Is My Company Required to Comply with the Paris Agreement?
Nota Bene Episode 33: Congressional Check-In for Q2: Paris Agreement, Presidential Nominees, and Privacy with Elizabeth Frazee
On 2 July 2025, the European Commission introduced its 2040 climate target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 90% compared to 1990 levels. One of the key features of this strategy is the possibility to introduce...more
Science-based targets (SBTs) rely on scientific facts to achieve specific conditions or outcomes. SBTs reflect the best available science and set goals intended to prevent human activities from harming the environment....more
US formally submits notification of withdrawal from Paris Agreement. On January 27, 2025, Dorothy Camille Shea, the US acting ambassador to the United Nations, submitted a notification of withdrawal from the Paris Agreement...more
On April 5th, 2019, environmental activist group Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth) Netherlands and co-plaintiffs served Shell a court summons alleging Shell’s contributions to climate change violated its duty of care...more
World leaders, scientists, government decision-makers, private sector actors, climate actionists and other stakeholders have convened at 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on...more
“Net zero” is a topic as hot as the climate these days. With so much regulatory attention being placed on it, companies that do not communicate their net zero efforts appropriately or, worse, intentionally make false and...more
The Tribunal confirmed that States party to UNCLOS must take measures to prevent marine pollution caused by climate change, on top of their obligations under the Paris Agreement. On 9 April 2024, the International...more
EU Value Chain Due Diligence Directive Not Endorsed - Following four years of attempting to progress and approve the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the European Council failed to give the...more
Introduction - With the adoption by 196 parties of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, legally binding international climate change arrived. The Paris Agreement requires increasingly aggressive five-year cycles climate...more
The European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is coming into effect for the maritime transportation sector on January 1, 2024. Here’s what that means. Background - The EU ETS launched in 2005 and on May 10, 2023...more
On 4 December 2023 the European Supervisory Authorities (the “ESAs”) published their final report on updating the regulatory technical standards of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (“SFDR Level 2”). The...more
The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has commenced this week in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and will run through December 12, 2023. The UAE is...more
On September 27, 2023, six “Portuguese young people” were heard by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in a lawsuit against 32 European governments, including all EU member states, alleging that their failure to act...more
On September 5, 2023, the Corporate Leaders Group Europe (CLG Europe) published a position paper urging the European Union to cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 90% by 2040, and asked EU member states to...more
Until now, however, no comprehensive estimate existed of the of that opportunity, (or, to put it another way, the size of the financing gap between committed spending and the investment needed to deliver Net Zero by 2050...more
The possibility of climate markets has finally materialized into the draft stage at COP27, but many crucial decisions that would allow for carbon trading to begin in earnest were deferred to COP28. The Paris Climate...more
Greenhouse gas emissions reduction or removal credit transactions allow governments, companies or individuals to purchase credits that are often referred to as "carbon credits" in an effort to mitigate climate change by...more
As the delegates of the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (COP26) return from two hard weeks in Glasgow, significant progress has been made on establishing...more
On May 26, 2021, the Hague District Court ordered, in a groundbreaking decision, Royal Dutch Shell Plc to ensure that the aggregate annual volume of all carbon dioxide emissions of the Shell group, its suppliers, and...more
On May 26, 2021, a Dutch court ordered Royal Dutch Shell Plc (“Shell”) to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% (from 2019 levels) by 2030. Shell had previously pledged to reduce its emissions by 20% (from 2016 levels) by...more
Um die in der von der UN verabschiedeten Agenda 2030 und dem Pariser Klimaschutzabkommen festgelegten Ziele, insbesondere den Übergang zu einer CO2-armen, nachhaltigeren, ressourceneffizienten Kreislaufwirtschaft mit dem Ziel...more
Operators in the aviation sector and the ‘stationary sectors’ (power generation, energy intensive industries, etc.) should note that the environmental regulatory framework for carbon pricing and emissions trading in the...more
European Commission Announces 2030 Climate Target Plan - As part of the European Green Deal—and flowing from the European Commission's (the "Commission") December 2019 announcement of a 2050 zero carbon target across the...more
China Resumes LNG Imports from the U.S. - "Chinese buyers have resumed imports of liquefied natural gas from U.S. exporters, as Beijing started granting waivers to a 25% import tariff." Why this is important: In the...more
Energy-Related CO2 Emissions ‘Flatlined’ Last Year, IEA Says, Raising Hopes About Climate - "Global emissions remained at approximately 33 gigatonnes in 2019 despite the world economy growing by 2.9%, the IEA said." ...more