Kaminskaite-Salters, Giedre --- "Climate Change Litigation in the UK: Its Feasibility and Prospects" [2011] ELECD 265; in Faure, Michael; Peeters, Marjan (eds), "Climate Change Liability" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Climate Change Liability

Editor(s): Faure, Michael; Peeters, Marjan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802864

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Climate Change Litigation in the UK: Its Feasibility and Prospects

Author(s): Kaminskaite-Salters, Giedre

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

7. Climate change litigation in the UK:
its feasibility and prospects
Giedr Kaminskait-Salters*

1. INTRODUCTION

The debate taking place both within the context of the international climate
change negotiations and among national policy makers exploring the
options for switching their economies to low-carbon development paths
focuses on ex-ante regulatory measures and economic instruments, includ-
ing the consolidation and expansion of international carbon markets,
establishment of sectoral emissions trading regimes, national carbon
budgets and innovative insurance schemes to meet the challenge of climate
adaptation. However, ex-post instruments, such as private liability in the
law of torts, are also coming to the fore as potential means of redressing the
wrongs already caused, or that may be caused in the future, by the phenom-
enon of global warming. This is evidenced in the academic debate, where
analyses such as those by R. Verheyen,1 J. Smith and D. Shearman,2 and
D.A. Grossman3 have highlighted the importance of ex post liability instru-
ments in addressing liability between state actors and private parties. This
is also becoming evident in practice, whereby several pioneering climate
change litigation cases have been launched in the US (though not yet in
the UK or other European jurisdictions), signalling the fact that private
litigation for climate damage is likely to gain in prominence in the future.
In this context, the chapter examines the extent to which a claim brought
by a private, public or quasi-public claimant against a private defendant
(such as a ...