½Û×ÓÊÓƵ recently partnered with to tackle climate change with the first ever . The competition saw lawyers, law students and legal professionals submit photos to highlight the urgent need for joining the fight against climate change. The images represented what each entrant felt climate change meant to them on a personal level and were judged on how they best illustrated its impact on our planet.
The winner, runner up and highly commended were announced at a hosted by ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ, with the competition and event supporting raise funds and awareness for , an environmental law NGO.
The competition, judged by among others Marcus Jamieson-Pond FRSA and ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ lead Environment PSL Simone Davidson, was won by Hogan Lovells senior associate Magdalena Bakowska, with a photograph showing aridification in the Namib desert, Namibia. The Law Society’s ‘Back to Law ambassador’ Camilla Bindra-Jones took runner up with an image of three dead birds, arranged together on stones, aiming to highlight the high number of bird deaths due to extreme weather patterns caused by global warming. The images can be seen on the .
Obelisk Support’s Dana Denis-Smith opened the evening by praising the event and photo challenge for ‘celebrating lawyers that are driving change for climate change’. She highlighted that the law is key to having a greater effect when driving change. ClientEarth’s litigation lawyer Peter Barnett expressed the key importance of using the law and litigation as key tools when making a stand in preventing damage to the environment and attempting to confront ‘issues from conservation to energy policy’. He noted that ‘climate change is increasingly seen as a financial issue’ alluding to the fact that key stakeholders were now able to bring relevant cases to light.
½Û×ÓÊÓƵ’ Simone Davidson spoke on the ever-building issue of climate change for lawyers and how ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ can support through its . She noted that ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ’ climate change content ‘tries to capture and reflect what is going on in this area across the international, European and national levels.’
This is reflected in how and analysis is delivered, as highlighted by Simone who spoke to recent coverage including:
As an organisation ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ UK takes climate change mitigation responsibilities very seriously, and has a number of green initiatives to drive down energy use. These include setting up dedicated green teams across our various sites who have championed and organised initiatives, such as:
½Û×ÓÊÓƵ parent company the RELX Group has also shown dedication to the fight against climate change, running the . The Centre helps aid researchers and the public with information around the latest in science, law, business and events. Sustainable Development Goal 13 is a specific action which aims to tackle climate change—in conjunction with this the RELX Group recently made over 5000 subscription articles on climate change freely available (for a test period) (through Mendeley).
A key takeaway from the event would be that we are only on the cusp of making the right people listen to the impacts of climate change and there is still a long way to go.
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Hannah is one of the Future of Law blog’s digital and technical editors. She graduated from Northumbria University with a degree in History and Politics and previously freelanced for News UK, before working as a senior news editor for ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ.
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