Our Children’s Trust

If you live in England and would like to get involved in legal action, please contact us.

Our Children’s Trust staff attorneys are working with partner lawyers in England to assess the best legal avenues for England youth to secure science-based climate recovery planning in England. We expect appropriate action will be filed in the near future.

In July, 2014, Our Children’s Trust Law Clerk Bradley Freedman and our partner and UK attorney Emily Shirley published an explanatory article in the Journal of Planning & Environmental Law.

See particularly:

• England and the Public Trust Doctrine.

and

and:

Global Legal Actions

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• Rime of a Modern-day Mariner | Tufts Now

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

“No More War”: Protesters Disrupt Ex-CIA Director Leon Panetta’s DNC Speech

E120, e130,

The DNC Protests You Didn’t See on TV: Sanders Delegates Chant and Walk Out on Clinton Speech

E120, e130,

As Hillary Clinton Accepts Democratic Nomination, Hundreds Protest Outside Convention Arena

E120, e130,

“UnConventional Times”: Activists at DNC Publish Independent Newspaper to Cover Protests, Walkouts

E120, e130,

Over 10,000 Climate Protesters March in Philadelphia on Day Before Democratic National Convention

http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/07/25/over-10-000-climate-protesters-march-philadelphia-day-democratic-national-convention

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Impact Foresting Release 2015 Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report | Global Justice Ecology Project

Posted on July 29, 2016 by GJEP staff

NOTE: Bear in mind this is the view from Western financial capital, i.e. not particularly concerned with the valuation of climate-related damage done in the Global South. So with Europe lumped with Africa, and the Southern African drought doing extreme damage, nevertheless “the region did not endure an individual disaster event that caused economic losses beyond the USD5.0 billion threshold” because country-by-country, only South Africa emerges as a meso-loser.

By Aon Benfield

Impact Forecasting, the catastrophe model development centre of excellence at Aon Benfield, has released the Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report, which evaluates the impact of natural disaster events that occurred worldwide during 2015.

The report reveals that economic losses in 2015 were driven by flood, severe weather (thunderstorm), tropical cyclone and wildfire perils, which accounted for 70 percent of global natural disaster losses. 2015 was also documented as the warmest year since 1880 when global land and ocean temperature records began.

A Closer look at EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa)

Economic and insured losses derived from natural catastrophes in EMEA were well below the 2000-2014 norm and the lowest since 2011. For the second consecutive year, the region did not endure an individual disaster event that caused economic losses beyond the USD5.0 billion threshold. Economic losses (USD16 billion) in 2015 were 35 percent below the 2000-2014 average and 28 percent below the median during the same timeframe. Insured losses (USD5.0billion) were comparatively lower by a substantial 34 percent as compared to the 15-year average and a slightly less 13 percent on a median basis.

From a pure economic cost standpoint, the most significant events surrounded the drought peril as El Niño impacts led to a reduction in precipitation across broad sections of Europe and Africa. Three billion-dollar drought events were recorded in the region in 2015, including two alone in Africa (South Africa and Ethiopia) and one in Romania. The most considerable impacts to the droughts were to the agricultural sector, including concerns over food shortages in parts of Africa.

…(read more).

See also:

• 2015 Annual Global Climate,and Catastrophe Report,Impact Forecasting,Aon Benfield July 29, 2016

Food-Matters
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

2015 Annual Global Climate,and Catastrophe Report,Impact Forecasting,Aon Benfield

Global Catastrophe Losses Remain Below Average in 2015 Despite Uptick in Disaster Events

Global natural disasters in 2015 combined to cause economic losses of USD123 billion, an amount 30 percent below the 15-year average of USD175 billion. However, the losses were just eight percent lower on a median basis (USD134 billion). The economic losses were attributed to 3001 separate events, compared to an average of 269. The disasters caused insured losses of USD35 billion, or 31 percent below the 15-year mean of USD51 billion and 14 percent lower than the median (USD40 billion). It comprised the lowest total since 2009. This was the fourth consecutive year with declining catastrophe losses since the record-setting year in 2011. Notable events during the year included winter storms in the United States; extensive flooding in parts of India, the US, UK, and China; a major earthquake in Nepal; record-setting tropical cyclones in the Pacific Ocean; European windstorms; and massive forest fires in Indonesia. The top three perils, flooding, severe thunderstorm, and wildfire, combined for 59 percent of all economic losses in 2015. Despite 32 percent of catastrophe losses occurring inside of the United States, it still accounted for 60 percent of global insured losses. This speaks to a higher rate of insurance penetration in the country.

Food-Matters
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Philippines investigates Shell and Exxon over climate change

Heavy rains and high waves brought by Typhoon Linfa crash along a breakwater in Manila in 2015. Photograph: Romeo Ranoco/Reuters

Emma Howard in Manila   Saturday 7 May 2016 08.00 BST

Can Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP be held accountable for the vulnerable communities most affected by climate change? It’s a question a legal case in the Philippines could answer.

Last month, lawyers for the petitioners met with the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), a constitutional body tasked with investigating human rights violations. Their goal was to identify expert witnesses for a hearing into the liability of 50 of the biggest fossil fuel companies for violating the human rights of Filipinos as a result of catastrophic climate change.

This follows a petition filed on 22 September 2015 by Greenpeace and the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement on behalf of typhoon survivors, which called for the devastation of extreme weather-related disasters to be properly recognised: “The real-life pain and agony of losing loved ones, homes, farms – almost everything – during strong typhoons, droughts, and other weather extremes, as well as the everyday struggle to live, to be safe, and to be able to cope with the adverse, slow onset impacts of climate change, are beyond numbers and words.”

The hearing will consider whether companies’ policies and investments adequately address the human rights issues specified in the petition.

The Philippines is among the countries most exposed to natural hazards in the world, with 130m Filipinos affected by weather-related disasters between 1995 and 2015. In 2013, for example, Typhoon Haiyan wreaked devastation, killing more than 6,300 people and causing billions of dollars worth of damage. It is widely acknowledged – including by the Filipino government’s Climate Change Commission – that climate change is exacerbating these problems.

The decision to invite climate scientists as witnesses to the Philippines investigation is seen as a significant opportunity to demonstrate the links between climate change and extreme weather.

“It’s encouraging because it shows that we managed to get the message out there that this branch of science [the attribution
of extreme weather events to climate change] can robustly say things,” says Dr Friederike Otto, senior researcher at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.

…(read more).

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

EDF boss confident Hinkley Point C nuclear plant will be built

The Hinkley Point A nuclear power station in Somerset. EDF is confident the new £18bn plant will get the green light. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
Nuclear power project thrown into doubt late on Thursday after UK government announced fresh review

Graham Ruddick, Anushka Asthana and Kim Willsher

Friday 29 July 2016 14.50 BST

The boss of EDF says he is still confident about Hinkley Point C being built despite the UK government throwing the nuclear power plant into doubt by launching a fresh review.

Jean-Bernard Levy, the chief executive of EDF, said on Friday he had no doubt about the government’s support for the £18bn project.

The board of EDF approved Hinkley Point C by 10 votes to seven at a meeting on Thursday, but the UK government then announced it would conduct another review of the controversial project and announce its decision in the early autumn.

Analysis Why have ministers delayed final approval for Hinkley Point C?

Possible explanations include fears over China’s involvement, trying to renegotiate costs and looking to scrap nuclear project

Greg Clark, the business, energy and industrial strategy secretary, said the government would “now consider carefully all the component parts of this project”.

However, Levy played down the delay. “There is no comment to make. The statement made by Mr Clark is perfectly clear,” he said. “I have no doubt about the support of the British government led by Mrs May.”

Nonetheless, Levy confirmed he had not been warned about the government’s review and only found out when he saw the announcement on the internet. EDF’s UK chief executive, Vincent De Rivaz, was expected in Somerset on Friday morning alongside senior company officials to give interviews about the project. The event was cancelled after the government’s unexpected intervention.

The Guardian understands that there would have been no review under the former government, led by David Cameron and with Amber Rudd as energy secretary, as a decision had already been made to sign off the project. Sources stressed that this response had come from the new prime minister, Theresa May, and her new ministerial team.

May’s joint chief of staff, Nick Timothy, criticised the project last year because of the funding it was receiving from China. China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) has taken a 33% stake in the project alongside EDF.

Timothy wrote on the ConservativeHome website in October 2015, that it was “baffling” that the government was allowing Chinese state firms to invest in sensitive infrastructure and that “rational concerns about national security are being swept to one side because of the desperate desire for Chinese trade and investment”.

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Nuclear