The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change grabbed the world's attention last week with the release of its report warning that global warming could reach 1.5°C above preindustrial times — the gateway to irreversible climate disruption — as soon as 2030.

The effects of climate change are inextricably linked to complex questions of social and economic justice, the subject of a public panel discussion at Windsor Law on Monday, October 22.

“The worst impacts of unabated climate change will be felt first and foremost by those communities and countries that contributed the least to the problem and have least capacity to cope,” says Patricia Galvao Ferreira, an assistant professor in transnational law and the moderator of “Legal Avenues for Climate Justice,” a roundtable of environmental law scholars at noon Monday in the Faculty Lounge, Ron W. Ianni Faculty of Law Building.

Participating are:

• Randall S. Abate, Rechnitz Family / Urban Coast Institute Endowed Chair in Marine and Environmental Law and Policy and professor in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at Monmouth University in New Jersey;
• David Estrin, co-chair of the International Bar Association expert working group drafting a Model Climate Change Legal Remedies Statute; and
• Cameron S.G. Jefferies, assistant professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta.

The discussion will range from the latest developments in relevant lawsuits in the United States to the draft proposal for a model statute to recent Canadian court decisions on the Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain oil pipelines.

The event also offers a complimentary lunch; RSVP to Danny Anger at Danny.Anger@uwindsor.ca.