Cornerstone Climate Month – Catch Up
Welcome to the archive of Cornerstone Climate Month! Here, you can explore recordings of all the insightful sessions held during our month-long training event hosted in May 2024. Whether you missed a live session or simply want to revisit the highlights, our library is available to empower you with knowledge and insights from leading climate experts.
Climate Change and the Law: The Basics
What is “net zero”? Is there such thing as “climate law”? How does national policy plan for the climate emergency? Jack Barber and Verity Bell will introduce the key definitions, principles and frameworks involving climate change and the law, with a view to answering some of the questions you feel like you should know the answer to but have been too afraid to ask! With an introduction from Harriet Townsend, organiser of Cornerstone Climate Month.
Policy-making: How to plan for Net Zero
The recent Salt Cross Garden Village judicial review found that an Inspectors’ Report watering down the net zero policies in a draft Area Action Plan was unlawful. Josef Cannon KC, Ruchi Parekh and Jack Barber analyse the decision, both as to its interesting procedural aspects but also as a jumping-off point to consider how we can plan for a net-zero future, exploring the kinds of policies that might be appropriate for inclusion in development plan documents.
ESG in Real Estate
Real Estate is where we will all experience the ESG agenda on a personal level, whether in our home, office, the shop or pub. It is a sector that is responsible for a quarter of GHG emissions in the UK and has a huge impact on how we function as a society.
Join Estelle Dehon KC and Barny Evans, Sustainability Director at Turley, and learn how the Government is changing the ways our existing real estate evolves, and new developments are built. Barny will explain the detail and discuss some of the challenges that are still to be resolved.
Climate Change as a Material Consideration: Dead Letter or Burning Issue?
In this presentation, Cornerstone Climate members explore the relevance of climate change to decision-making in planning law. They will cover a range of topics including:
- requirements of the NPPF and other Government policy statements
- the evolving legal position according to the English courts
- recent appeal decisions in which inspectors have had to confront this thorny but significant issue
With Ryan Kohli, Alex Williams and Rowan Clapp
Criminal and Regulatory Responses to Climate Change: Ecocide and Greenwashing
This session covers two rapidly developing areas of response to climate change in the criminal and regulatory arenas – ecocide and greenwashing. Ecocide means unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts. Greenwashing is the term applied to environmental claims, usually made by companies and organisations in the course of their promotional activities or in their corporate reporting, which wrongly create the impression that a product or service has a positive environmental impact or no impact on the environment. This has rapidly become a significant regulatory issue. With Gerard Forlin KC and Estelle Dehon KC.
The Energy Transition (1): Renewables
A key aspect of addressing climate change is decarbonising the system of energy production. This webinar will introduce the energy transition, will ask what counts as a renewable technology and will provide an overview of the legal and regulatory issues in the UK around rolling out the technology. It covers: wind (onshore and offshore, fixed and floating); solar (ground and building mounted); tidal (stream and barrage); geothermal; and the contested renewables – nuclear and biomass. With: Estelle Dehon KC, Ryan Kohli and Olivia Davies.
Carbon Budget Delivery Plan: Judgment
In a judgment handed down on 3 May, Mr Justice Sheldon upheld the judicial review challenge by Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project to the lawfulness of the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan (CBDP). In this training session, Robert Williams and Nina Pindham who were instructed on the case explore the judgment.
UK Progress Towards Net Zero
This session provides a thorough analysis of the government’s approach to the Net Zero Strategy (NZS), highlighting key policies and initiatives designed to propel the UK towards its climate goals. With guests: Lord Deben, Chair of the Climate Change Committee,
Lord Carnwath, Visiting Professor in Practice at LSE’s Grantham Research Institute, Tom Burke, co-founder of E3G alongside Cornerstone Barristers’ Nina Pindham and Robert Williams.
Power to the People: Getting renewable energy from source to user
This informative training session with Asitha Ranatunga, Jonathan Clay and Michael Bedford KC explores developments in the UK’s energy infrastructure with a focus on the National Grid’s pioneering efforts. Discover the current progress of the ‘Holistic Network Design’ and what the future holds beyond 2030. Dive into the critical topics of offshore transmission networks, including comprehensive reviews and route planning, alongside the newly updated suite of Energy National Policy Statements. Learn about the essentials of obtaining a Grid Supply Point, and the pivotal roles played by UK Power Networks in enhancing our grid’s efficiency and reliability. Additionally, we’ll discuss the transformative impact of Interconnectors and Multi-purpose Interconnectors on our energy landscape. The session will also cover the strategic considerations behind onshore routing and the advantages of undergrounding.
Carbon Capture and Storage, including Nature Based Solutions
This session with Estelle Dehon KC introduces what “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) and “Carbon Capture, Use and Storage” (CCUS) mean. It will cover:
- how CCS and CCUS work, including various capture, transport and storage techniques;
- the different applications of CCS and CCUS, including to electricity generation, oil and gas production and direct removal of carbon from the atmosphere;
- the intersection with Nature Based Solutions, including how certificates of storage can be sold (inter)nationally.
Finally, it will touch on some of the controversies that surround CCS and CCUS.
From Old to Gold: Policies, Plans and Challenges in Retrofitting
This crucial training session is dedicated to the UK’s approach to retrofitting and energy efficiency, particularly within heritage assets. Unpack the national policies impacting retrofitting, delve into funding challenges, and explore how the industry is responding to these pressing issues.
Learn about the innovative approaches local planning authorities (LPAs) are integrating into their local plans to promote energy efficiency and discourage unnecessary demolition. We will assess the effectiveness of both existing and emerging policies as tools for sustainable development. Special attention will be given to the unique challenges faced by heritage assets, including historic dwelling houses, and the specialised strategies required to preserve these valuable structures while enhancing their energy efficiency. With Paul Shadarevian KC, Clare Parry and Emma Dring.
Climate Basics #2: The International Regime
This session with Jack Parker and Legal Response International’s Monserrat Madariaga and Olivia Tattarletti will take a two-pronged approach providing an overview of the international climate change regime & the negotiations and the relevance of legal practitioners in the international climate negotiations.
Financing the Green Transition
Join Nina Pindham in conversation with Net Zero Lawyers’ Georgina Beasley for a discussion about the financing of long-term green projects to enable the transition to net zero possible.
Climate Change and the “right” to protest
This session examines the extent of freedoms of speech and assembly and their restriction by injunctive remedies, Public Spaces Protection Orders and other civil and criminal powers. With Ranjit Bhose KC, Kuljit Bhogal KC, Tara O’Leary and Sam Fowles.
Human Rights and Climate Change
Our panel will consider climate change from a human rights perspective, and explore the wider implications of recent ECHR judgments that address critical intersections between climate change and human rights, including the ground-breaking judgment in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v Switzerland given on 9 April 2024. With Estelle Dehon KC, Harriet Townsend, Nina Pindham, Ben Du Feu and Rowan Clapp.
Litigating Climate Change in the Civil Courts: recent developments and future battlegrounds
Looking beyond planning challenges, recent times have seen increasingly innovative efforts to enforce climate obligations via the civil courts, in the UK and abroad. Litigators, GCs and activists are intensely focused on just what the future might hold for such claims, a question the recent BIICL Report sought to provide an answer to. Alistair Cantor and David Welsh review some of the exciting developments seen in UK and foreign civil courts to date, before looking forward to where we might see civil climate litigation move next and who might prove the victor on these battlegrounds of the future.
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