Domestic courts as ‘norm sustainers’ of international climate change law

The recent Nationally Determined Contributions Synthesis Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that the current state specific climate mitigation ambitions are not on track to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Additionally the Special report of the IPCC supports this finding with scientific evidence which goes on to state that the world is set to miss the Paris Agreement target of capping temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius. Even after reduced emissions in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in its Emissions Gap Report 2020 predicts that, world temperature will be in excess of 3 degrees in this century.

Along with this grim prediction, there are positive steps, such as the increase in domestic and regional climate change litigation, which aim to fight increasing global temperature. As per the latest UNEP report Global Climate Litigation Report: 2020 Status Review on page 4, it states that multiple actors have turned to ‘courts to seek relief through the enforcement of existing climate laws’. As on 1 July 2020, around 1550 climate litigation cases were filed in 38 countries.