Climate lawsuits a growing field shrouded in legal fog

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