Climate litigation
Chief researcher: Tim Bonyhady

Project brief
As concerns about climate change have increased over the past decade, litigation has arisen from conflicts regarding mitigation and adaptation issues, including wind farm developments, coal mine and power plant approvals, and residential developments. This litigation has provided Australia with a distinctive body of climate case law, covering merits decisions through to judicial review. Courts are having to come to terms with the complexities and uncertainties that characterise climate science, while simultaneously grappling with concepts such as ecologically sustainable development and their relevance to climate disputes. The CCLP is studying the development of climate law in Australia and the evolution of an environment and climate jurisprudence.

International climate law
Chief researcher: Andrew Macintosh

Project brief
Preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system will require the development of a robust international legal framework for mitigation and adaptation. The CCLP is focusing its energies on two aspects of the emerging regime:

• the rules and processes governing country commitments regarding both mitigation and adaptation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other associated agreements; and
• the resolution of tensions between international climate, environment and trade law.

Publications and work in progress
Regulating illegal timber imports: are labels and bans allowed under international trade law? (in progress)
Border tax adjustment schemes: are they compatible with international trade law? (in progress)

Renewable energy laws and their relationship with the national emissions trading scheme
Chief researcher: James Prest

The politics of climate law
Chief researcher: Brad Jessup

Project brief
Government and administrative decisions about responses to climate change, including the development of laws, international engagement, and the approval or rejection of mitigation proposals, have been highly politicised in Australia and abroad. An understanding of the political process, and the application of knowledge, rationality, and values is therefore critical to explaining the present state and history of energy and climate laws, and to recognising priorities and foreshadowing the next round of legal developments.
Within the CCLP, we are interested in framing our investigations within the policy making process in order to explore how and why energy and climate laws have been slow to develop and respond to the climate change challenge, and to understand why they have been unable to steer a path towards and low carbon society without conflict.

Publications and work in progress
B. Jessup, ‘When environmentalists collide: understanding conflicting views and values of environmentalists to wind energy’, (forthcoming).
A. Macintosh, ‘Domestic Influences on the Howard Government’s Climate Policy: Using the past as a guide to the future’, Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law (forthcoming).

Regulating transport
Chief researcher: Andrew Macintosh

Project brief
Transport is responsible for approximately 15 per cent of Australia’s annual direct greenhouse gas emissions, split roughly 65/35 between the passenger and freight tasks. A large proportion of transport emissions will be included in the proposed national emissions trading scheme, providing the framework for the reform of the sector. However, there are likely to be significant omissions, including indirect greenhouse gas emissions and international aviation and shipping. The object of this research project is to determine:

• what aspects of the transport task should be included in the emissions trading scheme; and
• how best to control transport emissions that fall outside of the scheme.

Publications and work in progress
Aviation emissions: how to stop aviation becoming a climate menace (in progress)
Shipping and greenhouse: can mode shifting help solve the problem with freight emissions? (in progress)

Human rights and climate change
Chief researcher: Matthew Zagor