South Korea Sued Over Climate Crisis
The US is one of many places where activists are filing suits to press governments and industries to enact and follow policies to fight climate change. The latest wave of these is in South Korea. According to Democracy Now, “In South Korea, a court heard from youth climate activists and their families, who accuse the government of failing to act on climate change meaningfully. It’s believed to be the first such case in Asia; similar cases have been filed in Europe and the U.S.”
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Climatecrisis247 believes that the legal system may be one of the most effective paths to forcing governments and industries to change policies that endanger the climate. In the US, several states and cities have filed suits against the largest oil companies to force them to pay billions of dollars for their decades of pollution.
Like Big Tobacco?
It is hard to say whether the South Korean laws about corporate damages are the same as those in the US. One advantage for the US states and cities filing suit is that they appear to have proof that oil companies were aware of the damage their operation did to the climate as early as the 1960s. The argument then goes that they deceived the public and the government. In that case, the theory is that this will be similar to the suits brought against Big Tobacco. Those suites piled up billions of dollars in damages.
The challenge to the environmental suits against Big Oil is proof of who was damaged. With tobacco, there were direct links to lung and heart disease. Proving direct damage may be more complicated in cases against Big Ol.
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