Net zero or busted: Shapps could face potential imprisonment for not having proper plan

Well-known London prison

Cue intensified attempts to reach so-called climate targets at inevitably vast public expense. An exercise in futility.
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Grant Shapps, the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary has revealed during a meeting of the Environment and Climate Change Committee that he faces the risk of being sent to prison for contempt of court if he fails to deliver on the government’s net zero targets, says Energy Live News.

Shapps, who was asked about the current arrangements that support his role in achieving these targets, stated that he has the greatest incentive among his government colleagues and anyone globally to reach these exacting goals.

SCOTUS and Climate Free Speech

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Just finished reading this: Shell directors sued over ‘flawed’ climate plan in pioneering shareholder-led legal action
https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4074221/shell-directors-sued-flawed-climate-plan-pioneering-shareholder-led-legal-action

Science Matters

Donald J. Kochan writes at The Hill Climate change consumer deception lawsuits threaten free speech. Will the Supreme Court take note? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images

Courts are increasingly taking a close look at the validity of climate change lawsuits against oil producers. And for good reason: These cases severely test the boundaries of court jurisdiction, the breadth of tort law, the protections of due process and even the sanctity of free speech.

As one example of this scrutiny, last Oct. 3, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled a serious interest in the proper forum and scope for climate change litigation.

In Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County, the Supreme Court invited the solicitor general of the United States to weigh in, even though the United States is not a party to the litigation. The federal government is invited to…

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Climate Crisis Tide Turns For Big Oil

Big oil has grown tired of the threats and accusations of activists and governments alike, and in recent months, the executives of large oil companies are starting to fire back. Trying to appease climate obsessives has got them nowhere and some of the big players have had enough.
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Constant accusations of knowing the effects of their products on the environment and lawsuits have become constant companions of oil companies in the last few years, says OilPrice.com.

The successes that activists have had—such as Friends of the Earth’s court win that obliged Shell to cut its emissions by 45 percent—have been celebrated loudly and globally.

Naturally, Big Oil tends to be the target of choice because of its size, but with governments in Europe and much of North America pledging their total support for an energy transition, the whole industry has become a target. And has been quiet about it all, probably on the assumption that trying to defend itself would make things worse. Until recently.

Researchers propose compulsory climate change teaching in core law curriculum

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

Sounds vaguely sinister — where does education end and indoctrination start? No prizes for guessing which climate theories would get to be ‘taught’.
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Academics from Durham University are urging that climate change education should be made compulsory across the core law curriculum, says Eurekalert.

The researchers evaluated students’ engagement and their broader views concerning climate change education by integrating climate change and environmental law into the core curriculum at the University of Exeter, a Russell Group University.

The results showed that law students want to study climate law and the climate context of law as part of their core curriculum.

Students also said that climate change education should be compulsory and taught across the programme.

UK Government Could Face Lawsuit If It Implements A Windfall Tax On Renewables

[image credit: beforeitsnews.com]

Looks a tad optimistic. Nobody forced wind farm developers to bump up their prices to match the massive increases in gas and electricity charges. Invoking ‘net zero’ seems a bit of a cheek when they’re blatantly chasing maximum profits.
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A Cheshire wind farm developer has threatened to sue the UK government over its plans to impose a ‘windfall tax’ on renewables companies, reports OilPrice.com.

Community Windpower – which owns 1.5 GW of UK wind generation capacity – has said it will take legal action to block the UK’s Electricity Generator Levy.

The temporary tax imposes a 45 percent levy on “exceptional receipts” of more than £10m generated by selling wholesale electricity at average prices exceeding £75 per MWh.

Wall Street’s Biggest Names Are Backing Off Their Climate Commitments

Crazy world of climate finance [image credit: renewableenergyfocus.com]

Finance giants don’t like hefty fines for exaggerating their supposed climate virtues, or law suits for not acting in the best interests of their clients. Solution: leave their net-zero climate club.
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Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, announced that it is resigning from a global net-zero initiative.
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Shortly before COP26, last year’s United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, financial institutions were rushing to announce their climate commitments, says Grist (via Gizmodo).

The conference’s leadership and Mark Carney, a special envoy appointed by the United Nations to push private finance to invest in climate solutions, announced the creation of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero, or GFANZ.

£1.3bn Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon officially sunk as developer loses planning appeal

Credit: TLP

Unreliable, ‘poor value for money’ electricity project bites the dust. For now, anyway.
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Plans for the £1.3bn Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon have been dealt a blow by the Court of Appeal, which has ruled that work on the project did not commence within five years of receiving planning approval and therefore the development consent order (DCO) is no longer valid, says New Civil Engineer.

The project, put together by developer Tidal Lagoon (Swansea Bay), was to build the world’s first tidal lagoon power plant. This would span Swansea Bay to form a lagoon between the River Tawe and the River Neath.

The structure would have had 16 turbines producing a up to 320MW per day.

Virginia judge dismisses youth climate change lawsuit

Case dismissed

Out of order. Next!
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RICHMOND, Va. (AP via the Daily Mail.) – A Virginia judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of 13 young people who claim that the state’s permitting of fossil fuel projects is exacerbating climate change and violating their constitutional rights.

The lawsuit filed by Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit public interest law firm, asked the court to declare portions of the Virginia Gas and Oil Act unconstitutional.

It also seeks to find the state’s reliance on and promotion of fossil fuels violates the rights of the plaintiffs, who range in age from 10 to 19.

But Richmond Circuit Court Judge Clarence Jenkins Jr. granted the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, finding that the complaint is barred by sovereign immunity.

That’s a legal doctrine that says a state cannot be sued without its consent. The state argued that sovereign immunity prohibited the plaintiffs’ claims because they sought to restrain the state from issuing permits for fossil fuel infrastructure and to interfere with governmental functions.

The judge did not rule on the merits of the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims.

Full report here.

The other side of climate ‘lawfare’: Maine hydropower project sparked a $100m ‘hoohah’

[credit: green lantern electric]

Court actions by so-called green groups are commonplace, but there’s legal pushback from another quarter – against intrusive electricity generation schemes favoured by climate obsessives, with a perceived lack of benefits. Not everyone is buying the endless climate fear campaign.
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A proposal to transport clean hydropower from Canada to the state of Maine has created enough “hoohah” to launch a fierce court battle – possibly signalling trouble for the future of green energy projects across the US, says BBC News.

New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) was supposed to be an industry-leading project, transporting 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower to Massachusetts across 145 miles (233 km) of transmission line, and eliminating over three million metric tonnes of carbon emissions every year.

The $1bn (£840m) project, funded by utility company Hydro-Quebec and Central Maine Power (CMP), which is owned by the Spanish energy giant Avangrid, received final approvals, including a Presidential Permit from the US Department of Energy. Construction began in January 2021.

Now, the hydropower project could be dead in the water, after a majority Mainers voted to cancel it last November.

Welsh coal mine expansion facing legal challenge – EV battery production could be impacted

Welsh anthracite [image credit: BL Fuels]

Climate obsessives shooting themselves in the foot here? Interesting that coal is needed to make EV batteries though.
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A legal challenge will go ahead into mine expansion plans after opponents were granted a judicial review, reports BBC News.

In January approval was given for another 40 million tonnes of coal to be dug at Aberpergwm, Neath Port Talbot.

Campaigners said at the time they were considering legal action.

Alarmist dismay as US Supreme Court rules against EPA on climate regulation powers

Verdict [image credit: coindesk.com]

Democracy overseeing the flow of EPA climate edicts? A ‘huge blow’, say alarmists, as over-the-top reactions from some of the usual suspects pour in.
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This means Congress will now have to pass off on any climate regulations, says Energy Live News.

In what’s been considered a blow to climate mitigation in the US, the Supreme Court has ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

This means the EPA will now be limited in how it can regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and help stave off global warming in the country.

Climate change effect on Peruvian glaciers debated in German court

Bumpy road ahead?[image credit: RWE]

Possibly the longest running climate ‘lawfare’ case ever. Sometimes the duration of a case is itself a large part of the desired effect, whatever the outcome. Lawyers win as usual.
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German judges and experts have arrived at the edge of a melting glacier high up in the Peruvian Andes to examine a complaint made by a local farmer who accuses energy giant RWE of threatening his home by contributing to global warming, says Digital Journal.

The visit by the nine-member delegation to the region is the latest stage in a case the plaintiffs hope will set a new worldwide precedent.

Leading the demand for “climate justice” is 41-year-old Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya, who lives in the mountains close to the city of Huaraz.

He has filed suit against the German firm RWE, saying its greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the melting of nearby glaciers.

Brussels takes legal action against UK over use of British parts in wind farms

Offshore wind farm [image credit: Wikipedia]

Will Brexit bitterness ever die? Renewables are now mired in international politics.
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Brussels has launched a legal challenge over the use of British parts in the UK’s offshore wind farms, reports the Telegraph.

The European Commission submitted its complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the first such move it has made since Brexit.

The UK Government asks offshore wind farm developers to say how many of the parts they are using are from Britain.

Landmark Decision Vindicates Victims: Supreme Court Orders Total Wind Farm Shutdown

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One in the eye for wind farm racketeers.

STOP THESE THINGS

In a world-first, neighbours tormented by wind turbine noise have won a landmark victory, forcing the operator to shut down all of its turbines at night-time.

Yesterday, Justice Melinda Richards of the Victorian Supreme Court slapped an injunction on a wind farm because the noise it generates has been driving neighbours nuts for seven years, and the operator has done absolutely nothing about their suffering.

Her Honour also ordered damages, including aggravated damages for the high-handed way in which the operator has treated its victims. Since March 2015, the community surrounding the Bald Hills wind farm have been tortured by low-frequency noise and infrasound generated by 52, 2 MW Senvion MM92s.

Neighbours started complaining to the operator about noise, straightaway. But, as is their wont, the operator simply rejected the mounting complaints and carried on regardless.

Locals, however, were not perturbed. Instead, they lawyered up. Engaging the tough and tenacious

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Campaigners to challenge Bristol Airport expansion in court

Once again the courts are cast in the role of arbiter of climate obsessions as so-called ‘campaigners’ try to suppress modern developments, intended to meet rising demand, by the usual claim that any minor increase on the 0.04% carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a problem rather than a benefit.
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Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN) has lodged an appeal against the Planning Inspectorate’s recent decision to approve the expansion, after raising more than £20,000 to cover legal fees, reports New Civil Engineer.

BAAN believes the expansion will be damaging for local people and the environment, and lead to a rise in road traffic, increased noise and air pollution and an “inevitable rise in carbon emissions”.

BAAN representative Stephen Clarke said: “This decision is so damaging for the local people and the climate that it simply cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged.”

Australian court strikes down landmark climate ruling

Lots of coal in Australia

Goodbye landmark. Yet another attempt to use the courts to try to establish the myth that governments can somehow control the climate bites the dust, for now at least.
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An Australian court on Tuesday threw out a landmark legal ruling that the country’s environment minister had a duty to protect children from climate change, reports Phys.org.

Last year’s legal win by a group of high school children had been hailed by environmental groups as a potential legal weapon to fight fossil fuel projects.

But the federal court found in favour of an appeal by Environment Minister Sussan Ley, deciding she did not have to weigh the harm climate change would inflict on children when assessing the approval of new fossil fuel projects.

English Court rejects (again) a request to judicially review the UK Government’s climate change policies

Scales of Justice
[image credit: Wikipedia]

Climate lawfare draws a blank again. Exactly as the verdict says, such claims “invite the Court to venture beyond its sphere of competence.”
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The High Court has refused a renewed application from Plan B and three UK students for permission to apply for judicial review of the UK Government’s alleged failures to meet its climate change commitments, says Freshfields BD, noting the “insuperable problem” of trying to establish that such failures also violated the Claimants’ human rights.

Nature of the complaint

In this latest challenge, the Claimants called for a declaration that the Government’s alleged failures to take effective measures to meet their climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement and the Climate Change Act 2008 were in breach of the Human Rights Act 1998.

They also sought a mandatory order that the Government urgently implements a framework to meet its commitments going forward.

Alaska court rules against youths in climate change lawsuit

Case dismissed

Another climate lawfare caper, supposedly by youths (who pays the legal costs?), bites the dust. Governments can’t control the climate, but may pretend they can. Next!
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The Alaska Supreme Court on Friday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by 16 young Alaskans who claimed long-term effects of climate change will devastate Alaska and interfere with their individual constitutional rights, reports AP via the Daily Mail.

The lawsuit against the state of Alaska claimed the state´s legislative and executive branches had not taken steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The lower court dismissed the case in 2018, saying these questions were better left to other branches of government.

Net zero: UK Government taken to court over ‘imaginary’ climate policies

Climate lawfare strikes again in the latest attempt to cast politicians as climate managers and make all the claims of greenhouse gas theories — including ‘runaway climate change’ — in effect legally enforceable.
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The UK government is being taken to court over accusations that its climate commitments are “woefully inadequate” reports The Big Issue.

Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth (FOE), which is bringing the lawsuit, says the government’s flagship Net Zero Strategy fails to comply with the legal requirements of the 2008 Climate Change Act.

FOE has also accused the government of failing to produce an equality impact assessment for both the Net Zero Strategy and the Heat and Buildings Strategy, which were both published last October.

FOE lawyer Katie de Kauwe said the government’s pathway to net zero emissions by 2050 is “imaginary”, with “no credible plan to deliver” the strategy.

Fracking companies threaten government with legal action over ban

[Not to scale]

The complaint now, or one of them, is that geothermal is free to do things the hydraulic fracturers weren’t allowed to do prior to their ban, and which in part led to the ban.
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Fracking companies have threatened to take legal action over the government’s ban on the practice, amid the sector’s growing frustration at being left behind the UK energy revolution, according to reports – City AM.

The sector sent “pre-action correspondence” to the government after fears prompted by earthquakes in 2019 led to a ban on drilling, according to the Telegraph, which first reported the news.

Among the fracking projects that had to be abandoned after the ban, was one financed by billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe whose company Ineos wrote off £63m in 2019.