Lawyers are going to court to stop climate change. And it might just work

Sierra Robinson has had enough. The 17-year-old from Cowichan Valley, Vancouver Island, Canada is one of 15 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Canadian government in late October. She says

the government has been “talking for a long, long time about how climate change is a problem, yet they’re continuing to contribute to that problem instead of taking action on it. With this lawsuit, we’re asking them to take that action.”

Climate scientists expect higher sea levels and
rising temperatures to make storms such as Hurricane
 Katrina from 2005 more destructive.

The suit is calling on the government to develop and implement a plan that will accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the claim, the current government’s negligence – which has resulted in increasingly alarming levels of global warming – has violated young people’s rights to life, liberty and security. 

Robinson’s words echo those from a previous court case about climate change – one that was won, against all odds, by the party demanding a more effective climate policy.

In that instance, it was Urgenda, a Dutch activist organisation promoting a sustainable society. The defendant in that 2013 case was the Dutch state. 

Read the story from The Correspondent by Jelmer Mommers - “Lawyers are going to court to stop climate change. And it might just work.” 

IPCC report: Land is critical in averting climate emergency

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, two years in the making, explores how the way we use our land contributes to climate change and how climate change affects our land.

The IPCC has launched a new report which warns
of the stark consequences of the climate emergency.

“Land plays an important role in the climate system,” said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III.

When land is degraded, it becomes less productive, restricting what can be grown and reducing the soil’s ability to absorb carbon, says the IPCC. This exacerbates climate change, while climate change in turn exacerbates land degradation in many different ways.

Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC, said: “Governments challenged the IPCC to take the first ever comprehensive look at the whole land-climate system. We did this through many contributions from experts and governments worldwide. This is the first time in IPCC report history that a majority of authors – 53% – are from developing countries.”

The report highlights how warming has resulted in an increased frequency, intensity and duration of heat related events, including heat waves and droughts.

Read the story from ClimateAction by Rachel Cooper - “IPCC report: Land is critical in averting climate emergency."

Radical historian Geoffrey Blainey marvels over climate change debate

Geoffrey Blainey would like to know, among other things, how climate change will work out.

Geoffrey Blainey has been a regular at Geppetto for more than 30 years.

"Climate change is the most difficult and interesting intellectual argument of the last 100 years," he declares.

Blainey – Australia's best-known and sometimes most controversial historian – is not known for slotting easily into one side of any debate, however.

Read the story from The Sydney Morning Herald by Tony Wright - “Radical historian Geoffrey Blainey marvels over climate change debate.”