ClimateCast with Tom Heap Climate lawfare: Fighting climate change in court
May 28, 2021
25:57
This week on Sky News Climatecast, hosts Anna Jones and Katerina Vittozzi talk about climate lawfare. Using the courtroom as a weapon in the global fight against climate change.
Climate litigation is a fairly new tool for tackling climate change. Activists and lawyers describe it as a last resort, yet it’s becoming an increasingly common practice.
And the climate activists have had some important wins. This week saw two remarkable cases and we speak to the people at the heart of both.
Firstly we speak to Peer de Rijk from Friends of the Earth in the Netherlands, who won their case against fossil fuel giant Shell in the Dutch courts, resulting in the court ruling that Shell must reduce their carbon emissions by 45% by 2030.
We also talk to Anjali Sharma, a 17-year-old activist from Melbourne, Australia. At the start of the year, she - along with seven other teenagers and an 86-year-old nun - sued the Australian Environment minister in a bid to stop a coal mine expansion, arguing that the government had a duty of care to protect young people from the effects of climate change.
And we get the views of Tessa Khan, human rights and climate lawyer who took on the Dutch government and won. She's also the co-founder of the Climate Litigation Network, so we ask her how these cases might shape the future of using climate lawfare to tackle the environmental crisis.
Climate litigation is a fairly new tool for tackling climate change. Activists and lawyers describe it as a last resort, yet it’s becoming an increasingly common practice.
And the climate activists have had some important wins. This week saw two remarkable cases and we speak to the people at the heart of both.
Firstly we speak to Peer de Rijk from Friends of the Earth in the Netherlands, who won their case against fossil fuel giant Shell in the Dutch courts, resulting in the court ruling that Shell must reduce their carbon emissions by 45% by 2030.
We also talk to Anjali Sharma, a 17-year-old activist from Melbourne, Australia. At the start of the year, she - along with seven other teenagers and an 86-year-old nun - sued the Australian Environment minister in a bid to stop a coal mine expansion, arguing that the government had a duty of care to protect young people from the effects of climate change.
And we get the views of Tessa Khan, human rights and climate lawyer who took on the Dutch government and won. She's also the co-founder of the Climate Litigation Network, so we ask her how these cases might shape the future of using climate lawfare to tackle the environmental crisis.