Secret Tribunals and Hand-Picked Arbiters—A Little-known System Undermines Environmental Regulation

“Like a War on the Environment” —Texaco’s 30 Years in Ecuador

Blood of the Devil

S5, Ep3 | The Trial

S5, Ep10 | The Kill Step

S5, Ep6 | A Verdict And a New Charge

S5, Ep5 | The Big Guns

S5, Ep4 | The Secret Tribunal

S5, Ep2 | The Colonizers

S5, Ep8 | Damages

S5, Ep9 | The Judge

S5, Ep7 | The Linchpin

S5, Ep1 | Lockdown

La Lucha En La Jungla

Every few years the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases an assessment, which consists of several reports prepared by three working groups. Working Group I focuses on the scientific evidence for climate change; Working Group II on the impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities; and Working Group III on mitigation, what we can do about it (and what's stopping us).  The 2018 IPCC report got a LOT of media attention, more than any previous report, thanks to a combination of uncharacteristically stark warnings from climate scientists and a media cycle that wasn't quite as inundated with crises as the current one.

On April 4, 2022, the IPCC released the mitigation report for its current cycle and folks if the 2018 report was blunt, this one is absolutely screaming "do something!!!" Yet, coverage was as slim as those pre-2018 days. There are lots of mitigating circumstances, 'scuse the pun. For a start, the release of the report was pushed back thanks to the fraught approval process for the report's Summary for Policymakers, or SPM (you can read more about that 

). That meant that reporters got zero time with the actual report before we had to write about it, which was particularly problematic because some government representatives involved in the SPM process succeeded in watering it down so much it reads like the summary of an entirely different report. Plenty of reporters will only read the SPM; if they do, they'll miss the importance of this report. Then of course there's Russia's invasion of Ukraine, subsequent war crimes, and the world bracing itself for WWIII. And the endless pulse of Covid-19 vibrating underneath at all. Not to mention mass shootings, insane school boards, book banning, a looming Trump 2024 campaign, the midterms that Democrats seem destined to lose, a Supreme Court nomination process that McConnell is doing everything to derail yet again. These are deeply troubled times. So I get why the story of yet another dire warning on climate might not register for some outlets

But that's why I'm here. I'm a climate reporter. It's all I focus on, and pretty much all I think about, and I've been covering IPCC reports for 20 years so I've got a pretty good handle on them. 

IPCC & COP

The fossil fuel industry was one of the first major users of PR in the U.S. and it continues to spend more than most other industries. PR firms don’t just handle media placements and advertising for fossil fuel clients, they help craft strategies. As one publicist put it to me recently, “it wasn’t the oil companies that invented greenwashing, it was PR firms.” Despite the billions of dollars it’s spent on PR over the years, the industry and its favorite firms are not exactly innovative. They come back to the same five key narratives over and over again, leaning on whichever plays best at any particular point in time: 

 - From fueling wars to preserving national security, the industry loves to highlight it’s role in keeping America safe…even when it’s profiting from wars that it has also helped to manufacture. 

- Keeping nature separate from humans and reminding us over and over again that economic growth is more important than conservation has helped the industry stave off regulation for decades. 

 - From keeping the lights on to providing the building blocks for life-saving medical devices, smart phones, cosmetics and fast fashion, the industry loves to remind consumers that they need it. 

 - Nothing keeps regulation away like voluntary solutions that make it seem like the industry is really trying. 

 - Just in case people still aren’t thrilled about dirty air, dirty water, and climate change, the industry makes sure to fund museums, sports, aquariums, and schools, which serves the dual purpose of cleaning up its image and making communities feel dependent on the industry and thus less likely to criticize it.

Information Pollution

In the U.S., the response to climate litigation is often “who cares when this Supreme Court is ultimately going to knock it back anyway?” And the answer is simple: discovery. Discovery is a term that describes the fact-finding phase of civil litigation. During the discovery phase, lawyers can access primary documents, depose current and former employees and executives, and generally get a whole bunch of information they couldn’t previously access. 

The oil companies have been fighting like hell to avoid this phase because it will undoubtedly produce ten more “Exxon Knew” series, if not more. It will provide evidence for all the other cases, too, not just in the U.S. but globally, where the industry doesn’t have Supreme Court justices ready to do their bidding. It’s true that it’s entirely possible that any climate case that gets to the U.S. Supreme Court will result in a pro-oil ruling. But not before massively increasing the risk of accountability for these companies along the way. Even the U.S. government might be forced to finally act if the public, armed with mountains of evidence that politicians have colluded with fossil fuel executives to sell their future, demands it.

And it’s important to remember that climate litigation does not begin or end with the U.S., nor does accountability for U.S. oil companies. It’s entirely possible that documents unearthed via litigation in one country can be used to hold a company accountable in one of the other 100 countries in which it operates. 

Given the importance of climate litigation today, and the fact that in its 2022 mitigation report the IPCC included litigation as a key mitigation tool for the first time ever, we keep tabs on these cases, both on the website and via multiple podcasts.

Climate Cases

For a long time there’s been a call amongst some climate advocates in the U.S. for the government to nationalize oil in order to manage the transition away from fossil fuels. The counter-argument is usually to point at countries like Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates, all of which have only doubled down on fossil fuel development since nationalizing their industries. With that in mind, we began in 2023 to dig into this question and get a feel for how petrostates operate, starting with the host of this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP28), the United Arab Emirates. 

Our partners on much of this first phase of petrostate reporting are the Centre for Climate Reporting in the U.K. 

La Lucha En La Jungla

About

S5, Ep3 | The Trial

S5, Ep10 | The Kill Step

S5, Ep6 | A Verdict And a New Charge

S5, Ep5 | The Big Guns

S5, Ep4 | The Secret Tribunal

S5, Ep2 | The Colonizers

S5, Ep8 | Damages

S5, Ep9 | The Judge

S5, Ep7 | The Linchpin

S5, Ep1 | Lockdown

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IPCC & COP

Information Pollution

Climate Cases

Petrostates

La Lucha En La Jungla

About

S5, Ep3 | The Trial

S5, Ep10 | The Kill Step

S5, Ep6 | A Verdict And a New Charge

S5, Ep5 | The Big Guns

S5, Ep4 | The Secret Tribunal

S5, Ep2 | The Colonizers

S5, Ep8 | Damages

S5, Ep9 | The Judge

S5, Ep7 | The Linchpin

S5, Ep1 | Lockdown

Share This Investigation

Date Created

Last Updated

Tags

More Investigations

IPCC & COP

Information Pollution

Climate Cases

Petrostates