The equality campaigner Christie Elan-Cane has lost a high court challenge against the UK government’s refusal to issue gender-neutral, or X, passports.  Mr Justice Jeremy Baker upheld Home Office policy after the court was told it would affect other legislation, cost too much to change computer records and increase the need for consular support abroad for gender-neutral British citizens. Elan-Cane, who has pursued the issue for more than 25 years, has claimed that non-gendered people suffer discrimination and are being deprived of their “legitimate identity”. UK passports restrict sex designations to male or female. Ten countries permit their citizens to opt for a third category, X, or unknown.

Canada was the most recent to offer its citizens gender-neutral passports. Other country that allow a third option are Australia, Denmark, Germany, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, Ireland and Nepal. X passports are approved by the ICAO, the UN agency that regulates international air travel. During the hearing, Kate Gallafent QC, for Elan-Cane, argued that HM Passport Office policy breaches the right to respect for private life, and the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of gender or sex, under the European convention on human rights (ECHR).  She said: “For the claimant, obtaining and using a passport currently involves making a false declaration as to the nature of the claimant’s gender identity, which causes the claimant considerable distress.”(theguardian)…[+]

The former US vice-president Joe Biden has accused “demagogues and charlatans” of stirring up voters’ fears just as they did in the 1930s, as the issue of migration convulses politics on both sides of the Atlantic. Biden, seen as a potential Democratic party candidate against Donald Trump in 2020, did not mention the US president by name but linked his anti-immigrant drive and that of European populists and the far right with pre-war fascists who were willing to create scapegoats to retain their grip on power. “In ways that evoke memories of the 30s, frustrated and disaffected voters may turn instead to strongmen,” he told a conference in Copenhagen. “Demagogues and charlatans step up to stoke people’s legitimate fears and push the blame always on the other. There always has to be scapegoats. Now it is immigrants, the outsider, the other.”

On 21 June 2018, energy experts from Barbados, Guyana, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago came together to discuss their experiences in gathering and analysing energy efficiency (EE) indicators, as well as the challenges and lessons learnt in gathering EE data. These discussions took place in the context of the final training workshop of a project focused on the Development of a Database of Energy Efficiency Indicators (BIEE), which was hosted by the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) subregional headquarters for the Caribbean.

The training, which was the last in a series of workshops held at intervals over the last 12 months, facilitated a review of the first set of country reports from the four countries. During the series of workshops, participants have been exposed to the BIEE methodology.  The BIEE programme seeks to strengthen the capacity of energy authorities in Latin America and the Caribbean to monitor their energy efficiency, improve data reliability and in turn enhance evidence-based decision-making on energy efficiency. The BIEE tool provides a template to gather national data for assessing and analysing policies and programmes on EE. It also facilitates the regional comparability of the energy sector, and promotes the implementation, monitoring and standardization of EE policies and programmes. The series of workshops are a joint initiative under the project, which was managed by ECLAC Caribbean, with support from the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME)…[+]