
New York state attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman is investigating ExxonMobil to determine whether the corporation lied to the public about climate change, or to investors about the risks to the oil industry. A subpoena was issued last Wednesday, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents.
Exxon knew about global warming decades ago (and in fact launched its own extensive climate research program), yet spent US$30.9 million to support think tanks running climate denial campaigns from 1998 to 2014.
A common misconception about climate change is that we are all responsible for the problem, and therefore no one is responsible. However, a scientific study revealed that two-thirds of the carbon dioxide emitted the Industrial Revolution can be traced back to just 90 oil, coal and gas producers, dubbed the “Carbon Majors.” Exxon is the world’s second biggest polluter, according to the study, contributing 3.1 percdent of the carbon dioxide that has accumulated in the atmosphere. If New York finds that Exxon has indeed deceived the public and investors, this investigation will have significantly bolstered Exxon’s liability for the climate crisis.
Holding ExxonMobil Responsible
Exxon has also been targeted in a recent climate lawsuit. The communities that suffered the horrific impacts of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines have brought a case alleging that the contribution of the biggest fossil fuel corporations to climate change is a violation of their human rights. The 50 respondents include Exxon, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Lafarge, Holcim and Taiheyo Cement Corporation.
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan displaced 4 million people, destroyed or damaged 1 million houses, and killed at least 6,300 people. While the Philippines suffered a financial blow of approximately US$10 billion from the storm, Exxon made US$32.6 billion in profits. Yet the oil giant has not paid for the climate damage caused by its products. Chevron, the corporation with the most responsibility for carbon emissions, made US$21.4 billion that year. Big Oil is making a killing.
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights state that corporations must respect human rights, in compliance with both national and international legal standards. Yet the fossil fuel industry is fueling climate change, and has failed to prevent the human rights impacts directly linked to its activities.
Kick Big Oil, Coal and Gas Out of Climate Policy
Politicians have also failed to hold the industry responsible. Instead, these corporations receive obscene subsidies from the same governments that are meant to protect their people and their human rights. The IMF has found that the industry is supported by as much as US$5.3 trillion in subsidies, or $10 million per minute.
Exxon has clearly indicated that it plans to continue producing fossil fuels without limit, stating that serious emissions cuts are “highly unlikely.” And so far, the untold millions spent by Big Oil and Gas to block strong climate policies and other regulations—in 2014, the industry spent US$141 million lobbying in Washington, DC—have indeed been highly effective.
Fossil fuel corporations have long been treated as “stakeholders” at the UN climate negotiations, and they have used this position to push false solutions and ensure that no effective action is taken. A decade ago, the international community established a powerful precedent by removing Big Tobacco from public health policy through a treaty mechanism. It is now time to kick Big Oil, Coal and Gas out of climate policy.
A New and Innovative Source of Finance
Solutions are urgently needed to address this gross injustice, and particularly the impacts of climate change on the world’s poorest communities. A global levy on the extraction of fossil fuels could raise US$50 billion a year to help fund the international Loss and Damage Mechanism. The 13 largest fossil fuel corporations alone made $132 billion in profits in 2013.
This funding would be used to assist the most vulnerable, those already suffering the worst impacts of climate change. Existing international law supports such a system—especially the polluter pays principle, the “no harm” rule, and the right to compensation—and it needs to be part of a general phase out of fossil fuels.
Exxon’s climate deception comes at the cost of the lives and human rights of people around the world and of future generations to come. To genuinely face this crisis, we must find the strength to kick the fossil fuel giants out of the climate negotiations, and to make the industry pay for its climate damage.
Dr. Keely Boom is an Indigenous Australian and a lawyer. She is executive officer of the Climate Justice Programme. Dr. Boom holds a PhD in international climate change law.
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EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By David Konisky
On his first day in office President Joe Biden started signing executive orders to reverse Trump administration policies. One sweeping directive calls for stronger action to protect public health and the environment and hold polluters accountable, including those who "disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities."
Michael S. Regan, President Biden's nominee to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, grew up near a coal-burning power plant in North Carolina and has pledged to "enact an environmental justice framework that empowers people in all communities." NCDEQ
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By Katherine Kornei
Clear-cutting a forest is relatively easy—just pick a tree and start chopping. But there are benefits to more sophisticated forest management. One technique—which involves repeatedly harvesting smaller trees every 30 or so years but leaving an upper story of larger trees for longer periods (60, 90, or 120 years)—ensures a steady supply of both firewood and construction timber.
A Pattern in the Rings
<p>The <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/coppice-standards-0" target="_blank">coppice-with-standards</a> management practice produces a two-story forest, said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernhard_Muigg" target="_blank">Bernhard Muigg</a>, a dendrochronologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany. "You have an upper story of single trees that are allowed to grow for several understory generations."</p><p>That arrangement imprints a characteristic tree ring pattern in a forest's upper story trees (the "standards"): thick rings indicative of heavy growth, which show up at regular intervals as the surrounding smaller trees are cut down. "The trees are growing faster," said Muigg. "You can really see it with your naked eye."</p><p>Muigg and his collaborators characterized that <a href="https://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings" target="_blank">dendrochronological pattern</a> in 161 oak trees growing in central Germany, one of the few remaining sites in Europe with actively managed coppice-with-standards forests. They found up to nine cycles of heavy growth in the trees, the oldest of which was planted in 1761. The researchers then turned to a historical data set — more than 2,000 oak <a href="https://eos.org/articles/podcast-discovering-europes-history-through-its-timbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">timbers from buildings and archaeological sites</a> in Germany and France dating from between 300 and 2015 — to look for a similar pattern.</p>A Gap of 500 Years
<p>The team found wood with the characteristic coppice-with-standards tree ring pattern dating to as early as the 6th century. That was a surprise, Muigg and his colleagues concluded, because the first mention of this forest management practice in historical documents occurred only roughly 500 years later, in the 13th century.</p><p>It's probable that forest management practices were not well documented prior to the High Middle Ages (1000–1250), the researchers suggested. "Forests are mainly mentioned in the context of royal hunting interests or donations," said Muigg. Dendrochronological studies are particularly important because they can reveal information not captured by a sparse historical record, he added.</p><p>These results were <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78933-8" target="_blank">published in December in <em>Scientific Reports</em></a>.</p><p>"It's nice to see the longevity and the history of coppice-with-standards," said <a href="https://www.teagasc.ie/contact/staff-directory/s/ian-short/" target="_blank">Ian Short</a>, a forestry researcher at Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority in Ireland, not involved in the research. This technique is valuable because it promotes conservation and habitat biodiversity, Short said. "In the next 10 or 20 years, I think we'll see more coppice-with-standards coming back into production."</p><p>In the future, Muigg and his collaborators hope to analyze a larger sample of historic timbers to trace how the coppice-with-standards practice spread throughout Europe. It will be interesting to understand where this technique originated and how it propagated, said Muigg, and there are plenty of old pieces of wood waiting to be analyzed. "There [are] tons of dendrochronological data."</p><p><em><a href="mailto:katherine.kornei@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Katherine Kornei</a> is a freelance science journalist covering Earth and space science. Her bylines frequently appear in Eos, Science, and The New York Times. Katherine holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles.</em></p><p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://eos.org/articles/tree-rings-reveal-how-ancient-forests-were-managed" target="_blank">Eos</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>Earth's ice is melting 57 percent faster than in the 1990s and the world has lost more than 28 trillion tons of ice since 1994, research published Monday in The Cryosphere shows.
By Jewel Fraser
Noreen Nunez lives in a middle-class neighborhood that rises up a hillside in Trinidad's Tunapuna-Piarco region.