A new Report by the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme finds that both investors and policymakers may not be paying sufficient attention to the risks of legal risk of fossil fuel investments. Noting that the number of cases before courts worldwide is at 2500 and rising. The Oxford group says is a relatively new field and is mostly focused on physical risk to companies, and investors and regulators who do not account for the possibility of large payouts from climate litigation

A historic agreement where over 200 nations agreed upon the transition away from fossil fuels, tripling the amount of renewable energy, halting deforestation, and curbing the release of methane by 2030.

This week IRENA’s Director-General Fancesco La Camera shared the World Energy Transitions Outlook 2023 Preview and warned that our world needs a dramatic shift in the energy transition to avoid surpassing our 1.5 C climate target. What this translates to is a total of $35 trillion is needed by 2030 to expedite this energy transition.

Today, the European Union countries gave their final approval to adopt a new regulation that will require a 100% reduction in emission from new cars and vans. The EU policy will require all new cars sold to have zero CO2 emissions from 2035 and 55% lower CO2 emissions from 2030, versus 2021 levels. This is in line with the European Commission’s “Fit for 55” roadmap to cut GHG emissions. However, Germany won an exemption for cars running on e-fuels, leading to concerns that traditional combustion engine cars could still be sold beyond 2035.

On Sunday, national governments gave their final approvals on the latest IPCC report after approval was delayed due to battles between rich and developing countries over emissions targets and financial aid to vulnerable nations. The IPCC report was intended to be approved last Friday, but was repeatedly delayed as officials from big nations such as China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the European Union negotiated around specific wording of key phrases found in the report. After approvals finally happened, the report was publish Monday afternoon and made some very clear statements regarding what is possible and what the stakes are when looking at climate change.

On Tuesday this week, the European Parliament formally approved a new law that will effectively ban the sale of new combustion engine cars in the European Unition as of 2035. This new law has been approved in hopes to combat climate change and accelerate the shift from petrol and diesel cars to electric.

This week, the supreme court came to a conclusion regarding the interpretation of the 1970s Clean Air Act. Essentially, This ruling limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate green house gas emissions and says that the EPA does not have the authority to shift power generation from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

IPCC Climate Change Mitigation Report: What you need to know.

Early in April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the second part of their sixth evaluation report. This report primarily focuses on mitigation of further climate change, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.