Climate Change

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Governing reliance on carbon dioxide removal: The role of climate litigation

September 8, 2023

Lucy Maxwell

Alyssa Glass

The world’s leading scientists are clear: limiting global warming to 1.5°C involves ‘rapid and deep and, in most cases, immediate greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors this decade’. Yet global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are ‘woefully insufficient to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement’. In this context, many climate advocates are concerned that governments and companies appear to be relying on the promise of future large-scale removals of carbon dioxide, rather than adopting deep emissions reductions now. Over the past decade, climate litigation has become a significant tool for affecting ‘the outcome and ambition of climate governance’. Looking forward, we expect that strategic climate litigation will increasingly pursue scrutiny of, and accountability for, governments’ and companies’ reliance on carbon dioxide removal (CDR), giving voice to a range of concerns regarding such reliance. In this blog, we suggest that existing climate cases offer some early indications of possible ‘hooks’ or framings for these challenges.

Whose emissions are these anyway? The Paris Agreement and greenhouse gas emissions emanating from occupied territories: a case study of Ukraine, Georgia and Russia

July 26, 2023

Yiokasti Mouratidi

The Paris Agreement, hailed as a “historic agreement” to tackle climate change, does not directly address the impact that armed conflicts can have on climate change. One of the (many) unanswered questions is how greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emanating from occupied territories are to be treated by the relevant Parties to the…

Litigating the Energy Charter Treaty at the European Court of Human Rights

June 16, 2023

Eoin Jackson

In June 2022. A group of young people lodged a claim with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) alleging that their rights under Article 2 and Article 8 of the European Convention were being violated by states' continued compliance with the controversial Energy Charter Treaty. This article will chart out a potential pathway to success…

KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland – A New Era for Climate Change Protection or Proceeding with the Status Quo?

April 6, 2023

Helen Arling

Hani Taghavi

Climate change scholars and members of the public are dedicating their attention to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) in Strasbourg, where its first climate change cases are being decided. Currently, three climate cases are pending before the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR: Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland (application no. 53600/20), Carême v.

Climate Change hearings and the ECtHR

April 4, 2023

Ole W Pedersen

On March the 29th, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held oral hearings in two of the three climate change claims before the Chamber. The two cases are Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland and Carême v. France. Both cases were relinquished to the Grand Chamber last year and the Chamber…

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Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of three posts analyzing the landmark December 2015 Paris Agreement, authored by Professor Jorge Viñuales, the Harold Samuel Professor of Law and Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law and the Director of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy, and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG). Less is…

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Ending months of fevered speculation, President Donald Trump fulfilled his campaign promise and announced US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement last week. He did so because in his opinion the Paris Agreement inflicts ‘severe energy restrictions’ on the United States and ‘punishes’ the United States ‘while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.’ This…