Extreme Climate as a Legal Issue and the Birth of a New Form of Liability
Summer 2025 is not merely a meteorological event to endure. It has become a proving ground for the law.
With record-breaking temperatures, increasing heat stress, and tangible consequences for health and labor organization, climate change has now entered the legal dimension, shifting from a scientific phenomenon to a normative fact.
June 2025 was the third hottest month ever recorded globally, with significant anomalies across Europe, Asia, and North America. Italy is among the hardest-hit countries: temperatures above 40 °C and working conditions rendered untenable. What’s new, compared to the past, is that the law is no longer standing by as a mere observer.
From Regional Ordinances to International Courts: Climate Damage Becomes Positive Law
Several Italian regions – including Sicily, Lazio, Puglia, and Campania – have issued ordinances that prohibit outdoor work during the hottest hours of the day, particularly in high-risk sectors such as agriculture, construction, and mining.
These are not just health or civil protection measures: they are legal instruments that attest to the concrete danger posed by climate change, showing that the emergency has now become a systemic parameter in both administrative and labor law. Meanwhile, at the international level, legal norms and jurisprudence are rapidly evolving.
The International Court of Justice has affirmed that States can be held civilly liable for climate-altering emissions and for failing to comply with environmental obligations. At the same time, the European Court of Human Rights has acknowledged violations of fundamental rights(life, health, private and family life) by governments that have failed to act against climate change. In short, climate liability is now legally recognizable and enforceable.
Heat Ordinances as Evidence of Causation
Local ordinances not only have a regulatory function but also carry evidentiary value: they may serve as documentary evidence in legal actions based on environmental liability or the violation of fundamental rights.
They demonstrate that public authorities must intervene—with resources and operational limitations—to mitigate damage caused by external factors linked to global warming.
This enables the construction of a clear legal and logical chain:
- The climate damage is identifiable and measurable, based on scientific data and regional regulatory acts;
- Responsibilities are traceable, as a small number of major energy corporations are responsible for a large share of historical global emissions;
- Legal tools for civil and environmental liability exist and can be activated at national and transnational levels;
- Public protection measures, such as heat-related work bans, can serve as proof of the causal linkbetween polluting conduct and harm to health, labor, or public finances.
Climate Law: Toward Integrated Liability
This evolution requires a paradigm shift: environment, labor, and health are no longer separate spheres, but interdependent sectors governed by a logic of integrated responsibility.
Those who pollute, or continue to profit from harmful emissions, can no longer ignore the systemic consequences of their actions.
Globally, this is evidenced by numerous lawsuits filed by associations, Indigenous communities, and young activists in jurisdictions such as the United States, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and New Zealand. Many courts are now recognizing the right to a healthy environment as a human right and are imposing duties of prevention and compensation on states and corporations.
The Time for Climate Law Is Now
Summer 2025 marks a turning point—not only in planetary temperature, but in legal awareness.
The law can no longer passively observe global warming as a technical matter: it is called upon to act, to sanction, to compensate, and to prevent. Legal instruments, precedents, and normative frameworks are already in place.
The real challenge lies in their practical application, in building coordinated legal actions and, above all, in the political and judicial will to recognize climate change for what it is: a matter of justice.
