Lawyers have a role to play in responding to climate change
Questions about justice and equality are posed by climate change. lawyers from all fields of practise play a role in the creation of an response.
I have put forward a motion on climate leadership, which has been established with colleagues across Canada and which was endorsed by the Indigenous Law, the Labor and Jobs Division, the Municipal Law Division and the Women Lawyers Forum at the Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Bar Association 2020 (CBA). The motion was not passed, but due to technical problems with the voting process the Council decides to annul the vote and to retable the resolution at the next AGM.
The discussion on this motion at the AGM told us all why we think we have issues of justice and equity to tackle the climate change and why lawyers from many fields of practise have a part to play in reacting to the consequences of the changing environment and finding ways to speed up our transition to a less carbon-intensive society. I am pleased to be able to hold the conversation here and before the next AGM.
No debate regarding the science of climate change
The CBA has already recognised the serious economic and environmental implications of climate change and of Canada's response for Canada's future. The CBA urged the federal, regional and territorial governments in its 2011 resolution to take urgent steps to cooperation on the establishment and implementation of substantive national climate laws, including compulsory greenhouse gas emissions reduction and carbon pricing. Canada ratified the Paris Agreement in 2016 and agreed on a global consensus that the global average temperature should reach below 2 ° C above pre-industrial levels, while striving to limit it to 1.5 ° C in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Although I understand the mechanics of the Paris agreement, my friend Mr Major disagreed, he disagreed with the validity of the temperature objectives.Other bar associations https://en.search.wordpress.com/?src=organic&q=indigenous lawyer are already acting
In 2012, the International Bar Association (IBA) created the Climate Change Justice and Human Rights Task Force. Its objective was to support the IBA in assessing the challenges to national and international legal regimes on climate change, with a focus on justice implications and deficiencies, and who can i contact for free legal advice to make recommendations accordingly. The outcome was their 2014 report, Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption. The broad scope of the Task Force's work — which included environmental law, human rights law, trade law (including investment law), and international law (including territorial sovereignty, health, food and environmental security, immigration, and intellectual property) — illustrates the breadth of the legal implications of climate change. The Task Force's concluded that "[e]xisting legal mechanisms addressing mitigation, adaptation and remediation of climate change are failing to cope with the scale of the global issue and its wide-ranging impact on individuals." That is a call for lawyers to consider how we can enhance our legal regimes to respond to the challenges of climate change.
In 2019, the American Bar Association (ABA) passed a resolution calling on all levels of government to take actions to reduce emissions to net-zero as soon as possible, similar to the CBA's 2011 resolution. The ABA then goes a step further and "urges lawyers to engage in pro bono activities to aid efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change, and to advise their clients of the risks and opportunities that climate change provides."
Lawyers around the world are actively searching for ways to engage with their profession on the issue of climate change. British lawyers are urging their law society to take a leadership role by informing lawyers of legal implications of climate change and finding appropriate remedies. Australian lawyers are calling on their Law Council to declare a climate emergency and take action to address it.
Necessary transitions will require legal support from many practice areas
Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees will require rapid, far-reaching land, energy, industry, buildings, transportation and cities transformations. Advocates are unique in the identification of new tools for supporting that transition and hundreds of possible legal instruments have already been identified to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. These instruments include a widespread range of means to help build a low carbon economy, and are not only the usual suspects of reductions in emissions (regulations, emissions trading, etc.). Lawyers may play a part in the growth of such methods in other areas of practise. Essential experience will be offered in accounting , business law, city law, procurement, contract law, real estate and many other fields.
The draught resolution on climate leadership seeks to promote and assist lawyers in their constructive creation of these legal instruments. In contrast to my friend, the pandemic COVID-19 is an example of what preparation is important. In contrast to an unexpected pandemic, the impact of climate change is widespread and serious and we as a profession are given an opportunity to consider how we are going to respond.
Law reform should be informed by fairness and respect for human and Indigenous rights
Climate change is threatening human rights and injustices. There is also a risk of more injustice if human and aboriginal rights do not direct our response to climate change. "Environmental justice as a term gives us the chance to understand and answer climate change as ethical and how it applies to issues of greater justice .... climate justice aims at balancing climate change with human rights debates in an equal way for the most at risk climatic communities."
CBA Directorates, Board, Committees and Subcommittees are asked in their submissions on the proposed policy reform and in the creation of education programmes, to take into account the implications of climate change and climate justice. How these entities respond to this request, and what they conclude, will be up to them.
Following ABA 's direction, the resolution calls upon lawyers to: take on greenhouse gas emissions pro-bono activities, adapt to climate change, and advocate for climate justice; advise clients on climate change risks and potential; and make efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to their practises in accordance with the usefulness of climate protection. Individual responses to this call will be at each lawyer's discretion.
Via a study of old theories on the false dichotomy between economy and climate, We do not find solutions. Next, to consider what climate change means for our practise areas. We need to think creatively, be involved, and include our entire profession 's expertise. Firstly, we need to review our laws and see if our mutual commitment and justice and equality can be interpreted and adapted.