The Scared Climate Optimist: Joshua Domb at Gen-R Law looks at the strategic use of litigation to drive systemic interventions and board-level focus on climate change.
“The web of jurisprudence is being woven…”
Christiana Figueres speaking on Outrage + Optimism, episode 287 – Justice for the planet – the case for climate litigation.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) this week published a guide entitled ‘Hope for Children Through Climate Justice – Legal Tools To Hold Financiers Accountable’.
The WCC describes itself as “a worldwide fellowship of 352 member churches which represents more than half a billion Christians around the world.” Put another way, roughly one in every 16 people on the planet falls within the reach and influence of the WCC.
The main section of the guide is about 30 pages and provides a high-level introduction to the concept of climate litigation supported by case studies from around the world. It explores how climate litigation can be used in a strategically important way to drive systemic interventions.
There are two features of the guide that particularly stand out to me. Firstly, the guide is intensely focused on how climate change impacts children, why this can make children effective plaintiffs in strategic litigation, and how to navigate some of the procedural challenges that child litigants can throw up in certain jurisdictions.
Secondly, the guide is focused on encouraging climate litigation against financial actors.
“Financial actors’ funding of the fossil fuel industry slows the energy transition and makes climate change far worse,” the guide says. “The relative inaction of financial actors on climate change is a particular problem where their announcement of voluntary commitments delays the enactment of government regulations, and they subsequently soften or scrap their sustainability targets.”
We have of course seen many examples of such ‘softening’ in the first part of this year.
At this point, I should briefly introduce myself. My name is Joshua Domb. I am 35 years old. By training, I am a white-collar crime lawyer – and have been part of three international law firms. Just over a year ago I founded Gen-R Law, to try and make a useful contribution to global efforts against the climate crisis.
Climate change scares me intensely. But I am also a stubborn optimist about the future, “by temperament and by choice”, to quote the exceptional Laura Clarke (CEO of Client Earth) who I was privileged to hear speak in 2024.
In this column, I will highlight good news stories and positive legal developments in the climate and ESG space. The kinds of stories that keep scared but stubborn optimists like myself just positive enough to turn up each day and do it all again. I hope you enjoy it.
My thanks to the team at Forward Law Review for giving me this opportunity to be part of the discussion.
Climate litigation is booming. The guide notes: “There have been over 2,600 climate cases filed since the 1980s, and around 70 percent of these were filed after 2015, the year the Paris Agreement was adopted.”
According to the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at least 230 new climate cases were filed in 2023. Whilst my instinctive preference is to avoid litigation where possible in favour of more collaborative approaches to making progress, there is no denying the importance of climate litigation as a powerful implement in our collective toolbox.
The recent case of Finch v Surrey Country Council is just one powerful example of how strategic cases brought by small groups of galvanised citizens can have systemic impacts. In Finch, the Supreme Court held that the Environmental Impact Assessment for certain types of developments (including fossil fuel extraction projects) must include consideration of the downstream emissions arising from the end use of the product, not just the impact of the operation itself.
That ruling has had significant subsequent impacts on numerous other projects (many of which are much larger than the development that Finch challenged), most notably the development of the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields in the North Sea.
The risk (and impact) of climate litigation is also helping to drive board-level focus on climate change, giving lawyers working in this space a tangible legal risk on which to hook climate-focused discussions.
At the end of 2024 I was presenting an update on all things climate to a client’s sustainability committee. After depressing everyone with the latest data, I reflected on a few other trends that had defined climate in 2024. On one slide, focused on climate litigation, I shared headlines from seven different cases that had been filed against large businesses around the world.
After giving the group a moment to review, I then said: “And to be clear, these are not cases that were filed in 2024. These are cases that were filed last week.” That raised a few eyebrows.
That an institution such as the WCC would publish the guide is a powerful sign of the times. In addition to playing an important role in raising public awareness of climate change, the WCC’s guide has the potential to engage and empower groups of willing citizens all over the world to make systemic interventions.
I am part of a small (but rapidly growing) group for Jewish climate professionals. Within hours of the guide being published, a link to it had been shared:
“Have people seen this? Is this something we could make happen in the UK Jewish community?!”
I am certain that similar messages were being shared in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other such community groups around the world. Collectively, these groups comprise thousands of brilliant minds working hard to create positive change.
And isn’t that a great reason to feel optimistic?