Watermelon rinds can be used in many recipes
| Photo Credit: Giambra

The Eaton Fire destroys a structure, January 7, 2025, in Altadena, California.
| Photo Credit: AP

Holding long-term global warming to two degrees Celsius — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a stark new analysis published by leading scientists.

Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought.

Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming.

An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate panel, which gives the planet a 50% chance of keeping warming under 2C by the year 2100, “is an implausible scenario,” Hansen told a briefing Tuesday.

“That scenario is now impossible,” said Hansen, formerly a top NASA climate scientist who famously announced to the US Congress in 1988 that global warming was underway.

“The two degree target is dead.”

Instead, he and co-authors argued, the amount of greenhouse gases already pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels meant increased warming is now guaranteed.

Temperatures will stay at or above 1.5C in the coming years — devastating coral reefs and fueling more intense storms — before rising to around 2.0C by 2045, they forecast.

They estimated polar ice melt and freshwater injection into the North Atlantic will trigger the shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) within the next 20-30 years.

The current brings warmth to various parts of the globe and also carries nutrients necessary to sustain ocean life.

Its end “will lock in major problems including sea level rise of several meters — thus, we describe AMOC shutdown as the ‘point of no return,'” the paper argued.

The world’s nations agreed during the landmark Paris climate accord of 2015 to try to hold end-of-century warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Scientists identified the threshold as critical to preventing the breakdown of major ocean circulation systems, the abrupt thawing of boreal permafrost, and the collapse of tropical coral reefs.

The 1.5C target has already been breached over the past two years, according to data from the EU’s climate monitoring system Copernicus, though the Paris Agreement referred to a long-term trend over decades.

At 2C, the impacts would be even greater, including irreversible loss to Earth’s ice sheets, mountain glaciers and snow, sea ice and permafrost.

The authors acknowledged the findings appeared grim, but argued that honesty is a necessary ingredient for change.

“Failure to be realistic in climate assessment and failure to call out the fecklessness of current policies to stem global warming is not helpful to young people,” they said.

“Today, with rising crises including global climate change, we have reached a point where we must address the problem of special interests,” they added, stressing they were “optimistic” for the future.

Geneva:

Climate change sparked a trail of extreme weather and record heat in 2024, the United Nations said on Monday, urging the world to pull back from the “road to ruin”.

The outgoing year is set to be the warmest ever recorded, the UN’s weather and climate agency said, capping a decade of unprecedented heat.

Meanwhile emissions of greenhouse gases grew to new record highs, locking in more heat for the future, the World Meteorological Organization said.

“Climate change plays out before our eyes on an almost daily basis in the form of increased occurrence and impact of extreme weather events,” WMO secretary general Celeste Saulo said.

“This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent.

“Tropical cyclones caused a terrible human and economic toll, most recently in the French overseas department of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean.

“Intense heat scorched dozens of countries, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) on a number of occasions. Wildfires wreaked devastation.”

Climate breakdown

The 2015 Paris climate accords aimed to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and to 1.5C if possible.

In November, the WMO said the January-September mean surface air temperature was 1.54C above the pre-industrial average measured between 1850 and 1900.

That puts 2024 comfortably on course to surpass the record set in 2023.

Last year temperatures were 1.45C hotter than before the industrial revolution, when humanity started burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

The WMO is set to publish the consolidated global temperature figure for 2024 in January, with its full State of the Global Climate 2024 report to follow in March.

In his New Year message, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres reflected on the record temperatures witnessed over the past decade.

“Today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat. The top 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years, including 2024,” he said.

“This is climate breakdown in real time. 

“We must exit this road to ruin — and we have no time to lose,” he said. 

“In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions, and supporting the transition to a renewable future.

“It is essential, and it is possible.”

2025 focus on frozen world

Saulo said she had repeatedly warned about the state of the climate throughout 2024.

“If we want a safer planet, we must act now,” she said. 

Experts from 15 international organisations, 12 countries and several leading academic and NGO figures convened at the WMO’s Geneva headquarters from December 17-19 to work on a coordinated framework for tackling the growing threats from extreme heat. 

The WMO turns 75 in 2025 and intends to mark the anniversary by focusing on the cryosphere: the frozen parts of the Earth, including sea ice, ice sheets and frozen ground. 

The WMO is also behind a major push for improved climate services and early warning systems.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

More than one-third of all animals on Earth, from beetles to cows to elephants, depend on plant-based diets. Plants are a low-calorie food source, so it can be challenging for animals to consume enough energy to meet their needs. Now climate change is reducing the nutritional value of some foods that plant eaters rely on.

Human activities are increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and raising global temperatures. As a result, many plants are growing faster across ecosystems worldwide.

Some studies suggest that this “greening of the Earth” could partially offset rising greenhouse gas emissions by storing more carbon in plants. However, there’s a trade-off: These fast-tracked plants can contain fewer nutrients per bite.

I’m an ecologist and work with colleagues to examine how nutrient dilution could affect species across the food web. Our focus is on responses in plant-feeding populations, from tiny grasshoppers to giant pandas.

We believe long-term changes in the nutritional value of plants may be an underappreciated cause of shrinking animal populations. These changes in plants aren’t visually evident, like rising seas. Nor are they sudden and imminent, like hurricanes or heat waves. But they can have important impacts over time.

Plant-eating animals may need more time to find and consume food if their usual meal becomes less nutritious, exposing themselves to greater risks from predators and other stresses in the process. Reduced nutritional values can also make animals less fit, reducing their ability to grow, reproduce and survive.

Rising carbon, falling nutrients

Research has already shown that climate change is causing nutrient dilution in human food crops. Declines in micronutrients, which play important roles in growth and health, are a particular concern: Long-term records of crop nutritional values have revealed declines in copper, magnesium, iron and zinc.

In particular, human deficiencies in iron, zinc and protein are expected to increase in the coming decades because of rising carbon dioxide levels. These declines are expected to have broad impacts on human health and even survival, with the strongest effects among populations that are highly dependent on rice and wheat, such as in East and Central Asia.

The nutritional value of livestock feed is also declining. Cattle spend a lot of time eating and often have a hard time finding enough protein to meet their needs. Protein concentrations are falling in grasses across rangelands around the world. This trend threatens both livestock and ranchers, reducing animals’ weight gains and costing producers money.

Nutrient dilution affects wild species too. Here are some examples.

Dependent on bamboo

Giant pandas are a threatened species with great cultural value. Because they reproduce at low rates and need large, connected swaths of bamboo as habitat, they are classified as a vulnerable species whose survival is threatened by land conversion for farming and development. Pandas also could become a poster animal for the threat of nutrient dilution.

The giant panda is considered an “umbrella species,” which means that conserving panda habitat benefits many other animals and plants that also live in bamboo groves. Famously, giant pandas are entirely dependent on bamboo and spend large portions of their days eating it. Now, rising temperatures are reducing bamboo’s nutritional value and making it harder for the plant to survive.

Mixed prospects for insects

Insects are essential members of the web of life that pollinate many flowering plants, serve as a food source for birds and animals, and perform other important ecological services. Around the world, many insect species are declining in developed areas, where their habitat has been converted to farms or cities, as well as in natural areas.

In zones that are less affected by human activity, evidence suggests that changes in plant chemistry may play a role in decreasing insect numbers.

Many insects are plant feeders that are likely to be affected by reduced plant nutritional value. Experiments have found that when carbon dioxide levels increase, insect populations decline, at least partly due to lower-quality food supplies.

Not all insect species are declining, however, and not all plant-feeding insects respond in the same way to nutrient dilution. Insects that chew leaves, such as grasshoppers and caterpillars, suffer the most negative effects, including reduced reproduction and smaller body sizes.

In contrast, locusts prefer carbon-rich plants, so rising carbon dioxide levels could cause increases in locust outbreaks. Some insects, including aphids and cicadas, feed on phloem – the living tissue inside plants that carries food made in the leaves to other parts of the plant – and may also benefit from carbon-rich plants.

Uneven impacts

Declines in plant food quality are most likely to affect places where nutrients already are scarce and animals struggle now to meet their nutritional needs. These zones include the ancient soils of Australia, along with tropical areas such as the Amazon and Congo basins. Nutrient dilution is also an issue in the open ocean, where rapidly warming waters are reducing the nutritional content of giant sea kelp.

Certain types of plant-feeding animals are likely to face greater declines because they need higher-quality food. Rodents, rabbits, koalas, horses, rhinoceroses and elephants are all hind-gut fermenters – animals that have simple, single-chambered stomachs and rely on microbes in their intestines to extract nutrients from high-fiber food.

These species need more nutrient-dense food than ruminants – grazers like cattle, sheep, goats and bison, with four-chambered stomachs that digest their food in stages. Smaller animals also typically require more nutrient-dense food than larger ones, because they have faster metabolisms and consume more energy per unit of body mass. Smaller animals also have shorter guts, so they can’t as easily extract all the nutrients from food.

More research is needed to understand what role nutrient dilution may be playing in declines of individual species, including experiments that artificially increase carbon dioxide levels and studies that monitor long-term changes in plant chemistry alongside animals in the field.

Over the longer term, it will be important to understand how nutrient dilution is altering entire food webs, including shifts in plant species and traits, effects on other animal groups such as predators, and changes in species interactions. Changes in plant nutritional value as a result of rising carbon dioxide levels could have far-reaching impacts throughout ecosystems worldwide.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

The Hague, Netherlands:

As marathon climate change hearings wrapped up Friday at the world’s top court, a representative for vulnerable nations voiced “huge disappointment” at the attitude of top polluters and urged judges to make them legally accountable for historic emissions.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has played host to history over the past 10 days, with a record number of nations and organisations addressing the court.

More than 100 speakers have presented, ranging from diplomats of the world’s top economies to representatives of tiny island nations making a debut appearance before the UN’s top court.

In what many experts have painted as a “David Vs Goliath” scrap, stark divisions have emerged between top polluters and those suffering most from climate change.

Major powers such as the United States, China, and India have warned the judges not to go beyond the existing legal framework for combating climate change.

But smaller states argue this blueprint, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is insufficient to mitigate the devastating effects of the changing climate.

Representing a group of 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states, Cristelle Pratt told AFP there was “huge disappointment” at developed countries but that it was “quite unsurprising.”

“We cannot just rely on the climate treaties to address this global crisis,” said Pratt, from the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States.

“We need to look to the full body of international law. And we do need to do this because of equity and justice. Every human being on this planet has a right to live a worthwhile life,” she added.

‘Reverberate across the world’

The 15-judge ICJ panel has been tasked with crafting a so-called advisory opinion to answer two questions.

Firstly, what legal obligations do nations have to prevent climate change? Secondly, what are the legal consequences for countries whose emissions have harmed the environment, especially that of developing states?

This second question is where many vulnerable countries hope the ICJ will clarify a legal requirement for historic emitters to stump up for the damage caused.

“We do need to look at historical responsibilities and hold those emitters, mainly colonial powers, to account,” said Pratt.

“That certainly is something that we from the global south will be hoping to hear,” she added, mentioning that many of her member countries were servicing “unsustainable debt.”

The ICJ’s advisory opinion is non-binding and will take many months to emerge.

Nikki Reisch, Director of the climate and energy programme at the Center for International Environmental Law, said the ruling would “reverberate across the world.”

“This is the world’s highest court and their opinion will carry weight…. there is an opportunity for this court to break through the impunity that we’ve seen for decades and to affirm the basis for accountability,” she told AFP.

“It’s not just about paying compensation for the mounting cost of climate change. It’s about structural reforms, debt cancellation, ecosystem restoration,” she added.

‘Life and death’

The countries Pratt represents have a population of 1.3 billion but produce three percent of global emissions, she noted.

After bitterly fought COP29 climate talks, wealthy polluters agreed to find at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help poorer countries’ transition to clean energy and prepare for an increase in extreme weather.

“The pledges are really quite insignificant,” said Pratt.

Several top polluters have argued it is impossible to enshrine into international law a responsibility for past emissions and the damage caused.

“We’ve seen time and again here in these halls that the fossil fuel giants… have urged this court to ignore history, to sweep their historical conduct, the decades of conduct that has brought the world to the brink, under the rug,” said Reisch.

The hearings have also been notable for representatives of tiny island states, often in colourful national dress, recounting searing stories of the devastation suffered by their people.

“These hearings have put into stark relief that this is a matter of life and death for so many people,” Reisch told AFP.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

India slammed developed countries for causing the climate crisis during a landmark hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday, saying they exploited the global carbon budget, failed to honour climate-finance promises and are now demanding that developing countries restrict their resource use.

The court is examining what legal obligations countries have to address climate change and the consequences if they fail.

Making submissions on behalf of India, Luther M Rangreji, joint secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said, “If the contribution to degradation is unequal, the responsibility must also be unequal.”

India said developing nations are the hardest hit by climate change, despite contributing the least to it.

“The developed world, which historically contributed the most, is ironically the best equipped with the technological and economic means to address this challenge,” Rangreji said.

He criticised rich countries for enjoying the benefits of fossil fuels while discouraging developing nations from using their own energy resources.

“Countries which have reaped development benefits from exploiting fossil fuels demand developing countries to not utilise the national energy resources available to them,” he said.

India also slammed the lack of action on climate-finance commitments.

“The USD 100 billion pledged at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 by developed country parties and the doubling of the contribution to the Adaptation Fund have not yet been translated into any concrete actions,” India noted.

It called the new climate finance package for the Global South agreed at COP29 in Azerbaijan’s Baku “too little, too distant” to meet the urgent needs of developing countries.

India stressed the principle of fairness, saying, “If the contribution to global environmental degradation is unequal, the responsibility should also be unequal.”

India also reaffirmed its commitment to its climate targets under the Paris Agreement, but warned against overburdening its citizens.

“There is a limit on how much we burden our citizens, even when India is pursuing Sustainable Development Goals for one-sixth of humanity,” it said.

The hearing is the result of years of campaigning by Pacific island nations and Vanuatu, which led to a UN resolution asking the ICJ for an advisory opinion. Over the next two weeks, 98 countries, including small island nations and large emitters, will present their views.

Though non-binding, the ICJ’s opinion could set a moral and legal benchmark in the global fight against climate change.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

India slammed developed countries for causing the climate crisis during a landmark hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday, saying they exploited the global carbon budget, failed to honour climate-finance promises and are now demanding that developing countries restrict their resource use.

The court is examining what legal obligations countries have to address climate change and the consequences if they fail.

Making submissions on behalf of India, Luther M Rangreji, joint secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said, “If the contribution to degradation is unequal, the responsibility must also be unequal.”

India said developing nations are the hardest hit by climate change, despite contributing the least to it.

“The developed world, which historically contributed the most, is ironically the best equipped with the technological and economic means to address this challenge,” Rangreji said.

He criticised rich countries for enjoying the benefits of fossil fuels while discouraging developing nations from using their own energy resources.

“Countries which have reaped development benefits from exploiting fossil fuels demand developing countries to not utilise the national energy resources available to them,” he said.

India also slammed the lack of action on climate-finance commitments.

“The USD 100 billion pledged at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 by developed country parties and the doubling of the contribution to the Adaptation Fund have not yet been translated into any concrete actions,” India noted.

It called the new climate finance package for the Global South agreed at COP29 in Azerbaijan’s Baku “too little, too distant” to meet the urgent needs of developing countries.

India stressed the principle of fairness, saying, “If the contribution to global environmental degradation is unequal, the responsibility should also be unequal.”

India also reaffirmed its commitment to its climate targets under the Paris Agreement, but warned against overburdening its citizens.

“There is a limit on how much we burden our citizens, even when India is pursuing Sustainable Development Goals for one-sixth of humanity,” it said.

The hearing is the result of years of campaigning by Pacific island nations and Vanuatu, which led to a UN resolution asking the ICJ for an advisory opinion. Over the next two weeks, 98 countries, including small island nations and large emitters, will present their views.

Though non-binding, the ICJ’s opinion could set a moral and legal benchmark in the global fight against climate change.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

As greenhouse gas concentrations hit a new high in 2023, the earth will continue to warm for many years to come, according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is increasing more quickly than at any other point in human history, increasing by almost 10% in just 20 years.

According to WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, large vegetation fire CO2 emissions and a possible reduction in carbon absorption by forests combined with stubbornly high fossil fuel CO2 emissions from human and industrial activities to drive the increase.

Echoing the UN chief’s longstanding appeals, WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett told journalists that carbon dioxide (CO2) – one of the three main greenhouse gases, along with methane and nitrous oxide – is now accumulating in the atmosphere “faster than at any time experienced during human existence”. Because of the extremely long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, “we are committed to rising temperatures for many, many years to come,” she added.

WMO’s 2024 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin offers a stark, scientific reminder that rising CO2 levels need to be slowed. In 2004, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 377.1 parts per million (ppm), while in 2023, this reached 420 ppm, according to WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch Network.

“This is an increase of 42.9 parts per million, or 11.4 per cent in just 20 years,” Ms Barrett explained.

“These are more than statistics,” the WMO deputy chief insisted. “Every part per million matters, every fraction of a degree of temperature increase matters; it matters in terms of the speed of glacier and ice retreat, the acceleration of sea level rise, ocean heat and acidification. It matters in terms of the number of people who will be exposed to extreme heat every year, the extinction of species, the impact on our ecosystems and economies.”

Alex Neufeldt, 28, one of seven young people taking the Ontario government to court over its greenhouse gas emission reduction target, poses by Lake Ontario in Toronto, Ontario, Canada June 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The appeals court in Canada’s most populous province is set to rule on Thursday whether Ontario’s climate target violates young people’s rights, in a decision that could sway similar cases internationally.

The lawsuit, launched against Ontario by seven people aged 16 to 28 as of this summer, contends the province’s greenhouse-gas-emissions target is inadequate and violates the young people’s rights to life, liberty and security, along with their right to equality. The case hinges on government obligations to younger generations as the planet warms, whether Canada’s constitution recognizes such obligations and whether emissions targets have enough practical impact to affect individuals. In similar lawsuits in Alaska, Hawaii and Montana, as well as in Portugal, young people have sued governments alleging that climate inaction is jeopardizing their futures. In some cases, they have won. Hawaii agreed in June to decarbonize its transportation system by 2045 to settle a lawsuit brought by 13 youth activists.

This is the first Canadian human-rights-based climate lawsuit to be heard on its merits, and it could reverberate in Canada, where it could open the door to fresh litigation, and globally, where it could be cited in other cases, experts told Reuters.

“I’m hoping that will kick the door open for other cases to emerge and build on our successes,” said Alex Neufeldt, one of the plaintiffs. The lawsuit centers on a 2018 target set by Premier Doug Ford’s right-leaning Progressive Conservatives to reduce emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the government to set a more stringent target. A lower court dismissed the case last year, ruling the target did not deprive the plaintiffs of their rights and the government did not have an obligation to guarantee them in this context.

The judge concluded any disproportionate impact on young people was caused by climate change, not Ontario’s government.

But Justice Marie-Andrée Vermette also found the target “falls short and its deficiencies contribute to increasing the risks of death.”

In their appeal submission, the plaintiffs said Ontario is exacerbating climate change and “discriminating against youth and future generations on the basis of their age by forcing them to disproportionately bear the brunt of climate harms.”

Ontario argued its target does not violate Canada’s constitution and its climate-change plan is not a matter for the courts. It said the target is “a statement of the government’s policy aspirations” and not a regulatory scheme.

Asked about the lawsuit, the environment ministry said Ontario had made progress cutting emissions and supported electric-vehicle production.

The plaintiffs have a decent chance of success amid increasing public acceptance of the impacts of climate change, said Steve Lorteau, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto’s law faculty, who studies climate litigation.

A plaintiffs’ win “would add another victory to the small but growing list of cases where courts are coming out to recognize the right to a stable environment and the obligation of governments to take science-based climate action,” said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. But the case faces obstacles. University of Waterloo politics professor and constitutional law expert Emmett Macfarlane does not think the lawsuit will succeed, saying it expands its interpretation of Canada’s constitution to the point of rewriting it.

But if the case makes it to Canada’s Supreme Court and wins, that would “dramatically open the door to new litigation” in Canada, Macfarlane said.

“That would be explosive. It would have immediate ramifications for all governments.”

Alex Neufeldt, 28, one of seven young people taking the Ontario government to court over its greenhouse gas emission reduction target, poses by Lake Ontario in Toronto, Ontario, Canada June 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The appeals court in Canada’s most populous province is set to rule on Thursday whether Ontario’s climate target violates young people’s rights, in a decision that could sway similar cases internationally.

The lawsuit, launched against Ontario by seven people aged 16 to 28 as of this summer, contends the province’s greenhouse-gas-emissions target is inadequate and violates the young people’s rights to life, liberty and security, along with their right to equality. The case hinges on government obligations to younger generations as the planet warms, whether Canada’s constitution recognizes such obligations and whether emissions targets have enough practical impact to affect individuals. In similar lawsuits in Alaska, Hawaii and Montana, as well as in Portugal, young people have sued governments alleging that climate inaction is jeopardizing their futures. In some cases, they have won. Hawaii agreed in June to decarbonize its transportation system by 2045 to settle a lawsuit brought by 13 youth activists.

This is the first Canadian human-rights-based climate lawsuit to be heard on its merits, and it could reverberate in Canada, where it could open the door to fresh litigation, and globally, where it could be cited in other cases, experts told Reuters.

“I’m hoping that will kick the door open for other cases to emerge and build on our successes,” said Alex Neufeldt, one of the plaintiffs. The lawsuit centers on a 2018 target set by Premier Doug Ford’s right-leaning Progressive Conservatives to reduce emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the government to set a more stringent target. A lower court dismissed the case last year, ruling the target did not deprive the plaintiffs of their rights and the government did not have an obligation to guarantee them in this context.

The judge concluded any disproportionate impact on young people was caused by climate change, not Ontario’s government.

But Justice Marie-Andrée Vermette also found the target “falls short and its deficiencies contribute to increasing the risks of death.”

In their appeal submission, the plaintiffs said Ontario is exacerbating climate change and “discriminating against youth and future generations on the basis of their age by forcing them to disproportionately bear the brunt of climate harms.”

Ontario argued its target does not violate Canada’s constitution and its climate-change plan is not a matter for the courts. It said the target is “a statement of the government’s policy aspirations” and not a regulatory scheme.

Asked about the lawsuit, the environment ministry said Ontario had made progress cutting emissions and supported electric-vehicle production.

The plaintiffs have a decent chance of success amid increasing public acceptance of the impacts of climate change, said Steve Lorteau, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto’s law faculty, who studies climate litigation.

A plaintiffs’ win “would add another victory to the small but growing list of cases where courts are coming out to recognize the right to a stable environment and the obligation of governments to take science-based climate action,” said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. But the case faces obstacles. University of Waterloo politics professor and constitutional law expert Emmett Macfarlane does not think the lawsuit will succeed, saying it expands its interpretation of Canada’s constitution to the point of rewriting it.

But if the case makes it to Canada’s Supreme Court and wins, that would “dramatically open the door to new litigation” in Canada, Macfarlane said.

“That would be explosive. It would have immediate ramifications for all governments.”