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Production and combustion of fossilfuels imposes enormous costs on society, which the industry doesn’t pay for. One option, a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, gets the most attention but seems politically impossible. The closest we’ve ever come to a carbon tax is a limited fee on methane emissions under the new IRA law.
In an important win for climate accountability in the United States, the US Supreme Court decided that lawsuits filed in Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawai’i, and Rhode Island against fossilfuel companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, Suncor, and others will remain in state courts.
This month, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for a ban on advertising by fossilfuel companies, invoking the ban on tobacco ads as a relevant precedent. The treaty, in force as international law for nearly 20 years, now binds 183 parties, protecting more than 90 percent of the world’s people.
As the climate crisis deepens, so does the urgency to hold fossilfuel companies accountable for decades of deception. As the fossilfuel industry spares no expense to obscure these truths, the work of scientists who engage with climate litigation is increasingly vital. Who did you look to for guidance and to learn from?
Monterey County Oil Field (credit: Monterey County Weekly) For the first two decades of this century, and under the able leadership of former Chief Justices Ronald George and Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the California Supreme Court was quite active in interpreting and shaping California environmental law. Well, break’s over.
When diplomacy needs backup, countries turn to resolve their disputes at the ICJ, the United Nations’ principal judicial organ, to set the tone for international law. As an advisory body, the court provides legal opinions on international law questions. What is an advisory opinion?
Remedies for Harmful Algal Blooms Are Available in Law and Practice — Circle of Blue. POLLUTION CLEANUP: Michigan’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the California-based company FKI Hardware for violating the state’s pollution cleanup laws, MLive reports. Fresh from the Great Lakes News Collaborative. In the News.
Texas and a number of other states have passed laws banning what they call “boycotts of fossilfuel companies.” ” More precisely, they ban state investment or contracting with firms that “boycott” fossilfuel companies. It’s not clear which firms are supposed to go on the state’s blacklist.
Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming) announced plans to introduce legislation to prohibit municipalities from receiving Act 13 drilling impact fees if they set more protective standards on the development of natural gas than required in state or federal law and while a challenge to local restrictions is being litigated. Read more here. Read more here.
In an unforeseen turn of events, a pivotal climate litigation case unfolded in Montana , where 16 young environmental advocates challenged the state’s fossilfuel policies. A Montana judge declared those state laws unconstitutional. A new focus: Fossilfuel phaseout cases.
The majority 6–3 decision sharply curtails the EPA’s authority to set standards based on a broad range of flexible options to cut carbon emissions from the power sector—options such as replacing polluting fossilfuels with cheap and widely available wind and solar power coupled with battery storage.
First, the article very briefly glosses over the politics of carbon pricing – as the article puts it, “the political reality that taxes are a hard sell.” I think these political constraints are a key reason economists focused so long – too long – on carbon pricing. Politics is central in policy.
This means that, with few exceptions, new buildings will need to exclusively use electric appliances, and will not be allowed to contain any fossil-fuel infrastructure, like natural-gas lines. All-electric as the new normal. Just as important is the process that led to the new-buildings ordinance.
Fossilfuel companies are well established as founts of disinformation , agents of obstruction, and drivers of climate change. This guidance has been solicited from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Interamerican Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Last week, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an initiative measure that would have imposed severe restrictions on oil and gas development in Monterey County is preempted by state law and therefore invalid. But the good news is that this goal can still be achieved through other legal and political strategies.
In the study, we found that political power dynamics shape international negotiations, that the Paris Agreement temperature goal doesn’t fully account for the dangers of sea level rise, and that climate justice requires fully considering diverse views and experiences of climate change.
Cheaper renewable energy attracts private investment and makes limits on fossilfuels more feasible. The resulting economic growth also helps create a stronger political base for aggressive expansion of clean energy.
A recent report has shed light on how we can wean ourselves off Russian fossilfuels faster than the EU and other countries are aiming for in ways that would also accelerate climate action. . An immediate embargo on Russian fossilfuels.
The dangerous impacts of a warming, fossil-fuel dependent world span from wildfires capable of destroying entire towns to cancer-causing air pollution that afflicts the next generation. The climate crisis is one of humanity’s most complex conflicts yet. Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change, the truth is often obscured.
Some events last week sent a strong signal that the tide is turning against fossilfuels. To paraphrase Churchill, this may not be beginning of the end for fossilfuels, but at least it is the end of the beginning of the campaign against them. Each of the events standing alone would have been noteworthy.
” Prioritizing fossilfuels over renewable energy in 2023 for insubstantial reasons does not pass strict scrutiny. That’s not unique to Montana , even though this case focused on state laws. The decision builds off of the plaintiffs’ own proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.
Climate change wasn’t a central issue in the campaign, but resistance to climate action no longer provided a political advantage. Australia gives AU$11 billion a year to subsidize fossilfuel industries, and another AU$55 billion for supportive infrastructure and activities.
Many of the claims are based at least in part on allegations of misrepresentations by the companies regarding climate science in order to promote their sales of fossilfuels. Are the lawsuits preempted by federal law? Are the companies protected by the First Amendment? The arguments come in two forms.
The bench trial took place last month in the state capitol, Helena, where 16 youth plaintiffs ages 5 to 22 made the case that Montana’s unwavering promotion of fossilfuels violates the state constitution’s guarantee to a “clean and healthful environment.” The admission says a lot about political will.
There are several problems with this false dichotomy: Entrepreneurs behind private startups like Make Sunset are wildly different from the scientists and environmental law experts who study geoengineering. Have fossilfuel industries made any move to co-opt, or benefit from, geoengineering? If we overshoot the 1.5
CARB’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) seeks to incentivize the production and sale of alternative, lower emissions transportation fuels in order to displace conventional fossilfuels. To identify which fuels should be promoted, CARB calculates the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels.
Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign into law tomorrow. Even so, it is concerning that legislators included fossil gas in the definition of clean energy given the risk of continuing our reliance on fossilfuels and the impact of emissions from gas production, transportation, and combustion. What Still Needs to be Done?
Smaller, decentralized growth in electric heat pumps for buildings, and electric transportation replacing fossilfuels also require more access to electricity and a modern grid. Texas went first in 2005, with a law called SB 20. Typical utility planning is often opaque , despite the involvement of independent grid operators.
When all is said and done, lower resource adequacy requirements could theoretically reduce utilities’ reliance on fossilfuels and reduce the cost of resource adequacy requirements for ratepayers. This is especially useful when dealing with transmission across state lines that can often face political and financial obstacles.
” But 15 states, including New Mexico, New Jersey, and Florida, have active campaigns to “codify green amendments,” according to Bloomberg Law. The Montanans’ case itself is only a declaration of law; the plaintiffs lost the part of their case that sought injunctive relief in an earlier appeal. Montana.
These trends and projections show a very sobering energy future from an emissions perspective; an economy very much wedded to fossilfuels that completely disregards climate risks and agreed-upon climate targets and timelines. This year’s projections are a bit grim.
Mine Cleanup Law Weakened by Coal’s Decline — Reclamation is a flashpoint for the partisan divide over fossilfuels. Social and political circumstances in Syria may have aided the outbreak. Whether home ownership becomes a privilege of the wealthy depends on state policy, the Times reports.
Emissions trading systems are often launched with relatively lenient design features, typically justified as giving the system a chance to “learn-by-doing” and to gain political buy-in for approval of a program. – Continual reform to improve ambition, integrity, and buy-in. Most ETS have fallen on the prices-too-low side.
State of Montana, a Montana trial court ruled that the state Constitution’s guarantee of a healthy and clean environment prevails over Montana’s longstanding fossil-fuel-based state energy system. Critically, the Juliana case relied on federal law. The August 14th Held v.
C temperature target, and one that more than 130 countries have adopted, albeit mostly as squishy political declarations, not yet legally binding or implemented. Fossil enterprises and political leaders in major fossil producers ranged from politely dismissive to openly contemptuous.
Exxon , the cities and towns allege that the fossilfuel companies were liable because they knowingly produced and marketed products that have caused climate change harms, while concealing and misrepresenting the associated dangers. have filed more than twenty cases seeking damages from fossilfuel companies for climate harms.
Let’s be real: her talents as a poet, songwriter, performer, and inspiration to millions could be a game changer for messaging around climate actions, like phasing out fossilfuels and holding corporations accountable for planet-heating emissions. She’s been extremely successful in affecting political change in the past too.
Two former Emmett Institute law fellows served on the Secretariat. UCLA law students provided research and analytic support to the Secretariat in the International Climate Law and Policy Clinic. Fossil interests will keep fighting, even it’s to stretch their demise out longer rather than to live forever.
We know that burning fossilfuels is the main cause of anthropogenic climate change, and that climate change is the source of adverse impacts on communities and even regional and national economies. Instead, it has been to stem and confuse the flow of information about climate change to the public and political leaders.
This needs some thought, as both the laws of physics and the principles of supply and demand will apply, even if legislatures and regulators have not yet spoken about allocating costs and resources related to data center energy demands. Dominion Energy can’t address the laws of physics, or even the laws of supply and demand, by themselves.
As you may recall, the Commission’s informal (but serious) job description was to speak of elephants in the room and unclothed emperors: to say things that are true and important about climate risks and responses that other, more political constrained bodies cannot. Wait a second, you might say, what’s so radical about that?
Through the Clean Air Act , and as affirmed—and reaffirmed—through multiple legal sagas, EPA is statutorily obligated to address carbon pollution from fossilfuel-fired power plants. One critical tool for forcing that reckoning comes from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA decision, but it did not ground EPA.
As the water in hydropower reservoirs drops, hydropower production is reduced, possibly increasing energy prices, or forcing some utilities to compensate for energy demands by using more fossilfuels for power generation. Higher water and energy prices disproportionately affect low-income families. Green infrastructure.
During the shift from fossilfuels to renewable energy sources, it is crucial not only to prevent certain groups from being excluded, but also to guarantee that disadvantaged communities can step into positions of leadership and ownership, and that past injustices are remedied.
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