In May 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued a landmark advisory opinion on climate change under international law. It unanimously determined that State Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea have specific obligations to take all necessary measures to prevent, reduce, and control marine pollution from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
The Hawaii Supreme Court held that greenhouse gases (GHGs) were "pollutants" under several insurance policies' pollution exclusions and that an "accident" included an insured's reckless conduct for purposes of a challenge against fossil fuel companies for climate change-related harms. The city and c...
The Stockholm Resilience Centre has concluded that the number of “planetary boundaries” we are crossing has increased from three in 2009, when the Centre’s researchers first introduced the concept, to six in 2023. Crossing these boundaries means humans are changing basic attributes of planetary systems to the point of risking the future of civilization.