Climate change litigation

In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands confirmed that the government must cut carbon dioxide emissions, as climate change threatens human health.[1]

Climate change litigation, also known as climate litigation, is an emerging body of environmental law using legal practice to set case law precedent to further climate change mitigation efforts from public institutions, such as governments and companies. Finding that climate change politics provides insufficient climate change mitigation for their tastes, activists and lawyers have increased efforts to use national and international judiciary systems to advance the effort. Climate litigation typically engages in one of five types of legal claims:[2] Constitutional law (focused on breaches of constitutional rights by the state),[3] administrative law (challenging the merits of administrative decision making), private law (challenging corporations or other organizations for negligence, nuisance, etc.), fraud or consumer protection (challenging companies for misrepresenting information about climate impacts), or human rights (claiming that failure to act on climate change is a failure to protect human rights).[4]

Since the early 2000s, the legal frameworks for combating climate change have increasingly been available through legislation, and an increasing body of court cases have developed an international body of law connecting climate action to legal challenges, related to constitutional law, administrative law, private law, consumer protection law or human rights.[2] Many of the successful cases and approaches have focused on advancing the needs of climate justice and the youth climate movement.[citation needed] Since 2015, there has been a trend in the use of human rights arguments in climate lawsuits,[5] in part due to the recognition of the right to a healthy environment in more jurisdictions and at the United Nations.[6]

Climate litigation cases brought against states include Leghari v. Pakistan,[7] Juliana v. United States (both 2015), Urgenda v. The Netherlands (2019), and Neubauer v. Germany (2021),[8][9][10][11] and Milieudefensie v Royal Dutch Shell (2021).[12] Litigations are often carried out via collective pooling of effort and resources such as via organizations like Greenpeace, such as Greenpeace Poland which sued a coal utility[13] and Greenpeace Germany which sued a car manufacturer.[14]

There is a growing number of cases, and international decisions can influence domestic courts. However some cases challenge climate action.[15]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kaminski was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b King; Mallett, Wood Mallesons-Daisy; Nagra, Sati (27 February 2020). "Climate change litigation - what is it and what to expect? | Lexology". www.lexology.com. Archived from the original on 2021-04-14. Retrieved 2020-09-20.
  3. ^ Pasquale Viola (29 March 2022). Climate Constitutionalism Momentum: Adaptive Legal Systems. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-03-097336-0. Archived from the original on 16 March 2024. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Peel, Jacqueline; Osofsky, Hari M. (March 2018). "A Rights Turn in Climate Change Litigation?". Transnational Environmental Law. 7 (1): 37–67. doi:10.1017/S2047102517000292. S2CID 158786536.
  6. ^ de Vilchez, Pau; Savaresi, Annalisa (2023-04-20). "The Right to a Healthy Environment and Climate Litigation: A Game Changer?". Yearbook of International Environmental Law. 32 (1): 3–19. doi:10.1093/yiel/yvac064. hdl:1893/34872. ISSN 0965-1721. Archived from the original on 2023-07-04. Retrieved 2023-07-04.
  7. ^ "Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan". Climate Case Chart. Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law. Archived from the original on 2023-02-03. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  8. ^ Beauregard, Charles; Carlson, D'Arcy; Robinson, Stacy-ann; Cobb, Charles; Patton, Mykela (28 May 2021). "Climate justice and rights-based litigation in a post-Paris world". Climate Policy. 21 (5): 652–665. Bibcode:2021CliPo..21..652B. doi:10.1080/14693062.2020.1867047. ISSN 1469-3062. S2CID 233731449.
  9. ^ Marris, Emma (3 November 2018). "US Supreme Court allows historic kids' climate lawsuit to go forward". Nature. 563 (7730): 163–164. Bibcode:2018Natur.563..163M. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-07214-2. PMID 30401851. S2CID 53234042. Archived from the original on 9 November 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  10. ^ Viglione, Giuliana (28 February 2020). "Climate lawsuits are breaking new legal ground to protect the planet". Nature. 579 (7798): 184–185. Bibcode:2020Natur.579..184V. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-00175-5. PMID 32157222. S2CID 212654628. Archived from the original on 8 November 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  11. ^ "Constitutional complaints against the Federal Climate Change Act partially successful". www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de. Bundesverfassungsgericht. Archived from the original on 2023-02-03. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  12. ^ "Shell: Netherlands court orders oil giant to cut emissions". BBC News. 26 May 2021. Archived from the original on 19 September 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  13. ^ "Greenpeace threatens to sue coal utility in Poland". Climate Home News. 29 November 2018. Archived from the original on 7 November 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  14. ^ "Greenpeace Germany sues Volkswagen over carbon emissions targets". Reuters. 2021-11-09. Archived from the original on 2022-08-22. Retrieved 2022-08-22.
  15. ^ "Global trends in climate change litigation: 2024 snapshot". Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment. Retrieved 2024-09-25.