[Photo: Getty Images]
‘These states want to make Big Oil pay for its pollution—and they have the roadmap to do it
Climate superfund legislation is gaining traction across the country. How do the bills fit into the broader movement to hold polluters accountable?
By Emily Sanders, Fast Company, June 28th, 2024
https://www.fastcompany.com/91147898/big-oil-pollution-climate-superfund-legislation
As communities across the United States grapple with the rising costs to protect residents and infrastructure from the worsening impacts of climate change, some state legislators are targeting a potential new source of resilience funding: fossil fuel companies.
Sometimes called “polluter pays” bills or “climate superfund” bills, a new wave of state legislation aims to make oil companies bear a portion of the expenses necessary to adapt to climate impacts and recover from climate disasters fueled by those companies’ greenhouse gas emissions.
The bills are quickly gaining momentum in statehouses: Vermont passed one into law in May, another in New York awaits Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature, and similar proposals are under consideration in California, Massachusetts, and Maryland.
Campaigners and legal counsel of the Dutch citizens’ movement Fossil-Free NL walk towards the court before filing a case against KLM because of the Dutch airline’s misleading advertisements that suggest flying won’t worsen the climate crisis, on April 20, 2023 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Michel Porro / Getty Images
Climate Lawsuits Against Polluting Companies Are Increasing Around the World, Report Finds
By: Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch, June 27, 2024
https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-lawsuits-against-companies-global.html
A new report has found that climate lawsuits being filed against companies are on the rise all over the world, and most of them have been successful.
The report by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) — Global trends in climate change litigation: 2024 snapshot — said that roughly 230 climate cases have been brought against trade associations and corporations since 2015, more than two-thirds of which have been filed since 2020.
“Climate litigation… has become an undeniably significant trend in how stakeholders are seeking to advance climate action and accountability,” said Andy Raine, the United Nations Environment Programme’s deputy director of law division, as The Guardian reported.
One of the fastest growing types of litigation concerns “climate washing.”
According to the report, 47 of these lawsuits were filed against governments and companies last year.
The report stated that there had been “more than 140 such cases filed to date on climate washing, making this one of the most rapidly expanding areas of litigation,” a press release from LSE said.
Of the almost 140 climate-washing cases between 2016 and 2023, 77 had reached official decisions, with 54 being found in favor of the claimant.
David Vigneault photo: Justin Tang / The Canadian Press
‘On the battlefield’ for a Canadian fossil fuel giant
Recordings reveal TC Energy’s alleged attempts to influence governments in North America through sophisticated intelligence gathering, fostering relationships with national security officials and countering opposition to fossil fuel developments
By Matt Simmons (Local Journalism Initiative Reporter) and Mike De Souza, The Narwhal, July 2nd, 2024
https://thenarwhal.ca/tc-energy-trump-staffers-
This article is part of a series about revelations from leaked recordings of TC Energy executives.
TC Energy executives based in Washington D.C. worked to influence Canadian policies, including in the country’s spy agency, according to leaked recordings of internal calls.
In 2017, Michael Evanoff was tapped by former U.S. president Donald Trump to serve as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security.
In his testimony to the Senate foreign state committee, he detailed his previous experience in the foreign service, noting he had completed eight overseas postings, four of which were designated high threat.
“Among other things, I established the first [diplomatic security] liaison position with a U.S. military regional command, managed the largest Russian spy case and damage assessment in NATO history and designed a post-9/11 informant ‘walk-in’ program at our Islamabad embassy that contributed to the capture of Khalid Sheik Muhammad,” he said at the time.
Evanoff now works for TC Energy, a Calgary-based multinational fossil fuel company with offices in Houston and Mexico City. His official title is director of national security policy, geopolitical intelligence and research.
From his home in Washington, D.C., the former Trump appointee uses his extensive geopolitical and military background to protect the company’s interests: crude oil and natural gas pipelines in Canada, the United States and Mexico, which earned TC Energy $11 billion in 2023.
A leaked recording of a February TC Energy “lunch and learn” session featuring Evanoff and his colleagues is now pulling back the curtain on internal company discussions, including its apparent strategies about how to influence governments, benefit from geopolitical crises and leverage existing relationships with a range of senior government officials — including the head of Canada’s spy agency.
A Russian Emergency Situations Ministry employee fights the Sakha wildfires. SakhaNews
Wildfires Sweep Across Arctic Circle, Releasing High Levels of Carbon Into the Atmosphere
By Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch, June 28, 2024
https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-wildfires-carbon-emissions.html
Intense wildfires are ravaging the Arctic Circle, bringing smoke and high carbon emissions, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).
The region had experienced 164 wildfires through June 24, most of which have been in the Sakha Republic of Russia, a press release from CAMS said.
According to data from the CAMS Global Fire Assimilation System, June wildfire carbon emissions are already the third highest for the month since 2003.
To change the world
first change ourselves.
as within so without.
Invoke St. Germaine
& the Violet Flame
for ‘pollution’ within,
& for our creation
of Divine Alignment.