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Climate change before the court

In the absence of an enforceable set of commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, concerned citizens may want to supplement international agreements on climate change. We suggest that litigation could have an important role to play.

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Correspondence to James Thornton.

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Thornton, J., Covington, H. Climate change before the court. Nature Geosci 9, 3–5 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2612

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