#environmental law

[reasonsforhope]

An illegal toxic dump site in Croatia, the theft of water from a major aquifer in southern Spain, illegal trading of ozone-depleting refrigerants in France: This is just a sampling of the environmental crimes that European countries are struggling to stop. The lack of accountability for these acts stems in part from the European Union’s legal code, which experts say is riddled with vague definitions and gaps in enforcement. That’s about to change. 

Last week, EU lawmakers voted in a new directive that criminalizes cases of environmental damage “comparable to ecocide,” a term broadly defined as the severe, widespread, and long-term destruction of the natural world. Advocates called the move “revolutionary,” both because it sets strict penalties for violators, including up to a decade in jail, and because it marks the first time that an international body has created a legal pathway for the prosecution of ecocide.

“This decision marks the end of impunity for environmental criminals and could usher in a new age of environmental litigation in Europe,” wrote Marie Toussaint, a French lawyer and EU parliamentarian for the Greens/European Free Alliance group, on X...

The new directive uses the term ��ecocide” in its preamble, but does not criminalize the act by laying out a legal definition (the most widely accepted definition of ecocide was developed by an international panel of experts in 2021). Instead, it works by providing a list of “qualified offenses,” or crimes that fall within its purview. These include pollution from ships, the introduction of invasive species, and ozone depletion...

The new law holds people liable for environmental destruction if they acted with knowledge of the damage their actions would cause. This aspect of the law is important, experts said, because it means that a permit is no longer enough for a company to avoid culpability.  

“If new information shows that behavior is causing irreversible damage to health and nature – you will have to stop,” a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, Antonius Manders, told Euronews. 

Advocates like Mehta hope that the EU’s move will have influence beyond Europe’s borders. The principal goal of the Stop Ecocide campaign is for the International Criminal Court to designate ecocide as the fifth international crime that it prosecutes, after crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and genocide. At the moment, environmental destruction can only be prosecuted as a war crime at the ICC, and limitations in the law make this extremely difficult to do...

Kate Mackintosh, the executive director of the Netherlands-based UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, told Grist that the ICC is unlikely to adopt an ecocide law if other countries do not do so first. 

“It’s not something you can just pull out of thin air,” she said, adding that any international legal doctrine has to have a precedent on the national level. “That’s the way states are going to accept it.”

The EU’s 27 member states will have two years to adapt the new legislation into their penal codes. Afterwards, their implementation must be reviewed and updated at least once every five years using a “risk-analysis based approach,” to account for advancements in experts’ understanding of what might constitute an environmental crime. Mehta said that despite its omission of some important offenses, the law sets an important example for other countries. Several days before the EU vote, Belgium adapted its criminal code to include the directive, making it the first country in Europe to recognize ecocide as a crime.

The ruling “shows leadership and compassion,” Mehta said. “It will establish a clear moral as well as legal ‘red line’, creating an essential steer for European industry leaders and policy-makers going forward.”

-via Grist, March 6, 2024

[wachinyeya]

—

“the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the State of Alaska’s bid to fast-track the legal process, overrule the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and gain approval for the Pebble Mine — slated to extract enormous amounts of copper, gold, and molybdenum from the pristine and sensitive ecosystem known as Bristol Bay.

A diverse coalition led by Alaska Natives has consistently fought against the proposed mine for more than two decades. It eventually gained support from the EPA, which ultimately blocked the mine proposal in January 2023 over concerns it would threaten an aquatic ecosystem supporting the world’s most prolific sockeye salmon fishery.

This decision is significant, particularly considering the current High Court’s tendency to support states’ rights, limits on regulation — especially of the environmental variety — and corporate concerns. Alaska’s request, filed in June, was unusual in that it sought to skip lower appeals courts to challenge the EPA’s decision on the basis that it violated Alaska’s state sovereignty.

Under the law, alleged violations of state sovereignty are one of the few categories of cases that grant the Supreme Court original jurisdiction — meaning a state can bypass the usual state/federal court appeals process and file straight with the High Court. The justices could easily have decided to hear the case and decide in favor of the mining company, which has shown no qualms about engaging in some shady business practices over the years.

As the single most productive sockeye salmon fishery in the world, Bristol Bay contains biodiversity and abundant wild fish populations which present a stark contrast to many other fisheries in the Pacific Northwest (and worldwide). Most have experienced severe depletion over the last few decades. Sockeye salmon — like all Pacific Salmon — are a keystone species, vital to the health of an entire ecosystem. Of course, salmon also provide a sacred food source for Indigenous communities up and down the West Coast.”

-from the Lakota People’s Law Project

[skaiawards]

[thoughtlessarse]

Bee-killing pesticides are to be banned by the UK government, as ministers set out plans to outlaw the use of neonicotinoids. However, the highly toxic neonicotinoid Cruiser SB could be allowed for use next year, as ministers are considering applications from the National Farmers’ Union and British Sugar. This powerful pesticide poisons bees by destroying their nervous systems. Prof Dave Goulson, a bee expert at the University of Sussex, has said that one teaspoon of the chemical is enough to kill 1.25 billion honeybees. Even at non-fatal doses it can cause cognitive problems that make it hard for bees to forage for nectar, and the chemicals can stay in the soil for years. Ministers say they have identified legislative options that would legally prevent the future use of three specific neonicotinoids – clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam – entirely. Paul de Zylva, nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “An end to the previous government’s annual pantomime of granting the ‘emergency’ use of these deeply harmful pesticides is long overdue. But we’re not out of the woods yet – the government must follow through by fully committing to a complete ban come January. And it must go even further still, by scrapping the current, weak national pesticides action plan and instead produce a credible version.” The former environment secretary Michael Gove promised in 2017 that ministers would use Brexit to stop the use of pesticides that destroy bee populations. Instead, the EU banned all emergency authorisations of neonicotinoid pesticides, while since 2021 the UK government has allowed the emergency use of thiamethoxam every year.

continue reading

Gove lied? I'm shocked! And him promising environmental laws second to none.

[fenrislorsrai]

A few days after the release was discovered in June 2017, Stan met with Southcreek and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency. At the meeting, the company characterized the incident as a “small spill,” the Ledgerwoods later alleged in court. It was unclear how long the leak lasted, but the saltwater plume had already saturated the soil and killed 2 acres of vegetation by the time it broke the surface, according to state oil regulators. Samples analyzed a month later by Oklahoma State University found that the soil’s concentration of chloride, which occurs in the type of salt water injected into the well, had risen to more than 12 times the state’s acceptable level and was “sufficiently high to reduce yield of even salt tolerant crops.” Other tests showed that chloride levels in the family’s water well had spiked to more than five times what the Environmental Protection Agency deems safe. The tests didn’t look for other contaminants like heavy metals that are often left behind by the oil production process. - - Don began traveling 30 miles round-trip to Walmart to buy bottled water. Stan and Tina’s steel pots rusted after being washed, and their 2-year-old great-niece’s skin became irritated and inflamed after repeatedly washing her hands while they potty-trained her. In a text message, the girl’s mother described her hands as looking like they had “a burn.” - - As is common in American oil fields, property rights in this part of Oklahoma often create split estates, where one person owns the land while another owns the underlying minerals, such as oil and gas. The owner of the minerals has a right to drill, even if the landowner would prefer they didn’t. - - But Oklahoma has more than 260,000 unplugged wells — behind only Texas — according to data from energy industry software firm Enverus. To plug and clean up the state’s wells could cost approximately $7.3 billion, according to an analysis of state records. Oklahoma has just $45 million in bonds. The oil industry’s bonds are “shockingly inadequate,” said Peter Morgan, a Sierra Club senior attorney. “It’s clear that abandoning wells and leaving communities and taxpayers to foot the bill to clean them up is baked into the oil and gas industry business model.” At the Capitol in Oklahoma City, which features repurposed oil derricks outside its main entrance, Republican state Rep. Brad Boles has tried for several years to address the shortfall. This year, he introduced a bill to create a tiered bonding system based on the number of wells a company operates, increasing the highest required bond to $150,000. [passed House, did not gt a vote in Senate] - - A stream of trucks rumbled down the Ledgerwoods’ once-quiet gravel road as workers removed enough dirt to fill 750 dump trucks and pumped more than 71,000 gallons from the Ledgerwoods’ water well. But the dangerous concentrations of chloride didn’t change, according to Fox Hollow��s report. - - Progress in the lawsuit was short-lived. In November 2019, shortly after the Ledgerwoods’ attorney sent discovery requests to Wise Oil & Gas, the company filed in a Texas court for voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy — a full liquidation of its assets. Company executives acknowledged they declared bankruptcy to avoid legal fees associated with the Ledgerwoods’ suit, according to court records. - - But two months later, Mullin ruled against the Ledgerwoods. He disagreed that Wise Oil & Gas had entered bankruptcy to shed bad investments and dodge cleanup obligations. He blasted the Ledgerwoods for requesting sanctions against the Cocanoughers. “Merely because the Ledgerwood Creditors have been damaged by the saltwater contamination, this does not provide them with an unfettered right to retaliate or lash out against unrelated and far-removed targets, such as the Cocanougher Sanction Targets,” Mullin wrote. If the Ledgerwoods wanted to continue seeking damages against the Cocanoughers and their businesses, they would have to pay the oil company’s attorneys’ fees, about $107,000, Mullin ruled.

It's worth reading the whole article for a breakdown of exactly HOW a company that poisoned a family's well and farm got out of fixing it or paying compensation.

Not as relevant in this particular case, but uncapped out of service wells like this are a major source of methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas than CO2

[themirokai]

What made you want to be a lawyer

Dear anon, you would like my villain (lawyer) origin story?? I am so flattered!

It was all about the Roadless Rule! (Scroll down to the “Political conflict in the U.S.” section.)

My grandfather was a lawyer and I wanted to be a lawyer at various points as a kid, but the Roadless Rule is what actually made me start studying for the LSAT.

You see, one of the last things Bill Clinton did in office was to enact the Roadless Area Conservation Act which, as the name implies, disallowed the building of roads in national forests and grasslands.

So Clinton is out and the George W. Bush administration is in and they try to figure out how to undo the Roadless Rule. But for reasons I don’t remember because it was 20 years ago, they couldn’t or didn’t want to just repeal it and so they did a complicated change to it, which basically gutted it.

Enter young Miro, who was a starry-eyed college student at the time (yes, I’m old) interning for a small environmental NGO. My boss at the NGO told me to write up newsletter article for our members about this Roadless Rule change so I tried to read the thing and… I just did not fucking understand it. It was chock-full of bureaucratic legalese and I was completely lost. So I went and found an article that an attorney had written that broke down the impact of the change in plain English.

And because the thought of people using bureaucratic legalese to hurt the environment in ways I couldn’t even understand made me really fucking mad, I decided to go to law school so at least I could understand what the fuckers were doing.

So yeah, 14 years into my legal career, most of it spent doing some sort of environmental law, I mostly understand what the fuckers are doing and I feel like I’ve done a bit of good in the other direction.

Thanks for asking, anon! The ask box is open for other random anon (or not anon) asks!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 27, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 28, 2023

Fifty years ago tomorrow, on December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law. Declaring that Congress had determined that “various species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation,” the act provided for the protection of endangered species. 

Just over a decade before, in 1962, ecologist Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring, documenting how pesticides designed to eliminate insects were devastating entire ecosystems of linked organisms. The realization that human destruction of the natural world could make the planet uninhabitable spurred Congress in 1970 to create the Environmental Protection Agency. And in 1973, when Nixon called for stronger laws to protect species in danger of extinction, 194 Democrats and 160 Republicans in the House—99% of those voting—voted yes. Only four Republicans in the House voted no.    

Such strong congressional support for protecting the environment signaled that a new era was at hand. While President Gerald Ford, who succeeded Nixon, tended to dial back environmental protections when he could in order to promote the development of oil and gas resources, President Jimmy Carter pressed the protection of the environment when he took office in 1977. 

In 1978, Carter placed 56 million acres of land in Alaska under federal protection as national monuments, doubling the size of the national park system. “These areas contain resources of unequaled scientific, historic and cultural value, and include some of the most spectacular scenery and wildlife in the world,” he said. In 1979 he had 32 solar panels installed at the White House to help heat the water for the building and demonstrate that it was possible to curb U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. Just before he left office, Carter signed into law the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, protecting more than 100 million acres in Alaska, including additional protections for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Oil companies, mining companies, timber companies, the cattle industry, and local officials eager for development strongly opposed Carter’s moves to protect the environment. In Alaska, local activists deliberately broke the regulations in the newly protected places, portraying Carter as King George III—against whom the American colonists revolted in 1776—and insisting that the protection of lands violated the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness promised in the Declaration of Independence. 

For the most part, though, opposition to federal protection of the environment showed up as a drive to reform government regulations that, opponents argued, gave far too much power to unelected bureaucrats. In environmental regulations, the federal government’s protection of the public good ran smack into economic development.

In their 1980 presidential platform, Republicans claimed to be committed to “the conservation and wise management of America’s renewable natural resources” and said the government must protect public health. But they were not convinced that current laws and regulations provided benefits that justified their costs. “Too often,” they said, “current regulations are…rigid and narrow,” and they “strongly affirm[ed] that environmental protection must not become a cover for a ‘no-growth’ policy and a shrinking economy.”

In his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan explained that he wanted to see the U.S. produce more energy to fuel “growth and productivity. Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched because the present Administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, taxes and controls than more energy.” 

In his farewell address after voters elected Reagan, Carter urged Americans to “protect the quality of this world within which we live…. There are real and growing dangers to our simple and our most precious possessions: the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land which sustains us,” he warned. “The rapid depletion of irreplaceable minerals, the erosion of topsoil, the destruction of beauty, the blight of pollution, the demands of increasing billions of people, all combine to create problems which are easy to observe and predict, but difficult to resolve. If we do not act, the world of the year 2000 will be much less able to sustain life than it is now.” 

“But,” Carter added, “[a]cknowledging the physical realities of our planet does not mean a dismal future of endless sacrifice. In fact, acknowledging these realities is the first step in dealing with them. We can meet the resource problems of the world—water, food, minerals, farmlands, forests, overpopulation, pollution if we tackle them with courage and foresight.”

Reagan began by appointing pro-industry officials James G. Watt and Anne M. Gorsuch (mother of Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch) as secretary of the interior and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, respectively; they set out to gut government regulation of the environment by slashing budgets and firing staff. But both resigned under scandal in 1983, and their replacements satisfied neither those who wanted to return to the practices of the Carter years nor those who wanted to get rid of those practices altogether. 

Still, with their focus on developing oil and gas, when workers repairing the White House roof removed the solar panels in 1986, Reagan administration officials declined to reinstall them. 

Forty years later, we are reaping the fruits of that shift away from the atmosphere that gave us the Endangered Species Act and toward a focus on developing fossil fuels. On November 30 the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), an agency of the United Nations, reported that global temperatures in 2023 were at record highs both on land and in the seas, Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record low, and devastating fires, floods, outbreaks of disease, and searing heat waves have pounded human communities this year.

The WMO released this provisional report the same day that the U.N. Climate Change negotiations, known as COP28, began in the United Arab Emirates. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres urged leaders to commit to act to address climate change, while there was still time to avoid “the worst of climate chaos.” After a year in which countries staggered under extreme weather events, climate change is on people’s minds: nearly 80,000 people, including world leaders and celebrities, registered to attend COP28.

After the convention ended on December 13, Umair Irfan of Vox summarized the agreement hashed out there. For the first time in 27 such conventions, countries explicitly called for the phasing out of fossil fuel…but they didn’t say when or by how much. After taking stock of what countries are doing to address climate change, the meeting concluded that efforts to reduce emissions, invest in technology, adapt to warming, and help suffering countries are all falling short. 

In addition to acknowledging the need to move away from fossil fuels, COP28 agreed to cut methane, boost renewable energy considerably, and help countries that are dealing with the fallout from climate change: island nations, for example. But emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise, and the hope of limiting warmer temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius now seems a long shot. Still, renewable energy capacity grew nearly 10% in 2022, led by solar and wind power. 

Today President Joe Biden used the anniversary of the Endangered Species Act to reclaim the spirit of the era in which it was written, urging Americans to protect ecosystems and biodiversity, “honor all the progress we have made toward protecting endangered species,” and to “come together to conserve our planet.” He noted that thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-Harris administration has been able to invest billions of dollars in forest management, ecosystem restoration, and protection of watersheds, as well as making historic investments in addressing climate change, and that, as president, he has protected more lands and waters than any president since John F. Kennedy.

And yet the forces that undermined that spirit are still at work. In the 2022 West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency decision, the Supreme Court claimed that Congress could not delegate “major questions” to executive agencies, thus limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate the emissions that create climate change; and House Republicans this summer held a hearing on “the destructive cost of the Endangered Species Act,” claiming that it “has been misused and misapplied for the past 50 years” with “disastrous effects on local economies and businesses throughout the United States.” Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources Bruce Westerman (R-AR) accused the Biden administration of stifling “everything from forest management to future energy production through burdensome ESA regulations.”

While in 1980 voters could react to such a contrast between the parties’ environmental visions ideologically, in 2023, reality itself is weighing in. Brady Dennis of the Washington Post noted today that in this era of rising waters and epic storms, North Carolina has become the fourth state, along with South Carolina, New York, and New Jersey, to require home sellers to disclose their home’s flooding history and flood risk to prospective buyers.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[rjzimmerman]

California Tries ‘Trump-Proofing’ Its Climate Policies (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

California officials have been working for months on a plan to “Trump proof” the state’s leading edge environmental and climate policies, in the event that former President Donald J. Trump returns to White House and follows through on his promise to gut them.

Whether California succeeds could affect more than a dozen other states that follow its emissions rules, and could have global impact because the state’s market muscle compels auto makers and other companies to conform to California standards.

The strategy now being crafted in Sacramento includes lawsuits designed to reach wide-ranging settlements with industries that generate greenhouse gases, and new rules and laws that rely on state authority and would be beyond the reach of the administration.

Mr. Trump, who considers climate change a “hoax,” has promised to weaken every major federal climate regulation, as he did in his first term.

But he is also expected to try to blow up California’s climate policies, which have set the pace for the rest of the nation and the world. The state is requiring about three-quarters of new trucks sold there after 2035 to be zero emissions. And in a request that is pending, California wants permission from the Biden administration to enact one of the most ambitious climate rules of any nation: a ban on the sale of new gas-powered passenger vehicles in the state after 2035.

Both rules are far tougher than federal policy and could have influence beyond the United States, given California’s standing as the world’s fifth-largest economy. China and the European Union have already adopted parts of California’s car and truck tailpipe emissions reduction programs.

The Democratic-controlled state legislature has also passed a first-in-the-nation law requiring major companies to disclose their greenhouse emissions. And it has strengthened the authority of local governments to shut down oil and gas projects in their communities. Next month, Californians will be asked to approve a ballot measure to create a $10 billion “climate bond” to pay for climate and environmental projects.

Sixteen states have pledged to follow the California car rule and 10 states have adopted the truck rule, meaning that the California regulations would apply to about 40 percent the United States auto market.

Mr. Trump has promised to revoke the waiver. “California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Mr. Trump has said. “I will terminate that.”

At the same time, the legality of the waiver is being challenged by 17 Republican attorneys general and several oil groups in a lawsuit that may head to the United States Supreme Court.

[californiastatelibrary]

Did you know California was offering income tax incentives for solar energy almost 50 years ago? If this piqued your interest, join us for a free evening of cutting-edge scholarship and legal analysis of both our infrastructure needs and environmental law with renowned academic Dr. Dave Owen on June 11 from 6-7:30 pm via Zoom. To learn more and register, visit https://libraryca.libcal.com/event/12472857.

[crows-and-cookies]

If you’re ever wondering WHY it takes SO LONG for anything to get done with regulations and science, please read this book. It’s absolutely riveting, and chronicals a battle that happened in the background of the rest of our lives. Know that work is being done, and it’s hard work that takes a lot of time, effort, and money. Know that we shouldn’t give up anyways, because even when things are codified into law, we still may have to fight for them.

[horsesarecreatures]

UNITED NATIONS, United States - After years of talks, United Nations’ member states finally agreed to a text on the first international treaty to protect the high seas, a fragile and vital treasure that covers nearly half the planet.

“The ship has reached the shore,” conference chair Rena Lee announced at the UN headquarters in New York shortly before 9.30pm on Saturday local time, to applause from delegates.

Mrs Rena Lee is Singapore’s Ambassador for Oceans and Law of the Sea Issues and Special Envoy of the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

After more than 15 years of discussions, including four years of formal talks, the third so-called final negotiating session in less than a year heralded the long-awaited consensus.

The treaty is seen as essential to conserving 30 per cent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030, as agreed by world governments in a historic accord signed in Montreal in December.

Following two weeks of intense talks at the UN headquarters in New York, including a marathon overnight session Friday into Saturday, delegates finalised a text that cannot be significantly altered.

“There will be no reopening or discussions of substance,” Mrs Lee told negotiators.

The agreement will be formally adopted at a later date once it has been vetted by lawyers and translated into the United Nations’ six official languages, she announced.

In a statement on Sunday, Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said it welcomed the “successful and timely conclusion” of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, which came just after the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) treaty in 1982.

“The success of the BBNJ Intergovernmental Conference process reaffirms the importance and relevance of Unclos and multilateral cooperation, and the United Nations in establishing and upholding a rules-based international order,” the MFA spokesman said.

The spokesman added that Mrs Lee’s leadership “enabled parties to bridge differences and arrive at an ambitious and future-proof BBNJ Agreement”.

The high seas begin at the border of countries’ exclusive economic zones, which extend up to 370km from coastlines. They thus fall under the jurisdiction of no country.

Even though the high seas comprise more than 60 per cent of the world’s oceans and nearly half the planet’s surface, they have long drawn far less attention than coastal waters and a few iconic species.

Ocean ecosystems create half the oxygen humans breathe and limit global warming by absorbing much of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities.

But they are threatened by climate change, pollution and overfishing.

Only about one per cent of the high seas are currently protected.

When the new treaty comes into force after being formally adopted, signed and ratified by enough countries, it will allow the creation of marine protected areas in these international waters.

The treaty on the “conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction” also obliges countries to conduct environmental impact assessments of proposed activities on the high seas.

A highly sensitive chapter on the sharing of potential benefits of newly discovered marine resources was one of the focal points of tensions before it was finally overcome as the scheduled talks, due to end Friday, overran by a day.

Developing countries, without the means to afford costly research, had fought not to be excluded from the expected windfall from the commercialisation of potential substances discovered in the international waters.

Eventual profits are likely from the pharmaceutical, chemical or cosmetic use of newly discovered marine substances that belong to no one.

As in other international forums, notably climate negotiations, the debate ended up being a question of ensuring equity between the poorer global South and richer North, observers noted.

In a move seen as an attempt to build trust between rich and poor countries, the European Union pledged €40 million (S$57.3 million) in New York to facilitate the ratification of the treaty and its early implementation.

The EU also announced US$860 million for research, monitoring and conservation of oceans in 2023 at the Our Ocean conference in Panama that ended on Friday.

Panama said a total of US$19 billion, including a US$6 billion commitment from the United States, was pledged at the conference to protect seas.

In 2017, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on nations to establish a high seas treaty.

It originally planned four negotiating sessions but had to pass two resolutions to ensure two additional sessions. 

[reasonsforhope]

“1. The energy paradigm shifted                                                    

Two things happened this year that may have changed the energy paradigm forever. The first was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the West’s subsequent dash to wean itself off Russian gas while ramping up renewables.

Putin’s war was “a historic turning point towards a cleaner future,” said the International Energy Agency, which for the first time predicted global demand for fossil fuels would peak in the mid-2030s due to the conflict.

2. Climate policies and litigation ramped up

Encouragingly, there were signs of progress. The US (the world’s second largest emitter after China) approved legislation to turbocharge its decarbonisation programme. Analysis suggests that it could slash US emissions by 44 per cent by 2030. The EU also set a target of reducing emissions: by 55 per cent this decade.  

Climate litigation emerged as an effective tool for bringing about positive action in 2022, with high-profile wins, including a Filipino ruling that stated big polluters were “morally and legally” liable for climate damage.

6. Lost species returned, others bounced back

Beavers, bison and pelicans were among the species identified as having bucked the trend by the Wildlife Comeback Report, published in September. Most are the subject of reintroduction programmes, including the bison, which is roaming England again for the first time in thousands of years.

Other notable success stories include the rhino’s return to Mozambique, the reported resurgence of fin whales, and the tiger clawing its way back from the abyss.

8. Land was returned to nature – and indigenous people

In California, a swathe of redwood forest was handed back to the descendants of Native American tribes; Ecuador ruled that indigenous communities must be given more autonomy over their territory; Europe removed a record number of dams, returning hundreds of rivers to their original free-flowing state; and England got its first wetland ‘super-reserve’.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, the incoming president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pledged to halt deforestation and revive the Amazon Fund, which enables rich countries to finance conservation in the Brazilian rainforest. [A promise that, as of February 2023, he is absolutely upholding.]”

And many more entries at the link!

-via Positive News, 12/20/22

[richdadpoor]

Russia’s War Against Ukraine Is Killing Dolphins in the Black Sea

Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine has destroyed infrastructure and displaced about 5 million people from the country since last spring. The country’s conservationists have also noticed that the war is killing endangered Black Sea dolphins and harbor porpoises. Even Twitter Can’t Kill Twitter | Letter From the Editor Harbor porpoises and bottlenose dolphins have washed up dead on the Black…

[grumpyoldsnake]

An additional source + some background info!

They did it??? They actually fucking did it???

THIS IS AMAZING

[frnwhcom]

M. C. Mehta: Champion of the Indian Environment

M. C. Mehta is a name synonymous with environmental activism in India. A pioneering public interest attorney, Mehta has been at the forefront of numerous landmark environmental cases that have reshaped Indian environmental policy and raised public awareness about ecological issues. His tireless efforts have not only protected and preserved India’s natural heritage but have also set significant…