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UK government faces claim over alleged failure to protect people in climate crisis

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Tuesday, July 23, 2024

In December, council officials ordered Kevin Jordan to leave his home, warning him it was at risk of falling into the sea at any moment.On Tuesday he had his day in court, accusing the government of failing to do enough to adapt to the changes the UK is facing as a result of climate breakdown.Jordan is one of three claimants bringing a legal challenge over what they describe as the government’s failure to protect people, property and infrastructure from the foreseeable impacts of the accelerating climate crisis.They argue the government has breached the Climate Change Act 2008 by failing to set out clear and realistic objectives in its third national adaptation programme (NAP3), which is supposed to protect citizens from the risks posed by high temperatures, coastal flooding and extreme weather caused by climate breakdown.Sitting in the back row of court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice, Jordan, a white-haired pensioner, said he was “nervous, anxious”. Beside him, using a wheelchair equipped with a whirring fan, sat fellow claimant Doug Paulley, who has health conditions that are exacerbated by high summer temperatures.A key part of their case is that each has suffered harm as a result of climate breakdown. Jordan lost his home, and Paulley’s disabilities mean he is particularly vulnerable during summer heatwaves.Between them, they allege that NAP3 is so deficient that it breaches their human rights to life, home and possessions, and that they have been discriminated against on account of their vulnerable situations.The case has been brought with the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth as the third claimant.David Wolfe KC, acting for the claimants, said: “The claimants illustrate the situation that other people will be in, importantly.“Not huge numbers of other people, this is not like the Swiss women who were, in effect, representing all elderly women. These are relatively small but nonetheless large groups of people.”Wolfe argued in court filings that ministers had to set outcomes to address specific risks, rather than “a generic aim simply to reduce risks”.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionMark Westmoreland Smith KC, acting for the government, said the environmental group’s arguments misunderstood what ministers must do and are essentially a challenge to how the government approached its duties under climate legislation.“The nature, ambition and framing of the objectives within the programme are matters for the judgment of the [minister], who is politically accountable for them,” he said in court documents.Throughout the proceedings, Jordan sat with his eyes closed. “I’ve never been here before,” he said before the hearing began. “I don’t know what the procedure is going to be like. I’ve heard it’s going to be pretty boring, basically barristers slugging it out. I look on with interest, but with hope of a victory. I just want the government to go back and rewrite the national adaptation plan.”Paulley said: “The lack of planning makes me fearful that in an emergency, disabled people won’t be properly protected. We urgently need a new adaptation programme that recognises the acute threat disabled people face.”

High court hears case brought by claimants who say rights have been breached as result of adaptation planIn December, council officials ordered Kevin Jordan to leave his home, warning him it was at risk of falling into the sea at any moment.On Tuesday he had his day in court, accusing the government of failing to do enough to adapt to the changes the UK is facing as a result of climate breakdown. Continue reading...

In December, council officials ordered Kevin Jordan to leave his home, warning him it was at risk of falling into the sea at any moment.

On Tuesday he had his day in court, accusing the government of failing to do enough to adapt to the changes the UK is facing as a result of climate breakdown.

Jordan is one of three claimants bringing a legal challenge over what they describe as the government’s failure to protect people, property and infrastructure from the foreseeable impacts of the accelerating climate crisis.

They argue the government has breached the Climate Change Act 2008 by failing to set out clear and realistic objectives in its third national adaptation programme (NAP3), which is supposed to protect citizens from the risks posed by high temperatures, coastal flooding and extreme weather caused by climate breakdown.

Sitting in the back row of court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice, Jordan, a white-haired pensioner, said he was “nervous, anxious”. Beside him, using a wheelchair equipped with a whirring fan, sat fellow claimant Doug Paulley, who has health conditions that are exacerbated by high summer temperatures.

A key part of their case is that each has suffered harm as a result of climate breakdown. Jordan lost his home, and Paulley’s disabilities mean he is particularly vulnerable during summer heatwaves.

Between them, they allege that NAP3 is so deficient that it breaches their human rights to life, home and possessions, and that they have been discriminated against on account of their vulnerable situations.

The case has been brought with the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth as the third claimant.

David Wolfe KC, acting for the claimants, said: “The claimants illustrate the situation that other people will be in, importantly.

“Not huge numbers of other people, this is not like the Swiss women who were, in effect, representing all elderly women. These are relatively small but nonetheless large groups of people.”

Wolfe argued in court filings that ministers had to set outcomes to address specific risks, rather than “a generic aim simply to reduce risks”.

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Mark Westmoreland Smith KC, acting for the government, said the environmental group’s arguments misunderstood what ministers must do and are essentially a challenge to how the government approached its duties under climate legislation.

“The nature, ambition and framing of the objectives within the programme are matters for the judgment of the [minister], who is politically accountable for them,” he said in court documents.

Throughout the proceedings, Jordan sat with his eyes closed. “I’ve never been here before,” he said before the hearing began. “I don’t know what the procedure is going to be like. I’ve heard it’s going to be pretty boring, basically barristers slugging it out. I look on with interest, but with hope of a victory. I just want the government to go back and rewrite the national adaptation plan.”

Paulley said: “The lack of planning makes me fearful that in an emergency, disabled people won’t be properly protected. We urgently need a new adaptation programme that recognises the acute threat disabled people face.”

Read the full story here.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Record-setting flooding over three days dumped more than a foot of rain on parts of northern California, a fire left thousands under evacuation orders and warnings in Los Angeles County, forecasters issued the first-ever tornado warning in San Francisco and rough seas tore down part of a wharf in Santa Cruz.All of this extreme weather has hit California in the past several weeks, showcasing the state’s particular vulnerability to major weather disasters. Strong storms Tuesday produced waves that forecasters said could reach 35 feet (10.7 meters) around Santa Cruz. The National Weather Service issued a high surf warning until early evening, cautioning people to stay out of the ocean and away from piers. For Chandler Price, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego, these extreme weather events are both typical and unusual for a La Niña winter, a natural climate cycle that can cause extreme weather across the planet. In California, it means a wetter than average northern region and a drier south. “So far we’ve seen that pattern play out pretty well,” he said, but added, “obviously, you know, the tornado in the Bay Area was atypical. ... We haven’t seen that before, at least not for a very long time.”A storm and wind gusts of up to 60 mph (96 kph) prompted the San Francisco tornado warning that extended to neighboring San Mateo County, which went out to about 1 million people earlier this month. The tornado overturned cars and toppled trees and utility poles near a mall in Scotts Valley, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of San Francisco, injuring several people. Tornadoes do occur in California, but they rarely hit populated areas.In San Francisco, local meteorologists said straight-line winds, not a tornado, felled trees onto cars and streets and damaged roofs. The storm also dumped significant snow across the northern Sierra Nevada. F. Martin Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, said climate change means that atmospheric rivers, long stretches of wet air that can produce heavy rains, will be responsible for a greater share of California’s yearly precipitation and the periods in between those big events will be drier. These storms are essential for the water supply but can also be dangerous.“When they are too strong and too many in a row, we end up getting floods,” he said, adding that they drive California’s weather extremes.During storms this week around Santa Cruz, one man was trapped under debris and died and another person was pulled into the ocean. The surf also splintered off the end of a Santa Cruz municipal wharf that was under construction, plunging three people into the ocean. One swam to shore and the other two were rescued. A series of atmospheric rivers are expected through the rest of the week. Overall, this pattern is not unusual — these storms regularly produce high winds, heavy snow in the mountains and torrential rain this time of year.“What’s a little unique about this setup is how closely spaced they are, so there’s not much of a break between them,” said David Lawrence, a meteorologist and emergency response specialist with the National Weather Service.But these storms haven’t stretched very far south, creating dry weather in Southern California that increases fire risk.One of the state’s most recent blazes, the Franklin Fire left some 20,000 people under evacuation orders and warnings and forced students at Pepperdine University to shelter in place. The blaze was fueled by the Santa Anas, the notorious seasonal winds that blow dry air from the interior toward the coast, pushing back moist ocean breezes.Most of the destruction occurred in Malibu, a community on the western corner of Los Angeles known for its beautiful bluffs and the Hollywood-famous Zuma Beach. The fire damaged or destroyed 48 structures and is one of nearly 8,000 wildfires that have scorched more than 1 million acres (more than 404,685 hectares) in the Golden State this year. The Santa Ana winds, which peak in December, have also contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in parts of the southern state, said Price with the National Weather Service. “Eighty-degree (26.7 Celsius) Christmases are not entirely uncommon around here,” he added, but “there was a couple of high temperature record breaks in the mountains, which are usually less affected by the Santa Anas, and so those were a little unusual.” Phillis reported from St. Louis.Associated Press writers Martha Mendoza and Stefanie Dazio contributed to this story.The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

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How to teach climate change so 15-year-olds can act

OECD’s Pisa program will measure the ability of students to take action in response to climate anxiety and ‘take their position and role in the global world’More summer essentialsGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast“It’s going to get hot and everything’s going to be on fire and the oceans will rise,” says a year 11 student, Josh Dorian. “That’s just like the worst of the worst. How do you combat that?“Well, you fix it, you stop it from happening, you take preventive measures,” says Josh, who is studying VCE environmental science at Mount Lilydale Mercy College, a high school in Melbourne’s outer east. “Involving kids in that is scary but I think it’s necessary.”Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

“It’s going to get hot and everything’s going to be on fire and the oceans will rise,” says a year 11 student, Josh Dorian. “That’s just like the worst of the worst. How do you combat that?“Well, you fix it, you stop it from happening, you take preventive measures,” says Josh, who is studying VCE environmental science at Mount Lilydale Mercy College, a high school in Melbourne’s outer east. “Involving kids in that is scary but I think it’s necessary.”In 2025, for the first time in nearly a decade, science will be the major focus of the OECD’s program for international student assessment (Pisa) – which runs every three years (give or take Covid interruptions), its focus rotating between reading, maths and science.This year it will measure the knowledge and ability of 15-year-old students from 92 countries and economies to act on climate change, under a new heading: Agency in the Anthropocene.Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s director of education, describes the refreshed science framework as a “small revolution” addressing students’ capacity to distinguish scientific evidence from misinformation in the context of the “biggest challenge of our times – our environment”.“This is not about a few people who are going to be engineers or scientists in their later lives,” he says. “This is the foundation we want to create for every student.”Dr Goran Lazendic, who works with the Australian Council for Educational Research, is the international survey director responsible for delivering Pisa this year. 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They’re part of a system, which means they have to act responsibly in the system.”skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Five Great ReadsEach week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morningPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThis world is going to be ours in 20, 30 yearsAt Mount Lilydale Mercy College, students tackle environmental issues and sustainability across a variety of subjects by working on real examples. The approach has been recognised for fostering responsible, community-oriented citizens.For one project, Josh’s class investigated the effects of logging on the habitat of the endangered leadbeater’s possum, in nearby Toolangi state forest.“We went out in the forest, we saw first-hand,” he says. The students learned that leadbeater’s possums rely on old-growth trees with hollows, and observed how few there were in the forest.Other students constructed nesting boxes to help make up for the lack of hollow-bearing trees.‘Too big to even think about’In Australia, climate change in education has often been caught up in politics. In 2019 the then prime minister, Scott Morrison, said it was a source of “needless anxiety” for children, and it was barely mentioned in the curriculum. 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The approach provides teachers with the opportunity to ask questions about complex – and sometimes contentious – concepts such as renewable energy, nuclear power, carbon offsets and net zero – “big ideas and terms that aren’t always distilled or made accessible”.Australia is a relative latecomer when it comes to embedding climate change in education, says Russell Tytler, a professor at Deakin University.Tytler, who specialises in science education and was involved in designing the Pisa science framework, says Pisa is highly influential in education policies around the world.When the results from Pisa 2025 are in, every country will be scored on young people’s understanding of climate change and their role in seeking solutions, he says. 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Spending Christmas With “Dr. Doom”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. I was 11 years old the year my older stepsister brought her high school boyfriend home for the first time. It was Thanksgiving 2006, and his Southern manners fit right in as we bantered between mouthfuls of cornbread stuffing, fried okra, and marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole. Then, in the overstuffed lull before the desserts were served, my dad plunked his laptop in the center of the table. He opened it up and began clicking through a PowerPoint presentation chock full of data on ice sheet melt and global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. My stepsister’s eyes grew wide with embarrassment. In an effort to welcome her sweetheart to the family, my dad had rolled out his version of a red carpet: one of his many family lectures on the horrors of climate change. This wasn’t the first—or last—time my dad’s climate obsession took center stage at our family gatherings. On that particular occasion, he was doling out factoids about Arctic amplification—the prevalence of which was then a debate among climate scientists. It was just a warm-up to a typical holiday season spent quibbling over the ethics of farmed Christmas trees and openly scoffing at scientific inaccuracies during a movie theater showing of Happy Feet, the year’s seasonal offering about a dancing penguin named Mumble. A month later, on Christmas Eve, he forwarded me an email about how Santa Claus’ body would disintegrate if he were to travel through the atmosphere at the speeds necessary to meet his seasonal duties, adding a personal note: “Not to mention the emissions!” Over the years, these tendencies earned him the family nickname “Dr. Doom”—a nod to his university professor title and compulsive need to share terrifying facts about our warming world. My dad hammed it up, interrupting his own lamentations by hooting out, “We’re all gonna die!” in a cartoonish falsetto. More than anything, it was a term of endearment. After all, we knew other households that spent their holidays arguing over whether climate change was even real. Many of us know a Dr. Doom in our lives, or at the very least, a pessimist with a particular fixation. We each have our own ways of responding to it, such as my brother’s pragmatism, my stepmom’s knee-jerk optimism, my stepsister’s exasperation. Or, perhaps you are the doomer yourself. I’m usually tempted to respond with, “I see hope in the next generation.” But doomerism—a label often used to describe climate defeatists—doesn’t typically leave room to talk about a better future. It’s a contagious kind of despair, often too credible to dismiss. Nowadays, my brother and I both work in climate-related fields, undeniably thanks to Dr. Doom’s influence. But growing up, it only took a few days of dad’s soapboxing before I’d tune out of anything climate-related until the New Year. This Christmas, as we once again prepare to pass around the cranberry sauce and discuss the end of the world, I can’t help but wonder how my dad became Dr. Doom. And in a world of rising doomerism, what influence do such tidings have on others? My dad’s journey to becoming “Dr. Doom” started with his formal training as a tropical ecologist. Until the early 2000s, his work meant trudging through rainforests, studying photosynthesis while battling mosquitoes. Then, the wear of human activity on his surroundings became too much to bear. He switched gears and has since spent his career leap-frogging between climate education jobs—from director of an environmental science program at the University of Idaho to president of a small school in Maine, which, in 2012, he led to become the first college to divest fully from fossil fuels. Those entrenched in science, like my dad, seem to be especially susceptible to climate despair. That’s according to experts like Rebecca Weston, the co-executive director of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, a community of mental health professionals trained to address the emotional and psychological challenges emerging in our warming world. Many in scientific fields, Weston says, are first to document and review the data behind irreversible loss. The facts of the crisis are so dire that despair seems to be a hazard for many—scientists or not. After all, a study by researchers at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that some 7 percent of US adults report potentially serious levels of psychological distress about climate change. Gale Sinatra, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education who studies how people learn about climate change, put it more simply: “Your dad’s problem is that he knows too much.” The issue only gets worse when the climate-informed try to share what they know. In a short-lived position in 2007 as science advisor to the Florida state government (back when then-Governor Charlie Crist would actually acknowledge “climate change”) my dad was silenced during a presentation to the legislature. A report later said that the “awkward” situation arose when a Republican senator took issue with a discussion topic that “had not yet been accepted as fact.” According to my dad, the controversy stemmed from his decision to share the famous “hockey stick” graph, a data visual that shows that global average temperatures began spiking after human societies industrialized. “We’re starting to understand it as moral injury,” said Kristan Childs, co-chair of a committee to support climate scientists with the Climate Psychology Alliance, referring to a psychological phenomenon that happens when people witness actions that violate their beliefs or damage their conscience. “They’ve been informing people for so long, and there’s just such a betrayal because people are not believing them, or are not doing enough to act on it.” Like many, my dad’s response to this was to get louder—and darker. There’s conflicting research on how different kinds of messaging can affect people’s behavior. Some studies show that those experiencing distress are also more active, while others say that emphasizing worst-case scenarios, like so-called climate “tipping points,” is an ineffective strategy that can overwhelm and de-motivate audiences instead. It can also backfire on a personal level: Listeners of the podcast “This American Life” may be familiar with a story about a climate activist dad whose zeal led to his children cutting him out of their lives. As a journalist on the climate beat, I’ve interviewed dozens of self-described “doomers,” and yet I’ve found the term is a bit of a misnomer. While many fixate on the worst possible climate scenarios, they’re generally not quitters. As Childs put it, “I don’t know anyone who’s just given up on it all.” Instead, nearly all have dedicated their lives to addressing climate change. And they can’t help but evangelize, warning everybody within earshot of the ways the coming century could change their lives. Throughout these interviews, I’m tacitly looking for any insight that might help my own Dr. Doom. (Recently, I accompanied my dad to a physical therapy appointment where, upon seeing a disposable blood pressure cuff, he attempted to regale his doctor with facts about the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the US health care system.) Childs might just have some. She offers a 10-step program for professionals who work in science-oriented fields, affiliated with a larger collection of support groups offered by the Good Grief Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to processing emotions on climate change. “The group work is powerful because it really, really helps dissolve the sense of isolation,” Childs said. As she spoke, I shifted uncomfortably, wondering how many times my teenage tendency to tune out or respond flippantly made my dad feel I was invalidating his concerns. The best place to start is often the hardest: acknowledging how bad the problem is. “It’s actually helpful to give people a place to share their biggest fears,” she said, adding that the typical workplace culture in scientific fields discourages expressing emotions. “Somehow some acceptance of how bad it is, and the fact that we can then still stay engaged, shifts the question to who we can be in these times.” Weston agrees that entirely erasing climate anxiety isn’t realistic, especially as the effects of Earth’s changing atmosphere become more apparent and frightening. Instead, her group suggests reframing ideas of what having a meaningful impact looks like. “It depends on breaking through a kind of individualist understanding of achievement. It’s about facing something that will be resolved past our own lifetimes,” she said. My dad has spent his career chasing that elusive sense of fulfillment—never quite satisfied with the work he’s doing. But lately, he’s found a reason to stay put. In 2019, he returned to my hometown to teach climate change to undergraduates at the University of Florida. Now and again, I’ve wondered how these 18- to 22-year-olds, many of whom grew up in the increasingly red state, respond to his doomsaying. This year, while home around Thanksgiving, I sat in on his last lecture of the semester—a doozy on how economic systems can destroy natural resources. His students seemed completely at ease—chatting with him at the beginning of class, easily participating when he asked questions. I was already surprised. “He’s just sharing the facts,” one of his students told me, when I asked a group of them about his teaching style after the class. Another quickly interjected: “He’s too dogmatic. It’s super depressing, it’s super doom.” Others nodded. A third chimed in: “It helps me feel motivated.” Later that week, while I was reporting a different story at a local climate event, both his former students and local activists flagged me down to say how much they appreciated my dad’s courses and op-eds in local newspapers. “We need all sorts of climate communication. People are responsive to different messages,” said Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, the markedly anti-doomer author of What If We Get It Right?, a recent book that puts possibility at the center of climate action. In 2019, a Yale study on how people respond to different messaging tactics underscored this point—finding that “hope is not always good, and doubt is not always bad.” For Johnson, getting through the climate crisis starts with who you surround yourself with. “This is not solitary work. Individual changemakers are not really a thing,” she said. “We never know the ripples that we’re going to have.” The Christmas stockings on the mantle at my dad’s house haven’t changed in years, but the dinner conversations have. Now, instead of trying to brush aside Dr. Doom’s digressions, we lean in. Our evenings are spent butting heads over the recent climate optimism book, Not the End of the World, by data scientist Hannah Ritchie; swapping notes on heat pumps; and debating how to make the most of used-EV tax credits. My baby nephew, Auggie, of the latest generation to be saddled with our hopes and fears, brightens the room with his cooing at all manner of round fruits and toy trucks. Between sips from warm mugs, my dad leans back in his chair and frowns at some news on his phone’s screen. “The wheels are really coming off the wagon, kids. Humanity faces an existential threat,” he says, to no one in particular. From the next room, my stepmom calls, “The sky’s been falling since I met you, Stephen.” It’s hard not to smile. Who knows how many people my dad has influenced, or if he will ever feel satisfied with his mission. But as his doomy, gloomy self, he’s built a community and family that share his values. At that moment, I find myself thinking of something Childs told me: “You cannot protect your kids from climate change. But you can protect them from being alone with climate change.” In our changing world, these conversations feel like something to be thankful for.

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UK government faces claim over alleged failure to protect people in climate crisis

Related News

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Join us to forgea sustainable future

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Join us to forge
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