UK Supreme Court hears climate case on Heathrow airport expansion

A Friends of the Earth lawyer claimed, re. the ruling now being challenged: “It is the first case that has ruled that government plans for a massive infrastructure project are unlawful on the basis of the Paris Agreement,” she said. But that gives a misleading impression of the verdict, as this report shows. Big infrastructure projects haven’t been declared illegal.
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Heathrow Airport is challenging a ruling that quashed plans to build a third runway earlier this year, based on the UK commitment to the Paris Agreement, says Climate Home News.

Heathrow appeared in front of the UK Supreme Court this week in a bid to overturn a judgment that blocked Europe’s busiest airport from expanding.

In February, campaigners claimed a historic victory in the Court of Appeal, which quashed plans for a third runway at Heathrow on climate grounds. The case was brought by litigation charity Plan B and campaign group Friends of the Earth.

Three appeal judges ruled that government approval of the expansion plan was unlawful because, among other reasons, it failed to consider the Paris Agreement on climate change.

EPA Warns California: Ban On Gas-Powered Cars Possibly Illegal

Los Angeles, CA

A spot of ‘see you in court’ sabre-rattling seems to be going on here. At some point over-zealous climate ideology will get exposed, as power cuts get ever more unavoidable. California’s rulers want to lead the charge into that elephant trap, although they would put it differently.

H/T Climate Change Dispatch.
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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Monday warned in a letter sent to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) that his executive order banning gas-powered vehicles may be unlawful, Reuters reports.

Wheeler wrote that Newsom’s plan “raises serious questions regarding its legality and practicality” and argued that it may cause further issues problems plaguing the state’s electrical grid.

“California’s record of rolling blackouts – unprecedented in size and scope – coupled with recent requests to neighboring states for power begs the question of how you expect to run an electric car fleet that will come with significant increases in electricity demand when you can’t even keep the lights on today,” the Trump official stated.

Newsom has yet to reply to the EPA.

Claim: cutting speed limits could slow climate change

The assertion being of course that human-caused emissions of the trace gas carbon dioxide somehow have a specific effect on the Earth’s climate, which must be countered. But if everyone is forced into electric cars, the speed limit argument becomes obsolete. Lower speed limits also mean more vehicles on the road at any one time, trying to complete their journeys, which in turn could lead to more traffic delays, potentially undermining the whole idea. As usual they conflate pollution and climate arguments to cause confusion.
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Canadian cities from Edmonton to Montreal are lowering speed limits, primarily in an attempt to save lives, says CBC News.

But slowing down may also be an easy way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution — not just on urban roadways but also on highways (and even the high seas).

Campaign granted permission for judicial review of £27 billion UK roads programme

Once more the courts are asked to intervene in UK transport policy on the grounds of ‘climate change objectives’ and other supposed issues, while the roads get ever more overcrowded.
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Transport Action Network (TAN) has been granted permission for judicial review of the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’ decision to go ahead with the £27 billion roads programme (Roads Investment Strategy 2 or RIS2), reports Ekklesia.

Mrs Justice Lieven gave the go ahead for the review, saying that TAN’s case that Mr Shapps had not properly considered the impact of the multi-billion pound roads-building scheme on climate change objectives, including the carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Paris Agreement, was arguable.

The Judge also declared the case to be “significant” which means it will be fast-tracked and should be heard at the High Court by early November.

Top court forces Ireland to strengthen climate plans

Irish wind farm [image credit: RTG @ Wikipedia]

Climate virtue signalling comes back to bite vote-chasing politicians, who expected they could dump many of the potentially unpopular decisions on taxes and spending arising from their 2015 law onto a later government. They now have to lay out plans for the next 30 years, long after their mandate to govern.
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Judges ruled the government’s national mitigation plan fell “well short” of what was needed to meet Ireland’s climate commitments, ordering a more ambitious strategy, as Climate Home News reports.

The Irish government has been ordered to take more aggressive action on climate change, following a ruling by the country’s top judges.

In a judgment published today [31/07/2020], the supreme court said Ireland’s existing emission cutting plans fell “well short” of what was required to meet its climate commitments and must be replaced with a more ambitious strategy.

Ireland is obliged to cut its emissions by 80% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels, under its Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. In 2017 it published a National Mitigation Plan explaining how it intended to meet that goal.

Chris Packham loses appeal against HS2 rail project

‘Environmentalists say the impact of the project will lead to irreversible damage’ reports newsdevelops.com. But what about the ‘damage’ of not building it – shortage of goods train capacity, lack of seats forcing people on to other modes of travel, etc.? Trying to put the brakes on modern life via the courts has failed this time, but it surely won’t be the last attempt.
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The broadcaster Chris Packham has lost his case against HS2 in the Court of Appeal.

Environmentalists say the high-speed rail project is leading to irreversible destruction of ancient habitats and woodlands.

Packham said the case for HS2 should be revisited despite Friday’s ruling against him.

Trump Order Confronts Big Tech Bias

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Social media getting its wings clipped? Lawyers should do well out of it.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

President Trump finally issued an Executive Order targeting viewpoint discrimination by Big Tech social media companies. The Order grows out of Trump’s summit on this thorny issue last July. Topping the list of targets are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Google, but there are many other possibilities.

This form of discrimination is very much uncharted legal territory. The chosen central concept for Big Tech wrongdoing is “censorship”, as the EO is titled “Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship”. This choice in itself is a strategic legal decision.

The Order is basically a hunting license for federal agencies. There are two distinct parts. The first is basically laying out a number of legal arguments. If you are not familiar with the legal issues this may seem like empty rhetoric, but it is actually the opposite. The lawyers who wrote this order are preparing to…

View original post 750 more words

UK court allows Drax gas power station appeal

Drax power station [credit: drax.com]

The climate-obsessed BBC frames this as a hard luck story for a charity. But for energy consumers it will be the biggest gas power station in Europe if/when built, providing on-demand power to help replace the many coal-fired plants closed in recent years.
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An environmental charity has lost a High Court challenge against a government decision to approve a new gas-fired power plant, reports BBC News.

ClientEarth had argued the decision did not take enough account of environmental targets at the Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire.

But the judge Mr Justice Holgate, said the targets were outweighed by other “public interest issues” involved.

The charity is now considering an appeal against the decision.

Heathrow gets permission for Supreme Court appeal over block to third runway

Heathrow airport

Coronavirus has obviously reduced the pressure on the airport for quite a while, at least. Restricting Heathrow capacity would mean some flights going somewhere else, but little likely effect on total air miles.
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The case will now be heard by the UK’s highest court as the airport tries to overturn campaigners’ earlier victory, reports Sky News.

Heathrow airport has been given permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against a block on its plan for a third runway.

Judges said Heathrow could appeal against a February ruling which said the government’s airports policy was unlawful as it failed to take into account climate change commitments.

HS2 set for green legal challenge following Heathrow ruling

That didn’t take long. Are these challengers aware the Heathrow decision was about a legal technicality, with the judges specifically saying they weren’t trying to halt the project?

A legal challenge against the construction of HS2 is to be launched by broadcaster and naturalist Chris Packham over claims the project is incompatible with the government’s net-zero carbon emissions target, days after the High Court ruled against Heathrow expansion, Construction News reports.

The move comes as Heathrow Airport warned that the government’s decision not to appeal its legal defeat last week – over a failure to comply with planning policy, as it did not take into account terms included in the Paris Agreement on climate change – could mean the scrapping of housing and roads plans.

The Netherlands faces pressure as global ‘test case’ for deep emissions cuts in 2020

They are up against it. Governments are now finding themselves increasingly boxed in by their own climate ideology. From the report below:
Richard Tol, professor of the economics of climate change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said it is “highly unlikely” that the Netherlands will rise to the challenge, saying a [extra] 10% emissions reduction by the end of 2020 would “require shutting down a substantial part of the economy”.

But what options are there? Nuclear power is unpopular and can’t be built quickly anyway, while wind and solar power are part-time, intermittent, and relatively expensive. No viable ‘off-the-shelf’ way exists to store electricity on a massive scale. Awkward.
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The Netherlands is under pressure to slash emissions in sectors such as power generation and agriculture in 2020 after a ruling by a top court made the government a reluctant ‘test case’ for tougher global climate policies, says Climate Home News.

The government of conservative Prime Minister Mark Rutte is working out new measures after the Dutch Supreme Court in December ordered it to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the end of 2020, compared with 1990 levels, as its fair share to combat climate change.

Britain’s Economy On The Brink As Climate Lawfare Threatens Infrastructure Projects

Heathrow expects… [credit: your.heathrow.com]

This may all be a bit of an over-reaction, as a legal appeal is pending. Even if the appeal fails, it’s not clear what taking the Paris agreement into account really means, as far as the courts are concerned. Having said that, some cages must have been rattled at the prospect of various projects being undermined.

Dozens of airport, road and energy projects have been thrown into doubt after judges delivered a crushing blow to plans for a third runway at Heathrow over its impact on the environment, reports The Times (via The GWPF).

The Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that the government’s policy on expanding the airport was unlawful because ministers had failed to take proper account of how it affected Britain’s climate commitments.

A refusal to properly consider the UN Paris agreement, which limits rises in global temperatures, when approving the third runway was “legally fatal”, the judges said.

The government said it would accept the ruling, striking a severe blow to plans for the runway.

Climate campaigners win Heathrow expansion case

Climate paranoia has hit the UK courts big-time. It now seems illegal not to obsess over trace gases in the atmosphere, due to the Paris climate agreement.

Heathrow Airport’s controversial plans to build a third runway have been thrown into doubt after a court ruling, reports BBC News.

The government’s Heathrow’s expansion decision was unlawful because it did not take climate commitments into account, the Court of Appeal said.

Heathrow said it would challenge the decision, but the government has not lodged an appeal.

The judges said that in future, a third runway could go ahead, as long as it fits with the UK’s climate policy.

Massive UK gas power plant project facing legal action

Drax power station [credit: drax.com]

Once again climate scaremongers will attempt to overthrow the political decision of a democratically elected government in the courts. An irony in this case is that Drax already burns imported woodchips for power generation, producing vast amounts of carbon dioxide, but this is ignored by alarmists.

Business and Energy Secretary Andrea Leadsom gave the go-ahead for Drax to convert its coal-fired units in North Yorkshire to gas generation last October, reports Energy Live News.

A legal challenge has been launched at the High Court by ClientEarth against the UK Government’s decision to approve what would be the largest new gas power plant in Europe.

Business and Energy Secretary Andrea Leadsom gave the go-ahead for Drax to convert its coal-fired units in North Yorkshire to gas generation last October, on the grounds gas would emit less carbon than coal and some fossil fuel capacity would be needed to provide backup for intermittent renewables.

Environmentalists lose new Norway lawsuit over Arctic oil

Norway’s Goliat oil platform [image credit: T3n60 @ Wikipedia]

Another attempt to use the courts to impose the will of climate alarmists bites the dust, at least until the next and final appeal, if it happens. When are they going to take Russia to court over Arctic drilling? Too risky perhaps.

A Norwegian court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by two environmental groups which had sued Norway for granting new oil licenses in the Arctic, reports Phys.org.

A Norwegian court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by two environmental groups which had sued Norway for granting new oil licenses in the Arctic.

Greenpeace and Natur og Ungdom (Nature and Youth) had called for the cancellation of exploration licenses granted in May 2016 to 13 oil companies in the fragile Arctic region, saying the concessions violated the Norwegian constitution which since 2014 guarantees the right to a healthy environment.

They argued that new oil activities in the region would be contrary to the 2016 Paris climate accord, which seeks to limit average global warming to under two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and which Norway has signed.

Terrorism police list Extinction Rebellion as extremist ideology: But soon back down

After their unlawful antics costing taxpayers millions of pounds and disrupting thousands of people trying to go about their daily lives, anti-terrorism police included XR in a booklet they send to statutary partners.

The human cost of the EV revolution

Child exploitation claims are casting a large shadow as a new case goes to court. Looking the other way won’t do any more, at least not if these major firms lose the legal argument – which would mean higher product prices. Not what the so-called ‘EV revolution’ needs, with high prices and other issues already deterring buyers.

Cobalt is one of the most important metals in the tech industry, but the use of child labor in cobalt mines in the DRC is a major problem for Big Tech and electric car manufacturers, says OilPrice.com.

There’s a chance that the iPhone you’re about to get for Christmas contains cobalt mined by a six-year-old. There’s also a chance that that six-year-old has been killed or maimed in the processes of mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the lion’s share of the world’s cobalt comes from.

Or, maybe, for those whose Christmas lists are more upscale, you’ll be driving around in a new Tesla next week, with a battery containing cobalt from that same mine.

Our luxuries are necessarily someone else’s sacrifice – and sometimes that sacrifice is the ultimate one.

Netherlands told by court to cut greenhouse gases further

Dutch Parliament buildings [credit: Wikipedia]

The descent into a climate fantasy world continues apace. Who’s next?

The highest court in the Netherlands has upheld a ruling requiring the government to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% of 1990 levels by the end of next year, reports BBC News.

The case was brought six years ago by the Urgenda environment group in a bid to force ministers to go well beyond EU targets.

However, the chances of the government reaching the target look slim. By the end of 2018, emissions were down only 15% on 1990 levels.

Police accused of ‘losing control’ of climate protest as Government urged to step In

UK politicians don’t seem to have worked out yet that their almost unanimous support for the notorious 2008 Climate Change Act, and lately their risible ‘climate emergency’ declarations, have a lot to do with the street chaos they are suddenly complaining about.

Cressida Dick was today accused of allowing Extinction Rebellion protesters to take control of the police, reports the Telegraph (via The GWPF).

Members of the House of Lords urged the Government to step in and take urgent action as protesters disrupted Westminster for a second day, pitching tents and gluing themselves to buildings.

The former speaker of the House of Commons, Baroness Boothroyd said that she had taken part in demonstrations when younger, but added: “In those days the police were in control of me as a demonstrator.

“Now it seems to me that the demonstrators are in control of the police.”

Italy’s “Lord of the Wind” gets 9 years for financing mafia

[image credit: beforeitsnews.com]

Everything was definitely not clean about this major renewable energy operator. One report said that ‘crime and corruption crept in at several levels’.

Italy’s “Wind King”, or the “Lord of the Wind” Vito Nicastri has been sentenced to nine years in prison for channeling profits from his wind power business to the Cosa Nostra, says OilPrice.com.

The Guardian reports that Nicastri was stripped of his companies and property back in 2013 during an investigation into his ties with the Sicilian mafia. The assets that prosecutors seized were worth about $1.7 billion (1.3 billion euro).

Since then, the prosecution has established that Nicastri had “close ties to Matteo Messina Denaro” and other “high-level” contacts in the Sicilian mafia.