A pair of Indian Tribes in the US Pacific Northwest are taking major oil and gas companies to court over climate-related damage and alleged deception. On Wednesday, December 20 the Makah Indian Tribe and the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe each filed climate lawsuits in King County Superior Court in Washington State against some of the largest petroleum producers on the planet, demanding they help pay for escalating costs of responding and adapting to the climate crisis. Like other climate suits filed by local jurisdictions in the US against the fossil fuel industry, the Tribes’ cases say the rising damage costs stem from a decades-long campaign of corporate deception that effectively sustained society’s reliance on fossil fuels and delayed meaningful climate policies. “Defendants mounted a disinformation campaign beginning as early as the 1970s to discredit the burgeoning scientific consensus on climate change; deny their own knowledge of climate change-related threats; create doubt about the reality and consequences of the impacts of burning fossil fuels; and delay the necessary transition to a lower-carbon future,” the Tribes’ near-identical complaints state. The deceptive conduct continues to this day, the cases contend, as the industry has shifted from outright climate denial to prolific greenwashing and promotion of unrealistic technologies or ineffective approaches to solving the climate pollution problem. Named defendants in the Tribes’ complaints include ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Phillips 66. “These oil companies knew their products were dangerous, yet they did nothing to mitigate those dangers or warn any of us about them, for decades,” Shoalwater Bay Tribal Chairwoman Charlene Nelson said in a press statement. “Now we are facing hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to relocate our community to higher ground and protect our people, our property, and our heritage. These companies need to be held accountable for that.” The lawsuits are brought under state law claims of public nuisance and violation of Washington’s Products Liability Act for failure to warn, misrepresentation, and concealment. The Tribes seek relief in the form of compensatory damages and making the companies pay into an abatement fund to “remediate and adapt [Tribal] Reservation lands, natural resources, and infrastructure.”
In the US and around the world, Indigenous Peoples are especially vulnerable to worsening climate impacts, including the risks of cultural and physical displacement. In their complaints, the Makah and Shoalwater Bay Tribes say they face “existential threats to its people and its land from climate change.” “We are seeing the effects of the climate crisis on our people, our land, and our resources. The costs and consequences to us are overwhelming,” Makah Tribal Council Chairman Timothy J. Greene, Sr. said in a press statement. The Tribes’ cases are the latest in a growing wave of lawsuits brought by US communities against major corporate climate polluters aiming to hold companies like Exxon and Shell liable for their consequential climate lies and alleged wrongdoing that magnified the severity of the climate crisis in order to protect their fossil fuel profits. More than two dozen cities, counties, and states across the country, and one fishermen’s trade association, have sued major oil and gas entities so far. While the cases vary slightly in terms of their legal claims and remedies sought, they all seek accountability. “We intend to hold these companies accountable for hiding the truth about climate change and the effects of burning fossil fuels,” Chairman Greene said. “And we aim to force them to help pay for the high costs of surviving the catastrophe caused by the climate crisis.”
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Story originally published by DeSmog
A federal appeals court in Canada breathed new life into a youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit against the Canadian government, allowing it to proceed towards trial on a narrower scope and partially reversing the trial court’s ruling that the entire case should be tossed. In its opinion issued on December 13, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal determined that one part of the legal claims asserted in the case was viable and that a trial would help assess whether that claim violates the constitution. Initially filed in 2019 by 15 young Canadians, La Rose v. His Majesty the King alleges Canada’s policies and actions that perpetuate fossil fuels and worsen the climate crisis amount to violations of youths’ fundamental rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The case’s claims under Section 7 of the Charter, pertaining to the rights to life, liberty, and security of the person, should be addressed given the grave impacts of the climate crisis, the appeals court determined. “After four years, we have finally had a court affirm the validity of our experiences and the Government’s responsibility to youth,” plaintiff Lauren Wright said in a statement. “The chance to have our day in court on our section 7 claim is a massive step forward that brings me hope.” While the court asserted that other claims in the case, including under the public trust doctrine and Section 15 of the Charter, were rightly dismissed, it disagreed with the determination from Justice Michael Manson of Canada’s Federal Court that the case overall was too political and unprecedented to warrant rejection by the courts. Manson dismissed the suit in an October 2020 ruling. “Where novel Charter claims test the boundaries of a right, such claims may require a trial in order to understand the nature of the legislation, executive action or regulation and the harm experienced by claimants. This is one of those cases,” Justice Donald J. Rennie wrote in the unanimous appeals court decision. The court explicitly recognized that “the burden of addressing [climate] consequences will disproportionately affect Canadian youth,” and that climate impacts like displacement and loss of culture, food insecurity, and even death, are “widespread and grave.” “Back on the track to trial” The court’s decision comes after a hearing earlier this year to determine if the case should go forward. Before the case can move to trial, the court requested that plaintiffs’ attorneys revise the complaint to focus on challenging a particular government action or policy. “That’s exactly what we’ll do, and once we amend the complaint in that way we are confident that we’ll be back on the track to trial,” Andrea Rodgers, senior litigation attorney at Our Children’s Trust – a nonprofit law firm that spearheads and supports rights-based youth climate lawsuits against governments and is backing the Canadian case – told DeSmog. She said the legal team plans to file the amended complaint early next year. A trial could be scheduled to start sometime in 2025. An appeal from government defendants to Canada’s Supreme Court is unlikely at this stage, Rodgers said. “The Government of Canada shares the concerns of Canadians across the country and agrees that climate change is an urgent priority and that there is more to do,” Hannah Boonstra, spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada said in a statement. “It is also important to recognize the role that collective action has in addressing climate change, and that young people and Indigenous communities are among those leading the charge toward a cleaner future,” she added. Boonstra said the government would make no further comments since the case is before the courts. Canada is one of the world’s largest emitters of climate pollution, and ranks as the fourth biggest producer of oil and sixth biggest fossil gas extractor. According to a September “Planet Wreckers” report from Oil Change International, Canada is poised to become the second largest contributor, after the U.S., to cumulative carbon emissions from new oil and gas projects through 2050. Climate Action Tracker rates Canada’s progress towards meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement as “highly insufficient.” The appeals court ruling notes that Canada “has consistently missed the emissions targets it has set for itself” and is “similarly on track to miss its future emissions targets.” Rodgers said that although the Canadian government acknowledges that climate change endangers its youth, actions speak louder than words. “The emissions continue to rise, and the pipelines continue to be authorized, and the oil continues to flow,” she said. “That’s why courts need to step in and draw the line on what is constitutionally permissible. Unfulfilled government promises are not going to protect young people from climate change.” Story originally published by The New Lede
US environmental regulators have allowed “dangerous levels of climate pollution” to destabilize the climate system with horrific impacts that will worsen over time, according to allegations laid out in a federal lawsuit filed Sunday by a group of California youth. “We are running from wildfires, being displaced by floods, panicking in hot classrooms during another heat wave,” 15-year-old plaintiff Noah C. said in a statement. He is one of 18 young people named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed in US District Court for the Central District of California. (The last names of the plaintiffs are abbreviated due to their ages.) “We feel a constant worry about the future, and all around us no one is moving fast enough.” EPA Administrator Michael Regan and the US federal government are also named as defendants in the case. The lawsuit charges the government with knowingly endangering the lives and welfare of the nation’s youth by permitting unsafe levels of greenhouse gas emissions tied to the burning of fossil fuels, in violation of the US Constitution’s rights to life, equal protection, and due process. Additionally, the case contends that EPA has acted beyond its constitutionally delegated authority in allowing extensive climate pollution that harms human health and welfare. The climate crisis is “government-imposed and sanctioned,” the lawsuit states. “Climate crisis is the single greatest driver of the health of every child born today.” The plaintiffs seek a court declaration that EPA has violated their constitutional rights and breached its constitutional duty, and it asks courts to clarify for the first time the judicial standard of review for protecting the rights of children as a distinct and protected class. The new case hones in on the “longstanding discrimination” against children who are disproportionately affected by climate harms and who are unable to vote in electoral politics, said Andrea Rodgers, a lawyer at Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit law firm that has spearheaded rights-based youth climate litigation in the US. “This case really focuses on EPA’s systemic discrimination against young people because of their knowing conduct in allowing climate pollution,” Rodgers said. “I think it’s all the more urgent when you’re talking about children. They do not have the political protection that adults have, and that’s why they’re going to the courts.” The EPA declined to comment on the lawsuit itself, but said in a statement the agency “is committed to using the full scope of its authorities to protect communities and reduce the pollution that is driving climate change,” and “appreciates that young people are sounding the alarm on climate change.” The lawsuit, Genesis B. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, comes just four months after a court ruling in favor of young residents of Montana in the first youth-led climate lawsuit to go to trial in the US. In that ruling, Judge Kathy Seeley of the Montana’s First Judicial District Court asserted that the state’s constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment includes climate. Several other US courts have similarly recognized the right to a stable climate system. Earlier this year the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that citizens have the right to a “life-sustaining climate system” and a case in Oregon brought by 21 youth is moving forward after the judge in that case rejected the government’s efforts to dismiss it. “There is one federal agency explicitly tasked with keeping the air clean and controlling pollution to protect the health of every child and the welfare of a nation—the EPA. The agency has done the opposite when it comes to climate pollution and it’s time the EPA is held accountable by our courts for violating the US Constitution and misappropriating its congressionally delegated authority,” Julia Olson, executive director of Our Children’s Trust said in a statement. A court in Belgium has delivered a major victory for the citizens suing their national and regional governments over their inadequate measures addressing the climate emergency. In a ruling described as “groundbreaking,” the Brussels Court of Appeals is ordering the governments to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% (below 1990 levels) by 2030, marking only the second time that a court has imposed a binding emissions reduction target on a country in a climate lawsuit. In 2015 a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to take measures to curb emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 in a case brought by the Urgenda Foundation and Dutch citizens. This world-first decision was ultimately upheld on appeal.
The Belgian case, first filed in 2015 by an association called VZW Klimaatzaak and over 58,000 Belgian citizens, is styled the same as the Urgenda case in that it challenges governmental climate policy and seeks court intervention to compel governments to do more to rein in emissions and safeguard citizens’ fundamental human rights. The landmark Urgenda case has inspired a wave of rights-based climate litigation throughout Europe and beyond, with courts in Ireland, France, Germany, Colombia, and Nepal, for instance, already ruling against government defendants. In 2021 the Brussels Court of First Instance issued a verdict finding that the Belgian state and several regional jurisdictions were in breach of national and international law due to insufficient climate policy deemed to be ‘negligent’ in failing to protect human rights. Specifically, the governments were found to be in violation of Belgium’s “duty of care” law and Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect the rights to life and to private and family life. However, the court did not order the governments to take specific actions or to reduce emissions by a given amount. Based on that shortcoming, plaintiffs appealed the judgment. Following oral arguments from September 14 to October 6, 2023, the appeals court handed down its decision on November 30 – which also happens to be the starting date of the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai. The court not only upheld the lower court’s findings of violations of domestic law and of the ECHR, but went further in issuing injunctive relief by requiring the governments to take all necessary measures to reduce emissions 55% - at minimum – by 2030. While the global climate governance regime under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has seen painstakingly slow progress and undue influence by fossil fuel and other industrial interests, the courts offer a glimmer of hope in their potential to hold governments and corporate actors alike accountable as the climate crisis deepens. As a press release from VZW Klimaatzaak commenting on the Belgian case verdict puts it: “The fact that this particularly strong judgment was handed down on the first day of the international climate summit COP 28 in Dubai underlines the imperative need for rapid and decisive climate policy. Although world leaders have been meeting for decades to discuss how to reduce global emissions, they have never been higher than today. This political failure constitutes a serious threat and violation of our human rights and is increasingly being corrected by the judiciary, including today in Belgium.” Indeed, the climate fight is increasingly being brought to courtrooms around the world, and the role of the judiciary to intervene amidst a grave failure of political will to adequately confront the climate emergency is becoming even more apparent and necessary. “The ruling is not only important for Belgium, but also provides guidance for what must be demanded of other countries,” said climate lawyer Roger Cox. “It will help accelerate the global climate approach.” |
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