It has become a source of dark irony among climate activists globally that court decisions denying their search for climate action begin by recognising the existential risk posed by the climate crisis. And so it went on Tuesday, when the full federal court delivered its judgment in the landmark Sharma case. “The threat of climate change and global warming was and is not in dispute between the parties in this litigation,” began chief justice James Allsop.
What, then, does the judiciary – the third, independent and co-equal branch of government – propose to do about it? In the face of crippling climate inaction from the federal executive and legislative government that threatens to render Australia effectively uninhabitable in the centuries ahead, how will the courts react?
