[TheClimate.Vote] June 15, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Jun 15 09:50:00 EDT 2018
/June 15, 2018/
[Wildfires]
*Colorado firefighters hope for break in hot, dry weather
<https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/us/colorado-wildfires/index.html>*
By Steve Almasy and Marlena Baldacci, CNN
June 13, 2018
Firefighters in Colorado still have several days of tough going against
a fire that has burned more than 26,000 acres, officials said Wednesday.
The flames of the 416 Fire in the southwestern part of the state have
reached the backyards of some homes, but so far no one has been injured
and no structures have been lost, said incident commander Todd Pechota.
Asked whether the weather forecast looks favorable, Pechota answered
quickly, "No. It doesn't."
"The folks on the ground have not caught a break since the day (June 1)
this fire started," he said. "They've faced some really, really tough
and challenging conditions, and they know they probably have another 48
hours of really tough work ahead of them."
The National Weather Service forecast calls for the possibility of
showers on Friday night and Saturday. It was 94 degrees Wednesday with
humidity levels below 20%.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/us/colorado-wildfires/index.html
[India dust and heat]
*India Delhi residents choke as dust blankets capital
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44480135>*
Residents of India's capital Delhi are battling high pollution levels
and extreme temperatures due to an unusual dust haze covering the city.
People have been complaining about breathing problems, with many saying
the city has become unliveable.
The state government has responded by banning all construction and
deploying the fire brigade to sprinkle water across the city.
People have been advised to stay indoors as much as possible.
"In this case, dust has become a carrier of toxic pollutants. Pollution
levels are 8-9 times higher than normal. And when we breathe, we are
taking in toxic substances, which can have serious health
repercussions," Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director of the Centre
For Science and Environment, told BBC Hindi.
Delhi is already one of the most polluted cities in the world but the
recent weather pattern has caused more problems for its residents.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44480135
- - - -
[cough, cough]
*A global Dust Bowl is coming
<https://theoutline.com/post/4916/half-world-danger-dust-premature-death-climate-change-lung-disease-heart-attack-asthma?zd=1&zi=wv57aknq>*
Dust is known to cause premature deaths, but climate change's effect on
how bad our dust problems will get remains notoriously understudied.
ore than 40 percent of the global population, more than 2 billion
people, have a dust problem. Not "dust" meaning the grey puffs under the
couch, but the dust of the Dust Bowl: microscopic soil particles, less
than 0.05 millimeters across, so small that they get hoisted up into the
wind and end up in people's lungs.
We know that large amounts of dust are linked to premature death.
However, climate change is expected to make the problem much worse in
the next century, and scientists still don't know how much. In the next
century, the lethal range of dust is expected to proliferate. Between
now and 2050, the many as 4 billion people, half the world's population,
are expected to live in drylands. It's not because people are migrating
there. Drylands are growing because of (you guessed it) climate change.
According to a research letter in Nature published in May from
scientists from Harvard and George Washington University, airborne dust
levels are expected to proliferate by 30 percent by 2100 due to climate
change, and dust-related premature deaths could go up by as much as 130
percent.
"Despite [health] concerns, few studies have examined the impacts on air
quality and public health of the projected hydroclimate changes in the
southwestern United States," the study reads.
As global warming speeds up evaporation,freshwater resources are
expected to dry up around the world
<https://theoutline.com/post/4566/water-freshwater-nasa-study-climate-change-natural-resources-water-management?zd=1&zi=a7n5jbzz>.
This sets off a vicious cycle: Compared to, say, a tropical rainforest,
dry soil and dust particles absorb less carbon dioxide from the air. As
a result, dry, dust-prone areas actively keep themselves that way.
In excess,dust has been linked to
<https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/health-and-environmental-effects-particulate-matter-pm>not
just asthma, lung disease,fibrosis, lung cancer
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21255392>, and difficulty
breathing, but heart disease, heart attacks, and irregular heart beats.
These health risks are a fact of life for people who live in "drylands,"
or swaths of land that get little rain, has dry soil, and doesn't have
much plantlife. This doesn't just include desserts, but also grasslands
and prairies.
By the end of the twenty-first century, as much ashalf of the world's
landmass <https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2837>could be covered
by drylands, especially ineconomically vulnerable areas
<http://cyber.sci-hub.tw/MTAuMTAzOC9uY2xpbWF0ZTI4Mzc=/10.1038%40nclimate2837.pdf>inSouth
America, Africa, and Mediterranean-bordering countries
<https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/10081/2013/>.
The most vulnerable areas are dangerously understudied. According to
aresearch review
<http://moscow.sci-hub.tw/d6b6cfe2b4e97878c39eb71e6020685e/10.1007%40s00484-012-0541-y.pdf>from
the University of Namur in Belgium, we still don't understand the
extremity of how climate change-driven dust from the largest desert, the
Sahara, will hurt human health.
"[This paper] reveals an imbalance between the areas most exposed to
dust and the areas most studied in terms of health effects,"write the
authors
<http://moscow.sci-hub.tw/d6b6cfe2b4e97878c39eb71e6020685e/10.1007%40s00484-012-0541-y.pdf>.
"None of these studies has been conducted in West Africa, despite the
proximity of the Sahara, which produces about half of the yearly global
mineral dust."
According toa research review
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5773909/>published
in/Environ Health/in 2017, even socially and economically privileged
areas, such as Europe, are a climate change dust blind spot. "There are
few studies on health effects associated with climate change impacts
alone on air quality," the paper reads, "but these report higher
[aerosol]-related health burdens in polluted populated regions and
greater [dust] health burdens in these [European] emission regions."
Since 1997, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has regulated the
amount of particulate matter—microscopic matter which includes soil
dust, as well as other human-made chemical pollutants. In fact,the U.S.
and other wealthy countries around the world
<https://theoutline.com/post/4406/climate-change-air-pollution-inequality-world-health-organization-asthma-cancer-heart-disease?zd=1&zi=5uslprdw>have
made curbing air pollution a priority for people in their countries. But
regulating microscopic matter from factories won't stop the larger force
of climate change-driven desertification and the risk it presents to
human health.
https://theoutline.com/post/4916/half-world-danger-dust-premature-death-climate-change-lung-disease-heart-attack-asthma?zd=1&zi=wv57aknq
[Classic Video]
*The Anthropocene and the Near Future: Crash Course Big History #9
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WpaLt_Blr4>*
CrashCourse
Published on Dec 11, 2014
In which John Green, Hank Green, and Emily Graslie teach you about the
Anthropocene, an unofficial geological era that covers the last century
or so, in which humanity has made massive progress. We've discovered the
Higgs-Boson particle, and awesome electric cars, and amazing
smartphones. So all this collective learning and progress has been good
for everyone, right? Maybe not. We'll look at some of the pros and cons
of all this "progress," including environmental impact, changes in the
way people live and work, and political changes and wars that come along
with the modern world. We've come a long way, but there's a long way to
go. Crash Course will also take a look at what's going to happen in the
near future. If we manage to make our way through the coming
bottlenecks, we could be OK in coming centuries. Don't get too hopeful,
though. The Sun will eventually die, and the Earth will be destroyed,
and later the universe will eventually experience heat death. But we
won't talk about those downers until next week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WpaLt_Blr4
- - - --
[More about the Anthropocene]
*The Anthropocene: The age of mankind - Docu - 2017
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW138ZTKioM>*
vpro documentary
Published on Jul 9, 2017
An ocean that contains as much plastic as fish, an atmosphere filled
with CO2 choking the whole mankind and mass extinction of animals. The
destructive influence of mankind will be at least as disastrous as the
asteroid element that wiped the dinosaurs off the planet. Reason for
Dutch scientist Paul Crutzen to introduce a new geological period: the
Anthropocene, or the age of mankind.
Original title: Tijdperk van de mens
German explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was one of the first
to see how everything in an ecosystem is connected. Von Humboldt
introduced the idea of the Earth as a living organism in Western
thinking, which eventually became the basis for the later environmental
movement. Geologists from now see the impact of mankind at an increasing
pace: climate warming, plastic soup, nuclear fallout, a disturbed water
supply through erosion and tar sands, higher CO2 concentrations and
diminishing biodiversity.
During the last century, the influence of mankind on our Earth and
atmosphere has become so great that it is judged by some scientists to
be irreversible. To name this influence, a group of geologists recently
proposed to date the Anthropocene back to 1950, with the exponential
growth of the fossil economy. But earlier it was also discussed that the
beginning of the industrial revolution was the starting point, or the
first forms of agriculture or even the first mining in the Stone Age.
The influence of mankind on the Earth is so great that next generations
will be able to see it back in the Earth's layers over hundreds of
thousands of years. But if mankind really creates its own geological
period, how can we deal with it in an adult way without reliance on a
naive belief such as the self-solving ability of God or nature? How can
mankind take responsibility and benefit from its influence? We are also
finding solutions for climate change and depletion of our mineral
resources here on Earth: from the cultivation of cucumbers in the
desert, the mining of platinum into the space to the regreening of
eroded land. Are these breakthrough just a bandaid on an hemorrhage or
can mankind shape the Anthropocene by means of technological
intervention so that we meet a viable future?
With: Andrea Wulf (historian and author of 'The Inventor of Nature', a
biography of explorer Alexander von Humboldt), Bruno Latour (philosopher
associated with Sciences Po in Paris and author of, among others, Facing
Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime ') and Phil Gibbard
(British geologist setting up a working group to see if the Anthropocene
can be introduced as an official geological term).
Originally broadcasted by VPRO in 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW138ZTKioM
[Opinion in Foreign Affairs $ ]
Warming World
*Why Climate Change Matters More Than Anything Else
<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-06-14/warming-world>*
By Joshua Busby
The world seems to be in a state of permanent crisis. The liberal
international order is besieged from within and without. Democracy is in
decline. A lackluster economic recovery has failed to significantly
raise incomes for most people in the West. A rising China is threatening
U.S. dominance, and resurgent international tensions are increasing the
risk of a catastrophic war.
Yet there is one threat that is as likely as any of these to define this
century: climate change. The disruption to the earth's climate will
ultimately command more attention and resources and have a greater
influence on the global economy and international relations than other
forces visible in the world today. Climate change will cease to be a
faraway threat and become one whose effects require immediate action...
- - - - -
The only way of achieving that [2 degrees] is through a system that
recognizes the diffusion of power. To some extent, that diffusion is
already under way, as the United States is ceding hegemonic control in
an increasingly multipolar world, in which more is expected of a rising
China. But the process will have to go much further. Governments will
need to coordinate with subnational units, private corporations,
nongovernmental organizations, and very rich individuals. On climate
change and many other problems, these actors are much better able than
governments to change things at the local level. Creating an order fit
for purpose will not be easy. But the nascent combination of
international agreements and networks of organizations and people
dedicated to solving specific problems offers the best chance to avoid
cataclysmic climate change.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-06-14/warming-world
[real harm]
*Trump's Environmental Rollbacks Put Thousands of Lives at Risk, Harvard
Analysis Finds
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13062018/trump-epa-air-pollution-data-clean-water-regulations-public-health-environmental-laws-harvard-study>**
*The authors used EPA's own risk assessments to estimate the number of
illnesses and early deaths prevented by clean air and water rules Trump
is now trying to erase.
Marianne Lavelle
Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's own numbers, two
Harvard scientists have calculated that 80,000 more lives will be lost
per decade if President Donald Trump's administration fulfills its plans
to roll back clean air and water protections.
The researchers, terming their tally "an extremely conservative
estimate," also estimated that the repeal of regulations will lead to
respiratory problems for more than 1 million people. Their essay was
published Tuesday in the authoritative Journal of the American Medical
Association.
"We felt it was important to take a comprehensive view," said Francesca
Dominici, a biostatistician and co-director of the Data Science
Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "Some
people, when looking at one specific repealing of a rule, might not
think it's important. We wanted to put some numbers on the whole
systematic repeal of rule after rule."...
- - - --
Pruitt's 'Secret Science' Plan Targets Health Data
In their JAMA essay, Dominici and Cutler singled out the move to curb
agency use of science as one of the most potentially consequential,
because Pruitt is targeting epidemiological studies of human subjects.
Although Pruitt calls this a move for greater "transparency," Dominici
said it would in fact bar EPA consideration of precisely the kinds of
studies that formed the basis of the calculations that she and Cutler did.
"They are attacking the science because the science is what is putting
the number of deaths where they are," she said. "It's a tactic to
discredit the science, so that health impact analysis will not be able
to be done any more."
The EPA, which received more than 150,000 public comments in 30 days on
its proposal to restrict agency science, has extended the comment period
on that proposal through August. The agency also has set a July 17
hearing in Washington, D.C., on the plan.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13062018/trump-epa-air-pollution-data-clean-water-regulations-public-health-environmental-laws-harvard-study
*Following Spills and Sinkholes, Mariner East Pipeline Opponents Call on
PA Governor Wolf to Stop Construction
<https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/06/11/following-spills-and-sinkholes-mariner-east-pipeline-opponents-call-pa-governor-wolf-stop-construction>*
By Sharon Kelly - Monday, June 11, 2018
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/06/11/following-spills-and-sinkholes-mariner-east-pipeline-opponents-call-pa-governor-wolf-stop-construction
[advanced science lesson 4 min video]
*ROSSBY WAVES AND EXTREME WEATHER
<http://www.climatemediafactory.com/#%21portfolio?0=4>*
video https://youtu.be/MzW5Isbv2A0
The magnitude and duration of heat waves and floods that occurred in
recent summers are disproportionate. The reasons for these extreme
weather events are changes in the circulation pattern in the northern
hemisphere: quasi-stationary synoptic rossby waves with high amplitude
persist over specific regions for weeks - with substantial impacts on
the society and the environment.
http://www.climatemediafactory.com/#!portfolio?0=4
[fundamentals of circulation 2 min Video]
Global Atmospheric Circulation <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye45DGkqUkE>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye45DGkqUkE
[is this astronomical disavowal?]
*Alien Anthropocene: How Would Other Worlds Battle Climate Change?
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alien-anthropocene-how-would-other-worlds-battle-climate-change/>*
The problem would likely plague every technological civilization
throughout the universe, says astrophysicist Adam Frank..
- - - -
Over the years what I've come to understand is that human-driven climate
change is really an astrobiology problem. It's not a problem of
politics. It's not a problem of businessmen versus environmentalists. We
are talking about something much bigger—a planetary transition, which
some scientists label as the Anthropocene. Climate change is just one
aspect of this new human-dominated period. My argument is that
Anthropocenes may be generic from an astrobiological perspective; what
we're experiencing now may be the sort of transition that everybody goes
through, throughout the universe. And there are probably some common
features to long-lived civilizations and the planets they inhabit...
I really started exploring this in 2014, when I co-authored a paper with
Woody Sullivan of the University of Washington that proposed using
dynamical systems theory to model some of these planetary transitions.
We argued that it's possible to identify the basic paths that
"exocivilizations" might follow and the feedbacks that might occur when
they begin altering their planetary climates. In my latest paper, just
published with several colleagues, we went ahead and actually did some
of that modeling..
So, when it comes to thinking about the interactions between an
advanced technological civilization and its planet, well, we
actually know a lot more about that today than people knew about the
Higgs boson 50 years ago. We have lots of examples of planetary
climates that we've studied right here in the solar system—Venus,
Mars, Titan, Jupiter and so on. And we've got computer models that
can nicely forecast, for instance, the weather on Mars! So we really
do understand climate pretty well. And a civilization, to some
degree, is just a mechanism for transforming energy on a planetary
surface. This gets us into the realms of thermodynamics on global
scales, which is supercool...
So the next step is to incorporate principles of population biology, in
which the idea of "carrying capacity"—the number of organisms that can
be sustainably supported by the local environment—is very important.
This approach can be mathematically applied to the state of a planet,
too. So in our latest modeling work we've got an equation for how the
planet is changing and an equation for how the population is changing.
What ties them together is the predictable result that as environmental
conditions on a planet get worse, the total carrying capacity goes down.
A civilization with a population of n will use the resources of their
planet to increase n, but at the same time by using those resources they
tend to degrade the planet's environment...
In the models we saw these three classes of behaviors, three
trajectories: A "die-off," where the population overshoots the
carrying capacity and then dwindles; a "steady state," where the
population growth slows and ends up within the bounds of carrying
capacity; and then a "collapse," where the population and the
carrying capacity both just drop like a stone...
In the models we saw these three classes of behaviors, three
trajectories: A "die-off," where the population overshoots the carrying
capacity and then dwindles; a "steady state," where the population
growth slows and ends up within the bounds of carrying capacity; and
then a "collapse," where the population and the carrying capacity both
just drop like a stone...
I really do think, though, that the route to our making it through
the Anthropocene runs through other planets. We aren't going to
become a sustainable planetary civilization by only dealing with the
Earth. I give lots of examples in the book, but one of the best is
the fact that the climate models that revealed the possibility of
"nuclear winter"—a global cooling caused by the atmospheric effects
of a nuclear war—relied heavily on data about Martian dust storms.
Talk about cross-fertilization! Those nuclear winter models totally
changed the debate about nuclear weapons, and they came from
understanding another world.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alien-anthropocene-how-would-other-worlds-battle-climate-change/
[academic paper]
*Sustainability and the astrobiological perspective: Framing human
futures in a planetary context
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305414000484>*
AdamFrank and Woodruff Sullivan
Abstract
We explore how questions related to developing a sustainable human
civilization can be cast in terms of astrobiology. In particular we
show how ongoing astrobiological studies of the coupled relationship
between life, planets and their co-evolution can inform new
perspectives and direct new studies in sustainability science. Using
the Drake Equation as a vehicle to explore the gamut of
astrobiology, we focus on its most import factor for sustainability:
the mean lifetime of an ensemble of Species with Energy-Intensive
Technology (SWEIT). We cast the problem into the language of
dynamical system theory and introduce the concept of a trajectory
bundle for SWEIT evolution. We then discuss how astrobiological
results usefully inform the creation of dynamical equations, their
constraints and initial conditions. Three specific examples of how
astrobiological considerations can be folded into discussions of
sustainability are discussed: (1) concepts of planetary
habitability, (2) mass extinctions and their possible relation to
the current, so-called Anthropocene epoch, and (3) today's changes
in atmospheric chemistry (and the climate change it entails) in the
context of pervious epochs of biosphere-driven atmospheric and
climate alteration (i.e. the Great Oxidation Event).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305414000484
- - - -
[another, related study]
Earth as a Hybrid Planet: The Anthropocene in an Evolutionary
Astrobiological Context
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305417300425>
Adam Frank and Axel Kleidon and Marina Alberti
Abstract
We develop a classification scheme for the evolutionary state of
planets based on the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of their coupled
systems, including the presence of a biosphere and the possibility
of what we call an "agency-dominated biosphere" (i.e. an
energy-intensive technological species). The premise is that Earth's
entry into the "Anthropocene" represents what might be, from an
astrobiological perspective, a predictable planetary transition. We
explore this problem from the perspective of the solar system and
exoplanet studies. Our classification discriminates planets by the
forms of free energy generation driven from stellar forcing. We then
explore how timescales for global evolutionary processes on Earth
might be synchronized with ecological transformations driven by
increases in energy harvesting and its consequences (which might
have reached a turning point with global urbanization). Finally, we
describe quantitatively the classification scheme based on the
maintenance of chemical disequilibrium in the past and current Earth
systems and on other worlds in the solar system. In this
perspective, the beginning of the Anthropocene can be seen as the
onset of the hybridization of the planet – a transitional stage from
one class of planetary systems interaction to another. For Earth,
this stage occurs as the effects of human civilization yield not
just new evolutionary pressures, but new selected directions for
novel planetary ecosystem functions and their capacity to generate
disequilibrium and enhance planetary dissipation.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305417300425
[warnings about bad ideas and bad policy]
*One Treaty to rule them all
<https://www.energy-charter-dirty-secrets.org/>*
The ever-expanding Energy Charter Treaty and the power it gives
corporations to halt the energy transition
Published by Corporate Europe Observatory and the Transnational Institute
June 2018
We know what we have to do to solve the climate crisis. We must keep
coal, oil and gas in the ground. But the fossil fuel industry has a
secret powerful weapon to keep cooking the planet: The Energy Charter
Treaty (ECT). It is on the brink of a massive geographical expansion
into Africa, Asia and Latin America, threatening to bind yet more
countries to corporate-friendly energy policies.
The report is available at www.energy-charter-dirty-secrets.org
Executive summaries are available in English, German, Italian, French,
Spanish
Watch the 4' video https://youtu.be/lLVvwOrk91Q
Thanks for helping to spread the word
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- Tweet about it. If you would like to re-tweet, see today's tweets from
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https://www.facebook.com/CorporateEuropeObservatory/ and
https://www.facebook.com/TransnationalInstitute/
Key findings:
No trade and investment agreement anywhere in the world has
triggered more investor-state lawsuits than the ECT. At the time of
going to press in June 2018, the ECT Secretariat listed a total of
114 corporate claims filed under the treaty. Given the opacity of
the system, the actual number of ECT claims could be much higher.
In recent years the number of ECT investor lawsuits has exploded.
While just 19 cases were registered during the first 10 years of the
agreement (1998-2008), 75 investor lawsuits were filed in the last
five years alone (2013-2017).* This trend is likely to continue.
More recently, investors have begun to use the ECT to sue countries
in Western Europe. While in the first 15 years of the agreement 89
per cent of ECT-lawsuits hit states in Central and Eastern Europe,
and Central Asia, today Spain and Italy head the list of the
most-sued countries. The ECT remains the only effective treaty in
which Western European states have accepted ISDS with countries that
are also capital exporters to them. It is also the only agreement
which allows for investor-state arbitrations against the EU as a whole.
More and more money is at stake for states and taxpayers. There are
16 ECT suits in which investors – mostly large corporations or very
wealthy individuals – sued for US$1 billion or more in damages.*
Some of the most expensive claims in the history of ISDS include ECT
cases such as Vattenfall's challenge to Germany over its exit from
nuclear power (over US$5.1 billion), and the largest ISDS award
ever, a US$50 billion order against Russia in the Yukos cases. Total
legal costs average US$11 million in ISDS disputes, but can be much
higher.
Corporations claim compensation for loss of 'future profits'. Oil
company Rockhopper is not just claiming the US$40-50 million from
Italy which it actually spent on exploring an oil field in the
Adriatic Sea. It also claims an additional US$200-300 million for
hypothetical profits the field could have made had Italy not banned
new oil and gas projects off the coast.
Governments have been ordered or agreed to pay more than US$51.2
billion in damages from the public purse* – roughly equalling the
annual investment needed to provide access to energy for all those
people in the world who currently lack it. Outstanding ECT claims*
have a collective value of US$35 billion – far more than the
estimated annual amount of money needed for Africa to adapt to
climate change.
Investors who have filed lawsuits under the ECT come mostly from
Western Europe. Companies and individuals registered in the
Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the UK (or in the tax haven
Cyprus) make up 59 per cent of the 153 investors involved in claims.*
The majority of ECT claims are intra-EU disputes, yet sideline EU
courts. 67 per cent of ECT investor lawsuits* were brought by an
investor from one EU member state against the government of another
member state, claiming large sums of public money arguably not
available to them under the EU legal system. That means that nearly
half of all known intra-EU investment disputes were launched under
the ECT (the others being based on bilateral treaties). In March
2018 the European Court of Justice ruled that intra-EU ISDS
proceedings under these bilateral treaties violate EU law as they
sideline EU courts – an argument which could also apply to the ECT.
The ECT is prone to abuse by letterbox companies, which mainly exist
on paper and are often used for tax evasion and money laundering.
For example 23 of the 24 "Dutch" investors who have filed
ECT-lawsuits* are letterbox companies. They include Khan Netherlands
(used by Canadian mining company Khan Resources to sue Mongolia even
though Canada is not even a party to the ECT), and Isolux
Infrastructure Netherlands and Charanne (both used by Spanish
businessmen Luis Delso and José Gomis, two of the richest Spaniards,
to sue Spain). Thanks to the ECT's overly broad definition of
"investor" and "investment", states can effectively be sued by
investors from around the globe, including by their own nationals.
The ECT is increasingly being used by speculative financial
investors such as portfolio investors and holding companies. In 88
per cent of lawsuits over cuts to support schemes for renewable
energy in Spain, the claimant is not a renewable energy firm, but an
equity fund or other type of financial investor, often with links to
the coal, oil, gas, and nuclear industries. Several of the funds
only invested when Spain was already in full-blown economic crisis
mode and some changes to the support schemes had already been made
(which the funds later argued undermined their profit expectations).
Some investors view the ECT not only as an insurance policy, but as
an additional source of profit.
The ECT is a powerful tool in the hands of big oil, gas, and coal
companies to discourage governments from transitioning to clean
energy. They have used the ECT and other investment deals to
challenge oil drilling bans, the rejection of pipelines, taxes on
fossil fuels, and moratoria on and phase-outs of controversial types
of energy. Corporations have also used the ECT to bully
decision-makers into submission. Vattenfall's €1.4 billion legal
attack on environmental standards for a coal-fired power plant in
Germany forced the local government to relax the regulations to
settle the case.
The ECT can be used to attack governments that aim to reduce energy
poverty and make electricity affordable. Under the ECT Bulgaria and
Hungary have already been sued for compensation in the hundreds of
millions, in part for curbing big energy's profits and pushing for
lower electricity prices. Investment lawyers are considering similar
action against the UK, where the government has announced a cap on
energy prices to end rip-off bills.
A small number of arbitrators dominate ECT decision-making. 25
arbitrators have captured the decision-making in 44 per cent of the
ECT cases while two-thirds have also acted as legal counsel in other
investment treaty disputes. Acting as arbitrator and lawyer in
different cases has led to growing concerns over conflicts of
interest, particularly because this small group of lawyers have
secured extremely corporate-friendly interpretations of the ECT,
paving the way for even more expensive claims against states in the
future.
Five elite law firms have been involved in nearly half of all known
ECT investor lawsuits. Law firms have been key drivers of the surge
in ECT cases, relentlessly advertising the treaty's vast litigation
options to their corporate clients, encouraging them to sue countries.
Third party funders are becoming more and more established in ECT
arbitrations. These investment funds finance the legal costs in
investor-state disputes in exchange for a share in any granted award
or settlement. This is likely to further fuel the boom in
arbitrations, increase costs for cash-strapped governments, and make
them more likely to cave in to corporate demands.
There are concerns about self-dealing and institutionalised
corruption in institutions that administer ECT disputes. For example
the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce
(SCC), prominent in ECT disputes, is problematic because its
arbitrations are particularly secretive, prone to conflicts of
interest, and potentially more biased against states than other
proceedings.
Polluting companies and for-profit investment lawyers enjoy
privileged access to the ECT Secretariat, which puts into question
the latter's neutrality and ability to act in the interest of the
ECT's signatory states as well as a transition off fossil fuels.
More than 80 per cent of the companies on the ECT's Industry
Advisory Panel make money with oil, gas, and coal. Two thirds of the
lawyers on the ECT's Legal Advisory Task Force have a financial
stake in investor lawsuits against states. Both advisory groups are
given ample opportunities to influence the Secretariat, ECT member
states, and the wider Charter process in their own interest. Several
high-ranking officials at the ECT Secretariat were with arbitration
law firms before and/or after they worked at the Secretariat.
Many countries across the world are about to join the ECT,
threatening to bind them into corporate-friendly energy policies.
Jordan, Yemen, Burundi, and Mauritania are most advanced in the
accession process (ratifying the ECT internally). Next in line is
Pakistan (where investment arbitration is controversial, but which
has already been invited to accede to the ECT), followed by a number
of countries in different stages of preparing their accession
reports (Serbia, Morocco, Swaziland – renamed eSwatini in April 2018
–, Chad, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia, Niger, Gambia, Uganda,
Nigeria, and Guatemala). Many more countries have signed the
non-binding International Energy Charter political declaration,
which is considered the first step towards accession to the legally
binding Energy Charter Treaty.
There is an alarming lack of awareness about the ECT's political and
financial risks in the ECT's potential new signatory states.
Officials from ministries with experience in negotiating investment
treaties and defending investor-state arbitrations are largely
absent from the process, which is being led by energy ministries.
This is worrying as many of these countries already have disastrous
experience with investor lawsuits under other investment agreements,
which could multiply if they sign on to the ECT.
The expansion process is aggressively promoted by the ECT
Secretariat, the EU, and the arbitration industry, who are eager to
gain access to the rich energy resources in the global South and to
expand their own power and profit opportunities. While they downplay
or dismiss the risks to states of acceding to the ECT, they promote
the agreement as a necessary condition for the attraction of foreign
investment, and in particular clean energy investment for all. But
there is currently no evidence that the agreement helps to reduce
energy poverty and facilitate investment, let alone investment into
renewable energy.
But there is some good news. Around the world, the tide is turning
against ECT-style super-rights for corporations. Campaigners, activists,
academics, and parliamentarians are beginning to ask critical questions
about the ECT. The agreements and the investor lawsuits it has enabled
could also come under legal fire from EU courts. More countries could
follow the example of Russia and Italy, which have already turned their
back on the ECT.
This report warns of the dangers of expanding the ECT to an ever-growing
number of countries and concludes with eight key reasons for leaving –
or not joining – the ECT.
in English here: www.energy-charter-dirty-secrets.org
And here's the ES and FR pages for the report on our site
(unfortunately, we have the video and the infographic only in EN).
https://corporateeurope.org/fr/international-trade/2018/06/un-trait-pour-les-gouverner-tous
https://corporateeurope.org/es/international-trade/2018/06/un-tratado-para-gobernarlos-todos
*This Day in Climate History - June 15, 2010
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJW4_FvVKo> - from D.R. Tucker*
June 15, 2010: In an address from the Oval Office, President Obama declares:
"For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily
accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked
about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil
fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of
urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path
forward has been blocked -- not only by oil industry lobbyists, but
also by a lack of political courage and candor.
"The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries
like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that
should be right here in America. Each day, we send nearly $1
billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And
today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being
threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.
"We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy
unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet
that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the
moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to
unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny.
"This is not some distant vision for America. The transition away
from fossil fuels is going to take some time, but over the last year
and a half, we’ve already taken unprecedented action to jumpstart
the clean energy industry. As we speak, old factories are reopening
to produce wind turbines, people are going back to work installing
energy-efficient windows, and small businesses are making solar panels.
"Consumers are buying more efficient cars and trucks, and families
are making their homes more energy-efficient. Scientists and
researchers are discovering clean energy technologies that someday
will lead to entire new industries.
"Each of us has a part to play in a new future that will benefit all
of us. As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean
energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of
jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize
the moment. And only if we rally together and act as one nation –-
workers and entrepreneurs; scientists and citizens; the public and
private sectors.
"When I was a candidate for this office, I laid out a set of
principles that would move our country towards energy independence.
Last year, the House of Representatives acted on these principles by
passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill –- a bill
that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for
America’s businesses.
"Now, there are costs associated with this transition. And there
are some who believe that we can’t afford those costs right now. I
say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy -–
because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security,
and our environment are far greater.
"So I’m happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either
party -– as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil
fuels. Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our
buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we
should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes
from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry
only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on
research and development -– and want to rapidly boost our
investments in such research and development.
"All of these approaches have merit, and deserve a fair hearing in
the months ahead. But the one approach I will not accept is
inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that
this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet. You
know, the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough
planes and tanks in World War II. The same thing was said about our
ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely
on the surface of the moon. And yet, time and again, we have
refused to settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom.
Instead, what has defined us as a nation since our founding is the
capacity to shape our destiny -– our determination to fight for the
America we want for our children. Even if we’re unsure exactly what
that looks like. Even if we don’t yet know precisely how we’re
going to get there. We know we’ll get there."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJW4_FvVKo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/us/politics/16obama.html?pagewanted=all
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