Date: Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Complete Article: The Guardian
Excerpt:
Next week the first constitutional climate lawsuit goes to trial amid signs fossil fuel companies are facing accountability tests
Climate litigation in the US could be entering a “game changing” new phase, experts believe, with a spate of lawsuits around the country set to advance after a recent supreme court decision, and with legal teams preparing for a trailblazing trial in a youth-led court case beginning next week.
The number of cases focused on the climate crisis around the world has doubled since 2015, bringing the total number to over 2,000, according to a report last year led by European researchers.
“I don’t know of another time in history where so many courts in so many different levels all over the globe have been tasked with dealing with a similar overarching issue,”
said Karen Sokol, law professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
The new forms of climate litigation are different, as they grapple not with particular projects’ emissions, but on responsibility for the climate crisis itself.