A U.S. district court judge ruled on August 14 that the state of Montana violated the constitutional rights of the young plaintiffs to a clean and healthful environment through legislation, enacted in 2011, that limits the environmental factors that can be considered when approving oil and gas projects. The court declared that legislation unconstitutional, meaning that now Montana must consider climate change and the emission of greenhouse gases when approving fossil fuel projects.  

“I’m grateful and relieved, because the climate knows no bounds conjured up in the minds of humans,” says Shaelyn Wabegijig, one of seven young people suing the Ontario government in their own climate lawsuit. “A win for any of us is a win for all of us.”  

The Montana case marked the first constitutional climate trial in U.S. history and is part of a growing movement around the world to use courts as a way to force governments and corporations to take action. Climate litigation has more than doubled in the last five years, according to the UN Environment Programme and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, from 884 cases in 2017 to 2,180 in 2022. Most of the cases are in the United States. Thirty-four have been brought by and on behalf of children and youth under the age of 25, including by girls as young as seven in Pakistan and India.  

“It’s a huge moment for climate litigation in the world,” says Danielle Gallant, a lawyer with Canadian environmental group Ecojustice, which has been representing the Ontario youth in their legal fight. “For a jurisdiction in the U.S., one of the world’s largest emitters, to be held accountable and to set that precedent in that country, I think it’s very important ... Every victory that we see builds that momentum towards further victories in other jurisdictions.”  

The decision also reflects the arc of many other decisions in North America and around the world “that are recognizing the imperative of courts to supervise the governments’ often woefully inadequate efforts to grapple with the climate emergency,” says Chris Tollefson, a B.C.-based lawyer representing another youth-led climate-change lawsuit in Canada, the first of its kind that is federal in nature.    

 In an email, Tollefson says the Montana judgment “bolsters” the claims being made by his clients, 15 youth from seven provinces and one territory. In that case, La Rose et al vs. His Majesty the King, the young people argue that the federal government is violating their right to life, liberty and security of the person under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, along with their right to equality, under Section 15, since youth are disproportionately affected by the climate emergency. The case was dismissed in 2020, and an appeal was heard in February of this year, with no decision yet rendered.   

“Even though the constitutional provisions being interpreted in the Montana case are different, in many ways the Montana decision backs up arguments the La Rose plaintiffs have made,” Tollefson says. “Both the La Rose and the Montana plaintiffs have made very similar arguments with respect to the science of climate change, and the causal role and contribution that can be attributed to government conduct.”  

It’s a huge moment for climate litigation in the world.

 

– Danielle Gallant, lawyer at Ecojustice

The Ontario case, Mathur et al vs. His Majesty in Right of Ontario, is also rooted in the Charter. It was launched in 2019 by seven youth who argued that a decision by the government of Premier Doug Ford to roll back emission targets violated their rights to life, equality and security of the person.  

The group secured a historic win in 2020, when a court ruled that the case deserved its day in court, and then again in 2021 when another court dismissed an application by the Ontario government to appeal that ruling. This paved the way for a full hearing in September of last year, the first of its kind in Canada. In April, a judge dismissed the case. The applicants have launched an appeal.  

While the ruling was a loss, Gallant says it contained some positive elements that give her and the plaintiffs hope.  

“I think it’s really key that the judge fully endorsed the important science of climate change,” she says. “There was really no debate that climate change is real.”  

The judge found that “Ontario’s [rolled back] target is increasing the risk of harmful and deadly climate impacts on Ontarians,” engaging the section of the Charter that has to do with the right to life and security, Gallant says, although the judge ultimately ruled that there was not a full violation.  

And then there is the precedent-setting justiciability of the case – that it is appropriate for courts to weigh in on matters of climate change. Other cases have not been able to cross that hurdle. 

That’s a significant victory for Wabegijig, who recalls sitting in the courtroom and feeling chills as she heard the legal arguments being made.  

“As a young Indigenous woman, it’s not new or surprising that government-sanctioned actions are impacting our lives, violating our rights and thwarting our responsibilities to the earth,” notes the 26-year-old, who is Algonquin of Timiskaming First Nation. 

“It’s not simply a political issue. It’s an existential issue,” she adds. “It’s a matter of the continuation of life as we know it or death and destruction, and it’s no exaggeration or fear–mongering. It’s simply what it is and it’s happening right now.” 

It’s not simply a political issue. It’s an existential issue.

 

– Shaelyn Wabegijig, one of seven youth suing Ontario government 

In the Montana case, the court heard about how “anthropogenic climate change is impacting, degrading and depleting” the state’s natural environment, with higher temperatures, longer droughts, and more extreme weather events. It also heard from doctors about how “children are uniquely vulnerable to the consequences of climate change” as they are in physiological and psychological development.   

And, crucially, it heard from the youth and children themselves: Mica experienced a sense of loss from having to stay inside because of wildfire smoke, Sariel suffered distress from the loss of culturally important plants and snow mentioned in  creation stories, Grace was scared because the glaciers were melting from the state she loves, and Claire had anxiety over whether it’s a safe world in which to have children.  

A spokesperson for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen called the ruling “absurd” and part of a “taxpayer-funded publicity stunt.”  

“Montanans can’t be blamed for changing the climate – even the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses agreed that our state has no impact on the global climate,” said Emily Flower. “Their same legal theory has been thrown out of federal court and courts in more than a dozen states. It should have been here as well.” 

But Wabegijig says it’s only a matter of time before more courts, including in Canada, follow suit.  

“As youth we are educated on climate science, and we carry the crushing weight of the climate emergency, and we’re putting this knowledge into our actions. Governments must do the same.”

The post How a landmark youth climate ruling in Montana is reverberating across Canada appeared first on Corporate Knights.

A new analysis by U.K.-based think tank InfluenceMap of the 45 biggest asset managers, which collectively hold US$72 trillion in assets under management, found that many are not only far off track from meeting their climate goals – they have regressed.

While most have set net-zero targets, nearly all of the equity fund portfolios that were assessed – some 95% – are “misaligned” with the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 that much of the world is chasing, as a tipping point in climate appears ever nearer.

Late last month, amid rolling heat waves in Europe and scorching wildfires in North America, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared that the “era of global boiling” was upon us.

“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” said Guterres, on the same day that scientists announced that July 2023 was tracking to be the hottest month ever recorded in human history. “It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels] and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only with dramatic, immediate climate action.”

This message has yet to get through to those who hold the global purse strings, it seems.

“Since FinanceMap’s 2021 report, asset managers’ portfolios are still misaligned with net zero targets, environmental stewardship efforts have stagnated, and asset managers are not supporting effective sustainable finance policy,” said Daan Van Acker, program manager for FinanceMap, an online, publicly available platform produced by InfluenceMap.

The FinanceMap analysis examines more than 13,000 individual equity funds and applies a “climate lens” to their earnings by examining portfolios, investor engagement processes and shareholder resolutions. It considers two metrics: fund exposure to fossil fuel companies and “green” companies, along with how funds are aligned with net-zero goals – a conclusion it bases on estimations of how much companies will produce in the future in climate-relevant sectors, such as the automotive industry, upstream oil and gas production, coal mining and electric power.

FinanceMap’s 2023 report analyzed $16.5 trillion (all figures in U.S. dollars) in equity fund portfolios. The asset managers scrutinized hold 2.8 times more equity in fossil fuel production companies ($880 billion) than in green investments ($309 billion), while the percentage of those carrying out “truly ambitious and effective climate stewardship practices” has shrunk by 45% since 2021: just 18% received an A grade this year, versus 33% in 2021.

The report notes that North American asset managers’ lack of climate progress coincides with the ‘anti-ESG’ trend in the US. Several state governments have taken action to discourage the use of ESG factors by financial institutions and to limit state business with financial actors deemed to be boycotting fossil fuel companies.”

An InfluenceMap spokesperson told Corporate Knights that “Canadian managers’ portfolios are similarly misaligned with net zero as those of US managers, and are underperforming relative to European portfolios. This is largely reflective of the wider misalignment of North American markets.”

Canadian managers average a stewardship score of C. BMO Global Asset Management led the pack at B+, while TD and ScotiaBank trailed with D+.

There are brighter spots: European asset managers scored notably better when it came to engagement with investee companies on climate. BNP Paribas Asset Management and Schroders had 2.7 times higher exposure to green investments than the average asset manager. Indeed, it was the smaller European portfolios that fared better. The U.K.’s Legal & General Investment Management and the asset management arms of France’s BNP Paribas, and Switzerland’s UBS all scored As, as well as the U.S.’s Federated Hermes. Japan’s equity portfolios were among those most misaligned with net-zero, the analysis found.

U.S. managers, which have traditionally lagged behind European counterparts on environmental leadership, saw many of their stewardship scores drop: BlackRock went from a B in 2021 to a C in 2023, while Vanguard netted a D+, Fidelity Investments an E+ and State Street Global Advisors a C+.

“The four largest asset managers in the world overwhelmingly opposed climate-aligned resolutions in the 2022 voting season,” according to the report. Scotia Global Asset Management demonstrated the lowest level of climate resolution support (0%).

The average Canadian manager supported 58% of such resolutions in 2021 but only 38% in 2022 (in Europe, the average manager supported 81% of climate resolutions in 2021 and 76% in 2022).

This amounts to a missed opportunity, as “asset managers can – and should – play a crucial role in building alignment” between climate commitments of companies and investors and the actions they carry out, said Jake Barnett, managing director of sustainable investment strategies, for Wespath, in a press release.

Neither U.S. nor European funds are matching their rhetoric of sustainable finance policies with real action. BlackRock, Vanguard and J.P. Morgan Asset Management were unsupportive Scope 3 emissions disclosure as part of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate disclosure rule, for example. And 86% of the asset managers in the report are members of at least one industry group that opposes the sustainable finance policy required to enable decarbonization pathways, the report notes.

“It is not enough to challenge companies to dramatically reduce emissions and create strategies to drive that goal,” said Christina Herman, senior director for climate change and environmental justice at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, in a press release.

“If large investors say addressing global warming is important, then they too need to step up and do the necessary work to steer our economy down a less-chaotic path.”

The post The incredible shrinking climate ambitions of the world’s largest asset managers appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The latest technological milestone has been a decade in the making. But now, several teams of researchers around the world have succeeded in pushing the efficiency of perovskite and silicon “tandem” solar cells past an important 30% threshold – which means they converted more than 30% of the sun’s energy into electricity. The higher the conversion rate, the cheaper the cost of the electricity. 

“Overcoming this threshold provides confidence that high-performance, low-cost PVs can be brought to the market,” write Stefaan De Wolf and Erkan Aydin, of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, in Science magazine.

Silicon photovoltaics currently dominate the market and are approaching their theoretical efficiency limit of around 29%. Scientists have found that they can improve the harvesting of solar energy by stacking two or more solar cells, in this case perovskite, a semiconductor, on top of silicon. The high efficiency rates have been achieved on small research-sized cells that are one centimetre square. To scale it, the technology will have to be applicable to larger, commercial-sized cells, which are 15 by 15 centimetres.

The record for that was set in May, by Oxford PV, which announced that it had hit 28.6% efficiency for a commercial-sized perovskite and silicon cell, compared to the 22 to 24% efficiency of a silicon-only cell.

Industry watchers urge caution with the news, noting that when the high-efficiency tandem combination can be commercialized is still unclear. 

“The promise perovskite technology has is the high efficiencies it’s capable of reaching. The problem it has is stability,” says Paula Mints, chief market research analyst with California-based SPV Market Research who has specialized in solar energy since 1997. She also voiced concern about the use of lead in the products, and the risk of leaching into the environment. The issue is that perovskite materials are vulnerable to a whole host of environmental factors, like moisture, so the cells degrade. One report in 2022 pegged the longest lifespan of perovskite solar cells at one year, versus silicon cells, which last up to 25 years.  “It’s great that they can reach these ranges of efficiencies,” Mints says, “but you have to last 20 years in the sun, 20 years moving up to 30.”  

As scientists forge ahead with that goal in mind, capacity–building of what already is tried and tested continues to ramp up.  

A recent report by Global Energy Monitor found that China is seeing a “jaw dropping surge” in solar and wind capacity, on track to hit its targets five years ahead of schedule. Although coal is still its main source of power, China already accounts for 228 gigawatts of solar power – more than the rest of the world combined. Its prospective large– scale projects amount to almost half of what is on tap in other countries, the report notes. 

But despite the fervor to keep building, the world is vastly underusing its solar capacity – Mints says utilization is at about 60%.   

Part of the reason is that many countries are saddled with archaic electrical infrastructure systems that are simply not equipped to deal with the “onslaught of distributed, renewable sources coming online,” she says. “There are long waits all over the world. It’s like one big transmission and distribution bottleneck, globally.”   

And yet, while solar currently accounts for only 4 to 5% of global electricity generation its installed power capacity is projected to surpass coal by 2027, making it the largest in the world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). In 2022 it surpassed wind as the largest absolute generation growth of all renewable technologies.  

It will need to do even more to help the world meet the net-zero emissions targets by 2050 that aim to avert the worst impacts of climate change.  

“Continuous growth in the economic attractiveness of PV, massive development in the supply chain and increasing policy support, especially in China, the United States, the European Union and India, are expected to further accelerate capacity growth in the coming years,” the IEA says.  

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