{"title":"司法阶段的科学:壳牌公司气候法庭案件中有争议的情景","authors":"Lisette van Beek , Jeroen Oomen , Haomiao Du","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104210","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Climate litigation is growing and increasingly targets corporate actors. Scientific evidence is crucial in climate court cases, for instance to determine plaintiffs’ standing to sue or the attribution of climate impacts to the defendants’ actions. However, it remains unknown how scientific expertise influences court decisions, what forms of expertise are used, how evidence is contested, and how judges engage with this expertise. We address this gap by studying the contestation of scientific evidence in the Dutch climate case Milieudefensie cs v. Royal Dutch Shell. This case is notable for its heavy reliance on model projections, most notably those presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In this paper, we take a dramaturgical approach to reconstruct how litigants contested scenario projections. Drawing on Hilgartner’s (2000) notion of stage management, we observe how plaintiffs and defendants deployed various dramatic techniques to enact and dispute the credibility and legitimacy of scenarios. The scenarios were most significantly contested by Shell, challenging both their credibility and relevance. Milieudefensie cs mainly questioned the scenarios' normative foundations. The case thereby signals that the role of science in climate politics is shifting, with the court room becoming increasingly important as a ‘stage’ where climate science is mobilised and contested. We conclude by reflecting on the shifting dynamics of climate politics; the position of the IPCC as crucial source of evidence in climate litigation, the limitations of models as key resource for climate litigation, and the emerging role of judges as gatekeepers of climate science.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104210"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Science on the judicial stage: Contested scenarios in the climate court case against Shell\",\"authors\":\"Lisette van Beek , Jeroen Oomen , Haomiao Du\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104210\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><div>Climate litigation is growing and increasingly targets corporate actors. Scientific evidence is crucial in climate court cases, for instance to determine plaintiffs’ standing to sue or the attribution of climate impacts to the defendants’ actions. However, it remains unknown how scientific expertise influences court decisions, what forms of expertise are used, how evidence is contested, and how judges engage with this expertise. We address this gap by studying the contestation of scientific evidence in the Dutch climate case Milieudefensie cs v. Royal Dutch Shell. This case is notable for its heavy reliance on model projections, most notably those presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In this paper, we take a dramaturgical approach to reconstruct how litigants contested scenario projections. Drawing on Hilgartner’s (2000) notion of stage management, we observe how plaintiffs and defendants deployed various dramatic techniques to enact and dispute the credibility and legitimacy of scenarios. The scenarios were most significantly contested by Shell, challenging both their credibility and relevance. Milieudefensie cs mainly questioned the scenarios' normative foundations. The case thereby signals that the role of science in climate politics is shifting, with the court room becoming increasingly important as a ‘stage’ where climate science is mobilised and contested. We conclude by reflecting on the shifting dynamics of climate politics; the position of the IPCC as crucial source of evidence in climate litigation, the limitations of models as key resource for climate litigation, and the emerging role of judges as gatekeepers of climate science.</div></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":313,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Environmental Science & Policy\",\"volume\":\"172 \",\"pages\":\"Article 104210\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":5.2000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-09-10\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Environmental Science & Policy\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"93\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901125002266\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"环境科学与生态学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Science & Policy","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901125002266","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Science on the judicial stage: Contested scenarios in the climate court case against Shell
Climate litigation is growing and increasingly targets corporate actors. Scientific evidence is crucial in climate court cases, for instance to determine plaintiffs’ standing to sue or the attribution of climate impacts to the defendants’ actions. However, it remains unknown how scientific expertise influences court decisions, what forms of expertise are used, how evidence is contested, and how judges engage with this expertise. We address this gap by studying the contestation of scientific evidence in the Dutch climate case Milieudefensie cs v. Royal Dutch Shell. This case is notable for its heavy reliance on model projections, most notably those presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In this paper, we take a dramaturgical approach to reconstruct how litigants contested scenario projections. Drawing on Hilgartner’s (2000) notion of stage management, we observe how plaintiffs and defendants deployed various dramatic techniques to enact and dispute the credibility and legitimacy of scenarios. The scenarios were most significantly contested by Shell, challenging both their credibility and relevance. Milieudefensie cs mainly questioned the scenarios' normative foundations. The case thereby signals that the role of science in climate politics is shifting, with the court room becoming increasingly important as a ‘stage’ where climate science is mobilised and contested. We conclude by reflecting on the shifting dynamics of climate politics; the position of the IPCC as crucial source of evidence in climate litigation, the limitations of models as key resource for climate litigation, and the emerging role of judges as gatekeepers of climate science.
期刊介绍:
Environmental Science & Policy promotes communication among government, business and industry, academia, and non-governmental organisations who are instrumental in the solution of environmental problems. It also seeks to advance interdisciplinary research of policy relevance on environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity, environmental pollution and wastes, renewable and non-renewable natural resources, sustainability, and the interactions among these issues. The journal emphasises the linkages between these environmental issues and social and economic issues such as production, transport, consumption, growth, demographic changes, well-being, and health. However, the subject coverage will not be restricted to these issues and the introduction of new dimensions will be encouraged.