no. of homes	No. of homes at some risk of flooding	% of homes at risk of flooding (%)	No. of homes facing high and very high risk of flooding	% of homes facing high and very high risk of flooding
East Midlands	2,129,261	844,504	40%	53,229	2%
East of England	2,494,238	1,034,776	41%	59,918	2%
North East	1,142,110	297,296	26%	7,595	1%
North West	3,016,848	1,083,923	36%	45,320	2%
Scotland	2,031,012	953,898	47%	386,716	19%
South East	5,298,847	2,271,442	43%	122,484	2%
South West	2,380,727	746,802	31%	65,884	3%
Wales	1,323,654	369,824	28%	71,431	5%
West Midlands	2,321,629	731,875	32%	18,049	1%
Yorkshire & the Humber	2,139,302	808,474	38%	35,459	2%

Source: Amnesty International –

Since December 2025, Israeli authorities have unleashed a series of unlawful measures deliberately designed to dispossess Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to make the annexation of the territory an irreversible reality, Amnesty International said today.   

These decisions represent an unprecedented escalation – in scale and speed – in Israel’s project to expand illegal settlements. They facilitate the takeover of more Palestinian land, authorize a record number of new settlements, expanding existing ones, and formalize registration of land in the West Bank as Israeli state property. While successive Israeli governments have pursued policies aimed at expanding settlements and entrenching occupation and apartheid, the latest measures underscore how the current Israeli government has turbocharged these efforts, in the shadow of the genocide in Gaza.   

“What we are witnessing is a state, led by a Prime Minister wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, openly gloating about its defiance of international law. Despite hundreds of UN resolutions, Advisory Opinions from the International Court of Justice and global condemnation, Israel continues to brazenly expand illegal settlements, entrenching its cruel system of apartheid and destroying Palestinian lives and livelihoods,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns. 

“The unconditional support of the USA government, combined with the pervasive lack of international accountability for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, decades of crimes under international law linked to its unlawful occupation and its system of apartheid, has further emboldened Israel to escalate its illegal actions. This includes formalizing land grabs with full confidence that it will face no consequences 

The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action. 

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns. 

“The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action. Third states have failed to respect their own legal obligations, refusing to use the tools at their disposal, such as suspension of the EU Israel Association Agreement, to deter Israel from pursuing its unlawful agenda.” 

On 10 December 2025 the Israel Land Authority published a tender for 3,401 housing units in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. The plan seeks to expand the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and create a continuum with occupied East Jerusalem. This would sever the West Bank in two, permanently rupturing urban Palestinian contiguity between Ramallah, occupied East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. Together with the construction of a bypass road which is set to begin this month, this plan will also lead to the forcible transfer of the Palestinian communities living in the area.  

While since the 1990s successive Israeli governments have attempted to implement the E1 plan, it remained largely dormant for decades due to international pressure. Its current advancement with such speed signifies a government that is brazenly pursuing its settlement expansion agenda amidst insufficient international pushback.  

Since its occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, Israel has introduced and developed an oppressive administrative and legal architecture of dispossession and control against Palestinians. The current government has been relentlessly accelerating this project by fast-tracking settlement expansion and land seizures. On 11 December 2025 Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to establish 19 new settlements, bringing the total number approved by the current coalition government to 68 in just three years and the total number of official settlements to about 210. Around 750,000 Israeli settlers currently live illegally in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. 

The new settlements include the retroactive “legalization” of outposts built in violation of even Israel’s own domestic laws. Credible media reports indicate at least three of these sites sit upon land from which Palestinian communities, such as Ein Samia and Ras Ein al-Ouja, were recently forcibly transferred following state-backed settler violence. 

According to Peace Now, an Israeli organization monitoring settlement expansion, in 2025 alone, a record 86 outposts were established, primarily “herding” or “farming” outposts” which have significantly contributed to the spike in state-backed settler violence and forcible transfer of Palestinian communities. Protected by the Israeli military and funded by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, the outposts have turned the lives of Palestinian farmers and shepherds, particularly in Area C, into a living hell. Settlers in the outposts aggressively prevent Palestinian shepherds from accessing their grazing land, depriving them of their main livelihood, as well as seizing land by force, vandalizing property, stealing livestock and attacking Palestinians and their homes.  

According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 21 Palestinian communities were fully or partially uprooted in 2025 as a result of state-backed settler violence. A mother of three from Ras Ein al-Ouja, near Jericho, told Amnesty International: “The fear of attacks forced us to put our children to bed with their shoes on, because we might have to flee at any moment.” In January 2026, she and her family were driven out in the freezing cold along with another 122 families; in total more than 600 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from this community.  

A declaration by the Israeli civil administration on 5 January 2026 designating 694 dunams of land belonging to the Palestinian towns of Deir Istiya, Bidya and Kafr Thulth in the northern West Bank as “state land”, along with a series of measures to expand control over the West Bank announced by Israel’s security cabinet on 8 February marked a further escalation in Israel’s land grabs. 

These measures include repealing Jordanian legislation still in force to allow Israeli settlers to purchase Palestinian land without oversight increasing Israeli civil administrative control over planning and construction in Hebron City and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, as well as granting Israeli authorities new enforcement powers in archaeological sites and in issues related to water and environment in Areas A and B.  

On 15 February 2026 the Israeli cabinet issued a decision that amounts to annexation under Israeli law.  It allocated over 244 million NIS (Israeli shekels) for the establishment of a government mechanism to facilitate land registration in Area C, transferring the powers of land registration from the civil administration to Israel’s Ministry of Justice.   

Currently, nearly 58% of the land in Area C of the occupied West Bank is unregistered, according to Peace Now. Israel has already seized more than half of that area through state land designations. Palestinians face almost insurmountable hurdles to prove land ownership due to Israel’s archaic interpretation of Ottoman land laws which require Palestinians to provide an array of documents, maps and other records that most Palestinians do not have access to. 

Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it. Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions.

Erika Guevara-Rosas

“Land registration is yet another Israeli euphemism for land grabs and dispossession. Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it. Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions,” Erika Guevara-Rosas said. 

“Israel has totally disregarded its obligations as an Occupying Power towards Palestinian civilians and instead has deliberately and consistently advance its aggressive annexation agenda, in blatant violation of international law, which categorically prohibits annexation and establishment of settlements in occupied territory.  

“These measures are in brazen defiance of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinions of 2004 and 2024, the latter of which unequivocally found Israel’s presence in the OPT to be unlawful. A subsequent UN General Assembly resolution set September 2025 as the deadline to end Israel’s unlawful occupation. Yet instead of complying, Israel has simply invented new ways to violate international law, further entrenching its unlawful occupation and apartheid – while the international community continues, at best, to pay lip service to Palestinians’ rights and taken no effective action.” 

Source: Greenpeace Statement –

SYDNEY/FIJI, Thursday 26 February 2026 — New independent research commissioned by Greenpeace International has revealed that Pacific Island states would receive mere thousands of dollars in payment from deep sea mining per year, placing the region as one of the most affected but worst-off beneficiaries in the world.

The research by legal professor Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka and development economist Dr Ben Tippet reveals that mechanisms proposed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for sharing any future revenues from deep sea mining would leave developing nations with meagre, token payments. Pacific Island nations would receive only USD $46,000 per year in the short term, then USD $241,000 per year in the medium term, averaging out to barely USD $382,000 per year for 28 years – an entire annual income for a nation that is less than some individual CEOs’ salaries. Mining companies would rake in over USD $13.5 billion per year, taking up to 98% of the revenues.

The analysis shows that under a scenario where six deep sea mining sites begin operating in the early 2030s, the revenues that states would actually receive are extraordinarily small. This is in contrast to the clear mandate of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which requires mining to be carried out for the benefit of humankind as a whole.[1] The real beneficiaries, the research shows, would be, yet again, a handful of corporations in the Global North.

Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific Shiva Gounden, said:
“What the Pacific is being promised amounts to little more than scraps. The people of the Pacific would sacrifice the most and receive the least if deep sea mining goes ahead. We are being asked to trade in our spiritual and cultural connection to our oceans, and risk our livelihoods and food sources, for almost nothing in return.

“The deep sea mining industry has manipulated the Pacific and has lied to our people for too long, promising prosperity and jobs that simply do not exist. The wealthy CEOs and deep sea mining companies will pocket the cash while the people of the Pacific see no material benefits. The Pacific will not benefit from deep sea mining, and our sacrifice is too big to allow it to go ahead. The Pacific Ocean is not a commodity, and it is not for sale.”

Using proposals submitted by the ISA’s Finance Committee between 2022 and 2025, the returns to states barely register in national accounts. After administrative costs, institutional expenses, and compensation funds are deducted, little, if anything, remains to distribute [3]. 

Author Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka of the Centro Universitário de Brasília said:

“What’s described as global benefit-sharing based on equity and intergenerational justice increasingly looks like a framework for managing scarcity that would deliver almost no real benefits to anyone other than the deep sea mining industry. The structural limitations of the proposed mechanism would offer little more than symbolic returns to the rest of the world, particularly developing countries lacking technological and financial capacity.”

The ISA will meet in March for its first session of the year. Currently, 40 countries back a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep sea mining. 

Gounden added: “The deep sea belongs to all humankind, and our people take great pride in being the custodians of our Pacific Ocean. Protecting this with everything we have is not only fair and responsible but what we see as our ancestral duty. The only equitable path is to leave the minerals where they are and stop deep sea mining before it starts. 

“The decision on the future of the ocean must be a process that centres the rights and voices of Pacific communities as the traditional custodians. Clearly, deep sea mining will not benefit the Pacific, and the only sensible way forward is a moratorium.”

—ENDS—

Notes

[1] A key condition for governments to permit deep sea mining to start in the international seabed is that it ‘be carried out for the benefit of mankind as a whole’, particularly developing nations, according to international law (Article 136-140, 148, 150, and 160(2)(g), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kimberley Bernard on +61407 581 404 or [email protected] 

Source: Amnesty International –

Responding to Reform UK proposals to repeal the Equality Act, Alba Kapoor, Amnesty International UK’s Racial Justice Lead, said:

“The Equality Act is vital – it is not a slogan or a culture-war talking point. It is the legal guarantee that you cannot be sacked for being pregnant, refused housing because of your race, or harassed at work because you are disabled or gay. That is not ideology. That is basic fairness. Cutting it would not simplify the law – it would strip away protections people rely on in their workplaces, schools and communities, making discrimination easier and accountability harder.

“This law was built over decades by people who experienced discrimination first-hand. Repealing it would not solve the country’s problems. It threatens the rights of millions.

“In uncertain times, the answer is not fewer protections for ordinary people. The Equality Act is a shield against unfairness. Weakening it would send a very clear message about whose rights matter and whose do not.”

Source: Amnesty International –

Source: Amnesty International –

A world where justice, freedom and equality come first is possible – but only if we fight for it.

Everything from our education, to our ability to live free from torture are rights that we enjoy because the generations that came before us took a stand.

But in the face of the anti-human rights movement, international conflict, and deepening inequality, the human rights we fought for are under threat.

Amnesty International exists so that a world where everyone can live freely, fairly and with dignity is possible.

For over 60 years, Amnesty and our 10 million supporters have been making sure that those in power uphold international law and protect human rights – for individuals, for communities, for us all.

Source: Greenpeace Statement –

Mechanisms proposed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for sharing any future revenues from deep sea mining fundamentally fail to demonstrate equitable distribution, calling into question one of the fundamental premises on which attempts to justify mining are based, new analysis shows.[1]

The research by legal professor Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka and development economist Dr Ben Tippet, reveals that proposals currently under consideration would leave developing nations with meagre, token payments from deep sea mining. This configuration is in contrast to the clear United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) mandate that mining must only be carried out for the benefit of humankind as a whole.[2] The real beneficiaries, the research shows, would be yet again a handful of corporations in the Global North.

Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka, Report Author, Centro Universitário de Brasília said: “What’s described as global benefit-sharing based on equity and intergenerational justice increasingly looks like a framework for managing scarcity that would deliver almost no real benefits to anyone other than the deep sea mining industry. The structural limitations of the proposed mechanism would offer little more than symbolic returns to the rest of the world, particularly developing countries lacking technological and financial capacity.”

The analysis, commissioned by Greenpeace International, shows that under a scenario where six deep sea mining sites begin operating in the early 2030s, the revenues that states would actually receive are extraordinarily small. 

Using proposals submitted by the ISA’s Finance Committee between 2022 and 2025, the returns to states barely register in national accounts. After administrative costs, institutional expenses, and compensation funds are deducted, little, if anything, remains to distribute. 

By contrast, the private sector would capture the overwhelming share of economic value. While net profits for private companies are not assured, given the high capital and operating costs of deep sea mining, the report illustrates a structural asymmetry. Private actors internalise the upstream value, while public benefits remain narrow, uncertain and deferred.

Ruth Ramos, Deep Sea Mining Campaigner, Greenpeace International said: “What Global South governments are being promised amounts to little more than scraps — nowhere near enough to justify tearing open the deep sea. Meanwhile, the environmental costs are pushed onto all of us. Deep sea mining companies are pushing an untested industry that would pocket the gains while offering frontline nations only symbolic crumbs in return. African countries, for example, stand to receive less than 0.5% of royalties. Revenue projections for many countries are equivalent to around 0.001% of their respective GDP. A whole country receiving the same payment as an individual CEO in a wealthy country is equivalent to a rounding error, and an insulting echo of extractivist colonialism.”

Pacific Island States, representing the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the region where deep sea mining exploration is most advanced, stand on the frontlines of this emerging industry. However, the report shows the average Pacific Island State is expected to receive US$46,000 per year in the medium term. As the area where deep sea mining is poised to begin, they are also among the nations that would bear its impacts most severely.

Shiva Gounden, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Head of Pacific said: “The people of the Pacific would sacrifice the most and receive the least if deep sea mining goes ahead. We are being asked to trade our spiritual and cultural connection to our oceans for almost nothing in return, risking our livelihoods and food sources. The sacrifice for the Pacific is too big to give the green light to deep sea mining. Our Pacific Ocean is not for sale. Protecting this with everything we have is not only fair and responsible but our ancestral duty. The only equitable path is to leave the minerals where they are and stop deep sea mining before it ever begins.”

The international seabed is the common heritage of humankind and governments must act quickly to enact a moratorium.

ENDS

Photos are available in the Greenpeace Media Library 

Report authors: Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka of the Centro Universitário de Brasília and
Dr Ben Tippet of King’s College London – author profiles available in the report. 

Notes

[1] Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area

[2] A key condition for governments to permit deep sea mining to start in the international seabed is that it ‘be carried out for the benefit of mankind as a whole’, particularly developing nations, according to international law (Article 136-140, 148, 150, and 160(2)(g), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea)

Source: Amnesty International –