AFP, PARIS
Carbon-polluting corporations and their investors face a rising tide of climate litigation, according to a report released Friday, two days after a Dutch court ordered oil giant Shell to slash its greenhouse gas emissions.
Companies operating in rich economies — Britain, the EU, Australia and especially the US, which accounts for the vast majority of cases to date — are most vulnerable to future legal action, business risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft found.
Photo: AFP
But the report also highlights a growing number of cases in developing countries despite more limited civil rights and a weaker rule of law.
“Our data points to a shift in major emerging economies, which might not bode well for the carbon-intensive companies operating there,” said Liz Hypes, Verisk Maplecroft’s senior environment and climate change analyst. “We are seeing climate litigation expand into countries where climate activism is lower but the threat of climate change is more significant.”
So far, most cases suing for strong climate action have been filed against governments.
But the Shell ruling, which ordered the Anglo-Dutch company to cut carbon emissions 45 percent by 2030, and other recent challenges to fossil fuel companies suggest the corporate world could see a crescendo of lawsuits.
Last month, New York City sued ExxonMobil and two other oil giants for greenwashing their products and intentionally misleading consumers about the extent to which they contribute to climate change.
An earlier bid by the Big Apple to hold five major gas and oil companies liable for damages caused by global warming was rejected weeks before by a federal court, but still inflicted reputational harm, Hypes said.
Also this week, investors brushed aside resistance from the company to install two activists board members at ExxonMobil, and at another annual investor meeting directed Chevron to deepen its emissions cuts.
More than 1,800 climate change-related cases have been filed in courts around the world in the last 25 years, most of them since 2010, according to a database maintained by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
A “climate litigation index” in the new report assesses the likelihood of climate lawsuits in nearly 200 countries, based on prior litigation, public awareness, climate activism, and the strength of judicial systems. Not surprisingly, the US tops the risk ranking, followed by the UK, Australia, France and Germany. The next 17 countries on the list are all European, with the exception of Canada (10th) and Japan (18th).
But Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines are all in the top 50, with Indonesia, Pakistan and India just behind, the index showed.
As governments reacts to public pressure for faster climate action, corporations may run afoul of rapidly shifting regulatory environment.
Failure to curb emissions, and lack of transparency about business exposure to climate risk, can also damage brand reputation, even when courts rule in a company’s favour, as has happened in several US cases involving oil and gas majors.
Risk can also comes in the form of financial penalties as the scope of nature and climate litigation expands.
Companies, and their financial backers, “are facing genuine legal risks from which the repercussions may be significant,” Hypes said.
With fossil fuels generating 80 percent greenhouse gas emissions, oil and gas companies, and coal-powered electric utilities, are especially vulnerable to climate liability lawsuits.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby