The Climate Column Patrick Dunne

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

spills to the imprisonment and murder of activists and indigenous leaders protesting the destruction of their lands— all for the Western addiction to cheap energy and products. Seeing these organisations on the back foot, even briefly, is a real source of hope.

Here in the UK, the excellent Paid to Pollute group are taking the government to court over their continued support of oil and gas exploration and exploitation, despite their avowed commitment to the Paris Accords. There have been a number of these cases brought against national governments recently, and it is great to see similar action taking place here. Paid to Pollute describes the situation thus: Since signing the Paris Agreement in 2016, the UK Government has paid £3.2bn of public money to North Sea oil and gas companies. In recent years, companies like Shell and BP were actually paid to pollute. They paid us next to nothing in tax. We paid them millions. All while they laid off thousands of workers in the UK and continued to wreck the climate. We say, ‘No more!’ We’re taking the Government to court to pull the plug on public payments for big polluters. (Paid to Pollute, 2021) I can definitely get behind this, and I hope you can too. Furthermore, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report this month stating that: The pledges by governments to date— even if fully achieved —fall well short of what is required to bring global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050 and give the world an even chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C... There is no need for investments in new fossil fuel supply beyond 2021. (Raworth et al, 2021) Wow. That means no new coal mines, oil fields or pipelines anywhere in the world from the end of this year. Another moment of brightness. We have also seen the G7 meet in Cornwall this past month. Straight away, we could see how seriously the UK government was taking its commitment to stopping climate change, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Cornwall to deliver speeches about being a climate leader... having travelled there from London by plane. You couldn't make it up— although it does appear that the PM is making it up as he goes along. But at least there was much talk about climate at the G7 and some excellent activists made a powerful statement about a world 'drowning in promises', so that’s some good news among the farce. So, what to make of the last month? Firstly, I believe it is important to mark victories whenever and wherever we can get them. Every court case, every ban on detrimental products, every kiboshing of a fossil fuel infrastructure plan is worth celebrating. The conversation is moving at last. Who would have believed that governments would be defending themselves against their own citizens over their failure to uphold the Paris Agreement, or that Shell would lose a court case of the magnitude of the one they lost this month? But at the same time, we mustn’t be complacent. These industries will not go quietly, and the defendants are some of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world. I have no doubt that they will be putting all their resources into discrediting their opponents and fighting against the losses they have suffered in court, so prepare for the appeals and the attacks, both direct and by proxy. We must also be mindful of the communities whose voices are still not being heard, much less guiding global policy and legislation: the indigenous peoples in Ecuador who are fighting Exxon; the communities of the Niger Delta who have been poisoned and displaced by Shell; the Aboriginal communities in Australia who have had their sacred sites destroyed by coal companies. The list of the dispossessed keeps growing, but legal victories and reparations for these communities are still a long way off. The battle against the polluters and the fossil fuel industries, the battle to protect enough of the environment and biosphere to ensure a liveable planet, is inextricably bound to justice for the

communities across the world who are being displaced and destroyed to support the wasteful lifestyles that we enjoy in Edinburgh, Sydney and New York. I hope that these voices will be represented at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow in November this year; above all, I hope they will be heard.

On that note, if Glasgow-based or Glasgowadjacent readers have space to host activists or frontline community members in November, a programme has been set up to match hosts with some of the people travelling to COP26. Find out more at www.humanhotel.com/cop26 and, in the meantime, keep up the good fight.

References Ambrose, J. ‘‘Black Wednesday’ for big oil as courtrooms and boardrooms turn on industry’. The Guardian. theguardian.com/environment (29/05/2021) For Peat’s Sake (2021) ‘Garden Organic welcomes England Peat Action plan as a step in the right direction.’ News story on forpeatssake.org.uk/news/garden-organicwelcomes-england-peat-action-plan (19/05/2021) Paid to Pollute (2021) paidtopollute.org.uk Rawort, K. et al (2021) ‘G7 leaders should end not just coal, but also oil and gas finance in 2021.’ Thomas Reuters Foundation. news.trust.org (09/06/2021)