SPM67 | Catalyzing climate change litigation by bridging the gap between geosciences and legal practice (the meeting starts at 09:00 CET)
Catalyzing climate change litigation by bridging the gap between geosciences and legal practice (the meeting starts at 09:00 CET)
Convener: Rosa PietroiustiECSECS | Co-conveners: Inga Menke, Wim ThieryECSECS, Friederike Otto, Petra Minnerop
Fri, 28 Apr, 08:30–10:15 (CEST)
 
Room 2.83
Fri, 08:30
Climate change represents one of the defining societal challenges of the 21st century. However, climate action is inadequate across the board in responding to this challenge. Both in terms of mitigation and adaptation, measures currently taken by society fall short of what is required to ensure a safe and healthy environment, today or in the future. This results in extreme weather events causing damages and losses around the globe, and the prospect of worsening impacts and unsafe living conditions in the future because of insufficient emissions reduction commitments by countries. This shortfall in climate action has led citizens to take up legal action, to either receive compensation for suffered climate damages, or force decision makers to commit to the necessary emissions reductions.

In this splinter meeting, we invite a discussion on how to bridge the gap between the legal practice of climate change litigation and the geosciences. Starting with an overview of what the latest research says about the scientific evidence used in climate litigation, we will then open the discussion to address how new scientific methods can support legal efforts, and inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives on how to integrate geoscience insights in climate change litigation. This will include questions of climate change and impact attribution, responsibility, human rights, and burden sharing of efforts that link beyond disciplinary boundaries.