Hey Big Spender, Blend A Little SAF For Me (Low Carbon, So Refined)
Climate is in the courts but your intrepid hosts are going Tropscho for low-carbon Dom Perignon-priced liquid fuels!
‘More Sufficiency Now!’ tees - for a sufficiently limited time only
There may no longer be an insufficiency of sufficiency themed t-shirts walking the streets but YOUR opportunity to join the burgeoning sufficiency movement is rapidly closing like the Overton window on climate ambition! YOU can make sufficiency a thing by heading to our merch page and grabbing one of these tees, which will only be available for the next week before they disappear like the t-shirt you didn’t need in the first place. Run, don’t walk over to: www.letmesumup.net/p/merch/.
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From the Torres Strait to the Hague, this week climate was in the courts and your intrepid hosts cross examined not one but two landmark climate court cases: one dismissed in Australia, one seismic win in the International Court of Justice. While the case Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai brought against the Commonwealth to Australia’s Federal Court found the Federal Government does not owe a duty of care to prevent climate change impacts on Torres Strait Islanders, the judgement was not without a judicial side-eye at past governments’ climate targets—“window dressing” and “no regard for science” were phrases that made it into the ruling. This excellent summary from Adam Morton at the Guardian is worth a read.
Further afield, what started as a grassroots campaign from Pacific Island students led to a unanimous advisory opinion from the UN’s highest court. Their view? States have binding obligations to protect the climate—and yes, they could be held liable for climate damages. The implications? This legal mic drop will have global ripple effects for some time. Watch this space!
Our main course
Refined Ambitions or Rube Goldberg machines powered by beef fat and hope? Deloitte’s recent report for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, “Refined Ambitions: Exploring Australia’s Low Carbon Liquid Fuel Potential’ made it clear that clean-ish fuels can be yours, for a HEFA-ty price! Your intrepid hosts levelled-up on acronyms (HEFA, ATJ, FT, and PTL, anyone?) and zeroed in on aviation, freight, and mining as the big targets for low carbon, liquid fuels. And speaking of zeroes. These fuels are so expensive - like $1,000 to $5,000 per tonne of CO₂ abated expensive - this report had Luke feeling bullish on green hydrogen! If we’re fuelling our planes with $10/litre synthetic champagne, maybe it’s time to rethink the flight plan. No easy wins here.
One more things
Tennant’s One More Thing is: the Shift Key podcast Summer School miniseries, with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins! Basics; thermal techs; renewable techs. More to come!
Frankie’s One More Thing is: The UN report Seizing the moment of opportunity - ahead of COP30 and the next round of NDCs it’s efficiency, renewables, electrification for the win!
Luke’s One More Thing is: An on-the-ground report from Allegra Spender’s tax roundtable.
And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to
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