Justiciable climate?

Attempts by environmentalists to gain an advantage in the climate wars through the courts continue to attract the interest of commentators, particularly those on the sceptic side. Judith Curry has a review of some recent developments and Booker was discussing similar questions behind the Sunday Telegraph's paywall over the weekend.

I'm unsure about just how far the legal system is going to accept the kinds of cases that the greens are hoping for. It may well be that it depends on the particular jurisdiction. Philippe Sands reckons that because international courts involved themselves in the question of whether the Japanese whaling programme was scientific, they can (and should) involve themselves in questions of climate change. This seems an almost preposterously weak argument for a senior lawyer to make. Whether some activity is scientific or not is a question of categorisation - quite different to questions such as "What is the value of climate sensitivity?"

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The judge, the presidential hopeful and some strange conflicts of interest

Updated on Oct 7, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Donna Laframboise has been doing some interesting research on the Climate and Law conference recently held by the UK's Supreme Court. It seems that as well as Philippe Sands, several other judges used the occasion to advance their environmentalist views.

Prominent among them was Lord Carnwath, who called the Paris conference a test of our ability to address the challenges of climate change. It does seem extraordinarily unprofessional - if not outright corrupt - of these people to use public funds and their positions of public trust to promote their ideological fads.

Carnwath is an interesting chap. I read for example that tomorrow he is to hear a case in which Donald Trump tries to prevent an offshore windfarm being built next to his golf course development in Aberdeenshire.  At the start of the year he took part in a ruling on the Viking windfarm in Shetland, rejecting attempts to prevent it going ahead. He was also involved in a case in which a group called "Client Earth" forced the UK to formulate new air quality standards.

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