Our Law
Changing the law for our planet
Climate Emergency Act
Big problems need big solutions. The climate emergency threatens us all, but the Government’s response is very far short of what justice and scientific urgency demand.
We have developed proposals for a ‘Climate Emergency Bill’ which would force Ministers by law to cut emissions far more rapidly. The current Climate Change Act sets up the Committee on Climate Change which has been a huge source of expertise and understanding on how to deal with the climate crisis. It also ensures that the Government has to adopt ‘budget’ which effectively means a limit on the emissions in 5 year periods for the whole country.
The addition that we want to make to the law on climate change in England is to ensure that all decision-makers have a responsibility to act on climate change, not just one Minister reporting to Parliament. This would create much more effective change. In Wales, all public authorities are subject to the Well Being of Future Generations Act . Public authorities were given a growth duty by the Conservative Government, and companies do not have climate action responsibilities unless they choose to take on board their own policies. In any case, there is no democratic oversight of the climate emissions reduction of companies.
Our proposal would fix the issue that it is a collective responsibility and not a single ministerial responsibility, and it would also ensure that the private sector also tackle climate change alongside the public sector.
Resources
Read our draft Climate Emergency Bill.
Read our Climate Emergency Bill briefing note.
Every decision matters on climate
Every year in Wales there are around 25,000 development decisions - councils’ consent to new houses being built; new roads are proposed by highways. There are also major infrastructure decision – power stations, pylon lines, motorways.
That's a LOT of changes to our environment and the places in which we live. We are also living with the decisions that have been made in the past - all the homes already built, the roads, the railways, the reservoirs, the power stations, the coal mines...
We've all got a stake in these decisions on major infrastructure, and our laws in Wales should help to protect the environment by giving us a voice. We helped ensure that open floor hearings were put back in for decision-making processes on major infrastructure in the recent Infrastructure Wales Act.
We also helped ensure that climate change is part of the consideration for consenting major infrastructure decisions through working with the Senedd.
If you want help on navigating how development decisions are made in Wales, get in touch with us here.
Read - Hey, can you hear me?
Reparation, remediation and restoration
The society that we live in today has benefited and continues to benefit from the extraction of resources globally and within the country. Wales’ Future Generations Act commits to the goal of ‘fair share of resources’ and this means that we need to change the current levels of use, and try to be much more self sufficient and efficient with what we have.
The scars of the industrial activity across Wales need to be remediated and restored, and reparation should be made. A strong legal framework is needed that takes the income (for example from the Crown Estates in Wales) and uses that for the benefit of those communities that have suffered the most.
The legacy of pollution and unsafe contaminated land and spoil heaps has to be repaired.
We are calling for a legal framework to set the boundaries that would recognise environmental limits and create accountability over corporates. All decision-makers and not only public bodies need to be socially and environmentally responsible.
[Coming soon – our legal opinion on the coal tip safety bill]
Counting the carbon at the point of extraction
We’ve been making the point for the last decade in planning decisions that you have to count the carbon emissions when you extract the fossil fuel. It is no use relying on outdated permits in power stations consented forty years ago, or on the ‘carbon market’ to prevent the stockpiles of fossil fuels being used. There is no agreement that if we extract gas, that the USA will extract less. Every extraction of fossil fuels just adds to the overall amount that gets used. So we have to count the carbon at the point of extraction.
We’ve objected to the application to extract coal at Glan Lash in Wales.
We know that policy has to change in England too – you need both a planning decision and a licence to extract fossil fuels – and we need to ban the extraction of fossil fuels in planning as well as removing the ability to acquire licences.
Environmental rights and responsibilities
The fundamental principle is that everyone has a right to live in a healthy environment. But its not just about rights – we are also all responsible for protecting the environment – whether what we do as individuals, or as communities, or in work, or the Government at all levels. The Wales Future Generations Act gives responsibility to public authorities in Wales – but it’s hard to enforce, it relies on the Government deciding to implement the responsibility. England needs to strengthen the duties of public authorities with regard to the environment – extending the duty to public authorities just as Wales has.
A right to a healthy environment is enshrined in over 100 constitutions across the world. The Aarhus Convention recognises that: “…every person has the right to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being, and the duty, both individually and in association with others, to protect and improve the environment for the benefit of present and future generations”
A new right like this in law would be limited in such a way that it provides the last line of defence when other systems have failed (in a similar way to judicial review or third party rights of appeal). It would focus on protecting those most in need. By its very nature, it would exemplify the ‘public interest’ and help to support the moral programme for government and strengthen the existing law of responsibility in Wales.
Bolivia has enshrined the rights of nature, Mother Earth separate to the rights of persons. We want Wales/Cymru to recognise our ‘cynefin’ as a functioning eco-system as part of the environmental principles. Cynefin is uniquely welsh concept, which is a bit like the word ‘habitat’ in English - so the place that gives you everything you need to live – but its also where you are from.
Clean soils and water (nutrient neutrality)
The activities of modern society – factory farming and the increased pressure on the sewage system – mean that we are polluting our soils and water at an alarming rate. The answer is not to weaken environmental protection – but to stop polluting practices.
Our work helped kick out a last minute amendment from the Government in September 2023 that would have meant planning authorities no longer have to consider nutrient neutrality as a material factor in planning application last year. Nutrient neutrality is where the infrastructure for water treatment has to be in place before development takes place. This is because our sewage waste has high levels of ‘nutrients’ and these change the ecosystem e.g. rivers and soils.