Climate suing goes global
IF YOU can’t beat them, sue them. Citizens are increasingly taking governments to court over climate change inaction, with financial lenders – and possibly big energy firms – next in the firing line.
Some 894 climate change cases have now been filed in 24 countries, according to a report published last month by the United Nations Environment Programme and Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law in New York.
Most – 654 – have been in the US, followed by Australia (80) and the UK (49). The number of countries with climate cases has tripled since 2014. Citizens have filed nearly all of them against governments, with a handful lodged against fossil fuel companies
Separately, campaign group ClientEarth wrote last month to energy giants BP and Glencore warning them they risked investor lawsuits because of over-optimistic statements about future fossil fuel demand in their reporting
Some climate cases have already been won. But their success rate is likely to grow following the Paris Agreement, says the report. Under the accord, which entered into force last November, each country is committed to specific emissions targets. Although these aren’t legally binding, they make it “possible for constituents to articulate more precisely and forcefully concerns about the gaps between current policy and the policy needed to achieve mitigation and adaptation objectives”, say the report authors.