EUTOPIA - Bridging climate science and law

As climate change continues to increase the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme weather and climate events with each additional degree of warming, younger generations will face an ever-greater number of such events during their lifetimes. Consequently, climate litigation is emerging worldwide as an avenue to push for more ambitious climate policies. These lawsuits are increasingly based on human rights law, and recent youth-led cases have broken new ground by bringing children's rights to the forefront of climate litigation. However, so far, few of these cases have been successful, while climate science has failed to provide a formal evidentiary basis for human rights-based climate litigation, as it typically uses a "period" approach that compares discrete time-windows instead of focusing on how individuals will experience climate change during their lifetimes.

This research project creates a bridge between climate science and law, to strengthen the scientific evidentiary base of youth-led climate litigation worldwide. VUB’s BCLIMATE research group taps into its expertise on climate change impacts, weather and climate extremes and lifetime exposure, and partners with the University of Warwick’s expertise on human rights law and climate justice.