"Climate justice: international momentum towards litigation", 14 Jul 2016

Climate litigation will dwarf all other litigation in terms of both the number of plaintiffs and the timeframe over which it can happen, according to a new report released by the Climate Justice Programme. The report,“Climate Justice: The international momentum towards climate litigation”looks at the growing number of climate litigation cases being taken across the world, and compares them with tobacco and asbestos cases.  Climate litigation is likely to be global, and with much bigger damages than seen with tobacco and asbestos, especially as governments are continuing to fail to take strong enough action to even keep warming to 2˚C, let alone pursuing efforts to limit it to the 1.5˚C urged in Paris...The report looks at how far each climate change case can be replicated and in which other jurisdictions a similar case could be brought. For example, the Dutch Urgenda case has triggered a case in Belgium and the US youth lawsuits are inspiring a child's case in Pakistan...