On Wednesday 14 December 2022 the Liberal MP for Cook and former Prime Minister, former minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Social Services, Treasury, Public Service, Health, Finance, Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, Home Affairs & Treasury. Scott Morrison, finally has to give evidence under oath at the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme

 

Former prime minister Scott Morrison with fellow Opposition MPs after a censure motion was moved against him in parliament, Wednesday, November 30, 2022. © Lukas Coch / AAP Images, in The Monthly, 30.11.22 

On Wednesday 14 December 2022 the Liberal MP for Cook, Scott John Morrison, as former prime minister (Aug 2018-May 2022), former treasurer (Sept 2015-Aug 2018, May 2021-May 2022) and former minister for social services (Dec 2014-Sept 2015) will give sworn evidence before the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

He is the only witness called before the Royal Commission on that day, in a week which will see a total of fourteen witnesses called to give evidence.

Although, Morrison avoided giving evidence in person during the Inquiry into the Appointment of the Former Prime Minister to Administer Multiple Departments, preferring instead to put his case and parry the Inquiry’s questions through his legal team, that opportunity was not open to him in this instance.

To avoid disappointment, anyone watching a live broadcast of the Member for Cook giving evidence next Wednesday — or reading whatever statements he makes afterward — should not anticipate any expressions of genuine regret for his policies, words, or actions taken over the course of creating and implementing the Centrelink automated debt creation and recovery process which was in operation between 2015 and 2019.

BACKGROUND

Report of the Inquiry into the Appointment of the Former Prime Minister to Administer Multiple Departments, Executive Summary, 25 November 2022, excerpts:

17. Mr Morrison does not appear to have attached any significance to the fact that, from the time of its making, each appointment operated in law to charge him with responsibility for the administration of the whole department. There was no delineation of responsibilities between Mr Morrison and the other minister or ministers appointed to administer the department. In the absence of such delineation, there was a risk of conflict had Mr Morrison decided to exercise a statutory power inconsistently with the exercise of the power by another minister administering the department. The 2021 appointments were not taken with a view to Mr Morrison having any active part in the administration of the department but rather to give Mr Morrison the capacity to exercise particular statutory power should the minister charged with responsibility for the exercise of that power propose to do so in a manner with which Mr Morrison disagreed, or fail to make a decision that Mr Morrison wanted to be made. In terms of the functioning of the departments this was as Dr Gordon de Brouwer PSM, Secretary for Public Sector Reform, observes “extremely irregular”……

19. Given that the Parliament was not informed of any of the appointments, it was unable to hold Mr Morrison to account in his capacity as minister administering any of these five departments. As the Solicitor-General concluded, the principles of responsible government were “fundamentally undermined” because Mr Morrison was not “responsible” to the Parliament, and through the Parliament to the electors, for the departments he was appointed to administer.

[my yellow highlighting]

20. Finally, the lack of disclosure of the appointments to the public was apt to undermine public confidence in government. Once the appointments became known, the secrecy with which they had been surrounded was corrosive of trust in government.

The Saturday Paper, Editorial, 3 December 2022:

Like a veteran troubadour, Scott Morrison rose from the backbench on Wednesday and delivered all the old hits: indignation, self-pity and sly evasions. The moment – parliamentary debate of his historic censure for secretly swearing himself into several portfolios as prime minister – demanded new notes, of course, namely songs of contrition. But Australians were kidding themselves if they thought they’d hear them.

Last week, former High Court justice Virginia Bell wrote that Morrison’s weird and secretive acquisitions were “corrosive of trust in government” and found that he had attempted to swear himself into a sixth ministry, Environment. Bell found that the secret assumption of powers was not illegal but gravely unorthodox and concerning, and wrote – despite Morrison’s previous justifications – that three of the five appointments he made for himself had little or nothing to do with the pandemic. She also wrote: “Being appointed to administer multiple departments seems an exorbitant means of addressing Mr Morrison’s concern about his ministers’ exercise of statutory power in cases that were not subject to Cabinet oversight”.

Despite the solicitor-general arriving at a similar conclusion, and the disgust of his own colleagues when they learnt, sometimes through the media, that he had secretly appointed himself to their portfolios, Morrison spoke with characteristic defiance. He told parliament the censure motion was “political intimidation” to which he would bravely refuse to submit, and with an air of brittle righteousness invoked the crisis of the pandemic: you have no right to judge me, he was saying, because you weren’t there in the seat of power during the storm. Incredibly, Morrison also said that had he been asked about his secret manoeuvre – of which his closest colleagues were oblivious – then he would have answered honestly.

With the lone exception of Bridget Archer, the Liberals decided to back their man. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called the motion “a stunt” – a recurring party line – and their side of the chamber emptied after Morrison’s speech in theatrical protest. As they did, MPs filed past Morrison and shook his hand.

It is confirmation, if we needed it, that Morrison was a dangerously loose unit. He was not, as some in the press gallery once argued, an “extreme pragmatist”. He was paranoid, bullying and profoundly allergic to scrutiny. Prolifically deceptive, he was also thin-skinned and prone to unsavoury fits of rage and self-pity. His contempt for the media is obvious, but that contempt also extended to his own cabinet and basic conventions of democracy. And thus, to the Australian people. [my yellow highlighting]

And so, on Wednesday, parliament successfully passed its motion 86-50. It made Morrison the first prime minister, or former prime minister, to be censured in the house. It was proportionate acknowledgement of a historically deviant act and a suitably ignominious distinction for a man who was grossly unfit for the office he once held.

A brief look at "The 2022 Australian Federal Election: Results from the Australian Election Study"

 

Australian National University-Griffith University, THE 2022 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION: Results from the Australian Election Study, released 5 December 2022, excerpts:

Executive Summary

This report presents findings from the 2022 Australian Election Study (AES). The AES surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,508 voters after the 2022 Australian federal election to find out what shaped their choices in the election. The AES has fielded representative surveys after every federal election since 1987, which allows these results to be placed in a long-term context. This report provides insights into what informed voting behaviour in the election and voters’ attitudes towards policy issues, the political leaders, and the functioning of Australian democracy generally.

The main findings are as follows:

Public policy and the economy

• A majority of voters (53 percent) cast their ballots

based on policy issues, down from 66 percent

in 2019.

• The most important issues in the election identified

by voters included the cost of living (32 percent),

environmental issues (17 percent), management of

the economy (15 percent), and health (14 percent).

• Voters preferred Labor’s policies on the cost of

living, education, health, and the environment.

• Voters preferred the Coalition’s policies on

management of the economy, taxation, and national

security. The Coalition’s advantage in economic

policy areas was significantly reduced since 2019.

• Evaluations of the national economy were worse in

2022 than in any election since 1990. Two thirds of

voters reported that the national economy became

worse over the past year. [my yellow highlighting]

Leaders

• Anthony Albanese was evaluated more favourably

than any political party leader since Kevin Rudd in

2007, scoring 5.3 on a zero to 10 popularity scale.

[my yellow highlighting]

• With Anthony Albanese as party leader, Labor

attracted more votes based on leadership than in

the 2016 and 2019 elections.

• Scott Morrison became the least popular major

party leader in the history of the AES, scoring 3.8

on a zero to 10 popularity scale, down from 5.1 in the

2019 election. [my yellow highlighting]

• Anthony Albanese was evaluated more favourably

than Scott Morrison in eight of nine leader

characteristics, with the biggest differences

in perceptions of honesty, trustworthiness,

and compassion.

The ‘Teal’ independents

• Political partisanship for the major parties reached

record lows in 2022. The proportion of voters that

always vote the same way is also at a record low

(37 percent). This growing detachment from the

major political parties provided the conditions that

supported the Teals’ success.

Most Teal voters were not ‘disaffected Liberals’, but

tactical Labor and Greens voters. Less than one in

five Teal voters previously voted for the Coalition. 

[my yellow highlighting]

• On average, Teal voters are ideologically close to

Labor voters – placing themselves just left of centre

on a zero to 10 left-right scale (Teal mean: 4.4; Labor

mean: 4.3).

Socio-demographic influences on the vote

• Men were more likely to vote for the Coalition than

women (men: 38 percent; women: 32 percent).

Women were more likely than men to vote for Labor

and the Greens. This represents a longer-term

reversal of the gender gap in voter behaviour, since

the 1990s women have shifted to the left and men

to the right in their party preferences.

• Since 2019, the Coalition lost support from both

men and women. [my yellow highlighting]

• There are major generational differences in voter

behaviour. The Coalition has very little support

among Millennials and Generation Z. The Coalition’s

share of the vote fell in almost every age group, but

especially among the youngest cohorts of voters. 

[my yellow highlighting]

• The self-identified working class remain more

likely to vote Labor (38 percent) than the Coalition

(33 percent).

• Since 2019 the Coalition has lost support among

university-educated and higher income voters. 

[my yellow highlighting]

The COVID-19 pandemic

• Overall, Australians evaluated the performance of

the federal government’s handling the pandemic

more negatively than their state government. 

[my yellow highlighting]

Around half (51 percent) thought their state

government handled the pandemic well, compared

to 30 percent who thought the Commonwealth

government handled the pandemic well.

• There are major differences across states – in

Tasmania and Western Australia 75 percent

thought the state government handled the

pandemic well, compared to just 36 percent

in Victoria.

• Among those who thought the federal government

handled the pandemic badly, only 12 percent

voted for the Coalition, while 42 percent voted

Labor and almost one third voted for a minor party

or independent

• A majority of Australians thought the pandemic

had negative impacts on social cohesion or

inclusiveness (64 percent) and individual

rights and freedoms (54 percent). One third of

Australians reported that the pandemic had

negatively affected their personal economic

circumstances. Only a small minority of

Australians believed the pandemic had positive

impacts for Australian society.

Preferred party policies

The major parties have long-term electoral

advantages in different policy areas (see Figure 1.4).

The AES asked voters for the same 11 issues, “whose

policies – the Labor Party’s or the Liberal-National

Coalition’s –would you say come closer to your own

views on each of these issues?” The Coalition holds

an advantage as the preferred party on management

of the economy, national security, and taxation. Labor,

on the other hand, is well ahead as the preferred

party on global warming, the environment, health,

education, and the cost of living. As nearly one-third

of the electorate considered the cost of living to be

the most important issue in the 2022 election, in

principle this benefitted Labor. The management of

the economy benefitted the Coalition.

Although there are fluctuations from election to

election, overall voters’ preferences for one party

over the other on these policy areas have remained

constant over time. Of note in 2022 compared to 2019

is the larger proportion of voters who said there was

‘no difference’ between the parties on salient issues

in the campaign. In 2022 an average of 25 percent

of voters said there was ‘no difference’ between

the parties compared to 19 percent in 2019. Voting

in the 2022 election was clearly less policy-driven

than in recent elections. Another notable shift is that

the Coalition has lost their advantage over Labor on

immigration and refugees, and their advantage on

management of the economy and taxation is much

reduced since 2019. [my yellow highlighting]

Climate change

The 2019-2020 bushfires and the 2021-2022 floods

affected significant proportions of the population

and brought home to voters in the most dramatic way

the effects of climate change. This is reflected in

the significant increase in the proportions of voters

mentioning global warming as the most important

election issue (see Figure 1.5). In 2019 and 2022,

10 percent mentioned global warming as the most

important election issue compared to 4 percent in

2013 and 2016. Mentions of the environment show a

long-term increase, albeit with a slight decline from

11 percent in 2019 to 7 percent in 2022.

While not everyone sees the environment as their

top election concern, there is a broad group who

are concerned about climate change. Nearly half

of all voters see global warming as ‘extremely

important’, with only around one in four seeing it as

‘not very important’ (see Figure 1.6). However, there

are substantial party differences in these views. 

[my yellow highlighting]

Almost six in 10 Labor voters see global warming as

‘extremely important’ compared to less than one in

four Coalition voters. As we would expect, the vast

majority of Greens voters—80 percent—see global

warming as ‘extremely important’. A large majority

of all voters see global warming as being either

‘extremely important’ or ‘quite important’.

The economy

Following the lockdowns related to the pandemic

and the associated decline in economic activity,

the Australian economy recovered in 2021-2022,

with unemployment declining to historic lows and a

significant increase in economic growth. However,

the government was left with major debt because

of the economic subsides put in place to shield

businesses and individuals from the pandemic, and

inflation has jumped to levels not seen in decades.

As a result, voters took a very pessimistic view of the

performance of the national economy in 2022, with

two-thirds saying that it had become worse over the

previous year (Figure 1.7), a figure only surpassed in

1990 during the recession of the early 1990s.

TRENDS IN AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL OPINION: Results from the Australian Election Study 1987– 2022 can be read or downloaded at:

https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/Trends-in-Australian-Political-Opinion-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study-1987-2022.pdf

THE 2022 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION: Results from the Australian Election Study can be read or downloaded at:

https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/The-2022-Australian-Federal-Election-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study.pdf

Australian Koala Foundation: human management rather than koala management may be the best way to save the species from extinction

 

The Koala Kiss project comes to town

Australian Koala Foundation announces first 'Koala Kiss Site': A first-of-its-kind Human Plan of Management will see Koala numbers grow over the next 50 years

__________________________________________________________

Australian Koala Foundation

__________________________________________________________

The nation’s first ‘Koala Kiss Site’, which is part of the larger Koala Kiss Project has been announced by the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) today, to ensure abundant Koala populations in 50 years.

AKF Chair Deborah Tabart OAM said they had selected the Gwydir Shire in NSW because it contained secure habitat with the ability to have certain points of the landscape connected, creating the first ‘Koala Kiss Site’.

“We see the Gwydir Shire as the perfect pilot project for our long-term vision for the Koalas’ recovery and for the first-of-its-kind Human Plan of Management,” Ms Tabart, also known as the Koala Woman, said.

“There are small discrete populations where Koalas are doing well in this area, and if we reduce the threats there should be healthy Koala populations there in 50 years.”

The Koala Kiss Project aims to link fragmented Koala habitats and identify strategic and/or regrowth opportunities. With the ultimate vision of creating the 'Koala Kamino' - approximately 2,543kms of prime koala habitat from Cairns to Melbourne, that can be created into an uninterrupted conservation corridor by connecting key 'kiss points'.

This is possible with the use of the AKF’s scientific, first-of-its-kind Koala Habitat Atlas, which maps the entire geographic habitat of the Koala across 1.5 million square kilometres.

Rather than a Koala Plan of Management, AKF will demonstrate in the Gwydir Shire how a Human Plan of Management, with Koalas as a flagship can create sustainable communities, despite environmental and human threats.

“We estimate there are less than 1000 Koalas in the Parkes electorate which includes Gunnedah, Inverell, Moree and Gwydir Shire, but, we believe, with careful management their populations can become robust and sustainable into the future. I have seen so many Koala Plans of Management, but what we need is a Human Plan of Management – manage human development and we will have Koalas,” Ms Tabart said.

“It is time for a new way of thinking about Koala conservation and most importantly to not rely on Governments, of all levels, coming and going and changing their laws to allow destruction of Koala habitat.”

“Given 80% of Australia’s Koalas live on private land, it is up to us; those that own that land to become stewards of the biodiversity that is on our properties.”

“It should be simple and I think it could be. That is why the Koala Kiss Project was born. I know it will thrive because it relies on common sense and I truly have faith in us, the people to do the right thing.”

“It is time to write Human Plans of Management that incorporate a holistic approach to each and every landscape with complex and often conflicting priorities.”

The AKF will hold a workshop in Warialda with key stakeholders and community in February 2023 to discuss how a Human Plan of Management can help transform the long-term viability of Koalas in the region.

“This workshop will not just be lamenting the loss of Koalas but inspiring abundance. We can do it if we all work together. We are welcoming everyone from all walks of life to join us at this two-day workshop in Warialda - to think through the complexities and also the excitement of thinking Koalas will be in the Gwydir Shire landscape in 2075,” said Ms Tabart.

“AKF is all about recovery of the species – with the Federal Government officially listing the Koala as Endangered in parts of Australia earlier this year, a Koala Recovery Plan and EPBC Act waiting to be re-written, we’re not sitting idle - it’s clear we must take matters into our own hands and AKF does not need permission from the government to make this vision possible!

“Imagine if we achieve contiguous habitat across the entire stretch of the Koala range, then all creatures great and small could traverse through the bush unthreatened – that is the ultimate goal.”

To find out more about this new vision for the koala visit savethekoala.com/our-work/kiss

The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) is the principal non-profit, non-government organisation dedicated to the effective management and conservation of the Koala and its habitat.

_________________________________________________

A reminder of just how long the fossil fuel industry has been lying about climate change and why this is so important in 2022......

 

In recent years there have been a number of media and legal journals reporting on individuals, communities and classes of people suing multinational mining, oil, gas and coal corporations with regard to the environmental and climate change consequences of their business policies and actions.

One of the telling points being made before the courts is 'what did the company know and when did it know it'.

Although the facts set out below refer to the fossil fuel industry, it is time rural, regional and outer metropolitan communities on the Australian East Coast began a search in the records of federal, state, local governments and their agencies/agents, for all documents, minutes, memos, emails, as well as Hansard and media articles or comments, which reveal 'what governments knew and when they knew it'. 

It's well past time that the level of private litigation increases — because these three tiers of government will not stop: a) giving permission for urban development on floodplains or geologically unstable land; b) all but ignoring high greenhouse gas emissions by industry & business; c) refusing to act on the high rate of land clearance & destructive logging of native forest which exacerbates land mass temperature rise or d) failing to seriously address the climate risk associated with the millions of vulnerable residential dwellings which will not be able to withstand the erratic rolling unnatural disasters anticipated to hit Australia within the next 8-28 years; unless the courts begin to hand down judgments that cumulatively cost them billions in any election cycle and through budgetary pain force government to act.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1959 — years before some reading this post were born —

the American Petroleum Institute (API) along with the great and good of the oil industry celebrated 100 years of drilling for oil in the USA.

At that centennial celebration nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller addressed the around 300-strong audience.

According to a later account of this address, in part he stated:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use more and more of the fossil fuels. But I would [...] like to mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. [....] Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. [....] The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?

Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect [....] It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe…..

At present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. By 1970, it will be perhaps 4 per cent, by 1980, 8 per cent, by 1990, 16 per cent [roughly 360 parts per million], if we keep on with our exponential rise in the use of purely conventional fuels. By that time, there will be a serious additional impediment for the radiation leaving the earth. Our planet will get a little warmer. It is hard to say whether it will be 2 degrees Fahrenheit or only one or 5. [my yellow highlighting]

But when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise. Well, I don’t know whether they will cover the Empire State Building or not, but anyone can calculate it by looking at the map and noting that the icecaps over Greenland and over Antarctica are perhaps five thousand feet thick.

Robert Galbraith Dunlop, Chairman of Sun Oil Co and a director on the API board at the time, was present when Teller informed the oil industry it was contaminating the atmosphere.

In 1965 at an annual API conference its president Frank Ikard gave an address titled “Meeting the Challenges of 1966” which informed his audience of the contents of a recent published report submitted to President Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee titled “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment”.

Ikard stated: “One of the most important predictions of the report is that carbon dioxide is being added to the Earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at such a rate that by the year 2000 the heat balance will be so modified as possibly to cause marked changes in climate beyond local or even national efforts. The report further states, and I quote: “...the pollution from internal combustion engines is so serious, and is growing so fast, that an alternative nonpolluting means of powering automobiles, buses and trucks is likely to become a national necessity.” [my yellow highlighting]

Then again in 1968 an unpublished paper commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute was delivered in final form to API. Again, at this time Robert Dunlop of Sun Oil was still a current director & by now also a former Chair of the American Petroleum Institute (1965 to 1967).

Here are the details of that paper…..

“Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Pollutants”, Final Report, Robinson, E. “Elmer” (Author) & Robbins, R. C. “Bob” (Contributor - American Petroleum Institute, Stanford Research Institute). First published in 1968 by Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Calif. USA, with supplementary information supplied in1969 and 1971, 123 pages with diagram, table & references at:

http://chr.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Exhibit-3H-Sources-Abundance-and-Fate-of-Gaseous-Atmospheric-Pollutants.pdf

Excerpts:

It seems ironic that in our view of air pollution technology we take such a serious concern with small-scale events such as the photochemical reactions of trace concentrations of hydrocarbons, the effect on vegetation of a fraction of a part per million of S0₂, when the abundant pollutants which we generally ignore because they have little local effect, CO₂ and submicron particles, may be the cause of serious world-wide environmental changes….. [my yellow highlighting]

Possible Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

We are concerned with the possible changes in atmospheric CO₂ content because CO₂ plays a significant role in establishing the thermal balance of the earth. This occurs because CO₂ is a strong absorber and back radiator in the infrared portion of the spectrum, especially between 12 and 18. As such CO₂ prevents the loss of considerable heat energy from the earth and radiates it back to the lower atmosphere, the so-called “greenhouse effect. Thus the major changes which are speculated about as possibly resulting from a change in atmospheric CO₂ are related to a change in the earth's temperature….

If the earth's temperature increases significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur, including the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels, warming of the oceans, and an increase in photosynthesis. The first two items are of course related since the increase in sea level would be mainly due to the added water from the ice cap. [my yellow highlighting]

Estimates of the possible rate at which the Antarctic ice cap might melt have been made….

Changes in ocean temperature would change the distribution of fish and cause a retreat in the polar sea ice. This has happened in recent time on a very limited scale….

Summary of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere

In summary, Revelle makes the point that man is now engaged in a vast geophysical experiment with his environment, the earth. Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000 and these could bring about climatic changes…..

[my yellow highlighting]

The following year saw this report sent to API, “Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Pollutants: Project PR-6755, Supplemental Report” (1969) at:

http://chr.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Exhibit-3I-Sources-Abundance-and-Fate-of-Gaseous-Atmospheric-Pollutants-Supplement.pdf

Yale Environment 360, 30 November 2022:

The Center for International Environmental Law, an advocacy group Muffett now runs, published excerpts in 2016. Now, the paper — along with a follow-up that Robinson and Robbins produced in 1969 — is playing a key role in a wave of lawsuits seeking to hold oil companies accountable for climate change.

Minnesota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Baltimore, and Honolulu are among about two dozen U.S. states and localities suing the industry. Some of the cases seek compensation for the damage wrought by climate-driven disasters like floods, fires, and heat waves, plus the cost of preparing for future impacts. Others allege violations of state or local laws prohibiting fraud and other deceitful business practices, or requiring companies to warn consumers of a product’s potential dangers. The defendants, which vary from case to case, include the American Petroleum Institute as well as major companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips.

The suits’ common thread is the charge that the industry has long understood emissions from oil and gas combustion would drive warming — and create a host of major global risks — but carried out a decades-long misinformation campaign to confuse the public and prevent a shift to cleaner fuels. Most cite Robinson and Robbins’ work. The pair’s reports have been proffered internationally too, most notably in a Dutch case in which a court last year ordered Shell to slash its carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030; the company is appealing. European courts have been more favorable for cases seeking to force such reductions or push governments to strengthen climate policies, while U.S. suits generally aim at extracting financial penalties or compensation from companies….. [my yellow highlighting]

Read the full article here.

Further reading

https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Smoke-Fumes-FINAL.pdf

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/162144/Presentation%20Geoffrey%20Supran.pdf

“Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications”, Geoffrey Supran, PhD, History of Science, Harvard University