Speaker 1: 0:15

Hi, this is Amin Ashtari and Natasha McElhone.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Our guest today is Laura Clark. Laura is the CEO of Client Earth. She was recognized as one of the most influential climate business leaders globally in Time Magazine's Top 100 Climate list. Her background is in diplomacy and environmental advocacy. Laura was British High Commissioner to New Zealand, governor of the Pitcairn Islands, high Commissioner to Samoa and has an OBE and has an OBE. Laura holds an MA in German and Russian from Cambridge University and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Client Earth uses the law to hold polluting companies and negligent governments to account for the climate and nature crisis. It is one of the most ambitious environmental organizations that works across borders, systems and sectors, using the law to protect life on Earth. Client Earth works in over 60 countries with around 140 active cases, tackling the most pressing environmental challenges. The impact of this charity's work goes far beyond the cases that they fight in court, but sets standards and creates precedents that lead to wider climate compliance we talk about.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Holding governments to climate laws 2 million abandoned oil wells. Using shareholder interests to hold companies to account.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Holding directors personally liable for climate action not taken.

Speaker 2: 1:37

China's proactive stance on climate.

Speaker 1: 1:40

How we can use the law as citizens.

Speaker 2: 1:42

Suing multinational organizations into climate compliance.

Speaker 1: 1:46

How 36 companies are responsible for half the world's total emissions.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Right, let's go to court.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Hi, this is.

Speaker 2: 1:57

Omid Ashtari and Natasha McElhone, and with us today we have.

Speaker 3: 2:02

Laura Clark Hi.

Speaker 1: 2:03

Hey Laura, you did that very competently, I have to say, because usually people are a little bit baffled when we say it.

Speaker 3: 2:09

You want me to say my name? Yes, exactly, it's the first hurdle.

Speaker 1: 2:13

You managed to ace that one. Yeah, super excited to have you. We are talking about the climate today, and what we'd like to do is maybe start off by giving a bit of a State of the Union to our listeners about where we are vis-a-vis Paris Agreement, and you can give us a bit of an overview.

Speaker 3: 2:33

Yeah, absolutely Well, that's no small task. It's a state of the world of climate action, because, of course, we are about to celebrate 10 years of the Paris Agreement about to celebrate 10 years of the Paris Agreement and we are, perhaps more importantly, halfway through what lots of people describe as the critical decade or the defining decade. So the 2020s is really the decade in which we either get on track to get climate change under control and stay in line with the 1.5 degrees limit to warming, which scientists say is what we need for a habitable future, or we don't. And so this is we really have to get onto the right trajectory to meet those targets to reduce emissions for a safe and livable climate. Same is true also of biodiversity. This is really the decade in which we either really mobilize to protect and restore biodiversity or we don't, and we pass certain tipping points from which it's then very hard to come back.

Speaker 1: 3:34

Right.

Speaker 3: 3:35

So that's my slightly gloomy take Right. Right. And of course the work is made a lot harder by the fact that some of the biggest player, the US, has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. But all is not lost, because there's a huge amount of work going on anyway, and some of it almost has this momentum to it, particularly when I think about the renewables transition, for example. That is well underway and it has a real momentum, and there are lots of countries, and indeed corporates, who are really pulling in the right direction. But we've definitely got our work cut out to bring emissions down to a point where we have a safe and livable climate.

Speaker 1: 4:18

There's this notion of the global stock take and I think it was in 2023. There was the last one. Yeah, how are we?

Speaker 3: 4:25

And the global stock take said that we are. We are off target off target we are clearly off target.

Speaker 3: 4:30

Um, and they and they sort of then they look at what countries have said they're going to do and how that adds up. But of course it's there's. Saying what you're going to do in terms of reducing emissions is one thing, right, actually doing it is another. And one of the things that we do at Client Earth is we say, well, what do you need in legal terms to close that gap between your international commitment on the one hand and real world action on the other? Because it's very easy to go to an international summit and say I'm going to reduce my emissions by this amount by that date. It's much harder to actually wire that into an all economy, all of society effort. And so we have a big push on national climate laws which we think are really, really critical for delivering that change that's needed for delivering that change that's needed and, as I understand it, you don't just try and cohere to laws that already exist, but you write laws.

Speaker 3: 5:34

Yeah, exactly so we. And to take the climate law as an example, so the International Panel on Climate Change is very clear that countries that have got national climate laws do much better at reducing emissions than countries that countries that have got national climate laws do much better at reducing emissions than countries that don't have them. Only 60 countries globally have got them. Some are better than others. The UK's Climate Change Act is an absolute model because you have the legislation, but then you also have the independent climate change committee, which sets the carbon budgets, how we need to reduce our emissions, and so what we've done at Client Earth is we've set out what does good look like in terms of a national climate law. We've sometimes even drafted it for countries. We drafted a framework climate law for Poland. We supported New Zealand with their Zero Carbon Act. We're engaging, supporting other governments as they look to strengthen their legislation, and that's really important, because the law can be both a carrot and a stick, if you like, for climate action.

Speaker 3: 6:33

It can say this is what good looks like. And here we can help you, provide a bit of a map to the action that's needed, and then it can also be used to hold governments and corporates to account when they're not doing the right thing. So that's needed. And then it can also be used to hold governments and corporates to account when they're not doing the right thing.

Speaker 2: 6:46

So that's the stick and tell us about I.

Speaker 1: 6:49

I love the polish um forest story do we maybe just give a full gambit of what you do and maybe to get an overview of what actually client yeah so so essentially so.

Speaker 3: 7:00

So the the clue is slightly in the name. Our name is client earth, so the earth is our client. We name, our name is Client Earth, so the Earth is our client. We are a legal environmental organization of 300 people globally and we use the law to try and affect the systemic change that we need for a sustainable future. And we use the whole life cycle of the law.

Speaker 3: 7:20

So we work to strengthen the law. So we draft legislation for governments, we try and get the right regulatory frameworks in place, and that's critically important, because if you change the laws, you change the rules of the game. We also then litigate. We do strategic litigation. We sue governments and corporates to hold them to account, but also to set precedents and change patterns of behavior, change mindsets. And then the third thing we do, which is as important, is best described, I think, as building the field. So we train judges, lawyers, prosecutors around the world in using environmental law and understanding environmental law. And we work with local communities, indigenous peoples, so that more and more people, communities, organizations are using the law to defend the environment and uphold their rights. And I think that we work differently in different parts of the world, but it's really that combined effect not just getting the right laws in place, but making sure they are actually implemented, enforced and interpreted. I think that's pretty key.

Speaker 2: 8:27

I'm assuming that being an environmental lawyer is a relatively new thing, I mean relatively the last few decades. So are we hoping that now that we do have more and more people being trained and maybe judges trained to recognize what this enforcement of these laws looks like, that perhaps we can get more into prevention rather than waiting for it to be catastrophic and then trying to throw loads of money and find a solution? Is just trying to be positive here, I think that's absolutely right.

Speaker 3: 8:58

It's about increasing, and I think we're seeing that across the board. You know, beneath all the doomsday headlines, we are seeing increasing numbers of people who are very focused on the climate and environmental crisis, want to work out what they can do to address it, and the law is one of those tools. It's no longer. It perhaps back in the day was the preserve of specialist non-profits like Client Earth and others in the States and elsewhere. Earth Justice is a big one in the States, for example, but now climate litigation legal avenues are being used by young people, by old people, community groups, indigenous peoples, and it is really becoming much more mainstream. I think the other thing I would say is it's not just about environmental law, it's also how do you use other law to drive the change you need? So how do you look at corporate and financial law or constitutional human rights law and say what does the climate crisis mean for this particular case?

Speaker 1: 10:06

now, or consumer protection, or all this. Yeah, exactly consumer protection. When you're looking at greenwashing cases.

Speaker 2: 10:11

Exactly, yeah, so if someone's sorry um if someone's suffering from breathing difficulties that are not genetic, but are to do with their air that they're trying to breathe. That could be an infraction of their human rights. Is that yeah?

Speaker 3: 10:26

Because there's increasing amount of cases around the right to a healthy environment. The UN General Assembly a couple of years back included a right to a healthy environment. There's a lot more litigation being brought at national and also international level and so, yeah, there are a number of clean air cases where citizens are saying my human rights are being impacted by this pollution. And then the question is, how do you best effect change? And what we often do and clean air is quite a good example a number of clean air cases around Europe. We started in the UK, we then brought a number across Italy, poland, elsewhere and at the same time, doing the advocacy to strengthen the legislation required.

Speaker 3: 11:14

And so in the EU that was what was called the Ambient Air Quality Directive and sometimes litigating to get it high up people's high up on people's radar or on their agenda, combined with that advocacy as an effective way of making change.

Speaker 2: 11:29

And you can apply that to water or any of these things? Presumably, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Let's zoom out. And you were talking about this UN directive around a healthy environment, right? You start creating policy at the very high level. How does this trickle down? Same with Paris, I guess you know the Paris Agreement Like. People are standing there grandstanding, saying beautiful things, but obviously it needs to somehow propagate into the processes of the nations. And how does that work? How doesn't it work? What is your role in that?

Speaker 3: 12:01

Yeah, I think it needs to work, because most action has to happen. It's very hard to enforce things at the international level. There's a more kind of more moral weight, even when an international court the ICJ or the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea comes up with an opinion that's incredibly influential morally, but there's no enforcement mechanism, right, and so what you then need is to underpin that with the right national action, and that's both then the right legislation and action plans to reduce emissions, say, but then also you can bring the litigation saying this is what is required to meet certain climate and environmental objectives, and that litigation is effective both in a government context but also for corporates as well.

Speaker 2: 12:54

Right.

Speaker 1: 12:55

And so what do you do if a government drags their feet in incorporating some of these?

Speaker 3: 13:00

So we had a very interesting we've actually had two cases against the UK government for its inadequate net zero strategy. So the UK has a standard setting, as I mentioned Climate Change Act, but the previous conservative government, its net zero strategy wasn't fit for purpose. It didn't show sufficiently how the emissions reductions required were going to be made, and so we with the Good Law Project, friends of the Earth, challenged that and the High Court agreed with us on the hottest day of the year in 2022, and told the government they had to go away and come back with an improved net zero strategy. They then went away, came up with something that still wasn't fit for purpose, so we challenged it again, and part of that challenge was showing that they didn't have enough confidence about how they were going to reduce emissions and there was a lot of reliance on untested solutions being deployed at scale things like carbon capture and storage for example, where you have to be confident that you can reduce the emissions.

Speaker 3: 14:06

And so there wasn't enough in terms of the things that we know work Insulating homes, for example, moving to greater public transport, walking, cycling, and so on. So there's a lot there. Anyway, now the new government, the new Labour government, has this year to produce its revised and improved net zero strategy.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Just, to scroll back a little bit to your point about establishing who you guys are. When you say us, can you tell us how you recruit, who you are, how? Many there are, and which countries you work in.

Speaker 3: 14:44

Absolutely so. We are 300 people globally, about half of whom are working specifically on our legal programs. They're legal professionals and we have offices across Europe. So we started in London and then spread to Europe, and then we have offices in China, in Beijing, and then in Tokyo, in LA, and then we also work in Southeast Asia and we work with partner organizations in Africa and Latin America. So we're quite global, but I think what's important is that we work in different ways in different parts of the world.

Speaker 2: 15:25

So you adapt to yeah.

Speaker 3: 15:27

And sorry I should have said we also have an office in the States, in Latin America sorry, in Santa Monica in LA and so we're quite global. But we do different sort of work in different places. So in Europe we do the whole spectrum, but in some places. So in China, we're obviously not litigating ourselves. We're working very much in support of the administration's climate and environmental objectives. So what does that mean In China? It means we've been there training environmental judges. We've trained 1,500 environmental judges in China. We've also provided support for the Supreme People's Procuratorate, which is essentially their public interest environmental litigation, so prosecutors who go out and say these rules on pollution are not being abided by and holding local authorities and corporates to account. And we've supported the real development of that. And you really see the fruits of it when you go to Beijing the air is cleaner, the rivers are cleaner and progress is really being made.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Let's double click on that. Because I think you know the I guess notion is always China the big polluter. They don't care, and here we get an example of them actually really investing and trying to be proactive about this stuff. How did this come about?

Speaker 3: 16:50

So it came about actually at the invitation of the Supreme Court of China and James Thornton, the founder of Client Earth, my predecessor, was invited to go and talk to them. They said this is what we're trying to do, because it's not enough to have the right laws and rules in place. You need to make sure they're properly enforced and that judges know how to hear these cases, and so, first of all, we were training judges. Then we started really supporting this public interest environmental litigation. We've also been supporting the EU China environmental dialogue, because that dialogue is huge and collaboration is hugely important, and we've also been advising and supporting on the greening of the Belt and Road Initiative. So the Belt and Road Initiative is this enormous global infrastructure and investment project that China is leading, and we helped develop a traffic light system around green investments. So you know if something's so is that something like 100 countries?

Speaker 2: 17:52

Oh, I mean, it's really, really global, it's often talked about as the modern Silk Road initiative.

Speaker 3: 17:58

And so really saying that China should not be investing in fossil fuel in its overseas investment and so the emissions reductions or the avoided emissions from that is huge and I think it's really important. Yes, emissions and coal in China is a huge challenge, but it is also the clean tech superpower right. And so multiple things can be true at the same time.

Speaker 2: 18:24

But no more of those coal power plants are being built. That was a case that was it James? Wan originally.

Speaker 3: 18:35

So no, there is still new coal coming on but the renewable is accelerating faster and the consensus is that China's emissions have peaked, and I think that's critically important. But we have challenged coal elsewhere, so we did a lot on coal in Europe. We brought a very innovative case in Poland as a shareholder in the company Enea, a Polish energy company that was going to invest in a new coal plant, and we said that as shareholders we thought it was a bad investment.

Speaker 2: 19:06

And the court agreed.

Speaker 3: 19:07

And the next day the share price bumped up by 4% and the court agreed.

Speaker 2: 19:11

And the next day the share price bumped up by 4%.

Speaker 3: 19:12

So yeah, you know. So that you know. Clearly, shareholders agreed that new coal is not a good investment. We then have managed in Japan to dissuade new coal plants from being built, just by writing letters. You know we do a bit of this is our track record. Don't make us write another letter, and so you know the argument on coal is, or is, pretty much one now and the question then is how do we move faster beyond oil and gas? How do we support the acceleration of renewables?

Speaker 2: 19:46

and so what happens now, with trump being in power?

Speaker 3: 19:50

So I mean it's a mixed picture. Environmental climate action in the States will inevitably slow, but I think we can't be too defeatist about it because lots of the renewable transition is already underway and has got a momentum of its own. And we also saw we've seen in previous US administrations you also get a lot of action at the state level as well, and you get a lot of action at corporate level. And I think it's important to unpack that a little bit, because all the headlines around.

Speaker 2: 20:28

The incentives aren't there anymore.

Speaker 3: 20:29

Well, all the headlines around companies stepping back from ESG environmental social and governance commitments and throwing their weight behind the kind of drill baby drill agenda. But actually there's something around the kind of laws of gravity. To this you can say ESG doesn't matter. Right, I can say that ball is going to stay in the air. Actually, the ball is not going to stay in the air. The ball is going to drop to the ground because of the laws of gravity. And even if you say ESG is not in vogue anymore or it doesn't matter, the fact remains that all businesses are going to be impacted by the climate crisis and they need to address climate risk.

Speaker 3: 21:09

and whether that's the physical manifestations of climate change affecting their infrastructure or their people, or whether it's regulatory change or whether it's litigation risk, all companies are going to be impacted by climate and by biodiversity which is natural disasters, presumably the amount of cost absolutely, and therefore, if you are leading your organization and thinking about the long-term commercial viability of that organization and the interests of your shareholder, you have to be thinking about climate risk, uh, and so I think that what we will probably see you, you know, not in the real vested interest of the fossil fuel industry, but in lots of companies. They will quietly be doing the work but not shouting about it.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Yeah, that makes sense. I want to go back to one point that you made earlier.

Speaker 1: 22:06

I feel that you know my donations to Client Earth are high leverage. That's the feeling that I have, and I want to highlight that a little bit here, because the work that you do when you win a case is also that you set a signaling function that this is no longer to be happening because we're going to take you to court again. So when you're thinking about deploying your 300 people resources, tell me about how you plan to have the most impact. Is that part of the conversation? How do you go about that?

Speaker 3: 22:35

Yeah, yeah, it's a really good question. It's really about where we think, and we call it strategic litigation because we're not just doing, you know, thinking about one issue in isolation. We're thinking about what wider change can we affect, what is the leverage of this case and how can it help us get to the right sort of tipping point. And so one example of a case that we actually didn't win but I think is hugely significant, is the case that we brought against the board of directors of Shell, and we essentially argued that they were not doing enough to manage climate risk and to lean into the renewable transition and therefore they were in breach of their responsibilities under the UK Companies Act. So it was a corporate law case. We were bringing it as shareholders and they weren't acting in the best and we were saying they weren't acting in the best interest of the company and their shareholders.

Speaker 3: 23:30

The judges it didn't pass the permission stage. The judge didn't want to hear the case in substance, but what was fascinating about that was we know it was then talked about in boardrooms around the world, general counsel conferences around the world. There was lots of. A former Supreme Court judge wrote an article saying it was a missed opportunity and we're very clear that it's only a matter of time before directors are held personally liable for not managing climate risk, and I think that's really that's really significant. So that would have been a really would have been and will in time be, a very important tipping point.

Speaker 3: 24:09

We've got a case in the States which I'm very excited about, which I'll just ask you a question first.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Sure.

Speaker 3: 24:16

How many unplugged oil wells, oil and gas wells do you think there are in the United States?

Speaker 1: 24:22

Too many. He knows about this. You know the answer? No, I don't know the answer, but probably too many.

Speaker 3: 24:29

I'll just guess uh, in the hundreds there are 2.1 million oil, unplugged oil and gas wells in the states. These are oil wells that at the end of their life right, they're no longer producing oil, um, but they are unplugged and they're leaking methane into the environment methane's very fast warming gas they.

Speaker 3: 24:49

They're poisoning the local land, and the reason that's happening is because the big oil companies are perpetuating a mass fraud, because what they do is they sell the oil, make the profit towards the end of the life of this oil, well, they sell it on to a smaller shell company and then that company goes bust at the time when it should be paying to plug the oil well and make it safe. So we have got a case with a group of Colorado landowners.

Speaker 2: 25:20

How long? Sorry to interrupt you. How long has that been going on? For? We launched it last year. The abandonment.

Speaker 3: 25:27

Oh, for decades.

Speaker 2: 25:29

It's a systematic. They're gaming the system. So you've got what?

Speaker 3: 25:31

40, 50 years of this, and they've been evading what's called the technical term is asset retirement obligations.

Speaker 1: 25:37

They have been evading their responsibilities.

Speaker 3: 25:39

By perpetuating this fraud, they game the system, the, the special interests and, in this case, fossil fuel industry, making massive profits directly at the expense both of our planet but also people because, then it ends up being the taxpayer who are paying to clean up the land, to plug the oil well, and of course the emissions are huge and so the you know the leverage if we get that case, if we win that case this was the colorado case.

Speaker 1: 26:10

there's the colorado case and you said you're doing this with who, so it's a, it's a class action, but the leverage if we get that case, if we win that case this was the Colorado case. This is the Colorado case and you said you're doing this with who.

Speaker 3: 26:14

So it's a class action working in support of Colorado landowners against big oil in Colorado, and we will then bring similar cases elsewhere in setting precedent and shifting accountability for those asset retirement obligations. Then the emissions saved and the costs saved to the taxpayer will be huge.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Phenomenal and just out of interest, when you do this in Colorado, would that be like a federal thing that could be used as leverage as well as for the case, or is it very state-specific?

Speaker 3: 26:46

So it's a state-level case but, the idea is, it then sets precedent in corporate law, and then we'll bring another in. California and so on, and then what we try and do at Client Earth is carve, is damages claims coming and really hitting them big time in terms of the costs and therefore, you would hope, decision making.

Speaker 1: 27:21

So let me ask you on the class action suit out of interest. Do you make any money there as well? Or are they suing the company? For we don't make money because we're a non-profit and so we always have to work with the. Or covering your costs anyway.

Speaker 3: 27:36

But we're funded to do the case and then we're trying. Well, for us, what we're trying to achieve is that the remedy, the change in accountability. But increasingly there are these litigation funds of people who want to use litigation to actually achieve financial outcomes, and that's going to be another pressure on some of these big oil companies and others, because they will increasingly be damages claims when asking for big levels of compensation.

Speaker 1: 28:08

So they're trying to actually go in and make money off of litigation against.

Speaker 2: 28:12

That's interesting and that's not what we do, because we always have to be working with, with our, our client, the earth in mind but it's an increasing trend, yeah, but that just means that you can share all of the information and the template that you create with everyone. You don't charge for that.

Speaker 3: 28:31

Yeah, we share our intellectual property and that's really important and I think that's been very powerful with our work on greenwashing, where we've been tackling false advertising.

Speaker 2: 28:41

That's exactly so. If people invest in you or give money to you, it actually proliferates. It enables a cascade of interventions exactly because we say you know.

Speaker 3: 28:51

So our most recent greenwashing case was in support of a big case against KLM, an aviation greenwashing case for their Fly Sustainably campaign, which we won, and that case, I think, is significant. We then after that wrote a letter to a whole bunch of different airlines saying these are the legal risks to you of this sort of greenwashing. The European Commission is now investigating 20 airlines for greenwashing and we're increasingly seeing private sector unprivate sector greenwashing litigation because it's about trying to level the playing field. So it is powerful because it used to be a wild west in terms of what you could claim about your products and their sustainability. You could put it in nice green packaging, put a picture of a leaf on it, say it was sustainable. But we're really closing that space and we just settled a case in Poland against the wonderfully named Eco-P coal, which is sold in very nice green packages with leaves on it and it's called eco pea.

Speaker 3: 29:55

And I don't know about you, but I always think peas are good things. They're green, they're you know, um and so. And we said that this is misleading the consumer because burning and that's what it was for domestic heating, burning of coal for domestic heating causes so many deaths from air pollution, let alone the emissions, and we've just that's just been settled and they have to remove the packaging, remove that advertising and false labeling. So it's really important. It's a consumer rights and consumer protection issue as well.

Speaker 1: 30:23

Right, and can I go back to KLM? So what were they saying? That it's like net zero flying.

Speaker 3: 30:30

Their campaign was around flying sustainably and it was also about misleading. It was overpromising in terms of offsets and what offsets can do and very much suggesting that it was the sustainable net zero choice to fly with them, when we know that flying is not a sustainable thing.

Speaker 3: 30:51

And sustainable aviation fuel, which you hear a lot about, is still, to our minds, very much a false solution right, it is not deployable at scale in any stretch, but it's used by existing industries to say just let us carry on as we are, because we've got this silver bullet technology or solution coming along the line.

Speaker 1: 31:14

Yeah, so you talked about various different angles that you take One, you help writing law, then you do the litigation and then you also do this work that you said with the judges in China. But you also mentioned indigenous people, and what's your work there?

Speaker 3: 31:28

Let me give two examples. One, we do really important work in Western Central Africa, working with local community organizations, indigenous groups, supporting them as they use the law to engage on forest governance, forest protection, questions of timber that is not complicit in any way in deforestation, so it's all of that about sustainable forestry. So that's been really, really powerful, supporting them as they engage on these trade issues as well. And then, on the other side of the world, almost, we worked with the Torres Strait Islanders.

Speaker 3: 32:09

Torres Strait, as your listeners probably know, between Queensland and Australia and Papua New Guinea, and it's their low-lying islands, and the indigenous Torres Strait Islanders talk in a very, very moving way about how the sea level rise is a threat to their whole culture and way of life. Because the sea levels are rising, they're often washing away the bones of their ancestors from their um, from their graveyards, and so we supported them in bringing a case to the un human rights committee, essentially saying that the australian government's inaction on climate change was a violation of the torres stra Islanders' rights, including their right to life and their right to culture. And it was a real world first in lots of respects and really shining a light on the obligations that governments have to look after climate-vulnerable peoples, and it's a big question of environmental justice as well.

Speaker 1: 33:08

I remember we came to one of the events that you had and there was a example that was given around empowering indigenous people with contracts that they can show developers that show up and say, hey, I want to develop this land, who would give them, you know, a deal that would probably be more in favor of the developer rather than those indigenous people on their land. Yeah, do you have an example for that? I mean one of the developer rather than those indigenous people on their land. Do you have an example for that?

Speaker 3: 33:33

I mean, one of the things that we're planning to work on next is integrity of carbon markets. So this is where you know, so you might have heard the term carbon cowboys, where it's a bit big companies they go in and it might be into Latin America, it might be into Africa and they will do deals to get control over areas of forests, for carbon credits essentially. And those deals and the most notorious example was an organization called Blue Carbon that was going out and signing these deals with local people who weren't really clear about what they were signing up to and so how do we make sure that these markets are properly regulated and that the local people are as aware as they can be and have the rights and get the benefit from any arrangement that is made?

Speaker 2: 34:24

I think that's hugely important. What was the case where you won again in the European courts about logging, about bringing in wood from the Amazon?

Speaker 3: 34:35

Yeah, so we've had a number of cases about countries that are illegally importing timber that's come as a result of deforestation.

Speaker 2: 34:45

Rather than sustainable.

Speaker 3: 34:45

yeah, Exactly, and so there's now all these regulations in place to ensure for integrity of timber, essentially so that you can be confident, and you were actually amazing supporting the advocacy push for the EU deforestation regulation, which is all about how do you ensure, how do you set the rules in place so that any coffee or chocolate or wood that is imported into the EU, those that are selling it can be confident that that's not complicit in any way in its supply chain with deforestation.

Speaker 3: 35:21

That's really important. So that's the EU deforestation regulation, which has been put on pause by the EU, so we're very much hoping that comes into force uh, soon, because that's critical supply chains hugely important, because I think lots of people understand no, and what I often say is lots of people understand the connection. Most people understand the connection between big oil and emissions and climate change. Right, and they could probably say, oh yeah, these are the top five big oil companies.

Speaker 3: 35:51

Far fewer people understand the connection between big food and biodiversity loss or climate change, and the fact is that industrial agriculture is responsible for an enormous amount of deforestation and biodiversity loss, and often human rights abuses as well, and so that's something that we really want to shine a light on at Client Earth.

Speaker 1: 36:12

Yeah, that makes sense. I find it interesting. You mentioned the EU quite a lot and it seems to me that the EU has pretty good legislation and I assume that if you appeal to the EU to then attack quote, unquote a country, there is a way the country has to very quickly act on it. If you're coming and suing a country not using EU law but maybe domestic law, are there countries that say so what? So what I'm trying to kind of see is, say, I guess, viktor Orban, as a strongman, if you go and sue Hungary for doing something, would they be just as, I guess, open to change than like France, for instance?

Speaker 3: 36:54

So, yeah, that's a really good question. We always have to think very, very carefully about where we bring cases right, and so that's also about what wider precedent will this set beyond this country? Can it set a wider precedent? It's also about chances, success, and we also always want to be really clear, really careful to avoid unintended impacts and consequences, because, as you say, if you bring a case and then you win, but then the government doesn't act on it, that's not good for the rule of law right, it's really not, and so we have to choose very carefully.

Speaker 3: 37:34

And the other thing rule of law right, it's really not, and so we have to choose very carefully. And the other thing, of course, is being careful not to pressure. Lots of governments are trying to do the right thing, but it's tough, right, because there are those who say they're not doing enough, and then there are those that say they're doing too much, and so we always have to calibrate quite carefully. Where do we litigate? Where do we work behind the scenes with letters or indeed with support? How do we always get focus on the best environmental outcome? Because you can win a case and lose the battle.

Speaker 2: 38:11

It's about support, I guess yeah, exactly exactly.

Speaker 3: 38:15

And then it's about thinking about you know how do you maintain public buy-in and support for these things as well? I mean, I'm kind of amazed that there isn't more outrage publicly about the profits that are being made by some of these industries that are, you know, causing so much damage. But I think that will come Tell us about some of these industries that are causing so much damage. But I think that will come Tell us about some of them. Well, there's a report out last week that said that the top 36 fossil fuel companies in the world are responsible for half of the global CO2 emissions.

Speaker 3: 38:52

Wow so that's just 36 companies. Half of the world's carbon emissions.

Speaker 1: 38:57

Hold on, let me clarify this. So it's not their products that are then being used by consumers, maybe in their cars. It's actually the… no, it's both. It's both. Okay that includes that.

Speaker 2: 39:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's the inputs end up. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 39:12

And one in Saudi Aramco. For example, is the biggest corporate emitter and in terms of emissions that Saudi Aramco is responsible for, if it were a country, it would be the fourth largest country emitter, under US, china and India. Complaint against. We initiated a complaint through UN human rights experts against Saudi Aramco and its finances, essentially saying that they were complicit in climate change-induced human rights abuses. Now, we didn't think we were going to change the operating model of Saudi Aramco right, let's be clear. But the banks that are financing it?

Speaker 3: 39:56

have human rights obligations under the un guiding principles on business and human rights and therefore we know what we said is they need to be very clear. Can they use their influence to affect change or should they reconsider their funding relationship because you know it's another cause of outrage, I suppose, is the banks that are still financing these, um, these fossil fuel industries, when we know that actually renewables are cheaper, more efficient, more effective and and they need the finance I'd love to know how those meetings go at plant earth.

Speaker 1: 40:30

When you think of a writer's room, people are sitting around like okay, what should we do with this this week's show? You know like people come with ideas and all that. Um, how does that work with you guys? Um, what? What is the process as to kind of deciding what to do, actually what to go?

Speaker 3: 40:44

so we, start with the change that we want to bring right um, and you know, or the harm that we're identifying, that we want to address so say overfishing, and then let's say overfishing Right.

Speaker 3: 40:55

That's a good example. So we start with that how do we protect our oceans, how do we tackle overfishing? And then we think about different legal avenues we could take different countries we could take action in where we could have a coordinated approach. And so overfishing is quite a nice example, because we've just recently launched three different cases against bottom trawling and marine protected areas right, uh, while also doing a lot on advocacy and the importance of tackling overfishing, uh. Similarly, you know we will be bringing cases against the petrochemicals industry. But then you've got to think, well, what's the best target? What's the best country to bring it in? Who are we going to be working with? And so it's really thinking about where can we have the most impact in terms of the change we're we're driving at?

Speaker 3: 41:46

that's very strategic, a strategic puzzle, I assume, right yeah, it has to be, it has to be strategic. Um, and you know the bottom trawling cases we've been bringing that, they've been a big focus for us this last year. But we've also seen in this last couple of months both Sweden and Denmark saying that they are going to ban bottom trawling in marine protected areas, and so you kind of see the pressure building. It's actually absurd that you can do bottom trawling in marine protected areas, and that doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1: 42:12

Let's first of all explain what bottom trawling is so.

Speaker 3: 42:13

Bottom trawling is so bottom trawling is the most destructive form of industrial fishing there is. Essentially, you get these industrial machines that go along the bottom of the seabed and just scrape everything. Yeah, so hugely damaging in terms of overfishing, but also the damage done to the marine environment and the emissions released as well.

Speaker 1: 42:36

I remember one case while we are on fishing, I think you brought against France or Spain around fishing overfishing, maybe was it. Yeah, so we've got some bottom trawling cases against France and Spain at the moment. Okay, so that was also in that context.

Speaker 3: 42:49

Yeah, absolutely. And then we also bring cases around sustainable catch levels. For example, we won a really interesting case which kind of brings together the marine conservation and the climate change objectives. Just recently against there were plans for a new gas platform near Venice in Italy, the Teodorico gas platform, and that was going to produce huge amounts more emissions and was in a critical area for whales and dolphins. And we managed to get that stopped, which we see as a win for both marine environment and for climate.

Speaker 1: 43:26

What kind of law would you use in that case?

Speaker 3: 43:30

I can't remember. I can't remember what it was. I think it was probably environmental impact assessment under planning law, but I'm not sure interesting yeah, who was that?

Speaker 2: 43:41

his name escapes me. The wonderful uh who came to speak at oh, laurence balesta, yes, yeah, he was wonderful.

Speaker 1: 43:48

Those images were beautiful, yeah, I can recommend going to client earth events if you have the chance, because that the photos that we saw there. It was like a journey into a different world.

Speaker 2: 43:58

It was like having it having a vr headset, so it was yeah, so that event was it was laurent balester who's? Wildlife photographer of the year. That's online and I think his photos are online. Yeah, he has an instagram account and he does these wonderful.

Speaker 3: 44:11

He's a deep sea diver and photographer, does these wonderful photos, and we had this lovely event where he was talking about all that he sees in his work and then we followed on and talked about the work that we are doing to protect the mediterranean.

Speaker 2: 44:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's kind of it's really important and that speaks to what we try and do generally, which is partner with others as well.

Speaker 3: 44:31

You need to tell the right stories you need to partner with photographers, with artists, with musicians, with actors, you know, and really get the messages out there. And then, of course, we work with other organizations across the board. We hardly ever bring a case just us. We almost always work with others.

Speaker 1: 44:48

When you look at the world and you'd have to kind of give a scorecard for the different regions and how things are going, kind of give a scorecard for the different regions and how things are going, um, how do you see like, for instance, how does africa feel right now around the topic of conservation, biodiversity, emissions, etc. Because they could leapfrog in many ways right they could.

Speaker 3: 45:07

I mean, the hope is, and I think we are seeing evidence already of leapfrogging in terms of clean energy. Uh, they do need Africa, does need the investment for biodiversity protection, for example, and we're at a challenging time in terms of overseas development assistance. But there's huge potential there. The human capital, the skills, the young people is extraordinary. And so how do African know, how do how do african leaders and communities work together to protect their forests, but also to leapfrog technology solutions, in the same way that with mobile telephony?

Speaker 3: 45:49

you know most people never even went, never didn't get a landline straight to mobile. So what's the equivalent in terms of energy solutions?

Speaker 1: 45:57

right? And how about south america, southeast asia, those places?

Speaker 3: 46:03

I've come.

Speaker 1: 46:03

I mean I'm not sure.

Speaker 3: 46:04

Yeah, I'm not sure I can help that much on that. Yeah, I just wonder because they're.

Speaker 1: 46:10

They're going to be population centers.

Speaker 3: 46:12

Uh, they're going to be the places that are actually pumping out the babies, right yeah to everybody everywhere else.

Speaker 1: 46:17

So I feel like there's going to be a lot of impact that's going to come from those places, which is why they should be the places that hopefully lead and understand their responsibility.

Speaker 3: 46:26

That's absolutely true and we have in our big focus in, but we've yeah we've messed up.

Speaker 2: 46:31

We've racked up the bills, of course I mean it's.

Speaker 1: 46:34

You can't pass that buck. Everybody has their responsibility.

Speaker 3: 46:37

Yeah, and last year it was quite interesting, in terms of who needs to contribute, what the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea produced a really interesting advisory opinion essentially saying that, under the law of the sea, states have got an obligation to reduce their climate, their emissions, to protect the marine environment. And they also said that those um countries with us with a higher industrial, higher historic emissions have got a bigger responsibility that seems fair.

Speaker 2: 47:11

Yeah, of course, yeah makes sense, you've covered quite a lot of ground in how you tackle some of the climate challenges. Tell us what you think the trends are.

Speaker 3: 47:26

So I'd say a couple. I think one is what I call the under-the-radar enablers of the fossil fuel status quo, are the radar enablers of the fossil fuel status quo. So, um, you know those uh, the lawyers that do the contracting, the pr companies, or the advertising agencies, the lobbyists, uh, the consultancies, they are all enabling this work, um, this, this, this to continue. And so we've done a lot. We worked um to produce a report on service demissions, which is the responsibility of profession, the professional services industries, to really look at who are you working for? Should you be working for them? What can you do? What is your responsibility? And I think it's really increasingly. That will be a focus, the spotlight will move uh, to those.

Speaker 3: 48:15

to those, because they've got better at covering and doing positive PR for things that aren't Well you can't build a big new oil pipe if you haven't got the lawyers doing the contracting for it, the lobbyists lobbying for the contract, the PR people, the advertising, all of it. It's a whole ecosystem right but they all have responsibilities. They can't just say, well, it's not me, garth, it it's a whole ecosystem. Right and so, but they all have responsibilities. They can't just say, well, it's not me, gov, it's my client, they have a responsibility.

Speaker 2: 48:42

They have to work within what we call serviced admissions or advised admissions or lawyered admissions.

Speaker 3: 48:47

So I think that's really interesting and actually just a couple of weeks ago the huge um advertising company wpp was um referred to the oecd um for not doing for, for it has very high emitting clients, and for the advice so they have to be more selective about the work they take exactly that whole food, exactly what work do you take, what influence do you have, and so on. So I think that's one.

Speaker 1: 49:11

The next, I think that means just that we have a step change in the level of sophistication of understanding the supply chain of all this stuff.

Speaker 2: 49:17

Yeah, exactly, and the accountability, because it is an ecosystem and we need to dismantle it and build a better one, and there's an incentive then not to work with these people, rather than just being a principled model, exactly, and go and work for the energies of the future and not the fossil fuels of the past I think that's really important.

Speaker 3: 49:37

Fuels of the past I think that's really important.

Speaker 3: 49:38

Then I think we're going to increasingly see more human health and human rights cases, whether that's the health impacts of toxics and plastics causing cancer or fertility issues, whether it's the impact of industrial animal husbandry on human health and human rights. So if you think about I mean fun fact I'm not sure your listeners want this one but all the industrial chicken farms in the UK produce more poo than do the biggest 10 cities in the UK, wow. And so if you think about that, what that does to the land, to the rivers and across the board, not just in the UK elsewhere this industrial agriculture is poisoning the rivers, the land and then human, the air it's very inspiring that you take on governments and all these things, and apart from just, you know, supporting client earth, what can we do individually to aid you in your quest?

Speaker 3: 50:46

Oh, that's fantastic. Well, obviously, supporting client earth is a wonderful thing to do wwwclientearthorg.

Speaker 3: 50:54

But I think there's look, I think there's a lot. Sometimes, I think there's a lot. Sometimes. I think people feel a little bit helpless, like they're too small to make a difference, but actually everyone can make a difference, and there's all sorts of things you can do right. There's the sort of power of the citizen right to your mayor, right to your local MP. Vote in a climate, progressive way.

Speaker 3: 51:14

What do you do as a consumer? Who do you bank with? Does your bank finance fossil fuel? Have a look at that. There are lots of banks that are no longer financing fossil fuels. Switch to them. What decisions are you making as a consumer? And then there are other things. Increasingly, across Europe, we see the development of what are called energy communities, which are small, local communities who together manage and benefit from renewable energy projects, and so that localization, I think, is critically important. There's so much that individuals can do. Find a local charity that you want to support. Find a more systemic, driven charity that you want to support and get involved in activism, and use your influence as a consumer, as an investor, perhaps, to drive the change that we need.

Speaker 2: 52:07

So that idea of even if you're time poor and even if you don't understand anything about the law and you don't really have the facility to write to your local MP?

Speaker 3: 52:16

or mayor or whatever just how you spend your money and where spend your money. Spend it is really important.

Speaker 1: 52:24

Yeah, absolutely yeah. Um, that's a great place to end it. I want to say thanks again thank you very much for inviting me also I have to say I know that the people that work at client earth could probably be paid a lot more working somewhere else.

Speaker 3: 52:35

So we we thank you for having your the right priorities well, we have brilliant people who, as you say, have mostly taken a massive pay cut to come and work with us, but they're driven by the mission and, you know, there's this sense of we don't have that long in this life. How do you want to, you know, live your life as meaningfully as possible? Um, and I would say also, how do you want to live your life?

Speaker 2: 52:57

as meaningfully as possible?

Speaker 3: 52:57

And I would say also how do you look your children, your children's children, in the eye and say I'm doing my bit and I'm really.

Speaker 2: 53:07

all my colleagues can say that they are doing their utmost. Sometimes I think about this quest that you're on. I know you said that it's client earth and you're representing the earth but I feel, in a way, you're representing all of our interests and future generations' interests. You're working for us, which is why we should all get involved.

Speaker 3: 53:23

It's absolutely about future generations and what sort of future we want for everyone. Absolutely, thanks very much. Bye.