April, 30 2024, 10:20am EDT
Senate Budget Committee Releases Damning Report on Big Oil's Climate Deception Day Before Hearing
New polling shows that voters want Big Oil held accountable
Today, the Senate Budget Committee, led by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, released a report detailing the fossil fuel industry's decades-long campaign of climate deception and delay. The report, which comes a day before the committee's hearing investigating Big Oil's role in the climate crisis, sheds new light on the industry's efforts to mislead the American people about the catastrophic impacts of their products on our climate.
The documents show that the oil majors were never serious about meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement and have instead used a false-commitment to climate action as cover to push false solutions like methane gas and carbon capture.
"This report is a scathing indictment of the fossil fuel industry's lies and corruption," said Cassidy DiPaola, spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign. "As the impacts of the climate crisis worsen, from deadly heat waves to devastating floods and wildfires, it's never been more important to hold polluters accountable for the damage they've knowingly caused. The Senate Budget Committee's investigation is a critical step towards justice, and it’s time the Biden Administration follows suit.”
Momentum for holding polluters accountable is growing across the country. Several states and cities, including California, Hawaii, and Chicago have filed lawsuits against Big Oil for climate damages and fraud. Climate superfund bills, which would make polluters pay into state funds to help communities prepare for and recover from climate disasters, are also rapidly moving forward in states like Vermont and California.
A new poll released by Fossil Free Media and Data for Progress today found that 72% of voters are angry to learn that oil companies lied to Americans about fossil fuel’s impact on the climate, even as they knew it was accelerating global warming. Furthermore, 66% of likely voters—including 89% of Democrats—support the passage of a climate superfund bill that would make oil companies cover the cost of climate damage caused by their pollution, and 63% of voters under 45 and 66% of Black voters are more inclined to support a candidate that prioritizes the passage of a climate superfund bill—a key finding as the Biden administration looks to galvanize its voting base ahead of what is likely to be another record-setting year for climate disasters.
Fossil Free Media is a nonprofit media lab that supports the movement to end fossil fuels and address the climate emergency.
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'Wake-Up Call for the World': Millions Impacted by Extreme Floods in Brazil
"This is not a disaster of Brazil's making. The whole planet is experiencing increasingly rapid climate changes due largely to the greenhouse gases produced by a handful of wealthy nations," one expert said.
May 20, 2024
Experts emphasized the escalating risks of climate-related disasters and their disproportionate impacts on low-income people on Monday following flooding in Brazil that has killed at least 150 people and displaced more than 600,000.
The floods that hit over recent days and weeks have knocked out bridges and the main airport in Porto Alegre, a port city in southern Brazil. More than 460 of the 497 municipalities in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sol have been affected, with more than 2 million people impacted, according to provisional government data.
"The situation is catastrophic," said Rachel Soeiro, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical coordinator in Brazil, who visited the area by helicopter. "We were able to view the towns from above and noticed that in some cases we couldn't even see the roofs of houses.”
More than two feet of rain has fallen so far this month, according Brazil's national weather service, inundating large areas.
"Whole towns and large, urban city centers are in some cases almost completely underwater," the BBCreported on Saturday.
We joined an emergency services helicopter rescuing people from Brazil's floods. The rescues themselves are fraught with risks. More than half a million people are displaced.
Watch on @BBCNews at 6 today (on at 1705) or catch up on the News at One.
Whole cities are destroyed👇 pic.twitter.com/hxZYSVDDmz
— Ione Wells (@ionewells) May 19, 2024
Experts connected the extreme rainfall to climate change, which increases the likelihood of such weather events. Incidents of extreme flooding have increased "sharply" across the planet in the last two decades, according to a study in Nature Water released last year.
"In many ways, this is not a disaster of Brazil’s making. The whole planet is experiencing increasingly rapid climate changes due largely to the greenhouse gases produced by a handful of wealthy nations," Cristiane Fontes (Krika), executive director of World Resources Institute (WRI) Brasil, wrote in a commentary earlier this month in which she called the situation a "wake-up call for the world."
In recent weeks, flooding has also hit China, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia, and WRI's staff in Kenya are dealing with dam breaches from heavy rains, Fontes noted.
A Brazilian expert indicated that the flooding, catastrophic as it has been, should not come as a surprise.
"People on the streets here in Brazil, they've attributed this change to global climate change driven by the increase of fossil fuels," Paulo Artaxo, a physics professor at the University of Sao Paulo, and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He explained that was in line with IPCC projections showing that southern Brazil would face more extreme rainfall due to tropical and polar currents.
In Brazil, as elsewhere, climate impacts are not evenly distributed. MSF relief efforts are focused on the most vulnerable, including Indigenous communities, one of which had been isolated by rising waters and without help for 10 days before being reached by the humanitarian group.
"Assisting those who are most vulnerable is one of our main concerns in such situations," Soeiro said. "These people were already facing difficult situations before the flooding. But their needs have risen further and access to them has become more difficult."
Some wealthy people in Porto Alegre have choices such as escaping to a second home, but in "rundown towns" on the city's periphery, low-income people have no such options, according to CNN.
Brazilian left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to provide relief money to families that lost their homes. Brazil is one of most unequal countries in the world, according to World Bank data.
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'We Must Fight Against Fascists': Protests Greet Far-Right Summit in Spain
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As European Union voters prepare for June elections, far-right leaders gathered in Madrid for a weekend rally hosted by Spain's Vox party—a gathering at the Palacio de Vistalegre that drew protests and warnings about their plans for the continent.
Rally speakers delivered "strong messages against illegal migration and the bloc's climate policy while declaring their support for Israel in its war against Hamas,"
according toThe Associated Press.
France 24reported that the audience at Europa Viva 24 "jeered at every mention of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the United Nations' 2030 Agenda, feminism, or socialism."
Participants included French National Rally party President Marine Le Pen, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Portuguese Chega party President André Ventura, with some joining by video.
"Dear Spanish friends, we patriots must occupy Brussels," Orbán claimed in a video message, according toEuractiv. He framed the upcoming elections as a "great common battle" against those who he said are "unleashing mass illegal migration" and "poisoning our children with gender propaganda."
Right-wing Argentine President Javier Milei traveled to Madrid for the event. During a speech, he suggested that Sánchez's wife is "corrupt," which led the Spanish government to recall its ambassador to Buenos Aires.
"Political freedom, prosperity, social cohesion based on fiscal redistribution, respect in public debate are pillars of the E.U.," declared Josep Borrell, a Spanish politician serving as the bloc's top diplomat. "Attacks against family members of political leaders have no place in our culture: We condemn and reject them, especially when coming from partners."
The Party of European Socialists Secretary General Giacomo Filibeck similarly condemned the "totally unacceptable attack by Milei on PM Pedro Sánchez and his family."
"Death and poverty—this is what fascism brings, as Spain knows all too well. That's why voters reject the far-right and embrace Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party," Filibeck continued, also calling out Meloni and Alberto Núñez Feijóo of the Spanish People's Party. "We know where we stand for a democratic and respectful society, we can't be so sure about them."
As The Guardiandetailed:
Sánchez himself said Sunday's far-right summit was indicative of an "undercurrent" vehemently opposed to social justice which denies both science and women's rights.
"Why have all these people chosen Spain as the place to meet?" he said in a speech in Barcelona on Saturday. "It's no coincidence. They've chosen Spain because we, as a society—not as a government; as a society—represent everything that they hate and detest: feminism; social justice; dignified employment; a strong welfare state; and democracy."
"In democracy, as in life, forgiveness is far stronger than bitterness, coexistence is far stronger than confrontation, and union is far stronger than division."
Opponents who demonstrated against the far-right also took aim at Argentina's leader. One toldEuronewsthat fascism "is growing,'' and "with Milei's visit we are seeing the grouping of a lot of sectors of politicians and the business world, which is quite worrying and I think that has to raise the alarm a little."
Another demonstrator said, "Somehow, we have to go ahead and tell them that we are here and that all the rights we have achieved, we are not going to allow them to take even one step back."
Some critics—including Polish activist Frank Erbroder, who joined a protest against the conference in Madrid's city center—have compared the trajectory of Europe's current far-right movement to that of German Nazis under Adolf Hitler nearly a century ago.
"I am here because in Vistalegre we have a summit of hate and we must fight against fascists," Erbroder told the
AP. "I am worried because Hitler won because of democracy, and I think that maybe we'll have the same situation."
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Ahead of Hearing, South Koreans Hope Climate Case Inspires Others
"If we have a favorable precedent in South Korea, I think that will really be a trigger in spreading this trend," said one attorney in the landmark youth-led lawsuit.
May 20, 2024
Climate justice advocates on Monday expressed hope that a landmark youth-led South Korean lawsuit—which alleges the country's government is failing to protect citizens from the effects of the human-caused planetary emergency—will have a ripple effect that inspires activists throughout Asia and beyond to take similar action.
South Korea's Constitutional Court is set to hold a second and final hearing Tuesday in the case, which was filed in 2019 by 19 members of Youth4ClimateAction who accuse the South Korean government of violating their rights to life, the "pursuit of happiness," a "healthy and pleasant environment," and to "resist against human extinction."
"All countries need to take action in order to tackle this global crisis, and there are no exceptions."
The case was merged with three similar suits filed since 2020, including one brought by parents on behalf of dozens of children under the age of 5. One infant, nicknamed "Woodpecker," was not yet born at the time the complaint was lodged. The lawsuit comes amid a growing wave of similar cases around the world.
"If we have a favorable precedent in South Korea, I think that will really be a trigger in spreading this trend," Sejong Youn, an attorney in the South Korean case, toldNature Monday. "It will send a message: All countries need to take action in order to tackle this global crisis, and there are no exceptions."
Referring to the Paris climate agreement, Amnesty International Korea climate campaigner Jiyoun Yoo said Monday that "strategic litigation is a powerful tool which is being increasingly used to enforce states' binding duty to protect people's rights from the adverse impacts of the climate crisis and ensure there is no backsliding on the international commitments they made in 2015 to prevent average global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C this century."
"The climate crisis is already upon us but the effects will be felt even more intensely by future generations," Yoo added. "Cases like this are vital to safeguarding citizens' rights. Taking legal action against a state is often a long and arduous process which requires patience and perseverance and the courage of these pioneering plaintiffs is to be admired and applauded."
According to the United Nations Environment Program's (UNEP) most recent Emissions Gap Report, humanity must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 28% before 2030 to limit warming to 2°C above preindustrial levels and 42% to halt warming at 1.5°C. UNEP said that based on current policies and practices, the world is on track for 2.9°C of warming by the end of the century.
South Korea is the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations.
Mingzhe Zhu—who studies the links between politics, science, and nature at the University of Glasgow in Scotland—told Nature that even if the South Korean case fails, it will inspire other potential litigants around the world.
"Even if you lose this time, you can lose beautifully in the sense that you provoked social awareness," Zhu said. "The very fact that this case went to the Constitutional Court—that is already a certain sense of success. I believe in people's creativity. Even if you fail this time, you can learn from this experience and just try another pass."
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