Strong national climate laws are crucial. Our court win against the UK government showed why.

On the 3rd of May, for the second time in less than two years, the High Court in London found the UK government’s climate strategy to be unlawful.?

ClientEarth, and our partners at Friends of the Earth and the Good Law Project, first took the government to court over its climate plan back in 2022, arguing that it did not meet basic requirements of the UK’s Climate Change Act.?

We won, but when the government came back with a revised and more detailed plan, it still fell short - relying on high-risk and unproven technologies and uncertain policy.?

So we went to court again, and the court ruled in our favour, again, sending an emphatic message that will need to be heeded by whoever forms the next government. The government must put a fit-for-purpose plan before parliament by May 2025, and it must credibly put the UK on track to meeting its legally binding carbon budgets until 2037.?

The UK Climate Change Act was passed back in 2008. At the time, it was the only legally binding national climate mitigation target in the world. It committed the UK government to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a pathway to achieving ‘Net Zero’ by 2050, and setting 5-year carbon budgets.?It also established the Climate Change Committee – an expert, independent body that advises the government on tackling climate change and ensures that emissions targets are evidence based and independently assessed.?

The Act’s purpose was to ensure climate action is a long-term priority for governments, insulated from short-term thinking or the politics of the day. Research says it has been working: a study from the London School of Economics suggests that the Act has helped to reduce UK emissions over its 16 years, especially in the power sector: the share of low-carbon generation increased from 20 per cent in 2008 to 45 per cent in 2016, and?experts say the act was a major driver of this transformation. Though as our legal challenge showed, it needs to be enforced to continue to have that impact.?

The UK Act also led the way internationally:?according to the LSE, nearly 60 countries around the world have now introduced similar laws. There has been a surge in climate policy and investment from governments globally in recent years too, including the EU’s Green Deal and the US Inflation Reduction Act. Although there is still a long way to go to achieve the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, these developments are – by any measure – important steps in the right direction.???

However, 2024 may present us with serious bumps in the road. Over 80 countries head to the polls this year, and many may elect governments that will not prioritise climate action. In the EU, for instance, possible far-right gains in the European Parliament could reverse recent environmental legislative progress.?

That is why framework climate laws, like the UK Climate Change Act, are so crucial. Campaigners and progressive policymakers have worked for years to ensure that the growing political will to address the climate crisis is backed up by solid legal foundations. These laws set roadmaps that are grounded in science, meet internationally agreed targets, and stand the test of time. If the political will to take real action fades, the legal foundations remain.?

So, it is crucial that they are implemented around the world. And at ClientEarth, we advocate for governments to enact them: in Poland for instance, in the absence of a legally binding government-level plan to tackle climate change, our lawyers put together a draft law to put pressure on the government to act.?

Ultimately, the right laws enable people to protect themselves. We would not have been able to challenge the government’s inadequate plans without them.? And it’s not just charities taking legal cases against governments, but increasingly ordinary people too – like the group of senior Swiss women who won a case against their government at the European Court of Human Rights last month. These cases show what people can do to fight for their future, when the law gives them the power to do so.?