By Jeffrey Nosa Enabuele
The topic of climate change often dominates the news and media. Many people fear the potential damages and issues that climate change will bring to our planet, and how it will affect our future. This fear has influenced a variety of people to use the law and courts to take a stand in the fight against climate change. A report conducted by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change revealed that as of May 2019, 1,328 cases have been filed in 28 different countries to hold governments and big corporations responsible for their contributions to climate change. Although the high number of court cases may suggest that a great change could occur in the future, can we really rely on the law and courts to effectively combat climate change? The best way of answering this question is to delve into past court cases that strove to mitigate climate change.
(Sourced from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change Report 2019)
How has Litigation Challenged Governments?
Many of the world’s governments believe that their involvement in climate change is too remote to be enforced by the law, ultimately leaving the public responsible for the damages done to our planet. This results in nothing being done to combat climate change because if everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible to take the initiative. This is one of the biggest stumbling blocks with climate change. For this reason, climate litigation is essential in the fight against climate change as it endeavors to bridge the gap of responsibility between climate change and governments who have the responsibility and power to make a difference.
One major landmark in paving the way to climate litigation against governments is the Julianna case (2015) which took place in America. This case has proven to be pivotal in climate litigation as we saw a group of children and young adults challenging the US government for failing to uphold their constitutional right of providing “a climate system capable of sustaining human life.” The group of children and young adults also reasoned that the US government should also be held accountable for actively promoting the burning of fossil fuels despite knowing the damages that it can bring to the environment. This ultimately inspired individuals, organisations and certain groups to involve the courts in appointing accountability on their governments to make a change and to live up to its responsibilities required by law. One leading Irish case that has been inspired by the Juliana Case is the Climate Case Ireland (2017) which involved an Irish environmental organization challenging the Irish government and Attorney General for violating the Ireland’s Climate Act, The Constitution and the Human Rights Obligations. It is important to note that both cases are still ongoing at the moment.
Challenging the governments has brought some success in recent years. One of these successes took place in the Netherlands. A group called Urgenda won a case in 2015 against the Dutch government to cut the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by 25% by 2020 (compared to 1990s level). In response, a proposal for the Climate Act was sent to the Dutch parliament in 2018. It outlined aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 49% by 2030, compared to 1990s level and a 95% reduction by 2050.
How has Litigation Challenged Business Corporations?
However, despite the developments in recent years, climate litigation is far from perfect. It is time consuming, costly and has had very little success outside of the US. It is important to remember that governments are not the only culprits in contributing to climate change. Powerful business corporations are also heavily involved with the damage done to our planet by burning fossil fuels. The key issue here is that many litigants (plaintiffs) find very little success in the courts when facing these big corporations. Michael Burger, the executive director of Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, commented that linking climatic impacts to big corporation’s greenhouse emissions is a very complex procedure.
It involves calculating the proportionate damage caused by the emitters and the responsibility owed to corporations who produce these emissions. Currently, the level of science needed to solve this issue has not yet been reached. (Burger and Wentz, 2018)
Regardless of the lack of success enjoyed against large corporations, there is a silver lining when it comes to the battle against climate change. The increasing numbers of cases against these corporations may instill fear and eventually threaten both businesses and governments into making a choice - face financial oblivion or rectify their bad deeds. (Carrington, 2018)
Conclusion
Climate litigation has proven itself to be a very important asset to fight against climate change. It has brought communities together to fight against governments and corporations to save the environment and has spread much needed awareness of the world’s predicament via mainstream for all to see through high profile cases. Despite its obvious problems, the advantages seem to outweigh them comfortably.
Extra Reading:
Setzer, J., Byrnes, R., (2018) Global trends in climate change litigation: 2019 snapshot. London: Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science.
https://greennews.ie/environmental-ngo-opens-first-ever-climate-legal-case-against-irish-government/
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