In this very significant case, which has now gone to trial, and is being closely followed especially in U.S. legal circles, 16 young people from the U.S. State of Montana are bringing a legal challenge against their State government, saying that it is failing to deliver the promise in the State’s constitution for a right to a clean and healthy environment. It is one of the first real tests in a court of law of the constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment and will test the extent measurable impacts of climate change can be legally attributed to individual states.

COP26 and beyond are really grateful to Climates / Frome International Climate Film Festival 2023 for the Highly Commended award given to our film on Climate Carnage in Pakistan.

In March 2023 the United Nations convened 10,000 participants in a landmark conference on water and SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation. We wanted to find out more about the participation by young people in the critical debates on water and SDG 6, so we managed to contact Clara Brown, the Contact Point for the YOUNGO Water and Climate Working Group, who kindly answered some of our questions.

On 29 March 2023 the United Nations General Assembly voted by acclamation to support the motion brought by the Republic of Vanuatu and by Pacific Island law students, with the support of more than 100 countries. This sought a referral to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion of two questions seeking clarification of states’ responsibilities under international law to address climate change effectively.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ‘IPCC’ released its Sixth Assessment Summary Report on 20 March 2023. This is a key scientific baseline, consensus and internationally respected building block which needs to form the basis for all climate actions that governments take towards mitigation and adaptation on climate change.

After nearly two decades of work and a final burst of 36 hours of round the clock negotiations, on 3 March 2023 in New York, Nations agreed to the “Draft Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction”.

The hosts of COP28, the UAE, have appointed Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber as COP President. The man who will take on this crucial role is currently the CEO of the state oil company as well as chairman of its renewables division. His appointment has caused concern over corporate influence at the COPs, but could the public scrutiny on the UAE and the President benefit us in the long run?

The decision by Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, to authorise the first new coal mine in the UK for 30 years continues to generate huge controversy. In this short article I would like to suggest local and national politicians declaring that “We need the jobs” should ask themselves “What jobs, exactly, and are they the best we have to offer?”

William Wilson will be leading a workshop on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework for young climate activists.

We cannot think of a better way for this website to celebrate the New Year than to relay to all of our followers at COP26 and beyond this brilliant series of interviews put together by the Protect Our Planet ‘POP’ Movement and Planet Classroom Network! It has so much of what we best like and most admire!

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed by the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, Canada, in the early hours of Monday 19th December 2022, represents a huge first step on the road towards halting and reversing the precipitate decline in biodiversity and species extinctions.

In this blog we explain the context behind why the agreement was needed, and what it contains.

Loss & Damage is one of the most contentious topics being discussed at COP27. Here we provide some thoughts on the negotiations, further reading on the topic, and the relevant text from the Paris Agreement to support anyone negotiating in Egypt.

For anyone attending COP27 or COY17 climate talks, we have brought together on one web page all the information and resources that we have produced over the last two years, to help you better prepare for this and future climate conferences and negotiations. Please raid it, and help yourselves!

On 13 September 2022 we caught up with Dr Rich Young, Director of Conservation Knowledge at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, and were privileged to be able to interview him about Biodiversity, and its place within the climate debate.

In a judgement published by the High Court on the 18th July 2022, Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth, the Good Law Project and individual litigant Joanna Wheatley, succeeded in winning their legal challenge that stated the UK government’s Net Zero Strategy did not meet the requirements of the Climate Change Act 2008.

On 28 July 2022, by 161 votes to 0, with 8 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution (UNGA 76/300) recognising the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment as a human right.

On 30 June 2022, the conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court drastically curtailed the ability and powers of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency ‘E.P.A.’ to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions of power plants under the Clean Air Act. In this blog we analyse the ruling, its impact and what it may mean for attempts to fight climate change.

COP26 and Beyond will attend Climate Innovation Forum 2022…

On 31 May 2022 we were lucky enough to be able to interview Bilal Anwar, CEO of Pakistan’s National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF), an enormously experienced ‘climate policy practitioner’ with wide responsibilities in his home country.

Prince William marked the Platinum Jubilee of HM the Queen with a speech about the environment and its heroes, and climate, and the achievements of young people, and hope.