TEN ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTS

 October 2024

1. Since 2015 there are 86 climate-focused lawsuits, with 40 such cases currently pending, against big oil

Dharna Noor, “Big oil faces a rising number of climate-focused lawsuits, report finds,” The Guardian (12 Sept 2024).  bit.ly/3Xz5J2v via @guardian

“Big oil is facing a soaring number of climate-focused lawsuits, a new analysis has found. It’s a sign that more communities are demanding accountability for the industry’s contributions to the climate crisis.

For the report, published on Thursday, Oil Change International and the climate research organization Zero Carbon Analytics pulled data from a Columbia University database, focusing on cases in which the world’s 25 largest fossil fuel producers were named as defendants.

The number of cases filed against those companies globally each year has nearly tripled since 2015 – the year the UN Paris climate agreement was signed – with 86 cases filed and 40 currently pending, the authors found.”

2. New polling shows a majority of American voters, including 54% of Republicans, support legal efforts to hold plastics industry accountable for deception on recycling claims.

Dharna Noor, “Most US voters say plastics industry should be held responsible for recycling claims – report,” The Guardian (9 Sept 2024).   bit.ly/47BtQlM

“Concern about the fossil fuel and plastics industries’ alleged deception about recycling is growing, with new polling showing a majority of American voters, including 54% of Republicans, support legal efforts to hold the sectors accountable.

The industries have faced increasing scrutiny for their role in the global plastics pollution crisis, including an ongoing California investigation and dozens of suits filed over the last decade against consumer brands that sell plastics.

Research published earlier this year found that plastic producers have known for decades that plastic recycling is too cumbersome and expensive to ever become a feasible waste management solution, but promoted it to the public anyway.”

3.  Backlash against the fossil fuel presence at Climate Week in NYC

Kiley Price, “Fossil Fuel Presence at Climate Week NYC Spotlights Dissonance in Clean Energy Transition,” Inside Climate News.  bit.ly/4dnazpA

As climate activists spoke out against fossil fuel presence, countries detailed the barriers slowing their transition to clean energy.

As Hurricane Helene strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico over the past few days—officially making landfall last night—thousands of government leaders, business representatives, nonprofit heads and guests met across New York City for Climate Week NYC, discussing ways to curb the emissions that fuel climate disasters.

4.  Fossil fuel companies’ continuing deception about climate destruction

Center for Climate Integrity, Big Oil is Still Lying:  Five Ways the Fossil Fuel Industry Deceives the Public and Policymakers About its Ongoing Climate Destruction (2024).  bit.ly/4doyuVq

After raking in record-breaking profits in 2022, some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP, declared that they would scale back previously touted plans to reduce their climate pollution and to invest more in lower-carbon projects. Then, one by one, oil giants announced new plans that would expand their fossil fuel businesses and increase their climate pollution even more: Exxon and Chevron both moved to acquire oil producing competitors and expand production capacity in stock deals valued at more than $50 billion, and Shell and BP announced plans to increase fossil fuel output in the upcoming years.

In spite of clear evidence that fossil fuel production must rapidly decline to avoid catastrophic global warming, when combined, Big Oil companies plan on exceeding globally-agreed upon fossil fuel production levels by 110% by 2030.

While Big Oil doubles down on the products driving the world toward climate catastrophe, the companies simultaneously run advertisements that promote and greenwash their brands as leaders in advancing so-called solutions to climate change. “If your business is looking for ways to reduce carbon emissions, we’re working on solutions that could help,” declared an Exxon social media ad campaign that promised to “help other industries deliver low emissions.”

5. Some bases for local opposition to solar energy projects

Shanti Gamper-Rabindran and Joshua Ash, “Farming the sun” or “coal legacy”? Social perspectives on solar energy projects in Appalachia,” Energy Research & Social Science (Nov 2024). bit.ly/3zBXCdC

See also, Dan Gearino, Digging Deep to Understand Rural Opposition to Solar Power, Inside Climate News (26 Sept 2024). bit.ly/47MD6U8

“The United States needs to build vast amounts of renewable energy, and rural communities have an abundance of flat cropland that can accommodate wind and solar power.

But the push to build utility-scale renewable energy projects is facing opposition from many rural residents and local governments. The most common objections are that energy projects will harm the visual landscape and alter the character of a place…

New research from the University of Pittsburgh helps to broaden understanding of what factors drive rural attitudes about solar power. The authors interviewed 32 farmers and 16 nonfarmers in an area along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border that includes two counties in each state. They found that projects are more likely to be welcomed if they are smaller and built with respect for the landscape.”

6.  Across lakes in the U.S., communities of color are being really undersampled,

Jessica Diaz Vazquez, et al., “US lakes are monitored disproportionately less in communities of color,” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (9 sept 2024).   bit.ly/4erjdF2

See also, Lydia Larsen, “New Study Finds Lakes in Minority Communities Across the US Are Less Likely to be Monitored: Researchers originally planned to compare water quality in white and minority communities, but found that the relevant data was less likely to be collected in communities of color,” Inside Climate News (9 Sept 2024). bit.ly/3XMNDdF

Now, new research in the United States finds that people of color live near lakes that are monitored for water quality much less frequently than bodies of water near white communities.

Unlike community green spaces, the subject of many environmental justice studies, “blue spaces” receive less attention…

7.  Adapting wildlife crossings to changing patterns from climate change

Kiley Price, “As Climate Changes Fuel Wildlife Crossings, Will These Structures Still Help Species Cross the Road?” Inside Climate News (24 Sept 2024).

‘Research shows that global warming is triggering widespread species redistribution. This could hinder the effectiveness of a key conservation tool, wildlife crossings (grass bridges).

A growing body of research shows that many species are changing their migratory patterns or moving to entirely new habitats over time to escape warming temperatures and climate extremes.

Wildlife crossings could be crucial to helping animals survive these widespread migrations on road-dominated landscapes—but only if we can predict the right places to put them, experts say.”

8.  Melting permafrost and mercury emissions

Anita Hofschneider, “Thawing Alaskan permafrost is unleashing more mercury, confirming scientists’ worst fears,” Grist (26 August 2024). bit.ly/4eJbBNU

“Alaska’s permafrost is melting and revealing high levels of mercury that could threaten Alaska Native peoples.

That’s according to a new study released earlier this month by the University of Southern California, analyzing sediment from melted permafrost along Alaska’s Yukon River.

Researchers already knew that the Arctic permafrost was releasing some mercury, but scientists weren’t sure how much. The new study — published in the journal Environmental Research Letters — found the situation isn’t good: As the river runs west, melted permafrost is depositing a lot of mercury into the riverbank, confirming some of scientists’ worst estimates and underscoring the potential threat to the environment and Indigenous peoples.”

9.  Extreme weather does not necessarily increase concern about climate change

Syris Valentine, “Has extreme weather made voters care more about climate change? The answer depends on their political affiliation,” Grist (20 sept 2024).

“Among those concerned about the climate, it’s become something of a self-evident truth that as people suffer more severe and more frequent extreme weather and grapple with global warming’s impact on their daily lives, they’ll come to understand the problem at a visceral level. As a result, they’ll be eager for action. In other words, many climate activists believe that even if advocates and academics can’t sway the hardened opinions of the dismissive, extreme weather can wake anyone up.

The data disagrees.

Over the last seven years, as the effects of climate change have begun to envelop the world in smoke and storm, natural disasters have in fact leapt front of mind for voters when they contemplate the most important reasons to take climate action. Those concerns, however, aren’t shared evenly across the political spectrum.”

10. Governments continue to provide billions of dollars in tax breaks, subsidies and other spending that directly work against climate action

Dpkoplow, “Environmentally harmful subsidies update: $2.6 trillion/year and a continuing threat to nature,” Earth Track (9 Sept 2024). bit.ly/3ZG36Pa

See also, Patrick Greenfield, “Global spending on subsidies that harm environment rises to $2.6tn, report say,” The Guardian (18 Sept 2024). bit.ly/3ZNsl2h

“The world is spending at least $2.6tn (£2tn) a year on subsidies that drive global heating and destroy nature, according to new analysis.

Governments continue to provide billions of dollars in tax breaks, subsidies and other spending that directly work against the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the 2022 Kunming-Montreal agreement to halt biodiversity loss, the research from the organisation Earth Track found, with countries providing direct support for deforestation, water pollution and fossil fuel consumption.

Examples include state support for large fishing vessels that drive overfishing, and government policies that subsidise petrol, synthetic fertilisers and monoculture crop production.”