Climate Change, Greenhouse gas emissions, Legal action

Dutch government loses world’s first climate liability lawsuit

Repost from Science | Business

Dutch court orders government to do more to fight climate change

Éanna Kelly, Science|Business, June 25, 2015
Verdict in world’s first climate liability case says current targets are “unlawful” and the Dutch State must reduce emissions by 25% within five years

In a landmark decision, a court in the Netherlands has ordered the Dutch government to up its fight against climate change, after judges ruled that plans to cut emissions by just 14-17 per cent compared to 1990 levels by 2020 were unlawful, given the threat posed by climate change.

Legal advocate Roger Cox (L) celebrates milestone victory

The district court in The Hague said that by 2020, the Netherlands must cut CO2 emissions by 25 per cent from 1990 levels, in what was the first climate liability suit brought under human rights and tort law.

The verdict said, “The state should not hide behind the argument that the solution to the global climate problem does not depend solely on Dutch efforts … Any reduction of emissions contributes to the prevention of dangerous climate change and as a developed country the Netherlands should take the lead in this.”

The case was brought in 2102 by Urgenda (from ‘urgent’ and ‘agenda’), a class-action group of 886 concerned citizens, accusing the government of not doing enough to meet international obligations to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

“All the plaintiffs are overjoyed by the result. This makes it crystal clear that climate change is a huge problem that needs to be dealt with much more effectively, and that states can no longer afford inaction,” said Marjan Minnesma, one of the plaintiffs.

The Dutch are lagging in terms of greening the economy. In 2012, the share of renewable energy in the Netherlands was 4.5 percent according to Eurostat, well below the EU average of 14.1 percent. Only Malta, Luxembourg and the UK have lower shares.

The inspiration behind the case was Roger Cox, a Dutch lawyer and advocate who wrote a book called ‘Revolution Justified’, in which he argued that the legal community should become much more active in the fight against climate change, given the seeming inaction of politicians.

The government has the option to appeal, although it has not said yet whether it would.

An almost identical challenge is being pursued in Belgian courts, where campaigners hope there will be ripples from the Dutch verdict.

Repost from NewScientist

Dutch government loses world’s first climate liability lawsuit

By Catherine Brahic and Rowan Hooper, June 24, 2015 11:38
A dangerous situation (Image: Siebe Swart/Hollandse Hoogte/eyevine)

The Dutch government has lost a landmark legal case over its greenhouse gas emissions plans.

The environmental group Urgenda brought a class action suit over climate change on behalf of some 900 citizens, including children. The suit claimed that the government’s action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is insufficient, and is therefore “knowingly exposing its own citizens to dangerous situations”.

Urgenda asked that the court in the Hague “declare that global warming of more than 2 °C will lead to a violation of fundamental human rights worldwide”. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, governments must cut emissions to between 25 and 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 to have a 50 per cent chance of avoiding 2 °C.  Yet European Union states have signed up for 40 per cent cuts by 2030.

Three judges agreed with the class action suit, ruling that government plans to cut emissions by 14-17 per cent compared to 1990 levels by 2020 were illegal. The ruling said: “The state should not hide behind the argument that the solution to the global climate problem does not depend solely on Dutch efforts.”

The court ordered the Dutch government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 per cent by 2020.

Marjan Minnesma, who initiated the case in 2013, made a statement through Urgenda. “All the plaintiffs are overjoyed by the result,” she said. “This makes it crystal clear that climate change is a huge problem that needs to be dealt with much more effectively, and that states can no longer afford inaction.”

Ahead of the ruling, James Arrandale of London-based environmental law firm Client Earth said it would be groundbreaking for Urgenda to win. It would lead to similar suits in other countries, he said. A Belgian group is already on the case.

A key point, said Arrandale, is to show that governments already have legal obligations to cut emissions, regardless of the outcome of the UN climate talks. To that end, a group of international legal experts published the Oslo Principles on 30 March, which set out existing legal obligations on governments to safeguard the climate.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Fire, Insurance and liability, Lac-Mégantic, Oil Industry, Rail industry, Victim compensation

Victim compensation after oil train derailment: Big Oil cost of doing business?

Repost from DESMOG

Cost of Doing Business? Oil Companies Agree To Pay For Some of Lac-Megantic Damages, But Not to Solve the Real Problems

By Justin Mikulka, June 21, 2015 – 05:58
Image credit: Wikimedia

Although insisting the industry is not to blame, several of the oil companies involved in the fatal Lac-Megantic oil train accident in 2013 have agreed to contribute to a fund to compensate the families of the 47 victims in that accident.

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that oil companies Shell, ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Irving have all agreed to contribute to the fund to avoid future litigation, along with General Electric and the Canadian government. While the actual amounts contributed by most companies involved are not available, the total fund is reportedly at $345 million. That sounds like a lot of money but still is less than the $400 million retirement package for Exxon’s last CEO, for example.

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. hasn’t agreed to the settlement, according to the Bangor Daily News, which reports that the judge in the case has delayed his decision on the settlement. Canadian Pacific has asked the court to shield it from future litigation and challenged the Quebec provincial court’s jurisdiction.

It is no surprise that oil companies would prefer to pay fines of tens of millions of dollars to avoid future litigation as well as duck responsibility for the full cost of the cleanup. Rebuilding the destroyed Lac Megantic property is expected to take as long as eight years and as much as $2.7 billion.

This approach has proven successful for the oil and rail industry in the past. In 2009, when a Canadian National (CN) ethanol train derailed in Cherry Valley, Illinois resulting in a fire and the death of one woman and injury to several others, the railroad paid the surviving family members $36 million.

The National Transportation Safety Board laid some of the blame for that tragedy on the “inadequate design of the tank cars, which made them subject to damage and catastrophic loss of hazardous materials during the derailment.”

But CN just paid the $36 million and the industry kept using the same inadequate DOT-111 tank cars to move ethanol and crude oil. It was the DOT-111 tank cars that were involved in the Lac-Megantic accident four years later, and the same tank cars that the oil industry is currently fighting to keep on the rails as long as possible.

There is no question it is far more profitable for the oil and rail industries to continue to use unsafe rail tank cars and to just pay off the families of the victims or for environmental damages from oil spills after any accidents than to invest in safer tank cars.

Canadian National has had two oil train derailments already in 2015 which the company reports have cost it $40 million. However, CN still reported over $700 million in net income for just the first quarter of 2015.

Business as usual in the oil-by-rail industry is highly profitable. Which is why the oil and rail industries are fighting against any safety measures that would require investment and cut into profits.

After the faulty tank cars, the two other issues the oil industry has fought against are modernized braking systems and removing the volatile and explosive natural gas liquids from the oil itself via stabilization.

Both of these proven safety measures would cost the industry billions of dollars to implement. So they haven’t done anything. It is far more profitable to live with the consequences of some accidents and make relatively small payouts to avoid lawsuits than it is to invest in safe alternatives.

In 2013, the year of the Lac-Megantic disaster, the big five oil companies made $93 billion in profits. Fines and settlements like those resulting from oil train disasters or deadly refinery accidents are simply a cost of doing business. And for these companies, it turns out to be a very small cost when compared to the profits.

In a forum on rail safety held in Albany, NY this month, emergency first responders from three oil train accidents (Lac-Megantic, Lynchburg, Virginia and Galena, Illinois) recounted their experiences dealing with oil train fires and explosions. While offering excellent insights to the risks involved with oil-by-rail, there also was insight into how the rail companies responded once the accidents occurred.

For both the Lynchburg and Galena accidents, it was noted that the rail companies were on the scene almost immediately. And they rebuilt the tracks and got them back in operation as soon as possible because in Galena, rail downtime was costing the company $1 million an hour. When money is at stake, the rail companies jump into action.

Did the rail company jump into action the day before the Lynchburg rail accident when an inspection revealed a defect in the track in Lynchburg? No.

At the forum in Albany, Lynchburg Battalion Chief Robert Lipscomb summed up the situation nicely.

“You got to remember their business is making money. Our business is taking care of emergencies. So sometimes those two don’t line up exactly right,” Lipscomb said.

When your business is making money, it is much easier to accomplish your goals by lobbying regulators to ensure weak regulations and paying out meaningless fines when something goes wrong than to invest in safety.

The oil trains will return to Lac-Megantic in 2016, with the same inadequate tank cars and 19th century braking systems. And they will be full of unstabilized, dangerous and very profitable oil.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, DOT-112, DOT-117, Ethanol, Explosion, Tank car design, Tank car retrofit

New Brunswick derailment: some tank cars fared better than others

Repost from McClatchy DC News

Tank car upgrades effective in derailments, Canadian report shows

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 19, 2015

Tank car improvements required by the U.S. and Canadian governments last month should cut the risk of spills and fires in oil train accidents, Canadian investigators have concluded.

The finding came from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s investigation of on a derailment in January 2014 in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick.

While the report pinpointed a broken wheel as the cause, the derailment provided a rare side-by-side comparison of the performance of two different types of tank cars in use for decades on the North American rail system.

A type of tank car called the DOT-112 survived the Plaster Rock derailment with no impact damage, according to the report, released Friday. Four such cars carrying butane derailed.

In contrast, two DOT-111 cars carrying crude oil sustained punctures, spilling more than 60,000 gallons. The spilled oil caught fire.

The DOT-112 cars have features very similar to the new DOT-117 standard unveiled by regulators on May 1. Both include half-inch thick shields that fully protect both ends of the car, thicker 9/16-inch shells and thermal insulation around the tank shell enclosed with an additional layer of steel.

Typically, the DOT-111 cars have 7/16-inch shells and none of the other protections.

As McClatchy reported last year, the DOT-112 was beefed up after a series of catastrophic tank car explosions in the 1970s that killed railroad workers and firefighters and caused extensive property damage. After the 112 was upgraded, the accidents subsided.

But the DOT-111 fleet remained unchanged, even when railroads began hauling larger quantities of ethanol a decade ago, followed by crude oil five years ago.

The Canadian report lists 13 other rail accidents involving crude oil or ethanol since 2005 that illustrate the vulnerabilities of the DOT-111. Three of those derailments took place this year, including two in Ontario and one in West Virginia.

The list also includes the 2013 disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, which resulted in 47 fatalities. The families of the victims and their attorneys earlier this month unanimously ratified a proposed $350 million settlement package.

The U.S. Department of Transportation last month required that new tank cars carrying crude oil and ethanol meet the DOT-117 standard beginning in October. Tank car owners, which are typically railcar manufacturers, financial firms and energy companies, must comply with a series of retrofit deadlines for DOT-111 cars that are spread out over a decade.

The oil industry says the timeline is too short, while environmentalists say it’s too long. Both have since taken the department to court.

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