Davos 2023: Climate litigation to escalate, says WEF panel

DAVOS – Alongside international concerns over global warming, climate lawsuits are also flaring up around the world as a fragile move to secure their future.

That was the view taken on Tuesday by the Panel on Climate Change Litigation at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, in a session moderated by Jaime Ho, editor of The Straits Times.

A panelist on “See you in court! The rising tide of climate litigation” (as the session was titled) felt: litigation became an attractive strategy For the many stakeholders who want to make a difference in climate action.

This trend is promote or delay effective action against climate change; they said

There are about 2,000 lawsuits worldwide, about a quarter of which have occurred in the past two years, according to the panel.

Addressing the audience, Alice Garton, Director of International Law Strategy at the International Environmental Law Foundation in the Netherlands, said that while these cases are primarily taking place in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, they are also common across Latin America. said that the number of Asia and the Caribbean.

At the highest level, these cases concerned projects that caused unwanted climate change. Garton said these lawsuits are brought by the community and won as science and law allow.

She said these cases are also intended to drive the creation of a clean energy framework.

“About 70% of the lawsuits are against projects and governments, and 30% are against companies,” she said.

“The current win rate for these lawsuits is 50%, but unfortunately the reality is that[numbers]are likely to go up, not down.”

Garton added that there are many different advocates because “climate change is both a pervasive problem and an economic risk.”

Ayisha Siddiqa, co-founder of Polluters Out, USA, which works to keep polluters off indigenous lands around the world, said the key problem is that the international community is falling behind in its commitments. He said it was a mechanism to ensure compliance and accountability. Not yet introduced by policy makers.

“Everyone, from civil society to youth to human rights groups, is saying governments need to do a better job of delivering on their commitments to close compliance gaps,” she said.

“Unfortunately, intergovernmental process times are not binding. Again and again,” she noted.

The live-streamed session is believed to be the first time the issue has been discussed at the WEF.