In November 2018, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and their allies succeeded in delaying California’s proposed ‘Tropical Forest Standard’. The scheme would allow polluting businesses in California to meet part of their carbon-reduction targets by spending money on tropical forest preservation projects instead of actually reducing their emissions. The carbon benefits of such projects are notoriously hard to prove, and they can effectively privatize vast swathes of forest and push indigenous peoples off their land. The scheme will be up for a vote again in April 2019 – will IEN’s Sky Protectors rally enough support to halt it in its tracks once more?
According to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, over 1,000 climate-change cases have now been filed against governments, corporations and individuals in 24 countries. Many of these have important hearing dates in 2019. Keep an eye out for the young people taking legal action against their governments over climate inaction in the US, Canada, India, Pakistan and the Netherlands; crab fishers in California suing oil companies for the impact of climate change on their livelihoods; the results of an appeal in New York’s climate lawsuit against oil corporations, with other US cities waiting in the wings with similar claims; and the government of Vanuatu exploring how to sue polluting companies and governments for climate damages.
