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.

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: , , , , ,

(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.

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: , , ,

(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

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: , , , , ,

31/05/2021

(USA NYT) Big Setbacks Propel Oil Giants Toward A ‘Tipping Point’

New York Times - Somini Sengupta

A surprising mix of environmentalists, pension fund managers and big money investors have scored startling victories against oil and coal, opening new battle fronts in the climate fight.

Credit...Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters
A nun, an environmental lawyer, pension fund executives, and the world’s largest asset manager. These were among the unusual collection of rebels who claimed a series of startling victories this week against some of the world’s biggest and most influential fossil fuel companies.

From Houston to The Hague, they fought their battles in shareholder meetings and courtrooms, opening surprising fronts in an accelerating effort to force the world’s coal, oil and gas companies to address their central role in the climate crisis. And even as they came with strikingly disparate points of view — corporate shareholders, children’s rights advocates, environmentalists, thousands of Dutch citizens — they delivered a common underlying message: The time to start retreating from the fossil fuel business is no longer in the future, but now.

“These companies are facing pressure from regulators, investors, and now the courts to up their game,” said Will Nichols, head of environmental research at Maplecroft, a risk analysis firm. “That’s a big chunk of society, and it’s not a great look to be pushing back against all of that.”

The most dramatic turning point came in the Netherlands, where a court instructed Royal Dutch Shell, the largest private oil trader in the world and by far the largest company in the Netherlands itself, that it must sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions from all its global operations this decade. It was the first time a court ordered a private company to, in effect, change its business practice on climate grounds.

The symbolism was inescapable: The Netherlands, famously built on land reclaimed from the sea, faces the immediate threat from a warming climate caused by the burning of Shell’s own products — oil and gas.

In another example this week, at the annual shareholder meeting of Exxon Mobil, the biggest American oil company, the message was framed sharply in terms of profits: A tiny new hedge fund led an investor rebellion to diversify away from oil and gas — or risk hurting investors and the bottom line.

Chevron’s shareholders voted to tell the company to reduce not only its own emissions, but also, remarkably, the emissions produced by customers who burn its oil and gasoline. And in Australia, a judge warned the government that a proposed coal mine expansion, a project challenged by eight teenagers and an 86-year-old nun, would need to ensure that it wouldn’t harm the health of the country’s children.

The timing was significant. This week scientists also concluded that, in the next five years, the average global temperature will at least temporarily spike beyond a dangerous threshold, climbing more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than in pre-industrial times. Avoiding that threshold is the main objective of the Paris Accord, the landmark global climate agreement among the nations of the world to fight climate change.

Of course, none of these actions represents an immediate threat to the fossil fuel industry. For a century and a half, the global economy has been fueled by oil and coal, and that won’t change immediately.

Nevertheless, rulings like the one in the Netherlands could be a harbinger for similar legal attacks against other fossil fuel companies and their investors, experts said. Kate Raworth, an economist at Oxford University, called Shell’s loss in court “a social tipping point for a fossil-fuel-free future.”

Shell said it found the ruling, by a district court in The Hague, “disappointing” and intended to appeal. That process could take years to reach the country’s supreme court, delaying action but also drawing continued public attention.

Credit...Remko De Waal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

If the ruling of the lower court stands, though, analysts said, Shell would most certainly have to reorient its business to reduce oil in its portfolio and halt its growth in liquefied natural gas, in which Shell is an industry leader.

That is a matter of concern for the investors who have their money in the oil and gas reserves of companies like Shell, said Patrick Parenteau, a professor at Vermont Law School. “A decision telling a company, ‘You’ve got to get out of the oil business.’ For cautious individuals within the financial community, that’s got to cause them serious concerns.”

Dangerously for Shell, the national judiciary of the Netherlands in the past has shown itself to be among the most out-front on climate litigation. In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands ordered the government to cut greenhouse gas emissions because of a lawsuit filed by Urgenda, an environmental group. It was the first case in the world to force a national government to address climate change in order to uphold its human rights commitments.

That case, too, began in a district court in The Hague, before making its way up the judicial ladder. The lawsuit against Shell marked an escalation in that strategy.

Having sued the government and won, environmental advocates decided to take on one of the country’s most influential companies. The case was brought in 2019 by Milieudefensie, the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, as well as Greenpeace and 17,000 residents of the Netherlands. The complainants argued that the company has a legal duty to protect Dutch citizens from looming climate risks. The district court agreed.

“The consequences of this case for the fossil fuel industry will be systemic and immediate,” Tessa Khan, the lawyer who had sued the government on behalf of Urgenda, said on Twitter. She predicted that it would spur other cases and “escalate the perception of risk among investors.”

Shell had already begun to see the writing on the wall. It said earlier this year that global oil demand had likely reached a peak in 2019 and would slowly wane in the coming years.

And at least compared to some of its American peers, Shell had set relatively more ambitious climate targets. It had already promised to reduce the carbon intensity of its operations, which means that it could still continue to expand oil and production, but with lower emissions for every barrel it produced.

The district court on Wednesday instructed the company to cut its absolute emissions by 45 percent by 2030, relative to its 2019 levels. The ruling applies to Shell’s global operations. But, that said, even if it is upheld on appeal, enforcing it, say, in Nigeria, where Shell is the biggest oil producer, could prove to be “impractical,” said Biraj Borkhataria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank.

“However,” he said separately, in a note to clients on Thursday, “it is another example of society asking more from oil companies.”The Shell ruling is particularly notable because private companies have been targets of climate litigation in the United States and elsewhere, but courts have rarely ruled against them.

Credit...Carlo Allegri/Reuters

The Dutch case opens a potentially new front, emboldening climate advocates to pursue more cases in a wider variety of countries, particularly where national laws enshrine the right to a clean environment.

Several European and Latin American courts, including in the Netherlands, have interpreted their national laws in this way. A farmer in Peru is suing a German energy giant over the effects of global warming on a glacier in his country. About 20 American cities, counties and states have sued the fossil fuel industry since 2017, seeking damages for the local costs of climate change.

Governments are also on the hook.

Germany’s highest court recently told the government to tighten its climate targets because they did not go far enough to ensure that future generations would be protected.

In the Australian case, eight teenagers, joined by Brigid Arthur, the nun, went to court to stop the government from expanding an enormous coal mine called Whitehaven. The court on Thursday stopped short of issuing an injunction against the mine, as the plaintiffs had sought.

But in ordering the government to take “reasonable care to avoid personal injury to the children,” it recognized climate change as an “intergenerational crime,” said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University and a lawyer who represents several U.S. cities and states suing fossil fuel companies.

“The actions we take today with respect to climate change can consign our children, our children’s children, and other future generations to a world that is fundamentally livable or a world that is not,” he said. “Courts recognize that.”

The most closely watched case in the United States, filed on behalf of young people against the United States government, seeks to establish a constitutional right to a sound environment. After recent setbacks in the federal courts, a federal judge has ordered the parties to enter settlement discussions.

The actions against Chevron and Exxon are notable because they reveal the extent to which shareholders are quickly awakening to the risk to their investments if energy companies don’t dramatically start changing their business models.

A significant chunk of shareholders demonstrated that they were increasingly distrustful that the companies could deliver the financial performance they expected without diversifying away from oil and gas.

Exxon this week lost a battle against a small new hedge fund, Engine No. 1, which rallied big investors like Blackrock and the New York state pension fund to force the company to change course. The hedge fund won at least two seats on Exxon’s 12-member board.

Tensie Whelan, director of the New York University Stern Center for Sustainable Business, called it “a pivotal moment for board accountability.” Activist shareholders have traditionally taken on company executives over financial issues, not social issues like climate change, she said. “Shareholders are deeply concerned about the financial risks posed by climate change and increasingly willing to hold the board to account,” Ms. Whelan said.

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: , , , ,

(The Guardian) ‘Black Wednesday’ For Big Oil As Courtrooms And Boardrooms Turn On Industry

The Guardian - 

Campaigners sense turning point as shareholders, boards and The Hague act to force Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell to cut pollution

An oil rig in the Beaufort sea, in the Arctic. Photograph: Stockbyte/Getty Images

The world’s patience with the fossil fuel industry is wearing thin. This was the stark message delivered to major international oil companies this week in an unprecedented day of reckoning for their role in the climate crisis.

In a stunning series of defeats for the oil industry, over the course of less than 24 hours, courtrooms and boardrooms turned on the executives at Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron. Shell was ordered by a court in The Hague to go far further to reduce its climate emissions, while shareholder rebellions in the US imposed emissions targets at Chevron and a boardroom overhaul at Exxon.

“There is no doubt that this week’s news has been not so much a shot across the bows as a direct hit to the hull of Big Oil,” says Mark Lewis, the chief sustainability strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management. “They will have to recognise now that no amount of patching up the hole will do; shareholders and society want the vessel completely overhauled.”

Director of Dutch environment organisation ‘Milieudefensie’ Donald Pols reacts as he walks outside a court in The Hague. Photograph: Remko de Waal/ANP/AFP/Getty Images

For climate campaigners, the oil industry’s “Black Wednesday” marked a turning point in the financial and legal consequences awaiting oil companies that do not act fast to take accountability for their role in preventing a climate catastrophe.

“It was honestly a really emotional moment,” says Jasper Teulings, the former general counsel for Greenpeace International. The ruling by the Dutch court ordering Shell to cut its emissions by 45% within the next 10 years “shifts the debate” and could influence courtrooms across the globe, he told the Guardian.

“It makes clear that the onus is on the industry to act, and that it can be held accountable to take very specific steps. It’s very relevant in legal terms because the ruling was very pure in its demand: it’s not about money, it’s about conduct. It was astutely reasonable,” he says.

The basis of the case, brought by Dutch climate campaigners at Milieudefensie, was rooted in norms derived from elements of human rights law and the UN’s Guiding Principles, which have “near-universal application” and could be used in cases against other major polluters.

“We’re seeing a convergence of issues because, really, climate issues are human rights issues. I don’t see any reason why these [arguments] won’t be replicated elsewhere. Polluters can expect to see their day in court,” Teulings says.

Shell has said it will appeal against the “disappointing” ruling, which calls for the company to align with the emissions targets set out in the Paris Climate Agreement. The decision could lead to years of legal wrangling and prove profoundly damaging to Shell’s reputation.

“If they truly believe their strategy aligns with Paris, then there should be no problem complying with the court’s demands,” says Teulings. “Shell’s decision to appeal is therefore irreconcilable. Therein lies the lie.”

The court ruling will force Shell to slash at least a million barrels of oil and gas from its fossil fuel production every day, at a cost of several billion dollars a year, according to oil industry analysts.

Biraj Borkhataria, an analyst at RBC Capital, says: “To put this simply, this aggressive shift would have meaningful cashflow implications for Shell.” He estimates that the sharp cut in fossil fuel production could cost Shell $6bn a year.

Increasingly, major institutional investors are also growing concerned over the cost of failing to act on the climate agenda. It marks the clearest sign yet that climate action is being treated as a major financial risk as well as an environmental one.

Exxon shareholders, including investment giants BlackRock and Vanguard, voted to oust at least two of the oil giant’s board members in favour of candidates put forward by Engine No 1, an activist hedge fund founded less than six months ago, for failing to take the transition to low-carbon energy seriously.

At Chevron, more than 60% of investors voted in favour of a climate resolution from Dutch campaign group Follow This to force the company to reduce its emissions.

Eli Kasargod-Staub, the executive director of Majority Action, a shareholder group, said, after the twin US rebellions, that “for the first time in history, responsible shareholders have breached the walls protecting recalcitrant boards of directors”.

“The ExxonMobil challenge is only the beginning of a reckoning for board directors who fail to make measurable progress towards decarbonisation and protecting long-term shareholder value,” Kasargod-Staub added.

Among the fossil fuel industry’s largest institutional investors, concern is weighted far more heavily towards the potential destruction of long-term shareholder value than the destruction of the environment. But they do expect executives to take a defensive stance against the risks of a greener world – which means investing in the green technologies of the future.

Within days of the oil industry’s ‘Black Wednesday’ reckoning, credit rating agency Moody’s warned that the credit risk of major oil producers had increased. The convergence of financial risk with the long-held concerns of climate activists could prove to be a crucial tipping point against climate action cynics.

Oil industry pundits have warned that forcing Shell to cut its fossil fuel production would simply shift its barrels of oil to smaller, private oil companies or larger state-owned oil giants, with little impact on global emissions.

This overlooks the endemic climate concerns taking hold in the financing of the fossil fuel sector, says Mike Coffin, a researcher at financial thinktank Carbon Tracker. Climate activist pressure “will be felt by the banks which finance these projects” and by the insurers that underwrite the risk. No matter which company is hoping to drill for oil, it will be viewed as a riskier prospect and capital will be restricted, he says.

The flow of capital once destined for fossil fuels into sustainable investments may even help hasten the inevitable trajectory of lower oil demand and dwindling market prices, which could force oil-producing countries to rethink their state investments too, Coffin says.

For longtime campaigners including Teulings, the compounding implications of the climate victories of the last week offer a rare opportunity for optimism.

“Anyone who cares about the climate has felt times of panic, and despair, and helplessness. The ruling is a beacon of hope,” he says. “Perhaps that’s the biggest impact; beyond the legal impact, and the concrete impact on carbon emissions, the ruling offers hope. It’s what we’ve been waiting for.”

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: , ,

(AU SMH) False Prophets And Snake Oil Will Fail Coal Communities

Sydney Morning Herald - Patrick Suckling

Author
Patrick Suckling, Australia’s former environment ambassador, is a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute and senior partner at the climate advisory and investment firm Pollination.
Joel Fitzgibbon is trying to walk both sides of the street on coal and climate. As everyone knows you can’t.

This week the Labor member for the federal seat of Hunter asked whether his party had the “agility” to appeal to residents of progressive inner Sydney and Melbourne suburbs and resource-rich regions.

Two-faced politics rarely succeeds, certainly not over time and on issues as serious as climate change.

Coal mining is in decline and its days are numbered. Pretending otherwise will not help miners and their families. Credit: Rob Homer

Presumably in a demonstration of this agility, Fitzgibbon’s prescription is to tell coal miners and their families in the Hunter that their industry is critical to Australia’s economic fortunes, it has unqualified support and that we will fight to keep it alive and well.

Given where the world is going on climate transition, this is snake oil. The curtain is closing on coal. Economics is against it, given renewable energy is a cheaper build for new power across the world. Sentiment is against it, not least because of its major role in 7 million deaths a year from air pollution. The climate is against it, literally. Our children beseech us not to burn it.

More than 60 per cent of the global economy is now committed to net zero emissions by 2050, meaning the curtain will fall more rapidly on coal than thought even a few years ago.

Underlining the point, the International Energy Agency advocates no new coal mining from now – a position unthinkable for that organisation in the recent past.

Macquarie Group has announced it will end its investments in coal. Neither can be dismissed as the “excessive” or “radical progressives” against coal who Fitzgibbon derides.

He contends climate change is a small challenge compared with those of military conscription and communism in Australia’s past. It is not.

Climate change is the challenge for our generation. Unless the world successfully combats climate change, millions face destitution, displacement and death in ways now so extensively documented there is no argument.

Ecosystems and a million animal and plant species are threatened, too. In its 130-year history, the Australian Labor has fought against such iniquities.

Albanese’s challenge: putting the labour back in Labor
Climate action will be the barometer of leadership this decade, the next and the next. Leadership and snake oil are antithetical.

Workers in the Hunter and elsewhere will not prosper from the blandishments of false prophets but the vision, practical solutions and diligent application of those charting a way through the demise of coal to new and thriving futures for those workers and their families who deserve every respect and opportunity.

No one says this is easy. Nor that this is a tomorrow thing. There is a transition occurring, not only for coal but the entire global economy as it shifts to net-zero emissions.

The good news is that although coal is flaming out, the climate transition offers unprecedented opportunities for new skills and jobs through new technology, industry and investment.

In clean energy alone, joint analysis by the International Energy Agency and the International Monetary Fund foresees investment rising from $US2 trillion a year today to $US5 trillion ($6.46 trillion) every year from 2030 to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Last week The Wall Street Journal, no less, reported climate investing is becoming mainstream and listed what it called a geyser of capital flowing in this direction, including more than $US5 billion of bonds and loans issued every day.

Big corporate emitters caught in a shareholder vice that’s tightening
This holds great prospects for regions such as the Hunter Valley, as our Prime Minister recently underlined to world leaders.

Renewable energy, hydrogen and agriculture are three cases in point, each linked to the emerging world of digital technology and all the opportunities it will unfurl.

Change is inexorable, and the transition is accelerating. In these circumstances, leadership requires levelling with people and working out a plan rather than ducking and punting it. That is what leadership is: making things possible.

Germany has done this with coal, phasing out its use over hard-fought years of working with its industry and across the economy.

When I was Australia’s ambassador for the environment, in every conversation I had with German officials and ministers, they put their concern for the workers and families affected – and on a just transition – at the heart of their work.

This gives every reason for hope for the Hunter and its workers. Politicians need to embrace it, not stoke the false hope of fading fires that are set to leave communities out in the cold.

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: , , ,

30/05/2021

(UK The Conversation) Climate Change: Six Priorities For Pulling Carbon Out Of The Air

The Conversation -  | 

Dmitry Kovalchuk/Shutterstock
To reach net zero emissions by 2050, global emissions must be cut faster and deeper than the world has yet managed. But even then, some hard-to-treat sources of pollution – in aviation, agriculture and cement making – may linger for longer than we would like. It will take time for clean alternatives to arrive and replace them.

That means the world also needs to find and ramp up ways of taking CO₂ out of the atmosphere to stabilise the climate. Just meeting the UK’s net zero target is likely to require the removal of 100 million tonnes of CO₂ a year, similar in size to current emissions from the country’s largest-emitting sector, road transport, but in reverse.

The UK government’s announcement of £31.5 million (US$44.7 million) in support for research and development of carbon removal is welcome. And while trials of new tech will help, there are many social issues that need to be tackled if removing greenhouse gases is to succeed.

Done right, carbon removal could be the perfect accompaniment to emissions cuts, bringing the climate back into balance. Done badly, it could be a dangerous distraction.

Cutting emissions is vital. So is carbon removal. Kamilpetran/Shutterstock

Getting removal right

Greenhouse gases can be removed from the atmosphere in several different ways. CO₂ can be captured by plants as they grow or absorbed by soils, minerals or chemicals, and locked up in the biosphere, oceans, underground, or even in long-lived products such as construction materials (including timber or aggregates).

These stores vary in size and stability, and methods for getting carbon into them vary in cost and readiness. Trees, for instance, are literally a shovel-ready way to soak up carbon with many additional benefits. But the carbon they store can be released by fires, pests or logging. Storing CO₂ underground offers a more stable reservoir and could hold 100 times as much, but methods of injecting it from the air are expensive and at an early stage of development. Nevertheless, a raft of innovations, competitions and start-ups are emerging.

Some experts worry that carbon removal could prove to be a mirage – particularly at the massive scales assumed in some pathways for reaching net zero – which distracts from the critical task of reducing emissions. So how do we get removals right?

Planting trees is quick, cheap and easy – but their carbon storage isn’t always reliable. Curved-Light/Alamy Stock Photo
As the scientists who will lead a national greenhouse gas removal hub, we’ve sketched out six priorities.

1. A clear vision

The UK government has yet to decide how much CO₂ it wants to remove from the atmosphere, the specific methods it prefers, and whether 2050 is an endpoint or a stepping stone to more removals beyond. A clear vision would help people see the merits of investing to remove CO₂, while also indicating which emissions sources should be stopped entirely.

2. Public support

Carbon removal at the scales under discussion will have big implications for communities and the environment. Entire landscapes and livelihoods will change. The government already aims to plant enough trees to cover twice the area of Bristol each year.

These changes need to offer other benefits and align with the values of local people. People care not only about the removal techniques themselves, but also how they are funded and supported, and will want to see that reducing emissions remains the priority.

Consultation is vital. Democratic processes, such as citizen assemblies, can help to find solutions that are attractive to different communities, increasing their legitimacy.

3. Innovation

The types of approaches that remove CO₂ permanently are at an early stage of development and cost hundreds of pounds per tonne of CO₂ removed. They are more expensive than most decarbonisation measures such as energy efficient lighting, insulation, solar and wind power or electric cars. Government support for research and development, and policies to encourage deployment are also crucial to stimulate innovation and bring down costs.

4. Incentives

 How does a business earn a profit from removing CO₂ from the air? Except for trees, there are no long-term, government-backed incentives for the removal and storage of carbon.

The UK government can learn from efforts in other countries. The 45Q tax rebate and Californian Low-Carbon Fuel Standard and the Australian Carbon Farming Initiative both incentivise businesses to capture and store CO₂.

Leaving the EU Common Agriculture Policy means the UK has its own opportunity to pay farmers to put carbon into their soils, trees and crops.

5. Monitoring, reporting and verifying

This is the vital but unglamorous work of ensuring carbon removal is properly documented and accurately measured. Without it, citizens would rightly worry whether any of this was real, and whether governments were simply handing out public money to companies for nothing in return.

Monitoring, reporting and verifying carbon storage in soil is a major challenge, requiring a complex system of in-field sampling, satellites and models. Even for trees there are gaps in international reporting in many countries, and no agreed method for reporting direct air capture and storage, which uses chemicals to absorb CO₂ from the air.

Direct air capture fans on the roof of a garbage incinerator in Hinwil, outside Zurich, Switzerland. Orjan Ellingvag/Alamy Stock Photo

6. Decision-making

A lot of information about CO₂ removal resides in academic literature and focuses on global-scale scenarios. But actually doing it will involve people ranging from local farmers to international financiers. All will need tools to help them make better decisions, from easy-to-read manuals to improved models.

These priorities will guide our research, and will be things to look out for in the government’s emerging removal strategy. They need to involve businesses and citizens, not just policymakers and scientists.

Unfortunately, it is so late in the day that we can’t afford to get this wrong. But we are optimistic that there is plenty of scope to get it right.

Links

Posted by at No comments :
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )

Lethal Heating is a citizens' initiative