Climate-change battle heats up

Concerns over climate change ratcheted up a notch last month with new fears that the pace of change had been greater than anyone predicted a decade ago, and that major tourist and nature sites could be out of bounds or threatened within coming years. And America’s most populous state, California, opened a new front in its struggle with climate change when it announced it was suing the six largest carmakers in the US for allegedly contributing to global warming. In an unprecedented lawsuit, the state accused Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Honda, Chrysler and Nissan of creating a ‘public nuisance’ and costing it millions of dollars. Environmental campaigners hailed the lawsuit as a landmark event in the effort to deal with global warming. And a report for Churchill Insurance warned that sites such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Maldives could suffer irrevocably from climate change. The California lawsuit, filed in a US district court in northern California, alleges that vehicle emissions have contributed significantly to global warming, and argues that the car manufacturers should be held responsible for the past and future cost of combating the crisis. “Global warming is causing significant harm to California’s environment, economy, agriculture and public health,” said the state’s Democratic attorney general, Bill Lockyer, who filed the complaint. “The impacts are costing millions of dollars and the price tag is increasing... It is time to hold these companies responsible for their contribution to the crisis.” California is the largest car market in the US, with more than 2 million new vehicles registered every year. This compares with about 2.5 million for the entire UK. Car sales in the state totalled $83 billion in 2005 according to the Automobile Alliance, an industry group representing carmakers. The 29 million registered vehicles in the state drove a total of 320 billion miles in the year. The lawsuit further argues that monitoring and addressing the results of global warming’s harmful effects in the future “will almost certainly cost millions more”. Roda Verheyen, co-director of Friends of the Earth Climate Justice Programme, welcomed the development, saying: “This was a case waiting to happen. It is the most significant piece of climate change litigation that has ever been brought.”