New research published in the journal Transnational Environmental Law offers the first systematic analysis of how major fossil fuel companies defend themselves when taken to court over their role in causing global warming. Drawing on case documents from landmark lawsuits, the research identifies three distinct strategies companies are using.
The first and broadest argument is that climate change is a collective problem caused by society’s demand for energy, not by the companies that supply it. Chevron and Shell, in separate cases on different continents, cited the same passage from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report – that greenhouse gas emissions are driven by “population size, economic activity, lifestyle, energy use” – to argue that responsibility lies with modern industrial society as a whole.
Those who emit bear the responsibility for the emissions. Works as an argument, no?
In the RWE case, lawyers challenged a peer-reviewed Nature Geoscience study attributing flood risk at a Peruvian glacial lake to human-caused warming – not by denying climate change but by arguing that the glacier model contained underlying uncertainties, and that CO2 molecules were “indistinguishable from each other”, making it legally impossible to trace a specific emission to a specific harm.
That works too. You’re suing over a specific harm you gotta be able to show the folk you’re suing are responsible for that specific harm.
A third strategy involves questioning the credibility of those producing the science. In the RWE case, the company’s lawyers submitted printouts of tweets by the leading climate scientist Friederike Otto – noting she had described climate lawsuits as “interesting” – to argue she was too partial to serve as a court-appointed expert. When the claimant submitted an independent attribution study by Oxford and Washington researchers, the lawyers attacked the lead author’s social media posts and professional associations, arguing that links between scientists constituted evidence of a coordinated network.
Some undoubtedly are vile grifters. So, say that.
But it’s that first one that’s strongest to me. Emissions are the responsibility of emitters. You knoiw, users of fossil fuels.
I don’t care how they count angels on the head of a pin because angels don’t exist.
LOL
Facts and reason used as arguments.
The fools.
“Those who emit bear the responsibility for the emissions“
Personally I blame those ancient marine microorganisms that inconsiderately died in places where their remains would turn into highly inflammable oil.
The German energy giant RWE made a similar defence in a lawsuit brought by a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide who argued that the company’s emissions had contributed to glacial retreat threatening his home.
So emissions from Germany somehow travelled to Peru against the prevailing weather and crossed into the Southern Hemisphere to melt a glacier? Pretty specific…
Has the farmer got a contact number for his adviser? I need a guy like that for when I sue Camelot for not winning the lottery…
If he’d won the case you might have a point (snark aside), but as he didn’t…
Indeed, why should you have to be able to win?
I’d like to think that costs were awarded against the Peruvian farmer who brought this frivolous and vexatious suit.
Good luck with that. Andean peasants don’t have much spare change i guess..
The ambulance chasing no win no fee lawyers, on the other hand…
“cited the same passage from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report – that greenhouse gas emissions are driven by “population size, economic activity, lifestyle, energy use” – to argue that responsibility lies with modern industrial society as a whole.”
That’s “the science” that we’re supposed to believe, though, RIGHT?
“Those who emit bear the responsibility for the emissions. Works as an argument, no?”
In much the same way that tying a witch’s left thumb to her right big toe and vice verca, then throwing her in a pond works.