Climate Litigation Lab

Measuring and quantifying damages from climate change (Dr. Mireia Ginesta, Shirin Ermis, Dr. Rupert Stuart-Smith)

Damage from climate change – economic, human health, cultural, nature-based, and more – is enormous. The law could provide compensation and reparation for such damage and force polluters to internalize the costs of their products and activities, but such remedies require measurement of harm and proof of causation. Our climate damages subgroup measures, quantifies, and defines climate damages to inform legal actions, public policies and laws, research, journalism, and more. Currently, we are developing state-of-the-art methods for quantifying damages from extratropical cyclones and flooding attributable to climate change to inform climate cost recovery laws and legal actions.

Tracking and counteracting climate greenwashing (Dr. Juliana Vélez Echeverri, Sam Faroqui, Hrishikesh Barman)

Greenwashing — the practice of portraying activities, products, or companies as more environmentally friendly than they actually are — is widespread. In the context of climate change, greenwashing causes enormous, irreversible harm by confusing the public about the causes of and solutions to climate change, misdirecting attention, and delaying effective action. Our climate greenwashing subgroup tracks and studies climate greenwashing to inform legal actions, journalism, research, and industry reform. Our group has developed the Oxford Carbon and Climate Advertising Library (OxCCAL) – the world’s largest curated collection of climate-related advertisements from fossil fuel producers. In collaboration with the Oxford computer science department, we are also developing a novel platform for automatically monitoring climate-related advertising online.

Applying artificial intelligence for climate accountability (Meghana Patakota, Jake Rutherford)

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence present opportunities in the climate litigation and corporate accountability space. Our artificial intelligence subgroup leverages these advances to create new tools to enhance the usability of key evidence and information for effective legal action on climate and broader research and accountability efforts. Our group has developed CLARA, the Climate Accountability Research Assistant, to enable AI-assisted use of over 14,000 pages of historical climate-related documents, including secret internal industry documents, housed at the University of California, San Francisco Industry Documents Library.

Archival and historical investigations (Stella Levantesi)

Some of the most powerful evidence in litigation and corporate accountability efforts is produced through archival, historical, and investigative research. Often, this work is critical for demonstrating the knowledge and activities of key organizations and their collaborators, uncovering wrongdoing, shifting our understanding of problems, and pointing the way toward effective solutions and remedies. Our investigations subgroup conducts targeted, in-depth research to find and communicate transformative information relevant to climate litigation.

Decarbonization modelling (Dr. Andrea Bacilieri, Dr. Rupert Way)

Averting or reducing disastrous global warming requires the rapid replacement of fossil fuels with other energy sources. Rigorously investigating the feasibility of decarbonization scenarios is essential for understanding how the past could have been different as well as for credibly proposing legal and policy remedies for the future. Our decarbonization modelling team applies state of the art technological and economic modelling methods to answer legally relevant questions related to historical and future decarbonization paths and technologies.
 

• Dr Andrea Bacilieri
  Consultant
  Project: Decarbonization modelling.
• Sarah Chow
  Consultant
  Project: Oxford Carbon and Climate Advertising Library.
• Hrishikesh Barman
  Consultant
  Project: Building novel climate greenwashing databases using machine learning.
• Sam Faroqui
  Consultant
  Project: Building novel climate greenwashing databases using manual methods.
• Stella Levantesi
  Consultant
  Project: Fossil fuel industry and climate risks.
• Meghana (Meg) Patakota
  Consultant
  Project: Climate Litigation AI Resource Assistant (CLARA).
• Jake Rutherford
  Consultant
  Project: Climate Litigation AI Resource Assistant (CLARA).
• Dr Rupert Way
  Consultant
  Project: Decarbonization modelling.

• Naina Agrawal-Hardin
  Visiting Student
• Blaire Bernstein
  Consultant
  Project: Using law to address international state fossil fuel financing.
• Cheryl Cheung
  Consultant
  Project: Exploring potential applications of Victim Compensation Funds in the context of U.S. climate litigation.
• Vanessa Fetter
  Consultant
  Project: Litigation opportunities for addressing investor-facing climate greenwashing.
• Benjamin Hitchcock
  Consultant 
  Project: Building novel climate greenwashing databases using manual methods.
• Lara Ibrahim
  Research Assistant (DPhil Candidate, Law, Oxford)
  Project: Climate change and international human rights.
• Sindi Kuçi
  Consultant
  Project: Litigation opportunities in the carbon offset industry.
• Kuberan Kumaresan
  Consultant
  Project: Potential climate damages litigation in Southeast Asia.
• Guilherme De Magalhaes
  Research Assistant (Master of Law and Finance Candidate, Oxford)
  Project: Identifying opportunities for climate litigation financing.
• Sol Meckievi
  Consultant (SLP)
  Project: Climate change and human rights.
• Gastón Medici-Colombo
  Consultant (SLP)
  Project: Climate change and human rights.
• Patrick Hegarty Morrish
  Research Assistant (DPhil Student in History, Trinity College, Oxford)
  Project: Mobile pastoralists and the international legal regime in a climate of change: case studies for strategic litigation.
• Lucy Temple
  Consultant
  Project: State of climate loss and damage science and law.
• Dr Juliana Vélez Echeverri
  Research Associate in Climate Litigation, SLP
• Annika Weis
  Consultant
  Project: Building novel climate greenwashing databases using manual methods.
• Gwenyth Wren 
  Consultant
  Project: Identifying jurisdictions for strategic climate litigation.

If you have any questions, would like to learn more, or want to get involved: Please contact Benjamin Franta. For general questions about the programme please email the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme.

Research at the Climate Litigation Lab is generously supported by the United Nations Environment Programme, KR Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Glaser Progress Foundation, WC Kohler Foundation and others.