Climate Change Lawsuits

Climate change litigation deals with legal disputes over laws, acts or omissions related to climate protection and measures to adapt to climate change .

Such court proceedings are of particular importance in the USA and Australia , where the term climate change litigation or, for a shorter time, climate litigation has established itself primarily in relation to the Anglo-American legal system (→ Common Law ), but also beyond this (e.g. in comparative literature ) .

In German-speaking countries, the term climate action is also used, mainly in journalistic texts and with an emphasis on initiating proceedings (→ action ). The defining word climate indicates the connection with climate protection and adaptation; Systematically, climate actions can be assigned to different types of lawsuits and proceedings .

The first successful judgment on emissions reductions against a state was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in the Netherlands . The decision is also considered groundbreaking because, among other things, he considered the European Convention on Human Rights , which more than 40 countries have signed, to have been violated.

terminology

In German-language press texts and publications, the term climate action is often used , while in international discourse conducted in English, the term climate change litigation is usually used. A common, uniform use of the term is establishing itself with an increasing frequency of legal proceedings.

The American legal scholars David Markell and JB Ruhl have developed a definition for the English term climate change litigation , which was taken up by the United Nations Environment Program , among others :

"[...] any piece of federal, state, tribal, or local administrative or judicial litigation in which the [...] tribunal decisions directly and expressly raise an issue of fact or law regarding the substance or policy of climate change causes and impacts."

"[...] any administrative or judicial process at the federal, state, tribal or local level in which the [...] court decisions directly and explicitly address a factual or legal issue regarding the nature or policy of the causes and effects of climate change . "

This definition does not aim at the motives of the plaintiffs, but at the subject-matter of the action brought. For example, it excludes lawsuits against coal-fired power plants that are based on the motive of climate protection but are justified differently.

Some authors use the term climate change litigation more broadly and also include proceedings in which climate protection or adaptation is the motivation for the lawsuit, but not an explicit subject of dispute.

distribution

The vast majority of the procedures have so far been carried out in the USA, 1023 were counted by May 2019. The first was City of Los Angeles v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals , a U.S. appeals court , in 1990.

Early climate lawsuits in the US mostly concerned the administrative area when it came to approving new developments. Since then, the spectrum of cases has broadened, ranging from merits challenges , environmental pollution, trade practices to issues of indigenous people. From 2004 onwards, with a hearing in the most important case to date in the USA, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , the number of lawsuits sharply. The number of anti-regulatory procedures also began to increase from the mid-2000s.

Number of climate lawsuits outside the United States, 1994–2016

Outside the United States, studies at the London School of Economics identified a total of 305 court-heard cases in 27 countries, the European Union and three other supranational legal circles by May 2019. The first case was recorded in 1994, and the number also increased significantly from the mid-2000s. Australia had the highest number of cases, after the USA, with 94. Other jurisdictions with more than ten cases were: the European Union (55 cases), the United Kingdom (53), New Zealand 17, Canada (16) and Spain (13).

A little more than 40% of these cases negotiated outside the US led to a tightening of the existing climate regulations, in a little more than a quarter it was weakened. In the USA, the number of cases that ultimately hampered climate protection and adaptation efforts outweighed the number of cases.

With regard to the parties to the dispute, the most common constellation in and outside the USA, at more than 80%, was a lawsuit brought by non-governmental organizations, companies or citizens against a state. The importance of non-governmental organizations as plaintiffs has increased in recent years. Companies are being sued much less often, and individual proceedings are also directed against climate activists or scientists or attempted to defend them.

Most of the procedures up to 2017 concern administrative issues in specific projects. A little more than 20% of the cases involved legislation or the implementation of laws, loss and damage or disclosure of information . About 78% of the cases recorded were about climate protection, 22% about climate change adaptation. The importance of strategic procedures increased until May 2019.

effect

Legal training

In the legal disputes, actors from different levels clash, for example in lawsuits by citizens against corporations or states. They offer a way in which relatively powerless actors in international climate policy can try to bring their concerns to the fore. Such lawsuits can be used to enforce state regulation where the slow international climate policy and its implementation are barely progressing. Above all, non-governmental organizations in the USA have tried to work towards a more ambitious climate policy through strategic litigation .

Climate action can - as case law or by prompting the legislature to make legal adjustments - contribute to legal training . In the US and Australia, courts were often reluctant to create new law and dismissed lawsuits. This was often based on the fear of exceeding the powers of the judiciary and interfering in the sphere of politics. Another difficulty in some cases, especially in causal questions, was a lack of expertise.

If the legislature did react, it was not always what the plaintiffs wanted. In Australia, legislative changes were passed, for example, sustainability criteria were weakened in order to annul the legal consequences of individual judgments and to prevent further threatening lawsuits.

Business climate risks

Lawsuits create a liability and reputational risk for companies (→ corporate climate risks ). Even the threat of climate action can therefore influence corporate behavior.

Companies can be exposed to a direct risk, as a defendant, and an indirect one , for example through changes in the law or administrative decisions affecting them as a result of climate action.

In the case of legally enforced liability for the climate damage attributable to them, companies internalize the external costs they cause . There is an economic incentive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or the resulting damage.

In the early 2000s, there were a number of lawsuits in the United States seeking to hold companies liable for climate damage and adaptation costs. They largely failed. With increasingly better findings in climate science, there has been a second wave of lawsuits since the mid-2010s, also filed by US states and cities and by companies, especially those in the fossil energy industry ( carbon mayors ), compensation for losses and damage Demand or want to force them to include climate risks in their investment decisions and publications.

Public opinion and social norms

Bringing a lawsuit harbors the possibility of generating social awareness and influencing the public debate. The procedure can reveal concrete consequences behind scientifically founded connections and abstract threats. If the court affirms connections, the high standing that the case law enjoys in many legal systems can give positions of legitimacy and authority. The plaintiffs hope that addressing the climate impacts in court can influence social norms.

Peel and Osofsky estimate the possibility of influencing firmly entrenched positions via legal proceedings in deeply divided countries such as the USA and Australia as limited. They indicate that judges are also part of society and are influenced by changes in public opinion. As an example they cite positions of the US Supreme Court : In Massachusetts v. EPA appealed the majority of the judges to the state of the art , four years later, in American Electric Power (AEP) v. Connecticut, on the other hand - possibly influenced by “ climate-skeptical ” voices that have become louder - the court included a contrary newspaper article in its argumentation and mentioned it uncritically as a counterweight to the multitude of scientific specialist papers with which the US environmental agency EPA justified its work common misconception of the carbon cycle .

Legal proceedings in individual legal systems

Australia

More than 60 trials had taken place in Australia by 2015. In terms of litigation per inhabitant, this was the highest number in the world. They mainly dealt with questions of climate adaptation.

Compared to the USA, the proceedings had a more regional focus, and few cases ended up in high-ranking, supraregional courts.

In a decision known as a "milestone" in February 2019, Gloucester Resources Limited v. Minister for Planning the environmental court of the state of New South Wales a decision of the department responsible for spatial planning not to give a permit for an open pit coal mine, the Rocky Hill coal project , near Gloucester . The complainant , the mining company Gloucester Resources , had appealed against this decision. In its cost-benefit analysis, the environmental court included the greenhouse gas emissions that the project would have caused as a whole and pointed out, among other things, that the project was not conducive to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement .

Germany

In Germany, the "protection of the natural foundations of life" is anchored in Article 20a of its Basic Law as a national goal , which, according to the prevailing opinion, also includes the protection of the climate and the protection of the natural foundations of life from climate change. It binds the legislature, but is not an enforceable basic right.

In 2016, the scientific services of the German Bundestag (WD) analyzed possible legal bases for climate action by private law subjects against the German state or German companies on the basis of domestic German procedural law and national law. They mainly looked at claims for damages and the assumption of precautionary costs, but also for taking climate protection measures.

According to the Scientific Services, possible claims against companies are of a private law nature and should be based directly on laws and not on contracts. They fall under civil procedure law and are usually asserted by the right holder. The main material and legal claims are:

the omission of harmful behavior: Will made a claim for injunctive relief or remedy in private law claims ( Störerhaftung ), the company would have as an indirect interferer adequate polluter contribution do or have done. In the case of insignificant impairments - usually if legal limit values are observed - there is an obligation to tolerate .
Compensation for or elimination of damage caused by previous behavior that is harmful to the climate: If a claim for damages based on tortious liability is asserted, the infringement of legal interests could be attributed to the opposing party as a contributing cause, e.g. as an emitter of greenhouse gases .

Lawsuits directed against state authorities can be directed against any regional authority . In these cases, the basis for claims can be found not only in private law, analogous to those against companies, but also in administrative law , also in constitutional law and state liability law .

Lawsuits against the legislature for the implementation of climate protection measures are also conceivable on the grounds that the legislature is not taking suitable measures to protect against climate changes that threaten fundamental rights such as life , physical integrity or property. If such fundamental rights guarantees are jeopardized, the state is obliged to take protective measures. Due to the legislative prerogative of assessment , the scientific services do not consider a right to a certain legislative action to be given.

By July 2019, the Sabin Law Center in Germany had five climate lawsuits. Among them, the Saúl Luciano Lliuya case against RWE attracted some attention: In 2015 , a Peruvian farmer sued the German energy company RWE for a portion of 17,000 euros in its adaptation costs, which he incurred because of the anthropogenic climate change caused by RWE as a nuisance and the resulting Glacier melt caused the water level of the glacier lake Palcacocha in the Peruvian Andes to rise to a dangerous level and his house below the lake near the town of Huaraz was threatened by a glacier run . At the end of November 2017, the Hamm Higher Regional Court decided whether to take evidence .

In November 2018 it became known that eleven individual plaintiffs, including the CSU politician Josef Göppel , the actor Hannes Jaenicke and the renewable energy researcher Volker Quaschning , as well as the Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND) and the solar energy support association Germany ( SFV) have lodged a constitutional complaint against the Federal Government at the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) : Germany is failing in terms of environmental protection by surely missing its climate targets for 2020 and because there are no “suitable legal provisions to combat climate change”; thus it endangers basic rights to life and physical integrity, freedom of action and protection of property. The complainants also cited a basic right to an “ecological subsistence level”. The court is examining the acceptance of the complaint and in August 2019 gave the federal government the opportunity to comment. The SFV interpreted this as a sign that the BVerfG wants to deal with the complaint in more detail.

European Union

At the European level, many cases revolve around the questions of who is responsible for decisions on climate law and its implementation and who can challenge these decisions before which courts - European or national. Courts dealt primarily with questions of jurisdiction and thus constitutional issues. In contrast, the effectiveness of climate protection law hardly played a role as a subject of the proceedings.

The vast majority of cases before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concerned EU emissions trading . In the first four years of its existence, there were more than 40 proceedings, mainly by member states, which questioned the EU Commission's responsibility for reviewing the national allocation plans (NAP) or the legality of the proceedings. Plant operators also tried to go to court, but were not admitted. In its decisions, the court reiterated the great importance of climate protection and the importance of EU emissions trading, but stated that the EU Commission must not also take into account the market consequences in its review of NAPs.

In the People's Climate Case , ten families from the EU, Kenya and Fiji had brought an action before the General Court of the European Union against the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union because of the dangers of climate change that directly affect them in order to tighten the EU To achieve climate goals. The court dismissed her lawsuit in May 2019 as inadmissible due to a lack of individual concern. The plaintiffs appealed to the ECJ in July 2019 . The main point of contention is the interpretation of “individual concern”, which is necessary for legal standing (see also Plaumann decision ). The CFI followed the previous case law and required that the plaintiffs must be particularly affected. The appeal argues, however, that in this case the intensity of the concern is decisive.

International right

Until 2017, there were only a few proceedings under international law or before international bodies. One case that had an impact on climate protection was a successful lawsuit by the United States before the World Trade Organization , with which it took action against a solar energy law in India that required the use of Indian solar modules.

Canada's TransCanada Corporation has sought compensation of at least $ 15 billion from the United States for delays or possible halt to construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline . It announced a corresponding investment protection lawsuit under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2016 , but suspended it after US President Donald Trump approved the project in January 2017.

In addition, there was a rejected petition by Inuit before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and petitions from environmental groups to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to classify sites as World Heritage at risk from climate change. The latter initiated a process of change at UNESCO.

In a complaint procedure in 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee found that the consequences of climate change could constitute a human rights violation without adequate countermeasures . The committee dealt with a complaint by Ioane Teitota of Kiribati against a decision by New Zealand to deny his asylum application. The committee made it clear that without effective national and international action, climate change can put people at risk of violating their right to life. The rise in sea levels will likely make Kiribati uninhabitable. The committee nevertheless rejected Teitota's request; the time until the islands are foreseeably uninhabitable still allows countermeasures, and he saw no reason to doubt that Kiribati is already taking the necessary precautionary measures.

Netherlands

In 2019 the High Council decided that the European Convention on Human Rights is to be applied to judicial decisions on climate policy.

In the Urgenda legal dispute against the Netherlands in 2013, the non-governmental organization Urgenda , together with 886 other private plaintiffs, filed a public interest action that is possible in the legal system of the Netherlands. According to the plaintiffs, the state has a legal obligation to make a proportionate contribution to the global emissions reductions that are necessary to meet the two-degree target , based on figures and scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC) . The court affirmed the state's duty of care towards its citizens against life- and health-endangering climatic changes resulting from state liability law . The reduction targets of the EU (−20% for the period 1990–2020) and the Netherlands (−17%) are not in line with this. The court saw a reduction of at least 25% as necessary and not disproportionately burdensome.

On 9 October 2018, the Civil Court confirmed in The Hague on appeal that the Netherlands greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by at least 25% by 2020, compared to the value of 1990. The court view affirmed the lower court that this is not permissible intrusion in the area of political decision-making that even increased adaptation measures and the global nature of the problem do not stand in the way of the obligation to reduce emissions. In its reasoning, the court also referred to Art. 2 (“Right to life”) and Art. 8 (“ Right to respect for private and family life ”) of the European Convention on Human Rights , which the Netherlands would contravene. According to the court, there is a real threat of dangerous climate change, which creates a serious risk that today's generation of residents will be confronted with loss of life and / or disruption of family life.

In December 2019, the High Council of the Netherlands decided , based on the UN Climate Change Convention and legal obligations of the state to protect the life and well-being of citizens, that the decision of the Hague civil court was justified. The Supreme Council made it clear that the Constitution requires Dutch courts to apply the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.

New legal territory was broken in the process. The judgment is considered historical. It is the first successful lawsuit against a state for emission reductions. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment , David Boyd, described it as "the most important court decision on climate change in the world to date." It confirms that human rights are threatened by the climate emergency and that wealthy nations are obliged to rapidly and substantial emissions reductions.

Austria

Environmental organizations took legal action against the expansion of Vienna-Schwechat Airport . They led u. a. indicates that this would run counter to the Climate Protection Act and Austria's international climate obligations. In February 2017, the Federal Administrative Court initially rejected the application for the construction and planning of a third runway. Following a complaint by the airport's board of directors, the Constitutional Court criticized the allocation of emissions to the airport and the direct application of international obligations to domestic projects. The complaint was referred back to the lower court, where construction was approved subject to conditions in March 2018.

In August 2019, Greenpeace announced that it would take action against climate-damaging laws and regulations before the Constitutional Court together with those affected . As examples of such laws, Greenpeace named the tax exemption for kerosene or Tempo 140 on the motorway.

Switzerland

Up to the beginning of 2020, three climate lawsuits were known from Switzerland, a legal petition by the so-called KlimaSeniorinnen and two cases of protest actions against the major Swiss bank Credit Suisse .

On November 25, 2016, the association KlimaSeniorinnen and four other plaintiffs, supported by the idea provider, the environmental organization Greenpeace , submitted an application to the federal government. Because a warming of more than 2 ° C leads with a very high probability to a "dangerous anthropogenic disturbance of the climate system", the federal government violates the Federal Constitution ( precautionary principle and right to life ) and the European Convention on Human Rights with its current climate target . The senior climate workers consider the risk that the federal government is taking by not pursuing the 2-degree target to be inadmissible. The federal government does not adequately fulfill its duty of protection vis-à-vis the holders of fundamental rights - that is, its consideration for submitting to state authority . On April 26, 2017, the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication (DETEC) refused to accept the request. On May 26, 2017, the plaintiffs filed a complaint with the Federal Administrative Court in St. Gallen. Since this was rejected in December 2018 because the consequences of global warming did not only affect senior women, the plaintiffs filed a complaint with the federal court . In May 2020, the federal court dismissed this complaint against the department. It stated that the complainants' concerns could not be enforced through legal channels, but through political means.

Dissolution of a road blockade in Lausanne on September 20, 2019

On November 18, 2018, activists from Lausanne Action Climat (LAC) drew attention to the bank's environmentally harmful investments with a simulated tennis game in a branch of Credit Suisse. The Lausanne district attorney issued a penalty warrant for trespassing against twelve participants, against which they raised objections. The Lausanne District Court upheld the objection. It found that there was a justifiable state of emergency . With a view to the climate emergency , the action was "necessary and appropriate". The verdict sparked controversial legal discussions. The public prosecutor's office announced that it would take the case to the cantonal court.

In October 2018, on the sidelines of a climate academy in Geneva , a young man painted red hands with a stencil - symbolizing the victims of climate change - on the facade of a Credit Suisse branch. On February 20, 2020, the police court sentenced him to a fine for damage to property, had to bear the costs of the procedure and pay the big bank compensation of CHF 2,250. The verdict is not yet legally binding.

United States

There is hardly any legislation on climate protection and adaptation in the USA. Accordingly, many lawsuits aimed at US authorities applying existing environmental laws to climate protection and taking action accordingly. The most important of these laws were the US federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which sets out the goals of US environmental policy and provides for environmental assessments for all projects with federal participation, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for the protection of threatened species and clean air Act (CAA for short) on air pollution control.

Most of the procedures recorded in the USA up to 2015 revolved around climate protection, often directed against coal-fired power plants or tried to limit the use of fossil fuels. While stricter regulation was initially the goal, the number of cases that sought to prevent stricter climate protection increased significantly later.

Since around 2010, the question of whether the Public Trust doctrine, according to which the state is obliged to hold certain natural goods, such as waterways, beaches or fishing grounds, in trust as assets ( trust ) for its citizens and future generations has been gaining in importance, especially in the USA to preserve, also applies to the atmosphere as an Atmospheric Trust .

Lawsuits based on the National Environmental Policy Act

The first case in which climate change was explicitly an aspect was the City of Los Angeles v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . It was ruled in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals , 1990. The plaintiff municipalities, states and environmental groups questioned a decision by the NHTSA in favor of lower efficiency standards for motor vehicles because the NHTSA had not reported on the climate impacts in an environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act . The plaintiffs failed with their request, but the lawsuit was a blueprint for numerous others along the lines of "Non-governmental organization sues, referring to NEPA, against state institution to fail to take a measure."

The procedures according to the NEP and its equivalents in the individual states have led to the fact that issues of climate change have to be included in environmental assessments.

Lawsuits based on the Clean Air Act

According to Peel and Osofsky, the Massachusetts v. Case is considered to be the most prominent and important climate action ever to date . EPA , as a result of which the US government classified greenhouse gases as air pollutants on the basis of the Clean Air Act and the American environmental agency EPA was able to regulate the emissions accordingly. That conclusion was directed Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA , which was rejected by the federal appeals court. In Utility Air Regulation Group v. However , the Supreme Court restricted the EPA's ability to regulate stationary sources of emissions under the Clean Air Act .

Lawsuits based on the Endangered Species Act

The classification of species as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act has been the subject of several legal disputes in which climate change played an important role as a cause of habitat loss and which illustrates many of the different facets of climate action.

Starving Polar Bear: important environmental lawsuits have the threat to species after the Endangered Species Act the subject

In the most important case group, the non-governmental organization Center for Biological Diversity , which is committed to the protection of species, submitted a petition to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in 2005 to classify the polar bear as a protected species under the ESA. In 2008, the authorities decided that the continued and expected loss of sea ice as a result of global warming threatened the livelihoods of polar bears enough to justify their protection. Shortly afterwards, the George W. Bush administration published a memorandum to the ESA, confirmed by the Barack Obama administration in 2011 , that such a classification of species and their protection could not justify climate protection measures. Mitigation-related lawsuits based on the ESA were thus removed from the ground. Both the classification of the polar bears and the memorandum became the subject of further pro- and anti-regulatory lawsuits in which the state of Alaska as well as the Alaska Oil and Gas Association , hunting associations, environmental protection groups and indigenous groups were involved, but which failed.

The classification of the polar bear led the FWS to put 120 million hectares of its habitat under protection (this decision was again attacked by the Alaska Oil and Gas Association , the US Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2017). With regard to climate adaptation, the changed application of the ESA brought about progress, according to Peel and Osofsky, authorities also include the effects of climate change in assessments according to the ESA and take into account, among other things, the effects of climate change. a. Walking corridors for species.

In a similar case in 2012 - again after a corresponding petition from the Center for Biological Diversity - the National Marine Fisheries Service classified two bearded seal populations as endangered by sea ice shrinkage. Lawsuits brought against it by the Alaska Oil and Gas Association , the state of Alaska, and a district ultimately failed in the federal appeals court. In this case (as in the case of the polar bears), the outcome of the legal proceedings is indirectly linked to mitigation-related effects due to the fact that the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas deposits in the habitats is made more difficult.

Atmospheric Trust Litigation

The legal doctrine of the public trust has developed over centuries, especially in common law countries . According to her, the state is obliged to protect natural resources as trust assets for its citizens and to preserve them for future generations. They must not be exposed to exclusively private use and consumption. This legal instrument expresses the principles of intergenerational justice (see also climate justice ) and the protection of citizens' interests from special interests that could prevail in a government. In the USA the application of this doctrine was first confirmed by a court for the use of water, in various states then also for u. a. the protection of biodiversity and wildlife habitats . Whether the atmosphere or its absorption capacity as a landfill for greenhouse gases is to be protected as an Atmospheric Trust according to the Public Trust Doctrine is legally unclear and the subject of legal discussions.

Since 2011, the organization Our Children's Trust has been pursuing the protection of the atmosphere according to this legal doctrine in numerous processes under the catchphrase Atmospheric Trust Litigation . One of the processes is Juliana v. USA , plus nine lawsuits and 39 petitions in states. The organization also tries to support and coordinate similar approaches in other countries, such as Ukraine, Canada or India.

The US-American legal scientist Mary Christina Wood points out that - in contrast to the legally enforced, fragmented application of existing laws - the legislature could be obliged to regulate climate protection on a large scale. She sees the approach of Atmospheric Trust Litigation as the broad, system-changing approach that solving the climate crisis requires.

Juliana v. United States

Kids Want Climate Justice ( "Children want climate justice "), Minnesota - March For Science ,
Saint Paul , April 2017

An American US by the NGO Our Children's Trust (roughly " Trust our children") supported and represented by its co-founder Julia Olson group of 21 children and adolescents (colloquially Climate-Kids , "Climate Kids") got together in March 2015 Lawsuit against the United States of America (USA), represented by its President, since 2017 Donald Trump ( Juliana v. United States ) with the non-governmental organization Earth Guardians ("Earth Guardians" ). They claim that the US Constitution guarantees them the right to a stable climate system and clean water with a healthy, free and prosperous life for them and their offspring. In contrast, the US Department of Justice argued that there was “no right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life”.

In November 2016, Eugene District Court (Oregon) upheld the group's claim, officially admitting the lawsuit. As plaintiffs joined James Hansen on, grandfather of one of the applicants and 1981-2013 director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies of NASA . The start of the main hearing was initially set for February 5, 2018, but was postponed due to an appeal by the Trump administration in the US Federal Court of Appeals . On March 7, 2018, the appellate court also ruled that the lawsuit was admissible. On April 12, 2018, the Oregon District Court rescheduled the trial to October 29 of that year.

On July 19 of that year, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th District rejected a second and therefore very unusual request from the Trump administration for a court order (→ Mandamus ). In a ten-page statement it was stated that there were no new findings against the approval of a due process.

On July 31, 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the constitutional complaint filed by the 21 juvenile plaintiffs in Juliana against the US federal government: it rejected the Trump administration's motion for a postponement and confirmed the date of the district court's trial. The court also rejected requests to review the case "early" before the district court heard any facts in support of the juveniles' claims.

On October 13, the Trump administration filed a third petition against the admission of the lawsuit, a very rare occurrence in the US judiciary; on October 19, the US Supreme Court ordered a temporary pause for the proceedings, but held that government re-application inadmissible. On October 22nd, in their response to the third motion, plaintiffs asked for an immediate continuation of the proceedings, at the same time they mobilized to US-wide events on October 29th to raise awareness.

On January 17, 2020, two of the three judges on the US 9th District Court of Appeals voted that the lawsuit was inadmissible. The court found that plaintiffs had provided compelling evidence of the destructive effects of climate change. Referring to a protest song from the 1960s, the judges wrote that climate change had brought the evening closer to destruction . However, the court could not offer what the plaintiffs wanted, namely a government plan to phase out fossil fuels and CO ₂ capture and storage . "We reluctantly come to the conclusion that this remedy is not within our constitutional power."

literature

Jacqueline Peel and Hari M. Osofsky: Climate Change Litigation (= Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law ). Cambridge University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-107-03606-2 (compares climate action in the USA and Australia).
Kevin R. Gray, Cinnamon Piñon Carlarne, and Richard Tarasofsky (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of International Climate Change Law . Oxford University Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-19-968460-1 , Part V - Climate Change Litigation.
Scientific services of the German Bundestag (ed.): Legal basis and possibilities for climate lawsuits against the state and companies in Germany . WD 7 - 3000 - 116/6, August 2016 ( bundestag.de [PDF; 335 kB ] an analysis of the situation in Germany).

Web links

Climate Change Laws of the World: Litigation (database at the London School of Economics on climate law and legal proceedings worldwide (excluding the USA))

US Litigation Database ( Sabin Center's database oflawsuits in the United States)

Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy u. a. (Ed.), 2017: Global trends in climate change legislation and litigation. (International overview of climate law and procedures)

greenpeace.de , October 27, 2018: Final instance for climate protection: Climate action worldwide (PDF 327.67 KB, nine pages)

Heinrich-Böll Foundation (Ed.): Climate Justice: The international momentum towards climate litigation. (Study from the perspective of climate justice )

Individual evidence

↑ Felix Ekardt u. a .: Paris Agreement, human rights and climate action . Legal opinion on behalf of the Solar Energy Association Germany . Ed .: Research Center for Sustainability and Climate Policy, Leipzig / Berlin. January 4, 2018 ( sfv.de [PDF; 1000 kB ]).

↑ ^a ^b United Nations Environment Program in cooperation with Columbia University, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law: The Status of Climate Change Litigation: A Global Review , German version: Klimawandel vorgericht , May 2017

↑ David Markell and JB Ruhl: An Empirical Assessment of Climate Change in the Courts: A New Jurisprudence or Business as Usual? In: Florida Law Review . tape 15 , no. 27 , 2012.

↑ United Nations Environment Program (Ed.): The Status of Climate Change Litigation . 2017, part 2. The current status of legal proceedings on climate change, p. 10 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q Peel and Osofsky: Climate Change Litigation . 2015, 1 Why climate change litigation matters, p. 1-27 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Sandrine Maljean-Dubois: Climate Change Litigation . In: Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law . June 2018 ( ouplaw.com ).

^ ^A ^b Petition To The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Seeking Relief From Violations Resulting from Global Warming Caused By Acts and Omissions of the United States. In: Climate Change Litigation Databases. Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, accessed April 3, 2020 .

^ ^A ^b Joana Setzer, Lisa C. Vanhala: Climate change litigation: A review of research on courts and litigants in climate governance . In: WIREs Climate Change . March 14, 2019, doi : 10.1002 / wcc.580 .

↑ Jacqueline Peel, Hari M. Osofsky: A Rights Turn in Climate Change Litigation? In: Transnational Environmental Law . 2018, doi : 10.1017 / S2047102517000292 .

^ ^A ^b Sabrina McCormick: Science in litigation, the third branch of US climate policy . In: Science . tape 357 , no. 6355 , September 8, 2017, doi : 10.1126 / science.aao0412 .

^ ^A ^b Will Frank: Climate liability and causality . In: Journal for Environmental Law (ZUR) . 2013, p. 28 .

↑ Sophie Marjanac, Lindene Patton: Extreme weather event attribution science and climate change litigation: an essential step in the causal chain? In: Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law . April 19, 2018, doi : 10.1080 / 02646811.2018.1451020 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Joana Setzer, Rebecca Byrnes: Global trends in climate change litigation: 2019 snapshot . Policy Report. Ed .: Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy, Inter-Parliamentary Union, Columbia Law School and Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. July 2019 ( lse.ac.uk ).

↑ Felicity Millner and Kirsty Ruddock: Climate litigation: Lessons learned and future opportunities . In: Alternative Law Journal . tape 36 , no. January 1 , 2011, doi : 10.1177 / 1037969X1103600106 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c Michal Nachmany, Sam Frankenhauser, Joana Setzer and Alina Averchenkova: Global trends in climate change legislation and litigation . Ed .: Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy, Inter-Parliamentary Union, Columbia Law School and Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. 2017 ( ipu.org [PDF; 2.6 MB ]).

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↑ ourchildrenstrust.us4.list-manage.com: FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT (PDF, August 13, 2018)

↑ ourchildrenstrust.us4.list-manage.com: (ORDER LIST: 585 US) MONDAY, JULY 30, 2018 ORDER IN PENDING CASE 18A65 UNITED STATES, ET AL. V. USDC OR :
"The application for stay presented to Justice Kennedy and by him referred to the Court is denied. The overnment's request for relief is premature and is denied without prejudice. The breadth of respondents' claims is striking, however, and the justiciability of those claims presents substantial grounds for difference of opinion. The District Court should take these concerns into account in assessing the burdens of discovery and trial, as well as the desirability of a prompt ruling on the Government's pending dispositive motions. "
("The motion for deferment put before Judge Kennedy and before him in the Tribunal is denied. The state's motion for relief is premature and is denied without prejudice. However, the breadth of the allegations made by those interviewed is striking, and the legality of these claims is a major cause of disagreement. The District Court should take these concerns into account when assessing the burden of proof for investigations and legal proceedings, and the usefulness of a speedy decision on pending government disposition requests. ”) PDF, August 13, 2018;
on Dispositive motion see Dispositive motion

↑ static1.squarespace.com (October 13, 2018)

↑ greenpeace.de , October 27, 2018: Last instance for climate protection: Climate action worldwide (PDF, 327.67 kB, p. 4, October 27, 2018)

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[ekardt2018-1] Felix Ekardt u. a .: Paris Agreement, human rights and climate action . Legal opinion on behalf of the Solar Energy Association Germany . Ed .: Research Center for Sustainability and Climate Policy, Leipzig / Berlin. January 4, 2018 ( sfv.de [PDF; 1000 kB ]).

[unep2017-2] United Nations Environment Program in cooperation with Columbia University, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law: The Status of Climate Change Litigation: A Global Review , German version: Klimawandel vorgericht , May 2017

[markell2012-3] David Markell and JB Ruhl: An Empirical Assessment of Climate Change in the Courts: A New Jurisprudence or Business as Usual? In: Florida Law Review . tape 15 , no. 27 , 2012.

[unep2017_2-4] United Nations Environment Program (Ed.): The Status of Climate Change Litigation . 2017, part 2. The current status of legal proceedings on climate change, p. 10 .

[peel2015_1-5] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q Peel and Osofsky: Climate Change Litigation . 2015, 1 Why climate change litigation matters, p. 1-27 .

[maljean-dubois2018-6] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Sandrine Maljean-Dubois: Climate Change Litigation . In: Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law . June 2018 ( ouplaw.com ).

[inuit-7] A ^b Petition To The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Seeking Relief From Violations Resulting from Global Warming Caused By Acts and Omissions of the United States. In: Climate Change Litigation Databases. Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, accessed April 3, 2020 .

[setzer2019-8] A ^b Joana Setzer, Lisa C. Vanhala: Climate change litigation: A review of research on courts and litigants in climate governance . In: WIREs Climate Change . March 14, 2019, doi : 10.1002 / wcc.580 .

[peel2018-9] Jacqueline Peel, Hari M. Osofsky: A Rights Turn in Climate Change Litigation? In: Transnational Environmental Law . 2018, doi : 10.1017 / S2047102517000292 .

[mcCormick2017-10] A ^b Sabrina McCormick: Science in litigation, the third branch of US climate policy . In: Science . tape 357 , no. 6355 , September 8, 2017, doi : 10.1126 / science.aao0412 .

[frank2013-11] A ^b Will Frank: Climate liability and causality . In: Journal for Environmental Law (ZUR) . 2013, p. 28 .

[marjanac2018-12] Sophie Marjanac, Lindene Patton: Extreme weather event attribution science and climate change litigation: an essential step in the causal chain? In: Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law . April 19, 2018, doi : 10.1080 / 02646811.2018.1451020 .

[grantham2019-13] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Joana Setzer, Rebecca Byrnes: Global trends in climate change litigation: 2019 snapshot . Policy Report. Ed .: Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy, Inter-Parliamentary Union, Columbia Law School and Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. July 2019 ( lse.ac.uk ).