¹ As the report of the Grantham Research Institute and the Sabin Center shows, there are now over 1,200 climate change-related laws and policies in place worldwide: see M. Nachmany et al., Global Trends in Climate Change Legislation and Litigation, May 2017, p. 8, available at: http://archive.ipu.org/pdf/publications/global.pdf.

² The term ‘climate change litigation’ (CCL) covers several different types of action. Markell and Ruhl propose a widely accepted definition of CCL: ‘Any piece of federal, state, tribal, or local administrative or judicial litigation in which the tribunal decisions directly and expressly raise an issue of fact or law regarding the substance or policy of climate change causes and impacts’: Ruhl, D. Markell & J.B., ‘An Empirical Assessment of Climate Change in the Courts: A New Jurisprudence or Business as Usual?’ (2012) 64(1) Florida Law Review, pp. 15–85Google Scholar, at 15, 26. Peel and Osofsky provide one of the most recent and comprehensive overviews of this body of cases: Peel, J. & Osofsky, H.M., Climate Change Litigation: Regulatory Pathways to Cleaner Energy (Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Osofsky, H.M., ‘Is Climate Change “International”? Litigation's Diagonal Regulatory Role’ (2009) 49(3) Virginia Journal of International Law, pp. 587–649Google Scholar, at 631–4; Bogojević, S., ‘EU Climate Change Litigation, the Role of the European Courts and the “Importance of Legal Culture”’ (2013) 35(3) Law & Policy, pp. 184–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 184.

⁴ Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Climate Change Litigation Databases, 2018, available at: http://climatecasechart.com, p. 13 (CCL database).

⁵ Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007).

⁶ American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, 564 U.S. (2011) (No. 10-174).

⁷ Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U.S. (2014) (No. 12-1146).

⁸ Peel & Osofsky, n. 2 above, p. 8.

⁹ Markell & Ruhl, n. 2 above, p. 15.

¹⁰ Peel, J. & Osofsky, H.M., ‘Climate Change Litigation's Regulatory Pathways: A Comparative Analysis of the United States and Australia’ (2013) 35(3) Law & Policy, pp. 150–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Peel, J. & Osofsky, H.M., ‘Sue to Adapt?’ (2015) 99(6) Minnesota Law Review, pp. 2177–250Google Scholar.

¹¹ Osofsky, J. Peel & H.M., ‘A Rights Turn in Climate Change Litigation?’ (2018) 7(1) Transnational Environmental Law, pp. 37–67Google Scholar. See, e.g., Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada, Inuit Petition Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to Oppose Climate Change Caused by the United States of America, 7 Dec. 2005, available at: https://www.ciel.org/Publications/ICC_Petition_7Dec05.pdf. See also Stichting Urgenda v. Government of the Netherlands (Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment), Case No. C/09/456689/HA ZA 13-1396, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2015:7145, 24 June 2015, and Rechtbank Den Haag, Case No. C/09/456689/HA ZA 13-1396, ECLI:NL:GHDHA:2018:2610, 9 Oct. 2018 (Urgenda). See also Ashgar Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan, W.P. No. 25501/2015, Lahore High Court Green Bench, Orders of 4 and 14 Sept. 2015, available at: https://elaw.org/pk_Leghari (Leghari).

¹² See United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), The Status of Climate Change Litigation: A Global Review (UNEP, 2017), p. 34Google Scholar, available at: http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/files/2017/05/Burger-Gundlach-2017-05-UN-Envt-CC-Litigation.pdf.

¹³ Benjamin, E. & Kysar, D.A., ‘Prods and Pleas: Limited Government in an Era of Unlimited Harm’ (2011) 121(2) Yale Law Journal, pp. 350–424Google Scholar, at 352, 355.

¹⁴ 贺卫方, 中国司法管理制度的两个问题 [W. He, ‘Two Problems of the Chinese Judicial System’] (1997) 6 中国社会科学 [Social Science in China], pp. 117–30, at 121, 122. See also He, X., ‘Why Did They Not Take on the Disputes? Law, Power and Politics in the Decision-making of Chinese Courts’ (2007) 3(3) International Journal of Law in Context, pp. 203–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ See CCL Database, n. 4 above, and UNEP, n. 12 above, p. 35.

¹⁶ See 沈跃东, 气候变化政治角力的司法制衡 [Y. Shen, ‘Judicial Checks and Balances of Political Change in Climate Change] (2014) 6 法律科学（西北政法大学学报）[Science of Law (Journal of Northwest University of Political Science and Law)], pp. 35–42, at 39.

¹⁷ 中华人民共和国最高人民法院，关于充分发挥审判职能作用为推进生态文明建设与绿色发展提供司法服务和保障的意见 [The Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China (SPC), Opinions on Giving Full Play to the Role of Judicial Functions to Provide Judicial Services and Guarantees for Promoting Ecological Civilization Construction and Green Development] (2016 Opinion).

¹⁸ 中华人民共和国最高人民法院, 中国环境资源审判(白皮书), [SPC, China Environmental Resources Trial (White Paper)] Beijing (2016) p. 24.

¹⁹ 彭中礼, 司法判决中的指导案例 [Z. Peng, ‘Guiding Cases in Judicial Decisions’] (2017) 6 中国法学 [China Legal Science], pp. 129–48.

²⁰ Luo, W., Chinese Law and Legal Research (William S. Hein & Co Press, 2005), pp. 110–6Google Scholar. See also SPC, ‘Rules on Guiding Cases’, 26 Nov. 2010, available at: https://cgc.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/10/guiding-cases-rules-20101126-chinese.pdf (in Chinese).

²¹ Furthermore, as part of the current Chinese ‘institutional judicial reform’ Chinese judges are required to prepare a ‘Report of Similar Cases Analysis’ before trial: see Communist Party of China (CPC), 中共中央关于全面深化改革若干重大问题的决定 [‘Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform’], 15 Nov. 2013, available at: http://www.china.org.cn/china/third_plenary_session/2014-01/16/content_31212602.htm. See also CPC, 关于司法体制改革试点若干问题的框架意见 [‘Framework Comments on a Number of Issues related to the Pilot Reform of the Judicial System’], 6 June 2014 (key points of this document are addressed in official news reports, such as (人民网）[People.cn], available at: http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2014/0616/c1001-25151030.html); and SPC, 最高人民法院司法责任制实施意见（试行）[‘Implementation Opinions of the Supreme People's Court Judicial Responsibility System (Trial)’], 1 Aug. 2017, available at: http://rmfyb.chinacourt.org/paper/images/2017-08/01/01/2017080101_pdf (in Chinese).

²² Markell & Ruhl, n. 2 above, p. 23.

²³ For more details see Table 1.

²⁴ China Judgments Online, available at: http://wenshu.court.gov.cn (in Chinese). Judicial reforms in China have intensified since 2013. On 1 Jan. 2014, China initiated a major policy change. Its judicial decisions – previously available only to the lawyers and parties involved – must now all be published online. In order to achieve this goal, the SPC established this open access database (China Judgments Online), archiving the decisions of every court in China: see SPC, 最高人民法院关于人民法院在互联网公布裁判文书的规定 [‘Provisions on the Publication of People's Courts’ Judicial Decisions on the Internet’], 21 Nov. 2013, available at: http://www.chinacourt.org/law/detail/2013/11/id/147242.shtml (in Chinese). See also 马超等，大数据分析: 中国司法裁判文书上网公开报告 [C. Ma et al., ‘Big Data Analysis: Report on the Publication of Chinese Judicial Decisions on the Internet’] (2016) 4中国法律评论 [China Law Review], pp. 195–246. By 2018, China Judgments Online had already recorded 42.6 million decisions and become the largest judicial dataset in the world: see 中国裁判文书网累计公布裁判文书4260余万篇成全球最大 [‘CJO Recorded 42.6 Million Decisions and Has Become the Biggest in the World], Gmdaily.cn, 27 Feb. 2018, available at: http://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1593548595027373546&wfr=spider&for=pc (in Chinese).

²⁵ In the 2016 Opinion ‘litigation as a response to climate change’ falls within the category of ‘Civil Litigation of the Environment and Natural Resources’.

²⁶ The first 5–10 cases of each page of cases identified from 2015 to 2018.

²⁷ By ‘duplicated results’ is meant: (i) decisions on the same legal issue in different instances (decisions of the last instance prevail); (ii) common joint actions (according to Art. 52 of the Chinese Civil Procedure Law, ‘[w]hen one party or both parties consist of two or more than two persons, their object of action being the same or of the same category and the people's court considers that, with the consent of the parties, the action can be tried combined, it is a joint action’); (iii) the same result identified by different keywords.

²⁸ The causes of action listed here are all officially recognized by the SPC in the Regulation on the Causes of Civil Cases (2007, modified in 2011), available at: http://en.pkulaw.cn/display.aspx?cgid=93b313fc008faf44bdfb&lib=law.

²⁹ ‘Success’ refers to the effect of the outcome of the case on climate change-related issues. When the judicial decision is clearly in favour of a stronger response to climate change, a success will be recorded, and vice versa. This article defines a decision in favour of a better response to climate change as one which facilitates the financing of low-carbon industries (i.e., in disputes over loan contracts, contracts of sale and purchase, and lease contracts), protects agricultural biotechnology or low-carbon technologies and encourages the transfer of relevant technologies (i.e., IP infringement cases), or promotes energy conservation projects and guarantees the fulfilment of relevant contractual obligations (especially with regard to disputes over service contracts, contracts of sale and purchase, and contracts for construction). When the effect of the judgment cannot be identified easily (as in the case of some IP contractual disputes), it is recorded as ‘neutral’.

³⁰ See 发改委、财政部、中央银行和税务总局,《关于加快推行合同能源管理促进节能服务产业发展的意见》[National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Finance, Central People's Bank and National Administration of Taxation, ‘Opinions on Accelerating the Implementation of Contract Energy Management to Promote the Development of the Energy-saving Service Industry’], 6 Apr. 2010, available at: http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2010-04/06/content_1573706.htm (in Chinese).

³¹ 3 Nov. 2017, 河北思创伟业科技有限公司与邯郸市峰峰峰泰焦化有限公司合同纠纷案 [Hebei Sichuangweiye Co. Ltd v. Handan Fengfengfengtai Co. Ltd], Appl. No. 04 civil 4319, (2017) in Hebei Handan Middle Court.

³² 3 Mar. 2017, 唐珠娇与湛江市麻章区大安汽车运输有限公司挂靠经营合同纠纷案 [Tang Zhujiao v. Da'an Auto Transport Co. Ltd], Case No. 08 civil 109, (2017) in Zhanjiang Mazhang District Court.

³³ 10 Apr. 2017, 惠勇与青海三兴房地产开发有限公司商品房预售合同纠纷案 [Hui Yong v. Qinghai Sanxing Real Estate Co. Ltd], Appl. No. 01 civil 301, (2017) in Qinghai High Court.

³⁴ 13 Mar. 2017, 吴伦吟挂靠经营合同纠纷二审民事判决书 [Wu Lunyin v. Guangdong Zhanjiang Mazhang District Da'an Automobile Transportation Co. Ltd], Appl. No. 08 civil 107, (2017) in Zhanjiang Middle Court.

³⁵ Peel & Osofsky (2013), n. 10 above, p. 176.

³⁶ Peel & Osofsky, n. 11 above, p. 63. See also Leghari, n. 11 above.

³⁷ Ibid., p. 61. See also Urgenda, n. 11 above. See also van Zeben, J., ‘Establishing a Governmental Duty of Care for Climate Change Mitigation: Will Urgenda Turn the Tide?’ (2015) 4(2) Transnational Environmental Law, pp. 339–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mayer, B., ‘The State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation: Ruling of the Court of Appeal of The Hague (9 October 2018)’ (2019) 8(1) Transnational Environmental Law, pp. 167–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁸ As indicated in UNEP (n. 12 above, p. 14), the first of the five trends in CCL is ‘holding governments to their legislative or policy commitments’.

³⁹ Abate, R.S., ‘Automobile Emissions and Climate Change Impacts: Employing Public Nuisance Doctrine as Part of a “Global Warming Solution” in California’ (2008) 40(3) Connecticut Law Review, pp. 591–630Google Scholar, at 591. See also Ruhl, J.B., ‘Making Nuisance Ecological’ (2008) 58(3) Case Western Reserve Law Review, pp. 753–85Google Scholar, at 753, 757; Stedman, J.N., ‘Climate Change and Public Nuisance Law: AEP v. Connecticut and Its Implications for State Common Law Actions’ (2012) 36(3) William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, pp. 864–915Google Scholar, at 865.

⁴⁰ Ganguly, G., Setzer, J. & Heyvaert, V., ‘If at First You Don't Succeed: Suing Corporations for Climate Change’ (2018) 38(4) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, pp. 841–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ See M. Conway, ‘Climate Nuisance Lawsuits Need a Major Win’, Nonprofit Quarterly, 2 July 2018, available at: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/07/02/climate-nuisance-lawsuits-need-a-major-win.

⁴² Benjamin & Kysar, n. 13 above, p. 369. See also 曹明德, 中国参与国际气候治理的法律立场和策略:以气候正义为视角 [M. Cao, ‘The Legal Standpoint and Strategy of China to Participate in International Climate Governance’] (2016) 1 中国法学 [China Legal Science], pp. 29–48.

⁴³ Lee, E.T., ‘Deconstitutionalizing Justiciability: The Example of Mootness’ (1992) 105(3) Harvard Law Review, pp. 603–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁴ Markell & Ruhl, n. 2 above, p. 77.

⁴⁵ Ibid.

⁴⁶ Peel & Osofsky, n. 2 above, p. 8.

⁴⁷ He, X., ‘Legal and Policy Pathways of Climate Change Adaptation: Comparative Analysis of the Adaptation Practices in the United States, Australia and China’ (2018) 7(2) Transnational Environmental Law, pp. 347–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 347.

⁴⁸ In 2010, under the aegis of the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC) and the former Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), a draft of the Law on the Response to Climate Change was drawn up by a group of environmental jurists. It clarified the duty of the government to take action against climate change. Thus far, however, it merely remains a draft that has not been the subject of serious discussion among Chinese legislators. Since the low-carbon policies have not been crystallized into Chinese legislation, Chinese industrial emitters, while being generally aware of discharging fewer air pollutants in accordance with environmental laws, nevertheless are not under any legal obligation to reduce GHG emissions.

⁴⁹ Stern, R., Environmental Litigation in China: A Study in Political Ambivalence (Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 2Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ S. Mufson, ‘Trump Promotes Fossil Fuels and Assails Pollution Rules in Energy Plan’, Washington Post, 26 May 2016, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-pledges-to-bring-energy-independence-to-america/2016/05/26/eba464b6-234e-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299_story.html?utm_term=.a632476251df.

⁵¹ New York, NY (US), 9 May 1992, in force 21 Mar. 1994, available at: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf.

⁵² Kyoto (Japan), 11 Dec. 1997, in force 16 Feb. 2005, available at: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf.

⁵³ Paris (France), 12 Dec. 2015, in force 4 Nov. 2016, available at: http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php.

⁵⁴ See 中国国家发改委，强化应对气候变化行动——中国国家自主贡献 [National Development and Reform Commission, Actions to Address Climate Change: China's National Independent Contribution], 31 Jun. 2015, available at: http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xwzx/xwfb/201506/t20150630_710204.html (in Chinese).

⁵⁵ See 中国低碳发展报告（2017）[Report on China Low-carbon Development (2017)], available at: http://ex.cssn.cn/jjx/jjx_bg/201801/t20180118_3820474.shtml (in Chinese).

⁵⁶ See International Energy Agency (IEA), International Energy Agency: Global Energy & CO₂ Status Report 2017, Mar. 2018, available at: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/GECO2017.pdf.

⁵⁷ H. Chen, ‘China on Track to Exceed Copenhagen Climate Target for 2020’, NRDC Expert Blog, 15 Mar. 2016, available at: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/han-chen/china-track-exceed-copenhagen-climate-target-2020.

⁵⁸ Stern, n. 49 above, p. 2.

⁵⁹ 李清伟，司法克制抑或司法能动—兼论公共政策导向下的中国司法能动 [Q. Li, ‘Judicial Restraint or Judicial Initiative: On China's Judicial Initiative under the Guidance of Public Policy’] (2012) 3(19) 法商研究 [Studies in Law and Business], pp. 85–93, at 87.

⁶⁰ Therefore, Chinese courts represent the weakest branch in the power arrangement structure: see 彭小龙，现代社会中司法的力量——兼论转型中国司法的两难困境及应对 [X. Peng, ‘Judicial Power in Modern Society: Judicial Dilemma in Transitional China and Its Solutions’] (2009) 6 现代法学 [Modern Law Science], pp. 2–11.

⁶¹ The political question doctrine was first articulated in Marbury v. Madison when Justice Marshall stated ‘[q]uestions, in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive, can never be made in this court’: see Thorpe, A., ‘Tort-Based Climate Change Litigation and the Political Question Doctrine’ (2008) 24(1) Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law, pp. 79–105Google Scholar, at 103–4; see also Jaffe, J., ‘The Political Question Doctrine: An Update in Response to Climate Change Case Law’ (2011) 38(4) Ecology Law Quarterly, pp. 1033–66Google Scholar, at 1033.

⁶² The pre-emption doctrine derives from the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, which states that the ‘Constitution and the laws of the United States … shall be the supreme law of the land … anything in the constitutions or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding’. This means that any federal law – even a regulation of a federal agency – trumps any conflicting state law. The doctrine of displacement is the ‘close cousin’ of the pre-emption doctrine; it determines when a statutory enactment overrides federal common law: Benjamin & Kysar, n. 13 above, pp. 378–408.

⁶³ N. 36 and n. 37 above.

⁶⁴ According to 中国电力发展“十三五”规划（2016–2020）[‘China's Thirteenth Power Sector Five-Year Plan (2016–2020)’] new renewable energy targets have been set. The plan placed a limit on the capacity of coal-fired power plants at 1,100 GW by 2020, and a limit on the percentage of coal in primary energy at less than 58%, down from 64% in 2015, available at: http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/zcfb/zcfbghwb/201612/P020161222570036010274.pdf (in Chinese).

⁶⁵ See D.D. Boer & D. Whitehead, ‘Environmental Public Interest Litigation in China: From Experiment to Practice’, Chinadialogue, 11 Aug. 2016, available at: https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/ch/9356-Opinion-The-future-of-public-interest-litigation-in-China.

⁶⁶ 18 Jul. 2016, 中华联合环保会诉德州晶华集团振华有限公司 [All-China Environment Federation v. Jinghua Group Zhenhua Co. Ltd], Case No.1 civil, (2015) in Dezhou Middle Court.

⁶⁷ See 吴青等, 大气污染环境公益诉讼：哪些经验可为我所用？[Q. Wu et al., ‘Air Pollution Environmental Public Interest Litigation: What Experiences Could Be Used for Us?’], King&wood Mallesons.net, 9 Sep. 2016, available at: http://www.kwm.com/zh/cn/knowledge/insights/experiences-from-environmental-public-interest-litigation-of-air-pollution-20160905 (in Chinese).

⁶⁸ According to our empirical research, only one civil PIL case on air pollution was filed by an individual in 2017: see 冯宝福侵权责任纠纷案 [Feng Baofu Tort Responsibility Dispute], filed on 8 Dec. 2017 and closed on 20 Mar. 2018, available at: http://wenshu.court.gov.cn/content/content?DocID=3b634672-2eb9-435f-b9e5-a8af0091edac&KeyWord=%E5%86%AF%E5%AE%9D%E7%A6%8F (in Chinese).

⁶⁹ See 中国绿发会起诉大众汽车机动车污染排放大气环境公益诉讼案 [‘China Green Development Association Sues Volkswagen Motor Vehicles for Pollution and Emission of Atmospheric Environmental Public Interest Litigation’], Kdnet, 16 Dec. 2015, available at: https://club.kdnet.net/dispbbs.asp?id=11347468&boardid=1 (in Chinese).

⁷⁰ The appraisal system for environmental damage in China was established in 2017.

⁷¹ See 河北省首例大气污染公益诉讼案宣判 [‘The First Air Pollution Public Interest Litigation Case in Hebei Province Settled’], people.cn, 11 Apr. 2018, available at: http://legal.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0411/c42510-29918704.html (in Chinese).

⁷² A new amendment to the Chinese Civil Procedure Law in 2017 at last crystallized the standing of both environmental NGOs and public prosecutors in tort-based PIL (Art. 55(2)); public prosecutors can bring a lawsuit in the absence of a petition by eligible environmental NGOs. The Civil Procedure Law also provides that public prosecutors can support environmental NGOs where the lawsuit is filed by the NGOs. In other words, although both public prosecutors and environmental NGOs have legal standing to bring tort-based PIL, the NGOs have priority.

⁷³ This case was decided on 5 June 2018: Xinhua.net, 7 Jun. 2018, available at: http://www.xinhuanet.com/legal/2018-06/07/c_1122948795.htm (in Chinese).

⁷⁴ Jaffe, n. 61 above, p. 1033.

⁷⁵ N. 6 above.

⁷⁶ Osofsky, H.M., ‘Litigation's Role in the Path of U.S. Federal Climate Change Regulation: Implications of AEP v. Connecticut’ (2012) 46(2) Valparaiso University Law Review, pp. 447–57Google Scholar, at 452.

⁷⁷ This is also the case with CCL in the US: Markell & Ruhl, n. 2 above, p. 77.

⁷⁸ UNEP, n. 12 above, p. 27.

⁷⁹ See Massachusetts v. EPA, n. 5 above.

⁸⁰ See People of the State of California v. General Motors Corporation et al., No. 1:2014cv07787-Document 64 (SDNY 2014); see also Ganguly, Setzer & Heyvaert, n. 40 above.

⁸¹ Thorpe, n. 61 above, p. 103; see also Benjamin & Kysar, n. 13 above, p. 355.

⁸² Osofsky, H.M. & Peel, J., ‘Litigation's Regulatory Pathways and the Administrative State: Lessons from U.S. and Australian Climate Change Governance’ (2014) 25(207) Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, pp. 207–59Google Scholar, at 224.

⁸³ E.g., Gbemre v. Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (2005) AHRLR 151 (NgHC 2005).

⁸⁴ 最高人民法院关于适用“中华人民共和国民事诉讼法”的解释 [Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China] (effective 4 Feb. 2015). The SPC's judicial interpretations have binding force by virtue of the application of Art. 104 of the Legislation Law (revised 2015).

⁸⁵ See China Environmental Resources Trial (White Paper) n. 18 above, p. 15.

⁸⁶ Art. 55 of the Civil Procedure Law on PILs issued by qualified relevant agencies and social organizations.

⁸⁷ See 国务院生态环境损害赔偿制度改革试点方案 [Chinese State Council, ‘Pilot Program for Reform of Ecological Environment Damage Compensation System’] 3 Dec. 2015, available at: http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2017-12/17/content_5247952.htm (in Chinese).

⁸⁸ The State Council of the PRC, ‘China to Expand Pilot Reform in Ecological Damage Compensation’, Xinhua.net, 17 Dec. 2017, available at: http://english.gov.cn/policies/latest_releases/2017/12/17/content_281475980133814.htm.

⁸⁹ See 生态环境损害赔偿制度改革方案 [‘Ecological Environment Damage Compensation System Reform Plan’], 18 Dec. 2017, available at: http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2017-12/17/content_5247952.htm (in Chinese).

⁹⁰ It represents a much broader definition, compared with the definition of ‘air pollution’ proposed by the Chinese Law on the Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution (revised in 2015), according to which ‘[i]n order to prevent and control air pollution … the synergistic control of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, ammonia and other atmospheric pollutants and GHGs should be carried out’ (Art. 2). Chinese air legislators choose to follow the ‘list method’, which is less flexible yet more clear and enforceable. Thus, it explicitly excludes GHGs from the list of pollutants. In this context, while PIL cases on air pollution are emerging in China, the emission of CO₂ and the emission of other air pollutants are nonetheless regulated differently, which hinders the immediate emergence of PIL on climate change.

⁹¹ See 赔付 5482 万！全国首例政府诉企业环境损害赔偿案宣判 [‘54.82 Million! First Ecological Damage Compensational Case Was Closed’], Chinacourt, 27 Aug. 2018, available at: https://www.chinacourt.org/article/detail/2018/08/id/3473951.shtml (in Chinese).

⁹² Lliuya v. RWE AG, 2015 Civil Case No. 2 O 285/15, Essen Regional Court (Germany), available at: http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/lliuya-v-rwe-ag.

⁹³ This judgment was overruled on appeal in Nov. 2017. The Oberlandesgerichsthof (Higher District Court) of Hamm determined that the case could go forward to the evidentiary stage and the appeal is still pending. See also Ganguly, Setzer & Heyvaert, n. 40 above.

⁹⁴ Comer and Others v. Murphy Oil USA Inc. and Others, No. 1:05 CV-436-LG-RHW, 2007 WL 6942285 (S.D. Miss. 30 Aug. 2007); rev'd, 585 F.3d 855 (5th Cir. 2009); vacated and rehearing en banc granted, 598 F.3d 208 (5th Cir. 2010); appeal dismissed, 607 F.3d 1049 (5th Cir. 2010) (declining to reinstate the panel opinion).

⁹⁵ E.g., the use of attribution science in the Carbon Majors Petition to the Human Rights Commission in the Philippines: see Patton, S. Marjanac & L., ‘Extreme Weather Event Attribution Science and Climate Change Litigation: An Essential Step in the Causal Chain?’ (2018) 36(3) Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law, pp. 265–98Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ N. 67 above.

⁹⁷ 张新宝等，扩张与强化:环境侵权责任的综合适用 [X. Zhang et al, ‘Expansion and Strengthening: Comprehensive Application of Environmental Tort Liability’] (2014) 3 中国社会科学 [Social Sciences in China], pp. 125–41, at 127.

⁹⁸ What is more, according to Art. 7 ETI, in order to prove the absence of a causal relationship, the defendant has to provide evidence to establish one of the following facts: (i) the pollutant discharged would not cause the damage; (ii) the pollutant discharged, which may cause the damage, has not reached the place where the damage occurred; (iii) the damage occurred prior to the discharge of the pollutant; (iv) other cases where there is no causal relationship between the pollution behaviour and the damage can be identified: see 最高人民法院关于审理环境侵权责任纠纷案件适用法律若干问题的解释 [The Supreme People's Court Interpretation on Several Questions Concerning Applicable Law in the Adjudication of Environmental Tort Liability Dispute Cases], promulgated on 1 June 2015, available at: http://www.court.gov.cn/fabu-xiangqing-14615.html (in Chinese).

⁹⁹ Chinese courts have duly applied this ‘burden-shifting’ rule in some tort-based air pollution PIL: see, e.g., 29 Dec. 2015, All-China Environment Federation v. Dezhou Jinhua Corporation, No. 01 Civil, 2015 in Dezhou, Shandong province; ‘[W]hile the general trend suggests that Chinese judges have increasingly referred to the relevant judicial interpretations and legal provisions that shift the burden of proof in adjudicating environmental torts, in most cases these interpretations and provisions were not correctly enforced. When it comes to proving causation between the pollution and the harm, the plaintiff still bears the initial liability to introduce evidence to the judges. Only then were the judges likely to shift the burden of proof for lack of causation to the defendant’: Yang, F., Zhang, T. & Zhang, H., ‘Adjudicating Environmental Tort Cases in China: Burden of Proof, Causation, and Insights from 513 Court Decisions’ (2018) 21(2) Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law, pp. 171–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 188.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid. See also e.g., 时军、黄任生一审民事判决书 [9 Feb. 2018, Fuzhou Procuratorate v. J. Shi & R. Huang, Case No. 10 civil 142, (2017)] in Jiangxi Fuzhou Middle Court; 中华环境保护基金会与中国石化集团南京化学工业有限公司一审民事调解书 [16 Dec. 2016, China Environmental Protection Foundation v. Nanjing Chemical Industry Company, Case No. 2048 Civil 01, (2016) in Jaingsu High Court.

¹⁰¹ Zhang et al., n. 97 above, p. 127.

¹⁰² Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Environmental Protection, ‘Procedures for the Registration and Accreditation of Environmental Damage Judicial Appraisal Institutions’ and ‘Measures on the Registration of Experts on the Assessment of Environmental Damage Judicial Appraisal Institutions’ (specifying the criteria to be met by a qualified judicial appraisal institution and the process for accreditation of such institutions).

¹⁰³ For example, to ensure that the plaintiff has a genuine interest and a stake in a case, US courts require the plaintiff to be the one who has suffered ‘an injury in fact’ – i.e., (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical: see Mank, B., ‘Standing and Global Warming: Is Injury to All Injury to None?’ (2015) 35(1) Environmental Law, pp. 1–81Google Scholar; see also Markell & Ruhl, n. 2 above, p. 77.

¹⁰⁴ Petitioners in tort-based CCL usually take their stand upon the property damage or injury to human health: see Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 663 F. Supp. 2d 863 (ND Cal.), appeal docketed, No. 09-17490 (9th Cir. 5 Nov 2009); see also Comer v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., n. 94 above.

¹⁰⁵ According to the Judicial Interpretation on PIEL (Art. 1), the targeted activities of Chinese environmental PIL involve environmental pollution or destruction of the ecological system.

¹⁰⁶ ‘The Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation Cases’ (Judicial Interpretation on PIEL), 6 Jan. 2015 (providing guidelines for trial of environmental PIL. This interpretation came one week after China's amended Environmental Protection Law entered into force).

¹⁰⁷ It is worth noting that the ‘burden-shifting’ doctrine applies also in tort-based environmental PIL. According to the ETI, the claimant has an initial light-touch burden of proof in order to establish relatedness and, if successful, the burden of proof to establish the absence of causation moves to the defendant.

¹⁰⁸ See, e.g., 河南省企业社会责任促进中心与洛阳市吉利区辉鹏养殖专业合作社、关同高环境污染责任纠纷 [9 Dec. 2016, Corporate Social Responsibility of Henan Province v. T. Guan et al., Case No. 154 civil jurisdiction, (2016)] in Henan Luoyang Middle Court.

¹⁰⁹ Yang and co-authors indicate that the ‘compliance reports’ are ‘the second highest form of evidence used to prove causation’: Yang, Zhang & Zhang, n. 99 above, p. 184.

¹¹⁰ ETI, Art. 1: ‘For damage caused by environmental pollution, a polluter shall bear tort liabilities regardless of fault. If the polluter claims no liability on the ground that the discharge of pollutants complies with national or local pollutant discharge standards, the people's court shall not support such a claim’ (unofficial translation).

¹¹¹ Fiore, A.M., Naik, V. & Leibensperger, E.M., ‘Air Quality and Climate Connections’ (2016) 65(6) Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, pp. 645–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹² Some researchers believe that ‘[r]educing sulfates and some other light-scattering particles that serve to cool the earth surface actually “unmasks” warming caused by carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other GHGs. Continued reductions in sulfur oxide (SOx) emissions to meet air quality goals will increase near-term warming caused by existing levels of GHG’: Kleinman, M.T. et al. , ‘Connecting Air Quality and Climate Change’ (2015) 65(11) Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, pp. 1283–91CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

¹¹³ Ibid. Fine particle types include both cooling (most organics, nitrates) and warming (black carbon, some organics) components.

¹¹⁴ There may also be trade-offs in reducing GHGs. The climate policies designed can result in higher emissions of particulate matter. Ignoring the interactions and interdependencies of the various measures could even lead to counter-productive outcomes of strategies: see European Consortium for Modelling of Air Pollution and Climate Strategies, ‘Cost Effective Approaches for Reducing Air Pollution while Minimizing Climate Change’, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/project/Projects/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.showFile&rep=file&fil=LIFE06_ENV_PREP_A_000006_LAYMAN.pdf.

¹¹⁵ Wang, J. et al. , ‘Implementing Climate-friendly Strategy for Air Pollution Prevention and Control’ (2010) 10 China Soft Science, pp. 28–36Google Scholar, at 29.

¹¹⁶ According to the Judicial Interpretation on PIEL (Art. 12), Chinese courts are even under an obligation to notify the environmental agency within 15 days of filing a PIL case. The environmental agency will then intervene to rectify the targeted emissions activities. In two tort-based air pollution PIL cases, the plaintiffs eventually withdrew the lawsuit, as under the supervision of the local environmental agency, the emitters had corrected its illegal emissions: See, e.g., 中国生物多样性保护与绿色发展基金会诉被告马鞍山澳新环保科技有限公司大气污染责任纠纷 [18 Apr. 2018, China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation v. Ma'anshan Aoxin Environmental Technology Co. Ltd, Case No.136 civil 05, (2017) in Anhui High Court. See also 中华环境保护基金会与中国石油天然气股份有限公司大气污染责任纠纷一审民事调解书 [18 Dec. 2016, China Environmental Protection Foundation v. PetroChina Co. Ltd] Case No. 267 civil 02, (2016)] in Liaoning High Court.

¹¹⁷ Before that, the response to climate change was merely considered as a scientific question, as the main competent administrative authority related to climate change was the Ministry of Science and Technology: see Wang, P., Liu, L. & Wu, T., ‘A Review of China's Climate Governance: State, Market and Civil Society’ (2018) 18(5) Climate Policy, pp. 664–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁸ See “环境保护”杂志编辑部：组建生态环境部:“大部制”带来“大环保” [Environmental Protection Magazine Editorial Department, ‘The Establishment of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment: “Major System” Brings “Great Environmental Protection”’] (2018) 46 环境保护 [Environmental Protection], pp. 2–5, at 2.

¹¹⁹ 环保部部长：生态环境部将实现“五个打通” [Minister of Environmental Protection, ‘The Ministry of Ecology and Environment Will Realize “Five Open”’], Chinanews.cn, 17 Mar. 2018, available at: http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2018/03-17/8470030.shtml (in Chinese).

¹²⁰ Wilensky, M., ‘Climate Change in the Courts: An Assessment of Non-U.S. Climate Litigation’ (2015) 26(1) Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum, pp. 131–79Google Scholar.

¹²¹ Ibid.