(AU) Climate Change Could Put Insurance Out Of Reach For Many Australians

The Guardian - Royce Kurmelovs

The financial industry regulator says insurers may be able to pay future claims, but fewer people will be able to secure coverage

The insurance issue is making bushfire recovery around Cobargo harder, says Michael Brosnan of Social Justice Advocates of the Sapphire Coast. Photograph: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images
 

Millions of Australians could be left uninsured as the effects of climate change put increasing pressure on the financial system, the industry’s regulatory body has warned.

The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (Apra) executive director Dr Sean Carmody told a Senate hearing on Tuesday the nation’s insurers and banks were taking steps to prepare for worsening bushfire seasons and more extreme weather events.

However, he said the resultant rising insurance premiums may put coverage out of reach for many people, threatening the stability of the wider economy.

"From our point of view in terms of thinking of the financial system as a whole, it’s not enough if insurers have the capacity to pay every claim, but there’s a shrinking number of people who can actually secure insurance,” Carmody told the hearing.

“You could extrapolate to a tiny pool where no one has an insurance policy but every claim can be paid. That might still mean there is no insolvency problem at an insurance level, but from a financial system point of view, that represents a failure.”

Carmody said the regulator had been regularly advising large financial institutions about the financial risks posed by climate change.

This advice went beyond the physical and “transitional” risks – that is actions by shareholder activists or protesters – but also to the possibility of future lawsuits where no action is taken now.

“Increasingly, there are court cases here and internationally that suggest if we do not think about and look at climate risk, there’s potential liabilities that arise there,” he said.

The total cost to the insurance industry from extreme weather and natural disasters between November 2019 and February 2020 alone stood in the range of $5bn.

With similar events likely to increase in frequency and extremity in the future, Carmody said Apra was investigating how it may impact the country’s biggest financial institutions over the next 30 years.

Pressed by the Labor senator Tim Ayres on whether climate change would eventually “overwhelm” even the best efforts at mitigation, Carmody agreed.

“The cost of insurance is trending up, which will translate to higher premiums in aggregate,” he said.

His comments follow evidence given by residents still struggling after the catastrophic bushfires of 2019-20.

Michael Brosnan, the chair of community group Social Justice Advocates of the Sapphire Coast, said the insurance issue was making it harder to mount an effective recovery in the area around Cobargo in New South Wales.

Brosnan said his organisation was aware of at least 63 people waiting for basic sanitation some 14 months after the bushfires tore through the region.

“Up until June or July last year, many of these people were driving to Rocky Hall and Wyndham for toilet, shower and internet,” Brosnan said.

Links

• Australia must prepare now for climate-related disasters or pay more later, insurance regulator says
• Insurance giant Suncorp to end coverage and finance for oil and gas industry
• Anti-Adani coalmine activists target insurance broker with virtual protest
• Climate crisis will make insurance unaffordable for people who need it most
• Most Australian chief executives believe climate crisis a threat to business
• If the bushfires won't force climate policy change, we need to circumvent Scott Morrison
• Scott Morrison in danger of becoming a 'climate change casualty', says Steve Bracks
• Suncorp and IAG temporarily stop selling insurance in fire-affected areas of Victoria and NSW
• 'A duty of care': Australian teenagers take their climate crisis plea to court
• Australia's summer the wettest in four years amid cooling La Niña

Plastic Is Part Of The Carbon Cycle And Needs To Be Included In Climate Calculations

The Conversation - Xia Zhu

The plastic problem isn’t separate from climate change. (Shutterstock)

Author Xia Zhu is PhD Student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto

Plastic pollution and climate change are two prominent environmental issues of our time. Plastic was once thought to be a miracle invention that made life simpler for families.

But just as our exploitation of fossil fuels led to climate change, the unsustainable use of plastic materials has led to a global environmental catastrophe. To this day, plastic pollution has infiltrated every part of our planet, from remote mountain lakes to the ocean to the very air we breathe.

The unsustainable consumption of nonrenewable resources is the common root of both these problems, and beneath the surface, there are many links between these two issues.

Plastic is part of the carbon cycle

To better understand how plastic particles move through the environment, scientists should investigate their transport as they do for nitrogen, carbon and water.

To do this, they should formally adopt the terminology used to study these biogeochemical cycles, including “reservoirs,” which are places of storage, and “fluxes,” which describe the movement of substances from one place to another over time. This will help us understand the transport mechanisms and fate of plastic pollution in the environment, which are major gaps in the field today.

Plastic should be studied in the same way nitrogen, carbon and water are, so that scientists can understand its movement and its fate. (Shutterstock)

In fact, all the plastic that has ever been produced is part of the carbon cycle. Overall, an enormous seven gigatonnes — or seven billion tonnes — of plastic have been produced, mainly from chemicals extracted from the fossil carbon reservoir.

This is not much different from the roughly 14 billion tonnes of carbon emitted into the atmosphere every year from the same reservoir due to human activities.

Plastic transports carbon in different ways. For instance, plastic can become incorporated into living organisms, or settle to the bottom of the ocean as aggregates of plastic and organic matter.

It can also release greenhouse gases at every stage of its life cycle, from production to transportation to waste disposal. Scientists and governments should investigate how plastic pollution transports carbon because nutrient redistribution has implications for the livelihoods of ecosystems and the well-being of living organisms.

Since plastic polymers are so persistent, almost every piece of plastic we have ever produced is still somewhere on this planet. This suggests, due to the sheer amount of plastic pollution, that plastic pollution is on the same scale as global transport processes of carbon, also on the order of gigatonnes.

The key takeaway is that plastic pollution has its own cycle, and that it may also play a fundamental role in the carbon cycle — the movement of carbon between different reservoirs such as the atmosphere, ocean and organisms — a cycle that is very relevant to global climate change.

Two sides of the same coin

Several recent articles by journalists and scientists have framed the plastic pollution problem as a distraction from the problem of climate change. The issue of plastic pollution may compete with climate change for funding and attention, delaying action what is a more pressing environmental issue, they say.

I disagree. Research shows that the plastic problem is not independent from climate change.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. (Pixabay)

Plastic and climate are two sides of the same coin: the majority of plastic polymers are made from petrochemical feed-stocks and their raw materials for synthesis are ethylene and propylene.

These compounds are derived from naphtha, one of several chemicals refined from petroleum. What else is refined from petroleum? Gasoline, the fossil fuel we burn for energy that emits greenhouse gases.

These sister compounds are used differently but they have a common origin and they instigate the very issues in question. When demand for petroleum drops, companies ramp up their plastic production. When demand for plastic drops, fossil fuel companies might be inclined to shift their production ratio again. Failing to recognize the intimate connections between these issues not only makes tackling these issues inefficient, but may also undermine efforts on both fronts.

Moving forward

Through the many years of efforts by researchers, activists, and policy-makers around the world, we are starting to see a big difference in public attitude towards these issues. On the climate front, the adoption of the Paris Agreement and the energy of the youth movement fill me with optimism.

The Paris Climate Summit (COP21) in 2015. (COP21 UofT Students, 2015)

On the plastic pollution front, a UN international agreement to limit emissions of plastic may be on the horizon.

By acknowledging the connections between these issues, I only see benefits. Climate plans should acknowledge the greenhouse gas emissions from plastics and how plastics can be better managed.

For instance, Canada’s most recent climate plan acknowledged its ban on single-use items in 2021 and recognized the importance of transitioning to a circular economy. Likewise, plastic pollution plans can describe the benefits to that city, state or country’s climate strategy by mitigating plastic production.

Moving forward, we should keep this in mind and tackle these two issues together — the opportunities to do so are plentiful.

Links

• Plastic waste and climate change - what's the connection?
• Plastic waste releases greenhouse gases
• How plastics contribute to climate change 
• More Plastic Is On the Way: What It Means for Climate Change
• Single-use plastics a serious climate change hazard, study warns
• Recycling isn’t enough — the world’s plastic pollution crisis is only getting worse
• Beyond our oceans: Microplastics pollute rivers and lakes too
• They’re everywhere: New study finds polyester fibres throughout the Arctic Ocean
• How to get abandoned, lost and discarded ‘ghost’ fishing gear out of the ocean

A Newly Released Report By UNDP Confirms That Education Is Key To Addressing Climate Change

United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) | United Nations Development Programme Survey (UNDP)

A newly released report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) confirms that education is key to addressing climate change

The innovative survey was distributed across mobile gaming networks in order to include hard-to-reach audiences in traditional polling, like youth under the age of 18. Photo: UNDP Bhutan

The Peoples' Climate Vote

Download the Report

(PDF 27.9 MB)

UNITAR

The largest ever opinion survey on climate change was carried out by UN CC:Learn partner UNDP in 2020 and showed that 64% of 1.2 million respondents think that climate change is a global emergency.

The survey entitled "People's Climate Vote" covered 50 countries, reflecting a bit more than half of the world's population, and its results were analyzed by the University of Oxford.

Over 500,000 respondents of the survey were under the age of 18 at the time of the poll, which made youth the biggest age group surveyed.

One of the survey's key findings has proven that education is paramount to ramp up climate action: the poll confirmed that there is a clear correlation between level of education and belief in climate change.

 For instance, people who held university degrees or were attending university were way more likely to believe that climate change is a global emergency. 

This spanned across all surveyed countries, from low-income to high-income ones, with 82% of people in Bhutan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and 87% and 82% in France and Japan, respectively.

Something we saw very clearly was the high correlation between education and belief in the climate emergency. The more educated you are, the more likely you are to think that there is a climate emergency." Cassie Flynn - Strategic Adviser to the UNDP

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UNDP

United Nations Development Programme Survey respondents were asked if climate change was a global emergency and whether they supported eighteen key climate policies across six action areas: economy, energy, transport, food & farms, nature and protecting people.  

Results show that people often want broad climate policies beyond the current state of play.

For example, in eight of the ten survey countries with the highest emissions from the power sector, majorities backed more renewable energy. 

In four out of the five countries with the highest emissions from land-use change and enough data on policy preferences, there was majority support for conserving forests and land. 

Nine out of ten of the countries with the most urbanized populations backed more use of clean electric cars and buses, or bicycles.  

The survey was distributed across mobile gaming networks in order to include hard-to-reach audiences in traditional polling, like youth under the age of 18.


Young people will bear the brunt of climate change. They are also more likely to act on it. UNDP has conducted the biggest ever opinion survey on climate change, with over 1.2 million respondents, mostly youth, and 64% of whom considered climate change an emergency.

Polling experts at the University of Oxford weighted the huge sample to make it representative of the age, gender, and education population profiles of the countries in the survey, resulting in small margins of error of +/- 2%.

Policies had wide-ranging support, with the most popular being conserving forests and land (54% public support), more solar, wind and renewable power (53%), adopting climate-friendly farming techniques (52%) and investing more in green businesses and jobs (50%). 

The survey shows a direct link between a person’s level of education and their desire for climate action. 

There was very high recognition of the climate emergency among those who had attended university or college in all countries, from lower-income countries such as Bhutan (82%) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (82%), to wealthy countries like France (87%) and Japan (82%). 

When it comes to age, younger people (under 18) were more likely to say climate change is an emergency than older people. 

Nevertheless, other age groups were not far behind, with 65% of those aged 18-35, 66% aged 36-59 and 58% of those over 60, illustrating how widely held this view has become.

Links

• (AU) Australians Fear Climate Change More Than Catching Covid, Survey Shows
• UN Global Climate Poll: ‘The People’s Voice Is Clear – They Want Action’
• (AU) Survey Shows Australian Support For Paris Agreement And Net Zero Target
• (AU) Climate Change Worrying More Australians Than Ever Before, Australia Institute Report
• A Million Young People Urge Governments To Prioritise Climate Crisis
• (AU) Australian Youth Feel Unprepared, Uneducated And Underappreciated On Climate Change: Report
• Italy To Become First Country To Make Learning About Climate Change Compulsory For School Students
• 8 Ways To Teach Climate Change In Almost Any Classroom

(AU) Energy Minister Angus Taylor Launches $50 Million Fund For Carbon Capture Projects

ABC Newcastle - Ben Millington

Angus Taylor (right), Mark Rayson (left) and Marcus Dawe at the launch of the carbon capture and storage fund. (ABC Newcastle: Ben Millington)

Key points $50 million fund for carbon capture announced The fund is open to all projects that capture carbon Project that reuse CO2 will compete with those that store it

The federal government has launched a $50 million fund to support the growth of carbon capture projects, which will include projects that reuse carbon dioxide emissions to make new products.

The Carbon Capture, Use and Storage fund was announced by Energy Minister Angus Taylor this morning in Newcastle at the pilot site for Mineral Carbonisation International (MCI).

The company is using carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from a nearby ammonia plant to make building products like plasterboard and cement.

"Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) has really, in the past seven years, struggled to get as much air time as other technology solutions," MCI chief operating officer, Sophia Hamblin Wang, said.

"This is the biggest show of faith and funding that the government has ever provided for the CCU technology group.

"This is incredibly exciting and will encourage other technologies in our ecosystem to develop."

A carbon reactor system being developed by Mineral Carbonation International in Newcastle. (Supplied: Mineral Carbonation International)

MCI needs funding to build a scaled-up version of the Newcastle plant to further prove the commercial viability of the concept at scale.

Ms Hamblin Wang said it could ultimately be used to capture and use the emissions from the steel and cement factories that would be needed in a low-emissions future, but had so far struggled to find a CO2 solution.

The fund will be open to a broad spectrum of players including other CCU projects looking to produce fuels and chemical from CO2, as well as those in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) — which have been criticised for significant investment for little return over several decades.

'Australia has much to add to this area' Mr Taylor said he would like to see the fund invest in both CCU and CCS.

He dismissed concerns about the viability of capturing and storing carbon underground. "Sequestering is part of the answer — sequestering in soil, in geological formations, and sequestering in products is a fantastic solution as well and offers us great opportunities," Mr Taylor said.

"The great benefit of utilisation is that you can reduce the costs even further, that's why there's a lot to like about it, and that's the beauty of what they're doing right here.

"Australia has so much to add in this area, and this region with its background.

"We have smart people who can solve hard problems and that's ultimately what is going to get emissions down and strengthen the world economy at the same time."

Mr Taylor said the government's investment would reduce technical and commercial barriers to deploying these technologies and identify potential project sites.

Links

• What is carbon capture and storage (and does it work)?
• Angus Taylor says Australia has the world's largest carbon capture and storage project. Here's what he's not saying
• Australia Needs a Plan, Not a Dirty Wishlist
• Carbon capture and storage: one tool, many opportunities
• Atmospheric Carbon Drawdown – A Global Imperative
• Elon Musk launches $100 million carbon capture competition
• Microsoft and Musk are working hard on carbon storage – here’s the prognosis
• Government opens door to paying for cleaner coal and gas with climate funds
• New focus on climate change adaptation but no sign of 2050 emissions commitment

(USA) 'Run The Oil Industry In Reverse': Fighting Climate Change By Farming Kelp

NPR - Fred Bever 

Adam Baske (left) and Capt. Rob Odlin of Running Tide Technologies in the Gulf of Maine. They release rope that's entwined with early-stage kelp, a fast growing seaweed that will soak up carbon dioxide. Fred Bever/Maine Public

In the race to stall or even reverse global warming, new efforts are in the works to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and put it somewhere safe.

One startup in Maine has a vision that is drawing attention from scientists and venture capitalists alike: to bury massive amounts of seaweed at the bottom of the ocean, where it will lock away carbon for thousands of years.

The company is called Running Tide Technologies, and it's prototyping the concept this winter. On a recent day in the Gulf of Maine, boat captain Rob Odlin says the task itself isn't much different from any other in his seafaring career, whether chasing tuna or harvesting lobster.

"We're just fishing for carbon now, and kelp's the net," he says.

AUDIO: 'Run The Oil Industry In Reverse'

Running Tide CEO Marty Odlin — the boat captain's nephew — comes from a long line of Maine fishermen, and once imagined he would continue the tradition. But he watched as the warming climate drove major shifts in fish populations, while regulators put a lid on how much could be taken from the sea.

"It just got really hard for me to go into crazy debt to buy a boat to catch fish that were swimming away," Odlin says.

The Dartmouth-trained engineer did start an oyster farm. But he also started thinking about how to stop the damage in the Gulf of Maine, one of the fastest warming bodies of water on the planet.

"Essentially what we have to do is run the oil industry in reverse," he concluded.

As Odlin notes, the fossil fuels we burn for energy started out as plants millions of years ago. Much of it was ocean algae that sank to the bottom of ancient seas, where chemistry and water pressure transformed it into oil, over geologic timescales.
 

Olivia Mercier runs the kelp hatchery at Portland's Running Tide Technologies. She raises sporophytes, or early-stage kelp, on a pipe wrapped with biodegradable string; the string will be placed in the ocean. Fred Bever/Maine Public 

Odlin wants to mimic those natural processes, and do it in a hurry. He envisions an armada heading hundreds of miles offshore each fall, to deploy millions of free-floating cellulose buoys, each tethered to a kelp-bearing rope.  

The kelp will soak up carbon — gigatons of it — via photosynthesis. Months later the mature plant blades will grow too heavy for their biodegradable buoys.

"So the kelp will sink to the ocean bottom in the sediment, and become, essentially, part of the ocean floor," Odlin says. The ultimate goal is that it will stay there, sequestrated for millions of years, turning back into oil.

This year's goal is more modest: an on-the-water experiment, floating about 1600 single-buoy "micro-farms" to gather data and prove the concept.

Low-tech elegance

The company is part of a new wave of big-thinking about removing carbon from the atmosphere at a planetary-scale.

Microsoft last year committed a billion dollars to kick-start research and development in the emerging field of carbon-removal tech. It also promised to find ways to remove all the CO2 its operations have put in the air since it was founded.

High-tech carbon-removal innovations are emerging around the world. Towering banks of fans that can pull CO2 from the sky. Pumps injecting plant-based biofuels into the earth. But Running Tide seems to be capturing attention — and investment — because of its low-tech elegance.

"When we started learning about Running Tide's approach, I was blown away by the simplicity," says Stacy Kauk, who directs sustainability efforts at Shopify, a $150-billion e-commerce company which will be Running Tide's first customer for carbon-capture credits.

She says Shopify is willing to pay a premium for the credits now, in hopes the technology can ultimately be brought to a price-point that would attract broad buy-in from other businesses and governments.

"They're not relying on expensive equipment, or energy-intensive processes," she says. "It's very simple, and the economies of scale associated with that make Running Tide's solution have huge potential." 

Marty Odlin, CEO of Running Tide Technologies, in its workshop on Portland's waterfront. The Dartmouth-trained engineer comes from a fishing family and once wanted to be a fisherman. But after seeing global warming's effects on the Gulf of Maine fisheries he decided to try and reverse the damage. Fred Bever/Maine Public

At a large scale, though, Running Tide is mindful there could be unwanted consequences. It's modeling whether, for instance, a multitude of free-floating micro-farms could entangle whales, hinder shipping, or foul beaches. 

Outside experts are pitching in: A consortium of oceanographers from MIT, Stanford and other top research outfits will review the project and its environmental risks. But executive director Brad Ack says all that will be weighed in the context of the urgency of combating climate change.

"We have to compare them against the no-action alternative," he says. "And in this case, the no-action alternative is very grim."

Running Tide's Marty Odlin says it will take a World-War II level mobilization to remove a major chunk of some 200 years' worth of humanity's CO2 pollution, whether via his model or any others that show real-world promise.

"We're kind of in a cage-match with it right now," he says. "I'm not in this to give Godzilla a paper-cut."

For now, from his uncle's re-purposed lobster boat off Maine's coast, the Running Tide team is tending the buoys, making sure they survive the winter storms. They'll return in the spring to sink this test-crop of carbon-removing kelp a thousand meters deep, hopefully to stay there for millennia. 

Links

• Listening To The Forest For Clues About Climate Change
  
• How Fast Are Oceans Rising? The Answer May Be In Century-Old Shipping Logs
• What Happened To The Butterflies? Climate, Deforestation Threaten Monarch Migration
• As Cities Grapple With Climate Change, Gas Utilities Fight To Stay In Business
  
• A Looming Disaster: New Data Reveal Where Flood Damage Is An Existential Threat
• Natural Gas Companies Have Their Own Plans To Go Low-Carbon
• U.S. Officially Rejoins Paris Agreement On Climate Change
• White House Adviser Says Texas Outages Show How U.S. Is Unprepared For Climate Change
  
• How Much Is The Weather In Texas Due To Climate Change?
  
• How Fast Will Biden Need To Move On Climate? Really, Really Fast
• After Biden's First Actions On Climate Change, How Much More Can He Do Alone?
• President Biden Lays Out Actions Aimed At Climate Change

(AU) Passionate Young Voices Demand To Be Heard On Climate Crisis

Sydney Morning Herald - Editorial

It was more than a decade ago that former prime minister Kevin Rudd declared climate change “the great moral challenge of our generation”. Regrettably, the generation that has walked the halls of power since that time, most notably in Federal Parliament, has largely proven not up to the task. And those who will be most affected by a warming planet – the younger generation – are not happy.

In pre-pandemic times, the most public display of this was the tens of thousands of students who took time out from school to flood the streets in protest across Australia. Despite being criticised by some politicians, it was a striking display of the passion that many younger people brought to the issue.

Anjali Sharma, 16, and her litigation guardian Sister Brigid Arthur, 86. Ms Sharma is the lead claimant in a group of eight teenagers from across Australia driving a landmark climate change class action in the Federal Court. Credit: Justin McManus

While collective action has been curtailed by COVID-19, eight teenagers from across Australia have taken their demands for stronger action from the streets to the courts. In a landmark class action that begins in Melbourne’s Federal Court on Tuesday, the group is challenging the federal Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, to protect young people from climate change and the future harms of coal mining.

The five-day trial will determine the future of the proposed Vickery open-cut coal mine extension in NSW. The proposal would increase the mine’s coal production by about 25 per cent and emissions by 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gases over its lifetime. The teenagers want the minister to call a halt to the mine’s expansion.

The principal lawyer in the case, David Barnden, described it as public interest litigation, saying politicians and other people in power have specific rights and responsibilities to protect the vulnerable. “We are asking the court to recognise that the Environment Minister has a duty to protect younger people from the impacts of future climate harm. It’s the first time the court has been asked to recognise such a duty,” he said.

While it may be new in Australia, there have been many similar cases in a range of countries, most notably the United States. They rarely appear to get the backing of the judges involved but, to a degree, that is not the point. This is a generation taking a stand – whether it be on social media, with placards on city streets, or in the courts – against our political leaders who, in their view, have failed to act with the urgency and decisiveness that is needed.

The teenagers are under 18 years old. Without the ability to make their voices heard at the polls, they are using whatever means they have at hand. For a generation that will have to live with the full consequences of climate change, it is hardly an unreasonable level of concern.

The Environment Minister, in her submission to the court, does acknowledge that “the Earth’s climate is changing and humans are primarily responsible” and that “increases in temperature affect the environment, economy and society”. But Ms Ley has no intention of conceding ground on the broader responsibility government may have for not acting quickly enough. She puts it bluntly: “The minister does not owe a duty of care as alleged.”

In a legal sense, there is little doubt that Ms Ley has the stronger case. It would take a brave judge to set such a precedent. But if Australia’s political leaders think they can ignore the effort, they do so at their peril. These passionate young Australians may not be able to vote yet, but when they can, they are sure to have little time for those who have dragged their heels tackling climate change.

Links

• Climate campaign teens prepare for court battle with minister over coal expansion
• (AU) 'A Duty Of Care': Australian Teenagers Take Their Climate Crisis Plea To Court
• (AU) Queensland Teenagers Lodge Legal Action Against Adani Coal Mine To Save Great Barrier Reef
• These Aussie Teens Have Launched A Landmark Climate Case Against The Government. Win Or Lose, It’ll Make A Difference
• (AU) Class Action To Stop Planned Coal Mine Extension Filed By Climate Action-Focused Australian Teenagers
• Portuguese Children Sue 33 Countries Over Climate Change At European Court
• (USA) Youths Say They Won't Give Up On Climate Change Initiative After Court Turns Back Lawsuit
• Surge In Court Cases Over Climate Change Shows Increasing Role Of Litigation In Addressing The Climate Crisis
• (AU) A Major Report Excoriated Australia’s Environment Laws. Sussan Ley’s Response Is Confused And Risky
• These Kids Are Suing European Governments Because Of The Climate Crisis
• European States Ordered To Respond To Youth Activists' Climate Lawsuit
• (AU) Suing For Climate Action: Can The Courts Save Us From The Black Hole Of Political Inaction?
• (AU) Top Judge Urges Lawyers To Take Stand On Climate Change
• 'World-first' legal case: student accuses Australia of misleading investors on climate risk
• I'm the 13-year-old police threatened to arrest at the Kirribilli House protest. This is why I did it
• Australia was the first casualty of the big blackout lie blaming wind power – the US could be next

(AU) 'A Duty Of Care': Australian Teenagers Take Their Climate Crisis Plea To Court

The Guardian - Adam Morton

Anj Sharma, 16, and her team hope to force change they say is not coming quickly enough from government

Sister Brigid Arthur and Anj Sharma: ‘We just want a future that is guaranteed to be safe for us.’

Eight teenagers and an octogenarian nun head to an Australian court today to launch what they hope will prove to be a landmark case – one that establishes the federal government’s duty of care in protecting future generations from a worsening climate crisis.

If successful, the people behind the class action believe it may set a precedent that stops the government approving new fossil fuel projects.

As with any novel legal argument, its chances of success are unclear, but the case is not happening in isolation.

It is one of a number of climate-related litigation cases expected before Australian courts and tribunals in the months ahead as lawyers and activists aim to use the law to force change they say is not coming quickly enough from Canberra or, in many cases, state governments.

The lead applicant of the case in the federal court in Melbourne this week is Anj Sharma, a 16-year-old student. Her involvement evolved from her role helping organise a Greta Thunberg-inspired school strike for climate in September 2019, when about 100,000 marched in the Victorian capital.

The case is a response to a proposal by Whitehaven Coal to extend its Vickery coalmine in northern New South Wales. The expansion of the mine could lead to an extra 100m tonnes of CO2 – about 20% of Australia’s annual climate footprint – being released into the atmosphere as the extracted coal is shipped overseas and burned to make steel and generate electricity.

The teenagers and their legal team argue the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, would be breaching a common law duty of care to protect younger people against future harm if she used her powers under national environment laws to allow the mine extension to go ahead.

Solicitors at Equity Generation Lawyers, a Melbourne firm, had been working on the case and through the climate strike movement were connected with eight teenage activists who would join it and be its face. They are spread across four states, but most live in Sydney.

Anj says all eight have “very personal stories about climate change”, including the changing impact of the monsoon season on family members in India and witnessing firsthand the impact of fracking for coal-seam gas.

“The decisions that they make right now will impact us in the future. We’re the ones who are going to have to live with the decisions, we’re going to have to raise the next generation under those decisions, and we just want a future that is guaranteed to be safe for us,” she told Guardian Australia’s Full Story podcast. “They truly do have a duty of care towards us.”

A spokesperson for Ley declined to comment while the case was before the court.

The group taking the action includes Izzy Raj-Seppings, who police threatened to arrest in a protest outside Kirribilli House in December 2019.

Given they are legally minors, the teenagers are being supported by Sister Brigid Arthur, an 86-year-old nun and former teacher who volunteered to be their litigation guardian, a role she previously played in cases involving young asylum seekers.

While the arguments being made are unusual in an Australian context, the ideas that will be heard across the five-day trial are similar to those being tested in a growing number of international cases that aim to hold governments to account for not doing more to address global heating.

It stands to reason young people are taking the fight to those in power
Lawyer David Barnden

The forerunner was a 2015 Netherlands judgment that found the government had an explicit duty to protect its citizens’ human rights in the face of climate change and must reduce its emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

Earlier this month, a Paris court convicted the French state for not keeping its promises to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

The four environmental groups that brought the case, backed by a petition signed by 2.3m people, have pledged to use the judgment to push the French state to act more aggressively to combat the climate emergency.

There are other cases afoot in Australia. The legal team behind the Vickery coalmine extension case is also representing Melbourne law student Katta O’Donnell, who last year filed a claim accusing the federal government of misleading investors in sovereign bonds by failing to disclose the financial risk caused by the climate crisis.

David Barnden, the principal lawyer at Equity Generation representing the teen activists, says: “With their future at stake, it stands to reason young people in Australia are taking the fight to those in power.”

The climate legal cases before Australian courts can be loosely divided into two categories – those that aim to stop or reverse planning approval of fossil fuel developments through traditional legal means, and those that are attempting to break new ground.

The latter group includes cases arguing the government has a duty of care, made on human rights grounds, and focused on the principle of carbon budgets, which aim to stop developments on the ground they would push the country beyond what it can mathematically emit if the world is to meet the goals of the Paris agreement.

David Morris, the chief executive of the Environment Defenders Office (EDO), says the most significant climate litigation victory in Australia to date was a February 2019 judgment that blocked the proposed Rocky Hill coalmine, in NSW’s Gloucester Valley.

The chief judge of the state’s land and environment court, Brian Preston, explicitly cited the role coal from the mine would play in increasing global greenhouse gases “at a time when what is now urgently needed, in order to meet generally agreed climate targets, is a rapid and deep decrease”.

The EDO is supporting several challenges to fossil fuel projects backed by state governments. They include action against Clive Palmer’s proposed open-cut and underground thermal coal in Queensland’s Galilee Basin by Youth Verdict, a human rights and climate action group. It is listed for the Queensland land court in May.

Others are questioning the legality of the Burrup Hub liquefied natural gas processing hub in the Pilbara and the Narrabri coal-seam gas development in northern NSW.

The EDO is also representing the group Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action in taking on the NSW Environment Protection Authority, accusing it of breaching its statutory duty in failing to have a policy to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Morris says climate litigation based on the idea the government has a role to play in protecting people from climate catastrophe is only going to grow. He compares it to the rising push against the tobacco industry as the health ramifications became undeniable.

“Ten years ago, these sorts of cases seemed wild. People would have thought ‘how can you possibly have a case like that’,” he says. “Now, I think it’s going to become increasingly normal.”

Links

• (AU) Queensland Teenagers Lodge Legal Action Against Adani Coal Mine To Save Great Barrier Reef
• These Aussie Teens Have Launched A Landmark Climate Case Against The Government. Win Or Lose, It’ll Make A Difference
• (AU) Class Action To Stop Planned Coal Mine Extension Filed By Climate Action-Focused Australian Teenagers
• Portuguese Children Sue 33 Countries Over Climate Change At European Court
• (USA) Youths Say They Won't Give Up On Climate Change Initiative After Court Turns Back Lawsuit
• Surge In Court Cases Over Climate Change Shows Increasing Role Of Litigation In Addressing The Climate Crisis
• (AU) A Major Report Excoriated Australia’s Environment Laws. Sussan Ley’s Response Is Confused And Risky
• These Kids Are Suing European Governments Because Of The Climate Crisis
• European States Ordered To Respond To Youth Activists' Climate Lawsuit
• (AU) Suing For Climate Action: Can The Courts Save Us From The Black Hole Of Political Inaction?
• (AU) Top Judge Urges Lawyers To Take Stand On Climate Change
• 'World-first' legal case: student accuses Australia of misleading investors on climate risk
• I'm the 13-year-old police threatened to arrest at the Kirribilli House protest. This is why I did it
• Australia was the first casualty of the big blackout lie blaming wind power – the US could be next