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tax breaks; (e) climate finance; (f) mitigation, (g) adaptation, (h)
loss and damage, and other related measures.
4.2. At the appropriate occasion, petitioners reserve the right to
move for a process to enable the presentation of a comprehensive analysis
on the soundness of respondents’ climate change and human rights
commitments and the implementation of these.
EPILOGUE
The national public inquiry is happening at an opportune time—there
are positive developments in the energy industry that are proving to be
helpful in stalling carbon emissions from the energy sector, and a growing,
global people’s movement that is demanding fossil fuels be kept in the
ground.
Solar energy generation, for example, grew by a third in 2015, making
solar the fastest growing energy source and helping to reduce carbon
emissions from the energy sector.238 At least one company has even come to
the conclusion that fossil fuels will have to be kept in the ground in order to
limit warming to the politically agreed levels.239
The youth pursuing climate justice in the U.S. will be going to trial
against the government and fossil fuel defendant-intervenors. The judge in
the proceeding wrote:
“I have no doubt that the right to a climate system
capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free
and ordered society. Just as marriage is the ‘foundation of
the family,’ a stable climate system is quite literally the
foundation ‘of society, without which there would be
neither civilization nor progress.’”240
Now it is this Honorable Commission’s turn to make history. To date,
32,553 Filipinos have pledged their support for this historic crusade to
champion human rights through climate justice. They are joined by 90,495
238
Note that the findings are from a BP plc report; See Renewable Enery Policy Network for the 21st
Century. REN21. Renewables 2016, Global Status Report, available at http://www.ren21.net/status-ofrenewables/global-status-report/, last accessed on 08 February 2017. [“The world now adds more
renewable power capacity annually than it adds (net) capacity from all fossil fuels combined.” (p. 7); and
“The solar PV market was up 25% over 2014 to a record 50 GW, lifting the global total to 227 GW. The
annual market in 2015 was nearly 10 times the world’s cumulative solar PV capacity of a decade earlier.”
(p. 10)]
239
Total’s Integrating Climate Change to our Strategy, available
athttp://www.total.com/sites/default/files/atoms/files/integrating_climate_into_our_strategy_eng.pdf, last
accessed on 08 February 2017.
240
Juliana v. United States of America, et al., Opinion and Order, Judge Aiken, Case No. 6:15-cv-01517TC, 10 November 2016, available at https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/us/federal-lawsuit/, last accessed on
08 February 2017.
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