Why force of law is world's best hope for beating climate change

South China Morning Post

4 days ago

The law has emerged as a powerful weapon in the war on global warming, with a series of landmark judgments seeking to make governments legally responsible for limiting greenhouse gas emissions arising from the use of fossil fuels. This move is one of the strongest yet in the fight against the existential threat of
climate change , but it raises the question of who will pay for necessary remedial actions.
Until now, the world's approach to battling global warming has been largely passive. It has mainly relied on peer-pressure approaches such as the
2015 Paris Agreement , whereby governments submit voluntary pledges to reduce carbon emissions. With legal authorities now entering the fray at a higher level, there is hope that reliance on voluntary action can be supplemented and reinforced by the law – provided that law enforcement itself is supported by financial system reforms designed to aid cost-burden sharing.
That burden will be heavy. Industrial installations ranging from power stations to
steel and cement plants will need expensive conversion to clean energy, and equally expensive infrastructure will need to be replaced and producers compensated.
These actions are of particular concern to Asian nations with previous or ongoing large-scale industrial revolutions and whose carbon emissions
have risen accordingly . They will be among those having to abide by stricter laws on emissions in the future.
The International Court of Justice, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea have all
made recent rulings on the obligations of governments with regard to climate change. These rulings come at a time when questions around how the public and private sectors will share the burden of the clean energy transition are in the spotlight, potentially leading to friction between consumers and investors as well as governments and financial markets.
Legislating is one thing, but enforcement is another. There will be concerns that
fossil fuel-producing nations deem the rulings unenforceable and thus of no consequence. This is true up to a point, but rulings by multiple international courts at least provide a sound legal basis upon which to challenge polluters.