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Climate change policy to guide lawyers and legal education
With the legal implications of climate change being tested within Australia’s highest courts, it is imperative that lawyers, legal education, and the legal profession as a whole are keeping pace with the challenges and opportunities created by the crisis.
Naomi Neilson
Given Australia’s legal obligations to climate change under international laws and broader international frameworks, the Law Council of Australia (LCA) has released its Climate Change Policy to ensure that the legal implications of the crisis are “as well understood as the physical risks it presents to natural and human life”.
With climate change already causing a shift in legal demands, changes in the law, and the emergence of novel complex questions of law across multiple practice areas, Dr Brasch added that Australia’s response “must ensure we have a profession armed with the skills and knowledge to meet these changing demands”.
In light of the physical and transition risks of climate change, the LCA identified that a broad spectrum of Australian individuals, businesses, community sector organisations and government agencies “face new risks, liabilities and challenges” and, as a result, are going to continue to increasingly need legal advice to navigate them.
Ensuring that this access to justice is readily available will be highly relevant in the climate change context, the LCA added in its policy report. While legal assistance bodies and pro bono service providers are already adapting to new demands linked to the physical risks of climate change, they are doing so in an underfunded system.
Members of the legal profession may also be considering how, in the course of their legal practice operations, “their actions may contribute to Australia’s and global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change”. The LCA said this might involve reducing their own carbon footprint and introducing sustainable business practices.
“The legal profession will have a lead role in advocating for, and assessing, federal and national law and policy reforms responding to climate change,” Dr Brasch said.
“In accordance with their professional obligations, individual lawyers will need to be alive to the unfolding legal implications of climate change and its consequences and ready to assist clients on climate change related matters within their areas of skill.”
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
