This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including the landmark victory of a group of South Korean young climate activists and a new study warning of a “new era of bigger, deadlier typhoons.”
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1. South Korean Youth Score Historic Climate Victory, Setting Important Precedent for Climate Litigation in Asia
A top court in South Korea on Thursday ruled the country’s measures to fight climate change insufficient for protecting the rights of its citizens in Asia’s first climate litigation ruling of its kind.
Currently, South Korea does not have any legally binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions between 2031 and 2049. This absence means the government cannot guarantee the protection of future generations, a right engrained in its constitution, the Constitutional Court of Korea ruled.
“Future generations will be more exposed to the impact of climate change, but their participation in today’s democratic political process is limited,” the court said, as reported by The New York Times. “So the legislators have the duty and responsibility to make concrete laws for mid- and long-term greenhouse gas reduction plans.”
The ruling is the first of its kind in Asia. Experts say the landmark decision sets an important precedent for the region, as similar cases are under way.
Read more here.
2. UN Chief Issues Climate ‘SOS’ For Pacific Islands Worst Hit By Ocean Warming, Sea Level Rise
Pacific islands should be provided with a “greater voice on the global stage” as climate change and sea level rise driven by reckless actions from industrialized nations threaten their existence, António Guterres said on Monday.
Addressing reporters on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga, the UN Secretary-General warned of the imminent threat of sea level rise in the Pacific. Guterres highlighted the findings of two UN reports, which show that the South West Pacific is worst hit by rising sea levels, with some areas at risk of disappearing by the end of the century. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the average annual increase was “significantly higher” in two measurement areas of the Pacific north and east of Australia compared to the global average rate rise of 3.4 millimetres a year over the past 30 years.
“I am in Tonga to issue a global SOS – Save Our Seas – on rising sea levels,” Guterres said. “Around the world, rising seas have unparallelled power to cause havoc to coastal cities and ravage coastal economies. Rising seas are a crisis entirely of humanity’s making. The world must act, and answer the SOS before it is too late.”
Read more here.
3. Typhoon Gaemi Intensified By Climate Change As Scientists Warn of A New Era of ‘Bigger, Deadlier’ Typhoons
A typhoon that swept across the Philippines, Taiwan and China’s Hunan province in late July, killing more than 100 people, was intensified by fossil fuel-driven global warming, a new analysis has found.
World Weather Attribution (WWA), an academic collaboration studying extreme event attribution, said on Thursday that Gaemi’s winds were about 9 mph (14 km/h) or 7% more intense due to human-made climate change. The study also determined that the warm sea surface temperatures that fuelled Gaemi would have been “virtually impossible” without anthropogenic climate change.
“Fossil fuel-driven warming is ushering in a new era of bigger, deadlier typhoons,” said Ben Clarke, Researcher at the London Imperial College’s Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. Clarke also warned that Asia will become increasingly inhospitable and dangerous “until fossil fuels are replaced with renewable energy.”
Read more here.
4. Green Groups Sue European Commission Over Insufficient Emission Reduction Targets
In a statement published Tuesday, CAN Europe and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) announced they had submitted the final written arguments to the General Court of the European Union after the lawsuit was formally filed before the court earlier this year. The two groups accuse the bloc of failing to conduct essential assessments when setting climate targets for sectors including buildings, agriculture, waste, small industry, and transport, which together account for 57% of the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The lawsuit, brought against the European Commission, follows a previous attempt by CAN Europe to sue the bloc for its climate targets, which was ultimately not admitted. An oral hearing is expected in the first half of 2025.
“We have to use all available channels to push the European Commission to bring the EU’s climate ambition on track with its fair share for the 1.5C goal of the Paris agreement. The EU has to ramp up emissions reduction and achieve at least a 65% cut by 2030 if it wants to be a credible actor,” said Sven Harmeling, head of climate at CAN Europe.
Read more here.
5. Environmental Groups Defend Kamala Harris Amid Silence on Climate Crisis at DNC
The absence of any serious mention of climate change at the Democratic National Convention, least of all from presidential candidate Kamala Harris in her closing speech on Thursday, did not go unnoticed. In fact, since Harris ascended the 2024 Democratic ticket, she has been mostly quiet on the issue, offering no hints on her climate plan if she wins November’s election. Amid the silence, one of Harris’s advisors was being quoted as saying at the DNC’s Environmental & Climate Crisis Council that she is committed to “bold action” on climate.
However, environmental groups have come forward in recent days to defend Harris, with a coalition of climate groups last week announcing a $55 million advertising campaign in “at least six swing states” in support of her campaign. This marks a drastic change in approach compared to the last presidential campaign, when environmentalists obsessively scrutinized every aspect of Biden’s climate agenda.
Many groups have openly stated they do not want to sabotage Harris’s campaign as they fight to keep her climate denier counterpart, Republican nominee Donald Trump, out of the White House. Others have hinted they are “not worried” about Harris’s climate agenda, arguing her past decisions holds promise for bold action if she wins the election.
Read more here.
