Sunny climate stormy climate | Weekly digest #50
This week: The International court of justice starts hearing a landmark climate suit, Northvolt (a major European battery player) files for bankruptcy and the global plastic treaty talks fail.
Hello folks!
Welcome to your weekly dose of climate news where I bring one sunny story that gives hope and two stormy ones that are a cause for alarm. Hope you like them!
🌞 Sunny news 🌞
1. Top UN court began hearing on a landmark climate suit to answer the question: What are the legal consequences of countries not meeting climate obligations?
What are we talking about?
On Monday, The International court of Justice (ICJ) in Hague began hearing what is the biggest climate related case that has come to it so far.
The case has 2 critical questions
What are the obligations of States under international law to protect the climate system and other parts of the environment from GHG emissions?
What are the legal consequences under these obligations for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment, with respect to:
States, including, in particular, small island developing States, which are particularly vulnerable to, the adverse effects of climate change?
Peoples and individuals of the present and future generations affected by the adverse effects of climate change?
The campaign began in classrooms in the Pacific in 2019, when a group of students pushed to bring the climate issue to the ICJ.
Vanuatu will be the first to present arguments in the hearings, which run until 13 December. The opinion will be delivered in 2025.
Why does this matter?
So far, the adherence by countries to the pledge they have made for addressing climate change has been very poor.
E.g. Developed countries agreed to give developing countries $100 bn/ yr starting from 2020 but were able to meet that number only in 2022
E.g. Many countries have taken pledges to cut emissions, i.e. they will cut emissions by say 50% by 2030, but there is no consequence if they don’t meet this.
The court’s opinion will help clarify the role of nation states and drive adherence by making the legal consequences clear, especially of the developed countries with respect to the most vulnerable countries.
While the advisory opinions of the ICJ are non-binding, they are legally and politically significant. They will also likely affect court judgements in different countries.
Sources for further reading
🌩️ Stormy news 🌩️
2. Swedish battery maker, Northvolt files for bankruptcy in the US
What happened?
The Swedish battery maker Northvolt, once seen as Europe’s strongest competitor to Chinese battery manufacturers, filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States in late November.
The company has been struggling financially for months, cutting jobs and restructuring operations and has said the bankruptcy filing will allow it to “restructure its debt, appropriately scale the business to current customer needs and secure a sustainable foundation for continued operation.”
The company has faced a series of challenges this year.
Accidents at a plant in Sweden
The loss of a contract with BMW worth 2 billion euros in June.
In September, Northvolt announced plans to pause its production of cathode materials — one of the basic building blocks of a battery — at a factory in Skelleftea, Sweden.
The company is NOT shutting down. Northvolt expects to emerge from bankruptcy in the first quarter of 2025. The company's factories in Sweden will remain open and continue to make deliveries and pay vendors and employees. Two planned factories in Germany and Canada will continue to operate outside the bankruptcy process.
Why did this happen?
The main driver is the tepid sale of EVs in Europe. Demand for battery-powered vehicles in Europe stagnated this year, growing only 1.3 percent in the first half of 2024, down from 14.6 percent in the previous year, according to the European Union.
Why does this matter?
Northvolt’s woes are symptomatic of a wider malaise among companies that make batteries for electric vehicles, one that bodes ill for American and European automakers trying to keep pace with new rivals from China.
The bankruptcy has been described as a reality check on what's required to build a successful battery solution.
“The world grossly underestimated how hard it is to make batteries,” said Gene Berdichevsky, the chief executive of Sila, a company that makes advanced battery materials
It's also left the EU taxpayer on the hook for €293m - as part of the loans given by EU to Northvolt
Sources for further reading
3. Countries fail to reach global agreement on plastics
What is happening?
Last week, ~200 countries came together in Busan, to agree on a plastic pollution treaty with the objective of putting an end to plastic pollution.
This was the 5th such negotiation on agreeing on a legally binding ‘plastic treaty’ and supposed to be the final one. However countries failed to reach to an agreement. And they had to end the meeting agreeing to postpone negotiations to a future date.
More than 100 countries supported a draft text that included legally binding global reductions in plastic production and phasing out certain chemicals and single-use plastic products.
But the resistance of countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia to production reductions, according to statements in their submissions to the treaty talks, led negotiators to concede defeat.
Why does this matter?
Based on current trends, plastic production is on track to triple by 2050.
Plastic has massive environmental impacts ranging from the use of fossil fuels in its production, massive waste generation, river and ocean pollution and impact of micro-plastics on human and animal health.
Sources for further reading
You can read previous editions of the newsletter -
Sunny climate, stormy climate | News Digest #49
Sunny climate, stormy climate | News Digest #48
Sunny climate, stormy climate | News Digest #47
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