The International Bar Association, American Bar Association, Brazilian Bar Association and Law Society of England and Wales co-hosted the sideline event on the fringes of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the theme this year being: “Everything, everywhere, all at once: Why lawyers are essential to tackling the triple planetary crisis.”
Participants took a critical look at how much more impactful the international legal fraternity, from individual professionals to law organisations, has become over the past year in pushing the agenda for climate smart solutions in commercial undertakings at country and regional levels, and how this impact could be further improved by stronger teamwork going forward.
Discussions mostly dwelt on what was identified by general consensus as the elephant in the room: the lukewarm attitudes that most less-developed and low-income nations still harbour towards the whole concept of climate change and related threats.
It was noted that many governments, despite having endorsed the 2016 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, still don't have official policies in place to mitigate against climate risks, which makes it difficult for binding legal interventions to protect individual clients.
As one participant put it: “There are countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East that have shown themselves to be less keen on following protection guidelines against climate change than those in Europe and North America. They may be part of the Paris Agreement, but in practice they simply don’t see it as a priority issue needing full commitment on their part. It’s going to be very hard for us as lawyers to circumvent that fact.”
The discussion also highlighted the way more people in resource-poor countries are now taking lessons in law, with the specific aim of challenging big business over environmental issues. This includes opposing projects to resettle entire communities in new prefabricated homes where there are no safety measures against potential climate-related natural disasters.
A key takeaway from the meeting was how the concept of “climate lawyering” is fast becoming a new specialisation of the legal profession across the world. Panellists emphasised the need to get more lawyers to understand the difference between that and project lawyering in a general sense, and what it will take to strike a balance between the two when it comes to offering relevant legal advice to clients.
Much of the debate also focused on how to advise clients on following carbon markets and carbon credit price trends, understanding related disclosures on balance sheets, and what type of renewablè energy alternatives they should adopt to keep carbon emissions down.
Concluding the meeting, Prof Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger from the University of Cambridge noted that the process of getting all lawyers to start speaking the same language about carbon net zero may still be long and arduous.
“Climate change is the justice challenge of today but many lawyers are still in two minds about fostering or frustrating climate justice,” she remarked.
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