Tackling Climate Change: Lawyers Must Act Now for a Sustainable Future
Humans are changing the planet. We are spewing pollutants into the atmosphere. We have destroyed roughly 1/5th of the arable land on Earth. We are running out of freshwater while the 20th century saw a fourfold increase in population. We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. Climate change is increasingly affecting ecosystems, with disruptive effects on the social well-being, economic development, and financial stability. The loss of biodiversity is producing severe consequences. The resulting effects on the climate have caused the loss of critical species, zoonotic diseases, and driven the mass mortality of plants and animals. Since 2008, over 376 million people - climate refugees - have been displaced because of environmental disasters. International climate finance is essential for developing countries to achieve their climate goals. Financial institutions can manage the risks and identify the opportunities linked to climate change as well as accelerate the transition to low-carbon economies. This session looks at the role of international law and policy in turning the tide on losses that cannot be recovered.