Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T05:55:19.938Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Climate Justice: Holding Governments and Business Accountable for the Climate Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 December 2019

Kristin Casper
Kristin Casper*
Affiliation:
Senior Legal Counsel for Strategic Litigation, Greenpeace International.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

People around the world are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, and their human rights are under threat. Greenpeace's Climate Justice and Liability Campaign is collaborating with a growing number of communities to reclaim their rights through strategic climate litigation. Three themes run throughout these efforts. First, the climate breakdown is a human rights crisis. Second, political and business leaders must take immediate action or risk being sued. Third, there is mounting evidence that the fossil fuel industry is significantly responsible for the climate crisis and will ultimately be held accountable. Before exploring these themes, it is useful to understand the origins of Greenpeace International's climate justice efforts.

Type
Litigating Climate Change: New Legal Challenges
Information
Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting , Volume 113 , 2019 , pp. 197 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by The American Society of International Law

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Leonita Bacalando, Kristin Casper, Maketo Robert, Kristina Šabová, Jan Šrytr & Jasper Teulings, Transboundary Climate Challenge to Coal: One Small Step Against Dirty Energy, One Giant Leap for Climate Justice, in Threatened Island Nations: Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate 589 (Michael B. Gerrard & Gregory E. Wannier eds., 2013).

2 Id. at 610.

3 Id. at 559.

4 Greenpeace International Press Release, IPCC Report Points to Stark Choices Ahead, But Reason for Hope and Action (Oct. 8, 2018), at https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/18839/ipcc-report-points-to-stark-choices-ahead-but-reason-for-hope-and-action-greenpeace.

5 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Summary for Policymakers, in Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C Above Pre-industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty 4 (V. Masson-Delmotte, et al., eds. 2018).

6 Brad Plumer & Nadja Popovich, Why Half a Degree of Global Warming Is a Big Deal, N.Y. Times (Oct. 7, 2018), at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-report-half-degree.html.

7 In-Depth Q&A: The IPCC's Special Report on Climate Change at 1.5C, Carbon Brief, at https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-ipccs-special-report-on-climate-change-at-one-point-five-c.

8 Greenpeace International, supra note 4.

9 Greenpeace Philippines, Holding Your Government Accountable for Climate Change: A People's Guide 95 (Dec. 11, 2018), at https://www.greenpeace.org/international/publication/19818/holding-your-government-accountable-for-climate-change-a-peoples-guide.

10 See, e.g., Our Children's Trust, The Science, at https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/the-science; James Hansen, et al., Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature, PLOS ONE 8(12): e81648 (2013), available at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081648.

11 Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, Joint Statement of the United Nations Special Procedures Mandate Holders on the Occasion of the 24th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (Dec. 6, 2018), at https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23982&LangID=E.

12 Greenpeace Philippines, supra note 9, at 68.

13 Id. at 29–35.

14 Greenpeace Nordic, The People vs. Arctic Oil: The Climate Lawsuit Against the Norwegian Government, at available at https://www.peoplevsoil.org/en/peoplevsarcticoil/background-documents.

15 Cordelia Christiane Bähr, Ursula Brunner, Kristin Casper & Sandra H. Lustig, KlimaSeniorinnen: Lessons from the Swiss Senior Women's Case for Future Climate Litigation, 9 J. Hum. Rts. Env't 194 (2018), available at https://www.elgaronline.com/view/journals/jhre/9-2/jhre.2018.02.04.xml.

16 Greenpeace International Press Release, Swiss Seniors Appeal Climate Case in Federal Supreme Court (Jan. 21, 2018), at https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20343/swiss-seniors-appeal-climate-case-in-federal-supreme-court.

17 Greenpeace Southeast Asia-Philippines, Petition to the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines Requesting for Investigation of the Responsibility of the Carbon Majors for Human Rights Violations or Threats of Violations Resulting from the Impacts of Climate Change (2015), available at http://www.greenpeace.org/seasia/ph/PageFiles/735291/Petitioners-and-Annexes/CC-HR-Petition.pdf.

18 Greenpeace Philippines, The Climate Change and Human Rights Petition, at https://www.greenpeace.org/philippines/press/1237/the-climate-change-and-human-rights-petition.

19 Richard Heede, Tracing Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide and Methane Emissions to Fossil Fuel and Cement Producers, 1854–2010, Climatic Change 122:229 (2014), available at https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-0986-y.pdf.

20 Union of Concerned Scientists Press Release, Study Finds Top Fossil Fuel Producers’ Emissions Responsible for as Much as Half of Global Surface Temperature Increase, Roughly 30 Percent of Global Sea Level Rise (Sept. 7, 2018), at https://www.ucsusa.org/press/2017/study-finds-top-fossil-fuel-producers-emissions-responsible-much-half-global-surface.

21 Center for International Environmental Law, Smoke and Fumes: The Legal and Evidentiary Basis for Holding Big Oil Accountable for the Climate Crisis (Nov. 2017), at https://www.ciel.org/reports/smoke-and-fumes.

22 See, e.g., Exxon: The Road Not Taken, InsideClimate News (Sept. 16, 2015), at https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken.

23 Speech, Mark Carney, Breaking the Tragedy of the Horizon – Climate Change and Financial Stability (Sept. 29 2015), at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2015/breaking-the-tragedy-of-the-horizon-climate-change-and-financial-stability.pdf?la=en&hash=7C67E785651862457D99511147C7424FF5EA0C1A.

24 Id. at 6.

25 Climate Investigation Center, Internal Shell Documents Revealed (Apr. 5, 2018), at https://climateinvestigations.org/shell-oil-climate-documents-revealed. The documents were published on Climate Files, a project of the Climate Investigations Center.

26 Joe Romm, Chevron Is First Oil Major to Warn Investors of Risks from Climate Change Lawsuits, ThinkProgress (Mar. 2, 2017), at https://thinkprogress.org/chevron-admits-climate-lawsuits-threaten-profits-33937dd562fd.

27 New York Attorney General Press Release, A.G. Underwood Files Lawsuit Against ExxonMobil For Defrauding Investors Regarding Financial Risk the Company Faces from Climate Change Regulations (Oct. 24, 2018), https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-underwood-files-lawsuit-against-exxonmobil-defrauding-investors-regarding-financial.

28 See Sabin Center, U.S. Climate Change Litigation, at http://climatecasechart.com/us-climate-change-litigation.

29 Marco Poggio, Toronto Will Explore Suing Big Oil Over Climate Costs, Climate Liability News (Apr. 26, 2019), at https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/04/26/toronto-climate-liability-suit-city-council.

30 Greenpeace Philippines, supra note 9.