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Heatmap’s Jillian Goodman was watching the hearing and found the most interesting part to be when Sharon Eubanks, who led the Department of Justice case against Big Tobacco, called for an end to the hand-wringing about what should be done, and suggested the DOJ swiftly launch an investigation into the petroleum industry, the outcome of which could force it to change the way it does business. And that, Eubanks said, is the point of all this — not extracting money, although that’s nice too, but rather to force companies to operate in a more open and honest fashion. “I myself am not a lawyer, of course, but it might be time to listen to Eubanks,” Goodman wrote. “She seems to know what she’s talking about.”
A new study published in PLOS Climate shows how climate change is driving power outages in New York. Between 2017 and 2020, about 40% of the power outages that plagued the state were the result of extreme weather events – mainly flooding and intense precipitation. Many of the areas most exposed to outages have overlapping vulnerabilities, like low-quality housing or lack of green space. “Eastern Queens, upper Manhattan and the Bronx of NYC, the Hudson Valley, and Adirondack regions were more burdened with severe weather-driven outages,” the study found. In Queens, neighborhoods such as Jamaica, Flushing, and Richmond Hills experienced more than 100 outages over three years. “We’re focusing on New York state, but power outages are a growing problem nationally,” Columbia University’s Nina Flores, lead author on the study, toldBloomberg. A recent report from the nonprofit research group Climate Central found that the number of weather-related power outages in the U.S. have doubled in the last 10 years or so compared to the decade prior.
A federal appeals court yesterday dealt what could be a fatal blow to a long-standing climate lawsuit brought by 21 young people against the U.S. government. Juliana v. United States was originally filed in 2015 by plaintiffs aged between 8 and 18 who said the government’s support for fossil fuels had contributed to the climate crisis and violated their constitutional rights. The case was ordered dismissed in 2020 when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals basically said Congress, not judges, should decide the nation’s climate policies. A federal judge in Oregon allowed the plaintiffs to adjust their suit and said it could go to trial. But the Biden administration petitioned the court to dismiss the case, and so it has.
“The case had long been a potential bright spot for such youth-led climate litigation that has usually failed to take off,” Politicosaid. “This is a tragic and unjust ruling, but it is not over,” said Julia Olson, lead attorney at legal nonprofit Our Children’s Trust. “President Biden can still make this right by coming to the settlement table.”
This is one of many youth-led climate lawsuits filed by Our Children’s Trust. Last year a similar suit was successful in Montana. In June, a lawsuit brought by a group of Hawaiian young people against the state’s Department of Transportation will go to trial.
The growing effort to monitor and crack down on greenhouse gas emissions could be hindered by a new kind of flaring, The Guardianreported. Venting natural gas into the atmosphere produces a flame that can be detected by current satellite imaging technology. Some oil and gas facilities have started using “enclosed” flaring devices, which they claim can reduce noise and light disturbances for surrounding communities. But “it also means [flaring is] not visible from space by most of the methods used to track flare volumes,” said Eric Kort, a climate and space sciences professor at the University of Michigan.
GoFundMe’s “Weather Resilience Fund” launches this week, Axiosreported. The fund will raise money to help communities that are vulnerable to extreme weather build resilience and adapt, starting with California's Central Valley and Imperial Valley. The crowdsourcing site is seeding the fund with $1.5 million, and all donations are tax-deductible. The platform told Axios that natural disaster crowdfunding campaigns are becoming more common as climate change leads to more frequent extreme weather events. The site has seen a 90% increase in natural disaster fundraisers over the last five years.
More than 40 million students across Asia and North Africa have missed out on school in recent weeks due to extreme heat waves.
The House is voting this week on a bunch of legislation coming out of the Natural Resources Committee, E&E Newsreported. On the docket during “natural resources week” are bills that would give the green light to canceled Alaskan oil and gas leases, remove federal protections for the gray wolf, and let hunters use lead ammunition and tackle on public lands. The full list is here.
Environmental ministers from G7 nations (the United States, Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, and Japan) meet in Turin, Italy, this week to “make the course set out by COP28 practical, real, concrete,” said Italy’s Environment and Energy Security Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin. The 2024 Meeting on Climate, Energy, and Environment is the first major political meeting since last year’s climate summit in Dubai, where nations pledged to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. The hope is that the talks in Turin will serve as a “strategic link” between COP28 and this year’s COP29 in Azerbaijan. Already there are signs of progress:
Other topics up for discussion include new financing models for climate change adaptation, the future roles of nuclear and biofuels in the energy mix, and power grid investments. A report out last week found that no G7 nation is on track to meet 2030 emissions reduction targets.
In Canada, talks on a global plastics treaty come to an end today. The nation’s environment minister Steven Guilbeault said delegates have been “making strides” toward hammering out the details of the international, legally binding treaty, ahead of a final meeting on the text in November of this year. “The treaty could include provisions for what kind of plastics would be controlled, how control measures would be implemented and paid for, and timelines for restricting or banning certain substances,” reportedThe Globe and Mail. Guilbeault hoped these talks would result in about 70% of the treaty’s text being agreed. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels, and major oil and gas producers see the plastics market as a “plan B” as the world looks to reduce the use of fossil fuels in energy production. According to analysis from the Center for International Environmental Law, nearly 200 fossil fuel and chemical lobbyists registered for this round of talks, a 37% increase from the last meeting in November 2023.
More than 13 million tons of extra CO2 has been emitted from the shipping sector over the last four months as ocean freighters use longer routes to avoid Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, Bloombergreported. That’s about the same as the emissions from 9 million cars over the same time period. The statistics come from a report produced by consultancy INVERTO. “The extra emissions resulting from this crisis will increase companies’ carbon footprints – making it very hard to hit their net zero targets,” said Sushank Agarwal, a managing director at the company. About 80% of the world’s goods are traded by ship, and international shipping accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been attacking ships in the region in response to the Israel-Hamas war.
In response to the recent deluge in Dubai, the crown prince, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum, has approved an ambitious (and expensive) upgrade to the city’s drainage infrastructure.
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