Will Judges Have the Last Word on Climate Change?

In the fight against climate change, there’s a tool that’s increasingly popular: litigation. Around the world, activists have turned to the courts. They want to force oil companies and governments to pay for past harms and to avert future threats, and they’re using the law to assign blame for damage. Opponents say climate policy is not a matter for judges but for national governments and international agreements, such as those on methane and deforestation unveiled at the United Nations COP26 climate summit in November.

In the U.S. it’s mostly the big oil companies, but also electricity producers and American state and federal agencies. Elected leaders are the targets in much of the rest of the world, including India and South Africa. In Europe, local and national authorities have been sued because their clean-air plans fail to meet European Union requirements. These include emissions caps that aim to limit the harm to the environment from older, less efficient diesel cars. Some climate activists argue that courts are uniquely suited to impose controls where legislatures and government agencies have failed.