Happy Friday folks! 🎉
It was a bank holiday here in the UK on Monday so it has felt to me that we’ve squeezed five days of work into four. 🤓
It’s got me thinking a lot about the four-day week. I was chatting with a couple of companies last week who had piloted it, and decided to continue with it. They were reflecting that it had forced them to be crystal clear on their work priorities and they trimmed down on a lot of meetings. Interesting. 🤔
On our end, we’ve been seeking to protect Fridays for our non-for-profit work for some years now. You all know the results of that - when we manage to send this out on time (we aim for lunch time UK), it’s working well. When we send it out Friday end of day (or even - agh - Saturdays!), then we’ve been side-tracked. And when this happens, I always recall meditation guide Sharon Salzberg’s wise words: Breathe, and Begin Again. 🌟
We discussed a couple of weeks ago the upcoming advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Wednesday was the final hearing, in the Amazon rainforest city of Manaus. Why people are so focused on this one is that the advisory opinion could touch upon a wide range of issues - going beyond GHG emission reduction. It could touch upon whether states must adapt to climate change, whether states need to pay for damage already caused, how far protections for environmental defenders need to go, and regulation of high-polluting industries. Many eyes are glued on this upcoming advisory opinion - although do blink every now and then as it’s not coming before the end of this year. 👀
Thankfully we have other developments to watch out for. The latest star in town: the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). 🌊
The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), that plays a central role as a dispute settlement mechanism for the international law of the sea, has landed on an important finding in a recent unanimous advisory opinion. The tribunal found that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions absorbed by the oceans constitute marine pollution, because of the effects of GHG on the marine environment - think ocean warming, ocean acidification, etc. 🌡️
Therefore, States are required to take “all necessary measures” to reduce, prevent, and control marine pollution caused by climate change - which entails reducing their GHG emissions to the fullest extent possible.
Tackling climate change is not just the realm of the Paris Agreement (under the auspices of the the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - UNFCCC). Since the Paris Agreement lacks ‘teeth’, other tribunals are weighing in to bring the full force of international law to the challenge. 🌪️
A victory for the nine island nations (Antigua, Barbuda, the Bahamas, etc.) that brought the request. But also a victory for all of us, and future generations. 🌎
Word in the legal corridors is that this advisory opinion will be used as fodder in claims brought against companies. So companies. What happens in international law does not stay in international law.❗
On another note: as I’m now doing a lot more public speaking and senior leadership/ Board sessions, I’ve been reading a lot about the power of the story - the balance to strike between the story and the data; between the bad news and the uplifting news; between what’s happened and what’s ahead. ⚖️
So it’s truly fantastic to see the call for just transition stories from the Institute for Human Rights and Business. If you have first-hand stories of people working to advance just transitions on the ground that you can share, do reach out to the institute here. In their words: “We are looking for stories of meaningful partnerships between those leading public or private sector net zero transitions and those most impacted – local workers, Indigenous peoples, and communities on the frontlines of change.” As they say: “We believe that action is most effectively inspired through leading-by-example and stories that demonstrate the art of the possible.” Hear hear - 1,000%! 🙌
Have a good weekend everyone,
Anna 💫
