This possibility may seem farfetched at this point but so did the tobacco lawsuits in the beginning.
An excerpt.
As world warms, legal battles loom
Wed Jul 26, 2006 8:01am ET Reuters News Service
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - Heatwaves, droughts and rising seas are likely to spur a spate of hard-to-prove lawsuits in the 21st century as victims seek to blame governments and companies for global warming, experts say.
Pacific islanders might sue to try to prevent their low-lying atolls from vanishing under the waves, African farmers could seek redress for crop failures or owners of ski resorts in the Alps might seek compensation for a lack of snow.
"If the evidence (that humans are warming the globe) hardens up, as it may well do, then it has all the ingredients of the tobacco case," said Myles Allen, of the physics department of the University of Oxford in Britain.
But convincing a judge that a country or a company is liable for a fraction of a global problem caused by greenhouse gases -- the effects of which are widely disputed -- may be difficult.
"The legal profession is only now penetrating these issues," said Roda Verhaugen, co-director of the Climate Justice group which mainly advises plaintiffs. "There have been no large awards of damages but there are an increasing numbers of cases."
About 40 people in France have died in a heatwave in Europe in the past week with sweltering July temperatures also in the United States and Canada. In 2003, about 15,000 people died in France and 20,000 in Italy in a heatwave.
This July's heat may be part of normal, unpredictable weather but many scientists say it fits a pattern of warming linked to a build-up of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars.
