It’s Time to Try Fossil-Fuel Executives for Crimes Against Humanity: Jacobin

"The fossil-fuel industry is lawyering up. 

To date, nine cities have sued the fossil industry for climate damages. California fisherman are going after oil companies for their role in warming the Pacific Ocean, a process that soaks the Dungeness crabs they harvest with a dangerous neurotoxin. 

Former acting New York state attorney general Barbara Underwood has opened an investigation into whether ExxonMobil has misled its shareholders about the risks it faces from climate change, a push current Attorney General Leticia James has said she is eager to keep up. Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey opened an earlier investigation into whether Exxon defrauded the public by spreading disinformation about climate change, which various courts — including the Supreme Court — have refused to block despite the company’s pleas. And in Juliana vs. U.S., young people have filed suit against the government for violating their constitutional rights by pursuing policies that intensify global warming, hitting the dense ties between Big Oil and the state.

These are welcome attempts to hold the industry responsible for its role in warming our earth. It’s time, however, to take this series of legal proceedings to the next level: we should try fossil-fuel executives for crimes against humanity."

Read the Jacobin article 

"Left unchecked, the death toll of climate change could easily creep up into the hundreds of millions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in turn unleashing chaos and suffering that’s simply impossible to project. An independent report commissioned by twenty governments in 2012 found that climate impacts are already causing an estimated four hundred thousand deaths per year.

Counting a wider range of casualties attributed to burning fossil fuels — air pollution, indoor smoke, occupational hazards, and skin cancer — that figure jumps to nearly 5 million a year. By 2030, annual climate and carbon-related deaths are expected to reach nearly 6 million. That’s the rough equivalent of one Holocaust every year, which in just a few short years could surpass the total number of people killed in World War II. All caused by the fossil-fuel industry."

Read the Jacobin article 

Related:

The destruction of the Earth is a crime. It should be prosecuted  George Monbiot

 

"This fictional short story is set in 2068

"This fictional short story is part of our Speculative Journalism Issue, where we imagine stories from a West under climate stress in 2068."

' “Now I understand that the feeling was shame — shame and anger. I think that is really why I’ve done what I’ve done, and I don’t need a pardon for it. When the courts started making arrests, police were grabbing guys, like, every other day. In Sweden or Australia or Canada — all these exotic places I had only ever seen on television or in my magazines — these guys were driving around in expensive cars with their families and living in climate-controlled buildings with hydroponic crops and expensive bottled water like nothing was happening. Like the world was OK. And when they went into hiding? That’s when I joined up. I wanted to help grab these assholes, but I settled for dynamiting (Bureau of Indian Affairs) offices." '

Read the story

It’s Time To Start Prosecuting Climate Criminals: Ecosystem Marketplace

by Reinhold Gallmetzer
 

Countries around the world are implementing new laws and developing new mechanisms to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, while while several organizations have filed civil suits to force government action. But one mechanism has been sorely under-utilized: namely, prosecuting climate scofflaws as criminals under laws that already exist, argues Reinhold Gallmetzer of the International Criminal Court.

This story initially appeared in the UNEP magazine “Our Planet”


Criminal justice can help achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change as part of an integrated approach from governments, private businesses, finance, science, civil society and others.

A significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions results from, or is associated with, conduct that violates existing criminal law. Those caused by deforestation and forest degradation are one striking example: a World Bank study on forest crimes found that up to 90 per cent of logging in key producer tropical countries is illegal and involves criminal activity. In addition, INTERPOL’s guide on carbon trading crime shows how fraud undermines the carbon market, an essential mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Even when emissions are not directly based on criminal conduct, they may be associated with crimes – such as corruption, trade violations, financial crimes or fraud – committed, for instance, in the context of extracting or trading fossil fuels or timber. Moreover, if there is a concrete causal link between a specific source of emissions and a harmful consequence – such as serious injury to body or physical health or the destruction of property – this may constitute a crime. All these offences can be collectively referred to as climate crimes.

Climate crimes are under-prosecuted due to: a misconception that their prosecution has an uncertain legal basis; the low priority given to them; and their under-reporting in the first place. Yet none of these reasons should stand in the way of significantly scaling up the prosecution of climate crimes. That would repress and deter criminal conduct that facilitates greenhouse gas emissions, and thereby help achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

Law enforcement authorities are already equipped with the necessary legal tools to prosecute climate crimes effectively. Many legal systems punish environmental crimes such as illegal deforestation or pollution, which may allow direct prosecution of greenhouse gas-emitting activities. Prosecutors may also examine the broader context in which emissions occur, as well as their consequences, and target them indirectly by focussing on crimes commonly associated with, or resulting from, emissions, such as corruption, financial crimes or destruction of property.

Read the complete Ecosystem Marketplace article 

See also: http://www.climatecrimeanalysis.org/priority-prosecution.html

It’s Time to Try Fossil-Fuel Executives for Crimes Against Humanity: Jacobin

......"These are welcome attempts to hold the industry responsible for its role in warming our earth. It’s time, however, to take this series of legal proceedings to the next level: we should try fossil-fuel executives for crimes against humanity.

Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Just one hundred fossil fuel producers — including privately held and state-owned companies — have been responsible for 71 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions released since 1988, emissions that have already killed at least tens of thousands of people through climate-fueled disasters worldwide.

Green New Deal advocates have been right to focus on the myriad ways that decarbonization can improve the lives of working-class Americans. But an important complement to that is holding those most responsible for the crisis fully accountable. It’s the right thing to do, and it makes clear to fossil-fuel executives that they could face consequences beyond vanishing profits."

Read the Jacobin story 

Related:

Great Barrier Reef outlook now 'very poor', Australian government review says: The Guardian

Climate Change and the Reinsurance Implications: Insurance Journal

Climate Crisis - Insurance Risks

"Climate change presents “high exposure risk” to insurers and their policyholders on many fronts:

General liability claims for third-party bodily injury and property damage, directors and officers claims for a company’s failure to properly disclose climate-related or failure to align its business model with a low-carbon future and first-party loss, including business interruption.

To date, there have been minimal coverage actions relating to climate change, but expect that to change given the increasing number of underlying lawsuits and related activity, “coupled with the staggering liability that is at stake."

Read all The Insurance Journal article

Brace for impact - climate change litigation is fast approaching : The Canberra Times

"Under the current legal regime, company directors may only be liable if found to be in breach of their duty of care or for failing to address a foreseeable risk. However, guidance from case law suggests that it is difficult to establish that the actions or omissions of a particular entity or director caused or contributed harm to be suffered by another. With the arrival of climate change litigation 2.0, this will all change. 

 

Supporters US federal courthouse, climate change lawsuit

There is a rising wave of climate change-related litigation globally which is headed for Australia ... it will sink Australia, unless drastic measures are implemented."

Read the Canberra Times article