16/11/2018

Fossil Fuels On Trial: Where The Major Climate Change Lawsuits Stand Today

InsideClimate News - David Hasemyer

Some of the biggest oil and gas companies are embroiled in legal disputes with cities, states and children over the industry's role in global warming.
Richmond, California, home to a Chevron refinery near San Francisco Bay, is one of several cities suing fossil fuel companies over climate change. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
A wave of legal challenges that is washing over the oil and gas industry, demanding accountability for climate change, started as a ripple after revelations that ExxonMobil had long recognized the threat fossil fuels pose to the world.Over the past few years: Two states launched fraud investigations into Exxon over climate change, and one has followed with a lawsuit. Nine cities and counties, from New York to San Francisco, have sued major fossil fuel companies, seeking compensation for climate change damages. And determined children have filed lawsuits against the federal government and various state governments, claiming the governments have an obligation to safeguard the environment.
The litigation, reinforced by science, has the potential to reshape the way the world thinks about energy production and the consequences of global warming. It advocates a shift from fossil fuels to sustainable energy and draws attention to the vulnerability of coastal communities and infrastructure to extreme weather and sea level rise.
From a trove of internal Exxon documents, a narrative emerged in 2015 that put a spotlight on the conduct of the fossil fuel industry. An investigative series of stories by InsideClimate News, and later the Los Angeles Times, disclosed that the oil company understood the science of global warming, predicted its catastrophic consequences, and then spent millions to promote misinformation.
That evidence ignited a legal clamor that included calls for a federal criminal investigation of Exxon. The challenges gained momentum when attorneys general in New York and Massachusetts subpoenaed the oil giant for internal climate change-related documents. Then some of the country's largest cities entered the fray, seeking billions of dollars to fortify against climate change.
The storm of litigation could have a broad impact if it succeeds in holding fossil fuel companies accountable for the kinds of damages they foresaw decades ago, said Harold Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School who served as senior legal adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"The industry has profited from the manufacture of fossil fuels but has not had to absorb the economic costs of the consequences," Koh said. "The industry had the science 30 years ago and knew what was going to happen but made no warning so that preemptive steps could have been taken.
"The taxpayers have been bearing the cost for what they should have been warned of 30 years ago," Koh added. "The companies are now being called to account for their conduct and the damages from that conduct."
Following is a summary of the major legal battles pitting Exxon and the oil and gas industry against American states and cities, and environmentally inspired young people against the government.
This timeline will be updated as events unfold.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has since resigned, launched multi-year investigations into whether Exxon misled investors and the public about climate change risks. New York has sued the oil giant. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
State Attorneys General Investigate Exxon
The attorneys general of New York, Massachusetts and the U.S. Virgin Islands launched investigations of Exxon in 2015 and 2016. Prosecutors want to see if the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how such risks might hurt the oil business.
The investigations drew a quick, fierce response from Exxon. The company went on the legal offensive to try to shut down the probes, employing an army of aggressive, high-priced lawyers and a strategy of massive resistance. The attorney general of the Virgin Islands capitulated and ended his investigation just three months after issuing subpoenas.
Since then, Exxon has been waging a relentless fight though state and federal courts to impede the continuing investigations by New York and Massachusetts. It sued Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and then-Attorney General of New York Eric Schneiderman in federal court to block the investigations, but the judge rejected Exxon's claims that the investigations are politically motivated. Legal battles also spilled into the courts of both states; all the way up to the supreme courts of New York and Massachusetts.
In October 2018, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood sued Exxon, stating in the lawsuit that the oil giant engaged in "a longstanding fraudulent scheme" to deceive investors by providing false and misleading assurances that it was effectively managing the economic risks posed by policies and regulations it anticipated being adopted to address climate change. The lawsuit said the alleged fraud reached the highest levels of Exxon, including former Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, who it said had known about the misrepresentations for years.

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Along parts of the California coast, homes and cities are right at the ocean's edge and vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal erosion. Credit: Frank Schulenburg/CC-BY-SA-4.0
Cities Sue Over Climate Costs
Faced with the possibility of devastating consequences brought by rising sea levels, eight cities and counties in California, along with New York City and municipalities in Colorado and Washington state, have filed civil lawsuits against several oil and gas companies. Rhode Island became the first state to join them its own lawsuit seeking to fossil fuel companies accountable for the impacts of climate change.
The lawsuits make a public nuisance claim and, in some cases, allege negligence. Essentially the lawsuits say the oil and gas companies have known for decades that burning fossil fuels is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. Instead of acting to reduce harm, the cities charge, companies attempted to undermine climate science and mislead the public by downplaying the risk posed by fossil fuels.
In California, where the lawsuits seek billions of dollars to pay for mitigation measures, such as sea walls to protect coastal property, the oil and gas companies responded by seeking to move the cases to federal courts, where nuisance claims are less likely to succeed. That jurisdictional battle rages on. Two California cases that were moved to federal court were dismissed by a judge who said the dangers of climate change are "very real" but that the issue should be handled by Congress.

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Young plaintiffs in the Children's Trust climate lawsuit head into court. Credit: Robyn Loznak
The Children's Climate Lawsuits
The next generation will likely have to manage the physical, ecological and economic fallout of climate change. And some of those young people are at the forefront of lawsuits that claim the federal government, and several state governments, are responsible for preventing and addressing the consequences of climate change.
The litigation, ignited by Our Children's Trust in 2015, relies on the public trust doctrine—a legal canon that stresses the government's hold on resources such as land, water or fisheries as treasure for the people. The children's lawsuits extend that principle by asserting the government also is a trustee of the atmosphere.
Nine similar children's lawsuits supported by Our Children's Trust have been filed in state courts from Alaska to Florida. Judges in Alaska and Washington state have dismissed two of the state-level cases.
The federal case demands sweeping changes in federal climate efforts and in government programs that subsidize or foster development of fossil fuels. Both the Obama and Trump administrations, and the fossil fuel industry, repeatedly sought to have the case dismissed. The case had been scheduled for trial in federal court starting Oct. 29, 2018, but it was briefly put on hold by the Supreme Court after the federal government appealed.

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The Australian's Continued Support Of Climate Change Denialism

Independent Australia - 

A recent article in The Australian on climate change has many errors and misrepresentations, writes Steve Bishop.

Global warming will fundamentally change the habitability of Earth. (Image by Ken Kistler via Public Domain Pictures)
THE AUSTRALIAN continues to publish rubbish about global warming.
This is despite the fact that, its then-editor, Chris Mitchell, said eight years ago: "for several years the paper has accepted man-made climate change as fact".
But last week, the paper gave columnist Michael Asten more than 400 square centimetres for an article of well over 900 words to argue there are massive divisions about the science.
To be fair, he probably did not write the headline:
‘Global climate has warmed, but scientists divided on why that is so.’
But he did allege there is doubt about the 'relative contribution of natural variations and anthropogenic [man-made]' causes to climate change.
There’s no doubt at all in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
It states categorically:
 ‘Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels.’
Asten alleges:
‘…most Australians do not appreciate the level of doubt about IPCC science in the science community.’
Any doubt in the scientific community comes from a minute but vocal minority in the same way that there are still scientists and “experts” who speak out against action to stop smoking.
As an example, the climate change-denying Heartland Institute says on its website:
‘There are many reasons to be skeptical about what professional anti-smoking advocates say. They personally profit by exaggerating the health threats of smoking and winning passage of higher taxes and bans on smoking in public places.’
The level of doubt cited by Asten could also be compared with the small number of anti-vaxxers who, despite all the evidence of the efficacy and safety of vaccinations, have convinced the Italian Government to drop mandatory vaccinations for children entering school.
And on the topic of doubters and minorities, there are even the members of the Flat Earth Society.
But there is no doubt among nearly 200 of the world’s scientific organisations. They all hold the view that climate change has been caused by human activity.
So why would Asten suggest most Australians have such doubts?

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And why does The Australian continue to publish articles designed to raise doubts about anthropogenic climate change and the urgent need to tackle it when it does not provide similar support for tobacco lobbyists and flat-earthers?
It panders to the ridiculous right of the Liberal Party, typified by Tony Abbott and to the companies with a financial stake in climate change denial who donate to the Institute of Public Affairs.
The best example Asten provides to sow such doubt is a 2014 report from the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Asten claims only 52% of respondents believed warming to be ‘mostly human in origin’.
The figure of 52% was first used by climate change denier James Taylor in 2013, who used a leaked copy of the draft 2014 report to write:
‘Barely half of American Meteorological Society meteorologists believe global warming is occurring and humans are the primary cause, a newly released study reveals.’
This was viewed as such a misrepresentation by the report’s authors that they responded angrily:
‘We found that more than 9 out of 10 climate science experts (93%) who publish mostly on climate change, and the same proportion (93%) of climate experts who publish mostly on other topics, were convinced that humans have contributed to global warming.’
Former AMS president Dr J Marshall Shepherd wrote for Forbes in March 2016 that, ‘with such a [mischaracterised] response, the AMS felt that a new survey was needed.’
Despite only 37% of the respondents of the new survey considering themselves experts in climate science, it found:
‘Two thirds (67%) of the 4,004 respondents said the main cause of climate change was human activity. A further 14% believed the change was caused more or less equally by human activity and natural events.’
Yet Asten ignored the response to the 2014 survey and the results of the 2016 survey.
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Asten’s article goes on to include a scare campaign about the cost to taxpayers of contributing to the Green Climate Fund created by the United Nations to help developing countries deal with climate change.
It says this:
‘…the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has a goal for its Green Climate Fund to spend $100 billion U.S. annually from 2020, with Australia having been “assessed” as responsible for 4.25% of this cost … If we accept this obligation from the UNFCCC, we are saddling our children and grandchildren with an obligation for $60bn AUD across a decade.’
My research suggests the figure of 4.25% came not from the fund or the UN, but from a working paper published in September by the World Resources Institute, suggesting an improved structure for the fund and a formula for guaranteed funding from developed countries.
But this process was not adopted at the Fund’s October meeting. Instead, a process of approaching donors for fresh contributions was agreed at the Bahrain meeting. Observers said a pledging conference could take place next autumn.
So it would appear there is no “obligation” of any sort at the moment and certainly not to pay $60 billion.
Yet a sub-heading which appeared in the print edition of the story reads:
‘Before we spend billions as part of the Paris accord, let’s consider the alternatives.’
Perhaps Asten was swayed by a headline over a story by The Australian’s Environment Editor Graham Lloyd in September which read: ‘Global Green Climate Fund demands $400m, fast’.
But along with not developing a plan to cut emissions, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia will not contribute any more money to the fund.
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Asten then introduces Garth Partridge as a former CSIRO Chief scientist, Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Oceans Studies (IASOS) and a Fellow of Australian Academy of Science, for the purposes of highlighting that he was chastised by the Academy’s President for alleging an Academy booklet on climate change understated scientific uncertainties.
Paltridge was never Chief CSIRO scientist and he retired as IASOS director 16 years ago. Perhaps Asten should have introduced him as a contrarian who is listed as an expert adviser of the Galileo Movement.
This organisation has ex-One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts as project leader and Alan Jones as patron. Its panel of experts also includes Ian Plimer and Viscount Monckton.
It alleges an ‘Australian corruption of climate science’.
Asten suggests that the cost of the Paris Agreement leads to ‘the potential loss of jobs’ and puts ‘thousands of jobs at stake’.
In fact, research by Ernst and Young and the Climate Council has found:
‘Job losses in coal-fired electricity generation are more than compensated for by increased employment in the renewable energy sector.’
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 Asten says it is troubling that the work of Nicola Scafetta is not part of the IPCC Report because it forecasts:
‘…future global warming to be about half of that used by the IPCC in its demands for urgent action to avoid climate disaster.’
However, in 2009 it was reported that Scarfetta was:
 ‘…refusing to provide the software he used to other climate researchers attempting to replicate his results.’
A recent examination of Scarfetta’s work by DeSmog suggests that is still the case. Is it any wonder his work is not part of the IPCC report?
Asten is credited by The Australian as being ‘a retired professor of geophysics and adjunct senior fellow at Monash University'.
Asten’s CV includes a list of 187 publications related to geology — including mining, oil and coal exploration. The list includes only four publications related to climate change. Two relate to estimates of the climate sensitivity from fossils. One alleges that climate science is not being taught objectively in schools and he’s written a non-academic article saying there is a debate about climate science.
None of the four were peer-reviewed. Which is hardly a surprise.
The Australian was at it again on Saturday with an article by Judith Sloan in which she quoted Richard Lindzen as 'a leading figure in climate science' in order to make 'an important point'.
But Lindzen is a contrarian who angered climate scientists by writing to President Trump, urging him to withdraw from the UN Climate Convention.
Since 2013, Lindzen has received $25,000 a year from the Cato Institute, founded in part by the billionaire Koch brothers, and $30,000 from Peabody Coal for testimony in legal proceedings.
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Climate Change On Track To Make World 'Uninsurable': IAG

AFR - James Fernyhough
Carbon emissions are priced in by many companies, including 22 major listed Australian firms.
Insurance giant IAG has warned a failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could result in a world that is "pretty much uninsurable", with poorer communities likely to bear the brunt of the effects.
In Australia, IAG said temperature increases of more than 3 degrees would expose greater swaths of Queensland to cyclones and flooding, while a rise of more than 4 degrees could make the risks to insurers prohibitive.
"It's a big question because it depends on reinsurance capital, but if you take some of the models that are being done on cyclone risk, for example, there could be more of Queensland exposed to cyclone and flooding in a 3-degree world," Jacki Johnson, IAG's group executive people, performance and reputation, told The Australian Financial Review.
"There is some commentary globally that in a 4-degree world, the world becomes pretty much uninsurable."
Banana plantations in North Queensland devastated by a cyclone. Climate change is expected to make such weather events more severe, and therefore expensive to insure against. Craig Abraham
This week 16 of the world's biggest insurers, including IAG and QBE, launched an initiative with the United Nations to develop new risk assessment tools in an effort to make insurance accessible and affordable.
Participating insurers, which also include AXA, Allianz and Swiss Re, will work with climate scientists to develop a better understanding of the new and unpredictable weather events resulting from climate change.
The focus of the initiative is on responding to climate change, rather than preventing it. However, Ms Johnson said the future of insurance depended upon limiting global temperature rises, which could only be achieved by a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
"We have been very vocal [on the fact that] something will have to change because you cannot continue to have the carbon emissions and think that the world will be insurable," she said.
While the Paris agreement officially aims to keep global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, current policies would result in far higher temperature rises.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have insisted Australia will meet its Paris targets, but official figures contradict them. Dominic Lorrimer
Emissions increasing
According to Climate Action Tracker, a German-government backed initiative, under current policies global temperatures are on track to rise by 3.4 degrees by the end of the century.
Will Steffen, professor emeritus at Australian National University and member of the Climate Council, predicted rises would be even higher.
"I suspect on current trajectories it will be more like 4 degrees. So we're not on a good track at all," he told The Australian Financial Review.
Australia's own emissions are increasing, putting it on track to fall significantly short of its own target of a 26-28 per cent reduction below 2005 levels by 2030.
The Department of the Environment and Energy projects by 2030 Australia's greenhouse gas emissions will be just 5 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The United States, meanwhile, the world's second biggest greenhouse gas emitter after China, last year withdrew from the Paris agreement, and Brazil's president-elect Jair Bolsonaro has threatened to do the same, increasing the risk that temperatures will soar past 3 degrees.
The business community has increasingly got behind efforts to curb temperature rises, with even oil and gas giant Woodside's chief executive Peter Coleman this week calling for a price on carbon.
Ms Johnson said IAG did not have a view on how greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
"We're willing to lend our voice to the impact of climate and what has to be modelled, and what needs to be mitigated, but the actual policy settings for energy would be outside of our expertise," she said.

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The Climate Change Light Show That’s Making Waves In Cities Around The World

EcoWatch - Clara Chaisson

"Waterlicht," Rotterdam, 2018. Studio Roosegaarde
The people of Rotterdam know a thing or two about living with water. In fact, it's right there in the name—the Dutch city dates back to the 13th century, when the Rotte River was dammed, making it possible to safely settle nearby.
"When I was a boy, I wasn't even allowed to play outside without my swimming diploma," said artist Daan Roosegaarde, founder of the Rotterdam-based social design lab Studio Roosegaarde. "In the Netherlands, we are surrounded by water. Without technology, we would literally all drown."
Today, 90 percent of Rotterdam sits below sea level, and its historically intimate relationship with water has undergone a thoroughly modern makeover in preparation for the impacts of climate change. And just like the Dutch engineers who are sharing their creative approaches to sea level rise with the world, Roosegaarde is showing his art in the hopes of inspiring innovation.
"Waterlicht," Rotterdam, 2018. Studio Roosegaarde
For the past three years, Studio Roosegaarde's Waterlicht project, which translates to "water light," has been traveling the globe. Commissioned by Dutch water authorities, the public art installation uses LEDs, lenses, software, and the elements to create a virtual flood that submerges visitors in a blue-tinted dreamscape. It's a waterlogged alternate reality—one that could easily become our future if we fail to intervene (and quickly) to protect our cities from the ocean's steady rise.
Late last month, Waterlicht made its hometown debut at the Kunsthal museum, attracting 25,000 visitors in only three evenings. It was the project's 12th stop since 2015. Other 2018 hosts included London's Granary Square, the United Nations headquarters in New York, and the Bentway in Toronto.
Each installation is site-specific, and the team might spend six months preparing for an exhibition that lasts just a few nights. (In the case of the U.N. installation, it took three years just to get the permits.) A major part of the challenge, Roosegaarde said, is "undesigning" the landscape. Waterlicht is always presented outdoors after sunset, and for maximum effect, the studio must work with local authorities and businesses to minimize light pollution. Sometimes the organizers even rent billboards simply to turn them off. The goal is to make it dark enough to create the appropriate atmosphere, but light enough to ensure a safe experience for visitors. "It's a puzzle every time," Roosegaarde said. Following a Nov. 11 opening in Dubai, the artist doesn't yet know where Waterlicht will travel next. Venice is his "dream location," for obvious reasons.
Intangible waves undulating against the night sky like the ghost of climate change future is a haunting sight. But it's also a thrilling, mesmerizing one, and Roosegaarde hopes it fosters creative thinking. As the designer sees it, we already have the tools we need to build a more livable world.
"It's not a lack of technology," Roosegaarde said. "It's a lack of imagination for what we want the future to look like. The role of public art is a really great trigger to create this collective experience where people are curious, not afraid."
"Waterlicht," Rotterdam, 2018. Studio Roosegaarde
Waterlicht, which the U.N. Development Programme cites as "inspiring action," is not the first Studio Roosegaarde project to leverage technology in an effort to find environmental solutions. The driving concept behind the studio's work is schoonheid, which means both "clean" and "beauty." Their decade long CV includes a glowing bike path inspired by the painting The Starry Night in the Dutch town where Vincent Van Gogh lived, energy-producing kites that appear as lasers in the night sky, sleek towers that suck smog from the air and bicycles that do the same, and most recently, an initiative to upcycle and call attention to outer-space waste. Roosegaarde, who has degrees in fine arts and architecture, founded the studio in 2007. "I had ideas, and nobody knew how to build them," he said. "So I just thought, 'We'll do it ourselves.'"
Daan Roosegaarde at "Waterlicht," Rotterdam, 2018. Studio Roosegaarde
"I make things because I look outside my window and I don't understand the world anymore," Roosegaarde said. "The CO2, the traffic jams, the rising water ... Waiting for government or politicians is not going to help. I try to make things to show you it can be done."
If he's right, it's high time the world dove in.

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