Has climate change litigation become more difficult? asks Malcolm Dowden
Shortly before the Copenhagen climate change summit in December 2009 emails leaked or hacked from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit prompted responses ranging from robust defence of the integrity and validity of climate change science to angry denunciation of the “Anthropogenic Global Warming conspiracy”. Those denunciations were largely brushed aside in Copenhagen while media attention focused on the Copenhagen Accord.
However, “Climategate” revived and intensified with “Glaciergate”. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was compelled to withdraw as having no scientific basis claims that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, and to acknowledge that their inclusion in the Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 reflected a “poor application” of IPCC procedures.
“Climategate” and “Glaciergate” are likely to have a significant, and possibly deterrent, effect on climate change litigation as the possibility of further flaws in the IPCC assessment reports encourages more aggressive and forensic examination of expert evidence.
Climate change attains legal significance when the phenomenon (and its effects) can be considered “reasonably foreseeable”. In the UK there
