Global lessons from climate change legislation and litigation

Eskander, Shaikh ORCID: 0000-0002-3325-5486, Fankhauser, Sam ORCID: 0000-0003-2100-7888 and Setzer, Joana ORCID: 0000-0002-7705-7684 (2021) Global lessons from climate change legislation and litigation. Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, 2. 44 - 82. ISSN 2689-7857

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Abstract

There is no country in the world that does not have at least one law or policy dealing with climate change. The most prolific countries have well over 20, and globally there are 1,800 such laws. Some of them are executive orders or policies issued by governments, others are legislative acts passed by parliament. The judiciary has been involved in 1,500 court cases that concern climate change (more than 1,100 of which were in the United States). We use Climate Change Laws of the World, a publicly accessible database, to analyze patterns and trends in climate change legislation and litigation over the past 30 years. The data reveal that global legislative activity peaked around 2009–14, well before the Paris Agreement. Accounting for effectiveness in implementation and the length of time laws have been in place, the United Kingdom and South Korea are the most comprehensive legislators among G20 countries and Spain within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Climate change legislation is less of a partisan issue than is commonly assumed: the number of climate laws passed by governments of the left, center, and right is roughly proportional to their time in office. We also find that legislative activity decreases in times of economic difficulty. Where courts have gotten involved, judges outside the United States have ruled in favor of enhanced climate protection in about half of the cases (US judges are more inclined to rule against climate protection).

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/eepe/current
Additional Information:	© 2021 National Bureau of Economic Research
Divisions:	Geography & Environment Grantham Research Institute
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences K Law > K Law (General)
JEL classification:	K - Law and Economics > K3 - Other Substantive Areas of Law > K32 - Environmental, Health, and Safety Law Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q54 - Climate; Natural Disasters Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q58 - Government Policy
Date Deposited:	01 Apr 2022 15:06
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 02:56
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/114567

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