Published on 22/11/2018, 3:43pm
Vanuatu becomes the first nation state to threaten oil majors with climate damages lawsuits, while the Marshall Islands submits updated climate plan to the UN
By Megan Darby
Pacific Island nations declared two world firsts on Thursday, as part of a “virtual climate summit”.
Vanuatu is considering legal action against oil majors for climate damages, foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu revealed – an unprecedented move by a nation state.
The Marshall Islands submitted the first updated national climate plan to the UN climate body, urging others to follow by 2020.
Both are members of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), an informal grouping of 48 countries hit hard by the impacts of global warming.
“The injustice of climate change is that the impacts are felt first and hardest by those with the least responsibility for its causes. Vanuatu is on the front lines of climate change and yet we have benefited least from the exploitation of fossil fuels that has caused it,” said Regenvanu.
“I am therefore today putting the fossil fuel industry, and the states that sponsor it, on notice that the climate loss and damages ravaging Vanuatu will not go unchallenged. My government is now exploring all avenues to utilise the judicial system in various jurisdictions – including under international law – to shift the costs of climate protection back onto the fossil fuel companies, the financial institutions and the governments that actively and knowingly created this existential threat to Vanuatu.”
Vanuatu lost 64% of its GDP in a single 2015 tropical storm, Regenvanu said, arguing the profits of polluting companies should go to alleviate its suffering. He cited research attributing around two thirds of historic greenhouse gas emissions to 90 coal, oil, gas and cement companies.
A special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last month warned the world is on track to exceed 1.5C of global warming between 2030 and 2052. That has drastic implications for small island states, which are exposed to sea level rise, intensifying tropical storms and the loss of valuable coral reef ecosystems.
Ian Fry, climate ambassador for Tuvalu, told Climate Home News he had had “a flurry of interest from legal sources suggesting this is an ideal opportunity to take legal action” since the report came out. The country has a “watching brief” on the matter but faces “resource challenges”, he added.
Climate litigation is a growing field, as the gap between science-based goals and action widens. Lawyers are testing a variety of arguments, from human rights to fiscal responsibility, in the courts.
Greenpeace praised Regenvanu’s announcement. “In a world full of political short-sightedness and cowardice, we need clear political and moral leadership,” said executive director Jennifer Morgan. “Communities impacted by climate change are standing up and demanding that those responsible finally be held to account. We stand in solidarity with these communities all around the world.”
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The Marshall Islands, which has just taken over the chair of the CVF, is taking a less confrontational approach. Despite its tiny contribution to global emissions, it is seeking to set an example with a rapid transition to clean energy. “We believe in leading from the front,” said president Hilda Heine.
Under the Paris Agreement, countries submitted national climate targets to the UN. Recognising these were collectively inadequate to meet global temperature goals, the deal set out a five-year cycle for ratcheting up ambition.
Majuro is leading the drive to revise national climate plans before 2020. Its updated version makes binding a target to cut emissions 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and adds an indicative target to go to 58% by 2035, on a straight line to net zero in 2050.
Those goals are subject to domestic consultation and the availability of financial support.
CVF leaders also released the “Jumemmej declaration“, based on a Marshallese concept of permanent vigilance, such as seafarers need on an ocean voyage.
It urged countries negotiating at next month’s Cop24 climate summit in Katowice to act on the findings of the IPCC special report. Members of the group committed to increasing their own levels of ambition by 2020, “to keep the 1.5C warming limit within reach”.
The group also called for action to unlock climate finance flows for the poorest and most vulnerable countries.
Additional reporting by Karl Mathiesen.
This article originally appeared on Climate Home News
HT/LdB
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Much as I am not a fan of multinational corporations it seems to me there’s a simple solution to the islands suing Big Oil.
Stop the supply.
“Sorry, but you clearly show you think oil is a demonic substance and we do not wish to tread on any toes so we promise to never deliver any more of the evil oil to you”
Lets see if anyone is willing to instantly build renewables for them and how fast Elon Musk can give them batteries.
And given the rush of eager nations to pay $Billions into the AGW scam, I wonder who would pay for all the replacements?
Will islanders be driving around Teslas because they can’t run their cars?
Will engine oil start costing $Hundreds per litre because they have to privately ship the oil needed to keep the wheels turning?
Is there a Tesla tractor to plough their fields?
Mind you, I don’t doubt they could find a court to hear the case and give the ‘right’ verdict – the EU is horribly compromised on sanity.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/tracks/index.shtml
Change the setting to say, 2000 – 2008, Shift-scroll in. What you see is climate sameness, not climate change.
“Greenpeace praised Regenvanu’s announcement. “In a world full of political short-sightedness and cowardice, we need clear political and moral leadership”
Wait… GREENPEACE is talking morals? The fanatic group that polluted the Nazca plain and admitted in court that they lie to attack a Canadian Forestry company and that what they say should NOT be taken as being true?
THAT Greenpeace is talking about a moral stance?
I thought that Tuvalu had brought a court case against the USA some 15 or so years ago, contending that their sea encroachment problems were the result of GHG use. My recollection is that oceanographers demonstrated that sea levels in the Tuvalu area had actually gone down slightly. Hence Tuvalu lost their case.
Tuvalu’s problems are largely self-inflicted, over-population, reef destruction, etc.
Can anyone confirm or deny this story?
confirmed!
They also tried the stunt against Australia only to be told there is no legal grounds and no court under Australian law that could hear such a thing. Australian law is not founded on personal rights, we have no rights given to us we have laws that simply tell us what we can not do.
The discussion was further extended in a senate hearing to the fact that Australia had never been approached by a Pacific island government to make arrangements for people to come to Australia to escape rising sea levels. It was also a fact that even if they did so there appeal would be unsuccessful because “environmental or climate refugee” is not a category under the Refugee Convention which is the world agreement that would be used to assess them.
None of them are asking to have fossil fuel and its byproducts cut off.
I presume their logic, borrowed from the suits backed by US AGs, is that the world is now totally and irreversibly dependent on the use of fossil energy, which is having devastating impacts on the planet and on our poor city/our island.
Because oil, cement companies caused and still profit from this problem, it is only right that they should compensate our city/island for this terrible harm so we can invest in the necessary mitigation efforts (which never seem to materialize).
I’d like to see a case bought just so the facts are laid out for all to see, (like geotectonic geodetic factors as well) and we can rub it in the nose of all their govts, the IPCC, the Aust ABC, and all the other anti-science loonies.
The facts have been available for everyone to see for decades. But the warmunists and leftists and media ignore the facts. They are all in on the falsehood side.
“the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), an informal grouping of 48 countries hit hard by the impacts of global warming” Hit hard??? They haven’t felt any effects at all. But they are making a mint off playing the victim card.
‘hit hard’ sounds like some conditional past future tense.
Or they call a single storm ‘climate change’.
I do wish the companies would have the courage to demand the science first undergoes a trial as proven beyond reasonable doubt in a law court not a kangaroo court of the accusers alone, otherwise known as peer review.
So, instead of building economies which create wealth for their populations they are going to use lawywers to steal money from everyone else. Got it, they are members of the Democrat Party.
In response, and to help Vanuatu become a carbon free utopia, ALL fossil fuel companies should immediately cease ALL sales of any fossil fuel to Vanuatu.
I mean if I was a doctor and my patient threatened to sue me for malpractice, I wouldn’t continue treating them.
Vanuatu should be more concerned with earthquakes and tsunamis. They get them a lot.
GDP Vanuatu:
https://www.google.at/search?q=GDP+Vanuatu&oq=GDP+Vanuatu&aqs=chrome.
So, their GDP is so low they can not afford basic infrastructure. Got it. Thanks.