This summer we submitted the first ever environmental ‘friend-of-the-court’ brief by a European organisation in a U.S. legal case.

An industry group with the deceptively reasonable name the ‘Coalition for Responsible Regulation’ is trying to undermine an important precedent. The Supreme Court has held that the U.S. Government can regulate greenhouse gases. This is what the industry group wants to change. We are trying to stop them so that the US Government can finally start addressing climate change.

The Coalition is arguing in the Court of Appeals that greenhouse gases do not threaten the health and welfare of Americans. Our submission says U.S. greenhouse gas emissions threaten the health not only of Americans but of people around the world. We explain that in addition to issues such as food shortages, Europe has many low lying regions – as does the US – that would be submerged under rising seas if man-made climate change continues unabated.

We also show that the welfare of Americans and their economy need not be threatened: the European Union has begun working towards greenhouse gas reduction targets and maintained the world’s largest market economy.

You can read about the case in my blog on the Huffington Post here and in The Lawyer magazine here.

We’ve got a lot more in store for the last quarter of 2011 too: A citizen’s guide on access to information is due for release from ClientEarth’s Aarhus Centre in mid-Autumn. A High Court Judge has ruled that the UK Government must face our Judicial Review for failing to protect people in London from air pollution. The case will be heard before Christmas.

We’ll keep you informed about this and all our work via our and facebook, blog and newsletters. If you have any feedback or if there are any areas of work you’d like to know more about – do let us know.

All the best,

James Thornton, CEO

Read our latest blog posts...