49
2.124. The IPCC has determined that for warming to stay below 2°C,
“the total amount of carbon released through carbon dioxide emissions must
be less than 1000 billion tonnes.”199 Peer-reviewed research looking into the
Carbon Budget has found that eighty percent (80%) of current coal reserves,
a third of oil reserves, and half of gas reserves should remain unused from
2010 to 2050, in order to stay within the carbon budget and meet the 2°C
warming.200 It is important to note that in relation to the temperature targets,
the Climate Vulnerable Forum, under the leadership of the Philippines, has
communicated that the target of limiting global temperature rise to 2°C is
“‘inadequate,’ posing serious threats to fundamental human rights, labor and
migration, and displacement, among other factors.”201
2.125. The petitioners have sought an investigation into not just one
corporate group, but groups of companies that carry the largest share of
responsibility.
Greenhouse gas emissions are “inherently fungible,”
meaning that they are “mutually interchangeable in their environmental
impact and their effect in the atmosphere, because it is the overall
concentration of such greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that ultimately
impacts anthropogenic warming.202 Collectively and individually, the
respondent Carbon Majors have made a significant, if not the most
significant, corporate contribution to climate change leading to human
rights harms in the Philippines.
2.126. The second part of causation addresses the challenge of
assigning legal responsibility for a problem caused by a large number of
greenhouse gas producers. As discussed previously, strict application of
legal rules governing liability is neither appropriate nor necessary in this
national public inquiry proceeding, given that the Honorable Commission is
acting as an investigative body.
2.127. For the purpose of this investigation into the responsibility of
the respondent Carbon Majors, the research made on these Carbon Majors
demonstrate that the respondents have contributed to the human rights
impacts resulting from climate change. As such, the Honorable Commission
199
Carbon Brief (23 October 2013). Carbon briefing: Making sense of the IPCCs new carbon budget,
available at https://www.carbonbrief.org/carbon-briefing-making-sense-of-the-ipccs-new-carbon-budget,
last accessed on 06 February 2017 (citing IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers); United Nations
Environment Programme, The Emissions Gap Report 2015: A UNEP Synthesis Report (Nairobi: UNEP,
2015), xvi, available at http://uneplive.unep.org/media/docs/theme/13/EGR_2015_301115_lores.pdf, last
accessed on 08 February 2017. See also ClientEarth’s amicus submission, p. 35.
200
McGlade, et al. (08 January 2015). The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting
global warming to 2 °C Nature 517, pp. 187–190.
201
Climate Vulnerable Forum (01 May 2015), 20 Nations Call to Strengthen 2 Degrees Climate Goal,
available at http://www.thecvf.org/20-nation-forum-questions-unfccc-2-degrees-goal/, last accessed on 08
February 2017; see the amicus submission by Our Children’s Trust which focuses on the use of a
“scientific prescription as the standard Carbon Majors and States need to meet in order to uphold the rights
of children now and into the future for an environment free of the worst effects of climate change.” Our
Children’s Trust’s amicus curiae brief dated 06 December 2016, available at
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/philippines/, last accessed on 08 February 2017.
202
ClientEarth’s amicus submission, op cit., pp. 42-43.
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