WHERE THERE'S "CLIMATE-CHANGE" TALK, THERE'S MONEY – AT 9:23 A.M. ET:  Many climate-change skeptics have pointed out that a great deal of money is involved in the subject.  There is grant money, there are new technological gimmicks (workable or not), there are new companies that offer climate-change "services" (like carbon credits), and now there is the entry of the learned ladies and gentlemen of the bar.  From AFP:

PARIS — From being a marginal and even mocked issue, climate-change litigation is fast emerging as a new frontier of law where some believe hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake.

Compensation for losses inflicted by man-made global warming would be jaw-dropping, a payout that would make tobacco and asbestos damages look like pocket money.

Imagine: a country or an individual could get redress for a drought that destroyed farmland, for floods and storms that created an army of refugees, for rising seas that wiped a small island state off the map.

In the past three years, the number of climate-related lawsuits has ballooned, filling the void of political efforts in tackling greenhouse-gas emissions.

Eyeing the money-spinning potential, some major commercial law firms now place climate-change litigation in their Internet shop window.

Seminars on climate law are often thickly attended by corporations that could be in the firing line -- and by the companies that insure them.

However, there is also a bit of good news here.  Courts aren't genuflecting before the new legal wizardry:

But legal experts sound a note of caution, warning that this is a new and mist-shrouded area of justice.

Many obstacles lie ahead before a Western court awards a cent in climate damages and even more before the award is upheld on appeal.

"There's a large number of entrepreneurial lawyers and NGOs who are hunting around for a way to gain leverage on the climate problem," said David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California at San Diego.

"The number of suits filed has increased radically. But the number of suits claiming damages from climate change that have been successful remains zero."

COMMENT:  This is a well-reported story, worth reading.  The implications go beyond lawsuits, and into the possibilities that corporations and entrpreneurs will have to practice extreme caution, which can stifle creativity, to avoid future legal problems.

How big is this?  Consider:  Columbia University's law school has established a Center for Climate Change Law. 

Everybody duck.

January 24, 2011