Latest news with #climatejustice
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Seattle woman brings first-ever wrongful death lawsuit against big oil
A Seattle woman has brought the first-ever wrongful death lawsuit against big oil, claiming fossil fuel companies' climate negligence caused her mother's death during a major heatwave. Juliana Leon died of hyperthermia at age 65 during the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome – an event that killed nearly 200 people, and which meteorologists say would have been 'virtually impossible' without human-caused global warming. 'The day Julie died was the hottest day ever recorded in Washington with temperatures in Seattle, where Julie died, peaking around 108F,' reads the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday by Misti Leon, Juliana Leon's daughter Because they failed to warn the public about the dangers of planet-heating emissions, major fossil fuel companies should be held accountable for that death, the case argues. 'When a tragedy like Julie's death results from the prolific use of fossil fuels, it is easy to dismiss the misfortune as an accident rather than a foreseeable consequence of Defendants' deception,' the lawsuit says. It names ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 and the BP-managed subsidiary Olympic Pipeline Company as defendants. The Guardian has contacted each of the companies named in the suit for comment. Shell and Phillips 66 declined to comment. The new lawsuit represents a new frontier for climate accountability litigation, following dozens of lawsuits brought by cities and states against big oil in recent years. Previous suits accused companies of breaching product liability and consumer protection laws and engaging in fraud and racketeering. But Wednesday's case is the first attempt to hold oil companies responsible for an individual climate-related death. 'Lethal climate disasters are the foreseeable, and foreseen, consequences of specific actions by fossil fuel corporations, CEOs and boards of directors,' Aaron Regunberg, a director at consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. 'They caused the climate crisis and deceived the public about the dangerousness of their products in order to block and delay solutions that could prevent heat deaths like Juliana's.' The new lawsuit is a civil case, but Regunberg has spent years asserting that prosecutors could also bring criminal charges against big oil, including homicide. A 2023 report published in Harvard's Environmental Law Review argued that oil companies could be charged with every kind of homicide charge, other than first-degree murder. 'Big oil's victims deserve accountability,' said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, which tracks and supports climate accountability litigation, in a statement. 'This is an industry that is causing and accelerating climate conditions that kill people. They've known it for 50 years, and at some point they must be held accountable.'
Reuters
3 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Explainer: Why a Peruvian farmer's court loss may be a win for climate justice
May 28 (Reuters) - A decade-long court battle between a Peruvian farmer and German energy giant RWE ( opens new tab over the company's global emissions and its impact on his hometown finally came to an end on Wednesday. The court threw out the case without the possibility of appeal. Despite that, the farmer, his lawyers and environmentalists are hailing the ruling as an unprecedented victory for climate cases that could spur similar lawsuits. The highland Peruvian city of Huaraz is at risk from a glacial lake outburst flood as glacial melt has caused the volume of Lake Palcacocha to increase by at least 34 times since 1970, requiring investment in dams and drainage structures. Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya sued German energy giant RWE, claiming it should pay for 0.5% of the flood defenses since the company emitted 0.5% of global emissions since the industrial revolution despite not having a physical presence in Peru. The amount would have come out to about $17,500. The court decision was based on calculating the risk Lliuya's home faced from flooding. An expert opinion found that the 30-year damage risk to the plaintiff's house was 1%. The court deemed this was not enough to take the case further. While Lliuya's house's risk didn't pass the threshold, the court said that companies could be held liable for the impacts of their emissions. "They really established a legal duty, a legal principle of corporate climate liability, which no court has ever done anywhere else in the world in a verdict like this," Noah Walker-Crawford, a researcher at London School of Economics, Grantham Research Institute, said in a press conference after the verdict. "So this is a really, really historic decision." The court ruling stated that civil courts can rule on climate cases and that the German Civil Code overseeing property rights applies across borders and therefore, litigants around the world can file transnational cases against German companies. The court noted that RWE's permits do not exempt it from liability when infringing on the rights of others and the size of its global emissions meant it had a special responsibility for consequences due to climate change. It noted that being one of many emitters does not shield a company from liability. The court said that the link between emissions and risks dates back to 1958, when U.S. scientist Charles Keeling published a graph of the annual variation and accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. It added that the 1965 Presidential SAC report that found burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric CO2 also gave companies enough information to foresee harmful consequences of emissions and bear legal responsibility for them. It added that there is a linear causation between emissions and climate change and the complexity of climate change science does not prevent liability. In a statement to Reuters, a spokesperson for RWE said the ruling did not set a precedent as it is understood in the UK legal system, and it added three other regional courts have taken a different legal view. Since the case was thrown out, the court did not rule on whether and to what extent RWE could be held responsible, the statement said, adding that the company has operated in accordance with applicable laws and climate policy should be resolved at the political level.
E&E News
19-05-2025
- Politics
- E&E News
Greens urge court to force feds to restore online enviro data
Advocacy groups are asking a federal court to restore public access to climate and environmental justice webpages removed by EPA and other agencies earlier this year. The Trump administration illegally removed interactive webpages and underlying data that helped both public interest groups and federal agencies identify communities that are most at risk from pollution, extreme weather and rising global temperatures, the Sierra Club and others said in a court filing Friday. 'By removing resources from their websites, Defendants have made it harder for communities to understand the environmental burdens they face and to advocate for policies that will improve their health and well-being,' the groups told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Advertisement The groups are urging Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, to issue a preliminary injunction requiring agencies to make the webpages available to the public again as litigation over the removal is ongoing. The groups filed their suit challenging the removed pages last month.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pope Leo Could be the Planet's Pope
On May 8, the Catholic Church elected Robert Francis Prevost, as its first American leader. The planet and the people are in desperate need of moral healing, and there are promising signs that Pope Leo XIV just may be the voice of clarity that we need. I am a lifelong Catholic, with a family history in the Church going back through generations to Italy, Ireland, and Germany. My faith runs strong. I am also the co-director of Taproot Earth, a frontline climate justice organization. While we are not a Catholic organization, and our staff is made up of people with varying religions, our faith has played a big part in our personal commitments to climate justice. For me, I was taught, through 16 years of Catholic education, that God is in all things. That means that God is in the air, the water, the Earth. God is also present in the poor and the neglected. That makes the climate crisis — which hits marginalized communities hardest — an affront to God's Being. By the same token, it means that fighting for climate justice is the Lord's work. There is reason to believe that Pope Leo shares in that vision. For one thing, he's spoken in support of Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si', which laid out the Catholic case not just for climate action but for climate justice. In November, he took it even further, advocating for a more reciprocal relationship with the environment and stressing that it is time for the world to move from 'words to actions' in combating climate change. Pope Leo also has a history of speaking out against the rise of artificial intelligence. In fact, he used his first formal address as pope to raise the alarm over the threat of AI to 'human dignity, justice, and labor.' While he did not expressly mention it in his comments, artificial intelligence is also a grave threat to the planet and a major contributor to the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. But perhaps most importantly, Pope Leo's time in South America has brought him face to face with the realities and heartbreak of climate injustice. In 2017, when El Nino brought catastrophic flooding to Peru, the then-Bishop put his actual boots on the ground. He mobilized the Church, coordinated with local businesses, and got his own hands dirty to help people who were stranded by the water. Pope Leo understands the power of the Church in times of crisis. For me, that is immensely important. While I am a lifelong Catholic, there have been times where I struggled with the Church and its many scandals and hypocrisies. However, I have not given up my faith nor ignored the power and position the Church holds. That's why Taproot Earth, among other organizations, has put a great deal of work into bringing the might of the Catholic Church to the fight for climate justice. We started our work with the Church in earnest in 2023 around the issue of climate reparations. We wanted the Church to confront its role in the root causes of climate change: colonialism, slavery, and capitalism. From there, we wanted the Church to embrace its responsibility to lead the way to climate reparations. I am happy to say that we found a receptive audience among leaders within the Church. After meeting with some of Pope Francis' advisors and advocates, we facilitated the Frontline People's Jubilee Convening in Rome in March of this year with the goal of bringing to the Church the voices and stories from the frontlines about the need for climate reparations. At the convening, we heard from people from 24 countries and in six different languages, and we charted a multi-faith course toward climate justice and accountability. I am hopeful — and more importantly faithful — that we can bring those stories to Pope Leo to further advance this work. It bears mentioning that Pope Leo, as the successor to Pope Francis, has enormous shoes to fill. Pope Francis led the Church in new and exciting ways. In addition to his groundbreaking 2015 encyclical, he completely revolutionized the way that decisions were made in the Vatican, appointing women to decision-making posts and created pathways for marginalized people to have their voices heard. He opened the door for the blessing of same-sex unions. By leading from the foundational Christian values of love, mercy, and joy, he showed the world that change is possible, even within a 2,000-year-old institution. While there are signs that Pope Leo might be more conservative than Pope Francis, I still have reason to hope that he might indeed be more radical. After all, most people didn't expect Pope Francis to be the spiritual and social catalyst that he was. One of the most important ways that Popes signal the way they plan to lead is by the name they choose upon their election. The name Leo is one of humility or, as some might say, meekness. As the Beatitudes teach us, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. If Pope Francis was the People's Pope, perhaps Pope Leo can be the Planet's Pope. Pope Leo need not walk on water, but rather continue on the path Pope Francis already laid out. Anthony Giancatarino is the Strategy Partner at Taproot Earth, a global climate justice organization rooted in the Gulf South and Appalachia More from Rolling Stone Trump Admin Plans to Delay, Eliminate Limits on 'Forever Chemicals' in U.S. Drinking Water The Internet Is Already Awash With Unhinged Pope Leo XIV Merch 'SNL' Weekend Update Shuts Down 'Woke' Pope Complaints, Trashes Trump's Alcatraz Revival Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
ABC News
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Rising Tides, Rising Voices
At 36 years-old Kulkalaig woman Tishiko King embodies a powerful intersection of worlds,marine biologist, climate justice defender, and advocate for Traditional Owners in Zenadth Kes, theTorres Strait. She's launching a documentary about Sea Country known in her language as Malu Lag. Tishiko's advocacy emerges from one of the most climate-vulnerable regions, where rising seas are threatening homes and a way of life that connects generations of Torres Strait Islanders to their ancestors. Then, Jackson Van Issum and Lewis McKenna, one half of the Australian rock band Beddy Rays, stop by to perform live in the Awaye studio. Plus for Word Up Brooke Wandin shares the Woiwurrung word for 'river' or 'creek'.
