Why lawyers matter in a climate crisis

Why lawyers matter in a climate crisis

"Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones, with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live… until you’re the one filming it.”

– seen on social media

Lawyers, adept at problem solving, risk mitigation and relationship development have skills that are ideally honed to address the rapidly changing climate. While law firms have mostly been absent from key climate change discussions, the skillset they provide is a crucial step in meeting global emissions targets. This article looks at the current landscape and how the legal profession can translate its unique combination of skills into helping businesses transition towards a climate positive future.

Climate change: background and current state of emissions

In 2015, 197 countries came together at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris and unanimously agreed to limit global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to ‘pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to […] 1.5 degrees Celsius’. To meet this goal, greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere would need to peak before 2025 at the latest and decline by 43% by 2030. 

Here we are in 2025, now 10 years on from the Paris Agreement and only five years from the2030 target. So how are we doing? Ominously, 2024 was the first year to surpass the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit. Although a single year above this target does not mean the overall long-term target has been broken, it does imply that we aren’t where we wanted to be to mitigate the most extreme risks posed by climate change. Emissions have continued to rise year on year since the Paris Agreement was enacted, although the increase has slowed. 

The impacts of climate change that are already baked-in due to the high levels of atmospheric CO2 (currently 425.50 parts per million (ppm) and rising – where 350 ppm is considered the ‘safe’ limit) are dire. In 2024, a torrent of extreme weather events impacted societies across the globe and at all income levels, from fires to floods to droughts to deadly heatwaves and storms.

Meanwhile, the message from the new government in the United States, the world’s largest economy, seems to be coming to us from another reality, or perhaps a much earlier, more innocent decade. But even President Trump’s use of the decades-old adage of ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ in his inaugural speech, or that his administration’s official website on climate and the environment makes no mention of the climate crisis while promoting fossil fuels, the impacts of the rapidly changing climate caused by the burning of these fossil fuels will not stop the accelerating impacts, or the consequences for humans. 

A reason for optimism

Amid this landscape, however, there are still reasons for optimism. In 2024, global investment in renewable energy sources was set to be double that of fossil fuels and the cost of wind and solar fell below that of fossil fuels. The UK, a country that once took 65% of its electricity demand from coal, shut down its last coal plant in September, while wind power produced more electricity than coal and gas plants combined. 

Under the current Labour government, the UK has taken the lead in setting ambitious climate targets, announcing, at COP29, a new target for 2035 to decrease emissions by 81% from 1990 levels, upping the earlier target of 68% reduction. The UK was also one of the first countries to submit its updated NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution), which sits at the heart of the Paris Agreement and must be updated every five years. To meet this goal, the government has announced a plan to make Britain a clean energy superpower as one of its missions in the plan for change.

In doing so, Britain is driving investments in renewable energy, hydrogen and emission reducing technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) through avenues like the newly created company, Great British Energy, a publicly owned, clean energy company and Clean Power 2030, led by Chris Stark, formerly chief executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, to set out an action plan to drive the clean power agenda. 

Where does the legal profession sit in all of this? 

Following through on the plans laid out by the UK government will require major reform in the current regulatory, planning and consenting process to get these projects off the ground as quickly as they need to. As Chris Stark notes in his foreword to the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, “Britain has some of the world’s greatest clean energy resources, but we have planning and consenting processes that are far too slow to build the infrastructure needed to exploit them”. 

The transition to clean energy is one of the greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century, but businesses and investors alike need to know that any risk they take on to drive this transition will be backed by reliable financial support and competent contracts. Lawyers, who have been too keen to sit in the background and remain neutral service professionals, should be at the forefront of this action. Lawyers know well how to manage risks and codify clauses, which will be crucial to clients navigating their own net zero transitions and hoping to benefit from the current economic shift towards a climate positive world.

Tackling the climate crisis is not a niche specialism but an opportunity to be seized. Businesses are still at the start of their own net zero journey and are looking for help navigating the landscape. For those lawyers who choose to expand their skillset by embracing the need to take account of climate change risks, consequences and opportunities in every transaction, the opportunities to translate this to billable hours are immeasurable.

While there may be a blip in the momentum, the general direction is towards a future that’s electrified, using a variety of clean power sources where infrastructure, systems and every sector has adapted. After all, if this is not the direction, then the consequences will mean no business at all.