Published

2 years ago

February 16, 2024

Alice Rush

The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been influential in the history of the global climate negotiations.

Its third and fourth Assessment Reports helped elevate adaptating to climate change into a critical issue on par with reducing emissions.

The United Nations-sanctioned organisation is in a position to once again push forward global efforts for addressing the climate crisis, especially on Loss and Damage (L&D).

Room for innovation

The outcomes of the 60th IPCC meeting were criticised for a lack of significant innovation regarding its seventh assessment report (AR7).

Despite proposals for a new structure of reporting, the body agreed to keep the current approach of three main reports and a special report.

Some experts and observers claim this approach is unlikely to produce any new groundbreaking findings on mitigation or climate science.

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As a result, it is unlikely that there will be a special report on L&D for AR7, despite support from many developing countries.

Instead, a chapter under the group report on adaptation is likely to be dedicated to discussing it.

Such an output comes at a time of record-breaking global temperatures and a potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

Without proper interventions anchored on the latest and best available science, even more people than half of the world’s population would be vulnerable to disastrous impacts of tremendous economic and non-economic costs.

A chapter on L&D would influence the entire corresponding landscape under the United Nations climate change regime, from how projects would be selected under the L&D Fund to how the Santiago Network would provide technical assistance to countries on dealing with extreme climate risks and impacts.

Non-negotiables

An L&D chapter on AR7 can lay the groundwork for countries to have a more common understanding of this issue, which is needed to accelerate implementation of solutions.

This would build on the key messages from the previous assessment report, with statements such as its uneven distribution across systems, regions, and sectors and how adaptation would not be enough to fully avoid it.

It falls on its authors to ensure that this part would cover as comprehensive of an assessment of current knowledge about L&D as possible.

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This assessment must include not only peer-reviewed studies and publications, but also documenting indigenous knowledges and practices.

This would be a tangible way of improving the IPCC’s engagements with indigenous groups, a key issue raised from the conduct of the previous assessment cycle.

Another key outcome from the recent meeting, an updating of adaptation indicators, metrics, and guidelines, should be covered within this proposed chapter.

It should present an updated definition of “losses and damages”, which from the previous report is too broad; it should be defined to emphasize impacts and risks that are beyond the capacities of adaptation or mitigation.

Through this lens already commonly-used in many countries, refining and changing said metrics and indicators would help determine clearer boundaries between adaptation and L&D.

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It would also provide more specific guidance for countries and other stakeholders to determine soft and hard adaptation limits, especially at the local level, coupled with the proper provision of means of implementation.

The chapter should present the latest developments in attribution science, especially when downscaled into local contexts. It would contribute to building knowledge and capacities among local policymakers, implementors, and other stakeholders for responding to extreme weather events and preparing for, if not avoiding, future climate risks and impacts.

If our world is going to properly address the climate crisis, it needs to adjust its strategies with current and anticipated trends and impacts. This also applies to the approach of climate science, especially on loss and damage.

John Leo Algo is the National Coordinator of Aksyon Klima Pilipinas and the Deputy Executive Director for Programs and Campaigns of Living Laudato Si’ Philippines. He is an expert reviewer of Working Groups II and III chapters of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

The post Loss and damage must be a focus of IPCC’s next reports appeared first on Climate Home News.

Loss and damage must be a focus of IPCC’s next reports

Climate Change

A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

Published

18 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.

Interview by Paloma Beltran, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.

A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

Climate Change

Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit

Published

23 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.

ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.

Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.

“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”

The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]

ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]

Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.

“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”

Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.

-ENDS-

Images available in Greenpeace Media Library

Notes:

[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.

[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee

[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.

[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.

Media contact:

Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit

Climate Change

Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump

Published

23 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.

By Liza Gross

In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.