Tort-based Lawsuit: A Temporary Tactic but Not the Future of Climate Change Litigation

In recent years, the world has witnessed an increasing number of climate change lawsuits. Individuals and organizations are now employing lawsuits as a tactic to push forward climate change legislation. However, the traditional model of tort-based lawsuit turns out to have an unfavorable outcome for the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are faced with difficulties in different steps of legal reasoning including civil wrong, tortious act and causation. Besides, even if the plaintiffs win the lawsuit, enforcement of civil courts is limited. The defendants can only be sentenced compensation and finish their responsibility by paying a certain amount of money instead of taking methods to save the climate. In fact, the case-by-case nature of tort-based lawsuit makes it ineffective to slow down climate change. Plaintiffs, often individuals or non-profit organizations are faced with disparity in legal resources with the defendants, often giant enterprises. With the difficulties, more and more plaintiffs now turn their eyes on right-based lawsuit to save the climate. Ultimately, litigation is only a temporary tactic to fill the gap before the existence of laws about climate change. Governments should speed up the process of legislation, and introduce strong administrative supervision to climate change, to save the climate.