We need urgent action to tackle the climate and biodiversity emergency but if we want to change how people, governments and corporations behave, we must change the financial and economic systems that influence and incentivise their behaviours.
At ClientEarth, we’re using the law to shift the economic incentives and flow of finance and unlock necessary change and new opportunities so finance can be used as a force for good.
Investors rely on companies to accurately report on the risks to their business. But most companies are not reporting their exposure to climate risk adequately. We work with regulators and businesses to push companies towards reporting on and mitigating these risks.
Many pension fund members don’t want their money to be invested in fossil fuels. That’s why we work to ensure that pension funds recognise that they have a legal duty to manage climate-related financial risks.
We work to point out where companies are failing to recognise the impact of climate change on their businesses and ensure those risks are reported to shareholders.
We engage with financial regulators and industry bodies to push for the integration of climate considerations in industry guidance and laws.
We want to see public money supporting green projects and fewer loopholes that allow European Member States to subsidise environmentally harmful projects. We engage with the European Commission to push for a better alignment of European State aid rules with the EU Green Deal objectives. We also work to address several cases where State Aid has been given unnecessarily – and sometimes illegally – to fossil fuel companies in Europe.
We’ve helped to shake up the financial industry’s approach to climate risk. We’ve published opinions and reports on legal duties of pension trustees and professional advisors, and written to 14 of the largest UK pensions funds outlining the financial and legal risks of climate change. We’ve reported four major UK companies and three insurance companies over failures to address climate change trends and risks to shareholders in their annual reports, and seen them improve their reporting in subsequent years.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) funds billions in infrastructure projects across the European Union. A bank of this size can have a huge impact on the global shift away from fossil fuels. So we pressured the EIB to withdraw future funding for all fossil fuel projects. The decision has set the standard for banks worldwide and clearly signalled that oil, coal and gas lending is inconsistent with the Paris Agreement objective to limit global warming to 1.5oC.
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