Plan B Earth
 Plan B Earth       | |
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| Interest of | Tim Crosland |
Plan B Earth is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) that was established to support strategic legal action against climate change.
By ensuring those responsible for greenhouse gas emissions bear the costs of loss and damage, Plan B Earth will increase the incentives for investment in clean technologies, harnessing market forces towards a better future for everyone.[1]
Contents
Strategic objectives
- (SO 1) Existing legal principles, which provide accountability and responsibility for climate change loss and damage, have been successfully applied and integrated into the market economy.
- (SO 2) Robust, science-based policy, legal and regulatory frameworks, in support of the climate temperature goal, have been implemented nationally and internationally.
- (SO 3) Victims of climate change have access to effective protections and remedies.[2]
Fundamental safety mechanism
The law is society's fundamental safety mechanism. Wherever a duty of care exists, failing to take reasonable steps to prevent harm to others is illegal negligence (whether under private or public international law). Deliberate non-enforcement of that law is to be complicit in that negligence. Contrary to what many were implying in the run up to the 2016 Paris Agreement, a legally binding frame-work for the control of greenhouse gas emissions is already in existence.
The time is ripe for a determined and strategic application of the law.[3]
Climate campaigning
On 12 December 2020, three young British-citizens launched a campaign "Global Majority v UK Gov", which is backed by climate litigation charity Plan B Earth, to sue the UK Government for its domestic and international violations of human rights, exactly five years after the UK adopted the landmark Paris Agreement.
The three campaigners are Marina Tricks, 19, Adetola Onamade, 23, and Jerry Amokwandoh, 22, with Mexican, Nigerian and Trinidadian, and Ghanaian heritage respectively, are all from the Global Majority. This is significant to note because it informs the global implications of the UK Government’s actions: Onamade, Tricks and Amokwandoh want to make clear that the Global Majority are the people who suffer the most from global warming, particularly important when considering the financial and social consequences of environmental degradation caused by extractivist industries like fossil fuel mining.[4]
Legal action
Plan B Earth is taking legal action against the British Government for betraying its Paris Agreement commitments and violating the right to life. On 1 May 2021, Plan B Earth's Tim Crosland and the three campaigners, Marina Tricks, Adetola Onamade and Jerry Amokawandoh, filed a petition for Judicial Review alleging that the UK government violated human rights by failing to implement effective measures to uphold its Paris Agreement commitments. The plaintiffs argued that the Government had failed to produce a coherent plan for addressing the climate emergency.[5]
They alleged that while the UK government had pledged itself to net zero emissions by 2050, it has undercut this commitment by supporting coal and aviation, granting oil and gas leases, investing more than 25 billion pounds in roads, and financing fossil fuel projects overseas. According to the petition, these policies expose the plaintiffs to gross violations of their rights to life, private and family life, and protection from discrimination guaranteed by Articles 2, 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as implemented into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998. Plaintiffs seek a court order that the UK government must urgently implement a legislative and administrative framework sufficient to uphold its Paris Agreement commitments.
The case was refused permission to proceed on the papers, and went to a renewal hearing (for permission) on 25 November 2021 at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Judgment was handed down on 21 December 2021, when Mr Justice Bourne refused to grant permission for a Judicial Review.[6]
Court of Appeal
Tim Crosland, the director of Plan B, said:
“We are all witness to the devastating impacts of the current level of 1.2C warming (above pre-industrial levels): deadly famines in Madagascar, East Africa and Afghanistan; wildfires and floods devastating communities and ecosystems around the world, including in the UK.
“Meanwhile, the City of London continues to profiteer from financing a trajectory towards 3-4C warming, which is terrorism for the younger generation and terrorism for the global south.
“Yet, the High Court has ruled that we cannot use the 1.5C Paris limit as the benchmark for the UK government’s legal obligation to safeguard life, despite the scientific and political consensus that maintaining that limit is vital to safeguard life. Given the UK government’s grandstanding over 1.5C through COP26, the public will understand that for the legal sophistry that it is.
“If the courts are bound to ignore the scientific evidence of what is needed to safeguard life, then ‘the right to life’ is no more than an illusion in a political economy which privileges the safety of short-term corporate profit over the welfare of ordinary people.”
“We’ll appeal to the Court of Appeal and, from there, to the European Court of Human Rights.”[7]
References
- ↑ "We hold governments to account for climate breakdown"
- ↑ "Plan B Earth on Linkedin"
- ↑ "There is a Plan B"
- ↑ "Three Young People Are Suing The UK Government"
- ↑ "Plan B Earth and Others v. Prime Minister"
- ↑ "Plan B Earth and Others v Prime Minister"
- ↑ "Campaigners lose court action over lawfulness of UK climate policies"
