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Why fear of billion-dollar lawsuits stops countries phasing out fossil fuels
(www.theguardian.com)
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
Nooo we can't close the oil fields, the oil oligarchs will get mad!!!
Fuck off and grow a backbone. Develop policy where the companies can't sue the government and the government can cancel the deal or alter regulations as needed. If oil is truly that profitable, its worth the risk.
In my province, the premier was able to prevent any lawsuit coming their way from injured cyclists after banning and removing bike lanes. Why do we let rich corporations walk all over us while only showing a backbone to our own populations? Allowing this to continue sets a dangerous precedent that laws and regulations only apply to those who can't afford to sue against them.
The simple solution is to either rewrite or leave those treaties. In fact that is already happening.
The thing that bugs me is that politicians thread the needle all the freaking time. They're skilled at moving policy towards a goal (usually for ill), so the idea that "they're just hamstrung and can't even look at oil companies funny" is simply ridiculous.