It was always a racing certainty that this week’s ‘Swiss grannies’ climate change judgment in Strasbourg would spawn a new wave of environmental lawfare and give new life to that already in progress. A taste of the brave new future duly came from the High Court in London yesterday.
Section 58 of the Climate Change Act requires the government periodically to lay before parliament its objectives to deal with climate change. The government has duly produced a so-called ‘National Adaptation Programme 3’, but some people say it is not good enough. They include pressure group Friends of the Earth, and two individuals alleging injury due to climate change: the owner of a Norfolk house that fell into the sea when a cliff collapsed, and a Yorkshire care home resident particularly vulnerable to overheating during seasonal heatwaves.
In theory the Climate Change Act was passed by an elected government and its interpretation by the courts is therefore democratically impeccable.
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