• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy March 28, 2023
Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead March 26, 2023
B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns March 26, 2023
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

UK: Paris climate treaty has no domestic effect

August 14, 2020
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Alex Kirby

 

The 2015 Paris climate treaty is the only global step to tame the crisis. Now London says it does not apply within the UK.

LONDON, 14 August, 2020 − The United Kingdom was one of the 195 countries which signed up to the 2015 Paris climate treaty, the global attempt to limit the climate crisis. More than that, it was one of the most energetic and enthusiastic backers of the Paris Agreement, the treaty’s formal title.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

So you may be surprised to learn that the British government has just told a climate campaign group, Plan B, that the Paris Agreement does not apply to the domestic law of the UK, and is therefore irrelevant to government policy on how to rebuild the country’s economy after the chaos caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The announcement comes in an email (dated 7 August, but released only five days later) from the Treasury Solicitor, the head of the government’s legal department.

It is a reply to a letter sent by Plan B on 7 July to the prime minister, Boris Johnson, about official plans to meet the climate emergency, and specifically how the UK should restore the economy after the ravages of Covid.

Claim ‘too late’

In it Plan B undertook to start legal action against the government unless it provided a clear explanation of how its Covid recovery programme would support the UK’s target of a net zero carbon economy, and also agreed that all government programmes would be compatible with its policy commitments to the Paris Agreement temperature rise limit of 1.5 ̊C.

The group’s director, Tim Crosland, wrote: “Treating the climate emergency as a ‘competing priority’ to Covid recovery is a catastrophic error, which must be quickly corrected to avoid tragic consequences.”

The government has now replied to Plan B’s threatened legal action by defending its decision to ignore the Paris Agreement in its decision to  continue to support the present carbon-based economy, claiming there is no legal obligation on it to take the Agreement into account.

Its email says that Plan B’s claim for judicial review has been made too late, and “any claim filed now would be significantly out-of-time and should be refused permission to apply for judicial review on that basis alone.”

“If the Paris Agreement does not apply now, then when?”

On the UK’s 2015 undertaking to work to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the Treasury Solicitor writes: “The Paris Agreement is an unincorporated international treaty which, in the context of the English dualist legal system [one which treats international and domestic systems of law as separate and independent], has no direct effect in domestic law.”

Plan B undertook an earlier legal battle over expansion proposals for London’s Heathrow airport, where the government argued that the Paris Agreement was irrelevant. In February the Court of Appeal disagreed with that assessment, and the government’s plans were ruled unlawful.

On 4 March, Boris Johnson told Parliament that the government would ensure that it did abide by that judgment and take account of the Paris convention. Tim Crosland says: “It seems that does not apply to billions of pounds of public money being provided to companies such as RyanAir, Easyjet, Rolls-Royce and Nissan.

“Instead of addressing the evidence that its bailouts for polluters will lock us into a disastrous trajectory towards 4˚C warming, risking billions of human lives, the government is hiding behind legal arguments to claim that it isn’t legally required to take that into account.

Inbuilt discrimination

‘That is not just reckless. It is a fundamental breach of the social contract. It is the basic responsibility of the government to safeguard its people.

“Nor does the government show any concern for the discriminatory impact of its catastrophic trajectory, which will hit hardest the younger generation, racially marginalised communities, and the Global South. Its primary concern is appeasing its corporate sponsors

“This has to be stopped. We will now begin work on filing our claim with the court.”

Jerry Amokwandoh worked with the Rhodes Must Fall movement in Oxford. He said: “Unconditional bailouts that contribute to the biggest pandemic of them all prove that our lives do not matter, the lives of my family in Ghana do not matter and an inhabitable world doesn’t matter. If the Paris Agreement does not apply now, then when?” − Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
35
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
50
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
27

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

kelly8843496 / Pixabay

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
606
Faye Cornish/Unsplash

Abundance, Not Austerity: Reframe the Climate Narrative, Solnit Urges

March 26, 2023
146
TruckPR/flickr

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 28, 2023
369
icondigital/pixabay

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
181
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns

March 28, 2023
59
Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Tesla App Mishap, Saudi Arabia Fights the IPCC, Fossil Industry Fights for its Life, Alberta Premier Wants More Gas Plants, and Carbon-Eating Fungi Could Feed Millions

March 29, 2023
60

Recent Posts

UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
36
Prime Minister's Office/flickr

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 28, 2023
86
EUMETSAT/wikimedia commons

Cyclone Freddy Leaves Over 500 Dead on Africa’s Southeast Coast

March 23, 2023
63
Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
339
IFRC Intl. Federation:Twitter

Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action

March 21, 2023
1k
U.S. National Park Service/rawpixel

Window for 1.5°C ‘Rapidly Closing’, IPCC Warns

March 20, 2023
97
Next Post

Annual planetary temperature continues to rise

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}