On November 11, 2024, one of the first substantive outcomes of the 29th Session of the UN Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) was approved. The President of COP19 introduced a draft decision of the Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the
On 15 October, the UK’s independent public spending watchdog (the National Audit Office or NAO) published its overview of the Government’s approach to the three areas of environmental improvement, net zero and climate change adaptation.
The report provides a high-level critique of Government programmes to date on these three interrelated areas emphasising the scale of
On 3 September 2024, the UK Government published its factsheet on the Great British Energy Bill which received its Second Reading in the House of Commons on 5 September.
The purpose of the Bill is to establish a publicly-owned energy company designed to drive clean energy deployment and support the UK Government’s aim of decarbonising
On 7 August 2024, the European Commission published a set of frequently asked questions on the implementation of the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (Directive (EU) 2022/2464) (“CSRD“) and the interpretation of certain legal provisions in the Accounting Directive (Directive 2013/34/EU), the Transparency Directive (Directive 2004/109/EC) and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation
On 24 July 2024, the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA“) published an opinion on the sustainable finance regulatory framework (the “ESMA Opinion“), which outlines the ESMA’s long-term vision for the functioning of the EU’s sustainable finance framework (the “Framework“). The ESMA Opinion builds on the findings of the
A major overhaul of the UK’s planning (zoning) system was unveiled on 30 July. This is aimed at tackling the UK’s chronic housing shortage, as well as the challenge of net zero. The lack of affordable housing in the south-east of England, for example, means that average house prices there are ten times the average wage. At the same time, public sector housebuilding has slowed to a trickle and rents have soared. Similarly, the planning system has been identified as a major block on renewables and low-carbon developments in the UK.
In response, the new UK Government has announced significant changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (“NPPF“) which guides decision-making on individual planning applications as well as the content of local planning policies (against which applications for individual sites are assessed). The main aim is to kick-start an unprecedented programme of housebuilding with a huge proposed target of 371,000 per year against current delivery of about 200,000 units per year. There will also be increased requirements on developers to provide affordable housing on new housing developments. Commentary so far has rightly focused on these important housing-related changes in the draft NPPF, but the draft NPPF goes much further than housing. Specific focus is given to renewables and low-carbon projects, digital technology, gigafactories, laboratories and logistics.
In this briefing, we summarise the main proposed changes in the draft NPPF and identify further likely upcoming reforms to be made to the planning system including through the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Continue Reading UK planning reforms to focus on social developments and net zero
Deforestation is now the second leading cause of climate change globally, after burning fossil fuels, and is responsible for around 11% of all greenhouse gas emissions. In the last 60 years more than half of tropical forests worldwide have been destroyed, reducing biodiversity and endangering rare species (see Fifth Special Report of Session – 2023-24:
Japan is considering whether to require all of its primary listed companies to publish an annual sustainability report which substantively conforms with the standards issued by the IFRS’ International Sustainability Standards Board (“ISSB”). The new mandatory disclosure rule would be applied in phases based on the size of market capitalization, with the biggest companies planned
On May 28 2024, the Biden administration released the “Voluntary Carbon Markets Joint Policy Statement and Principles”.
The Joint Statement makes a number of important and supportive points in favor of the VCM, noting that:
On 16 May 2024, the UK Government published an implementation update on its development of economy-wide sustainability disclosure requirements (the “Implementation Update“). The Implementation Update, which the UK Government committed to publishing in its 2023 Green Finance Strategy (which you can read more about here), discusses: