Cadiz said the commission would begin its investigation in the primary quarter of 2016.
Activists have called the criticism one in every of the primary wave of legal challenges geared toward redressing human rights violations resulting from climate change. It joins a string of recent legal filings in countries starting from Germany to Pakistan to the Netherlands geared toward forcing faster motion to handle climate change and its effects or in search of compensation from energy firms.
“These things are coming. There are many in the pipeline,” said Alyssa Johl, senior staff attorney on the Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law.
Legal experts at U.N. negotiations in Paris that aim to seal a brand new global deal next week to curb climate change and take care of its impacts compared the fledgling legal push to hunt compensation from oil, gas and coal firms with early efforts to handle tobacco firms over the health harm attributable to smoking.
They acknowledged that getting compensation could take a long time or ultimately fail. But filing lawsuits alone could put pressure on fossil fuel firms and potentially discourage investors, they are saying.
“Companies fear nothing more than being sued. The best way to get their attention is to say that we have a legal basis for the claim and that we intend to bring a lawsuit, said Gregory Regaignon, a lawyer and research director at the UK’s Business and Human Rights Resource Center, who analyzes the human rights implications of the company’s actions.
These things are coming. There are many in the pipeline
The goal is “to reach companies where their assets are,” he said. “That’s what they care about most and how we find remedies.”
The Philippines’ criticism, brought with the support of organizations including Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Amnesty International and the Union of Concerned Scientists, asks the country’s human rights commission to research the responsibility of fifty large investor-owned fossil fuel firms for causing change climate Violations of human rights.
Companies including giants Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhilips have contributed to much of the carbon dioxide and methane emissions that now cause climate change, in keeping with a 2014 study commissioned by the Climate Justice Program and Greenpeace International. .
“It is fair and equitable that the companies that have extracted and profited most from fossil fuels are responsible for the damage that has occurred and are taking action to prevent further harm and protect people’s rights in the context of climate change,” said Zelda Soriano, a lawyer at Greenpeace in Asia Southeast. “Yes, it will be a difficult investigation, very complicated. However, the authors of the petition believe that it is not impossible.”
The storm-prone Philippines is widely known as one in every of the countries most affected by extreme weather resulting from climate change. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan killed over 6,000 people and caused damage estimated at $13 billion.
Veronica “Derek” Cabe, one in every of the petitioners within the Human Rights Commission criticism, said that throughout the 2009 typhoon Ketsana, she spent 12 hours huddled in wet clothes together with her two-year-old niece and other relations within the attic of her home as a consequence of flash floods through Manila.
“We saw people floating, animals floating, coffins floating. We couldn’t do anything, we couldn’t help them. It was like watching a horror movie and the worst thing was that we couldn’t turn it off,” she said.
As such storms become more frequent, “should we just accept this as a matter of fate?” – asked the 42-year-old social activist. “I think something is wrong, that we can’t live like this forever and that there should be accountability.”
