Is Climate Emergency a Constitutional Emergency?

Abstract

More than 2,000 public authorities worldwide have to date declared a “climate emergency”. Can these declarations be framed within the constitutional category of emergency? And what legal consequences do they entail? To answer these questions, this paper confronts the basic features of constitutional emergencies, as arising from legal scholarship and contemporary Constitutions, with the characteristics of the climate issue. The conclusion is that climate change cannot be framed within the category of constitutional emergency, but rather in that of constitutional crisis, as it does not require a temporary suspension of the constitutional order but a structural modification of it.