Carbon emission reduction: News and technology

[macdoc]

think whats going on in siberia

[Brian Peacock]

Project 2025 promises billions of tonnes more carbon pollution

[Brian Peacock]

‘Nobody ever saw anything like this before’: how methane emissions are pushing the Amazon towards environmental catastrophe.

[macdoc]

Last year ocean temperatures off Florida approached hot-tub levels of 40C – close to those suggested for cooking salmon

I recall visiting Cuba 20 years ago and walked into the ocean to rinse my cut hand off in salt water.
It was like a hot bath....not a warm bath...a hot bath. Now that was further toward the tropics and was shallow coastal water but I was flat out startled.
Cuba was in an insane drought with only 10% of the reservoirs remaining....then 4 hurricanes came along....flattened a few houses and refilled all the reservoirs.

40c !.....serious cyclonic storm fuel.

Of course it's 30 degrees on the deck here in winter but then we're in the tropics. I always found it interesting that the tropics will not heat that much compared to the regions north and south of the tropical lines with the northern regions getting the worst of it.

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-26/ ... /104271990

Temperatures across the Kimberley have exceeded 40 degrees Celsius today, setting a new all-time national record for winter.

The weather station at Yampi Sound recorded the record-breaking temperature, which reached 41.6C on Monday afternoon.

Once verified, it will surpass the old Australian winter high of 41.2C at West Roebuck in August 2020.

Other notable maximums in the region by 3pm WST included 40.6C at Wyndham, 40.7C at Derby and 40.2C at Kununurra, all station records for winter.

Across the NT border, Bradshaw reached 40.0C, which if confirmed will set a new NT winter record, passing 39.7C at Timber Creek in 2013.

[Brian Peacock]

[Brian Peacock]

South Korea’s climate law violates rights of future generations, court rules

South Korea’s constitutional court has ruled that part of the country’s climate law does not conform with protecting the constitutional rights of future generations, an outcome local activists are calling a “landmark decision”.

The unanimous verdict concludes four years of legal battles and sets a significant precedent for future climate-related legal actions in the region.

The court found that the absence of legally binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions for the period from 2031-49 violated the constitutional rights of future generations and failed to uphold the government’s duty to protect those rights.

The court said this lack of long-term targets shifted an excessive burden to the future. It gave the national assembly and government until 28 February 2026 to amend the law to include these longer-term targets.

The decision echoes a similar ruling by Germany’s federal constitutional court in 2021, which found the country’s climate law lacked sufficient provisions for emission reductions beyond 2030, potentially infringing on the freedoms of future generations...

[Sean Hayden]

Isn’t it problematic to talk about the rights of people that don’t yet exist? Obviously we can talk about the wisdom of taking care of the planet, and how that will benefit future generations, and this kind of thinking clearly should influence legal systems. But going so far as to grant rights to, or talking about the rights of people who simply aren’t, seems crazy. What other rights of the nobody-yets might we violate?

We will need a special court?

[macdoc]

There are similar issues with say aquifer water rights where preservation of a resource for future use takes precedence over unlimited exploitation. Fish stock legislation as well...balancing a populations immediate needs against preservation of the resource into the future.
Passenger pigeons come to mind.

[Brian Peacock]

Isn’t it problematic to talk about the rights of people that don’t yet exist? Obviously we can talk about the wisdom of taking care of the planet, and how that will benefit future generations, and this kind of thinking clearly should influence legal systems. But going so far as to grant rights to, or talking about the rights of people who simply aren’t, seems crazy. What other rights of the nobody-yets might we violate?

We will need a special court?

Securing the rights of future people entails the securing of people's rights today. Some of those future people will be born in the next 10 minutes, some in the next 10 days, the next 10 weeks, the next 10 months. Do we really think that people born in the next 10 years will have or need different kinds of rights to those born in the next 10 minutes?

[Sean Hayden]

Probably not. But the issue—if there is one— is the idea of a legal right tied to a future person or people. We can talk generally about protecting rights for those futures, that language and thinking has its place, but it’s different to talk about violating the rights of people yet to be born. There must be some difficult implications to untangle there.

[JimC]

Probably not. But the issue—if there is one— is the idea of a legal right tied to a future person or people. We can talk generally about protecting rights for those futures, that language and thinking has its place, but it’s different to talk about violating the rights of people yet to be born. There must be some difficult implications to untangle there.

I agree. It should be sufficient to have a more general approach, with legal rulings protecting resources and reducing pollution for the future benefit of both the world's ecosystem and future populations of human beings...

[Brian Peacock]

Probably not. But the issue—if there is one— is the idea of a legal right tied to a future person or people. We can talk generally about protecting rights for those futures, that language and thinking has its place, but it’s different to talk about violating the rights of people yet to be born. There must be some difficult implications to untangle there.

I see what you're saying, but I think the way round it is to enact laws today, now, which affirm fundamental universal rights. The universality means everyone gets those rights automatically, and their fundamental nature means they're ... well ... fundamental; inalienable. That, in theory, should prohibit a transient authority - like a govt - from enacting laws or implementing policies the consequences of which limit their obligations to maintain the rights or limit the scope of the rights themselves. Protecting those rights obliges a govt to maintain them throughout their term, but to also not implement policies today that will undermine or limit those rights either today, tomorrow or after they've left office.

The question then falls to the nature of the rights themselves - not to whom they do or don't apply to, or for how long or when they do or don't apply - after all, they're fundamental and universal (we can just call them 'human rights' if you like)

For example, the UN recognised the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right in 2022 by the resolution of the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly - a right which identifies and ensures protections for the ecological systems that are essential to human health (clean and safe air, water, food etc etc). So far 156 of the UN"s 193 member states have incorporated the right to a clean environment into their domestic law, by statute or constitutionally. Where any of those states also protect a right to take one's government to court if they implement policies which threaten to undermine or diminished the human rights of their citizens, then the question probably turns on the states' reading of standing - i.e. must such proceedings be brought against the state only by those directly affected by a policy or can anyone take the state to court to help secure and maintain the rights of all - including affected others?

Anyone not yet born clearly cannot be directly affected by a policy, but the person born in the next 10 minutes definitely can be - so it seems reasonable to take the future consequences of a rights-impacting law or policy into account.

Doesn't the universal and fundamental nature of human rights mean that they should not and cannot be applied to, nor limited or diminished for, a particular person or group? Therefore, whether some person or group is or isn't going to have their rights directly affected by a policy or law probably shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether the govt can be taken to court to protect those rights - including the rights of people who are yet to be born.


See: The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now, Henry Shue, 2023, Princeton University Press.

[Sean Hayden]

Doesn't the universal and fundamental nature of human rights mean that they should not and cannot be applied to, nor limited or diminished for, a particular person or group? Therefore, whether some person or group is or isn't going to have their rights directly affected by a policy or law probably shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether the govt can be taken to court to protect those rights - including the rights of people who are yet to be born.

Extant particular persons or groups. We're talking about taking someone to court on behalf of non-existent people.* One obvious implication is how this might affect a so-called right to life. If you're willing to grant a right to the environment--a particular kind of environment even--to the unborn, surely they also need the right to exist at all.

Future generations are a useful abstraction --for every philosophy. But treating them as legal entities today seems problematic.



*I'm not sure that's what's actually happened here, it's just what I'm talking about based on a quick scan of what was posted.

[Brian Peacock]

Doesn't the universal and fundamental nature of human rights mean that they should not and cannot be applied to, nor limited or diminished for, a particular person or group? Therefore, whether some person or group is or isn't going to have their rights directly affected by a policy or law probably shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether the govt can be taken to court to protect those rights - including the rights of people who are yet to be born.

Extant particular persons or groups. We're talking about taking someone to court on behalf of non-existent people.* One obvious implication is how this might affect a so-called right to life. If you're willing to grant a right to the environment--a particular kind of environment even--to the unborn, surely they also need the right to exist at all.

Future generations are a useful abstraction --for every philosophy. But treating them as legal entities today seems problematic.



*I'm not sure that's what's actually happened here, it's just what I'm talking about based on a quick scan of what was posted.

We don't have to frame it as 'taking someone to court on behalf of non-existent people' if we're happy to accept that we're talking about taking the govt to court over laws or policies which might adversely impact the fundamental rights of their citizens in the future - whoever they are. And whoever they are, their human rights remain fundamental and universal, which I believe allows one to argue that future citizens -- including those already born and those that will be born in 10 years time (nominally 'non-existent persons') -- should not have their rights limited or diminished as the result of policies implemented, laws enacted, or other action or inaction taken by today's govt.