Companies operating in rich, successful capitalist economies including Britain, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, and especially the U.S. must prepare for an onslaught of activist-driven climate litigation, a report released Friday warns.
The prediction of expensive judicial activism comes in the wake of a Dutch court decision Wednesday ordering oil giant Shell to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in this decade or face punitive financial retribution.
“The 2020s are a key decade for climate action. Therefore, sovereigns and corporates should expect more climate lawsuits to come down the line,” the study by business risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft said, noting “companies risk fines reminiscent of tobacco trials.”
According to AFP, business entities that thrive in open democracies appear most at risk from penalty but the report also highlights a growing number of cases trickling down to fast-growing developing countries even as the world downplays the risks posed by the threatened “climate apocalypse.”
“Our data points to a shift in major emerging economies, which might not bode well for the carbon-intensive companies operating there,” said Liz Hypes, Verisk Maplecroft’s senior environment and climate change analyst.
“We are seeing climate litigation expand into countries where climate activism is lower but the threat of climate change is more significant.”
So far, most cases suing for strong climate action have been filed against governments.
But the Shell ruling, which ordered the Anglo-Dutch company to slash carbon emissions 45 percent before this decade is out and other recent challenges to fossil fuel companies suggest the corporate world could see a crescendo of lawsuits.
Last month, New York City sued ExxonMobil and two other oil giants for “intentionally misleading” consumers about the extent to which they contribute to climate change.
More than 1,800 climate change-related cases have been filed in courts around the world in the last 25 years, most of them since 2010, according to a database maintained by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, according to the AFP report.
A “climate litigation index” in the new report assesses the likelihood of climate lawsuits in nearly 200 countries, based on prior litigation, public awareness, climate activism, and the strength of judicial systems and sovereign governments in dealing with outspoken activists.
The U.S. tops the risk ranking, followed by Britain, Australia, France, and Germany. The next 17 countries on the list are all European, with the exception of Canada (10th) and Japan (18th).
Companies — and their financial backers — “are facing genuine legal risks from which the repercussions may be significant,” said Hypes.
With fossil fuels generating 80 percent greenhouse gas emissions, oil and gas companies, and coal-powered electric utilities, are especially vulnerable to climate liability lawsuits driven by activists.
Such is the amount of litigation forecast, an Australian university in 2019 introduced the world’s first undergraduate degree in climate law, predicting a global surge in compensation demands, class actions, grievances, transnational U.N. enforcement, and human rights litigation due to “changes in weather patterns.”
Billionaire oligarch Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, for one has personally funded a network of attorneys to help pursue prosecutions related to “climate change.”
As the Competitive Enterprise Institute noted in a 2018 report, Bloomberg created a “scheme” to pay attorneys who were placed in the offices of state attorneys general, and whose role was to pursue environmental violations — as well as the political opponents of left-wing climate change policies.
Read more at Breitbart
the image of rich elites plus greedy lawyers collaborating to take down the magnificent energy structure in our country is surely ripe for an aggressive defense/offense by those of us who know how fraudulent the alarmists are–
The use of the legal system as an activism tool should be a criminal act
“With fossil fuels generating 80 percent greenhouse gas emissions, oil and gas companies, and coal-powered electric utilities, are especially vulnerable to climate liability lawsuits driven by activists.”
No. The Dutch court decision Wednesday ordering oil giant Shell to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in this decade or face punitive financial retribution is pure political retribution. Shell cannot be held liable for not producing something which does not exist.
The activist can demand all they want BUT they must show some proof of a demonstrable alternative model or plan to provide an affordable and equally reliable alternate means of fuel/power generation to accomplish the co2 reductions they demand.
MAY 26, 2021 Exclusive: A Third Of Americans Unwilling To Spend $1 To Fight Climate Change
A poll of 1,200 registered voters released Tuesday by the Competitive Enterprise Institute found that 35% were unwilling to spend any of their own money to reduce the impact of climate change, with another 15% saying they would only go as high as $10 per month.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/exclusive-a-third-of-americans-unwilling-to-spend-1-to-fight-climate-change/
“Exclusive: A Third Of Americans Unwilling To Spend $1 To Fight Climate Change”
What fight? People aren’t dumb. The key proposed solutions to “climate change” are all based on free energy. Who’s going to fight free energy. Just tell us where to plug in.
I’d love to see these companies like Shell say to these countries, ” If you don’t like our oil, we’ll just move to a friendly country and you can hire our former workers as solar installers and we’ll sell our products to our new home country.” See how long they stay warm in Holland blowing on windmills.
In the new WOKE economics of the climate change era, economic growth is bad. The winners are evil. The losers are their victims. Success is evil because it makes failure look bad.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/05/16/grantham-institute-climate-change/
Guilty until proven innocent.
On second thoughts, scrub the last three words of the previous sentence. In the brand new world, it is nigh on impossible to be proven innocent of such charges.
Justice be damned.
This process is called judicial legislation. It started in the 1960’s and for a while forced kids to be bussed across the cities, something mothers of all raced opposed. Judicial legislation by passes democracy in that it is used to implement policies that can not and should not make it through the legislatives bodies. This is very unethical but that doesn’t matter to liberals who operate under the “ends justify the means” philosophy.
This will continue to get worse until the victims turn and go on the offensive. I know of a case where a disabled man had a pattern of getting himself fired by doing outrageous things and then suing claiming he was fired because of his disability. The employers were settling out of court. The last one got a large settlement in a counter suit including the requirement that the law firm pay substantial compensation. After that no law firm would take the disabled man’s case. What the energy company’s need to do is file aggressive law suits. Go after the plaintiffs and the law firms. In the case of non-governmental organizations, if possible include all of its members as defendants. In football it doesn’t make sense to play a defense only game. The same is true of these judicial legislation law suits.
David, I fully agree with you, but the problem is there are many people working in large oil co’s (for example) who agree with the activists, who are really seeking to destroy their employer.
Can any of us imagine life without the major oil companies and the amazing products that they manufacture? Would be time to find a dry cave some where with a lot of trees nearby.
The Greenhouse effect the biggist amount of Green $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for the Trial Lawyers the Lawfirm’s of Vulture,Buzzard,Hyena,Snake,Slug and Rat bringing up stupid Lawsuits over a fake Crisis
Venezuela got it wrong. Watch out for these guys.