Research Areas for Climate Litigation 2024 Report

The Union of Concerned Scientists interviewed 19 legal experts to identify critical research gaps in climate litigation. The report categorizes these into three priority areas—attribution science, human health, and economic modeling—and five strategic areas, including greenwashing and emissions accounting. A central cross-cutting theme is the need for research on losses and damages. The authors emphasize that while IPCC reports provide a foundation, litigation requires more granular, geographically specific data and better communication between scientists and legal teams to overcome barriers such as differing timelines and data gaps in the Global South.

• Attribution science is the primary research priority for establishing causal links between specific emissions and climate impacts, but it currently suffers from a 'Global North bias'. There is a critical need for new methods and data for the Global South and for research into more complex processes like tropical cyclones and human system impacts.
• There is a significant need for research connecting climate change to human health, specifically focusing on vulnerable groups such as infants, pregnant people, older adults, and people with disabilities, as well as the exacerbation of conditions like cardiovascular diseases and asthma.
• Economic research is vital for determining legal remedies, with a specific need for modeling that predicts future costs under different scenarios and quantifies the direct damages, adaptation expenses, and lost economic opportunities across various scales.
• Strategic research is needed to combat corporate disinformation and greenwashing, including the use of 'counterfactual temperature trajectories' to estimate what global temperatures would have been without specific corporate actions.
• A critical gap exists in standardized emissions tracking and 'fair share' analyses for corporations, particularly for understudied polluting industries like cement and fashion, and the role of the financial industry in supporting fossil fuel projects.
• Research on 'losses and damages'—the adverse impacts beyond the limits of adaptation—is a cross-cutting priority that must include both economic and non-economic losses, such as intangible cultural heritage and social structures.
• Barriers to effective litigation include a communication gap where scientific nuance does not reach legal teams, a discrepancy between slow scientific research timelines and fast legal case timelines, and the limited availability of full IPCC reports in languages other than English.

APA

Merner, L. D., Phillips, C. A., & Mulvey, K. (2024). Research Areas for Climate Litigation 2024 Report. Union of Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/Research-Areas-for-Climate-Litigation.pdf

Chicago

Merner, L. Delta, Carly A. Phillips, and Kathy Mulvey. Research Areas for Climate Litigation 2024 Report. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2024. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/Research-Areas-for-Climate-Litigation.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Merner |first1=L. Delta |last2=Phillips |first2=Carly A. |last3=Mulvey |first3=Kathy |title=Research Areas for Climate Litigation 2024 Report |publisher=Union of Concerned Scientists |date=September 2024 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/Research-Areas-for-Climate-Litigation.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{merner2024research, author = {Merner, L. Delta and Phillips, Carly A. and Mulvey, Kathy}, title = {{Research Areas for Climate Litigation 2024 Report}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2024}, month = sep, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/Research-Areas-for-Climate-Litigation.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }