EU’s top court rejects effort to force tougher climate rules

Speculative climate ‘lawfare’, a form of extortion via the courts, has overreached itself again and been declared out of scope. Any idea of weather control is an illusion.
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BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top court on Thursday rejected an effort by a Scandinavian youth group and families around the world to force the EU to set more ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that they were not “individually” affected by Europe’s climate policy, reports The Global Warming Policy Forum.

Those behind the initiative — including a Portuguese farmer, an Arctic indigenous activist and German islanders — expressed disappointment at the ruling, but also were determined to keep fighting for faster action against climate change.

Families from Kenya, Fiji, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Romania, along with the Swedish Sami Youth organization, launched the legal action in 2018.

60,000 Belgians take government to court over alleged climate inaction

Cue football stadium quips. We seem to be living in an age of IPCC-generated mass delusion, whipped up by the media, as far as the climate is concerned.
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SOME 60,000 Belgians are suing the government for inaction in the fight against global warming in a case that opened today in a civil court in Brussels, reports thejournal.ie.

Launched in 2015 by the association Klimatzaak (the climate case, in Dutch), the procedure follows a similar one in the Netherlands that led to a ruling against the Dutch government.

The cases attack governments for not respecting the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

12 State Attorneys General sue Biden Admin over its climate policies

H/T Climate Change Dispatch
An ‘abuse of power’ challenge. The AGs claim Biden’s climate policies are a costly and ‘massive expansion’ of regulations.
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A group of Republican state attorneys general alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that President Joe Biden’s climate policies are a major overreach and could damage their states’ economies, reports The Daily Caller.

The 12-state coalition said Biden overstepped his constitutional authority by declaring there were “social costs” of continued greenhouse gas emissions in a Jan. 20 executive order.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District Court of Missouri, argued that assigning such costs is a “quintessentially legislative action” that falls within Congress’ authority.

European court forces 33 governments to prove emissions cuts in line with Paris climate accord

Climate ‘lawfare’ marches on. Is the Paris accord legally enforceable, and if so how might offenders be penalised?
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Countries named in a legal complaint include the 27 members of the EU, the UK, Switzerland and Russia, reports the National News.

The European Court of Human Rights is forcing 33 governments to prove they are cutting emissions in line with the requirements of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

The court also rejected an attempt by those governments to overturn its decision to fast-track a lawsuit filed by six young Portuguese climate activists.

The activists claim the countries’ efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions are inadequate.

France found guilty of climate inaction in ‘historic victory’

‘Hoist by their own petard’ springs to mind. French courts are now willing to hear from ‘direct victims of climate change’. How they might define climate change remains to be seen, as the insanity gets further embedded into the system.
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A court in Paris has ruled that France’s government is guilty of climate inaction in a ground-breaking legal case, reports Euronews.

The decision comes after a group of NGOs, with the support of two million citizens, filed a lawsuit against the French government for failing to meet the country’s commitments to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The legal claim was hailed as the “L’Affaire du siècle” or “the case of the century” by activists, who first started the dispute in March 2019.

UK court rejects appeal to stop Drax building biggest gas plant in Europe

Drax power station [credit: drax.com]

Another attempt by climate obsessives to dictate UK energy policy to the government via the courts, bites the dust. Reliability of national electricity supply is not completely dead yet.
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The UK Court of Appeals has rejected a bid from environmental campaigners to prevent Drax from building the biggest gas-fired power plant in Europe, reports NS Energy.

The proposed plant, based next to an existing facility in Selby, North Yorkshire, was given the go-ahead in October 2019.

It was a controversial decision as the UK government, in approving the project, overruled its own planning authority’s recommendation to reject it on climate grounds.

Paris court hears landmark case on France’s [alleged] climate inaction

Political leaders are starting to find their synthetic enthusiasm for ‘fixing’ supposedly human-caused climate problems is coming back to bite them. Courts are being asked to make judgments on scientific veracity which they can’t do alone, so who will they rely on as their ‘expert’ witnesses – given that anyone selected has equally expert opponents standing by?
(Added ‘alleged’ to the original headline, to keep the right side of the law) 😆.
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A Paris court began hearing a complaint brought by NGOs backed by two million citizens on Thursday accusing the French state of failing to act to halt climate change, reports Yahoo!News.

The NGOs went to court to hold the state responsible for ecological damage and say victory would mark a symbolic step in the fight to persuade governments to do more.

An international accord signed in Paris five years ago aims to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, and preferably to 1.5 degrees.

But experts say governments are far from meeting their commitments and anger is growing among the younger generation over inaction, symbolised by the campaigns of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg.

The French case is part of a mounting push from climate campaigners across the world to use courts against governments.

2020: The year of climate craziness

Climate laws have been passed by carbon dioxide fearing governments that won’t be in office when the due dates arrive. What happens if evidence-free climate superstition is still rampant when these legal requirements are not met?
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BEFORE it even began, 2020 was already marked to be a year of climate hysteria, says The Conservative Woman.

It was the UK’s turn to host the annual UN climate meeting, which was scheduled to take place in Glasgow earlier this month.

Hence, the first eighteen months of Boris Johnson’s premiership saw the erstwhile ‘libertarian’ attempting to establish himself as a global pioneer of green policymaking: banning all that moves ahead of the conference, like some kind of overweight peroxide Ed Miliband eco-virtue-signalling on ‘our’ behalf.

The arrival of Covid-19 caused the meeting to be postponed, but this has not dented the government’s green ambitions to make the UK’s economic suicide the first in what they hope will be a global pact.

Climate change: Law used as stick to beat government

Will the law courts treat failing climate models as a justification for finding in favour of lawsuits designed to force the public to travel less? Debatable human rights arguments will be heard.
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Plans for airports, energy and roads are facing multiple legal challenges over climate commitments, says BBC News.

Environmentalists are using the law to hound the government to force infrastructure plans into line with its climate change commitments.

Ministers are facing a fusillade of legal challenges on airports, energy and roads.

And now they have been threatened with new legal action unless their airports strategy reflects the drive towards a zero-emissions economy.

Heathrow: Climate activists lose legal battle to stop third runway at west London airport

‘It is the latest in 17 years of wrangling over whether or not to build a third runway at Heathrow’, notes Sky News. Only 17 years? Seems like a lifetime. Climate miserablists will no doubt want to express their frustration at the apparent lack of interest in their imaginary ‘climate emergency’, sooner or later.
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Climate activists have lost a long-running legal battle to stop a third runway at Heathrow.

The Supreme Court has overturned a previous Court of Appeal ruling in a case brought by Friends of the Earth and others against Heathrow Airport.

France plans to jail ‘ecocide’ offenders for up to 10 years under new laws

CO2 is not pollution

A selected handful of the citizens of France have spoken, so the die is cast. No-one wants pollution, but do they intend to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant (like the USA), or even as a ‘danger to the environment’? Tell it to the plants and vegetation that rely on CO2 from photosynthesis to produce glucose, essential to survival.
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Environmental offenders could be handed a fine of up to €4.5 million, or 10 years in prison. The law is meant to punish those who commit a “general crime of pollution” or “endanger the environment”, says DW.com.

France is set to make serious intentional damage to the environment punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of a planned “ecocide” law, government ministers said in remarks published on Sunday.

The law was proposed following a recommendation made by the Citizens’ Convention for the Climate, an environmental committee of 150 people, created by the government a year ago.

France’s top court gives government three months to honour climate commitments

It seems courts in some countries are now in effect regarding as proven something that is not proven, namely that rises in Earth’s meagre 0.04% atmospheric carbon dioxide content will necessarily cause serious problems requiring urgent governmental action – whatever that may be – to ‘tackle’ the situation. Not only is this not proven, but science was arguing against such theories in published papers as far back as 1900, and continues to do so in various quarters today. The upshot is that, in these countries at least, governments have lumbered themselves with the legal duty of trying to reduce Earth’s average temperature, on pain of being found in contempt of court (or some such charge) for not trying hard enough, or at all. Not what President Macron would have had in mind when he strutted the stage at his notorious 2015 Paris climate summit.

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France’s top administrative court has given the government a three-month deadline to show it is taking action to meet its commitments on global warming, reports Yahoo News with AFP.

The Council of State, which rules on disputes over public policies, said that “while France has committed itself to reducing its emissions by 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, it has, in recent years, regularly exceeded the ‘carbon budgets’ it had set itself.”

It also noted that President Emmanuel Macron’s government had, in an April decree, at the height of the first wave of Covid-19 infections, deferred much of the reduction effort beyond 2020.

Could Germany be charged with ecocide? – as per German TV film

German Chancellor Merkel surveys an offshore wind site [image credit: evwind.es]

What are the limits on courts telling democratic governments what they can or can’t do? Here the film director’s spotlight is on ‘climate policy’, a recent invention pushed by the UN IPCC. It seems governments are expected to change the weather now, or to prevent it changing – take your pick.
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In award-winning director Andres Veiel’s film “Ecocide,” Germany stands trial at the International Court of Justice for its destructive climate policies.

In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands became the first highest-level domestic court to establish a government’s legal duty to prevent climate change in line with its human rights obligations.

It was a historic ruling, says DW.com.

Along with the Dutch case, initially filed in 2013, there are now hundreds of similar climate justice lawsuits ongoing around the world.

EU to pass law to change the weather, they hope

Money to burn?

EU leaders may flatter themselves that they’re doing something that matters, but it’s wildly optimistic to think the climate could be changed – at vast expense – by passing laws based on unproven shaky theories. What planet are they on?
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European Union environment ministers meet in Luxembourg on Friday to seek a deal on a landmark climate change law, but they will leave a decision on a 2030 emissions-cutting target for leaders to discuss in December, reports Yahoo News.

The climate law will form the basis for Europe’s plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions, which will reshape all sectors, from transport to heavy industry, and require hundreds of billions of euros in annual investments.

It will fix in law the EU target to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and define the rules for how future EU climate targets are decided, if new scientific evidence requires more ambitious aims.

Ministers, who take decisions by majority, will seek a deal on these parts of the law on Friday.

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.