Climate Change and the Individual: The Brazilian Perspective

Abstract

This chapter offers an overview of environmental litigation in Brazil and, in particular, of the mechanisms to protect both individual and collective rights to an ecologically balanced environment, as set forth by art. 225 of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988. The instruments available in the Brazilian legal system related to the environment and the prevention of climate change include popular, class and individual actions, which can seek to prevent, correct or remedy an act or omission which caused (or threatens to cause) environmental degradation. The defendant of said actions can be the government or other public authority, individuals, a private company or any group which is responsible for the harmful conduct. Liability for environmental damages is, as a rule, joint and several, and the damage must be repaired in full. Moreover, the agent can be held responsible regardless of whether it acted directly, authorized, oversaw, financed or benefited indirectly from the harmful action, being the existence of the environmental damage sufficient to characterize liability.