On 6 to 8 November 2018, LSE hosted the UK hearings of an inquiry seeking to attribute the impacts of climate change to the world’s largest fossil fuel and cement producers.

The inquiry was initiated in 2015 with a petition by a group of Filipino citizens and civil society organisations, after a series of particularly violent typhoons hit the Philippines, causing widespread loss of life and damage to property and livelihoods.

The petitioners asked the Philippines Human Rights Commission to investigate the responsibility of the so-called ‘Carbon Majors’ for human rights violations resulting from these impacts. Their arguments rely on a study by Richard Heede, which attributes the majority of cumulative global carbon dioxide and methane emissions since the Industrial Revolution to the largest producers of crude oil, natural gas, coal and cement.

Video recording of the hearings (see below for timings of presentations):

Day 1: 6th November 2018

9:08
Ms. Joni Pegram, Senior Climate Change Policy & Advocacy Adviser, Unicef UK
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38:28
Dr. Paul Ekins OBE, Co-Director of UK Energy Centre, Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy and Director of the Institute for Sustainable Resources at University College London
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1:26:19
Mr. Adam Matthews, Co-Chair, Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), Director Ethics & Engagement at the Church of England Pensions Board
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2:17:19
Dr. Roda K.A. Verheyen, LLMEnvironmental, human rights, and corporate lawyer who led the case against German energy company RWE, one of the respondents in the Petition

3:02:25
Dr. Jaap Spier, Professor of Law and Global Challenges, University of Amsterdam

3:41:45
Ms. Lene Wendland/Mr. Ben Schachter, Adviser on Business and Human Rights, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

4:10:15
Dr. Swenja Surminski, Head of Adaptation Research, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics
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4:41:30
Ms. Linda Siegele, Senior Teaching Fellow Climate Change Law & Policy SOAS University of London

Day 2: 7th November 2018

25:22
Marielle Trixie J. Bacason, Filipino research nurse who is currently working in London after experiencing super typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan

57:06
Veronica V. Cabe, Volunteer community organizer for Nuclear Free Bataan Movement and Filipino typhoon Ondoy/Ketsana survivor

2:00:15
Dr. Myles Allen, Co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] 08 October 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5oC; Head, Climate Dynamics group at the University of Oxford’s Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics; and Principal Investigator of the distributed computing project Climateprediction.net
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4:32:20
Dr. Henry Shue (Skype),  Professor Emeritus of Politics and International Relations at Merton College of Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Studies

5:28:06
Dr. Dylan Tanner, Executive Director of InfluenceMap CIC, a UK based non-profit think tank
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6:36:35
Mark Campanale Founder and Executive Director, The Carbon Tracker Initiative
Andrew Grant, Senior Analyst, The Carbon Tracker Initiative
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