New laws and regulations, strategic litigation and duties of
care emerging in response to climate change are giving rise to new
liability risks that pose a serious risk to companies' future
profitability, according to The coming wave, the third report on
climate change from global law firm Clyde & Co. With a
twenty-fold increase in climate law and policy in the past 20
years, there are now over 1,500 national laws and executive acts
addressing climate change, compared to just 70 when the Kyoto
Protocol was adopted in 1997.
Nigel Brook, Partner, Clyde & Co, says: "Businesses,
and the directors and officers who run them, can no longer ignore
climate change. They are coming under increasing scrutiny from
regulators and enforcement bodies and face an ever-growing body of
climate-related law and regulation. The physical impacts of climate
change are already significantly impacting companies' assets,
investments, workforce, supply chains, input costs and outputs, and
the
