Climate Change Litigation: Sharma, Smith and Beyond
This seminar was presented by an expert panel on climate change litigation.
With the challenge of climate change taking on an ever-increasing sense of immediacy, and a growing concern that governments and corporations have been too slow to act, citizens are turning to the courts for relief. In this seminar leading experts in civil liability, public law and environmental law will consider recent important decisions from the courts in Australia, New Zealand and comparable jurisdictions, discussing the prospects and limits of climate change litigation, and seeking to place litigation in the context of other possible regulatory responses to climate change.
Professor Jason Varuhas (University of Melbourne) will consider the Full Federal Court of Australia’s decision in Minister for the Environment v Sharma, in which a group of children argued a Government Minister owed them a duty to take reasonable steps to avoid exacerbating risks of climate change. Professor Geoff McLay (Victoria University of Wellington) will consider the forthcoming New Zealand Supreme Court case of Smith v Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd, in which the plaintiff, an Indigenous elder, seeks to establish that a corporation owes a duty of care in relation to climate. Professor Liz Fisher (University of Oxford) will offer reflections on the turn to litigation, and place emerging legal trends in broader perspective, addressing the topic of ‘Climate Change, Accountability, and Adjudication’.