Report Series Purpose and Introduction to Climate Science: Climate Change, Coming Soon to A Court Near You—Report One

By Asian Development Bank

Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. Without urgent climate action, humanity faces a world that cannot sustain civilization as we know it. People around the globe are demanding action, some with climate litigation. This four-part report series recognizes the inevitability of increased litigation in the era of climate change and judges need a tool kit to respond. Report One explains how judges from Asia and the Pacific contribute to climate governance, along with the Asian Development Bank’s rationale for producing this report series. It guides readers through some of the basics about climate change: What is causing it? How do we know? How bad might it get? What do we do about it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9789292624996

Book preview

CLIMATE CHANGE, COMING SOON TO A COURT NEAR YOU

REPORT SERIES PURPOSE AND INTRODUCTION TO CLIMATE SCIENCE

DECEMBER 2020

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)

© 2020 Asian Development Bank

6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City, 1550 Metro Manila, Philippines

Tel [phone]; Fax [phone]

www.adb.org

Some rights reserved. Published in 2020.

ISBN 978-92-9262-498-9 (print); 978-92-9262-499-6 (electronic); 978-92-9262-500-9 (ebook)

Publication Stock No. TCS200346-2

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22617/TCS200346-2

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent.

ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by ADB in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned.

By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term country in this document, ADB does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area.

This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/. By using the content of this publication, you agree to be bound by the terms of this license. For attribution, translations, adaptations, and permissions, please read the provisions and terms of use at https://www.adb.org/terms-use#openaccess.

This CC license does not apply to non-ADB copyright materials in this publication. If the material is attributed to another source, please contact the copyright owner or publisher of that source for permission to reproduce it. ADB cannot be held liable for any claims that arise as a result of your use of the material.

Please contact [e-mail] if you have questions or comments with respect to content, or if you wish to obtain copyright permission for your intended use that does not fall within these terms, or for permission to use the ADB logo.

Corrigenda to ADB publications may be found at http://www.adb.org/publications/corrigenda.

Notes:

In this publication, $ refers to United States dollars.

All photos are by ADB unless otherwise specified.

Cover design by Gayle Certeza, Daniel Desembrana, and John Michael Casipe.

CONTENTS

TABLES AND FIGURES

Photo by ADB.

"We should include courts in the climate change picture because we have no other option. No substitute exists for the court system. If judges are in charge of deciding all sorts of conflicts about life, death, love, human rights, and national security, it makes no sense to leave climate change outside the courtroom.

—Justice Antonio Herman Benjamin

FOREWORD

CLIMATE CHANGE AND JUDGES

Climate change poses the most urgent existential challenge of our lifetime—not only for humanity’s survival and protection of the planet’s biodiversity, but also for the proper functioning of the Environmental Rule of Law. Our global climate’s accelerating volatility—with its adverse impacts on ecosystems, vast landscapes, and human health and dignity—is transforming how lawyers and judges address Environmental Law’s traditional principles, objectives, instruments, and institutions. From an institutional point of view, the climate crisis fundamentally affects the way we perceive the role of courts in natural resource disputes.

Judges are trained and work in boxes of legal knowledge, practical expertise, and jurisdiction. The little world of a judge is one of unavoidable boundaries: political and judicial arenas that fragment ecological spaces instead of respecting them.

Climate change profoundly modifies these ancient premises and rattles judges’ comfort zones. Some