Legal action to protect the future from climate change.

The University of Iowa's Centre for Human Rights and the University of Vermont's Environmental Law Centre have jointly started an initiative to seek legal protection for future generations.

The Climate Legacy Initiative (CLI) is devoted to bringing the law of government in line with the laws of nature. Its goal is nothing less than to change the way we think about our world—and the way our laws deal with a world rocked by climate change.

The project has been launched with the publication of a policy paper.

Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational Justice.

Many of the actions taken by industry today can be considered as genuine crimes, the spatial and temporal seperation of cause and effect often stymies action. In terms of principles, however, it is quite clear that the law has a lot to say about the infliction of damages on innocent parties through the persuit of profit, perticularly when the liklihood of this damage is known.

Although the legal system sits within a framework of govornance which has ultimate responsibility for public policy, it can certainly be a useful tool to drive policy if not a practicle means of solving our problems.

• Climate Change Action has featured previous posts on climate change and the law.

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Climate Scientists Tell Coal Companies to Take Responsibility

Via ABC

LEIGH SALES: Six of the nation's leading climate change scientists have written to the coal industry, telling them to shut down power stations and take responsibility for the damage coal burning does to the environment.

The scientists say the industry has the power to make a difference because it's the largest contributor to the nation's greenhouse gases.

The letter calls for coal-fired power stations to be closed in the near future, and for any new ones to have zero emissions.

DAVID KAROLY, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE: We're not arguing that they will necessarily listen, but this issue of liability will be a growing concern in the future. Perhaps they've been able to hide from that issue of liability because of mixed messages.

We're trying to make it very clear that there is a liability and a responsibility associated with ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases.

PDF of the letter.

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Lawsuit Accuses Big Oil of Conspiracy to Deceive Public About Climate Change

There have been climate change lawsuits in the past, but it's always encouraging to see action in this area. We all know that there has been a lot of deception going on and a lot of people with vested interests doing everything in there power to stop the public pushing for change. Now is the time to see if this dishonesty rises to the level of criminal conspiracy:

"This is the first lawsuit where the claim is made that the defendants, principally organized by ExxonMobil, have organized and orchestrated collusively a movement to deceive the public about whether global warming was occurring, whether it was occurring by cause of manmade activity or something else, and as a result, the public didn’t demand changes and let this go on for so long."

Stephen Susman, Democracy Now

Related:

• Full Story
• Video

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Constitutional Rights for Nature

So as usuall i start reading a book on some sub-topic of climate change and the whole blog veres in that direction. This time i`m reading "Environmental Justice and the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples" by Laura Westra and therefore law has become my area of interest.

In this video lawyer Cormac Cullinan is interviewed by Jacqui Brown at Seattle University School of Law's Center on Corporations, Law, and Society. The discussion is not entirely free of controversy...anyone feel strongly about property rights?

"Cullinan, a former anti-apartheid activist, is author of Wild Law, in which he asserts the necessity of creating a new structure of law that recognizes the inherent and legally enforceable rights of natural communities and ecosystems."

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