Climate Effects under the EIA Directive

Screening for Sustainability seminar - “Climate Effects under the EIA Directive”

Benoit Mayer, Professor of Climate Law at the School of Law at the University of Reading.

Climate Effects under the EIA Directive

The EU Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive was amended in 2014 to require developers to assess the significant direct and indirect effects of their projects on climate change. Sixteen national lawsuits have already sought to determine which indirect climate effects had to be assessed. Courts have often required the assessment of the downstream combustion emissions from oil-and-gas extraction projects, but they have otherwise been divided, including on the need to assess spillover effects such as market substitution. Judges have presumed that only those effects with a ‘sufficient’ causal link to the project had to be assessed, but they have struggled to define a test of causal proximity. This article argues that significance, rather than causal proximity, should be the main touchstone for determining whether a climate effect should be assessed under the EIA Directive.

The seminar will consist of 20-30 minutes presentation, followed by a discussion.

This seminar series is made possible by generous contributions from Formas, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the Centre for European Studies at Lund University and the Lund University Human Rights Profile Area.