In the last few years, lawsuits over climate change have proliferated internationally. New York, San Francisco, and other U.S. municipalities have sued the world’s largest investor-owned energy companies seeking to recover the costs arising from climate change harms. Further, youth in Canada, the United States, and a number of other countries have filed lawsuits which accuse their governments of violating their rights by failing to implement policies to prevent climate change.

Climate change lawsuits have a mixed track record internationally. Climate change lawsuits have been successful in some jurisdictions, most notably the Urgenda decision in the Netherlands. However, lawsuits in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, have been unsuccessful. Specifically, courts in the United States have generally decided that climate change is a policy issue that should be dealt with by the legislative and executive branches of government instead of the courts.

In Canada, climate change lawsuits are in their infancy. This raises the following questions: (i) can private and public law claims be successfully advanced in Canada; (ii) if so, are the courts an appropriate forum to address a multi-faceted problem like climate change?; and (iii) who should bear the costs of any climate change harms – producers or consumers?

This presentation will: (i) evaluate the current landscape of climate change litigation both in Canada and internationally; and (ii) answer the questions posed above. Specifically, this paper will evaluate whether public and private law claims could be successfully advanced in Canada (particularly with the assistance of legislation designed to facilitate private climate change claims). Further, this paper will present the arguments that: (i) the courts are not the appropriate venue to address climate change; and (ii) producers should not bear the costs of climate change harms.