Tackling climate change would reduce deaths from asthma, lung cancer, heart attack and other diseases. Doctors want to spur global climate action by highlighting the link between the planet's health and human health.
Earth Day and the environmental movement
While more ambitious climate targets are very encouraging indeed, said Prakash Kashwan, a professor of political science who researches climate justice at the University of Connecticut. Big emitters like the US and EU should explicitly recognize the carbon debt they owe the rest of the world instead of using their domestic actions to cajole other countries. Lead from the front by delivering actual emission reductions.
Climate ambition
The 40 world leaders who met virtually for Biden s two-day summit are responsible for 80% of the yearly greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet and wreaking havoc in the form of worse droughts, cyclones, floods, heatwaves and wildfires.
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Multi-billion euro lawsuits derail climate action
An archaic energy treaty is being weaponized by big emitters to sue EU governments who are phasing out fossil fuels. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer funds could be redirected from climate action to corporate coffers.
RWE will have to shutter its brown coal power stations but wants billions of euros in return
In February, German energy company RWE invoked an obscure agreement called the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) to sue the Netherlands for 1.4 billion euros ($1.67 billion) as compensation for phasing out coal by 2030.
The case is the tip of a litigation iceberg, with another German energy company, Uniper, on Friday confirming it is taking the Netherlands to court over its coal exit, and in parallel is suing for a reported 1 billion euros under the ECT. Such claims are magnified due to an obscure future earnings clause.
Shell climate lawsuit: Dutch activists push courts for steeper emissions cuts
Companies that make money selling coal, oil and gas could be held more accountable if judges in the Hague order fossil fuel giant Shell to cut its emissions.
Companies like Shell are investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure
Backed by 17,000 Dutch citizens, climate activists are wrestling fossil fuel giant Royal Dutch Shell in court over its responsibility to cut emissions to levels that comply with global treaties.
On the last of four days of hearings in the District Court of the Hague, seven environmental groups led by Friends of the Earth Netherlandspressed the court to force the oil major to commit to the Paris Agreement target of keeping warming to 1.5C. This would mean cutting net carbon emissions by 45% from today s levels in a decade, the campaigners say, at a time where Shell is still investing heavily in fossil fuels.