8 December 2022

The impacts of climate change are becoming ever more serious, while international climate law is becoming ever more complex and demanding. Low income developing countries are disproportionately impacted, but with limited capacity to respond in comparison with major emitters.

We are a London based charity, working with low income developing countries and civil society by providing high quality free legal advice in connection with UN climate change meetings.

LRI has a team of 3 staff, coordinating a network of over 170 legal experts from law firms, universities and barristers’ chambers who provide advice and assistance on a pro bono basis. Over the last 10 years, LRI has become a highly respected source of knowledge and support in working with low income developing countries and other vulnerable parties in the international climate negotiations under the UNFCCC.

As international rule making is now substantially complete and work under the Paris Agreement is shifting towards national implementation, LRI seeks to increasingly broaden its focus to include working with climate vulnerable developing countries, in particular the LDCs, to strengthen their capacity to respond to the climate challenge and support them in their efforts in law and policy making at the national level.

We are seeking 2-3 new trustees, with relevant expertise, enthusiasm and time to help guide this strategic shift in our work.

Experience in any of the following areas will be useful:

• Climate-related law and policy making;
• Developing relevant networks, including by identifying potential partners, or providers of legal and policy making advice, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa; and/or
• Capacity building, professional education and remote learning.

We welcome applications from outside the UK, but it will be useful if you are able to attend online meetings in the afternoon or evening, GMT. We are an equal opportunities organisation.

Time Commitment: We hold 4-6 meetings per year, usually on Zoom and welcome assistance as appropriate outside of these meetings.

Salary: None, but expenses available
Term of appointment: 3-4 years
How to apply and when: Please send your CV and covering letter to Pascale Bird (pbird@legalresponse.org) by 9 January 2023
To find out more: Please contact pbird@legalresponse.org or the board’s co-chair Anne Miller anne@annemiller.uk

17 November 2022

On Saturday 12 November at 6pm local time, LRI held a side event entitled “Implementation of the Paris Agreement: carbon markets and the enhanced transparency framework” at the Francophonie Pavilion at the COP. Despite the unfavourable timeslot, an audience of around 20 delegates from African and Caribbean countries and civil society attended the event.

In her presentation, Olivia Tattarletti provided an overview of the agreement reached in Glasgow to implement market approaches under the Paris Agreement, and how their implementation is linked to the new enhanced transparency framework of the Paris Agreement. Pascale Bird then provided a comprehensive introduction to this transparency framework by looking at the framework set out in Article 13 of the Agreement, comparing this with the existing MRV system and explaining the relevant latest developments from Glasgow.

Both speakers also talked about the implications and relevant considerations of these elements for countries at their national level. The engaged audience responded to the call for an exchange of experiences on the ground. A senior LDC negotiator commented that it had been “a very insightful presentation on two extremely important topics that need to be properly understood and implemented at the domestic level”.

A recording of the event (in French) can be viewed on YouTube here and the presentation slides are available upon request (email enquiries[@]legalresponse.org).

20 September 2022

Earlier this month LRI participated in the annual Oxford seminar organised by the European Capacity Building Initiative, an Initiative in which LRI is a lead member organisation. Trust building is the leitmotiv of the seminar: it provides an opportunity for senior negotiators from developing countries and from Europe to meet in an informal setting and share views on key negotiation topics that will be on the agenda of the next COP. Key negotiation groups from the developing world, such as BASIC, the LDC Group, the Africa Group, AOSIS and AILAC, are represented in these discussions by their Chairs and/or member countries.

This year, thirty or so negotiators met over 3 days and discussed a range of issues including, for example:

• the work programmes set up under the Global Goal on Adaptation and pre-2030 mitigation ambition and how to focus discussions and process to ensure successful outcomes;
• the new collective quantified goal on climate finance and institutional arrangements that might be needed to operationalize it once finalised;
• aligning financial flows with the Paris Agreement goals;
• institutional arrangements for the Santiago Network on Loss & Damage;
• what the structure and functionality of a facility to finance loss and damage might look like;
• arrangements for intergovernmental meetings and possible solutions to the problems created by the proliferation of agenda items, meetings, mandates and processes at UNFCCC sessions; and
• gender balance at COPs, SBs and in constituted bodies.

With the historic buildings of Magdalen and New College as the backdrop, negotiators listened to the position of other groups and countries on specific issues and engaged in frank and open exchanges. This will hopefully have brought them a step closer as they prepare for COP27 in Egypt in November.

10 July 2022

The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), in collaboration with several universities, held the second Nairobi Summer School on Climate Justice at Kenyatta University in Nairobi from 27 June to 9 July 2022. Around 170 activities, academics and practitioners from almost 30 different African countries attended the meeting in person. Many more followed it virtually.

The summer school provides a forum to discuss the causes and effects of climate change, learn new skills, network and share experiences as well as information. In this way, PACJA aims is to build up a pool of African climate justice advocates who can shape the political narrative and strengthen the voices of communities that are at the front line of climate change.

The theme of this year’s summer school was capacity building to successfully engage with the UNFCCC process and the African COP in Egypt in November this year. As a long-standing partner and supporter of PACJA, LRI was invited to introduce participants to climate law, the UNFCCC and COP27.  LRI trustee Seth Osafo did so by video link from Ghana, LRI director Christoph Schwarte in person during the second week of the meeting.

20 June 2022

In Bonn, during the meeting of the UNFCCC subsidiary bodies from 6 to 16 June, parties begun work under some of the mandates adopted at the climate conference in Glasgow last year to implement the Paris Agreement. This included the need for more ambitious climate action, deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, enhanced resilience to adapt to the effects of climate change and financial support for developing countries.

The negotiations in Bonn were characterised by several, for the UNFCCC process, unusually inclusive discussion formats. During the dialogues on finance for loss and damage and the global goal on adaptation civil society observer organisations as well as other stakeholders took the floor and contributed to the discussions. As part of the first technical dialogue to review collective progress towards achieving the Paris Agreement’s goals participants moved between tables “world café style”.

As usual when there is a physical meeting, LRI lawyers were on site and on call to assist delegates from climate vulnerable developing countries and civil society observer organisations. This year they were accompanied by lawyer volunteers from Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Germany and the UK. We are grateful for their engagement and support!

The legal questions raised by delegates broadly reflected the different strands of the discussion in Bonn. They related to raising finance specifically for adaptation purposes, the terminology around loss and damage as well as the role and operational set-up of the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage. Other specific legal questions that have come up concerned, for example, the relationship between different international treaty regimes or whether the UNFCCC and its secretariat can be recognised as an international organisation.