Articles

Science and urgency in the Glasgow Climate Pact
RHODA JENNINGS School of Law, University College Cork

The outcome of COP26, the Glasgow Climate Pact, gave a headline role to science, reinforcing the importance of science-based climate action, as informed by the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The work of the IPCC has been challenged as being too focused on the natural sciences, not giving adequate representation to social science or to minority and contradictory views. Despite this criticism, the facts, cause and impact of climate change, as assessed and synthesised by the IPCC are not disputed. There is, however, a misalignment between global commitments and national measures, as proposed and implemented by the parties to the UNFCCC. National measures are failing to reflect the science, resulting in an increasing number of judicial challenges. This article provides a brief exploration of the role of science in climate discourse and the increasing divide between global commitments and national action. With the evolution of a more sophisticated approach to climate science, science has the potential to support a broader species of claim, leading to an even greater number of challenges to national climate measures. Evolving climate science also has the potential to provide an objective basis for effective climate measures at the local level

Resource management reform in New Zealand
TREVOR DAYA-WINTERBOTTOM
University of Waikato, New Zealand

New Zealand’s Resource Management Act 1991 legislated for the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. In July 2019 an independent review panel concluded that the RMA has not delivered on desired environmental outcomes or given effect to the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. This article examines the principles underlying a proposed Natural and Built Environments Act, which, along with a Strategic Planning Act and a Climate Adaptation Act, should replace the RMA

Case Commentaries

New Zealand: Classic common law environmental claims
Nottingham Forest Trustee Ltd v Unison Networks Ltd
TREVOR DAYA-WINTERBOTTOM
University of Waikato, New Zealand

European Commission announces hydrogen and gas market decarbonisation plans
CEDRIC DEGREEF, MATTHEW LEWIS, CHRISTOPH TORWEGGE  and  SIMON HOBDAY
Osborne Clarke, Brussels, Bristol, Hamburg and London

The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA): Environmental implications and challenges of compliance
ADAM HEDLEY and AMBER DAVIES
Reed Smith LLP, London

Tomorrow’s freighter fleet will be newer and cleaner
CHRISTOPHER JACKSON
Reed Smith LLP, London

The Netherlands: Competition law developments in food and agriculture
BAS BRAEKEN and DEMI VAN DEN BERG
bureau Brandeis, Amsterdam

MMO drops against case against Greenpeace
GRAHAM THOMPSON
Greenpeace UK

UK News Report

Current Survey

European Union
MARTIN HEDEMANN-ROBINSON, University of Kent, Canterbury

Key Policy Developments May–June 2020

Nature Protection
Air Quality
Water
Sustainable Finance
Law Enforcement Issues.
EU Environmental Legislation Update