This is the second of two posts exploring the evolution of climate change implementation litigation. Part I detailed how governments’ duties to monitor and meet their climate commitments, and have transparent and attainable climate plans, are well-defined by international, regional, and domestic courts. This post focuses on how implementation cases are responding to a host of new challenges from governments, from overt forms of regression to persistent failures to implement climate commitments. Against the backdrop of these developments, implementation litigation has demonstrated considerable adaptability. Recent cases point to a number of evolving trends, including the strategic use of follow-up litigation, the growing integration of human rights arguments, the expanded role of scientific evidence and monitoring, and an increasing emphasis on consistency across government decision-making. The following sections reveal how these trends are reshaping implementation litigation and enhancing its capacity to strengthen government accountability amidst changing legal and political contexts. Confronting new forms of government regression An especially concerning issue in climate litigation is the markedly overt attempts from governments to avoid responsibility for climate action through regressive measures that include weakening or erasing commitments already enshrined in law. As some acts also involve corporate climate litigation and eliminating tort liability,...

As temperatures continue to rise at alarming rates, it is undeniable that current climate policies are not enough to meet the 1.5°C temperature limit of the Paris Agreement. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, global warming is currently on track to reach 2.8°C above preindustrial levels by 2100. However, if governments fully implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), this figure would fall to 2.3°C to 2.5°C. Fulfilling existing climate commitments is thus an essential component of limiting temperature rise and preventing further dangerous climate change. To that end, individuals and groups around the world have called on domestic, regional, and international courts to hold governments accountable when they fall short of their climate pledges. In these “implementation” cases, courts have clarified that governments must do more than just define targets. Rather, they must also establish clear and actionable plans for achieving them, monitor their progress, and take timely corrective action to address any implementation shortcomings. Recent decisions – including the advisory opinions on climate change from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) (2025) and Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) (2025), as well as Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland (2024) at the European Court of Human Rights...

South Africa’s emissions targets may be met with almost no extra effort, a new analysis argues. Critics say that makes them a formality rather than a real climate commitment. South Africa is the most industrialised economy in Africa and still relies on coal for most of its electricity. That makes its climate pledges a test case for coal-dependent emerging markets everywhere. On Friday 25 September, Cape Town news site GroundUp and data publisher The Outlier examined whether the country is on track. Their answer was yes, but mostly because the bar is low. What the targets say Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, every country sets its own emissions cap, called a Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC. South Africa’s cap for 2030 is a range of 350 to 420 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Carbon dioxide equivalent is a common unit that converts all greenhouse gases into the warming effect of carbon dioxide. The 2030 range dates from the country’s updated NDC of September 2021. In October 2025 the government submitted a second NDC with a 2035 range of 320 to 380 million tonnes. It keeps net zero as the goal for 2050. Both ranges include the carbon that forests,...

Within the next five years, global warming is set to breach the 1.5°C threshold at the heart of the 2015 Paris Agreement. This will have dire consequences, from rapidly melting ice sheets to ghostly white coral reefs. To date, the world has failed to tackle climate change head-on. We must now focus on limiting the magnitude and duration of “overshoot” – how much global temperatures exceed the 1.5°C limit. Every fraction of a degree our planet warms, and every year spent there, will inflict irreversible ecological damage. A new report, developed by my research team at Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, asks a simple question: what can Australia do to limit this overshoot? Read more: A record-shattering El Niño is almost here. Here’s what that means for the world’s weather A worrying future Our latest research suggests the world can still limit peak warming to about 1.7°C, reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the 2060s, and bring warming back below 1.5°C by 2100. But only if governments take urgent and ambitious action. Fossil fuels – including oil, coal and gas – account for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To curb climate...

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IN JUNE 2023 the world’s biggest development bank seemed to be undergoing a transformation. At a summit in Paris, the president of the World Bank, which for 70 years had focused only on tackling global poverty, announced plans to reserve a large portion of lending for projects to alleviate climate change and its effects. The bank’s then newish boss, Ajay Banga, had been hired in part for his green credentials, having pledged to plant 100m trees in his previous job as the chief executive of Mastercard, and he was proving popular. The crowd, which included Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, celebrated with a standing ovation. As Mr Banga left the stage, he was diverted by Mr Abiy’s aide for a selfie. A year later the World Bank ponied up $43bn, or 44% of the year’s lending, nearly hitting its formal target of channelling 45% of its loans to such causes. Yet some at the World Bank think that ditching climate targets will make no difference to the institution’s portfolio. New climate projects could simply be repackaged and approved as development loans. If so, many staff will consider that to be a victory...

The small silver lining is that it’s still possible for this to be a temporary overshoot of the target. If nations redouble their efforts to phase out fossil fuels and reduce other sources of emissions, they could limit peak warming to 1.8°C and then use carbon removal methods to bring temperatures back to 1.5°C or below this century. In 2026, the world is already about 1.4°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, and the damage and death toll from climate-boosted disasters is ramping up. The United Kingdom is warning of possible food shortages amid a historic drought. Wildfires hit new areas in France and Spain, while glaciers are melting rapidly and the oceans are at their hottest level on record. The enormous El Niño event emerging in the Pacific is likely to bring major disruption. Every fraction of a degree makes things worse. There are no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5°C. Urgent cuts to emissions and efforts to protect the most vulnerable are our best remaining options. Failure to do so risks irreversible harm. Why does 1.5°C matter so much? The 2015 Paris Agreement established a shared goal for the world: keep the rise in global average temperatures above pre-industrial...

For over a decade, the world has been trying to limit global warming to 1.5°C. That’s no longer possible, according to a new United Nations report. We will likely pass 1.5°C in 2030. That’s not good news for anyone, least of all Australia’s Pacific Island neighbours who face rapidly rising seas. In response to the report, Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr said: It is hard to overstate the depth of emotion for those of us living on the frontline after having fought so hard to put the 1.5 degree limit at the heart of the Paris Agreement […] calls for greater ambition are no longer enough — we need to see an urgent and unprecedented increase in political will and investment in a climate safe future The small silver lining is that it’s still possible for this to be a temporary overshoot of the target. If nations redouble their efforts to phase out fossil fuels and reduce other sources of emissions, they could limit peak warming to 1.8°C and then use carbon removal methods to bring temperatures back to 1.5°C or below this century. In 2026, the world is already about 1.4°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, and the damage and...

Five years ago, the Oireachtas overwhelmingly agreed that tackling climate change could no longer depend on political goodwill or commitments that might quietly disappear when difficult decisions had to be made. The Climate Act 2021 put Ireland’s climate ambition into law with Section 15 of that legislation requiring public bodies to take the law seriously when exercising their functions, and to make sure climate commitments survive beyond political promises and actually shape what Government and public bodies do. The democratic mandate could hardly have been clearer with the Climate Act passed by an extraordinary 129 votes to 10. It established legally binding carbon budgets and sectoral ceilings, and laid out a 51% emissions reduction target by 2030. Now, as our climate breaks down, and we experience its deadly impacts, this Government, in the face of a unified opposition in the Oireachtas, has moved to disapply climate obligations for infrastructure, Dublin Airport emissions and a new gas (LNG) pipeline. This doesn’t make sense when we need to do the very opposite — strengthen climate commitments to secure our future. Continuing to build an economic model around data centres does not make sense either. They already consume around 23% of Ireland’s electricity,...

The world’s 20 largest data center companies have set ambitious targets to cut the carbon emissions from their giant portfolios. The vast majority of them are moving in the wrong direction — fast. These businesses include technology giants like Google, Amazon and Meta and owner-developers like Blackstone's QTS and Digital Realty. The revelations from a first-of-its-kind investigation by Bisnow show that time is running out for these companies to achieve the environmental targets they committed to before the growth of artificial intelligence spurred a huge acceleration in the data center build-out. Data center development is expanding exponentially, and the companies that own and use data centers primarily rely on fossil fuels to power them, creating emissions that are heating the globe. Many are building their own gas-burning power plants to ensure they get more computing power online faster. That means the path to limiting carbon output to a level that keeps climate change in check is getting far narrower, experts told Bisnow. With data center construction responsible for an increasingly large share of economic growth in the U.S. and beyond, money is trumping the environment. “People do not properly monitor what is going on and do not know the scale...

Minister for Climate Darragh O’Brien has asked the European Commission if a flexible approach could be taken to companies in Ireland that are unlikely to fulfil obligations under upcoming climate targets. In a letter to European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, O’Brien raised doubts about companies’ ability to meet carbon capture and storage (CCS) targets required by 2030. O’Brien wrote that Ireland had no law permitting carbon storage and “limited sites that may be suitable for CO2 geological storage”. “Ireland is not well placed to be a front-runner in CCS development,” he said in the letter released under Freedom of Information laws. O’Brien said the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) would establish penalties for companies that did not comply with CCS requirements. “While CO2 storage will contribute to environmental targets, I would like to explore if there are any flexibilities as to how we reach our climate ambition,” he wrote. CCS, also called Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS), involves capturing carbon emissions at source before they escape into the atmosphere and storing the gas indefinitely. Storage options are at an early stage of development, but some countries are using or planning to use undersea or underground chambers where gas or...

New Zealand is at risk of missing all of its climate targets, and time to get back on track is running out, the Climate Change Commission says. The commission says lagging progress on switching to low-emissions technology is no longer just a climate change problem: it's preventing households from saving money on energy costs. Its annual emissions monitoring report said New Zealand's climate pollution had gradually decreased over time. However, progress stalled in 2024, and the pace of reductions now needed to double to get back on track, it said. If the government did not come up with new ways to save emissions within the next year or two, the country would not be able to meet some of its targets at all, the commission warned. "The time available to correct course is now short," the report said. "Many emissions reductions depend on decisions made well before the reductions are realised, and some options ... are no longer available." That included planting more forestry, which would not mature quickly enough to meet the nearest targets. The risks were across nearly every sector, the report said. Agricultural emission pricing had been axed, and current government policies and industry incentive schemes were...

The European Commission's eagerly awaited proposals for a reform of the EU's carbon market (EU ETS) triggered a wide range of reactions from stakeholders in Germany. The government praised the changes, which would largely amount to weakening the ETS, while most climate activists said the changes would slow emission reductions, and industry groups lamented the reform didn't go far enough. “The proposals confirm that emissions trading remains at the heart of European climate policy and is the most important market-based driver of investment in climate-friendly technologies,” German environment minister Carsten Schneider said. “Not every industry can move towards climate neutrality at the same pace. Energy-intensive sectors, in particular, face enormous technological and economic challenges.” The reform of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is one of the most important climate policy decisions of this decade. The EU must update its main tool for cutting greenhouse gas emissions to prepare for the years after 2030, but faces pressure from businesses and some governments to ease the burden on struggling industries. Think tank E3G said the reform is “a key test of whether Europe can strengthen the investment case for cleaner industry while maintaining a credible and politically durable climate...

Beijing has signalled unyielding conviction in its latest action plan to peak emissions within five years, as the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases vows to bolster nuclear and green offerings while ensuring energy security for the economy and burgeoning artificial intelligence sector. Key metrics in the plan include lowering China’s carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 17 per cent by 2030, relative to 2025 levels, and raising the share of non-fossil energy in total consumption to 25 per cent – reinforcing targets set in recent years. To wean the nation off fossil-fuel sources, which still make up the majority of supplies, the plan details measures including the clean substitution of coal and the optimisation of oil and gas structures. The country’s use of coal and oil will peak during the 2026-to-2030 period, it declared. The plan also highlights the need to transform computing infrastructure – the backbone of China’s AI sector – as the drive to shift the growth pattern and close the tech gap with the United States has seen electricity demand skyrocket. New data and computing facilities will primarily use power from non-fossil-fuel supplies, the plan said. The world’s second-largest economy will also...

A House of Commons committee is calling on the Carney government to release a “revised and fully costed plan” to meet Canada’s 2030 climate targets and release updated modelling on the cumulative impact of the recent parade of rollbacks to federal climate policy. Those two items led off a list of 30 recommendations in a report on Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, released in late April by the House Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. The 271-page plan, released in 2022 and mandated under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, charted a path for Canada to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40%, from 739 to 443 million tonnes per year, between 2005 and 2030. At the time, the target hit the low end of the country’s 40 to 45% commitment under the Paris climate agreement. The government has 120 days to respond to the report. The report cited expert testimony on the cascading impacts of climate change, the costs of failing to take action, and Canada’s international emissions reduction obligations, citing the government’s own conclusion in 2025 that emissions would only fall 28% below 2005 levels by 2030, far off the legislated target. “Current policies, combined with policy...

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), one of the key organizations focused on aligning corporate environmental sustainability action with the global goals of limiting climate change, announced today the launch of its new five-year strategy, marking a significant expansion in focus for the organization from target-setting and validation to supporting companies in the implementation of their climate goals. Key elements of the SBTi’s new 2026 – 2030 strategy include moving towards a more tailored target-setting approaches with a focus on what companies can influence, a new “pivot toward implementation,” addressing fragmentation in the climate standards ecosystem, and expanding its coverage in high-emitting sectors and regions. The SBTi was founded in 2015 with the goal to establish science-based environmental target setting as a standard corporate practice. The organizations’ key functions include defining and promoting best practice in emissions reductions and net-zero targets in line with climate science, providing technical assistance to companies who set science-based targets, and providing companies with independent assessment and validation of their emissions reduction targets. The organization published its flagship cross-sector Corporate Net-Zero Standard in 2021, and is currently in the process of developing an update to the standard, Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2. The SBTi appointed former...

SINGAPORE – Amid the tough global business environment and current technology constraints in decarbonising aviation and power generation, investment giant Temasek is unlikely to meet its 2030 climate targets, said its chief Dilhan Pillay on May 18. However, Temasek is not retreating from its 2050 net-zero ambition, added its chief executive at the opening dinner of the annual Ecosperity conference, its flagship sustainability finance event. Its 2030 targets involve halving planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions across the portfolio of companies it has stakes in to 11 million tonnes, from 22 million tonnes in 2010. Temasek has, however, reduced the carbon intensity of investments by 52 per cent since 2010 – meaning that its portfolio businesses emit less for every dollar of value. Its portfolio emissions for the 2025 financial year were 21 million tonnes, while its own operational emissions were about 19,700 tonnes. More than 80 per cent of its portfolio emissions come from five big corporates: Singapore Airlines (SIA), utilities firm Sembcorp Industries, agri-business giant Olam Group, PSA International, and communications, data centres and IT firm ST Telemedia. SIA, in which Temasek has a 53 per cent stake, contributed 43 per cent of the total emissions, while 22 per cent...

Germany could fail to meet its 2030 climate targets, according to a new assessment by the country’s independent Council of Experts on Climate Change. The advisory body warned that current government measures may not deliver the emissions reductions officials project, with Germany potentially exceeding its carbon budget by up to 100 million metric tons of CO2. Experts also pointed to outdated assumptions in the energy and building sectors, while emissions from transport and construction continued to rise in 2025. The findings come despite an €8 billion climate package introduced earlier this year to support renewable energy expansion and electric vehicle adoption as Germany works toward climate neutrality by 2045. *** Further reading: Germany set to miss 2030 climate goals, independent body warns Featured ESG Tool of the Week: Klimado – Navigating climate complexity just got easier. Klimado offers a user-friendly platform for tracking local and global environmental shifts, making it an essential tool for climate-aware individuals and organizations. China records sharp rise in solar exports China’s solar exports rose 60% year-on-year in April, according to new customs data, showing continued global demand for renewable energy technology despite recent policy changes. Shipments of solar cells reached $3.12 billion, with export growth...

Figures showing the latest trends in global forest loss are out: the World Research Institute’s Global Forest Watch (GFW) has just published Forest Pulse. Compiled from recent data and analysis, it reveals the dominant drivers of primary forest loss, region by region. The news is daunting: In 2025 we lost 4.3 million hectares of primary forest – more than 11 football pitches of forest per minute, a total area the size of Denmark. Tropical primary forest loss remains 46% higher than a decade ago. That commendable global commitment to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030? Countries are deforesting 70% more than they can if we are to meet the target. GFW’s presentation of deforestation data and regional drivers makes the causes of deforestation colourfully clear. All over the world, wildfires are increasing and fire seasons worsening – including across Europe, where soaring summer heat and drought drove record forest loss in 2025. Global forest loss to fires is so stunning overall (52% North America, 57% Oceania, 63% Asia), that GFW separates out fire loss, in order to consider other drivers. This separation show that in Europe, a shocking 90% of tree cover loss is due to logging, earning us...

Western Australia has blazing sun, stunning Indian Ocean beaches, wide open roads and, for the first time in a while, a potentially successful AFL team. It also has an occasional separatist urge. That tendency may partly explain why its government thinks it shouldn’t be expected to act on the climate crisis in the same way as the population on the east coast. Anthony Albanese and members of his cabinet have given implicit support to its climate position. The prime minister has fallen in behind the WA Labor government as the premier, Roger Cook, has backed fossil fuel expansions and argued that an increase in the state’s emissions would be good for the climate because its gas exports reduce coal burning in Asia. Documents released under freedom of information laws show the government has advice that tells another story: that WA gas risks slowing Asia’s shift to clean energy. Meanwhile, annual pollution from the resource-rich state was up 4%, based on the latest data. Its emissions have grown 17% since 2005 while those from every other state have been reduced, mostly due to the rise of the gas export industry. Despite this, the WA government has continued to argue it is...

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Canadian banks are continuing to retreat from their climate commitments. Royal Bank of Canada and Scotiabank both announced on April 16 they are abandoning their interim climate targets. Scotiabank is going a step further by entirely ditching its net-zero by 2050 target. Both blamed changes in government policy. “Recent government policy decisions are likely to decelerate the uptake of decarbonization activities in the North American economy,” reads an explanation of the decision in Scotiabank’s 2026 sustainability report, published April 16. “These decisions include curbing major parts of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US, and, in Canada, the elimination of the federal fuel charge, the decision not to implement the oil and gas emissions cap, and the postponement and elimination of other climate targets and policies.” It also blamed slow uptake of carbon capture technology, uncertainty around “the future of industrial carbon pricing,” and uncertainty around EV uptake given Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to eliminate the EV sales mandate and US President Donald Trump’s abandonment of emissions standards for cars and trucks. Another factor in Scotiabank’s decision to abandon its interim and long-term climate targets is that “projected demand for energy is higher than initially assumed, driven in part...