27/05/2018

Climate Change Soon To Cause Movement Of 140m People, World Bank Warns

The Guardian - 

 Tens of millions in three regions of the developing world expected to migrate before 2050 unless environment is improved
Lalmonirhat in Bangladesh was flooded last year. It is one of the areas likely to be hard-hit by climate change, leading to high levels of migration. Photograph: Zakir Chowdhury/Barcroft Images
Climate change will result in a massive movement of people inside countries and across borders, creating “hotspots” where tens of millions pour into already crowded slums, according to the World Bank.
More than 140 million people in just three regions of the developing world are likely to migrate within their native countries between now and 2050, the first report on the subject has found.
The World Bank examined three regions, which between them account for 55% of the developing world’s population. In sub-Saharan Africa, 86 million are expected to be internally displaced over the period; in south Asia, about 40 million; and in Latin America, 17 million.
Such flows of people could cause enormous disruption, threatening governance and economic and social development, but the World Bank cautioned that it was still possible to stave off the worst effects.
“Climate change-driven migration will be a reality, but it does not need to be a crisis, provided we take action now and act boldly,” said John Roome, a senior director for climate change at the World Bank group.
He laid out three key actions governments should take: first, to accelerate their reductions of greenhouse gases; second, for national governments to incorporate climate change migration into their national development planning; and third, to invest in further data and analysis for use in planning development.
Within countries, the effects of climate change will create multiple “hotspots”: made up of the areas people move away from in large numbers, and the areas they move to.
“Local planners need to make sure the resources are made available, and to make sure it takes place in a comprehensive and coordinated manner,” said Roome.
Globally, many tens of millions more are expected to be similarly affected, creating huge problems for national and local governments. Nearly 3% of the population was judged likely to move owing to climate change in the areas studied – a proportion that might be repeated elsewhere.
Migration between countries has previously taken the spotlight, with its potential for cross-border conflicts, but internal migration may cause as much disruption, putting pressure on infrastructure, jobs, food and water resources.
The 140 million figure extrapolates from current trends, but could be reduced if changes are made. If economic development is made more inclusive, for instance through better education and infrastructure, internal migration across the three regions could drop to between 65 million and 105 million, according to the report. If strong action is taken on greenhouse gas emissions, as few as 30 million to 70 million may migrate.
Climate change is likely to most affect the poorest and most vulnerable, making agriculture difficult or even impossible across large swaths of the globe, threatening water resources and increasing the likelihood of floods, droughts and heatwaves in some areas. Sea level rises and violent storm surges are also likely to hit low-lying coastal areas, such as in Bangladesh.
Kristalina Georgieva, the chief executive of the World Bank, in her introduction to the report published on Monday, said: “There is growing recognition among researchers that more people will move within national borders to escape the effects of slow-onset climate change, such as droughts, crop failure and rising seas.
“The number of climate migrants could be reduced by tens of millions as a result of global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and with far-sighted development planning. There is an opportunity now to plan and act for emerging climate change threats.”

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'We Can't See A Future': Group Takes EU To Court Over Climate Change

The Guardian - 

Maurice Feschet, 72, a lavender farmer from Provence, says he lost 44% of his harvest in six years because of climate change. Photograph: Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images
Lawyers acting for a group including a French lavender farmer and members of the indigenous Sami community in Sweden have launched legal action against the EU’s institutions for failing to adequately protect them against climate change.
A case is being pursued in the Luxembourg-based general court, Europe’s second highest, against the European parliament and the council of the European Union for allowing overly high greenhouse gas emissions to continue until 2030.
The families, including young children, claim their lives have been blighted by the policy decisions in Brussels, and that the EU’s inadequate emissions targets will cause more suffering.
The legal complaint asserts that the EU’s existing climate target to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, does not protect their fundamental rights of life, health, occupation and property.
The litigants, from Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Romania, Kenya, Fiji, and the Swedish Sami Youth Association Sáminuorra, say the EU should define a higher reduction target.
The claim specifically targets the EU’s emission trading scheme directive, the effort sharing regulation and the land use, land use change and forestry regulation.
The plaintiffs, who are not seeking compensation for their loss, are asking the court to declare the three acts null and void, “since they violate the plaintiff’s rights and are not in line with higher ranking law”.
According to a legal summary of the complaint, to avoid a vacuum, the court will be asked to keep the acts in force until a stronger version of them has been enacted. Lawyers claim there is a case for this in article 263 of the treaty on the functioning of the EU.
In 2015, a court in The Hague ordered the Dutch government to cut its emissions by at least 25% within five years, ruling that its plans to cut emissions by 14-17% compared with 1990 levels by 2020 were unlawful, given the scale of the threat posed by climate change. The government has appealed the decision, which will be heard in The Hague on Monday.
Maurice Feschet, 72, a lavender farmer in Grignan, Provence, told the Guardian he became involved in the action against the EU after losing 44% of his harvest in six years because of climate change.
He said: “My family has been farming here since the 1800s. I am taking this action for my 38-year-old son who lives on the farm. We want him to continue to be able to farm, but it is not going to be easy. There must be more done.”
Alfredo Sendim, 52, an organic farmer in central Portugal, said the irregularity of the climate in his area raised serious doubts about the long-term sustainability of his business. He said: “Last year we had almost the entire year without a drop of rain. Then we had two weeks and all the rain that we should have had fell.”
In Sweden, the traditional Sami way of life herding reindeer is said to be under pressure from rising temperatures that threaten the size of herds. Warmer winters mean less snow and more rain freezing into ice, making it harder for the animals to reach the plants they need to eat.
A herd of reindeer. Photograph: Corbis via Getty Images
Sanna Vannar, 22, the chair of Sáminuorra, said: “If we lose the reindeers, the Sami culture will be lost. Many of the Sami youth want to stay with their families and be reindeer herders, but they cannot see a future. This is mostly due to the threat of climate change. This must be urgently addressed for the safety of our generation and the next generations.”
Roda Verheyen, the lawyer acting on behalf of the families, said: “Climate change is already an issue for the courts in the European countries and around the world.
“The plaintiff families are putting their trust in the EU courts and legal system to protect their fundamental rights of life, health, occupation and property which are under threat of climate change. The EU courts must now listen to these families and ensure that they are protected.”
Scientists from the thinktank Climate Analytics are providing expert evidence to the families’ lawyers. The German non-governmental organisation Protect the Planet is bearing all the costs related to the legal case.
Climate Action Network (CAN), Europe’s largest NGO working on climate and energy issues, is also supporting the action.
Wendel Trio, CAN’s director in Europe, said: “This is part of a strategy to get the EU institutions to increase their targets. In 2015, as part of the Paris agreement, countries agreed to pursue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.
“Yet, it is clear that the existing EU 2030 climate target is not enough to respect the commitments taken in the Paris agreement and should be increased. The EU needs under the agreement to confirm its target by 2020. This legal action initiated by normal families impacted by climate change is underlining the urgency and the necessity to increase it.”

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7 Novels That Will Fire You Up About Climate Change

OZY - Amy Brady

It’s called cli-fi and it might be another way to help save the planet. 



Scientists have been trying to warn us about climate change’s most devastating effects for decades. Now fiction writers are helping their cause, crafting stories that help readers imagine glacier melt, sea level rise and other climate-related scenarios.
Often called climate fiction, or cli-fi, the genre “helps writers overcome some of the most profound communication challenges” that the phenomenon presents, says Elizabeth Rush, visiting lecturer at Brown University. Why? Because climate change is “slow-moving and intensely place-based,” it can be difficult to notice in our day-to-day lives, she explains — and with climate fiction, “you can do just that. You can imagine being a person whom flood or drought displaces, and with that imaginative stance can come radical empathy.”
Check out these thought-provoking reads from around the world about a futuristic Scandinavia where water is scarce, a German scientist distraught over disappearing glaciers, a teenager living in a carbon-rationed England and a climate-conscious biologist exploring a string of islands off the coast of India.

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta

 Set in the near future in Scandinavia, this novel, Itäranta’s first, is speculative fiction at its best. Climate change has ravaged the planet, and in its wake, China has come to rule Europe, and wars are waged over precious resources like water. Amid all this, 17-year-old Noria Kaitio strives to be a “tea master” like her father and, in doing so, has learned of a secret water source. When her father dies, the national army begins watching her closely, and she must decide whether to keep her secret and risk her safety or tell it and risk betraying those closest to her. The novel is even more remarkable because Itäranta wrote two versions, one in Finnish and one in English, simultaneously.
The book is often despairing, but even its saddest parts are rendered in lovely, lyrical prose.

The Lamentations of Zeno by Ilija Trojanow; translated by Philip Boehm

 This literary work of climate fiction is written in a modernist style that captures the fragmented thoughts of the protagonist, Zeno Hintermeier, in streams of consciousness. Greatly disturbed by the world’s rapidly declining glaciers, Hintermeier, a German scientist, embarks on a plan to convince the world to pay more attention to how humanity is destroying the planet. This plan comes at a time of personal trouble for Zeno: Just as his marriage is falling apart, he’s questioning how to keep his work relevant in a world that seems completely oblivious to global warming. The book is often despairing, but even its saddest parts are rendered in lovely, lyrical prose.

The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd

 Written in 2012, this young adult novel imagines an England in 2015 so deeply damaged by climate change that carbon rationing has begun. It stars 16-year-old Laura, who spends her days going to school and playing in a punk band. But her anxiety is growing over her parents’ pending divorce and an approaching hurricane that scientists predict will be the strongest ever to hit England. The novel is structured as the diary she keeps to make sense of her world as it grows more chaotic. Such a structure might turn some adults off, but Lloyd’s keen attention paid to real human emotion — in teenagers and adults — makes the book relatable for almost anyone.

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

Written by the author of The Great Derangement, a work of nonfiction that addresses the world’s need for more climate fiction, this ambitious literary novel combines lyricism with fast-paced action. Set on an archipelago of tiny islands located just off the coast of India, the novel follows Piya Roy, an American marine biologist of Indian descent, who’s thrown from a boat into water teeming with crocodiles. She’s saved by a local fisherman, with whom she learns to engage with the help of a translator. As the trio ventures deeper into the islands’ wilderness, they learn not only of the dangers of the encroaching tide — but also of the political turmoil that wreaks havoc on the islands’ people and land.

More Cli-Fi Reading

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Inside The Climate Change Lawsuit Pitting Big Oil Against San Francisco And Oakland

The Verge - Rachel Becker | Illustrations Alex Castro

Oil companies are trying to get the suit tossed out of court




On May 24th, the line outside of Courtroom 12 at the United States District Court in San Francisco was dense enough that two lawyers behind me worried they wouldn’t get seats. So, they jumped ahead in the line to witness the latest volley in San Francisco and Oakland’s fight against the fossil fuel industry.
The two cities are suing five major oil companies in an effort to hold them financially responsible for their role in global warming. The oil companies — Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP — don’t deny that climate change is happening, but they do argue that they can’t be sued for it. And that’s what Thursday’s hearing in front of Judge William Alsup was about: whether the case should be dismissed.
When the doors opened a little before 8AM, the 100 or so spectators sorted themselves into wooden benches, the checkerboard of suits mostly matching the checks of the carpet: navy, charcoal, with a few strips of tan. Despite the crowds, other reporters tell me that the hearing wasn’t nearly as packed as Judge Alsup’s climate tutorial in March, where scientists did interpretive dances to mime carbon dioxide’s absorption of infrared radiation and the judge sported a science-themed tie.
The hearing began with lawyers for Royal Dutch Shell claiming that the parent company, which is headquartered in the Netherlands, can’t be sued in a California court. Lawyers for ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and BP chimed in with similar arguments about jurisdiction. “I have to have live witnesses,” was what Judge Alsup had to say on the matter. “Somebody sitting down having their third latte in the Netherlands [will have to] get on an airplane, and come over here and testify.”



This lawsuit started back in September 2017, when San Francisco and Oakland sued Big Oil. The coastal cities say that global warming is already causing problems resulting from sea level rise and flooding. And it’s only going to get more expensive. Since the fossil fuel giants contributed to this “public nuisance,” the complaint says, they should chip in to help the cities prepare for the threats of a warmer future. The lawsuit doesn’t spell out how much these fossil fuel companies should pay, but it could be in the billions, according to the San Francisco City Attorney’s office.
The California cities aren’t the only ones suing fossil fuel companies. There are at least nine other cases involving communities from Washington state to New York, according to Columbia Law School’s Climate Law Blog. Between the years 2020 and 2039, one government report projects that sea level rise and more extreme storms could cost coastal communities between $4 and $6 billion in damage every year. Plus, to protect residents, cities need to build seawalls and berms, elevate roads and buildings, and secure water sources — and they don’t want taxpayers to be the only ones on the hook for that bill.
At the three hour-plus hearing on Thursday, an assorted legal team representing the oil companies — plus a lawyer from the US Department of Justice — argued that the case should be dismissed. Damage from global warming isn’t an issue that federal law should decide in the courts, the defendants claimed. Rather, they argued, it’s an issue for the US government to regulate through policy.
Plus, “Congress has repeatedly authorized and encouraged oil and gas production activities,” said Theodore Boutrous, the lawyer representing Chevron. So, he added, deeming oil and gas drilling a public nuisance would “invade the prerogatives of Congress and the executive branch.”



The cities assert that the oil companies’ activities constitute a public nuisance that they can sue over. The law of nuisance is centuries old, starting as a legal claim that dealt with things like ditches inconveniently placed in front of barns. It’s now a mainstay of environmental law, targeting things like pollution from smokestacks and noxious odors.
“The law of nuisance has been around forever and it has responded to changes in mankind,” said Steve Berman, a lawyer representing the cities of San Francisco and Oakland. “What we’re asking you, your honor, is to apply this law to a new situation.” That new situation is rising sea levels caused by climate change.
Berman also referenced oil companies’ efforts to sow misinformation about the relationship between fossil fuels and global warming. That misinformation was intentional and contributed to the harm, he argued. “Together, that forms the basis for our nuisance claim,” he said. Berman pointed to lead paint cases, where companies encouraged people to use lead paint in their homes “even though they knew it was dangerous.”
From the oil companies’ point of view, they were engaged in a healthy debate about climate change. For cities, it was false advertising. “If someone is lying to the public about climate science, I could see that’s not good,” Alsup said.
At one point, the hearing took a detour into the long history of fossil fuels in the US, which the judge said spanned from the 1850s — “when they struck oil in Pennsylvania” — to today. Fossil fuels are “causing global warming, that’s a negative,” Alsup acknowledged.
But he pointed out that fossil fuels had led to “large benefits” as well, including victory in World War II. To that end, he asked both sides to prepare a 10-page brief over the next week, arguing whether or not the cities’ claims required an analysis of the costs and benefits of fossil fuels.



It’s not clear which way the judge is going to rule. “He’s very thoughtful, he’s been on the bench quite a while, he’s handled some really complex cases. So he’ll take his time with his ultimate decision,” says Pat Parenteau, a professor of law at Vermont Law School. “There’s no blueprint for how to decide this case, so it’s going to take some time for the judge to sort through it.”
The judge did hint that he thought some of the legal arguments being brought before him were overkill, questioning whether it was smart for the parties to litigate “by fighting at every trench like they did in World War I.” He offered some advice, saying, “Strategically, you should ask yourself on both sides whether you are pursuing the right course for teeing these issues up for an ultimate decision.”
Historically, climate lawsuits have not enjoyed much success in court. According to Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA, all of the climate change cases against the oil companies during the Bush administration were dismissed before plaintiffs got a shot at discovery. “It would be pathbreaking for a court to decide that these cases could go forward,” Carlson says.
But regardless of what Judge Alsup decides, there are likely multiple appeals ahead — whichever side loses will appeal it up to the Ninth Circuit, and onwards. The final stop is the Supreme Court, Parenteau says. But for the case pending before Judge Alsup, he says, “It’s too early and too speculative to say whether the Supreme Court would ever take an appeal.”
There’s a lot more ahead for these cases, Carlson says. “And we’re just beginning.”

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26/05/2018

When It Comes To Climate Change, Our Governments Are Letting Us Down

CNET - Mark Serrels

Commentary: At the cutting edge of green energy tech, there's a common thread: Governments aren't doing enough to secure our future.
A newspaper poster outside Tyalgum's General Store shows the political climate in Australia. Ian Knighton/CNET
For the past few months, the CNET team has been working on a series of stories about green energy and the role technology and innovation play in pushing renewable energy to the forefront.
We called the series "Fight the Power" because there was a clear common thread. Almost everyone we interviewed in green energy projects cited a lack of government support. It was a constant theme: Change was occurring, but it was occurring in spite of Australia's federal government. The support wasn't there. These people were literally fighting the power.
With Fight the Power, we wanted to shine a spotlight on those trying to rescue the environment from the people who govern it.
In Australia, we have a long, complicated history with green energy and fossil fuels.
And right now, we're in the midst of an energy crisis. The cost of electricity is at an all-time high. We have an economy running on the fumes of a mining boom, and a national treasurer who once literally brought a lump of coal to Parliament and said, "This is coal, don't be afraid! Don't be scared!"



We're a country diverting public funds to mining projects with the potential to destroy the Great Barrier Reef. With a prime minister who reportedly pressured AGL, one Australia's largest energy providers, to keep its coal-fired power plant running for an extra five years instead of investing in green energy alternatives. To date, Australia is the only developed country to establish, and subsequently repeal, its own carbon tax. Roger Jones, a research fellow at the Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies, called it a "perfect storm of stupidity."
It was a decision that tells you everything you need to know about the discourse surrounding environmental issues in Australia. We're in a strange place.
But this isn't just an Australian problem.
Across the Pacific Ocean, the US is wrestling with similar issues. The Trump administration isn't ramping up legislation to help protect the environment, legislation is being rolled back.
In May, the White House cut a $10 million NASA project that funded pilot programs to help monitor carbon emissions. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to roll back fuel-efficiency standards for cars.
In March, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency removed the term "climate change" from strategic plans. The phrase has also been removed from multiple agency websites. The Department of Energy's Clean Energy Investment Center is now called the Energy Investor Center.
We're not moving forward, we're moving backward.
In 2018, innovation, technology and sheer force of will are driving positive change on environmental issues. In Australia, remote towns are working toward going 100 percent renewable. In Singapore, companies are finding new ways to take advantage of natural resources. Many entire countries, like Iceland, subsist purely on green energy.
People are helping themselves. That's worth celebrating -- you could argue that private enterprise should carry that weight -- but we shouldn't have to swim against the tide either.
It's the job of those in power to help facilitate the growth of long-term, sustainable projects that can have a positive impact not just on the economy, but the planet as a whole.
But more often than not it feels like we have to fight the power, and that's hardly ideal.
Just over a year after bringing a lump of coal to Parliament, Scott Morrison delivered his first federal budget for Australia. His budget is expected to cut investment in climate change from from AU$3 billion in this year to AU$1.6 billion by 2018-19.
That's a cut of AU$1.4 billion. Tim Baxter, a research associate at Melbourne University's Climate and Energy College, described the decision as "really, really distressing."
We're heading in the wrong direction. We're ignoring the possibilities.
Based on current data, Australia is expected to miss the targets set out by the Paris climate accord -- a UN agreement designed to help curb global greenhouse emissions -- by 26 percent to 28 percent. In July 2017, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement completely to "save jobs." We're heading in the wrong direction. We're ignoring the possibilities. A future powered entirely by renewable energy is not only within reach, it's already possible. Countries like Iceland, Costa Rica, Albania, Ethiopia, Paraguay, Zambia and Norway are already at 99 percent or 100 percent.
It's difficult, and it requires a complete rethinking of infrastructure, but it can be done.
And in all likelihood it will be done. Eventually, you'd hope. Surely. 20 years from now? 50 years? But if we get there, if we finally reach that goal, we won't have our elected officials to thank.
The ones who fight the power will save us in the end.

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Can A City Really Sue An Oil Company For Climate Change?

Wired - Adam Rogers

In a federal court in San Francisco, a judge heard a motion to dismiss from five fossil fuel companies, the defendants in the suit brought by San Francisco and Oakland. GETTY IMAGES
The City of Richmond, Calif. juts into the San Francisco Bay like the head of a rhinoceros looking west across the water, toward San Quentin State Prison and the tony towns north of the Golden Gate. It’s a low, industrial town, and 2,900 acres of it is an oil refinery. Chevron is Richmond’s biggest employer, and through taxes contributes about a quarter of the city’s total budget.
Chevron is also Richmond’s eternal nemesis. Industrial accidents are an ongoing issue. A fire at the refinery in 2012 sent 15,000 people to hospitals, resulting in a city lawsuit and a $5 million settlement. And in January Richmond joined six other California cities in suing oil companies for growing coastal threats related to climate change—primarily the sea level rise jeopardizing Richmond’s working coastline.
“We have 32 miles of shoreline on San Francisco bay, more than any other community, and a substantial amount of it is low-lying and subject to inundation,” says Tom Butt, Richmond’s mayor. “The root of this lawsuit and my biggest disappointment with these fossil fuel companies is that they’re all more interested in perpetuating themselves than they are in making a transition. They’re more interested in self-preservation than preserving the planet.”
In addition to the California cities’ various lawsuits, New York, Seattle, and municipalities in Colorado have all filed lawsuits against various combinations of oil companies since the summer of 2017. The suits are all at different stages; along with San Mateo, Richmond has been moved from state court to federal. Others have gone from federal back to state. On Thursday in a federal court in San Francisco, a judge heard a motion to dismiss from five fossil fuel companies, the defendants in the suit brought by San Francisco and Oakland. The same thing will happen in New York in June.
It’s a confusing landscape. The idea of cities using the courts as recourse in the fight against climate change is one that goes back at least to the 1990s, and the plaintiff side mapped out the detailed strategy just a few years ago. Now, in an era of federal deregulation and rising seas, these lawsuits feel increasingly urgent. The question is whether the courts will even see them as plausible.
IN 1998, A third-year law student at Yale named Eduardo Peñalver wrote a journal article called “Acts of God or Toxic Torts—Applying Tort Principles to the Problem of Climate Change,” examining the possibility that, if regulatory or legislative action couldn’t stop climate change, maybe lawsuits could. (Peñalver is now dean of Cornell Law School.) Scientists came to the idea a few years later. Myles Allen, a University of Oxford researcher wrote an opinion piece for the journal Nature suggesting the idea, though Allen acknowledged that it’d be difficult to figure out who the plaintiffs and who the defendants would be. Everyone burns carbon-based fuels, and everyone benefits (and suffers).
A 2012 meeting of climate activists, scientists, and lawyers in La Jolla, Calif. may have been where the strategy really got worked out, though. Allen was on the list of attendees, as were attorneys who’d been involved in the Department of Justice’s case against tobacco companies in the 1990s—a partial model for the suite of climate lawsuits today. (Lead paint is another one.) At that time they didn’t have a piece of the puzzle: evidence that the climate companies knew their products caused harm, as the tobacco companies did.
In 2015 an investigation by the Los Angeles Times and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism partially closed that gap, showing that oil companies like Exxon had acknowledged the planetary risks of their products as early as the 1980s. Attorneys general started asking questions. The oil companies said they saw malfeasance in all this, and it’s true that some of the same lawyers involved in those ideas back then are serving as outside counsel for the cities that have filed the recent lawsuits.
Whether you see all that as a conspiracy of business-hating leftists or the origins of a world-saving plan might depend on your political and scientific proclivities. But the climate for climate action has also changed. “What the cities would say is that cities have started to experience the impacts of climate change in ways they haven’t previously,” says Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. Sea level rise, drought/fire/storm/slide cycles, hurricane damage… “there’s real money that the cities are putting forward to deal with this,” Burger says.
Scientific attribution of blame for all that—ascribing portions of disasters to climate change, and ascribing portions of climate change to particular companies—is very much at the center of these lawsuits. Allen’s 2003 idea has evolved into extraordinarily specific work, like a 2017 paper that linked two-thirds of present day global temperature rise and sea level rise to 90 fuel companies, and 6 percent of sea level rise points straight back at Exxon, Chevron, and BP.
One of the papers’ authors, Peter Frumhoff, chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, was also at the La Jolla meeting. And he was at a press conference in advance of Thursday’s hearing. “Cities and communities need to be preparing for further sea level rise and the damage associated with storm surge and flooding, and there are real costs associated with that,” Frumhoff said. “In my view, and I’m not speaking as a scientist but as a citizen, it’s also appropriate to be asking why taxpayers alone should be paying those costs.”
(In a “tutorial” on climate change held by the same circuit court judge who heard the motion to dismiss Thursday, the lead lawyer for Chevron acknowledged the science that says human beings are causing climate change by burning carbon-based fuels. He denied that was the fault of the companies that legally extracted and refined the stuff.)
The really big question about whether a city can sue an oil company for climate change isn’t the climate change part. It’s the “sue” part. A large portion of the oil companies’ motion to dismiss, the subject of the hearing on Thursday, argued that courts weren’t allowed to rule on whether something was a nuisance—the substance of the lawsuits—if that something is already regulated by a federal law.
Which, in this case, is the Clean Air Act. (Ironically, the Trump administration is threatening to upend the law, so it’s hard to know how to think about this logic.) “One of the core cross-cutting issues here is whether or not courts are the right place to make a decision about who’s responsible for the harms from climate change, given the number of people involved in creating the problem,” Burger says. “This is a political question—that tort law is not an appropriate vehicle, that congress and the executive branch are far better situated because it’s an international and global problem and requires a coherent nationwide response.”
THE NEW STRATEGY for climate lawsuits has an answer for that, of course. The cities aren’t asking for a ban or for new regulations. They’re asking, essentially, for money to fix a problem that, they say, the oil companies knew about but ignored—intentionally obscured, in fact. “Oil and gas, like cigarettes, are products. The companies that sell them are liable for the damages they cause,” says Sharon Eubanks, an attorney at Bordas & Bordas who was lead counsel in the Department of Justice’s RICO case against the Philip Morris tobacco company. “They have misled the public about the product’s dangers.”
That’s why Thursday’s hearing was so important. Four of the oil companies—all but Chevron—argued that they didn’t have close enough ties to California to be sued there. The judge allowed a limited discovery for the plaintiffs, San Francisco and Oakland, to try to show that they did. (Chevron, being based in the Bay Area, didn’t make that argument).
The rest of the questions got kicked down the road a ways. Disclosure, though, is what the plaintiff side is really looking forward to. The cities’ attorneys will get to ask for all the documents they can think of, and maybe even depose some executives, in the hope of turning up even more evidence that oil companies actively covered up known climate change effects of their products. The LA Times found that oil companies had rebuilt their own infrastructures to be more resilient against sea level rise and storms at the same time as they were arguing that the science of those things was too uncertain to do anything about.
That’s a bad look—bad enough that even a city dependent on oil might want a bigger piece of the action. Especially if that city, like Richmond, may be partially underwater by the end of the century. “I’ve told them, I said, look, in the best of all worlds, what would I want from Chevron? I’d want you guys to say, yes, we realize climate change is real, we realize fossil fuels are making it happen, and we have a plan to transition our business into a renewable energy business over the next 25 years.” says Mayor Butt. “They sort of shrug their shoulders and say, ‘We’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do.’”

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24/05/2018

'On The Nose': Australians' Views Favour Conservation, Curbs On Coal

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

The overwhelming majority of Australians think climate change is real, about two-thirds view themselves to be environmentalists "at heart", and just over half say the government should not allow new coal mines in the country, according data gathered by WWF and Roy Morgan.
Combining attitudes towards nature collected over two decades with a wide-ranging survey of 1800 respondents at the end of last year, the groups found a strong - and lately, rising - interest in protecting habitats on land and sea.
Australians view the Great Barrier Reef as its most important place to protect - and most see it in decline, from climate change-linked coral bleaching to crown of thorns star fish (as shown). Photo: Jason South
The Great Barrier Reef was chosen by 89 per cent of those surveyed in the Backyard Barometer Report as one of the top three places to protect, ahead of the Daintree rainforests of north Queensland and Tasmania's forests - both at 38 per cent.
“The reef is certainly an iconic place that is clearly at the heart of Australia," Mr O'Gorman told Fairfax Media. "They care deeply about it and want to see it saved."
The back-to-back mass coral bleaching in the summers of 2015-16 and 2016-17 "really changed the psyche of how Australians see the reef," he said. "They were like two killer punches to a boxer."
Just over half of respondents viewed the current state of the reef as "already bad", with 84 per cent saying it was "declining" or "getting worse".
Most important places for Australia to protect
Source: WWF
Care for the reef has also been politically charged of late, with the Turnbull government's decision to grant $444 million to the little known Great Barrier Reef Foundation to invest in conservation efforts drawing close scrutiny this week in Senate estimates.

Koala concerns
Of species drawing particular concern, koalas topped the list with just over half of respondents saying it was the creature they would most like to see protected.
Bilbys and whales were next favoured at 30 per cent each, while sharks - many of which are faring poorly despite media interest in occasional bites - drew just 9 per cent support for protection.
Which iconic species would you like to see protected?
Source: WWF
Long-running data sets going back to the late-1990s found Australians' concerns about the environment tend to waver during periods of economic turmoil, such in the global financial crisis that erupted in late-2007 and lasted four years.
Still, 81 per cent in March last year agreed with the view that "if we don't act now, we will never control our environmental problems", and 63 per cent supported the "at heart, I'm an environmentalist" description.

Climate of change
Despite perennial debate amongst politicians, the year-end survey found the great bulk - 86 per cent - agree that climate change is happening, with 65 per cent accepting humans are causing it, the report found.
Almost six in 10 named solar as their preferred energy source, ahead of wind at 15 per cent. Just seven per cent picked coal and 4 per cent gas.
“Coal is definitely on the nose and 69 per cent agree that coal and gas are putting the planet at risk," Mr O'Gorman said. “That’s a clear message to politicians but also...to electricity and energy providers that their licence to operate is disappearing extremely fast."
In that vein, 52 per cent of those surveyed supported the statement that "the federal government should not allow new coal mines", with only 22 per cent rejecting that statement, the report found.

Age gap
The survey also produced a generational divide between respondents aged 18-24 compared with those older than 65 years.
Younger and older Australians
Source: WWF
Three of four in the younger group viewed humans were "largely causing" climate change, with just over half that taking the same view in the older one.
Still, the latter group indicated higher interest into recycling and energy saving, with more than two-thirds viewing themselves as environmentalists against half those in the younger cohort.
On other issues, 84 per cent supported action by their state governments to stop excessive tree-clearing, while some 85 per cent saw plastics as the number threat to the seas around us.
“In a very short period of time, plastics have - in terms of public perceptions - become an enormous threat to the oceans," Mr O'Gorman said. “People want particularly state governments and companies to take very specific action to take plastic from the system."

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