Climate Leadership Resolution

Update: The resolution was defeated, despite many CBA members speaking in favour of climate leadership within the legal profession. You can read more on our post here. L4CJ will continue pursuing the goals of the climate leadership resolution. Please contact us if you would like to be involved.

At the Canadian Bar Association annual general meeting on February 17, 2021, L4CJ will put forward a Climate Leadership Resolution developed with colleagues from across Canada and supported by the Aboriginal Law Section, Charities and Not-for-Profit Law Section, Labour and Employment Law Section, Municipal Law Section, and the Women Lawyers Forum.

The proposed Climate Leadership Resolution requests that CBA Sections and Committees consider climate justice and the impacts of climate change in their submissions regarding potential law reform and in developing educational programming. The resolution also adopts a definition of climate justice and urges lawyers to undertake individual actions, where applicable to their practice and in keeping with their available resources and geographic location.

The full text of the resolution is below and also available through the CBA. As set out in our article in the CBA’s National Magazine, we believe lawyers have a role to play in responding to climate change and this resolution will assist us fulfilling that role.

To support the resolution, register to attend the AGM, and then cast your vote on the day of the meeting.

Climate Leadership Resolution [French text follows]

WHEREAS in 2011 the Canadian Bar Association recognized that climate change and Canada’s response to it have profound environmental and economic implications for Canada’s future;

WHEREAS in 2016 Canada ratified the Paris Agreement to hold the increase in global warming to below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C;

WHEREAS in 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that limiting global warming to 1.5°C will require rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities;

WHEREAS lawyers will play a critical role in this transition;

WHEREAS climate change disproportionately impacts Indigenous Peoples, racialized people, and those living in poverty, and also has disproportionate gender-based impacts;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Canadian Bar Association:

1. Adopt a definition of “climate justice”: To ensure communities, individuals and governments have substantive legal and procedural rights relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment and the means to take or cause measures to be taken within their national legislative and judicial systems and, where necessary, at regional and international levels, to mitigate sources of climate change and provide for adaptation to its effects in a manner that respects human rights and Indigenous rights;

2. Urge lawyers, acting in accordance with their professional conduct rules, to:

   • undertake pro bono activities to aid efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to adapt to climate change, and to advocate for climate justice;

   • advise their clients, as appropriate, of the risks and opportunities associated with climate change; and

   • make efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with their law practice, in keeping with available resources and geographic location.

3. Request that CBA Branches, Sections and Committees consider climate justice and the impacts of climate change in their submissions on potential law reform and in developing educational programming.

Leadership en matière climatique

ATTENDU QU’en 2011, l’Association du Barreau canadien a reconnu que les changements climatiques et la réponse du Canada ont de profondes répercussions environnementales et économiques sur l’avenir du pays;

ATTENDU QU’en 2016, le Canada a ratifié l’Accord de Paris conçu pour contenir l’élévation du réchauffement de la planète en dessous de 2°C et pour poursuivre les efforts visant à limiter l’élévation de la température à 1,5°C;

ATTENDU QU’en 2018, le Groupe d'experts intergouvernemental sur l'évolution du climat a conclu que la limitation du réchauffement planétaire à 1,5°C exigera des transitions rapides et radicales dans les domaines de l’aménagement des terres, de l’énergie, de l’industrie, des infrastructures, des transports et de l’urbanisme;

ATTENDU QUE les juristes joueront un rôle crucial dans cette transition;

ATTENDU QUE les changements climatiques ont des répercussions disproportionnées sur les peuples autochtones, les personnes racialisées et celles vivant dans la pauvreté, et qu’ils ont également des répercussions sexospécifiques disproportionnées;

QU'IL SOIT RÉSOLU QUE l’Association du Barreau canadien s’engage à faire ce qui suit :

1. adopter une définition de la notion de « justice climatique » : Garantir que les communautés, personnes et gouvernements ont des droits juridiques et procéduraux fondamentaux connexes au fait de profiter d’un environnement sans danger, propre, sain et durable, et les moyens de prendre ou de faire prendre des mesures dans le contexte de leurs régimes parlementaire et judiciaire nationaux, et le cas échéant, sur le plan régional et international, pour atténuer les sources des changements climatiques et pour prévoir des mesures d’adaptation à leurs effets dans le respect des droits de la personne et des droits des peuples autochtones;

2. exhorter les juristes, agissant conformément aux règles déontologiques applicables à leur profession, à

   • entreprendre des activités à titre bénévole pour appuyer les efforts de réduction des émissions de gaz à effets de serre, s’adapter face aux changements climatiques et prôner la justice climatique;

   • conseiller leurs clients, le cas échéant, quant aux risques et aux possibilités liés aux changements climatiques;

   • s’efforcer de réduire les émissions de gaz à effets de serre liées à leur pratique, en fonction des ressources disponibles et de l’emplacement géographique;

3. demander aux divisions, sections et comités de l’ABC de tenir compte de la justice climatique et des répercussions des changements climatiques lorsqu’ils rédigent des mémoires sur de possibles réformes juridiques et lorsqu’ils conçoivent des séances de formation.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Climate Justice Resolution

1. How do I vote at the CBA AGM?  Can I vote by proxy?

The CBA AGM will take place on Wednesday February 17 from 12:30-4:00 pm ET. 

Debate on the resolutions is scheduled to take place from 1:50 to 3:10 pm ET. The agenda is available here.

Unfortunately, voting by proxy is not permitted. If you are unable to attend but would like to support the resolution, here are some ways that you can show your support:

• Share the resolution with your colleagues and networks and encourage them to support it

• Express your support on the CBA’s Resolution Discussion Board

• Email Lawyers for Climate Justice a statement of support to be read at the AGM

2. The CBA passed a resolution in 2011 recognizing the importance of developing a comprehensive national climate strategy.  Why are you asking the CBA to pass a second climate-related resolution?

Resolution 11-05-A was an important milestone, recognizing climate change’s profound impacts on the environment and the economy and calling on governments to take action.

This year’s climate leadership resolution will go further, reflecting the major implications that climate change has for all practice areas and for the pursuit of justice itself and recognizing that lawyers have obligations to their clients to turn their minds to climate-related risks and opportunities.

In short, lawyers have a role to play in developing solutions to the climate crisis that advance justice and human rights. 

As such, the resolution adopts a definition of “climate justice”; urges lawyers to, where appropriate, take climate change into account when considering pro bono activities, practice management, and competent advice; and requests that the CBA take climate impacts into account when thinking about law reform and education.

3. How was this definition of “climate justice” in the climate leadership resolution developed?

The resolution’s definition of “climate justice” is drawn from the International Bar Association’s (IBA) Climate Change Justice and Human Rights Presidential Task Force Report, published in 2012. The Task Force members included lawyers, members of the judiciary and academia with expertise in a wide range of practice areas.

The IBA’s Task Force sought to assess the challenges to national and legal regimes posed by climate change, especially in terms of justice, and to make recommendations accordingly.

4. Why does the resolution urge lawyers to advise their clients on the risks and opportunities related to climate change? If I am not an expert on climate change, shouldn’t I refer these issues to others, rather than advising on these issues myself? 

The resolution “urges lawyers, acting in accordance with their professional conduct rules” to advise their clients “as appropriate” about climate-related risks and opportunities [emphasis added]. 

It is important to note that the resolution does not ask lawyers to act outside their professional competencies. Instead, the resolution reflects growing recognition of the importance of “climate competent” or “climate conscious” lawyering and seeks to mobilize CBA members and resources accordingly. 

In short, climate change and humanity’s response have massive, growing implications for every practice area and for the pursuit of justice itself. These implications include a variety of industry-specific physical, transition, and litigation risks; widespread business opportunities; and the exacerbation of existing inequities and justice challenges.

Given the complexity of climate change issues and impacts, rapidly changing climate laws and policies, and emerging climate litigation trends, lawyers may require additional training to become climate competent.

The resolution does not seek to make every lawyer a climate change expert. Rather, it reflects the reality that lawyers must proactively engage with climate change’s implications, if only so they can effectively issue-spot and mobilize outside expertise as appropriate. 

Indeed, failure to proactively engage, by taking a “climate blind” approach, may leave clients exposed to risks or unaware of opportunities that the lawyer had failed to consider. 

For these reasons, the resolution also requests that CBA Branches, Sections, and Committees take climate change impacts into account when considering potential educational programming. The CBA has an important role to play in helping its members and their clients grapple with the profound challenges and opportunities that climate change brings.

5. I support a number of initiatives through the CBA to foster justice and equality, like reducing mandatory minimum sentences. Why does the resolution ask already overburdened lawyers to take on more pro bono work?   

In light of the profound justice implications of the changing climate, the resolution urges lawyers to undertake pro bono work to “aid efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to adapt to climate change, and to advocate for climate justice.”

As with all pro bono work, any climate-related pro bono activities would be entirely up to CBA members’ discretion. The resolution simply draws attention to climate change as worthy of consideration when considering pro bono initiatives.

Further, climate-related pro bono activities by CBA members would help to demonstrate that the profession understands the breadth, urgency, and severity of climate change’s impacts and is responding accordingly to safeguard the interests of justice.

Relatedly, climate-related pro bono activities need not come at the expense of existing efforts. Indeed, turning our mind to the justice impacts of climate change, as the resolution seeks to encourage, can only enhance existing pro bono initiatives.

For example, there is an observed relationship between rising temperatures and the incidence of violent crime. Further, climate-induced migration will put new pressures on existing refugee and immigration regimes. Rising temperatures also affect occupational health and safety.

Pro bono activities in these and other areas can only be strengthened by taking the changing climate context into account.

6.    How we reduce our emissions and adapt to a changing climate is a complex and controversial political issue. Why should the CBA consider climate justice in its law reform submissions, rather than leaving it to the government to decide?

The resolution requests that CBA Branches, Sections and Committees consider climate justice and climate impacts in submissions on potential law reform. 

It is important to note that the resolution does not mandate any particular outcome; rather it invites lawyers and the CBA to put climate change on their radar. 

CBA law reform submissions regularly address human rights, equity and the rule of law. 

Given the wide-ranging impacts of climate change on every practice area, client interests, and existing justice challenges, it would be helpful to also turn our minds to climate change when considering potential law reform.

In seeking to put climate change’s justice implications on the CBA’s radar, the resolution is also well within the CBA’s mandate. In particular, the resolution seeks to support and strengthen efforts to:

• “Improve the law”, 

• “Improve the administration of justice”,

• “Improve and promote access to justice”,

• “Promote equality in the legal profession and the justice system”, 

• “Improve and promote the knowledge, skills, ethical standards, and well-being of members of the legal profession”, 

• “Represent the legal profession nationally and internationally”, and

• “Promote the interests of members of the Canadian Bar Association.”

Further, the resolution has broad support, including from the Aboriginal Law Section, Charities and Not-for-Profit Law Section, Labour and Employment Law Section, Municipal Law Section and Women Lawyers Forum. 

Moreover, the resolution follows similar moves in other jurisdictions. Our neighbours at the American Bar Association passed a resolution in 2019 calling on all levels of government to take actions to reduce emissions to net-zero as soon as possible, similar to the CBA's 2011 resolution. The ABA resolution goes further and "urges lawyers to engage in pro bono activities to aid efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change, and to advise their clients of the risks and opportunities that climate change provides." 

British lawyers are also urging their law society to take a leadership role by informing lawyers of legal implications of climate change and finding appropriate remedies. Relatedly, Australian lawyers are calling on their Law Council to declare a climate emergency and take action to address it.

It is well past time that we join other professional associations, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, the Planning Institute of British Columbia, the British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects, Chartered Professional Accountants Canada, and others in showing professional leadership on climate change.