La climate change litigation in prospettiva comparatistica

The article offers a comparative law perspective on climate change litigation, as it has developed in the US and in the EU, taking into consideration the issue of legal transplant. Climate change has undergone a process of international regulation, which has experienced its ups and downs, with international diplomacy devoting more and more attention to the phenomenon. The complex evolution of the international scenario has led to the development of alternative policy architectures for addressing the threat of global climate change, and to very heterogeneous results in the various regions. In particular, United States and the European Union share no common perspective on what should be done to fight climate change. In this context, the “climate change litigation” movement developed. In the US, this movement was not so much aimed at damage compensation but rather at “regulation through litigation”, while in the EU recent climate change litigation cases show that they are aimed at challenging the State, but also private companies, to adhere to more stringent standards to cope with climate change.