The Public Law Paradoxes of Climate Emergency Declarations

Abstract

Climate emergency declarations occupy a legally ambiguous space between emergency measure and political rhetoric. Their uncertain status in public law provides a unique opportunity to illuminate latent assumptions about emergencies and how they are regulated in law. This article analyzes climate emergency declarations in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. It argues that these climate emergency declarations reflect back a set of paradoxes about the legal regulation of emergencies – paradoxes about defining the emergency, how time regulates and contains emergency power, and who gets to respond to the emergency and how. These paradoxes challenge long-held and over-simplified assumptions about emergencies and allow us to see the complex ways in which public law regulates emergencies – a necessity in a climate-disrupted world.