12 - Litigation as a Climate Regulatory Tool

Summary

Courts are forums for strategic lawsuits addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. Advocates' turn to courts has been encouraged by uncertainty on implementation of international treaties and inadequacy of government and business efforts to curb emissions to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. Court actions on such issues have grown exponentially since the mid-2000s. Globally, climate change litigation has been brought in eighteen countries across six continents. How effective is that as a tool for better regulation of climate change risks? What world impact have cases had on policy, social norms and business practices? Are the overall impacts of such litigation positive, or mitigated by anti-regulatory litigation or government backlash? Are the legal avenues and actors targeted in such litigation right for to achieve transformative change? Such litigation is seen as an expanding area of adjudication across the world. The regulatory impact of cases in leading jurisdictions such as the US and Australia is assessed, with the lessons that it offers for interested groups or individuals doing so strategically.