The UNEP Global Climate Litigation Report: 2020 Status Review provides an overview of the current state of climate change litigation globally, as well as an assessment of global climate change litigation trends. It finds that a rapid increase in climate litigation has occurred around the world.

This is a report submitted under the Collaborative Instruments for Ambitious Climate Action (CI-ACA), showing commitment of countries participating in climate change initiatives and how they have positioned their contributions towards the goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

Levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached another new record high, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). There is no sign of a reversal in this trend, which is driving long-term climate change, sea level rise, ocean acidification and more extreme weather.

This report gives an overview of the literature on greenhouse gas emissions neutrality, as targeted in the Paris Agreement to achieve a ‘balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removal by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century’.