Business Insider writes….
- Climate groups are starting to hold law firms accountable for their huge role in supporting the fossil fuel industry.
- This is a smart move, and the latest in a line of new fronts in the climate battle targeting the industries the fossil fuel industry needs for survival.
- In the very near future we are going to see the first law firms distance themselves from fossil fuel companies.
- Adam McGibbon is a climate campaigner and journalist.Lionel Hutz, the incompetent attorney from “The Simpson’s” memorably asked, ‘can you imagine a world without lawyers?‘ Hutz then involuntarily imagines a utopian scene that makes him shudder.
Despite being routinely derided in popular culture and lambasted for high-profile roles in political fights, lawyers as a group have largely escaped scrutiny for their huge, hidden role in the climate crisis — until now.
This month, a new environmental group, Law Students For Climate Accountability, a growing group with members across many of the top law schools in the United States, launched a “climate scorecard,” ranking the Vault 100 list of top law firms in the United State in terms of their accountability for the climate crisis.
The student-led group says that the legal profession as a whole is exacerbating the climate crisis in three major ways:
- Facilitating the legal transactions that are necessary for the fossil fuel industry to function.
- Litigating in favour of fossil fuel companies in court.
- Lobbying the government on behalf of the big polluters.
On the first point alone, Law Students For Climate Accountability say that the Vault 100 law firms collectively raked in $1.3 trillion dollars from fossil fuel-related transactions from 2015 to 2019.
Read the full article at https://www.businessinsider.com/big-law-firms-climate-change-activists-strategy-pressure-politics-2020-10?r=AU&IR=T
