Climate laws such as the UK’s Climate Change Act 2008 are under-delivering on net-zero goals, a report by environmental law firm ClientEarth has found
The report, 'Navigating net-zero: global lessons in climate law-making', published this week, assessed laws in Finland, France, Mexico, Sweden, the UK and the Australian state of Victoria, but concluded they were beset by pitfalls such as a lack of legally binding interim targets, a lack of consequences for missing targets, over complexity, delayed implementation and failure to monitor progress.
It said that while the UK Act required government to set legally binding emissions targets every five years and publish a progress report, banking and borrowing mechanisms provided flexibility to relax these targets, which had proved controversial.
ClientEarth lawyer Sophie Marjanac said: ‘For laws that break new ground, you expect teething problems―but there is much to learn from the successes and mistakes made in these pioneering efforts.’
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