This post was originally published on Legal Planet. Reprinted with permission.
Some events last week sent a strong signal that the tide is turning against fossil fuels. Each of the events standing alone would have been noteworthy. The clustering of these events dramatizes an important shift.
To paraphrase Churchill, this may not be beginning of the end for fossil fuels, but at least it is the end of the beginning of the campaign against them.
Two of the events involved striking decisions in lawsuits in other countries involving fossil fuels. A federal court in Australia ruled that the government had a "duty of care" toward its young people to protect them from climate change. Accordingly, it could be found guilty of negligence if it failed to take their interests into account when considering a request to expand a coal mine. The court said that "it is difficult to characterise in a single phrase the devastation that the plausible evidence presented in this proceeding forecasts for the children," with today's Australia lost and "the world as we know it gone as well." This harm, the judge said, "will largely be inflicted by the inaction of this generation of adults, in what might fairly be described as the greatest inter-generational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next."
On the opposite side of the world, a Dutch court mandated a 40 percent cut over the next ten years in carbon emissions by Shell Oil, including the emissions resulting from the ultimate use of its oil and gas. The judge used the Paris Agreement as the benchmark for setting the company's obligations. Like the Australian decision, this was a lower court ruling, and it remains to be seen what will happen on appeal. Still, these lower court decisions are notable for their willingness to take bold steps in the climate arena.
Two other developments involved shareholder revolts against oil company management. In a hard-fought campaign in which the two sides spent over $65 million dollars, Exxon shareholders installed independent directors on the Exxon board. The move was supported by major institutional investors, including BlackRock and Vanguard. The corporate insurgents were seeking a sharp shift in corporate strategy, embracing clean energy rather than defining itself in terms of fossil fuels. Historically, Exxon has been the most recalcitrant of all the major oil companies, and it has been a major funder of climate change denial. This shareholder revolt seems to have been unprecedented in the company's history. This is an extraordinary development, as if the Catholic Church had added rabbis and imams to the College of Cardinals.
Meanwhile, Chevron shareholders also revolted against management. By a large margin, the shareholders passed a resolution to require the company to begin cutting emissions from use of its product — which essentially means reducing the use of fossil fuels. Two other resolutions were very narrowly defeated, one to require the company to plan for a possible scenario requiring zero carbon by 2050, and the other to require it to reveal its lobbying activities.
Some other encouraging news stories: Indiana, a deeply conservative state with significant coal mines, now has more solar generators requesting to connect with the grid than California. Speaking of California, we finally got federal approval to begin offshore wind projects off two parts of the coast. On the corporate front, Ford announced it would invest $20 billion on electric vehicles over the next four years. It expects that EVs will account for 40 percent of global sales by the end of the decade.
We shouldn't overestimate the immediate impact of these events. Court rulings may be reversed, and shareholder revolts and market moves may fizzle. Nevertheless, they are a sharp shift away from business as usual and signs that more changes are in the wind.
Perhaps, at long last, "the times they are a-changin'."
Showing 2,821 results
Daniel Farber | June 7, 2021
Some events last week sent a strong signal that the tide is turning against fossil fuels. Each of the events standing alone would have been noteworthy. The clustering of these events dramatizes an important shift. To paraphrase Churchill, this may not be beginning of the end for fossil fuels, but at least it is the end of the beginning of the campaign against them.
Maggie Dewane | June 3, 2021
In this episode of Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick and his guests discuss energy policy at different levels of government and who's leading the way in the clean energy journey.
Karen Sokol | May 27, 2021
Member Scholar Karen Sokol submitted an op-ed to the online outlet, Drilled News, on the Supreme Court's minor procedural ruling in the Baltimore climate case and its potentially major implications.
Daniel Farber | May 24, 2021
Lead can cause neurological damage to young children and developing fetuses. The only really safe level is zero. Because poor children are the most likely to be exposed to this hazard, this is also a major environmental justice issue. The Trump EPA took the position that it could set a hazard level higher than zero because of the cost of reaching a lower threshold. In a split decision, the Ninth Circuit reversed. The statutory issues are complicated, and a dissent raised some reasonable arguments. Ultimately, though, it's hard to believe Congress wanted EPA to misrepresent that a certain level of lead is safe for children when it really isn't.
Daniel Farber | May 21, 2021
In its closing days, the Trump administration issued a rule designed to tilt EPA's cost-benefit analysis of air pollution regulations in favor of industry. Recently, the agency rescinded the rule. The rescission was no surprise, given that the criticisms of the Trump rule by economists as well as environmentalists. EPA's explanation for the rescission was illuminating, however. It sheds some important light on how the agency views the role of cost-benefit analysis in its decisions.
Brian Gumm | May 20, 2021
In the latest episode of Connect the Dots Season 5, host Rob Verchick and his guests discuss the fiscal complexities and possibilities of a just, equitable transition to clean, renewable energy. When it comes to innovation and clean energy, there’s a wide range of players building new technology and sourcing terrains to scale renewables as wide as the great unknown. Funding for those projects comes from a host of financiers, from banks to private equity firms to, perhaps, everyday consumers. The drive behind financing the energy transition results from a dedicated consortium of political agendas, business prerogatives, and consumer demand.
Katlyn Schmitt | May 13, 2021
Dirty, polluted stormwater that runs off of industrial sites when it rains is a major cause of pollution to Maryland’s streams and rivers, and ultimately to the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland is home to thousands of such industrial sites, all of which are required by law to obtain a stormwater discharge permit from the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to prevent pollution and protect public and environmental health. Unfortunately, many of these sites do not have a permit. For example, our research in one small area of Anne Arundel County found that only four out of 12 industrial sites possessed a current permit. Of the industrial sites that hold a permit, many are not in compliance with the permit requirements. Between 2017 and 2020, MDE conducted just under 2,000 inspections of permitted sites throughout Maryland and found that more than two-thirds (68%) were violating the terms of their permits. These industrial sites are commonly clustered in urban areas, creating pollution hot spots of runoff that can include heavy metals and other toxins. Such polluted waters threaten the health of those who live nearby, who are more likely to be low income and populated by people of color.
Daniel Farber | May 7, 2021
Chlorpyrifos is one of the most widely used pesticides in America, although it has been banned in the European Union. Last week, the Ninth Circuit took the extraordinary step of ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) point-blank to ban or reduce traces of chlorpyrifos in food. A dissenter accused the majority of misreading the statute in question and abusing its discretion by limiting EPA's options so drastically and giving it only 60 days to act. Warning: The majority and dissenting opinions cover 116 pages, so I'll necessarily be leaving out a lot of details and nuances.
Brian Gumm | May 6, 2021
Companies using fossil fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal are facing heavy pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. If they don’t, they could get hit with financial penalties or be completely shut down. In response, these corporations have come up with a treatment of sorts -- it’s called carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS. The idea is that the industry can continue operating as it always has, but as a caveat, it will install a system to strip carbon from emissions. The carbon will be funneled through pipelines deep into the ground, where it will be buried forever. As a result, plants can keep running, businesses rally on as usual, there’s less pollution in the air, everyone wins. Right? Not exactly. As Connect the Dots host Rob Verchick and his guests discuss in this episode, CCS is not nearly comprehensive enough to reduce emissions at a level and rate necessary to make a difference.