Climpact

Episode 1

12 October 2026

The CLIMPACT team at one table: what counts as an impact of climate litigation, how lawyers and sociologists read the same case, why a backlash is a finding too, and how we built TRACE.

The People Behind CLIMPACT and the Work Ahead

Thousands of climate cases have been filed around the world, and what they change, whether they are won or lost, is still an open question. In this first episode of CLIMPACT Conversations the team sits at the same table to explain how we set out to answer it: what we count as an impact, how lawyers and sociologists read the same case, why a backlash is a finding as much as a success, and how we built TRACE, the tool that follows what courts and lawyers do with a climate judgment once it is out.

IN THIS EPISODE Why CLIMPACT exists, and why the scholarship on impacts still lacks evidence gathered for the purpose Areas and sites of impact, building on Helen Duffy's work Urgenda, and why studies of the same case reach such different conclusions How lawyers and sociologists work on one case: case charts, surveys of litigants, press coverage and social network analysis When litigation backfires: Atrato, Smith v Fonterra, Neubauer and the politics that follow a judgment Before the courtroom: Atacameño communities, lithium extraction and environmental monitoring in Chile CLIMPACT TRACE: how it finds and reads citations across thousands of filings, why it runs on public infrastructure, and how every result is checked by a researcher Who this work is for, and what comes next

VOICES Giuseppe Naglieri, Principal Investigator of CLIMPACT Enrico Buono and Carlotta Garofalo , postdoctoral researchers in comparative law Costanza Azzuppardi , postdoctoral researcher in sociology Ciro Saracino and Gabriel Rojas , doctoral researchers

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE CLIMPACT TRACE, presented in public for the first time at the CLIMPACT Inaugural Conference, Shaping the Future of Climate Litigation Research, Bari, 12–13 October 2026: https://www.climpact.it Climpact LIT, the Litigation Impact Tracker, where anyone can report what followed a climate case: https://www.climpact.it/lit CLIMPACT Radar, our newsletter: https://www.climpact.it

ABOUT THE PODCAST CLIMPACT Conversations follows climate litigation beyond the gavel. Every month we take one question at a time with the scholars, lawyers and people who brought the cases. If there is a case or a person you would like to hear, write to us.

Website: https://www.climpact.it Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/climpactproject Write to us: climpact.stg@uniba.it

CLIMPACT , Charting the Landscape of Climate Litigation Impacts, is based at the University of Bari and funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research through the Italian Fund for Science (Starting Grant).