USA Judge refuses to dismiss Youth Climate Lawsuit
Judge Won’t Dismiss Youth Climate Lawsuit; Stage Set for Historic Trial ,17 November 2016 By Dana Drugmand, Truthout | Report As global temperature continues to rise — with 2016 slated to set a new high for the third consecutive year — young climate activists are rising to the occasion and breaking new legal ground. Finally, a landmark youth-led climate change lawsuit may move forward to trial.
On November 10, 2016, US District Court Judge Ann Aiken ruled in favor of 21 youth plaintiffs suing the federal government over its inadequate action to prevent anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD).
“It’s clear Judge Aiken gets what’s at stake for us,” said 17-year-old plaintiff Victoria Barrett, from White Plains, New York. “Our planet and our generation don’t have time to waste. If we continue on our current path, my school in Manhattan will be underwater in 50 years.”
Judge Aiken rejected defendants’ motion to dismiss the case, following the recommendation made by magistrate judge Thomas Coffin last April. Judge Coffin determined that the youths had standing and had potential constitutional and public trust claims.
The youth plaintiffs (who range from nine to 20 years old) and the nonprofit Our Children’s Trust claim violation of the public trust doctrine, and most prominently, violation of their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property due to climate instability. Federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are the main defendants, supported by the fossil fuel industry as interveners in the case. The plaintiffs allege that the government has known about the dangers of climate change for decades, yet deliberately pursued policies that enabled a fossil-fuel-based energy system and locked in dangerous levels of warming that may be irreversible.
Plaintiffs seek relief in the form of a court mandate that the US develop a climate recovery plan based on the current science……
Although this was not a decision on the merits, Judge Aiken acknowledged the substantive argument that the conventional policy response to the climate crisis has failed to prevent harm.
“This action is of a different order than the typical environmental case,” she wrote in her decision. “It alleges that defendants’ actions and inactions — whether or not they violate any specific statutory duty — have so profoundly damaged our home planet that they threaten plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to life and liberty.”
In seeking appeal, the government will ask the judge for certification that raises a jurisdictional question, but Vermont Law School professor Patrick Parenteau said she will likely deny this request, thus sending the case to trial.
“I think the case has a lot of moral force and a lot of rhetorical force, regardless of what its ultimate fate may be,” Parenteau told Truthout, adding that it will hopefully capture public attention and remind people that elections have consequences, particularly for younger generations……..http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38405-judge-won-t-dismiss-youth-climate-lawsuit-stage-set-for-historic-trial
Radical Bill in Illinois would rewrite the law, in order to save Exelon’s nuclear reactors
Bill to save Exelon nuclear plants proposes vast rewrite of Ill. law Jeffrey Tomich, E&E News reporter EnergyWire: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 The Illinois Legislature’s six-day veto session opened yesterday with the thud of a sprawling 446-page bill that represents the most significant rewrite of state energy law in almost a decade.
The centerpiece of S.B. 2814, as expected, is a New York-style plan to subsidize two Exelon Corp. nuclear plants that will otherwise be shut down over the next two years.
While Exelon’s nuclear emergency provides the impetus for cash-strapped Illinois to cram through a complex energy bill in the span of a few days, the measure would go much further and remake virtually every aspect of the state’s electricity market for years to come………
the most controversial element in the bill remains a provision to subsidize two Exelon nuclear plants.
Exelon announced this spring that the Clinton plant northeast of Springfield and the Quad Cities plant on the Iowa border would be prematurely closed on June 1, 2017, and June 1, 2018, respectively (EnergyWire, June 3). The plants, which have lost a combined $800 million over the last seven years, continue to bleed red ink as cheap natural gas, increasing wind penetration and declining energy demand depress wholesale power prices.
The new bill is the third try to win support for the plants. The company proposed legislation creating a low-carbon portfolio standard in March 2015 that would have benefited all of its six nuclear plants. Earlier this year, Exelon took a bill to Springfield called the “Next Generation Energy Plan,” which would have provided more targeted aid to the Clinton and Quad Cities plants.
The provision in the bill was inspired by Exelon’s success in winning support for its New York nuclear units. The New York Public Service Commission in August approved a plan to provide payments to three upstate nuclear plants based on the federal government’s social cost of carbon (EnergyWire, Aug. 10).
The latest Illinois proposal would require utilities ComEd and Ameren to purchase zero-emission credits from the nuclear plants at a price based on the social cost of carbon. The price would be adjusted for changes in energy markets. Increases on retail electricity rates would be capped at about 2 percent a year…….
rooftop solar companies warned that the measure would kill residential solar in Illinois before the market gets off the ground. There are currently fewer than 1,000 rooftop solar installations in the state. They said the new rate structure authorized in the bill would make residential solar projects economically infeasible. And the group doesn’t see rebates being dangled by ComEd as a good substitute for the state’s net-metering law, which credits solar generators for excess generation put back on the grid.
“This radical rate design would eliminate solar as an option for Illinois residents to help lower and manage their energy bills, and it would put solar installers out of business in the process,” Amy Heart, a Midwest-based public policy manager for Sunrun Inc., an alliance member, said during a news conference yesterday morning in Springfield……..
unpredictability of demand-based rates would stymie rooftop solar growth in Illinois, said Rebecca Stanfield, a Chicago-based vice president of policy and electricity markets for SolarCity.
“It’s a nightmare for anyone in the distributed energy business” if customers can’t easily compute the payback time on an investment, Stanfield said in an interview.
The demand charge proposal is the main source of opposition from AARP, which said the impact of the change would disproportionately fall on low- and fixed-income residents.
“It’s going to have a major impact on the quality of life in Illinois,” said Julie Vahling, associate state director for the group. She said the bill creates an end run around the Illinois Commerce Commission, the state agency tasked with deciding utility rate structure. http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060045842
Bulgarian prosecutors charge former economy and energy minister over botched nuclear power project
Bulgarian ex-energy minister charged over nuclear project http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bulgaria-nuclear-charge-idUSKBN13C1KP 17 Nov 16, Bulgarian prosecutors charged former economy and energy minister Rumen Ovcharov on Thursday with mismanagement that led to state losses of more than 190 million euros ($200 million) related to a canceled nuclear power project with Russia’s Atomstroyexport.
Bulgaria canceled the 10-billion-euro Belene project on the Danube River in 2012 after failing to find foreign investors and under pressure from Brussels and Washington to limit its energy dependence on Russia.
An arbitration court has ruled Bulgaria needs to pay over 600 million euros in compensation to Atomstroyexport over the project, which analysts and politicians say reflects widespread corruption in the Balkan country.
Prosecutors charged Ovcharov, energy minister from 2005 to 2007 in a Socialist-led government, for failing to exercise sufficient control over the executive directors of state energy company NEK and allowing them to sign a deal with Atomstroyexport for the nuclear power plant at Belene.
The prosecutors said that in November 2006 NEK’s chief executives signed a 193 million euro agreement with the Russian company to start work on the project in breach of public procurement laws and before the plant’s financing was agreed.
Prosecutors have already pressed similar charges against Ovcharov’s successor, former economy and energy minister Petar Dimitrov.
Ovcharov has previously denied any wrongdoing. He was not immediately available for comment.
USA’s Environmental Protection Agency to test areas in Bridgeton for radioactive contamination.
EPA to test areas in Bridgeton for radioactive contamination St Louis Public Radio, 17 Nov 16 The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to test areas in Bridgeton for radioactive contamination.
Federal officials are responding to allegations made by residents near the West Lake Landfill. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday against against landfill owner Republic Services, Michael and Robbin Dailey claimed contamination from the Superfund site was found in their home.
EPA officials have previously said there is no evidence that radioactive material has migrated away from the site.
Original story from Nov. 15 —Residents in Bridgeton have filed a lawsuit Tuesday afternoon in the St. Louis County Circuit Court, alleging that radioactive waste was found at a home near the West Lake Landfill.
The lawsuit names nine companies, including landfill owner Republic Services, the Cotter Corporation and Mallinckrodt Inc. as defendants. The plaintiffs are Michael and Robbin Dailey, who live in the Spanish Village subdivision. According to the lawsuit, sampling conducted at their property last summer found “high levels of uranium decay products, including thorium, lead, radon” in the kitchen, basement and yard. Exposure to such substances can increase the risk to cancer, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
It also claims that dust inside their home contained levels of the radioactive element Thorium-230 that were at least 200 times higher than background levels.
The Daileys have lived in Spanish Village since 1999. Robbin Dailey has long been concerned that exposure to nuclear waste from the Superfund site has adversely affected their health. ……
The West Lake Landfill, a federally listed Superfund site, contains World War II-era nuclear waste that was illegally dumped there in the 1970s. It sits approximately 600 feet from an underground smoldering fire under the Bridgeton Landfill……
Area activists have long pressed for a voluntary buyout for residents living near the landfill. A news release from the group Just Moms STL has called on the EPA and Gov. Jay Nixon to relocate families immediately. ……http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/epa-test-areas-bridgeton-radioactive-contamination#stream/0
USA Federal Judge upholds lawsuit about Hanford nuclear workers’ health and safety
Federal judge rejects dismissing Hanford nuclear lawsuit http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2016/11/nuclear-power-federal-judge-rejects-dismissing-hanford-nuclear-lawsuit.html November 4, 2016 SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday rejected the U.S. Department of Energy’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Washington state over worker safety issues at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Rice rejected an Energy Department argument that the federal agency was not endangering enough Washington residents to allow the state to sue.
“The state has an inherent and fundamental sovereign interest in ensuring that all Washington workers are safe,” Rice wrote in his opinion.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed the lawsuit last fall against the Energy Department and its contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions. The lawsuit contends that hazardous tank vapors pose a serious risk to Hanford workers.
‘This motion was just another example of the federal government’s culture of indifference to worker safety at Hanford,” Ferguson said Thursday.
Ferguson’s office contends that hundreds of workers have been exposed to vapors escaping from nuclear waste storage tanks since the early 1980s and that those breathing the vapors developed nosebleeds, chest and lung pain, headaches, coughing, sore throats, irritated eyes, and difficulty breathing.
Hanford for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons, and now is engaged in cleaning up a massive inventory of radioactive and chemical wastes left over from that work.
Much of the waste is stored in 177 giant underground storage tanks at Hanford, which is located near Richland.
After more than 50 workers were exposed to tank vapors earlier this year, Ferguson asked a federal court to immediately order the government to implement enhanced safety measures. That motion is still pending before the court.
Officials for the Energy Department in Richland did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment on Thursday.
Lawyers for the Energy Department had argued that the state lacked legal standing to file the lawsuit, in part because it involved about 2,000 workers out of a population of millions of residents. The agency also contended that no evidence has been provided showing that Hanford workers have been harmed by vapors. Symptoms like headaches are common, they have said.
The trial is set for May 22, 2017.
Court hears case of US sailors affected by Fukushima nuclear radiation
Sailors exposed to Fukushima radiation one step closer to justice, Beyond Nuclear, 23 Oct 16 Lawyers for U.S. sailors suffering illnesses associated with radiation exposure from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe presented oral arguments before the 9th circuit court in Pasadena, CA in September. This follows two victories before the district federal court in San Diego, CA and two legal appeals by TEPCO who is being sued for compensation in this first-of-its-kind case. Determination in this case is expected within 60 days.
According to Nuclear Hotseat, present at the arguments, the sailors are experiencing a number of health impacts including, leukemia, ulcers, gall bladder removal, brain cancers and tumors, testicular cancers, thyroid illnesses, stomach complaints, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, and still births and birth defects among their children. A number of these maladies are rare for the sailors’ age and condition, and were not present before the relief operation Tomadachi, undertaken by the U.S. in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in Japan. According to statements at a press conference, filmed here by Ecological Options Network, seven people have already died including a child who was riddled with tumors. The number of sailors in the lawsuit is currently 400 and additional plantiffs continue coming forward.
Radiation diseases are so complex, the Veterans Administration cannot figure out how to treat many of the ill. As a result, they are often diagnosed with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), which is a catchall meaning they don’t know what the malady is. This type of unclear diagnosis also occurred after the atomic bomb explosions (bura-bura disease) and after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown(vegetative distonia).
Lawyers for the sailors say any delay in the case is a delay of justice and proper health resources for these radiation-affected people. It’s been about 4 years already since the suit began and only judicial and legal wrangling has been undertaken in court. Specifics of the catastrophe, exposure scenarios and health information has not been allowed as of yet. According to plantiffs’ lawyers, this is a ploy by TEPCO to keep case from being heard………http://www.beyondnuclear.org/radiation-health-whats-new/2016/10/6/uss-reagan-sailors-one-step-closer-to-justice.html
Dairyland Power gets major compensation for radioactive trash from its nuclear reactor that closed in 1987
Feds to pay Dairyland $73.5 million in nuclear settlement Dairyland Power has reached a major settlement with the U.S. Department of Energy over nuclear waste stored from its former nuclear reactor located at the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor in Genoa.
What happens if you stand up to the fossil fuel industry: the Amy Goodman saga
Amy Goodman showed us the perils of standing up to the fossil fuel industry https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/18/amy-goodman-perils-standing-up-fossil-fuel-industry
May Boeve
The rights of activists and journalists are under threat wherever communities challenge Big Oil – in North Dakota and beyond. For far too long, the world had been ignoring the North Dakota anti-pipelines protests. Then the Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman captured private security forces (employed by a fossil fuel company)sicking dogs on Native Americans during a peaceful demonstration against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which encroaches on their sacred lands and waters. For that, she nearly went to jail.
The video made Goodman a target of North Dakota authorities, who brought charges of trespassing and rioting against her and the native leaders on the ground during the dog attack. Yes, a journalist was threatened with punishment for reporting on the horrific attack on indigenous people.
Authorities said Goodman didn’t deserve press protections because her opinions made her an “activist” instead of a journalist. Are we to punish every journalist who calls out state violence as he or she sees it? How could you not have an opinion in the face of such brutality? Should Walter Cronkite have gone to prison for his words about Vietnam?
Clearly not. Organizations defending freedom of the press decried the charges against Goodman. Activists like ourselves rallied behind her cause online because we understand the importance of a free press to social change. And on Monday, a North Dakota judge dropped the charges due to lack of probable cause.
It’s a win for freedom of the press, but intimidation by the fossil fuel industry and its government allies is far from over. Native leaders at the Standing Rock camps know this all too well, as they continue to face arrests by North Dakota police and pressure by Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline.
There’s no question that Goodman’s fearless reporting helped make this act of brutality a turning point in the fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Soon after her broadcast, the Obama administration stepped in and paused the project until there could be “further consultation” of indigenous peoples. Suddenly, TV news and the mainstream media took up the story in a serious way for the first time. Thousands of more people headed out to the camp.
The trampling of our rights as activists, or as journalists, isn’t just a problem in North Dakota. It’s also a fight that’s playing out around the world wherever communities stand up to the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests destroying our communities and climate.
We see it in the murder of activists like Berta Cáceres in Honduras. We see it in the Philippines, where anti-mining activists are being murdered by paramilitary groups. According to a report by Global Witness, 185 environmental activists in 16 countries were killed last year and the number is just going up.
Despite this violence, the movement to challenge the fossil fuel industry has continued to grow more powerful, and we’re not backing down. As the work to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline continues, I’m honored to stand in solidarity with the incredible Native American leaders at Standing Rock who are putting their bodies on the line to shut this destructive project down. The photos and videos of their brave actions have become lightning rods, channeling tremendous new energy into this movement. This is a historic fight unfolding in real time.
The images of resistance at Standing Rock are a call to action. We cannot let the rights of indigenous peoples be sidelined by the fossil fuel industry, and we can’t afford another pipeline if we want to maintain a livable planet.
We also must fiercely defend the rights of activists and journalists alike to tell stories like these, stories that often unfold in sacrifice zones far from the “halls of power”, and to tell them fairly and honestly. This won’t be the last fight against a pipeline and Amy Goodman won’t be the last journalist brought to court for reporting about the fossil fuel industry. The struggle continues, together.
Energy utilities sue New York Public Service Commission’s (PSC) over subsidies to nuclear industry
Energy industry coalition sues NY PSC over nuclear subsidies Reuters 19 Oct 16 An energy industry coalition including competitive non-nuclear electricity producers sued on Wednesday to oppose a plan to subsidize nuclear power plants in New York State.
The lawsuit in federal court said the New York Public Service Commission’s (PSC) plan to raise electric rates across the state by requiring consumers to pay for zero emission credits (ZECs), infringes illegally into federal regulators’ territory.
The coalition said in a statement that the litigation was “solely to save several New York nuclear plants that, allegedly, can no longer compete successfully in the federally-regulated wholesale electric power market.”…..Coalition members opposed to the nuclear subsidies include units of Dynegy Inc and NRG Energy Inc. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-nuclear-idUSKCN12J2N2
When the law really IS an ass – International Court of Justice rejects Marshall Islands’ nuclear weapons case
Nuclear Standoff, CounterPunch, OCTOBER 14, 2016 “…………the Republic of the Marshall Islands has lost its case in the International Court of Justice. On a technicality, no less! Phon van den Biesen, lead attorney for the tiny island nation, which had sued the world’s nine nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea — to begin real nuclear disarmament negotiations, said the case was dismissed earlier this month on a “micro formality,” which in my layman’s grasp of the matter might be called, instead, a desperate legal cop out.
Huh?
JOHN PILGER – Breaking The Silence – 2016
The ICJ’s dissenting judges (in the case against Great Britain, the verdict to dismiss was 9-7, against India and Pakistan it was 8-8), expressed as much incredulity as I did on hearing the news.
The Marshall Islands lawsuits (a second suit was also filed, specifically against the United States, in U.S. federal court, and is still pending) demanded compliance with Article VI of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, signed by the U.S. in 1970, which reads: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
“General and complete disarmament — do these words actually have meaning?” I asked last January. “Right now the Marshall Islands stand alone among the nations of Planet Earth in believing that they do.”
This tiny nation of islands and atolls — this former U.S. territory — with a population of about 70,000, was the scene of 67 nuclear test blasts in the 1950s, back when bigger was better. Some people’s homes were destroyed for eternity. The islanders suffered ghastly and often lethal levels of radiation and were essentially regarded, by their U.S. overlords, as human guinea pigs — a fantastic opportunity to study the effects of nuclear fallout. Eventually, the U.S. atoned for its destruction by paying the Republic of the Marshall Islands a pathetic $150 million “for all claims, past, present and future.”
Now this nation is trying to save the rest of the planet by insisting that nuclear disarmament negotiations must get underway.
In a dissenting opinion, ICJ Judge Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade of Brazil lamented that the world needed to recognize the “prevalence of human conscience” over national interests.
As Rick Wayman of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation pointed out, of the ICJ justices who voted not to hear the case on its merits, six were from nuclear-armed nations (the U.S., Russia, China, France, Great Britain and India) and the other two from nations (Japan, Italy) “deeply invested in the U.S. ‘nuclear umbrella.’”
The nations of the dissenting judges included Brazil, Somalia, Jamaica, Australia and Morocco…….. The human conscience is dismissed on a technicality……. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/14/nuclear-standoff/
Washington State seeks legal protection for the health of nuclear workers
Washington State Seeks to Protect Nuclear Site Workers http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/washington-state-seeks-protect-nuclear-plant-workers-42759576 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Washington state asked a federal judge Wednesday to issue an injunction requiring the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractor to take steps to protect workers at a major nuclear waste storage site.Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson says more than 50 workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation have been exposed to toxic vapors and the “culture of indifference to worker safety must end.”
From January through July, Hanford workers reported suspicious smells or symptoms that indicate exposure to chemical vapors, according to The Tri-City Herald. ( http://bit.ly/2dVsCtf )
U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas Rice in Spokane heard arguments on the safety issue and the federal agency’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Rice said he would rule at a later date.
Lawyers for the Energy Department have argued in motions that the state lacks standing to bring the lawsuit. Hanford Challenge, an advocacy group, and the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598 are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The agency has said the plaintiffs in the case have not shown harm to Hanford workers from vapors. It has argued that symptoms like headaches are common and don’t necessarily indicate exposure to vapors.
The state called that claim astounding.
The trial for the case is set for Sept. 18, 2017, but Ferguson said workers can’t wait that long to have a safe workplace.
The injunction would force the agency and its contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, to provide supplied air for all workers within certain areas. The state also seeks the installation of additional monitoring and alarm equipment to warn workers when toxic vapors are being emitted.
Hanford’s 177 underground storage tanks contain more than 50 million gallons of toxic waste, the byproducts of decades of plutonium production, Ferguson said in a statement. Over a few days in late April and May, at least 48 workers were exposed to vapors from the tanks, and more were exposed in June.
The longterm effects are not known, he said.
UN court rejects Marshall Islands nuclear arms lawsuit
Marshall Islands nuclear arms lawsuit thrown out by UN’s top court, Guardian, 6 Oct 16
Pacific atoll took India, Pakistan and Britain to international court of justice arguing they had failed to honour non-proliferation treaty The UN’s highest court has narrowly thrown out landmark cases brought by theMarshall Islands against India, Pakistan and Britain for allegedly failing to halt the nuclear arms race.
In majority and sharply divided decisions a 16-judge bench at the international court of justice (ICJ) ruled there was no evidence that the islands’ government had a prior dispute with any of the three nuclear powers or had sought negotiations on the issue.
“The court upholds the objection to jurisdiction” raised by each of the countries, presiding judge Ronny Abraham said in separate rulings, and therefore the tribunal “cannot proceed to the merits of the case”.
The Pacific island republic, population 55,000, was ground zero for a string of devastating nuclear tests on its pristine atolls between 1946-58, carried out by the United States as the cold war arms race gathered pace.
After the hearings the Marshalls government said it would “study the ruling”, which is final and without avenue of appeal……..https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/marshall-islands-nuclear-arms-lawsuit-thrown-out-by-uns-top-court
Next month, Paris climate agreement will enter into force
PARIS AGREEMENT TO ENTER INTO FORCE IN A MONTH Historic climate treaty passes both thresholds The Climate Group 6 Oct 16 LONDON: Today, the Paris Agreement has officially passed the necessary threshold to begin the process for its official entry into force – meaning the Agreement will officially enter into force globally in a month’s time. In doing so, it will become the first comprehensive climate agreement that commits all countries to taking climate action with the goal of keeping global warming “well below” the 2 degrees Celsius limit.
“Much like the adoption of the Paris Agreement itself in December last year, the entry into force of the treaty is a truly historic moment,” comments Damian Ryan, acting CEO, The Climate Group. “Few international agreements have entered into force at such speed and arguably none have been so important to our common future as the Paris Agreement.
“The decision by many world leaders to act quickly and boldly over the past 10 months is to be applauded. Thanks should also go to the business leaders as well as politicians in state and regional governments whose actions and policies, such as committing to 100% renewable power, have helped create the momentum and political belief that a better, safer and more prosperous world can be created through bold climate action.”
A LONG JOURNEY
The first paragraph of article 21 in the Agreement states that it will enter into force on the thirtieth day after the date on which it passes its twin thresholds – namely, when at least 55 parties to the UNFCCC, accounting for at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions, have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the UN. Or in less technical terms, when more than half of the world has ratified the climate deal.
In April, 175 political leaders signed the Agreement in a record-breaking signing ceremony organized in New York. The event built on the climate momentum generated by Paris, but many underlined that signing was just the first step of a much longer journey: there was still the more complicated ratification process, where countries discuss the issue internally and then formally commit to the agreement with a document presented to the UN.
However, just last month, US and China – the two biggest emitters in the world, accounting for about 40% of global carbon emissions – officially ratified the Paris climate agreement, spurring an unstoppable momentum toward the goal of 55% of world’s emissions. Last Sunday, India – the world’s fourth biggest emitter, responsible for 4% of emissions – also ratified the climate deal.
“This is a momentous occasion,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “What once seemed unthinkable, is now unstoppable. Strong international support for the Paris Agreement entering into force is a testament to the urgency for action, and reflects the consensus of governments that robust global cooperation, grounded in national action, is essential to meet the climate challenge.”
Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, commented: “Above all, entry into force bodes well for the urgent, accelerated implementation of climate action that is now needed to realize a better, more secure world and to support also the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
The Paris Agreement will entry into force on November 4, just before the Conference of the Parties in Marrakech (COP22), where political leaders will discuss how to implement the ambitious goals set in Paris………https://www.theclimategroup.org/news/paris-agreement-enter-force-month
#ExxonKnew lawsuit could open floodgates for more cases
New type of #ExxonKnew lawsuit could open floodgates for more cases, Mashable, Andrew Freedman, 2 Oct 16, Exxon’s climate change-related legal problems are growing by the day.
The suit, filed by the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), is significant because it is the first to allege that a private company is violating the Clean Water Act and hazardous waste laws by failing to adequately prepare for climate change impacts such as sea level rise and stormwater runoff from increased instances of heavy rainfall events.
According to the suit — filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts — the Exxon facility in Everett, Massachusetts, just to the northwest of Boston, has a stormwater drainage system that is easily overrun during extreme precipitation events, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change.
The suit contends that climate change-fed heavy rainfall is flooding the facility, which emits harmful contaminants into a tributary of the Mystic River in violation of the facility’s permit.
The reporting revealed that instead of incorporating the risks into its planning and being transparent about them, the company chose to fund climate denial groups and withhold its research from shareholders.
The reporting has sparked a public campaign against Exxon, known together with the reporting by the hashtag #ExxonKnew………
The lawsuit could pave the way for many more similar legal actions, and not just against Exxon, but other oil and gas companies too.
“America’s coastlines are dotted with oil and chemical tanks and other facilities that are at risk from rising seas.” http://mashable.com/2016/09/29/exxon-knew-lawsuit-massachusetts/#rjmvgqrODuq7
Shadow Courts – The Secret Tribunals That Corporations Use to Sue Countries
US trade negotiators are now working to include Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in as many new treaties as possible, including both of the massive new free trade deals coming down the pike. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which President Obama signed in February 2016 and which Congress will likely ratify before he leaves office, already includes ISDS.
The Secret Tribunals That Corporations Use to Sue Countries, Moyers and company
These ad hoc courts are a main reason why so many politicians and activists are against trade agreements like the TPP. BY HALEY EDWARDS | SEPTEMBER 19, 2016 THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEWLY PUBLISHED BOOK SHADOW COURTS: THE TRIBUNALS THAT RULE GLOBAL TRADE BY HALEY EDWARDS.
The environmental activist Jane Kleeb was driving down Highway 281 near Lincoln, Nebraska, on a gray day in January 2016, when she got a call from a reporter.
At the time, Kleeb was still riding high off of her success organizing local farmers, ranchers and environmentalists in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have carried petroleum products from Canada’s tar sands across the Nebraska plains to the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to her and other activists’ efforts, President Barack Obama had announced in November 2015 that his administration would deny the Canadian company TransCanada permission to move forward with the project, ending an eight-year-long effort to get the pipeline built.
The reporter was calling to ask Kleeb about a new twist in the saga. Earlier that day, TransCanada had announced it was suing the US government for $15 billion on the grounds that Obama’s decision to block the project violated the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was the first Kleeb had heard of the suit. “I’m an organizer, so my reaction was, ‘When are the hearings? Where is this happening? Who’s the judge?’” she said recently. If TransCanada was challenging the decision in court, she wanted to be there. Could she protest on the courthouse steps? Arrange for a rally in a nearby town?
But that, Kleeb learned, was not how this case would go down. TransCanada wasn’t suing the US in a US court, or in a Canadian court for that matter. Its argument would not be heard by a judge, and the merits of the case would not be considered under the auspices of either country’s legal system. There would be no protest on any courthouse steps. Instead, the case would be heard by a tribunal, manned by three private arbitrators, operating under a supranational legal system that Kleeb had never heard of. “It was totally strange,” she told me. “A foreign company can sue us in some secret tribunal? How is that even possible?”
Investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, first appeared in treaties in 1969. The idea behind the mechanism was straightforward: If a foreign investor believed that his host country — the nation where his company was operating had violated an international treaty by seizing or destroying his factories, oil fields or other assets, he could file an ISDS claim directly against that country. He could do that without involving his own government and without having to wait endlessly for a developing country’s corrupt or biased court system to dispense judgment……..
ISDS was supposed to be a cool, efficient and apolitical dispute resolution system that kept powerful nations from interfering in the affairs of weaker countries, and that offered an extra layer of protection for foreign investors operating in countries with unreliable courts. But in the last 20 years, the mechanism has quietly changed, evolving into something much more powerful — and very political indeed……..
That modern interpretation has only cropped up in the last 20 years, but it has opened up a vast new gray area. Where ISDS claims were once about seized oil fields and bulldozed factories, now they are about tax increases and environmental regulations. Where is the line between a government’s right to regulate in the public interest and a foreign corporation’s claim to its own property?
US trade negotiators are now working to include ISDS in as many new treaties as possible, including both of the massive new free trade deals coming down the pike. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which President Obama signed in February 2016 and which Congress will likely ratify before he leaves office, already includes ISDS. Whether the mechanism will be inserted into the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, linking the US and Europe, is a subject of controversy…….http://billmoyers.com/story/shadow-courts-secret-tribunals-trade/
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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