02/09/2020

(UK) An Update On Climate Change Litigation – No Signs Of Cooling

Leigh Day Legal - Katharina Theil

Katharina Theil considers progress on legal moves around the world to bring companies to account for their contribution to climate change.



Author
 specialises in international human rights and corporate accountaiblity law.  
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed many aspects of our daily lives.

However, one issue that remains firmly on the agenda is the urgent need for action to mitigate the worst consequences of climate change.

As the UK emerges from lockdown, the UK Committee on Climate Change has urged the Government to tackle the climate emergency in its attempt to revive the economy and has called for 'a green, resilient COVID-19 recovery'.

Due to many governments' failures to take adequate action, individuals and communities have turned to the courts as one means of achieving change ('climate litigation').

Revelations that fossil fuel producers have known about the impact of carbon emissions since the 1980s, and possibly earlier, and have engaged in misinformation and deception campaigns have meant that not only governments, but increasingly also corporations have been subject to these lawsuits.

In October 2017, my colleague Jonny Buckley examined a number of US climate change lawsuits against major fossil fuel producers ('carbon majors'), and considered whether these could pave the way for litigation against corporates in the UK.

He concluded that although theoretically possible, the likelihood of similar claims being brought in the UK remained remote. This was primarily due to the difficulty in attributing specific damage to the carbon emissions of a particular company.

Update: Climate change lawsuits two years on

More than two years later, there has been much development in the global field of climate litigation.

Recent cases that have attracted particular attention include claims against states, such as Urgenda Foundation v the Netherlands ('Urgenda'), and Juliana v US.

In Urgenda, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands confirmed an earlier decision holding that the state had a duty to protect its citizens from 'dangerous climate change' in accordance with its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights ('ECHR').

Even more recently, on 31 July 2020, in a case known as Climate Case Ireland, the Irish Supreme Court held that the Irish Government's National Mitigation Plan was defective and ordered the Government to produce a more ambitious strategy.

Juliana v US, a constitutional climate lawsuit brought on behalf of 21 young people in the US, however, was dismissed in January 2020.

The court held 'reluctantly' that the relief sought (an order requiring the US government to devise and implement a remedial plan) was beyond the court's constitutional power, as this would involve complex policy decisions.

Nevertheless, the claimants have noted that the judges were divided over the decision and requested a rehearing by a new panel of judges.

In the Californian cases filed by San Francisco and Oakland in September 2017, in state courts against five carbon majors, legal arguments have largely focused on whether the claims should be allowed to proceed in state or federal courts.

The cases, brought in public nuisance, allege that carbon majors are the 'proximate cause' of climate change and seek to reimburse taxpayers for associated adaptation costs such as sea walls to protect from rising sea levels. Similar cases are also ongoing.

In May 2020, the US Court of Appeals confirmed that San Francisco's and Oakland's claims could proceed in state courts. The carbon majors' request for a rehearing was denied.

Consequently, following an earlier dismissal, this most recent ruling appears to pave the way for the substance of the claims to be heard.

Climate attribution science has continued to expose the relationship between anthropogenic emissions and climate change.

An update to a study first published in 2014 suggests that the 20 largest oil, natural gas and coal companies are responsible for 35 per cent of the global fossil fuel and cement emissions between 1965 and 2017. The causal link between a specific company's carbon emissions and particular harm, however, is still one of the key issues for claimants to grapple with.

To date, climate litigation in the UK has largely targeted state entities, for example by challenging planning permissions or policies that pay insufficient regard to State commitments, such as the Paris Agreement. A case in point is Friends of the Earth's recent success in challenging the government's decision to expand Heathrow, represented by Leigh Day's environmental law team.

Corporate accountability after all?

Despite these difficulties, some recent cases indicate that courts around the globe are gradually becoming more receptive to engaging with corporates' responsibility for their contribution to climate change.

In Smith v Fonterra Co-Operative Group Limited [2020], for example, a court in New Zealand rejected Smith's arguments that the defendant companies had been negligent in emitting greenhouse gases or that their emissions constituted a public nuisance.

Nevertheless, the court held that the claim for a novel tortious duty to cease contributing to climate change should proceed to trial.

The court commented that "it may be that a novel claim such as that filed by Mr Smith could result in the further evolution of the law of tort. (...) I am not prepared to strike out the third cause of action and foreclose on the possibility of the law of tort recognising a new duty which might assist Mr Smith."

A Peruvian farmer's claim against RWE, a German energy company, was allowed to proceed in the German courts on appeal in November 2017. The farmer alleges that global warming has caused glacial retreat in the area near his village Huaraz, causing acute threat of flooding of his property.

The claimant is seeking payment of 0.47 per cent of the estimated cost of measures to protect the property from damage in case of flooding. The amount claimed is proportionate to RWE's contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions between 1965 and 2010 (see Particulars, §9).

Considering RWE's submissions against the appeal, the court held that "[i]n this context, the alleged threat to the plaintiff's property is attributable to the defendant's actions, i.e., to the active operation of power plants by the subsidiaries controlled by the defendant."

RWE denies liability, arguing that a single company cannot be held responsible for the consequences of climate change. The court and parties are currently awaiting permission from the Peruvian authorities for a site inspection in Huaraz.

The case of Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell plc. filed in the Netherlands in 2019, which builds on the arguments advanced against the government in Urgenda as regards a duty of care to take positive action, is likely to give further insight into a court's willingness to extend duties recognised for the state towards corporate actors in the area of climate change.

In addition to tort claims by affected individuals and communities or NGOs who represent them, shareholders have become more vocal in advancing climate-related causes, including in courts and non-judicial forums.

Over recent years, lawsuits have been brought against banks, pension and investment funds for failing to disclose information on climate-related risks or to incorporate these risks into their decision-making.

At the same time, some government institutions have relied explicitly on climate change related reasons when denying permission for mining or infrastructure projects.

Other routes have included complaints about misleading advertising by fossil fuel companies in breach of consumer protection legislation, such as a complaint to the UK Contact Point against BP for alleged violation of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

Climate litigation continues to be pursued actively in many countries and new and old avenues are being explored and developed.

Recent successes have been achieved primarily in cases brought against governments, and significant barriers to litigating climate change against corporate actors in the UK remain.

US courts hearing the lawsuits against the carbon majors are yet to grapple with the issue of causation and attribution of liability.

Some pending cases from around the globe suggest that courts may become more receptive to holding corporates to account for their contribution to climate change.

In addition, it appears that other avenues, such as shareholder actions, have a significant role to play.

It is hoped that both judicial and non-judicial routes being developed around the world will be useful in holding corporates to account for the actions they take and that recent climate litigation successes against governments are indicative of what the future may bring.<

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(AU) A Bit Rich: Business Groups Want Urgent Climate Action, After Resisting It For 30 Years

The Conversation - 

Shutterstock

Author
Marc Hudson is Research Associate in Social Movements, Keele University.
Australia has seen the latest extraordinary twist in its climate soap opera. An alliance of business and environment groups declared the nation is “woefully unprepared” for climate change and urgent action is needed.

And yesterday, Australian Industry Group – one of the alliance members – called on the federal government to spend at least A$3.3 billion on renewable energy over the next decade.

The alliance, known as the Australian Climate Roundtable, formed in 2015. It comprises ten business and environmental bodies, including the Business Council of Australia, National Farmers Federation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).

Last week, the group stated:
There is no systemic government response (federal, state and local) to build resilience to climate risks. Action is piecemeal; uncoordinated; does not engage business, private sector investment, unions, workers in affected industries, community sector and communities; and does not match the scale of the threat climate change represents to the Australian economy, environment and society.
This is ironic, since many of the statement’s signatories spent decades fiercely resisting moves towards sane climate policy. Let’s look back at a few pivotal moments.

Preventing an early carbon tax

The Business Council of Australia (BCA) was a leading player against the Hawke Government’s Ecologically Sustainable Development process, which was initiated to get green groups “in the tent” on environmental policy. The BCA also fought to prevent then environment minister Ros Kelly bring in a carbon tax – one of the ways Australia could have moved to its goal of 20% carbon dioxide reduction by 2005.

AAP Image/Steven Saphore

And the BCA, alongside the Australian Mining Industry Council (now known as the Minerals Council of Australia), was a main driver in setting up the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN).

Don’t let the name fool you – the network co-ordinated the fossil fuel extraction sector and other groups determined to scupper strong climate and energy policy. It made sure Australia made neither strong international commitments to emissions reductions nor passed domestic legislation which would affect the profitable status quo.

Its first major victory was to destroy and prevent a modest carbon tax in 1994-95, proposed by Keating Government environment minister John Faulkner. Profits from the tax would have funded research and development of renewable energy.

Questionable funding and support

The Australian Aluminium Council is also in the roundtable. This organisation used to be the most militant of the “greenhouse mafia” organisations – as dubbed in a 2006 ABC Four Corners investigation.

The council funded and promoted the work of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), whose “MEGABARE” economic model was, at the time, used to generate reports which were a go-to for Liberal and National Party politicians wanting to argue climate action would spell economic catastrophe.

In 1997, the Australian Conservation Foundation (another member of the climate roundtable) complained to the federal parliamentary Ombudsman about fossil fuel groups funding ABARE, saying this gave organisations such as Shell Australia a seat on its board. The ensuing Ombudsman’s report in 1998 largely backed these complaints. ABARE agreed with or considered many of the Ombudsman’s recommendations.

John Faulkner’s vision for a price on carbon was thwarted. AAP Image/Alan Porritt

Meanwhile, Australian Industry Group was part of the concerted opposition to the Rudd government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. In response to the July 2008 Green Paper on emissions trading, it complained:
businesses accounting for well over 10% of national production and around one million jobs will be affected by significant cost increases.
Australian economist Ross Garnaut was among many at the time to lambast this complaint, calling it “pervasive vested-interest pressure on the policy process.”

Back in July 2014, the Business Council of Australia and Innes Willox (head of the Australian Industry Group) both welcomed the outcome of then prime minister Tony Abbott’s policy vandalism: the repeal of the Gillard government’s carbon price. The policy wasn’t perfect, but it was an important step in the right direction.

In doing so, Australia squandered the opportunity to become a renewable energy superpower. With its solar, wind and geothermal resources, its scientists and technology base, Australia could have been world-beaters and world-savers. Now, it’s just a quarry with a palpable end of its customer base for thermal coal.

Tony Abbott derailed the carbon tax. AAP Image/Joel Carrett

What is to be done?

Given the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the global pandemic and the devastating fires of Black Summer, it would be forgivable to despair.

It shouldn’t have been the case that business groups only acted when the problem became undeniable and started to affect profits.

Somehow we must recapture the energy, determination and even the optimism of the period from 2006 to 2008 when it seemed Australia “got” climate change and the need to take rapid and radical action.

This time, we must do it better. Decision-makers should not look solely to the business sector for guidance on climate policy – the community, and the broader public good, should be at the centre.

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(AU) Australian Youth Feel Unprepared, Uneducated And Underappreciated On Climate Change: Report

Global Citizen - Madeleine Keck

Young Australians want to learn less about volcanoes and more about bushfires.

The ‘Black Summer’ fires, which peaked between December 2019 and January 2020, killed 33 Australians and over 1 billion animals. Over 12 million hectares of land was destroyed. A report by the Australian National University showed 75% of all Australians were directly or indirectly affected by the fires. Unsplash

Young Australians say they are unprepared for future climate catastrophes because they are undereducated by schools and unappreciated by politicians, a new World Vision report reveals.

The Our World, Our Say report interviewed almost 1,500 young Australians aged between 10 and 24 on their experience of climate disasters in Australia, including how they are personally taking action against climate change and how they want schools and politicians to respond.

Almost 90% of respondents said they are not being taught enough by schools and not being heard by political leaders.

The report also showed 73% of young people are either concerned or extremely concerned about experiencing a climate disaster, 83% think there is a connection between climate change and natural hazards and 76% view air pollution as a significant climate change concern.

Almost 70% say Australian leaders are not doing enough to curb carbon emissions.

Surveys and research into the Our World, Our Say report were conducted in the wake of Australia’s recent bushfire season.

The ‘Black Summer’ fires, which peaked between December 2019 and January 2020, killed 33 Australians and over 1 billion animals. Over 12 million hectares of land was destroyed.

A report by the Australian National University showed 75% of all Australians were directly or indirectly affected by the fires.

“The 2020 bushfires demonstrated that you need not live in the bush to be affected by a bushfire. We are experiencing these persistent worries while having to contend with life, school, growing up and everything else that comes with being a young person in Australia,” survey respondents said in a statement.

“We anticipate that we will experience personal impacts from natural hazards in the future, whether we are living in capital cities, regional centres or rural areas.”

Maddie Canteri, a 17-year-old in Cairns, said young Australians “see the world in a different light.”

"The youth of Australia are future leaders of Australia, and we have new ideas on how to protect the environment,” she said in a World Vision media release. “Politicians need to start listening to us and taking action.”
Annette Gough, a professor of science and environmental education at RMIT University, and Briony Tower, a research fellow at RMIT University, agreed that schools are failing students when it comes to disaster risk knowledge and Australia-specific climate change education.

"Climate change-related topics in national and state curricula are found only in the senior secondary and secondary Humanities, Geography and Science learning areas, with many being optional,” Gough and Tower wrote for the Conversation. “We must ensure current and future generations of school students have the knowledge and skills to prevent, mitigate and adapt to this future.”

In 2016, Australia signed the Paris climate agreement, a landmark accord to address climate change globally.

According to Gough, Australia, therefore, has a “moral imperative and legal obligation” to teach climate change education.

The United Nations’ Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, of which Australia is also a signatory, says disaster risk knowledge must also be incorporated into formal and non-formal education.

The framework likewise recognises young people as “agents of change” who should play an active role in shaping legislation and strengthening community resilience.

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01/09/2020

Carbon Footprints Are Hard To Understand — Here’s What You Need To Know

The Conversation - 

Well-meaning individuals often make poor choices when it comes to reducing their carbon footprint. (Shutterstock)

Author
Seth Wynes is a PhD Candidate, Geography, University of British Columbia
Imagine drinking endless orange juice from concentrate because you’re convinced this is the best way to lose weight. In moderation, orange juice is fine, but it wouldn’t be a doctor’s first recommendation for a patient wanting to shed pounds.

Much as we don’t want people to believe that the solution to the obesity pandemic is more orange juice, we also don’t want them to believe that the best way to fight climate change is to recycle more.

While recycling and turning off the lights are good steps towards a more sustainable society, they are not nearly as important for the climate on an individual basis as reducing meat consumption, air travel and driving. Well-meaning individuals often make poor choices when it comes to reducing their carbon footprint.

Air travel vs. recycling

My colleagues and I surveyed students at the University of British Columbia and a sample of North Americans recruited from the online platform Mturk, to determine if they could correctly identify actions that would curb their individual greenhouse gas emissions.

Our participants were more educated and more liberal than the general population but since we want to understand the perceptions of people who are at least a little motivated to engage in pro-climate actions, this is actually the right group of people to survey.

In the study, we first asked participants to describe the single most effective action they could take to reduce the emissions that cause climate change. Many referred to driving less, which is indeed a high-impact action, and recycling, which is not.

Perceptions of most effective climate action
Number of participants perceiving an action to be the most effective

they can take in fighting climate change
Chart: Seth Wynes Source: Wynes, Zhao and Donner, 2020, Climatic Change Get the data 

Few mentioned air travel, which can make up a huge portion of an individual’s carbon footprint. For example, a return flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, can generate over 4,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents. Political actions (like voting) that are needed to make large structural change also received little attention.

Common misconceptions

Next, we provided participants with 15 actions and asked them to categorize the actions as low-, medium- or high-impact (with low being less than one per cent of a person’s carbon footprint, and high being greater than five per cent).

Actions involving personal vehicles were correctly perceived as quite important for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But only 32 per cent of the sample correctly identified switching from plastic to canvas bags (the equivalent of orange juice for dieting) as a low-impact action. Reducing air travel and meat consumption were incorrectly ranked in the bottom half of the suggested actions.



In line with past research on the “availability heuristic,” (a mental shortcut where people give extra importance to examples that spring to mind easily) people might have been focusing on choices where the harms are highly visible or on actions that are symbolic of environmentalism but not related to climate. For example, littering creates no emissions, but we found it was perceived similarly to a high-pollution flight across the Pacific Ocean.

Focusing on what matters

Finally, we asked participants to make trade-offs between sets of different actions, like comparing how long you would need to purchase food without any packaging in order to save the same amount of emissions as one year not eating meat. Around half of participants said one to two years. The real answer is at least a decade.

We found that even people who were very concerned about climate change were unable to make accurate trade-offs. This is relevant for people who engage in moral licensing, “I recycle, so I can fly for vacation,” or people trying their best to optimize their carbon budget, “I drove out of my way to buy second-hand clothing because it has a smaller carbon footprint.”

These misunderstandings matter. People who understand that meat has a large climate impact are more willing to eat less of it. In a study of Swedes who had given up or reduced their air travel, many cited the realization that flying occupied a large part of their “carbon budget” as a motivator for their choice.

We want people to focus on meaningful actions so they don’t spend effort and money on distractions. But we also want people to adopt low-carbon lifestyles because people who do tend to support the policies that oblige everyone else to pollute less.

Ezra Klein describes the value in changing the culture of more meat and bigger SUVs at the same time as we try to change policies: “We are not going to, as a society … vote for things that make us feel like bad people.”

Lifestyle changes and more

The term “carbon footprint” has come under criticism, because the oil industry used it in the past to redirect responsibility from itself onto consumers. But following the belief that climate hawks should oppose any tactic from a major polluter does not require abandoning every effort to change lifestyles.

Some large corporations are worried that these lifestyle changes could cut deep into their bottom lines. Before the pandemic jeopardized the entire industry, airlines were taking careful steps to manage the lost business caused by a growing guilt (“flight shame”) among people for the carbon footprint of air travel.

Climate impact of lifestyle changes
Bars indicate tonnes of CO2 equivalents
Chart: Seth Wynes Source: Wynes and Nicholas 2017, Environmental Research Letters Get the data

Even if you’re convinced that lifestyle change is a distraction from political action, and there is some peer-reviewed evidence to this effect, these results suggest that people are still putting disproportionate stock in trivial lifestyle changes, and not much in voting for climate policy.

So what do we do? We can test ways to incentivize lifestyle change while increasing policy support, ideally with resources that don’t take away from political action. That could include projects on university campuses, in corporate offices and in grade schools (twelve-year-olds can’t vote, but they can learn what constitutes a sustainable meal and how to cook it).

In one study, for example, participants were given feedback on their food purchases in terms of “lightbulb minutes”: how much greenhouse gases are produced by one minute of lightbulb use. This led to a positive shift in their consumption choices. Similarly, people booking their flights could be told the fraction of their annual carbon budget that will be used up by a single trip.

These approaches are helpful because they bring attention to climate change but don’t rely on individuals mastering the difficult subject of carbon footprints on their own.

Climate activists, especially youth, tend to care about individual action. We might as well use that as an opportunity to encourage lifestyle changes that actually matter, and to increase support for tough climate policies that are already overdue.

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(AU) Methane Released In Gas Production Means Australia's Emissions May Be 10% Higher Than Reported

The Guardian - 

Analysis shows the government, which has committed to a ‘gas-led recovery’, has failed to properly account for methane’s effect on global heating

The Woodside gas plant in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Analysis of Australia’s greenhouse gas accounting has shown it is underestimating the impact of gas production on emissions by as much as 10%. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/Reuters

Australia’s greenhouse gas accounting underestimates national emissions by about 10%, largely due to a failure to properly recognise the impact of methane released during gas production, an analysis has found.

In late June, the energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, amended laws to reflect a scientific consensus that methane – a highly potent but short-lived greenhouse gas that leaks during gas processing – plays a greater role in heating the planet than previously thought.

The change is expected to increase Australia’s reported annual emissions by about 3% compared with what they otherwise would have been.

Tim Baxter, a former University of Melbourne climate law expert, now a senior researcher with the Climate Council, said the government update was belated as it was based on a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published six years ago.

But he said the change did not fully reflect the panel’s conclusions, including that methane from fossil fuels was more damaging than from living sources, and was yet to factor in more recent peer-reviewed evidence that methane’s heating role was even greater than estimated in 2014.

Baxter found that if the methane emitted in Australia was measured according to the latest science it would increase annual emissions by more than 50m tonnes a year, the equivalent of Sweden’s total carbon pollution. His analysis is included in a submission to the New South Wales authorities on the controversial Narrabri gas project and will form the basis for an upcoming report.

He said the Morrison government, which is backing a “gas-fired recovery” from the Covid-19 recession and is considering whether to underwrite new gas infrastructure including major pipelines, was failing to report the full impact of its emissions.

“It’s no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention that the federal government is miles behind when it comes to keeping up with the science of climate change,” Baxter said.

“It is still ignoring the extra impact of fossil fuel methane compared to other sources and still failing to consider the full impact of those emissions on natural feedbacks. The government is several steps behind key scientific developments that have occurred over the past seven years.”

Methane lasts in the atmosphere for only about 12 years but is much more potent than carbon dioxide. Scientists have found the level of atmospheric methane had increased significantly since 2007 after a relatively flat period, but they are unsure why.

Gas emits about half the carbon dioxide released from coal when burned, but Global Energy Monitor, a US research and advocacy group, found the role of fugitive methane emissions from new gas developments in global heating was likely to be as large as or larger than the expansion of coal power.

A spokesman for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources said it was simplistic for Baxter to conclude that methane impacts were underestimated in government data. He said Australia was acting in line with a 2018 international agreement that the warming power of methane and other gases set out in the IPCC’s 2014 report would be reflected in greenhouse reporting by 2023. “The analysis is not accurate,” the spokesman said.

On Tuesday, 25 leading scientists released a letter to the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, warning his advocacy for increased use of gas-fired electricity was at odds with the Paris agreement and not consistent with a plan to secure a safe climate.

“There is no role for an expansion of the gas industry,” they wrote. “The combustion of natural gas is now the fastest-growing source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the most important greenhouse gas.”

Finkel responded that he shared their vision for the expansion of renewable energy but he believed it would be “faster, more economical and more reliable” if supported by gas-fired electricity generation “in the near to medium term”. The chief scientist said he had not commented on an expanded role for gas in industry – backed by the government and Scott Morrison’s handpicked National Covid Coordinating Commission – having focused solely on the electricity grid.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) last month found additional gas-fired power was an option, but not essential, for an electricity grid increasingly based on renewable energy, and gas prices would need to stay at lower levels than expected if new gas was to compete with pumped hydro, batteries and other alternatives.

The prime minister repeated his strong support for gas in parliament on Tuesday. He said gas was an important transition fuel and expanding the supply was critical to Australia’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 recession. “That is why we want to see more of it and get more out of the ground,” he said.

The update announced by Taylor increased the estimated warming potential of methane – effectively, how much heat it traps – from 25 times greater than carbon dioxide to 28 times greater, calculated over a century. The change matters because methane emissions are converted to their “carbon dioxide equivalent” and then counted in national CO2 emissions.

The 2014 IPCC report suggested the warming power of methane from fossil fuels was 30 times greater than CO2. The warming power of “biogenic methane” – released from living organisms such as cows – was 28 times greater.

A later reassessment, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in 2016, found it was greater still: 34 times greater than CO2 for “fossil methane” and 32 times greater for biogenic methane.

Baxter said these figures were still not truly representative as they did not factor in the feedback effects caused when greenhouse gases are released. The IPCC report in 2014 cited research that found the feedback from methane emissions increased its warming potential by a further 20%. Baxter calculated this would lift the warming rate for biogenic methane to 39 and for fossil methane to 40.

He said the additional, unexplained methane in the atmosphere suggested the emissions from the gas industry were being systematically underreported.

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(AU) More Bushfires, Less Volcanoes: Young Australians Need To Learn About More Relevant Disasters

The Conversation -  | 

Shutterstock

Authors
  • is Professor Emerita of Science and Environmental Education, RMIT University
  •  is Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
Young people are increasingly frightened by the spectre of natural hazards and disasters, but they see schools as failing to equip them with the skills they need for these events.

That’s according to the recent Our World, Our Say national report, which surveyed 1,477 Australians aged 10 to 24.

While almost two-thirds (64%) of respondents said they have experienced at least three hazard events such as bushfires, heatwaves and drought in the past three years, a staggering 88% believe they’re not being taught enough to protect themselves and their communities.

In fact, they say they’re learning more about earthquakes in class than more relevant hazards, such as bushfires, floods, drought and tropical cyclones. And they are not wrong.

Young people want to learn about natural hazards and disasters that are relevant to them. After all, it’s their future, and changes in their education can help them thrive in a world of rapid social, environmental and technological change.

They don’t feel heard

The Our World, Our Say survey was conducted by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience and World Vision Australia.

Students want politicians to give them a voice on climate change. AAP Image/Erik Anderson

Along with issues in the curriculum, the survey also shows young people are deeply worried about climate change and see an urgent need to “reduce the intensity and frequency of disasters through climate action”.

On this front, most of the survey respondents feel Australia is not doing enough.Adding to their frustrations, survey respondents feel ignored by politicians. Nearly 90% said government leaders aren’t listening to their concerns, and that they don’t have a voice on climate change and disaster risk.

What do young people learn at school?

The devastating Black Summer bushfires demonstrated you need not live in the bush for bushfires to affect you. Yet the coverage of bushfires in the Australian Curriculum (and its state and territory adaptations) is sparse, especially when compared with the coverage of earthquakes and volcanoes.

The Australian Curriculum for Science for Year 6 has students investigating major geological events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis in Australia, the Asia region and throughout the world.

In Year 8 they investigate the role of science in the development of technology related to earthquake prediction. In Year 9 they expand on their learning of earthquakes, and other geomorphological hazards (volcanic eruption, earthquake, tsunami, landslide, avalanche) related to tectonic plates.

The main coverage of bushfires is in Year 5 Humanities and Social Sciences, where students study “the impact of bushfires or floods on environments and communities, and how people can respond”.

Even here the teacher can choose to study floods instead of bushfires. The frequency and intensity of both bushfires and floods are increasing with climate change, so students need to be learning about both.

Learning about bushfires is also an option in Year 8 Geography, but it’s included as an alternative to studying earthquakes and volcanoes.

Thick bushfire smoke on January 3 2020. You don’t have to live in a fire-prone area to be affected by bushfires. EPA/NASA

The only coverage of bushfires in the Science curriculum is in Year 9 where students investigate how ecosystems change as a result of events such as bushfires, drought and flooding. Once again, bushfires are an option, rather than a requirement.

Students are facing increased extreme weather events around Australia, including intense heavy rainfall, high fire danger days and high intensity storms. We must ensure current and future generations of school students have the knowledge and skills to prevent, mitigate and adapt to this future.

Climate change education is also missing

The Our World, Our Say survey respondents are also right about the curriculum not covering climate change.

Climate change-related topics in national and state curricula are found only in the senior secondary (Years 11 and 12) and secondary (Years 7 to 10) Humanities, Geography and Science learning areas, with many being optional.

There is no explicit mention of climate change in the Foundation to Year 6 curriculum, and the Australian Education Council recently removed the references to climate change in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration.

But according to the Paris Agreement on climate change, Australia has a moral imperative and legal obligation to include climate change education in its curriculum. And, as the school strikes have demonstrated, students want to learn about climate change.

Students can be agents of change

Australia is a signatory to the United Nations’ Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which says disaster risk knowledge must be incorporated into formal and non-formal education.

The Sendai Framework also recognises children and youth as agents of change who should be given the opportunity to contribute to disaster risk reduction through school curricula.

Greta Thunberg’s speech to UN Climate Change COP24 conference.

Australian research from 2018 reinforces this. It found when disaster education positions children and youth as agents of change, they not only learn essential knowledge and skills, but also make extremely valuable contributions to risk reduction activities in their households, schools and communities.

They can create workshops or games to educate others about disaster planning and preparedness; produce short films or books showcasing local knowledge or hazard management strategies; and present recommendations for youth-centred emergency management planning to decision-makers.

They’re doing it right overseas

Australia could learn from New Zealand where a climate change curriculum has been released.

It aims to increase awareness of climate change and understand the response to and impacts of climate change globally, nationally and locally. It also explores opportunities to contribute to reducing and adapting to climate change impacts on everyday life.

We can also learn from Europe, where the EU Horizon 2020 Project developed a framework for child-centred disaster risk management. It started from the premise that, under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children and young people have the right to be heard on matters that affect them.

If the education of young people in Australia is about preparing them “to thrive in a time of rapid social and technological change, and complex environmental, social and economic challenges”, as the Australian Education Council recently proclaimed, then it’s clear schooling is failing them.

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31/08/2020

Why We Believe Planting 1 Trillion Trees Can Save The Planet

TIME - Jane Goodall | Marc Benioff



Authors
For more than six months, a pathogen has swept through nearly every country in the world, unleashing an unprecedented global health and economic emergency.

At the same time, another potentially more lethal emergency continues to threaten us: the warming of the planet.

While the impacts of the climate crisis have been more gradual than the spread of COVID-19, there is no doubt that our world is changing.

Millions of people have suffered losses from catastrophic droughts, hurricanes and floods. It’s not just that our own health and economies are being threatened; it’s that climate change is reshaping a planet that will not support the lives of future generations.

The climate-science community has demonstrated that if we do not make significant progress in combatting this crisis, global temperatures could rise above the critical 1.5°C threshold, permanently damaging the natural systems that sustain us.

And, like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change disproportionately affects our more disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, exacerbating existing economic and racial inequalities.

The truth is, we know how to fight the climate crisis: reduce emissions, become carbon neutral, clean up oceans and develop a sustainable relationship with the natural world to restore the biodiversity of key habitats. Climate scientists, environmental organizations and even governments have, each in their own way, worked out how to tackle every one of these steps. Their implementation requires a combination of technology, policy, funding and coordination.

By far the most cost-effective of all the big solutions is to protect and restore forests. Forests extract and store CO2 from the atmosphere and produce the oxygen we breathe. But these complex ecosystems have been systematically destroyed. We have already lost nearly half the world’s trees, most within the last 100 years. And most of the remaining trees—about 3 trillion—are still under threat, even though they are a critical tool in the fight against climate change.

At this moment in time, massive fires have yet again erupted around the world, from California to the Congo Basin to the Amazon. Far too many of these fires are intentionally set because agricultural profits have been prioritized over the health of our planet. A call to stop deforestation is more important than ever before.

That’s why forward-thinking corporate leaders who understand the urgent need to heal our planet are supporting environmentalists who have been in the fight for decades. We’ve joined forces—a businessperson and a conservationist—to support the Trillion Tree challenge (1T.org), an effort to bring together old and new partners to add momentum to the regreening of our planet and plant 1 trillion trees around the world by 2030. Companies joined by NGOs and youth movements as well as a number of governments, such as the U.S., have pledged their support for this solution. Those involved will be able to share best practices, with a major goal of maintaining biodiversity standards.

This effort could capture an estimated 200 gigatonnes of carbon over the coming decades, an amount equal to two-thirds of the pollution produced since the Industrial Revolution. But it will take time for young trees to capture the same amount of CO2 as mature forests. That is why we need many new partners to join the tens of thousands of efforts already under way.

Planting 1 trillion trees won’t be easy, but each one of us can make a difference in this fight. We can plant trees in backyards and neighborhoods, or donate to one of the many responsible programs that have long been restoring and protecting forests and woodlands in almost every country around the world.

Our challenge is clear. We can protect and restore our forests while also investing in jobs and global economies. But our success will depend on one another; together we can create the kind of change needed to heal our planet.

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Lethal Heating is a citizens' initiative