Climate change: Dogs of law are off the leash



By Richard Ingham (AFP)
PARIS — From being a marginal and even mocked issue, climate-change litigation is fast emerging as a new frontier of law where some believe hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake.
Compensation for losses inflicted by man-made global warming would be jaw-dropping, a payout that would make tobacco and asbestos damages look like pocket money.
Imagine: a country or an individual could get redress for a drought that destroyed farmland, for floods and storms that created an army of refugees, for rising seas that wiped a small island state off the map.
In the past three years, the number of climate-related lawsuits has ballooned, filling the void of political efforts in tackling greenhouse-gas emissions.
Eyeing the money-spinning potential, some major commercial law firms now place climate-change litigation in their Internet shop window.
Seminars on climate law are often thickly attended by corporations that could be in the firing line -- and by the companies that insure them.
But legal experts sound a note of caution, warning that this is a new and mist-shrouded area of justice.
Many obstacles lie ahead before a Western court awards a cent in climate damages and even more before the award is upheld on appeal.
"There's a large number of entrepreneurial lawyers and NGOs who are hunting around for a way to gain leverage on the climate problem," said David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California at San Diego.
"The number of suits filed has increased radically. But the number of suits claiming damages from climate change that have been successful remains zero."
Lawsuits in the United States related directly or indirectly almost tripled in 2010 over 2009, reaching 132 filings after 48 a year earlier, according to a Deutsche Bank report.
Elsewhere in the world, the total of lawsuits is far lower than in the US, but nearly doubled between 2008 and 2010, when 32 cases were filed, according to a tally compiled by AFP from specialist sites.
The majority of these cases touch on regulatory issues and access to information, which can have many repercussions for coal, gas and oil producers and big carbon-emitting industries such as steel and cement.
"In this area, the floodgates have opened," said Michael Gerrard, director of the recently-opened Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in New York, who contributed to the Deutsche Bank report.
In the United States, many cases seek clarification on the right of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, while in Europe, the main issue has been emissions quotas allotted to companies in Europe's carbon market.
In some cases, courts have thrown out the suits, admitted part of them or declared themselves unfit to issue a ruling and booted the affair to a higher authority.
The legal fog is especially thick when it comes to so-called nuisance suits, which seek to determine blame, and thus open the way to damages.
"There are billions of potential plaintiffs and millions of potential defendants," said Gerrard. "The biggest problem, though, is causation."
Gerrard and others pointed out some of the dilemmas for establishing liability, starting with the fact that fossil fuels are used, by all of us, in complete legality.
And a molecule of CO2 is no respecter of national boundaries. Gas emitted by a car in Los Angeles or by a coal plant in China will help drive climate damage in South Asia, Europe, the North Pole -- anywhere.
Then there is the business of distinguishing between weather and climate. For instance, hurricanes, droughts and floods have always occurred in human history. Can one, or even several, of these be pinned to human meddling in the climate system?
And there's a further complication: rich nations were the first to plunder the coal, oil and gas that powered the industrial revolution, but they are now being overtaken by China and other fast-growing but still poor giants.
So who is to blame? And to what degree?
Some of the wrangling can be seen in a 2006 case in which California sued three US and three Japanese carmakers, arguing that emissions from their vehicles had caused among other things a melting of mountain snow pack on which the state depends for its water.
That case was dismissed by a district court in 2007, which ruled that the issues were "political questions" that should be tackled by the US president and Congress.
It also noted that the cars were sold legally, that the car emissions had not violated any current laws or regulations and climate change had many contributing factors.
Two other big cases touching on liability have gone to the Supreme Court to adjudicate on competence.
In the most eagerly-awaited case, whose ruling is expected by the end of June, the state of Connecticut is demanding an injunction against major power companies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
"That will definitely be the big one," said Gerrard. "Everyone is waiting to hear what the Supreme Court says."
Christoph Schwarte, a lawyer with a British charity called FIELD (Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development), said that even if today's lawsuits run into the sand, "some of these cases may be winnable in the future."
"Case law in the future might evolve, and scientists' claims to determine the percentage of human contribution to certain extreme weather events may be recognised in some way or another."
Today's lawsuits may also spur thinking about future liability risks among major emitters, Schwarte argued.
Many tobacco and asbestos lawsuits, for instance, hinged on arguments that firms knew their product was dangerous at the time, but concealed this evidence from the public.
"(The lawsuits) create awareness and thus also may have an impact on the actions of governments and corporations," said Schwarte.
"They also create caution" about what is said in internal documents and emails, he said. "In 15 years' time, you might not be able to turn around and say 'I didn't know anything about it at the time.'"

So ya' see, the real reason for the debate has nothing to do with pollution, clean air, carbon footprints, etc. The real reason for the debate, at least amongst the "Big Kids", is the assignment of blame, followed by establishment of legal precedent, followed by billion dollar settlements.

Later
Albert

i just want clean air to breathe

2010 tied for Earth's warmest year on record

 
On record. Just a rhetorical question, but which record? It doesn't matter because most of the massive "climatic" changes and movements of the earths crust are outside recorded history. We as a civilization in this age have a much better chance of recording and preserving the events associated with a cataclismic world event than in any other time due to mass media. Being tied for the warmest year ever on record is pertinant only to the record. The whole cycle of changes is an ever changing thing since we are moving through space both linear and intrinsic to our own center. We are a system of ourselves yet move through the universe beyond. Much of unrecorded history is lost in the personal remembrances of individuals who survived.

Janet


Interesting that you bring that up.  I saw a few months ago that Russia due to have its coldest winter in 1000 years.  I'm showing my ignorance here I guess, but did they really keep records of temperature 1000 years ago?  If so, wow! 

I'm not saying they didn't keep records of the temperatures then...I'm just wondering how.  I believe the first thermometer was invented in the 1500's.

marcos69

Janet


Interesting that you bring that up.  I saw a few months ago that Russia due to have its coldest winter in 1000 years.  I'm showing my ignorance here I guess, but did they really keep records of temperature 1000 years ago?  If so, wow! 

I'm not saying they didn't keep records of the temperatures then...I'm just wondering how.  I believe the first thermometer was invented in the 1500's.

oral or the other kind? 

 DATELINE 1/24/11......... BULLETIN from Algore University:  Scientific observation by Environmental Professor Chic N. Little......"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!...........It hit me on the head!"

it's simple science, really, kinda like carbon dating the shroud of turin.

only this science is more cutting edge.
kinda cool, eh?

Crg

SteveStrummerUK


 
Heads up - just started on BBC2 - HORIZON: Science Under Attack
 
 
Geneticist and biologist Paul Nurse examines the reasons why public trust in key scientific theories, including the cause of global warming, the safety of GM food and the link between HIV and Aids, seems to have been eroded. He travels to New York to interview scientists and campaigners from both sides of the climate change debate, and meets a man who has HIV but does not believe the virus is responsible for Aids

And how did Aids get drawn into the climate debate? Is he blaming climatic change or global warming for the mutation of the virus?

 
Craig, the programme was about various ongoing scientific debates and why the public are sceptical about what they're being told.

 
.. apologies..

SteveStrummerUK


 
.. apologies..

Thank you Steve.  You are a true and honorable man.

Craig, the programme was about various ongoing scientific debates and why the public are sceptical about what they're being told.

 
Ohh, I thought you were saying they were saying that global warming was being caused by GM food mutating the Aids virus by means of a common vector being the green pods the grey aliens are leaving in our basements to take over our bodies as we sleep.

 I think the data is flawed, I have just proved that 2010 was an overall average year by the only REAL scientific method to measure these sort of things, by examining the entrails of an owl

Crg

ohgrant


 I think the data is flawed, I have just proved that 2010 was an overall average year by the only REAL scientific method to measure these sort of things, by examining the entrails of an owl

It's official then, it's tuesday in Vegas, just as it should be.

I'll have to pick up some more owls

SteveStrummerUK

ohgrant

Crg

ohgrant


I think the data is flawed, I have just proved that 2010 was an overall average year by the only REAL scientific method to measure these sort of things, by examining the entrails of an owl

It's official then, it's tuesday in Vegas, just as it should be.

I'll have to pick up some more owls

 
 
Polished or unbuffed
 
 

 

 Talk like that could get you elected into office over here real quick, just warning you.