Time to blame climate change for extreme weather?

An editorial by Anil Ananthaswamy in New Scientist: It is time to start asking the hard questions. Countless people in flood-stricken Pakistan have lost families and livelihoods. Who can they hold responsible and turn to for reparations?

Less than a decade ago, these questions would have been dismissed outright. "Many scientists at the time said that you can never blame an individual weather event on climate change," says Myles Allen of the University of Oxford. But a small meeting of scientists in Colorado last week - organised by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, among others - suggests the tide is turning.

The aim of the Attribution of Climate-Related Events workshop was to discuss what information is needed to determine the extent to which human-induced climate change can be blamed for extreme weather events - possibly even straight after they have happened.

…The basic idea in producing such a figure is straightforward. Run thousands of simulations of the climate as it is and as it would have been without human influences, then compare the number of times a given event occurs in each scenario. In 2004, technological limitations made it impossible to run simulations for long enough to reproduce the 2003 heatwave, so the analysis involved making certain assumptions.

…Ultimately, though, putting numbers on the consequences of climate change will open the door to legal challenges. "There is a possibility that people who are adversely affected by climate change might seek compensation from those they feel are responsible," says Allen.

…There is another reason for finding out how much climate change is to blame for various events. "Hundreds of billions of dollars are potentially available [in a UN fund] to help developing countries adapt to climate change," says Allen. Who gets what share of the funds depends on being able to say which regions have suffered most as a result of climate change. For now, at least, that remains an open question….

Hurricane Mitch in 1998

World tribunal would police climate 'crimes'

Laura Guachalla in SciDev.net: Demands for a world tribunal with the power to punish climate 'crimes' were presented to the United Nations on Monday (26 April). The Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal emerged as a key proposal of the summit — the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth — held in Bolivia last week (19-22 April), said to have been attended by more than 31, 000 people (see Bolivian alternative climate conference begins).

The tribunal would have the legal capacity to prevent, prosecute, and punish states, companies and individuals who — by act or omission — are causing environmental contamination and climate change.

"I think this court is completely feasible. Not only that, it is urgent and indispensable," said Miguel D'Escoto, former president of the UN General Assembly, one of the higher-profile participants at the summit, which was organised for developing countries, NGOs and grassroots organisations after dissatisfaction with the outcome of the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference last year (November).

"This is a court at the same level as the international court of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide," said the Belgian sociologist, François Houtart, arguing that polluting and causing climate change were also crimes against humanity….

Logo of the International Court of Justice, principal judicial organ of the United Nations

Great Barrier Reef ship crash was not reported for hour and a half

James Meikle in the Guardian (UK): Maritime investigators are examining why the captain of a Chinese coal ship that ploughed into the Great Barrier Reef leaving a two-mile scar up to 250 metres wide did not alert Australian authorities for an hour and a half. A report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said the Shen Neng 1 hit the reef and came to a shuddering stop just after 5pm on 3 April but the captain did not report it until 6.40pm.

Experts said the damage to coral may take 20 years to heal although oil that spilled out of the ship's hull had largely dispersed. Some is thought to be washing up on the beach of a wildlife sanctuary. The captain and chief officer of the ship appeared briefly at Gladstone magistrates court in Queensland and were bailed.

Jichang Wang, 47, the captain, is charged with liability for a vessel causing damage in a marine park, an offence carrying a maximum fine of A$55,000 (£33,250). Xuegang Wang, 44, said to have been in charge of the vessel when it hit the reef, faces a maximum three years' imprisonment and a fine of $220,000…..

NASA shot of the Great Barrier Reef

Global warming lawsuit settled in Santa Monica, California

The Santa Monica Daily Express reports on what sounds like a precedent-setting case: The federal government on Friday settled a lawsuit in which City Hall and environmental watchdog groups accused two U.S. agencies of financing energy projects overseas without considering impacts on global warming. The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im) and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) agreed to provide a combined $500 million in financing for renewable energy projects and take into account greenhouse gas emissions associated with projects each company supports.

Environmentalists said the lawsuit set a precedent by allowing those injured by climate change to sue under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which was approved in 1970. The lawsuit was originally filed in San Francisco federal court in 2002 by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the city of Boulder, Colo. Santa Monica later joined the suit, along with California cities Arcata and Oakland, claiming that fossil fuel projects financed by loans from the Ex-Im and OPIC produced emissions equivalent to nearly eight percent of the world's annual carbon dioxide emissions, or nearly one third of annual U.S. emissions in 2003.

Deputy City Attorney Adam Radinsky of the Consumer Protection Unit argued that Santa Monica is being disproportionately affected by climate change because it is a popular tourist destination that relies heavily on a stable environment.

… The Bush administration had argued that the "alleged impacts of global climate change are too remote and speculative" to require the environmental reviews sought by the plaintiffs. It also argued that the two agencies are exempt from NEPA. The settlement filed Friday was reached after a federal judge rejected those arguments and ordered the parties to negotiate an agreement.

…Under the settlement, the Export-Import Bank, which provides loan guarantees and other financing for overseas projects by U.S. companies, agreed to develop a greenhouse gas policy and start considering carbon dioxide emissions when evaluating fossil fuel projects for investment. The Overseas Private Investment Corp., which supports American investment in developing countries, agreed to set a goal of reducing by 20 percent the greenhouse gas emissions associated with projects it supports over the next 10 years....

An early fossil fuel project in Cambria, Italy

Science paves way for climate lawsuits

Guardian (UK): People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said. Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade.

He said: "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected by climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses. This is going to be hugely important."

Allen's team has used the new technique to work out whether global warming worsened the UK floods in autumn 2000, which inundated 10,000 properties, disrupted power supplies and led to train services being cancelled, motorways closed and 11,000 people evacuated from their homes - at a total cost of £1bn. He would not comment on the results before publication, but said people affected by floods could "potentially" use a positive finding to begin legal action.

The technique involves running two computer models to simulate the conditions that led to extreme weather events. One model includes human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases, the second assumes the industrial revolution never happened and that carbon levels in the atmosphere have not increased over the last century. Comparing the results pins down the impact of man-made global warming. "As the science has evolved this is now possible, it's just a question of computing power," he said….

Lady Justice in the Czech Republic, shot by Michal Manas (Snek01), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

Eroding Alaska native village sues energy companies

The Environment News Service reports on a trend that will only gather momentum In the years ahead – climate justice lawsuits: The arctic coastal village of Kivalina and a federally recognized tribe, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, are suing two dozen oil, coal and power companies that they claim have made the climate warmer, causing their land and homes to slide into the Chukchi Sea. Nine oil companies, as well as 14 power companies and one coal company are named in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The village of Kivalina is located on the tip of an eight mile long a barrier island located between the Chukchi Sea and a lagoon at the mouth of the Kivalina River 80 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It has been threatened by erosion caused by wave action and sea storms for several decades and a relocation committee was first formed by the community 20 years ago.

An Inupiat village numbering nearly 400 people, Kivalina is the only community in the area where people hunt bowhead whales. The hunters of Kivalina engage in spring whaling from openings in the sea ice - openings that have widened year by year until now open water appears during times when the sea used to ice over. The original village was located at the north end of the Kivalina Lagoon but was relocated. Due to severe sea wave erosion during storms, Kivalina hopes to relocate again to a new site nearby and studies of alternate sites are ongoing.

Financing for the move is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The community has encountered difficulties in choosing a new village site and funding the relocation effort.

"An increase in the frequency and intensity of sea storms, degradation and melting of permafrost, and accelerated erosion of the shoreline have recently forced the village into a state of emergency," according to a 2006 Relocation Master Plan written by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

…Climate change scientist Dr. Gunter Weller of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks says Kivalina and another coastal village, Shishmaref, which is not part of the lawsuit, have suffered from erosion that he attributes to three factors, all deriving from global warming.

The townships must be relocated, at an estimated cost of more than $100 million, so they should stand a good chance of a court upholding a claim that they suffered damages because of global warming, Weller has said. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Kivalina by two nonprofit law groups, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment and the Native American Rights Fund, as well as six other law firms.

Named in the lawsuit are BP PLC, BP American Inc., BP Products North America, Inc., Chevron Corp. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., ConocoPhillips Co., ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Shell Oil Co. Also named were coal company Peabody Energy Corp., and power companies AES Corp., American Electric Power Co., Inc., American Electric Power Services Corp., DTE Energy Co., Duke Energy Corp., Dynegy Holdings, Inc., Edison International, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., Mirant Corp., NRG Energy, Pinnacle West Capital Corp., Reliant Energy Inc., The Southern Co., and Xcel Energy Inc.

The Envronment News Service reports on a trend that will only gather momentum In the years ahead – climate justice lawsuits: The arctic coastal village of Kivalina and a federally recognized tribe, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, are suing two dozen oil, coal and power companies that they claim have made the climate warmer, causing their land and homes to slide into the Chukchi Sea. Nine oil companies, as well as 14 power companies and one coal company are named in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The village of Kivalina is located on the tip of an eight mile long a barrier island located between the Chukchi Sea and a lagoon at the mouth of the Kivalina River 80 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It has been threatened by erosion caused by wave action and sea storms for several decades and a relocation committee was first formed by the community 20 years ago.

An Inupiat village numbering nearly 400 people, Kivalina is the only community in the area where people hunt bowhead whales. The hunters of Kivalina engage in spring whaling from openings in the sea ice - openings that have widened year by year until now open water appears during times when the sea used to ice over. The original village was located at the north end of the Kivalina Lagoon but was relocated. Due to severe sea wave erosion during storms, Kivalina hopes to relocate again to a new site nearby and studies of alternate sites are ongoing.

Financing for the move is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The community has encountered difficulties in choosing a new village site and funding the relocation effort.

"An increase in the frequency and intensity of sea storms, degradation and melting of permafrost, and accelerated erosion of the shoreline have recently forced the village into a state of emergency," according to a 2006 Relocation Master Plan written by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

…Climate change scientist Dr. Gunter Weller of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks says Kivalina and another coastal village, Shishmaref, which is not part of the lawsuit, have suffered from erosion that he attributes to three factors, all deriving from global warming.

The townships must be relocated, at an estimated cost of more than $100 million, so they should stand a good chance of a court upholding a claim that they suffered damages because of global warming, Weller has said. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Kivalina by two nonprofit law groups, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment and the Native American Rights Fund, as well as six other law firms.

Named in the lawsuit are BP PLC, BP American Inc., BP Products North America, Inc., Chevron Corp. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., ConocoPhillips Co., ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Shell Oil Co. Also named were coal company Peabody Energy Corp., and power companies AES Corp., American Electric Power Co., Inc., American Electric Power Services Corp., DTE Energy Co., Duke Energy Corp., Dynegy Holdings, Inc., Edison International, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., Mirant Corp., NRG Energy, Pinnacle West Capital Corp., Reliant Energy Inc., The Southern Co., and Xcel Energy Inc.

Gavel image by AQMD, Wikimedia Commons