News
Publish date: November 22, 2009
Written by: Charles Digges
News
Over the past several weeks, Circuit Courts covering Mississippi and Connecticut have allowed suits against major US utilities and industries to proceed, as the courts have ruled the plaintiffs have due cause to link damages they have suffered to climate change produced by oil refineries and coal fired power plants.
The moves by the court are especially noteworthy, as they represent the first time the American judiciary has had to consider tracing actual damages caused by climate change back to their source.
In its decision to advance the Mississippi case, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals cited that climate gasses were “fairly traceable” as probable cause to continue litigation against the emitting corporations, overruling the First Circuit court, who had ruled that climate change was a political, not a legal issue.
In a separate case, the United States’ Second Circuit Court of appeals allowed the case of Connecticut vs. AEP (American Electric Power) to move forward. This decision allows nuisance claims filed by several states against coal burning utilities to proceed.
The issue will be especially poignant in the state of Mississippi, where a group of 12 homeowners are seeking damages from 33 energy companies, including ExxonMobile and coal giant Peabody Energy, electric utilities and other conglomerates who they say were responsible for contributing to greenhouse gas emissions that caused 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which nearly five years later still has the US Gulf Coast reeling to clean up damages.
Photo: Courtesy of Peggy Groves for Bellona Web
The case therefore brings with it a lot of baggage for those whose lives were moved back to square one by the storm.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.