In response to a lawsuit filed by several civil society organizations and a group of experts in January 2024, the Constitutional Court of Colombia issued a ruling six months later determining that environmental impact assessments (EIAs) “must include an assessment of climate change impacts.” This assessment will be required for environmental license applications or renewals submitted in Colombia from August 1, 2025, onward.
The plaintiffs argued that Article 57 of Law 99 of 1993 (General Environmental Law) was obsolete and unconstitutional because it did not consider the climate crisis as a determining factor when assessing the severity of environmental damage caused by a project, work, or activity. By not including the obligation to examine the climate variable in environmental impact assessments, the law violated constitutional and international law standards.
This is the first lawsuit of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean. The ruling offers an opportunity to improve environmental impact assessment processes so that countries' economic development is better aligned with climate change mitigation and adaptation standards, providing them with more tools to steer their production toward genuine sustainable development.
More information here
In response to a lawsuit filed by several civil society organizations and a group of experts in January 2024, the Constitutional Court of Colombia issued a ruling six months later determining that environmental impact assessments (EIAs) “must include an assessment of climate change impacts.” This assessment will be required for environmental license applications or renewals submitted in Colombia from August 1, 2025, onward.
The plaintiffs argued that Article 57 of Law 99 of 1993 (General Environmental Law) was obsolete and unconstitutional because it did not consider the climate crisis as a determining factor when assessing the severity of environmental damage caused by a project, work, or activity. By not including the obligation to examine the climate variable in environmental impact assessments, the law violated constitutional and international law standards.
This is the first lawsuit of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean. The ruling offers an opportunity to improve environmental impact assessment processes so that countries' economic development is better aligned with climate change mitigation and adaptation standards, providing them with more tools to steer their production toward genuine sustainable development.
More information here