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Heatwave Study May Fuel Global Warming Lawsuits

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - A study of a 2003 heatwave in Europe may give Pacific
islanders and environmentalists new ammunition for legal cases blaming the
United States for global warming, advocates said on Thursday.

Claims linked to climate change could dwarf billion-dollar awards against
tobacco companies if U.N. forecasts to 2100 of rising temperatures, higher
sea levels, catastrophic storms and droughts turn out to be true, they
said.

"This is the kind of evidence that will help those seeking compensation,"
Peter Roderick, director of the Climate Justice Program which advises
plaintiffs, said of a study of Europe's 2003 heatwave published on
Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The British-based authors said human activity, especially emissions of heat-
trapping gases from fossil fuels, had at least doubled the risks of
heatwaves like last year's in which more than 20,000 people died.

The conclusion is a shift from studies saying that everything from more
frequent hurricanes to floods could simply be statistical freaks even
though they are consistent with U.N. projections of warming caused by a
build-up of greenhouse gases.

"One study is not going to create an entire new area of jurisprudence, but
this is an important step," Steve Sawyer, climate policy director at
Greenpeace, said of the Nature study.

"Like tobacco lawsuits, it may take decades to be successful," he said.
U.S. officials dismiss any cases, saying Washington is acting to curb
growth of greenhouse gas emissions and aggressively funding research into
renewable energy.

Greenpeace is involved in lawsuits accusing the U.S. Export-Import Bank of
wrongly funding fossil fuel projects in poor nations and another accusing
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of failing to rein in greenhouse
gases.

SUE OR BE SWAMPED?

Low-lying Pacific island states including Tuvalu, at risk of disappearing
if sea levels rise, are considering suing the United States, the world's
top source of greenhouse gases, to force it to do more to curb global
warming.

Washington has taken the brunt of legal actions since President Bush pulled
out of the U.N.'s 128-nation Kyoto protocol in 2001, saying its goals for
cutting emissions would be too costly and wrongly excluded poor nations.

Writing in Nature, the experts said that the heatwave study still meant
huge barriers to any claimants.

"It will almost always be impossible to say that 'but for' greenhouse
gases, this event would never have occurred," wrote physicist Myles Allen
of Oxford University and senior London lawyer Richard Lord.

"Other legal questions about whether emitters should have foreseen damage,
and their fault or negligence, will present formidable hurdles to
claimants," they said.

Among other cases, eight U.S. states and New York City filed suit against
five U.S. power companies in July, accusing them of stoking climate change.
The firms have asked for the case to be dismissed, arguing that climate
change is a matter for the president and Congress.

And away from the courts, Inuit hunters argue that melting Arctic ice
threatens their livelihood and plan to petition a commission of the
Organization of American States to brand climate change a human rights
abuse by the United States.

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