By: Nigel Bankes, Jennifer Koshan, Jonnette Watson Hamilton, and Martin Olszynski
Case Commented On: La Rose v Canada, 2023 FCA 241 (CanLII)
PDF Version: What Does La Rose Tell Us About Climate Change Litigation in Canada?
The last decade has seen an explosion of domestic climate change litigation around the world and an equally rich body of academic literature examining the case law from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law maintains an excellent data base covering these developments. Important cases in other jurisdictions include the Urgenda decision (Urgenda v Netherlands (2019)) and Shell decision (Milieudefensie et al v Shell (2021)) in the Netherlands, and the 2021 decision of the German constitutional court (Neubauer et al v Germany). Australian environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) have been particularly active in bringing climate change issues before the courts, especially in the context of proposed natural gas and coal projects, most famously in the Sharma case (Sharma by her litigation representative Sister Marie Brigid Arthur v Minister for the Environment [2021] FCA 560, appeal allowed, [2022] FCAFC 35).