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Oil giant fined just $780k after 'one of biggest ever' methane leaks
- _heimdall 3y agoWhile the fine seems extremely cheap in my book, I don't think this kind of environmental damage issue has been elevated to an international court yet. Meaning this is an issue at the country level, each country is responsible for determining the punishment and how to use any money from a fine. Other countries don't really have a say here directly, though trade embargoes could be used if we really disagree strongly enough to refuse to do business with Kazakhstan over the issue.
- graemep 3y agoThe country in question is Kazakhstan so not exactly somewhere any country that cares about the emissions has much influence over. I do not think anything remotely like this is handled by international courts? The ICJ only deals with disputes between nations AFAIK, all the others have a limited number of signatory countries and none really have any ability to enforce anything except so far as countries choose to do so.
- _heimdall 3y agoYeah that was effectively my point as well. The article, and what I'd expect to be a common reaction, would push for this fine being way too low and that something should be done about it. We simply have no leverage though, and frankly how another country decides to regulate or punish companies there isn't another country's problem or responsibility.
- elintknower 3y agoNordstream was also pretty big...
- ejb999 3y ago3 times as much in fact - but nobody wants to talk about that one, then again - both of these events are only a tiny, tiny fraction (like 1/3 of 1%) of the methane released in a typical year.
- redder23 3y ago[flagged]
- sonicanatidae 3y agoWhy would it matter when the fine is a pittance?
- redder23 3y agoIt would matter a LOT if politicians of any country would dare to publically even try to fine the US for this. They rather pretend Putin blew up "his own" pipeline. Aside from that, a country not simply fines another.
- vdaea 3y ago[flagged]
- xigoi 3y agoNot even a slap on the wrist.
- arlattimore 3y agoPar for the course.
- tmaly 3y agoWe need fines for methane leaks on trains. My commute home yesterday was awful when the person behind me leaked.
- sschueller 3y agoNordstream was the biggest ever and it wasn't an accident that we know for sure. Geopolitics seems to be biggest polluter of them all. There isn't anything dirtier. War has no emissions limits...
- matthewdgreen 3y agoNordstream happened once and released the equivalent of four days of the US's industrial methane emissions. One-time events and wars generally happen for short periods of time, while industry happens continuously. Compared to human industry, every war in history is basically a footnote at planetary scale. Global nuclear war might be the only exception, but even the resulting nuclear winter would be very brief compared to the many-millenium impact of industrial climate change.
- jacknews 3y agoExactly, I didn't see any fines for the US over this. But of course, it was Russia blowing up their own pipelines, of course it was. Cui Bono?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]