High Court Judgment On U.K. Government Net-Zero Strategy

The High Court of England and Wales (the "High Court") recently ruled¹ that the U.K. government's Net Zero Strategy (NZS) breached the detail and reporting requirements of the Climate Change Act 2008 ("CCA 2008"). In this post, Akin provides readers with the background to the NZS and the judicial review process, and then turns to a discussion regarding the content and significance of the proceedings themselves.

Background: NZS and Judicial Review

The NZS is part of the U.K. government's implementation of the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the "Paris Agreement"), where signatories have set aims based on "[h]olding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels."² In pursuit of this goal, each signatory pledged to prepare, communicate and maintain a greenhouse gas mitigation