The Emergence of Climate Assessment as a Customary Law Obligation

Abstract

This document presents one view in a debate on the relevance of environmental impact assessment as a tool for climate change mitigation. In this piece, I argue that CA is emerging as a rule of customary international law, and that, moreover, it is a potentially useful mitigation tool. In another piece included in the same volume, Alexander Zahar questions the meaningfulness of CA, arguing that it is impossible to determine what constitutes a significant, excessive, or disproportionate emission of greenhouse gases in the case of a proposed activity subject to CA, or at all.