World News

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• Will Brazil’s President Lula wake up to the climate crisis?
• On Amazon destruction, will Brazil President Lula's ‘disinformation space’ be penetrated?

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Shots fired—that is how observers described the landmark legal decision in late May in a case brought by a Peruvian farmer against a German coal giant, that ruled fossil fuel producers could be held accountable under German law for the climate harms they have caused around the world. It was a groundbreaking moment, a decade in the making, that began in 2015 when Saul Lucian Lliuya realized he had a problem: the constant threat of catastrophic flooding he and the other 120,000 residents of his hometown, Huaraz, faced. Above Huaraz sits Lake Palcacocha, one of several glacier lakes that supplies the city’s drinking water. Over decades, water levels have occasionally risen, but as global average temperatures have increased, the surrounding glaciers have shrunk, pushing the lake to capacity and the point where a catastrophic flood is now inevitable.

None of this happened by chance. Pointing to the science that climate change was being driven by fossil fuel production, the Peruvian farmer from a city in the foothills of the Andes set out to do something ambitious: sue German coal-fired power producer RWE for its part in helping to drive catastrophic climate change. Few thought the case would last as long as it did, and when the court issued its historic ruling in May, headlines in major international papers reported it as a loss. What they missed is that Lliuya had succeeded in laying a blueprint for others looking to take fossil fuel companies to court.

The story of Huaraz is a familiar one to many communities in the Global South. A lack of action by governments and international institutions has meant there are precious few avenues available to find the money and resources needed for adaptation and mitigation. Some estimates put the level of compensation owed by developed economies to Global South countries for their role in driving catastrophic climate change at US$192 trillion. At the COP in Baku, Azerbaijan last year, the annual UN climate summit, governments pledged $300bn, a fraction of what is needed, and the latest in a string of pledges that have remained unfulfilled.

Suing those directly responsible offers a way to both hold companies to account and to secure the resources needed to mitigate emissions, and adapt to climate harms as they develop. These legal efforts have been aided by the development of rapid and more advanced attribution science that makes it possible to link individual fossil fuel producers to specific climate harms.

But then, Lliuya’s claim was never really about the money. At heart was a demand RWE pay 0.47% of the cost of a new dam for his city, a figure estimated at USD$4m and a sum that came to roughly USD$20,000 for RWE’s contribution – a rounding error on the company’s balance sheet.

Both Lliuya and RWE’s lawyers, however, understood there was something bigger at stake. When asked by the court if RWE would be willing to settle, the company’s lawyers refused.

“This is a matter of precedent,” they said.

When the court’s decision was handed down on 28 May 2025, while the judges didn’t require RWE to pay up for the dam, they did side with Lliuya on all the key questions of law. The ruling held that German courts do have authority to hear civil claims for climate harms arising from impacts from climate change. A Peruvian could, in fact, sue in German courts under the law of nuisance if it could be shown a German had caused harm to his property – even if said property was on the other side of the world. This was partly due to provisions within German law that require neighbors to consider how their actions affect each other, ruling “the plaintiff is not obliged to tolerate” a disturbance to his property. It also rejected any suggestion Lliuya was “co-responsible” for potential harm simply by living in an at-risk area.

In other words, says Petra Minnerop, a professor of international law at Durham university, the decision means that someone in Tuvalu whose home is affected by sea level rise, or a person in Pakistan whose home is destroyed in a catastrophic flood could potentially sue for climate harms – within certain limits.

Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (TK) has ruled that European Union energy and climate regulations are incompatible with the Polish constitution and breach national sovereignty in determining energy policy.

The Tribunal found that EU institutions, including the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), had exceeded their competences by interpreting EU treaties in a way that significantly impacts Poland’s ability to choose its energy sources independently.

Interpretations of EU law “cannot mean that Poland loses control over the scope of its delegated competences, and thus that there are areas in which its sovereignty (here: energy) is not protected”, the court said in a statement announcing its decision.

However, the ruling is unlikely to have any real effect for now given that the current government, a coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, does not recognise the TK’s legitimacy due to it containing judges unlawfully appointed by the former Law and Justice (PiS) administration.

The case was brought by a group of opposition lawmakers led by Sebastian Kaleta, a PiS MP and former deputy justice minister. The motion challenged the compatibility of EU climate rules – including Directive 2003/87/EC, which created the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) – with the Polish constitution.

The MPs argued that, although Poland had transferred some powers to Brussels, it should retain sovereignty over critical energy decisions. They claimed that mandatory participation in the EU ETS restricts economic freedom and undermines the state’s ability to ensure energy security.

They also warned that EU decision-making processes, which do not require unanimity in the European Council on issues affecting Poland’s energy mix, might breach the limits of competence conferred on the EU and undermine the primacy of the Polish constitution.

In its ruling, the TK agreed with the motion’s core arguments. It held that the CJEU had extended the interpretation of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union beyond the conferred competences, infringing on national sovereignty.

“Competences not conferred on the European Union belong to the member states themselves, and the EU can only act on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity, subject to the scrutiny of national parliaments at all times,” the court said.

Consequently, the TK found this interpretation of EU law to be incompatible with the Polish constitution, emphasising that Poland cannot lose control over the scope of delegated powers, especially in such a key area as energy sovereignty.

The TK, however, discontinued proceedings relating specifically to the ETS “due to the incomplete, from a formal point of view, definition of the object under verification”.

The TK concluded its statement by stating that it was now up to the Polish legislature and executive to take “appropriate public law measures” to implement the decision, which enters into force upon its publication.

However, it is the government that is responsible for publishing TK rulings, and it refuses to do so due to given that some of the tribunal’s judges were illegitimately appointed under PiS.

The ruling could still reverberate in Polish politics, however. The PiS-aligned president-elect, Karol Nawrocki, who takes office in August, said last month that the TK’s decision on this case could be a way to lower the electricity prices by 33% – one of his campaign promises.

He also pledged to hold a referendum on withdrawing from the EU’s Green Deal – a set of policies aimed at reaching climate neutrality by 2050 – and reaffirmed his support for coal, which remains Poland’s main source of electricity generation and is also widely used for heating homes.

PiS politicians welcomed the verdict, insisting that it means that Poland does not have to implement the Green Deal.

“The EU has not been given the competence to decide without the consent of Poland which energy sources we can use and what fiscal burdens may be imposed on individual sources,” Kaleta wrote on X. “This opens the path for a radical reduction in electricity and heating prices now.”

The former justice minister in the PiS government, Zbigniew Ziobro, meanwhile, challenged Tusk, asking if he would “break the law again and hide the verdict to drive Poles into poverty” or “will you behave as you should?”

The government has so far not commented on the TK’s ruling.

The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency yesterday launched a certification scheme aimed at contributing to global efforts to conserve 30 percent of the Earth’s terrestrial and aquatic areas by 2030.

The Terrestrial Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECM) certification is part of efforts to meet the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s goal, dubbed the “30 by 30” target.

Agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) told a news conference that protected areas and OECMs are recognized as effective conservation that can add up to the target.

Joachim Streit has never stepped foot in Canada. But that hasn’t stopped the German politician from launching a tenacious, one-man campaign that he readily describes as “aspirational”: to have the North American country join the EU.

“We have to strengthen the European Union,” said Streit, who last year was elected as a member of the European parliament. “And I think Canada – as its prime minister says – is the most European country outside of Europe.”

Streit had long imagined Canada as a sort of paradise, home to dense forests that course with wide, rushing rivers. But after Donald Trump returned to power, launching much of the world into a trade war and turning his back on America’s traditional allies, Streit began to cast the northern country in a new light.

What he saw was a relatively unexplored relationship, one that could prove mutually beneficial as the world grapples with rapidly reshaping global dynamics. “Canadians have seen their trust in the US undermined, just as we have in Europe, following President Trump’s actions,” he said. “We need to strengthen the ties that bind us to our friends.”

While I get the rationale, I can't help but think that if this currently aspirational idea actually takes hold, the net result would be the militarization of our northern border.

I can't really see Van der Leyen approving such an expansion, especially given it would bring a Commonwealth territory into the EU post-Brexit.

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More passengers shuttling between China’s two biggest cities are choosing to hop on a bullet train rather than a flight, as airlines struggle to match the convenience offered by the country’s ultra-modern high-speed rail network.

The shift to rail has become so pronounced on the busy Beijing-Shanghai route that China’s air travel industry has warned its market is being “eroded”, with airlines scrambling to lure back customers with cheaper tickets and free limousine services.

Passengers made more than 52 million trips by train between Beijing and Shanghai last year, while only about 8.6 million people took a flight between the two cities, according to civil aviation platform Hangban Guanjia.

More than 100 high-speed trains now run between Beijing and Shanghai in both directions each day at speeds of up to 350km/h (217 mph), most of them comprising 16 to 17 carriages including first- and business-class cabins.

The profitability and high usage rate on the Beijing-Shanghai line offers a stark contrast to some other Chinese railways. Many lines in the country’s sparsely populated central and western provinces run at heavy losses.

Business travellers make up a particularly large proportion of rail passengers, Tong Lijun, deputy chief of Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, told domestic media outlet Jiefang Daily.

“They favour many conveniences rail transport can offer but air travel cannot, such as good punctuality, city centre-to-city centre connectivity, reliable services even during unstable weather, and the flexibility to change departure times,” Tong said.

“Many tend to avoid air travel since having to go offline on a flight can be a deal-breaker, as they need to make full use of the journey to stay connected and do some work,” he added.

In the early hours of April 7, 2024, Israeli forces stormed the homes of 25-year-old Layan Kayed in Ramallah and 23-year-old Layan Nasir in Birzeit, both located in the occupied West Bank. The two women were arrested at gunpoint and placed in “administrative detention” without charges.

Nasir’s family said that the soldiers offered no explanation or indication of what charges were being brought against her. They didn’t need to: Under “administrative detention,” Israeli authorities can arrest a person even before any crime has been committed, and without revealing the nature of the allegations. Once arrested in this way, a prisoner can be held in administrative detention in six-month stints that can be renewed again and again without charge or trial. At the beginning of April 2025, there were almost 3,500 Palestinians held in administrative detention, according to Addameer, a Ramallah-based nongovernmental organization that supports Palestinian political prisoners. Among these thousands are minors, journalists, activists and human rights defenders.

Near the end of April 2024, the Israeli military told international media that Nasir had been arrested based on intelligence that suggested she “poses a security threat.” No further details were given to her family. Kayed and Nasir were held in administrative detention without charge in Damon Prison, across the border in Israel, until their release eight months later.

According to Addameer and the United Kingdom-based organization Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, both women had previously been arrested and detained when they were students at Birzeit University — Kayed in 2020 and Nasir in 2021. Alongside other female university students, they had been charged with participating in and affiliating with a student group that Israel had deemed a terrorist organization.

Since Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, Palestinians in the West Bank like Kayed and Nasir have been targeted by Israel’s heightened militarization and subjected to increased surveillance, mass arrests and abuse. In April 2024, the Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said that Israeli raids on homes of former female detainees in the West Bank have become a daily occurrence as part of a strategy of retaliation and revenge against women and girls. The Israel Defense Forces denies this claim. An IDF spokesperson told me that there has been “a significant increase in terrorist attacks” in the West Bank since October 7 and that the IDF has been conducting “counter-terrorism operations against the Hamas terrorist organization, to protect the State of Israel.” The spokesperson emphasized that the IDF “operates in a targeted and precise manner” and does not “seek to obstruct the daily lives of Palestinian civilians.”

I'm not going to say the story backs the hed. Nonetheless, this isn't what you want to read happening. Selecting the correct excerpt is usually an easy task.

Here, it isn't.

The full story should be read, but the best I can do is this:

For the former US secretary of state Antony Blinken, Donald Trump’s indifference to alienating allies is an act of vandalism. He said diplomats around the world were asking: “What the fuck is going on?”

Blinken said America had spent 80 years building up trust, strong economic partnerships and military and political alliances, and if that was then taken down in a matter of 100 days it would be incredibly hard to rebuild.

“It means countries look for ways to work around us, to work together but without the US,” he said. “The possibility that what will be said today will be reversed tomorrow, and will be reversed again, means they simply cannot count on us. Joe Biden used to say it is never a good idea to bet against America. The problem we now have is people are no longer betting on America.”

I don't think anyone is arguing that there's any remaining U.S. hegemony, but this is stark. Get ready for everything you've known about the postwar era to go away. What comes next? Likely not anything good.

Seriously: Read the full piece. This is a five-alarm shitshow, and we're worrying about Barbie imports.