Tessa Khan is an environmental lawyer who lives in the United Kingdom. She co-founded and is co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, which supports legal cases related to

climate change mitigation Climate change mitigation is action to limit climate change by reducing Greenhouse gas emissions, emissions of greenhouse gases or Carbon sink, removing those gases from the atmosphere. The recent rise in global average temperature is mostly caus ...

and

climate justice Climate justice is a concept that addresses the just division, fair sharing, and equitable distribution of the burdens of climate change and its mitigation and responsibilities to deal with climate change. "Justice", "fairness", and "equity" ar ...

. Khan has argued that national governments have knowingly profited from raising carbon dioxide levels and caused damage to the environment, including as part of the globally important precedent Climate Case Ireland.

Biography

Supreme Court of the Netherlands, The Hague 06

Tessa Khan has been involved in

human rights law International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law are primarily made up of treaties, ag ...

and advocacy campaigning. In Thailand she worked for a women's human-rights non-profit organization. While there in 2015 she learnt of a court ruling at The Hague ordering the Netherlands to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions. Inspired by the case, Khan moved to London to join Urgenda Foundation's legal team in 2016. Khan co-founded the Climate Litigation Network with Urgenda Foundation to support climate cases around the world. She serves as the Climate Litigation Network's co-director. Through the organization, she has successfully helped activist groups sue their own governments. It handles cases around the world, including Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, and South Korea. She supported cases in The Netherlands and Ireland that successfully challenged the adequacy of government plans to reduce emissions. In December 2019, in the ''

State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation ''State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation'' (Dutch: ''De Staat der Nederlanden v. Stichting Urgenda'') was a court case heard by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands in 2019 related to government efforts to curtail carbon dioxide emissions. ...

'' case, the

Supreme Court of the Netherlands The Supreme Court of the Netherlands ( nl, Hoge Raad der Nederlanden or simply ''Hoge Raad''), officially the High Council of the Netherlands, is the final court of appeal in civil, criminal and tax cases in the Netherlands, including Curaçao ...

ordered the government to scale back the capacity of coal power stations and oversee around €3 billion in investment for cutting carbon emissions. The win has been described by the Guardian as "the most successful climate lawsuit to date." In August 2020, in what is known as Climate Case Ireland, the

Supreme Court of Ireland , image = Coat of arms of Ireland.svg , imagesize = 120px , alt = , caption = Coat of Arms of Ireland , image2 = Four Courts, Dublin 2014-09-13.jpg , imagesize2 = , alt2 ...

ruled that its government must make a new and more ambitious plan to cut carbon. Ireland ranks third in greenhouse gas emissions per capita among European Union countries. Tessa Khan received the Climate Breakthrough Award in 2018. ''Time'' included her in its 2019 list of 15 women leading the fight against climate change. Khan, writing in '' The Guardian'' in July 2024, says that wealthy governments that position themselves as climate leaders namely theUS, Canada, Australia, Norway and theUK are as culpable for climate damage as the petrostates by continuing to refuse to abandon new oil and gas projects within their borders. , Khan is the executive director of the climate action organization Uplift.

External links

Uplift
aclimate campaign organization based in the United States which Khan currently leads

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Tessa 21st-century English women lawyers 21st-century English lawyers Women environmentalists Climate change law Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Climate Breakthrough awardees