Two landmark rulings on the urgent responsibility of states to address the climate crisis are issued—by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a proceeding brought by Chile and Colombia, and by the World Court in a proceeding brought by the threatened Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu. Meanwhile in the USA, the Trump regime withdraws from the Paris Agreement, removes greenhouse gases from EPA oversight, drops subsidies for solar energy—and even destroys NASA's climate-monitoring satellites! This as receding Arctic ice sheets and sea ice begin to destabilize the climate-regulating Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), melting glaciers unleash deluges from the Swiss Alps to the Himalayas of Nepal, wildfires rage from Canada to California to the Mediterranean, and ocean acidification crosses a "planetary boundary" that portends global biosphere collapse. In Episode 290 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes an unflinching look at the long odds for humanity's future—even if we manage to avoid nuclear war. 

A court in Quito ruled that the Machángara River, which runs through the city, possesses rights under the Constitution of Ecuador, making the municipal government responsible for keeping it free from pollution, a local civic advocacy group reported July 5.

The court recognized the river as a living entity, subject to rights under Chapter 7 of the Constitution, which establishes that nature possesses a right to protection, promotion and restoration. The provision states that "all persons, communities, peoples or nations are able to call on public authorities to enforce the rights of nature." The Constitutional Court of Ecuador in January 2022 recognized that rivers are protected under Chapter 7.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on May 27 began its first day of public hearings in Manaus, Brazil, to address the obligations of states in light of the climate crisis, based on the principles of the American Convention on Human Rights. The hearings, marked by discussion on mitigating the impacts of social imbalances and the need to protect the most vulnerable, follow a January request by Chile and Colombia for an Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights. The first hearings took place in Barbados at the end of April. In their request, Chile and Colombia emphasized the devastating consequences of the climate emergency in their countries, citing examples such as droughts, floods, landslides and fires.

Records were once again broken last year for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, and retreat of glaciers, according to a new global report issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) March 19. The WMO State of the Global Climate 2023 report finds that on an average day that year, nearly one third of the ocean surface was gripped by a marine heatwave, harming vital ecosystems and food systems—far beyond the already inflated levels seen in recent years. Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest extent on record—at one million square kilometers below the previous record year of 2022, an area equivalent to the size of France and Germany combined. Observed concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—reached record levels in 2022 and continued to increase in 2023, preliminary data shows. (UN News)

The year 2023 is officially the warmest on record—overtaking 2016, the previous warmest year, by an alarming margin. According to the latest data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, released Jan. 9, Earth was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 Fahrenheit) hotter last year compared with pre-industrial levels—dangerously close to the 1.5-degree threshold set by the Paris climate deal. 2023 also marked the first year in which each day was over one degree warmer than the pre-industrial average. Temperatures over 2023 likely exceeded those of any year over the past 100,000 years, the report found. This was partially due to the year's El Niño climate phenomenon, but those impacts only began in June—and every subsequent month last year was the warmest on record for that particular month. September represented the largest climatological departure since record-keeping began over 170 years ago.

Following a trial lasting years, a criminal court in Peru's Cuzco region on Jan. 30 finally absolved 10 campesinos from Chumbivilcas province of charges related to a 2011 protest against the ANABI mineral project, which they say threatens the headwaters of the Rio Yahuarmayo (also known as the Molino). The defendants—nine men and one woman—are followers of the Tupac Amaru Agrarian Federation of Cuzco (FARTAC). They had been charged with "disturbance," "deprivation of liberty," "aggravated property damage," and other offenses typically used against protesters in Peru. If convicted, they could have faced up to 30 years in prison. The ANABI gold and copper mine is in neighboring Apurímac region, but the minerals are transported through Chumbivilcas on unimproved roads, raising dust that contaminates local lands and waters. (Diario Uno, Jan. 30; Wayka, Jan. 20)

Bolivia's government issued a decree cancelling a massive joint lithium project with German multinational ACI Systems Alemania (ACISA)—just days before the ouster of President Evo Morales. The move came in response to protests by local residents in the southern department of Potosí, where the lithium-rich salt-flats are located. Potosí governor Juan Carlos Cejas reacted to the cancellation by blaming the protests on "agitators"  seeking to undermine development in the region. (DW, Nov. 4)

A lawsuit brought by a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide against a European utility over the imminently threatening impacts of climate change in the high Andes has been stalled for months in the evidentiary stage, partially due to the lack of an inter-governmental legal assistance agreement between Germany and Peru. Earlier this year, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm, in North Rhine-Westphalia, made a request to the government of Peru to be allowed to inspect the alpine lakes that are the subject of the lawsuit. This is expected to take at least one year to arrange. Meanwhile, signs mount of the glaciers above the lakes becoming destabilized by warming, portending a regional disaster.