SYDNEY, Wednesday 9 October 2024 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific has today warned about the growth of US-style corporate legal tactics aimed at silencing public interest groups.
In 2022 the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) sued fossil fuel giant Santos on behalf of Tiwi Islanders, representing Simon Munkara, alleging its offshore Barossa gas project could risk cultural heritage and had not been adequately assessed.
In the Federal Court today, Judge Charlesworth ordered that the EDO pay Santos’ costs on an indemnity basis, but also that Santos’ application for the discovery of documents from the EDO continue.
“Santos’ actions in this case are part of a worrying US-style trend towards big polluters using litigation to silence ordinary people using the law to challenge big corporations in Australia,” said David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
“Santos, a 23.5 billion dollar fossil fuel giant, appears to be trying to silence the legitimate public interest of Australian people in defending our environment against pollution and damage — this should sound alarm bells for anyone who cares about our democratic rights and our magnificent country.
“We do not want to live in a country where ordinary Australians are too afraid to go to court, to take reasonable issues up with big polluting corporations, because they are too frightened of the consequences if they lose.
“We’ve seen these SLAPP tactics play out overseas as our colleagues in the United States face a US$300 million lawsuit by fossil fuel company Energy Transfer. Ultimately the real issue is the polluting activities of massive fossil fuel corporations which are literally threatening the future of human civilization.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must stand against these silencing tactics as bad for the rights of Australians and bad for our democracy.”
Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation, or SLAPP lawsuits are designed to intimidate and silence those working in the public interest on matters including civil rights and the environment. The EU recently introduced an anti-SLAPP directive to protect against meritless lawsuits by big corporations.
“Public interest litigation plays a vital role in upholding the principles of a healthy democracy,” said Katrina Bullock, General Counsel at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
“The Munkara case, initiated by the Tiwi Islanders, aimed to safeguard their Sea Country from the detrimental impacts of a proposed large-scale gas project, anticipated to release 380 million tonnes of climate pollution over its 25-year lifespan — exacerbating climate change, damaging the environment, and threatening culturally significant areas.
“In response to the community’s efforts, Santos has employed aggressive legal tactics seemingly intended to intimidate those opposing its actions. The company has sought internal documents from charities that voiced support for the case, potentially to pursue them for costs.
“Furthermore, it has aggressively targeted the Tiwi Islanders’ legal team, relentlessly seeking costs against them. These actions risk discouraging communities from using legal avenues to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their harmful practices.”
-ENDS-
For more information or interviews contact Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Santos’ aggressive legal tactics designed to silence public interest groups
Greenland has now marked the 30th consecutive year where it lost more ice than it gained.
This guest post is by:
Dr Martin Stendel, climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), part of the Polar Portal
Prof Ruth Mottram, climate scientist at DMI and honorary professor at Aarhus University
Over the 12-month period to August 2026, the world’s second-largest ice sheet lost around 135bn tonnes of ice.
This major ice loss came as the region experienced a relatively cool start to summer and less surface melt than in previous years.
In other words, it was not an “extreme” year for weather in Greenland – and, yet, the ice sheet ended firmly in the red.
Three decades of continuous ice loss in Greenland is significant, given that scientists typically need 30 years of data to separate the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change from natural variations in the climate.
In Greenland, the direction of travel has been the same – downward – every single year for 30 years.
These latest figures come as a new report highlights that ice melting processes seen for decades in Greenland are increasingly being replicated in Antarctica.
Greenland, therefore, is not only the largest present-day source of ice-driven sea level rise – but offers a preview of what is in store for the world’s largest ice sheet.
(For our previous analyses of Greenland’s ice cover, see coverage in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015.)
Surface mass balance
One way that scientists track the health of the Greenland ice sheet is by tracking changes to its “surface mass balance”.
This is the difference between ice gains from snowfall and losses from melt at the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet.
Greenland’s annual ice cycle runs from 1 September through to the end of August. The surface mass balance at the end of this period has, to date, always been positive, because the surface accumulates more snow than it loses from melting ice.
The ice sheet typically gains mass during the colder months of autumn, winter and spring. Then, as temperatures increase from around mid-June, the ice sheet begins to lose more ice through surface melt than it gains from snow.
(Greenland also loses ice when icebergs break off – or “calve” – into the sea, as well when the front of glaciers melt when they meet warm sea water. These losses are included in the “total mass balance” – see below.)
Greenland ended 2025-26 with an overall surface mass balance of 519bn tonnes.
This is the sixth highest in a dataset stretching back 46 years and about 178bn tonnes above the 1981-2010 average of roughly 350bn tonnes.
The map below shows the difference between the surface mass balance in 2025-26 and the 1981-2010 average, where blue shows ice gain and red shows ice loss.
The blue lines in the charts below show the surface mass balance throughout 2025-26 for individual days (top) and cumulatively throughout the year (bottom). They highlight how Greenland gained ice between September 2025 and May 2026, before starting to lose ice from June onwards.
Total mass balance
Another way scientists measure the health of the Greenland ice sheet is by looking at its “total mass balance”.
This calculation accounts for ice loss at the surface, as well as the calving of icebergs and the melting of glacier fronts where they meet warm seawater. The latter two components are known as the “marine mass balance”.
It also accounts for a small amount of ice melt at the underside of the ice sheet. This is known as the “basal mass balance”.
In recent decades, Greenland’s total mass balance at the end of the ice cycle year has been negative.
The 12 months to August 2026 were no different. Once all these factors are considered, Greenland lost around 135bn tonnes of ice.
We reached this figure using the same method featured in previous Carbon Brief analyses of Greenland ice cover. This approach is based on an average of three climate models.
However, for the first time, this year’s update includes a separate estimate for Greenland ice loss, based on data from one climate model and automatic weather stations, satellites, GPS data and observations from planes.
This approach estimates that the ice sheet lost an even greater 173bn tonnes of ice over 2025-26.
(Scientific estimates for ice loss in Greenland vary because there is incomplete information about how thick the ice sheet is, how fast it is moving as well as the rate at which it is melting at the surface. Scientists use different approaches for accounting for these uncertainties.)
The chart below shows how Greenland’s total mass balance has changed since 1985, featuring the higher 173bn estimate for the last ice cycle year.
It shows how 2025-26 was the 30th consecutive year of ice loss in Greenland, with 1996 the last year that saw an annual net gain of ice.
The chart below shows how Greenland’s surface mass balance, marine mass balance and basal mass balance have changed since 1985. All of these components are combined to calculate the ice sheet’s total mass balance (red).
Surface melt
Winter and early spring in 2025-26 were unusually dry in the southern half of Greenland, leaving around 40bn tonnes less snow on the ice sheet than normal.
Dry winters typically mean high ice melt rates later on, given that heavier winter snowfall often acts as a protective shield that prevents ice loss in the early part of summer.
However, the relatively dry winter was followed by a relatively cool start of summer. Frequent snowfall and extensive cloud cover limited the sun’s ability to warm the surface at the time of year when solar radiation is typically strongest.
The onset of the melt season – the first of at least three consecutive days with melting over more than 5% of the ice sheet – occurred on 5 June, nine days later than the 1981-2010 average.
From the end of June, the weather in Greenland changed markedly, as warm, sunny conditions took hold.
During the first 20 days of July, melting was well above the 1981-2020 average. At its peak on 22 July, melting covered 74.9% of the ice sheet.
(For comparison, July 2025 holds the record for melt area in Greenland, when 81.2% of the continent was melting simultaneously.)
However, the early season fresh snow in June helped to form a cold and bright buffer, reducing the subsequent summer ice melt and runoff.
The map below shows how roughly three-quarters of Greenland’s ice sheet – shaded in red – was experiencing surface melt on 22 July. The chart shows how surface melt on that date (blue line) outpaced the 1981-2010 average (grey line and shading).