Positive Climate Stories in June
The sun’s finally picking up – and so is climate news! Bask in our latest month’s worth of positive climate stories.
1. Renewables on the up
At the beginning of June, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that the world was investing twice as much in renewables as in fossil fuels. Recent data also shows that 2023 marked a watershed moment for the EU with renewables contributing more to the grid than fossil fuels. With renewable electricity at the crux of decarbonising our economies, this is a real sign of the tides turning away from the fossil fuel epoch.
Part of the nearly $2tn annual global spend on clean technology and energy can be attributed to the cost reductions that have come from investment. Wind and solar now garner 2.5 times as much energy for every dollar compared to two years ago.
Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go. Even while investment in renewables increases, the steady global rise of energy demand means fossil fuel emissions are going up in tandem. Banks are still lending more for fossil fuel projects than renewables, the IEA report added.
As ever, time is of the essence: the European Climate Neutral Observatory reported recently that for the EU to reach its 2030 climate goals it must increase renewable electricity supply by 1.4x and reduce fossil fuels by 1.8x, and soon. It’s important we celebrate the steps we’ve made without losing sights of the strides that will still have to come.
2. Fossil fuel ads in the crosshairs
UN Secretary General António Guterres pulled no punches in early June declaring the need to ban fossil fuel advertising and condemning oil and gas companies as the “godfathers of climate chaos”. Guterres compared the issue to tobacco advertising, self-evidently wrong and decisively a thing of the past. Our planetary health should be treated with no less gravity than human health.
Greenwashing makes up a huge part of the climate crisis puzzle, a sleight of hand that hoodwinks consumers into less than sustainable activities and normalises polluting practices even as we strive to combat them.
Opportunity Green works tirelessly on this issue, challenging the cruise industry’s misleading depiction of liquified natural gas (fossil-LNG) as a sustainable alternative fuel, and the EU’s substandard Taxonomy for sustainable activities that risks directing finances earmarked for green industries towards LNG for ships and unsustainable aviation fuels. Read more about our legal work on greenwashing.
3. The Nature Restoration Law
Despite June’s worrying EU election results signalling an increased appetite for far-right politics, just a week later the Parliament delivered a landmark piece of legislation on nature. The Nature Restoration Law will legally oblige states to restore 20% of Europe’s degraded land and sea ecosystems by 2030, 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050.
The months preceding the law’s passing were turbulent, punctuated by farmers’ protests, Hungary’s withdrawal of support, and multiple subsequent concessions to the legislation’s opponents. This came in spite of overwhelming popular support, with 97% of surveyed EU citizens backing legally binding biodiversity targets. One such compromise includes a brake clause that gives scope for subordinating the bill to the agricultural sector’s interests.
Nevertheless, given the scale of the global biodiversity crisis, the win is hugely significant. Healthier ecosystems strengthen climate change resilience and food security, as well as mitigating the effects of extreme weather events and sequester carbon emissions.
The Nature Restoration Law is a core component of the European Green Deal. The SASHA Coalition recently joined over 400 organisations calling for the incoming EU leadership to recommit to delivering Green Deal.
4. Landmark legal win against oil in the UK
The UK Supreme Court set an incredible precedent this month ruling that Surrey County Council should have considered the full climate impact when greenlighting new fossil fuel projects. This means that all the consequences of burning oil from new must be accounted for, not just the impact of the drilling itself.
“The whole purpose of extracting fossil fuels is to make hydrocarbons available for combustion,” three of the five judges argued. “It can therefore be said with virtual certainty that, once oil has been extracted from the ground, the carbon contained within it will sooner or later be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and so will contribute to global warming.”
While the ruling does not outright block future fossil fuel projects, it gives robust grounds for appealing decisions. A big hand must go out to seasoned activist Sarah Finch who took the case against the council.
5. Youth climate action is at it again
Heading now from the UK to the Pacific, a group of Hawaiian youths have just won a ruling forcing the US state to decarbonise its transport system by 2045. The state was accused of investing in infrastructure that locks in fossil fuels rather than promoting sustainable projects.
The 13 young claimants argued successfully that their constitutional rights to health and their future were violated by state transport policy that failed to meet the mark on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
This is just the latest in a growing body of legal cases in which failure to adequately address the climate crisis has been found to infringe upon individual rights. Last August, 16 young people in Montana won a similar case against the state’s oil and gas permitting, and just a couple of months ago a group of over 2,000 elderly Swiss women won a landmark case against the State with the European Court of Human Rights. Read our Legal Officer Isabela Keuschnigg’s analysis of the KlimaSeniorinnen case.
What positive climate stories have lifted your spirits this month? Share it with us on X or LinkedIn and we’ll help to spread the word.
