NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, November 10, 2017

Frustrated NGOs are again thinking of suing the governments of rich nations over their inaction in combatting climate change-induced loss and damage.

An abiding nightmare of many developed country governments is a slew of lawsuits seeking compensation in the International Court of Justice, as these countries have been responsible for most of the build up of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere.

This is why developed country delegations pushed for legal liability to be removed from the Paris Agreement at the UN climate talks two years ago. The trade-off was that rich nations would “enable action and provide support to developing countries” to deal with the loss and damage.

But, says Harjeet Singh, the global lead on climate change at ActionAid, “there has been hardly any work on this”.

Photo courtesy of Señor Codo.