Introduction

Global warming is rapidly changing the ecological and social landscape of the planet. These changes are profound and far-reaching. From the point of view of Climate Change Criminology several questions warrant close consideration. Answers to these questions also have implications for how to interpret the role and actions of different elements of the criminal justice system.

With regard to mitigation, for example, the issue is what can be done to reduce the contributing causes of climate change. The obvious and science-based answer is to diminish greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). This could and arguably should involve the criminalisation of carbon emissions and the forced shutdown of dirty industries.

With regard to adaptation, the issue is what can be done to enable communities and species to adapt and survive climate change? One answer is, at the very least, to ensure that harm is explicitly acknowledged in public policy. This could and should involve recognition of victimisation and some type of compensation and reparation.

This chapter provides an overview of how criminal justice institutions are responding to climate change. This entails description of court cases intended to bolster the reduction of carbon emissions and the overall role of climate change litigation in the pursuit of climate justice. The greening of the institutions of criminal justice (police, courts, prisons, community corrections) also is examined. So too is the role of the police in dealing with environmental protest and direct action, as is the place of climate change victims in the wider criminal justice narrative. The chapter concludes by raising issues pertaining to the holding to account of those who do most to cause and perpetuate global warming.

Litigation in support of climate justice

Climate change litigation involves cases being brought before administrative and judicial bodies that raise issues of law or fact regarding the science of climate change and climate change mitigation and adaption efforts (UNEP, 2017). Over the past few years several key trends have been identified in climate change litigation (see Table 7.1). While most of these cases are civil and rarely criminal, they nonetheless are directed at addressing the ecocidal tendencies associated with climate change. To that end, they deal with matters of fundamental ecological and social harm – key considerations of Climate Change Criminology.