01/06/2021

(AU The Conversation) Four seismic climate wins show Big Oil, Gas and Coal are running out of places to hide

The Conversation -  |  | 

Peter Dejong/AP

Authors
  • is Professor of Environmental and Climate Law, The University of Melbourne
  • is Senior Lecturer and Program Director of the Master of Commerce, The University of Melbourne
  • is Research fellow, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne
Three global fossil fuel giants have just suffered embarrassing rebukes over their inadequate action on climate change. Collectively, the developments show how courts, and frustrated investors, are increasingly willing to force companies to reduce their carbon dioxide pollution quickly.

A Dutch court ordered Royal Dutch Shell to slash its greenhouse emissions, and 61% of Chevron shareholders backed a resolution to force that company to do the same. And in an upset at Exxon Mobil, an activist hedge fund won two seats on the company’s board.

The string of wins was followed in Australia on Thursday by a court ruling that the federal environment minister, when deciding whether or not to approve a new coal mine, owes a duty of care to young people to avoid causing them personal injury from climate change.

The court rulings are particularly significant. Courts have often been reluctant to interfere in what is viewed as an issue best left to policymakers. These recent judgements, and others, suggest courts are more prepared to scrutinise emissions reduction by businesses and - in the case of the Dutch court - order them to do more.

The wins for climate action put big polluters on notice. AP

Court warns of ‘irreversible consequences’

 In a world-first ruling, a Hague court ordered oil and gas giant Shell to reduce CO₂ emissions by 45% by 2030, relative to 2019 levels. The court noted Shell had no emissions-reduction targets to 2030, and its policies to 2050 were “rather intangible, undefined and non-binding”.

The case was brought by climate activist and human rights groups. The court found climate change due to CO₂ emissions “has serious and irreversible consequences” and threatened the human “right to life”. It also found Shell was responsible for so-called “Scope 3” emissions generated by its customers and suppliers.

The Chevron upset involved an investor revolt. Some 61% of shareholders supported a resolution calling for Chevron to substantially reduce Scope 3 emissions generated by the use of its oil and gas.

And last week, shareholders of ExxonMobil, one of the world’s biggest corporate greenhouse gas emitters, forced a dramatic management shakeup. An activist hedge fund, Engine No. 1, won two, and potentially three, places on the company’s 12-person board.

Engine No. 1 explicitly links Exxon’s patchy economic performance to a failure to invest in low-carbon technologies.

The court said Shell’s emissions reduction efforts were ‘rather intangible’. Shutterstock

Climate-savvy shareholders unite

As human activity causes Earth’s atmosphere to warm, large fossil fuel companies are under increasing pressure to act.

A mere 20 companies have contributed 493 billion tonnes of CO₂ and methane to the atmosphere, primarily from the burning of their oil, coal and gas. This equates to 35% of all global greenhouse gas emissions since 1965.

Shareholders – many concerned by the financial risks of climate change – are leading the corporate accountability push. The Climate Action 100+ initiative is a leading example.

It involves more than 400 investors with more than A$35 trillion in assets under management, who work with companies to reduce emissions, and improve governance and climate-related financial disclosures. Similar movements are emerging worldwide.

Shareholders in Australia are also stepping up engagement with companies over climate change.

Last year, shareholder resolutions on climate change were put to Santos and Woodside. While neither resolution achieved the 75% support needed to pass, both received unprecedented levels of support – 43.39% and 50.16% of the vote, respectively.

And in May 2021, Rio Tinto became the first Australian board to publicly back shareholder resolutions on climate change, which subsequently passed with 99% support.

The Rio Tinto board backed a shareholder resolution on climate change. Brendan Esposito/AAP

The litigation trend

To date, the question of whether corporate polluters can be legally forced to reduce greenhouse emissions has remained unanswered. While fossil fuel companies have faced a string of climate lawsuits in the United States and Europe, courts have often dismissed the claims on procedural grounds.

Cases brought against governments have been more successful. In 2019, for example, the Dutch Supreme Court affirmed the government has a legal duty to prevent dangerous climate change.

The decision against Shell is significant, and sends a clear signal that corporations can be held legally responsible for greenhouse pollution.

Shell has previously argued it can only reduce its absolute emissions by shrinking its business. The recent case highlights how such companies may have to quickly find new forms of revenue, or face legal liability.

It’s unlikely we’ll see identical litigation in Australia, because our laws are different to those in the Netherlands. But the Shell case is emblematic of a broader trend of climate litigation being brought to challenge corporate polluters.

This includes the case decided on Thursday involving young people opposed to a company’s coal mine expansion, and Australian cases arguing for greater disclosure of climate risk by corporations, banks and super funds.

The case brought against the Australian government by a group of teenagers is part of a growing trend towards climate litigation. Supplied
Change is nigh

Oil and gas companies often argue Scope 3 emissions are not their responsibility, because they don’t control how customers use their products. The Shell finding and shareholder action against Chevron suggest this claim may hold little sway with courts or shareholders in future.

The Shell case may also set off a global avalanche of copycat litigation. In Australia, legal experts have noted the turning tide, and warned is it’s only a matter of time before directors who fail to act on climate change face litigation.

Clearly, a seismic shift is looming, in which corporations will be forced to take greater responsibility for climate harms. These recent developments should act as a wake-up call for oil, gas and coal companies, in Australia and around the world.

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(UN News) Natural Disasters Occurring Three Times More Often Than 50 Years Ago: New FAO Report

UN News - Climate and Environment

New and unprecedented forms of natural disasters are most heavily felt in the agricultural industry, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

A woman and her baby stand in the rubble of Cyclone Idai, that struck central Mozambique in 2019. WFP/Deborah Nguyen
At no other point in history have agri-food systems faced more hazards such as megafires, extreme weather, unusually large desert locust swarms, and emerging biological threats, as during the past year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nor have they been seen at such frequency, intensity, and complexity, the agency said in a new report . These disasters devastate agricultural livelihoods, inflicting cascading negative economic consequences from household to national levels, that could potentially endure for generations.

According to FAO, disasters happen three times more often today, than in the 1970s and 1980s.

Agriculture absorbs a disproportionate 63 per cent share of their impact, compared to other sectors, such as tourism, commerce and industry.

Poorest countries most at risk

The least developed and low to middle income countries have fared worst of all. From 2008 to 2018, natural disasters have cost the agricultural sectors of developing economies more than $108 billion in damaged crop and livestock production.

Over the same period, Asia was the most hard-hit region, with overall economic losses of $49 billion, followed by Africa at $30 billion, and Latin America and the Caribbean at $29 billion.

Drought is identified as the single greatest culprit of agricultural production loss, followed by floods, storms, pests and diseases, and wildfires.

Failed rains caused a 34 per cent loss of crop and livestock production, compared to a nine per cent output decline from biological disasters in the period.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating existing problems.

Profound food security impacts

Beyond the damage to countries’ economies, the consequences for food security and nutrition are profound. For the first time, this edition of the FAO report converts economic losses into caloric and nutrition equivalents.

It estimates that crop and livestock production loss in the least developed countries and low to middle-income countries between 2008 and 2018 was equivalent to a loss of 6.9 trillion kilocalories per year. This equals the annual calorie intake of seven million adults.

The report argues that investing in resilience and disaster risk reduction, especially data gathering and analysis for evidence-informed action, is of paramount importance to ensure agriculture's crucial role in achieving a sustainable future.

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(AU Wall Street Journal) To Slow Climate Change, Australia Turns To Its Coastline

Wall Street Journal - Mike Cherney

Scientists in some countries are mending watery habitats that they say can store more carbon per acre than forests 

Jason Tanner, the scientist overseeing South Australia’s seagrass restoration. Kelly Barnes for The Wall Street Journal
SYDNEY— Researchers on a boat off the southern coast of Australia recently began throwing some 50,000 bags of sand into the ocean. Their goal is to restore about two dozen acres of seagrass on the ocean floor that will suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

The move is part of an intensified push in some countries to slow warming temperatures on the planet by not only preserving or restoring trees—which also absorb carbon—but also by mending habitats along the world’s coastlines.

These so-called “blue carbon” areas, which aside from meadows of underwater seagrass also include mangroves and tidal marshes, often store more carbon per acre than forests and hold it for a long time, scientists say. From Australia to Colombia to the U.S., these coastal zones are becoming a priority for conservation and restoration as researchers and policy makers start to appreciate their potential to take carbon out of the atmosphere.

A diver for South Australia’s offshore restoration project checked a bag to which seagrass, like that shown below, had attached. Photos: South Australian Research and Development Institute


Carbon released into the atmosphere from man-made sources such as fossil-fuel-burning power plants and cars is contributing to a warming climate, many scientists say, which is why researchers are seeking ways to capture and store it.

“We looked at our coastal ecosystems and we realized there is actually quite a large potential there,” said Neil McFarlane, an official overseeing climate-change strategy for South Australia, one of the country’s six states. “Blue carbon is a whole area that we believe hasn’t been explored nearly hard enough.”

Like forests on land, such coastal habitats store carbon in the plants themselves. But areas such as the seagrass field that Australian researchers are aiming to regrow store even more carbon in the soil below. That is because the ground in coastlands that contain seagrass, mangroves and marshes is routinely covered with water and sediment, lowering oxygen levels. This slows decomposition, which normally releases carbon back into the atmosphere.

There are blue-carbon ecosystems around the world, but Australia is a hot spot for them—it has as much as 32% of the world’s seagrass, mangroves and tidal marshes, according to one study. That has prompted the Australian government and local researchers to take a leading role in investigating the ability of coastal ecosystems to store carbon, scientists say.

Seagrass restoration efforts were under way off the coastline of Adelaide, Australia, in mid-May. Photo: Kelly Barnes for The Wall Street Journal
There is growing interest in revitalizing these areas because it is a natural solution that can slow climate change. New technology, such as machines that take carbon out of the air, is expensive on a large scale. “We’ve got more attention being drawn to nature-based solutions to climate change,” said Peter Macreadie, a marine-science professor and head of the Blue Carbon Lab at Deakin University in Australia. “We’re going to rely on nature to regain control of the planet’s thermostat.”

In the U.S., scientists have already restored a different type of seagrass on the east coast of Virginia near the Chesapeake Bay, and some members of Congress, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.), have pushed to investigate further blue-carbon opportunities. In Pakistan, local authorities and private investors are seeking to replant more than 800 square miles of mangroves.

In Colombia, a project to protect mangroves and marshes was approved by Verra, a U.S.-based nonprofit that oversees a carbon-credit program, as its first blue-carbon conservation project. That means the project can issue Verra-certified carbon credits, which represent carbon that has been reduced or removed from the atmosphere. Companies can finance a project to earn carbon credits or buy the credits as a way to offset their own emissions.

Jason Tanner deposited a sand bag off the Adelaide, Australia, coastline earlier this month. Photo: Kelly Barnes for The Wall Street Journal
In Australia, the researchers tossing the sand-filled bags into the ocean are betting that seagrass seedlings from one local species will float by and attach to the sacks, which are made of burlap, using a special hook at the base of the plant.

Other restoration efforts in the country include one from the environmental group Nature Conservancy to restore mangroves and salt marshes in some 500 acres along the South Australian coast. Australia’s government recently said that it would invest more than $20 million in blue-carbon projects, part of a roughly $75 million initiative aimed at protecting the ocean, though center-right Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been criticized by environmental groups for not moving fast enough to reduce emissions.

Australian regulators are also working with scientists to develop their own carbon credit specifically for blue-carbon initiatives.

Storing carbon in coastal areas alone isn’t expected to fully mitigate climate change. Blue-carbon ecosystems are much smaller in extent than land-based forests, so preserving and restoring coastal habitats would make up only a small amount of the carbon reduction needed to meet climate targets. In addition, rejuvenating some coastal areas, such as using divers to replant seagrass, can also be more difficult and costly than planting trees on land.

Still, failing to protect existing seagrass, mangroves and tidal marshes could allow climate change to accelerate, scientists say. If these areas are destroyed, stored carbon gets released back into the atmosphere.

One study, using satellite imagery, found that 2% of the world’s mangroves, or 1,300 square miles, disappeared from 2000 to 2016. In Australia, another study estimated that more than 600 square miles of seagrass had been lost since the 1950s from indirect causes such as heat and light stress.

In 2011, a marine heat wave damaged 36% of the seagrass meadows in Western Australia’s Shark Bay—which has the largest carbon stocks of any seagrass ecosystem world-wide, according to one study. A few years later, mangroves along a 600-mile stretch of coastline in northern Australia died, an event scientists attributed to factors including drought and high temperatures.

“A lot of people don’t really know what seagrass is or what it does,” said Jason Tanner, the government scientist overseeing South Australia’s seagrass restoration, adding that it has other benefits like protecting against coastal erosion and providing a habitat for marine life. “I think it is slowly percolating into people’s awareness.”

Semaphore Beach, Adelaide, Australia. Photo: Kelly Barnes for The Wall Street Journal

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