v. The Climate Column
It might not all be terrible Patrick Dunne The last month has seen a remarkable number of positive climate stories. Landmark court cases have gone against big fossil fuel companies; reports by major economic thinktanks have critiqued the fossil fuel industry as a whole; the boards of several companies have found themselves embattled by activists at AGMs. Even Gardeners’ World has turned activist, highlighting the plight of peatlands and the incredible damage our use of peat in gardening compost wreaks on the environment. This column was going to be all about peat this month. I have been having an ongoing 'dialogue' (to put it politely) with a national gardening and DIY chain store concerning their over-stocking of peat-based products and much smaller selection of peat-free options. I have had tweets and queries ignored, emails left unanswered, and website chat-bot conversations going mysteriously quiet after I asked the question: 'What is your policy on peat?' Fortunately, it appears that years of pressure by environmental groups and the broken promises of self-regulation and industry-imposed targets have caught up with the peat industry: Defra has announced plans to ban peat in bagged compost by 2024 (For Peat’s Sake, 2021). It is unclear whether commercial nurseries will also have their access to peat products restricted, but if the position taken by Gardeners’ World is revealing of the hearts and minds of the British gardener, then we seem to be moving firmly away from this
product. This is a win in anyone's book. Meanwhile, I look forward with curiosity to the eventual response to my various correspondences with the aforementioned big brand gardening superstore, and will be delighted to see their product line updated. In bigger news, three of the largest— and the absolute worst —oil and gas companies have had a bad time of it in courtrooms and boardrooms across the world. This really is something to celebrate. I’ve often felt that there is a lot of big talk from politicians and industry leaders about what they are doing about climate change, but that you very rarely see these big corporations lose in court, get publicly dressed down at government level, or be forced to respond to legislation that will meaningfully impact their profits, strategies and futures. Not until we see these things really happening will we be able to say that the great and necessary turn away from our current system has begun. Did we see the beginning of that turn last month? In the Hague, Shell was ordered by the court to reduce its emissions at a much higher rate than the company would like. In the USA, shareholder rebellions have forced Chevron and Exxon into corners that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago (Ambrose, 2021). These companies have not only lied about their own research into the impact of their industry on the climate, but they are also implicated in all sorts of dreadful human rights abuses around the world— both historic and ongoing. These range from oil
