I. Introductory Note Exploitation of forest resources plays an important role in Mozambique’s economy. In fact, Mozambique has some 57 million hectares of native forests, 36% of which show great potential for the wood industry, while the remainder has great social and ecological value, supplying food, medicinal products and building and energy materials ...
There have been two important developments in British Columbia’s wind energy sector in June. The first was the release of BC Hydro’s Draft Integrated Resource Plan (Draft IRP) for public consultation. The Draft IRP recommends building new clean generation resources to ensure sufficient future capacity within the system ...
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the petitions of numerous states and industry groups that challenged several rules EPA issued to control greenhouse gas emissions from stationary and mobile sources.1 Following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v ...
On June 22, 2020, a US District Court for the Eastern District of California issued a permanent injunction against requiring a Proposition 65 warning on the labels of herbicides containing glyphosate, such as Roundup. In National Association of Wheat Growers, et al. v ...
On May 20, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14030, Climate-Related Financial Risk, which directed the implementation of policies that would “advance consistent, clear, intelligible, comparable, and accurate disclosure of climate-related financial risk ...
Feeling the heat: the draft Climate Change Bill, 2018 Earlier this year, the South African Minister of Environmental Affairs (the “Minister”) published the draft Climate Change Bill, 2018 for public comment. Since then, the Department of Environmental Affairs (“DEA”) has undertaken a road show across the country to solicit comments to the Bill and held further bilateral meetings with stakeholders earlier this year ...
With the impact of climate change increasingly evident, it is no wonder that many consumers are endeavouring to make more environmentally conscious decisions in their day-to-day lives. Consumers’ focus to become more environmentally friendly often centralises around changes to their purchases of small, everyday goods such as food, toiletries and other household essentials ...
Administrative fines and increased fees for exploitation of the environment are increasingly included in environmental regulations as sanctions. Lawmakers in Poland more and more often provide for administrative financial sanctions for environmental violations because they are more convenient to enforce than criminal sanctions, which require proof of fault on the part of a specific perpetrator. Moreover, criminal liability may be imposed solely on individuals ...
Charles Arrand considers the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, with a focus on both the potential business and human costs of failing to discharge obligations under the Order. Fire safety is regulated by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (the Order), which applies to almost all buildings, places and structures other than individual private homes ...
For most of the last decade, creative plaintiffs attorneys and their clients — states, municipalities and environmental groups — have pushed novel, untested tort theories designed to hold energy companies, and sometimes, those same state and municipal interests, liable for climate change. Plaintiffs have concentrated their efforts in West Coast forums. But New York and Baltimore saw some action too. Florida, by and large, has avoided the fray. No longer ...
As the UK makes progress towards a ‘Green Industrial Revolution’, Shepherd and Wedderburn is committed, through our Green Recovery Strategy and enhanced Sustainability Policy, to working with clients operating in a wide variety of sectors to contribute to a green recovery from the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic ...
Scotland’s countryside offers a vast range of property investment options, from houses and cottages to farms and country estates. However, when buying a rural property it is important to consider various issues that may be taken for granted in the purchase of a property in an urban area. 1 ...
Tennessee’s urban centers continue to be attractive markets for investment in residential, office and mixed-use developments. While most sophisticated real estate developers and investors are aware of land use and zoning requirements associated with projects in heavily regulated urban centers, many may not be aware of certain environmental issues that can derail a project. “Urban soil” is different ...
It is only seven months until the eyes of the world fall on Glasgow as it hosts COP 26. The conference comes with some terminology which might be unfamiliar. This article is designed to bring you quickly up to speed with the words and phrases you’ll be hearing a lot about in the coming months. The very basics... COP – ‘Conference of the Parties’, the parties being the 197 signatories to the UNFCCC treaty ...
It is only seven months until the eyes of the world fall on Glasgow as it hosts COP26. The conference comes with some terminology which might be unfamiliar. This article is designed to bring you quickly up to speed with the words and phrases you’ll be hearing a lot about in the coming months. The very basics... COP – ‘Conference of the Parties’, the parties being the 197 signatories to the UNFCCC treaty ...
The UK will host the UN’s COP26 climate change conference in November 2021, but what is a COP – and what happened at the previous 25 COPs? 15 April 2021 marks 200 days until COP26 is due to start. Taking place in Glasgow from 1-12 November 2021, COP26 is the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ...
In a major departure from over 20 years of practice, the EPA announced on January 25 that it is withdrawing the “once in, always in” (OIAI) interpretation of the hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) program. The OIAI required sources of HAPs to permanently comply with Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards applicable to major sources of HAPs, even when those sources’ emissions are below major source levels ...
Even a cursory review of relevant news stories today reveals that hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is one of the most hotly debated subjects in the energy sector. Both environmentalists and regulators are keeping concerns about fracking at the forefront of their agendas. Since late May of this year, there have been a number of key legal developments related to the issue that merit the attention of the oil and gas industry ...
INTRODUCTION The new Framework Law on the Climate (Law 98/2021 of 31 December) was published on 31 December 2021. This new Law repeals Law 93/2001 of 20 August and establishes the guiding principles of climate policy and governance. It also introduces targets and provides for mechanisms to combat climate change, to decarbonise the economy and to achieve sustainable development ...
The High Court judgment in Friends of the Irish Environment v. An Bord Pleanála (delivered in 2018 by Meenan J) decided that if a Section 5 referral is made by a third party, then the owners and occupiers of the lands must be identified and served with notice of the referral, and given an opportunity to make submissions in accordance with basic fair procedures ...
The present government is looking to the mining industry to aid in the country’s economic recovery. Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno has stated that the Marcos administration seeks to create an enabling environment for the growth of the mining industry while adhering to responsible and sustainable mining practices ...
