"Will Judges Have the Last Word on Climate Change?: QuickTake," 21 Jan 2020

In the fight against climate change, one tool is proving increasingly popular: litigation. From the U.S. to India, activists, governments and concerned citizens are suing at a breakneck pace. Supporters want the courts to force oil companies, energy users and governments to pay for past harms and avert future threats. Opponents say climate change policy is a matter for national governments and international treaties, not a handful of judges.

Activists and environmentally minded lawyers are seeking new ways to use the law to slow global warming and assign responsibility for the resulting economic damages... Some believe courts are uniquely suited to impose controls where legislatures and government agencies have failed. U.S. states and cities seeking redress in the courts say it is the only avenue open to them...

In the U.S., it’s mostly the big oil companies, but energy producers and state and federal agencies have also been sued. Governments are the targets in much of the rest of the world, including Canada, Pakistan, India and Uganda. In Europe, local and national governments have been sued because their clean-air plans fail to meet minimum European Union requirements...

Some claim the oil and gas industry created a “public nuisance” — an illegal threat to community welfare. Others target their products as unreasonably dangerous to the planet’s health. In the U.S., state officials have claimed that the oil corporations knew about the dangers of climate change for decades andschemed to hide the information. Many cases are based on the claim that the health of the environment is a public trust, held by the government for the benefit of future generations...

...human-rights arguments are a small but growing approach. Plaintiffs make the case that climate change has threatened or taken away the basic rights to shelter, health, food, water and even life. Arguments range from Colombian children’s claims that the deforestation of the Amazon deprives them of a healthy environment, to the assertion of hundreds of elderly Swiss women that their country has not done enough to protect them from rising global temperatures.