This page contains some key resources that may be useful to readers of the Law & Climate Atlas, as well as a glossary of relevant terminology. Please do not hesitate to contact us at climate@hughes.cam.ac.uk if you would like to suggest additions to either of these lists.
Further resources
General climate resources
- The IPCC Website – contains the latest authoritative evidence on climate change and humanity’s efforts to reduce emissions.
- Carbon Brief – aggregates key climate-related news and developments, and publishes explainers on key climate topics.
- Climate Action Tracker – summarises national climate policies and progress towards reaching global climate targets.
- Net Zero Tracker – tracks net zero commitments from both governments and businesses around the world.
- World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal – provides data on global climate impacts and risks.
- Climate Policy Radar – maps and analyses the global climate law and policy landscape.
- United States Climate Alliance Policy Database – tracks climate policies of US states and territories that are committed to the Paris Agreement.
Law and climate resources
- Climate Change Laws of the World – a comprehensive database of climate-related legislation and litigation from around the world.
- Global Climate Change Litigation Database – a database of global climate change litigation cases, categorised by jurisdiction and principal law.
- The Chancery Lane Project – an initiative that compiles climate-related contractual clauses to enable lawyers to take climate action.
- Net Zero Lawyers Alliance – a network of commercial lawyers and law firms committed to addressing climate change.
- General Counsel Sustainability Forum – an organisation aiming to empower the inhouse legal community to take climate action.
- Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative – an initiative bringing together legal experts to produce research and practical tools that promote effective sustainable governance practice at the board-level.
- Legal Sustainability Alliance – a collaborative network run by law firms providing resources to the legal sector in the transition to Net Zero.
- Climate Change Litigation Initiative – a platform highlighting potential climate litigation scenarios in over 30 countries.
- Global Judicial Portal – a platform that provides environmental law and jurisprudence information for judges and the wider environmental law community.
- Environmental Energy & Law Program Trackers – compiles up-to-date information on US federal regulatory and litigation actions, including in climate disclosure and environmental justice commitments.
- Framework for Net Zero Alignment – provides guidance on how commercial law firms can manage firm climate-related risks.
Glossary
| Term | Definition |
| Adaptation | Efforts taken to adjust in response to climate change impacts, in contrast to mitigation. |
| Attribution Science | A way of linking climate change to weather impacts, which is now being used to show causation in climate litigation. |
| Biodiversity Loss | The decline in the variety of different species of life, a problem with significant human impacts that is linked to, but distinct from, climate change. |
| Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism | A tariff applied on imports based on the greenhouse gas emissions caused by their production. |
| Carbon Levy | A tax levied on fuels that emit greenhouse gas emissions. |
| Carbon Offsetting | Schemes by which companies can offset their carbon footprint through investment in green projects that help reduce carbon emissions. This is done through the purchase of carbon credits, which each represent the removal of one tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere. |
| Carbon Pricing | Measures, such as carbon taxes and emissions trading systems, that put a price on greenhouse gas emissions in order to disincentivise them. |
| CCC | The Climate Change Committee, the UK’s independent advisory body on climate change established under the Climate Change Act. |
| Climate Change Act 2008 | The central piece of legislation for UK climate policy. It sets out the UK’s emissions reduction targets and a number of requirements to hold the government accountable to that target. |
| Climate Disclosure | Documents that organisations such as companies, banks and institutions publish about their carbon footprint and exposures to climate risks, according to a range of climate-related reporting requirements. |
| Climate Finance | Funding and investment related to climate change mitigation and adaptation. |
| Climate Litigation | A broad term referring to cases where climate change is the central issue. |
| COP | Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Agreements on Climate Change – a yearly meeting where world leaders and negotiators reach agreements on climate change. |
| Corporate Governance | The mechanisms and processes by which corporations are controlled and operated. |
| Decarbonisation | The removal or reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from human activity, with the eventual goal of eliminating them. |
| Emissions Trading | Policies where entities must retire ‘allowances’ to emit greenhouse gases, and can buy or sell allowances from other entities in the emissions trading system. |
| Environment Act 2021 | The UK’s framework piece of environmental legislation implemented post-Brexit. |
| ESG | A business’s environmental, social, and corporate governance. Often used by investors to consider the impact of their investments. |
| EPA | The US’s Environmental Protection Agency, which implements federal environmental law through regulations and grant-funding states’ environmental programmes. |
| Green Taxonomy | A regulatory list of activities or products that can be labelled as ‘green’, ‘sustainable’, or similar, now being used in the context of sustainable investing. |
| Greenhouse Gas | Gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, that contribute to the global rise in temperatures. |
| Greenhouse Gas Removal | Methods, both natural and technical, that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. |
| Greenwashing | When an organisation purports to have a more positive impact on the environment than it actually does. |
| IPCC | The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a UN scientific advisory body that produces authoritative reports on climate change. |
| ISSB | International Sustainability Standards Board – board of the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation which has set global sustainability disclosure standards: IFRS S1 and IFRS S2. |
| Just Transition | A global response to climate change that improves social and economic conditions and does not exacerbate inequalities. |
| Kyoto Protocol | An international treaty under the UNFCCC signed in 1997 that committed its parties to greenhouse gas emission reductions, later succeeded by the Paris Agreement. |
| Loss and Damage | The concept that highly developed countries, which tend to be the largest historical emitters, should compensate developing countries that are often facing the worst climate impacts. |
| Mitigation | Activities taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid climate change, in contrast to adaptation. |
| Natural Capital | A term to describe natural assets and the value that they bring to humanity. |
| Nature-based Solutions | Sustainable management and use of natural ecosystems to address socio-environmental challenges. |
| NDC | Nationally Determined Contribution – each signatory to the Paris Agreement’s commitment to reduce their emissions. |
| Net Zero | When the total volume of greenhouse gas emissions is equivalent to the volume of greenhouse gases being sequestered from the atmosphere. |
| Paris Agreement | A 2015 agreement under the UNFCCC which compels parties must communicate their NDCs and establishes mechanisms to help with climate cooperation. |
| Physical Risks | Risks posed by the physical impacts of climate change (e.g. rising temperatures and extreme weather events). |
| Scope 1 Emissions | The greenhouse gases emitted directly by an entity (e.g. those from industrial operations). |
| Scope 2 Emissions | The indirect emissions of an entity, often associated with those produced from purchased energy. |
| Scope 3 Emissions | All emissions across an entity’s value chain, including upstream and downstream emissions. |
| SDGs | Sustainable Development Goals – 17 interlinked sustainability objectives adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. |
| SEC | The US’s Securities and Exchange Commission (US), which is a federal agency that regulates the US securities markets and protects investors. |
| Sustainable Development | A goal relevant to international climate action, traditionally defined as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations. |
| TCFD | The Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, which sets disclosure and reporting rules for organisations that are now becoming mandatory in some jurisdictions. |
| TNFD | The Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures, which outlines disclosure recommendations for organisations to report on nature-related risks, dependencies, and opportunities. |
| Transition Risks | Risks posed by society’s response to climate change, for example market changes and policy mechanisms. |
| UNFCCC | The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. |
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