{"id":837,"date":"2016-10-11T08:53:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T12:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=837"},"modified":"2016-10-11T08:53:08","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T12:53:08","slug":"uk-minister-downplays-threat-of-climate-court-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2016\/10\/11\/uk-minister-downplays-threat-of-climate-court-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"UK minister downplays threat of climate court battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to environmental lawyers at Client Earth, in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.documents.clientearth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/library\/2016-10-07-mind-the-gap-reviving-the-climate-change-act-ce-en.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a>\u00a0published on today, the UK\u2019s world-leading Climate Change Act has been \u201cdangerously neglected\u201d, leaving the government open to lawsuits.<\/p>\n<p>Climate minister Nick Hurd\u00a0disagreed, saying \u201cAny talk of a legal challenge is very premature.\u201d It is the view of Nick Hurd that an emissions reduction plan due out in the first quarter of 2017 would\u00a0put the country on track to meet its targets.<\/p>\n<p>At issue is the legislation inked in 2008, which binds the UK to a series of \u201ccarbon budgets\u201d that will reduce its emissions 80% from 1990 levels by 2050.<\/p>\n<p>The targets are \u201cas credible as any legal target could realistically be,\u201d the Client Earth report states. But it warns that inconsistent policymaking has opened up a sizeable gap between ambition and action.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Church, lawyer at the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), said:\u00a0\u201cA policy and reporting reset is essential if we are to hit emissions targets. We\u00a0can\u2019t afford\u00a0to drift for the next five years \u2013 as we have done for the last five years \u2013 without proper climate policies and progress&#8230;\u00a0<span class=\"x_bumpedfont15\">With\u00a0its new\u00a0Carbon Plan, the government has the chance to make the Act a living law\u00a0and\u00a0put the UK on the path to a clean, green energy future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Nick Hurd\u2019s opposite number in the Labour Party, Barry Gardiner, endorsed the report.<br \/>\n\u201cThis government has talked up its commitment to climate change but has utterly failed to meet its statutory climate obligations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir incoherent policymaking is sending deeply confusing signals to investors, and risks creating a costly, disruptive transition to the low-carbon economy we need.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will not allow government to publicly sign up to long term targets but totally fail to set out the necessary delivery plans that are required by law to achieve them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">According to environmental lawyers at Client Earth, in a report\u00a0published on today, the UK\u2019s world-leading Climate Change Act has been \u201cdangerously neglected\u201d, leaving the government open to lawsuits. Climate minister Nick Hurd\u00a0disagreed, saying \u201cAny talk <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2016\/10\/11\/uk-minister-downplays-threat-of-climate-court-battle\/\" title=\"UK minister downplays threat of climate court battle\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[426,423,421,422,427,425,420,424,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-carbon-budget","10":"tag-client-earth","11":"tag-climate-change","12":"tag-court-threat","13":"tag-emmisions","14":"tag-jonathan-church","15":"tag-nick-hurd","16":"tag-reportbarry-gardiner","17":"tag-target","18":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions\/839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}