Law in action, BBC Radio 4, 8 pm
John Nissen
Dear Law in Action,
We heard that people are trying to take
countries to court for their right to life, where they claim that their lives
are threatened by extreme heat resulting from climate change. The Paris agreement was to
keep global warming under 1.5C. We have forecasts that
1.5C is likely to be breached by 2027, regardless of emissions. The only way to keep under 1.5C is by rapid
cooling intervention: brightening clouds, mimicking volcanoes, or creating
plankton blooms which have their own cooling mechanism. Thus the Paris agreement should provoke countries to
support cooling intervention, either by deployment of intervention or by giving
permission for their country to be cooled by such deployment.
Unfortunately most climate activists, fighting the battle to reduce emissions, believe that deployment of cooling interventions would interfere in that battle, opening the door for fossil fuel companies to emit even more greenhouse gases. This is known as the “moral hazard” argument against climate intervention. But it can now be argued that the “moral hazard” is not to deploy cooling intervention when it could save lives: depriving some people of their right to life. Therefore isn’t there a legal case to be made that countries should keep to the Paris agreement and invoke cooling intervention which has a chance to keep global warming below 1.5C?
Yours sincerely, etc.
Cheers, John