International:
People’s monitoring body for polluting industry activity
Create a democratically controlled, independent, formal monitoring body that tracks, documents, and publicizes the activities of polluting corporations.
What does this look like?
While there are already initiatives that monitor and attribute greenhouse gas emissions that can be directly attributed to a specific corporation at source, [1][2] establish a body to focus specifically on closely monitoring:
Indirect emissions that occur throughout the value chain of a corporation (sometimes referred to as Scope 3 emissions).
General pollution caused throughout the value chain of a corporation, such as the contamination of water by heavy metals or the pollution caused by waste and garbage in the ocean.
Identifying actions, inactions, and business decisions of corporations that contribute to or have the consequence of violating environmental and human rights.
Attempts by polluting industries and corporations to advance climate change denial, deception, greenwashing, and interference with policymaking on all levels of governance; and track and trace the finances spent toward these activities.
This monitoring body should be housed independently of multilateral or bilateral institutions (i.e., a monitoring body of the people) and should be comprised of independent experts and representatives of frontline communities.
Monitoring activities should include unannounced and periodic field audits to be able to more accurately identify and access true environmental and social impact of polluting corporations’ practices.
Implementing the measures of the liability roadmap
Decision-makers and movements at all levels should keep the following in mind when implementing the measures laid out in this roadmap:
Enacting these policies and measures is simply the first step to holding polluting and destructive industries liable: There will be much work for government officials, decision-makers, activists and civil society alike to do to ensure these measures are fully implemented and move us toward the transformative change the world needs.
Liability should be applied to all industries and corporations that make business decisions that contribute to climate change and its impacts, or that cause harm to people and nature. In addition to the fossil fuel industry, these industries include but are not limited to agribusiness, forestry, mining, and the energy sector.
Many of these measures could equally apply to state-owned corporations. Because the national contexts and unique needs vary from country to country, it is worth considering where to apply and how to adapt the principles and measures listed in the Liability Roadmap to address state-owned polluting corporations. Factors to consider when doing so could include but are not limited to the degree of democratic control over the entity, role and use of funding from oil/gas revenues, and responsiveness of the entity to transition to regenerative, renewable energy sources.
Measures implemented at the national level should support and reinforce, rather than contradict, measures implemented at the sub-national and local, and vice versa.
1 "Carbon Majors," Climate Accountability Institute, last modified October 8, 2019, https://climateaccountability.org/carbonmajors.html.
2 Peter C. Frumhoff, Richard Heede, and Naomi Oreskes, "The climate responsibilities of industrial carbon producers," Climate Change, last modified July 23, 2015. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10584-015-1472-5.pdf.