Behind the News: A news story that wasn't

Readers of the United Kingdom's Daily Telegraph or the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) might have seen stories published in the past week trumpeting an "unprecedented" legal challenge "mounted" against the Czech Republic by the tiny collection of Pacific islands known as Micronesia.

The only problem is that no such legal challenge was mounted - at least, not in the past two years.

In 2009, Micronesian officials did, in fact, challenge plans by the Czech Republic to expand its coal-fired power plant in Prunéřov, north Bohemia. Micronesia demanded the Czech government carry out a Transboundary Environment Impact Assessment (TEIA), and at the time, it was thought somewhat historic as it was considered the first time legal action was taken against future victims of climate change. It was also unique given the nearly 7,000 miles that separated Micronesia from the power plant.

International media, including The Prague Post, reported the story thoroughly at the time and, upon reading the AFP and Telegraph reports May 25, Post editors wondered if something new had happened and, worse, if they had missed it.

Well, it hadn't, and they didn't.

It turns out, the Telegraph and AFP, using a statement from Micronesian Attorney General Maketo Robert as well as a press release from environmental activist group Greenpeace, published stories, essentially, about nothing.

The first sentence of AFP's article read, "In a legal first, Micronesia has challenged plans to expand a coal-fired power station in the Czech Republic, arguing its emissions will increase the climate change risks facing the Pacific nation."

Technically, that's true, except it happened in 2009.

The Telegraph claimed the case "has the potential to set a new precedent in international law."

Also technically true. Only, when contacted by The Prague Post, the Czech Environment Ministry was unaware of any new actions taken regarding to the Prunéřov case - again, because there haven't been any.

So how were two reputable media outlets led so far astray? Most likely, they received the same information from Greenpeace as The Prague Post.

The Greenpeace press release, with the headline, "Threatened Pacific Island nation makes legal history by challenging European carbon emitter," explained that Micronesia, Greenpeace and the Environmental Law service had drafted a "landmark" legal paper to be presented at a climate summit at New York's Columbia University.

That appears to be it, in terms of new information.

In an e-mail to The Prague Post, Ben Jasper, a Greenpeace spokesman, wrote, "To be clear, [Micronesia] is not 'suing' the Czech Republic, nor is it stating that Prunéřov alone is causing all the problems that Pacific island nations face due to climate change."

What was happening, he added, was a "formal submission of the progression of international environmental law which was made by [Micronesia] through the Prunéřov TEIA. ... Prunéřov goes thereby into the history books of international law as the Czech Republic's global shame."

This very well may someday be the case, but that will be up to those with greater legal authority than Greenpeace - or, for that matter, the Telegraph - to decide.

Jack Buehrer can be reached at
jbuehrer@praguepost.com