Introduction: the need to rethink environmental laws

Abstract

It might seem an odd point in time to write an introduction to a book of success stories in environmental law. There are a growing number of strikes by schoolchildren around the world as they protest the lack of action to tackle climate change. There are more and more reports of environmental harm. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Summary for Policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services released in 2019 revealed the dev¬astating scale of loss of biodiversity across the world. The report notes that approximately 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinc¬tion, despite global and national laws on conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Again, despite our global commitments to tackling greenhouse gasses, the report notes that since 1980, emissions have doubled and global temperatures have continued to rise; and by 2015, despite a myriad of laws on fishing, only 7 per cent of fish stocks were harvested at sustainable levels. Underpinning much of this bad news is that around three-quarters of all land has been changed to a significant degree by human actions.