Recognizing the Legal Consequences of Climate Change

The lawsuits examined in this UNEP-Sabin Center report raise substantive legal questions about adaptation (getting ready for climate impacts like storms and intense heating), mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions), or attribution science (using weather data to estimate a polluter's contribution to a particular extreme event). Cases that just discuss climate change are not included.

Human Rights

An increasing amount of evidence indicates that the right to the best possible health is directly threatened by climate change, and it may also result in several other human rights abuses. Therefore, it is morally required that companies and governments approach the threat posed by climate change from the perspective of human rights. A normative foundation for environmental health is established by international human rights legislation, which requires nations, or duty-bearers, to lower their carbon dioxide emissions and guarantee that people have access to enough clean, safe, and cheap water, food, sanitary facilities, and mental health services. Both national adaptation plans and global climate mitigation initiatives should be based on this paradigm. As the People's Guide demonstrates, a growing number of citizens and legal professionals are pursuing legal action to make governments fulfill their climate change obligations and guarantee that adaptation plans uphold human rights. By ensuring that claims only cover exceptionally important commodities or protections and impose responsibilities proportionate to the benefits to be gained, applying a human rights lens also helps to limit "rights inflation."

Assessments of the Environmental ImpactImpact Assessment and Climate Change: A Converging Field

It is becoming more and more crucial to incorporate climate considerations into environmental impact assessments (EIAs) as we work to prevent the worst effects of climate change. For any development project involving buildings or infrastructure that could have a negative impact on humans, animals, plants, soil, water, ambient air, the landscape, or cultural items, these are legally required in many countries. Both study and practice in this field are expanding. To help with this integration, regulatory frameworks and best practices have been established, and it is becoming increasingly normative for EIAs to take climate change into account. A thorough EIA on climate change, however, can be costly and time-consuming. For instance, locating and evaluating the habitat of endangered "red-light" species might cause delays or even project failure. Because of this, 'quick-and-dirty' environmental impact assessments (EIAs) are becoming more common in some nations, especially when there is financial pressure to move forward with projects.

Executive Law

The worldwide threat posed by climate change has major ramifications for citizens in low- and middle-income nations. Despite having made the fewest contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, these people will be most negatively impacted by extreme weather. There are several duties on the part of governments to address climate change. Statutory decision-making authority or, in the case of the UK's Net Zero Strategy, a commitment to the Paris Agreement, may represent these. If decisions made by the government fail to meet these requirements, they can be contested through judicial review. Local governments could face legal challenges for sanctioning infrastructure developments without taking climate change impacts into account, while departments and agencies of the central government could face more systematic challenges due to their obligations under the Climate Change Act. An increasing amount of scholarly research emphasizes the role that administrative law plays in advancing principles of good governance like justice, openness, transparency, and due process (Daly, 2022). A future study on the integration of these ideas into public administration systems is therefore necessary.

Business Law

Climate change is having an increasing impact on legal fields that are not usually associated with the environment. For instance, increased lawsuits against businesses whose actions are said to have contributed to weather catastrophes are expected as attribution science gains traction. This may have an effect on insurance-related issues, such as the accessibility of specific coverage options and the manner in which insurers establish causality. Securities attorneys must also take into account how investors use climate change information. For instance, modifications to disclosure rules may result from growing investor and shareholder demands about a company's greenhouse gas emissions. Corporate attorneys must comprehend how laws and policies pertaining to climate change may affect a business's supply chains and internal operations. Directors should pay special attention to how new laws and policies might affect the physical and transitional risks connected to a company's business model. The ability of the business to fulfill its fiduciary duty to shareholders may be impacted by this. It might also affect a business's capacity to achieve its goals in light of shifting consumer and market dynamics.