White, Alex, and Luke O Callaghan-White. "Taking Governments to Court: Climate Litigation and Its Consequences". Institute of International and European Affairs. July 30, 2021. https://www.iiea.com/...
Climate legal action is increasingly being taken against national governments. Litigation has successfully forced some countries to radically improve on their commitments to tackle the effects and limit the extent of anthropogenic climate change. This paper examines three recent European cases that produced landmark judgments. These cases demonstrate the significant potential and confirm the emergence of a strong interventionist trend in the approach of domestic courts in Europe to the issue of environmental protection. Data and precedent suggest that such cases will continue to be an effective means of ensuring that governments globally recognize and meet their responsibility and commitment.
Posted on 23/04/22
Recent Abstracts
- Pucker, Kenneth P., and Andrew King. "ESG Investing isn’t Designed to Save the Planet".
Harvard Business Review.
(August 01, 2022).
https://hbr.org/...
ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing is widely assumed to be designed to reward companies that are helping the planet. However, ESG ratings, which underlie ESG fund selection, are based on the impact the changing world has on companies’ profit and loss. Asset managers have deliberately allowed the confusion to go unrefuted and even encourage it since ESG funds are highly popular and come with higher management fees. The harm is that ESG investing leads policymakers to believe that the market can remedy the threatened environmental and socioeconomic disaster when only prompt significant government intervention can avert imminent climate catastrophe.Posted on 15/04/24
- Moallemi, Enayat A, Edoardo Bertone, Sibel Eker, Lei Gao, Katrina Szetey, Nick Taylor, and Brett A Bryan. "A Review of Systems Modelling for Local Sustainability".
IOP Publishing.
(November 08, 2021).
https://www.researchgate.net/...
To counter destructive non-linear system responses, tipping points, and spillover effects, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to transform the world towards societal well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental protection. Achieving the SDGs, however, is challenged by the performance of interconnected sectors and the complexity of their interactions. The SDGs are a holistic agenda intended to guide socioeconomic development policies and priorities, funding and government interventions at international, national, and local levels for their achievement. With the increasing adoption of the SDGs at all levels, systems models are also increasingly used for the sustainable development and operation of communities in support of planning for sustainability.Posted on 11/04/24
- Novak, Marijana, Blake Robinson, Max Russell, Angelica Greco, Marion Guénard, Olga Horn, Burcu Tuncer, et al.. "Circular City Actions Framework – Bringing the Circular Economy to Every City".
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability.
"n.d."
https://circulars.iclei.org/...
A circular economy calls for collaboration among the public-, private, and third-sector (civil society) stakeholders and requires governments, businesses and communities to be creative and flexible. A circular community promotes an equitable transition to sustainability across the urban space through multiple city functions and departments in cross-sectoral collaboration with research institutions, local businesses, and community residents. The transition from a linear to a more circular economy offers cities the tools to support social equity, local job creation, public health, and community wealth. In a circular economy, existing materials that were once used in a product’s original life cycle are recycled and reused while minimizing disposable waste and natural resource extraction.Posted on 10/04/24
- John Cook. "The 97% consensus on global warming".
Skeptical Science.
(March 26, 2023).
https://skepticalscience.com/...
Despite claims to the contrary, 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming. In science, consensus is when the vast majority of experts agree on a fundamental principle. In climate science, more than 97% of experts agree that CO₂ traps heat and that adding it to the atmosphere warms the planet. Public perception of the scientific consensus concerning global warming is an important gateway into other enlightened climate-related attitudes, including policy support. This article looks at summaries of the key studies and into the degree of consensus based on analyses of large samples of peer-reviewed climate science literature or surveys of climate and Earth scientists. The slightly different methodologies used reached very similar conclusions.Posted on 08/04/24
- Laila Mendy, Mikael Karlsson and Daniel Lindvall. "Counteracting climate denial: A systematic review".
Sage Publications.
(January 20, 2024).
https://journals.sagepub.com/...
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, climate denial is still widespread. While much research has characterized climate denial, comparatively fewer studies have systematically examined how to counteract it. This review fills this gap by exploring the research about counteracting climate denial, the effectiveness and the intentions behind intervention. Through a systematic selection and analysis of 65 scientific articles, this review finds multiple intervention forms, including education, message framing and inoculation. The intentions of intervening range from changing understanding of climate science, science advocacy, influencing mitigation attitudes and counteracting vested industry. The review offers guiding questions for counteracting climate denialism.Posted on 03/04/24
- Mammitzsch, Julie. "Legal Rights of Nature".
HOPE Australia.
(April 01, 2023).
https://www-006.clevvi.com.au/...
Resulting from the Rights to Nature movement, Mount Taranaki on New Zealand's north island was granted rights equal to those of a human and assigned legal personhood in 2017. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, enabling the protection and recognition of each person. Some say we need such rights for nature, to allow us to preserve sacred natural spaces. We need laws that enable individuals to claim nature’s rights since the environment can’t speak up for itself. One major barrier to such civic action and laws is that most land is private property and must be treated as such without legal consequences. Although interested in the protection and preservation of nature, many countries and communities are having difficulty granting such rights to their ecosystems.Posted on 01/04/24
- Szetey, Katrina, Enayat A. Moallemi, Emma Ashton, Martin Butcher, Beth Sprunt, and Brett A. Bryan. "Co-Creating Local Socioeconomic Pathways for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals".
Sustainability Science.
(January 07, 2021).
https://doi.org/...
Local communities must focus on a locally-relevant subset of goals and understand potential future pathways for key drivers influencing local sustainability to contribute to overall national- and global-scale SDG achievement. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize the importance of action across all scales and levels to achieve a sustainable future. A participatory method to co-create local socioeconomic pathways was developed by downscaling the SDGs and driving forces of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) through contextual analysis and community engagement. The SSPs and SDGs were linked by identifying the driving forces and describing how they affect the achievement of local SDGs.Posted on 13/08/23
- Wallace-Wells, David. "When Will Climate Change Make the Earth Too Hot For Humans?".
New York Magazine.
(July 10, 2017).
https://nymag.com/...
This essay is the result of numerous interviews, decades of scientific research, and abstract mathematics of climate change about the possible end of the world as we know it. We’re told that it’s worse than we could possibly imagine and whatever we fear, we’re “barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible”. While acknowledging that ongoing global warming will “eventually” have “very severe consequences”, the Climate Feedback blog argues that the concept of Earth becoming uninhabitable within anywhere near the timescales suggested in the article are scientifically dubious and “pure hyperbole”, disregarding the latest foreboding IPCC report.Posted on 10/08/23
- Kotzé, Louis J., and Sam Adelman. "Environmental Law and the Unsustainability of Sustainable Development: A Tale of Disenchantment and of Hope".
Law Critique.
(September 08, 2022).
https://doi.org/... (Contributed by G. Autin).
The sustainable development principle drives environmentally destructive neoliberal economic growth that exploits and degrades the local ecology. Despite well-meaning intentions behind sustainable development, it facilitates exploitative economic development activities that exacerbate systemic inequalities and injustices and the global “market-is-king” model of capitalism. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be adopted as a global sustainability objective for all societies. Instead, they must be applied in a way that is community-centric, ecologically-balanced and culturally-sensitive. Like 𝘣𝘶𝘦𝘯 𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘳, they must offer the potential to critically rethink how societies could re-orientate to radically different locally beneficial socio-ecological sustainabilityPosted on 07/08/23
- Our World in Data team. "Sustainable Development Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure".
Our World in Data.
July 18, 2023.
https://ourworldindata.org/...
Sustainable Development Goal 9 is to “build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”, according to the United Nations. For SDG 9, the UN has defined 8 targets that specify the goals and 12 indicators that represent the metrics by which the world aims to track whether these targets are achieved. This toolkit provided by Our World in Data presents the global perspective on where the world stands today and how it has changed over time. It quotes the original text of the targets and shows the data on the agreed indicators, to build SDG-targeted infrastructure.Posted on 03/08/23
- Schulev-Steindl, Eva, and Barbara Goby. "Rechtliche Optionen zur Verbesserung des Zugangs zu Gerichten im österreichischen Umweltrecht gemäß der Aarhus-Konvention (Artikel 9 Absatz 3)".
Institut für Rechtswissenschaften Universität für Bodenkultur Wien.
https://www.bmk.gv.at/...
„Der Natur und Umwelt eine Stimme geben!“ – So oder ähnlich könnte man das Anliegen der 1998 unter der Schirmherrschaft der UNECE geschlossenen Aarhus-Konvention umschreiben. Auch Österreich ist diesem internationalen Abkommen beigetreten, das es sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, die Durchsetzung des Umweltrechts mit Hilfe der Bürgerinnen und Bürger sowie der Umweltorganisationen zu verbessern. Dazu sieht die Konvention drei Säulen vor: das Recht auf Umweltinformation, die Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung an umweltrelevanten Entscheidungsverfahren und den Zugang zu Gerichten in Umweltangelegenheiten. Österreich hat die Vorgaben der Konvention in den verschiedensten Bereichen des Umweltrechts umgesetzt; zu verweisen ist dabei vor allem auf das Umweltinformationsgesetz sowie die Bürgerbeteiligung.Posted on 03/08/23
- Epstein, Yaffa. "Access to Justice: Remedies – Article 9.4 of the Aarhus Convention and the Requirement for Adequate and Effective Remedies, Including Injunctive Relief".
SSRN Electronic Journal.
January 01, 2011.
https://www.researchgate.net/...
To hinder environmental damage and obtain a protective order or injunction in most civil law systems, danger in delay must be asserted for the enforceability of proceedings. To initiate legal proceedings, a 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘦 case must exist, requiring the claimant to present evidence and show the likelihood of success on the merits for the injunction and relief sought. The criterion of danger in delay typically requires evidence of irreparable harm or damage that would be difficult to repair. The latest IPCC reports and other scientific studies on the imminent threats and irreparable harm to our environment must be such irrefutable proof.Posted on 31/07/23
- Cornwall, Andrea. "Buzzwords and Fuzzwords: Deconstructing Development Discourse".
Development in Practice.
(
https://www.researchgate.net/...
Concern about the misuse of the term was being voiced well before this article's appearance in 2007. We have "sustainable" development, cities, economics, construction, investing, operation, and, inevitably, sustainability consultants – “There is nothing, it seems, that cannot be described as ‘sustainable’”. A correct understanding of the term is important in the processes of policy-making and socioeconomic development as it has become a boundary term used for identification. Its misuse to further the political and financial objectives of the counterproductive and unsustainable development of our communities and societies across the world has become a major concern to all serious socioeconomic stakeholders.Posted on 28/07/23
- Berg, Florian, Julian F. Kölbel, and Roberto Rigobon. "Aggregate Confusion: The Divergence of ESG Ratings".
Review of Finance.
(May 23, 2022).
https://doi.org/...
The divergence of ESG ratings creates uncertainty and represents a challenge for decision-makers, including investment managers and regulators. This ESG rating divergence makes it difficult to evaluate the ESG performance of companies, funds, and portfolios, which is their primary purpose. It also decreases companies’ incentives to improve their ESG performance. Companies receive mixed signals from rating agencies about what actions are expected and valued by the market, which will lead to underinvestment in ESG improvement activities. Thus, companies optimize for one rating while underperforming in other ESG dimensions and fail to improve the firm’s sustainability and intrinsic ESG performance.Posted on 25/07/23
- Cris Garcia-Saravia Ortiz-de-Montellano, Pouya Samani, and Yvonne van der Meer. "How can the circular economy support the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? A comprehensive analysis".
Sustainable Production and Consumption.
(July 04, 2023).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
As a framework to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), circular economy (CE) can also be a risk. Where CE and the SDGs are misaligned, there is a gap between products, the socioeconomic circumstances of the people that produce and use them, and the environment where the products are extracted and disposed of. CE must deepen its understanding of the stakeholders and their socioeconomic and demographic circumstances to design new strategies that align the CE principles with and contribute to the SDGs. Also, the SDGs must consider the social, economic, and environmental roles that products and materials have in society.Posted on 24/07/23
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