40 Facts About ClientEarth

ClientEarth is an environmental law charity, with offices in London, Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin, Beijing, Madrid and Los Angeles.

In 2013 ClientEarth was awarded the Law Society's LSA Award for Excellence in Environmental Responsibility.

In 2017, ClientEarth was named the most effective environmental group by green leaders.

ClientEarth is attempting to make it a legal right for European citizens and non-governmental organisations to bring environmental cases to court.

In 2010, ClientEarth were successful in a legal challenge to get British courts to accept the Aarhus Convention; this convention obliges governments to give rights and remove financial barriers to NGOs and individuals to mount legal challenges to cases of environmental damage.

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In 2011 ClientEarth announced the launch of its European Aarhus Centre.

In July 2011 ClientEarth submitted a case to the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, challenging Defra on its failure to protect British citizens' health from the harmful impacts of air pollution.

ClientEarth lawyers insisted not enough was being done after the UK breached EU limits for nitrogen dioxide.

In total ClientEarth has won three High Court rulings ordering the British government to produce stronger plans to improve air quality.

ClientEarth continue to lobby the British government to do everything possible to meet air pollution legal limits quickly.

ClientEarth have brought nearly 40 legal actions in Germany over breaches of air pollution law.

In 2015 along with partner organisation Deutsche Umwelthlife ClientEarth brought legal action over illegal nitrogen dioxide levels in Munich.

In 2016 ClientEarth brought a case against the Brussels regional government for a failure to tackle illegal levels of air pollution.

In 2017, ClientEarth launched legal action against Lombardy, Europe's most polluted region to force the authorities to tackle the public health emergency.

ClientEarth have taken over 75 legal interventions against coal across ten countries.

ClientEarth took a legal challenge to eliminate the plant's carbon footprint by 2035.

ClientEarth is challenging the operation of two neighbouring opencast mines, arguing that lignite mining causes significant disturbance to groundwater levels and releases toxic heavy metals into surrounding water and soil.

Polnoc, Pelplin, PolandIn 2011, ClientEarth challenged plans by company Polenergia had planned to construct a 1.

Ostroleka C, Poland In October 2018, ClientEarth filed a challenge against Enea over financial risks to investors amid rising carbon prices, cheaper renewables and EU reforms on state subsidies for coal power plants.

Rovinari, RomaniaIn 2019, ClientEarth submitted a legal challenge against the permit for a coal-fired power plant in Rovinari, a town in southwestern Romania.

Meliti I and II, GreeceClientEarth launched a legal challenge that sought to revoke a permit for two coal-fired power plants in Greece – Meliti I and its sister plant Meliti II.

ClientEarth asserted that Greece did not carry out an environmental impact assessment on the plant's impact on health, the environment or the climate, breaching EU laws.

ClientEarth brings legal interventions designed to integrate climate-related financial risks into corporate and financial decision making.

ClientEarth provided support to the Church Commissioners for England's call for commodities giant Glencore to significantly strengthen its commitment to combat climate change.

In 2018, ClientEarth lawyers reported Easyjet, Balfour Beatty, EnQuest and Bodycote to the Financial Reporting Council following concerns that they failed to address climate change threats in their reports to shareholders.

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ClientEarth have written to the Financial Reporting Review Panel asking that they properly enforce the Companies Act, the law regarding company reporting of environmental and social issues.

In July 2010, ClientEarth made a specific complaint regarding mining company Rio Tinto, arguing that statements in the company's annual reports contradicted accounts from other sources including government agencies, NGOs and journalists.

ClientEarth argued that, if verified, Rio Tinto's reports would not comply with British law.

In 2008, ClientEarth sued the French government for failing to enforce a ban on drift net fishing, but the claim was rejected by the French court in Paris.

ClientEarth called for supermarkets to remove or correct these labels, or risk breaching consumer protection laws.

In 2010, ClientEarth voiced its opposition to the EU's potential to force its member states' abstention from a vote regarding the introduction of whaling quotas.

The EU had changed whale protection's categorisation from a conservation issue to a fisheries issue, which it believed would allow the forced abstention if the member states could not reach a unanimous agreement; ClientEarth argued that EU law did not allow for this re-classification, and that the instruction to abstain would be illegal as unanimity is not required on conservation issues.

ClientEarth noted that, where EU states cannot agree on international environmental issues, Union Laws require them to vote to protect and strengthen an existing EU position; thus, they argued that the member states should vote against the International Whaling Commission's plan to allow the resumption of commercial whaling.

Also in 2010, ClientEarth highlighted to the EU fisheries ministers that, given the rapid decline of bluefin tuna stocks, they were legally obliged to ban bluefin fishing in the Mediterranean and Atlantic for at least three years, from 2011 to 2013.

ClientEarth argued that France's overfishing in 2007 meant they should be banned from receiving any bluefin catch quota in 2011, and that Italy should be penalised for overfishing, although less severely than France.

ClientEarth is currently supporting Fish Fight, a campaign backed by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Channel 4, that aims to stop the practice of discarding fish under the Common Fisheries Policy.

ClientEarth has complained to the Financial Reporting Review Panel regarding the activities of oil company BP.

In 2010, ClientEarth filed a lawsuit against the Council of the European Union, regarding plans to revise the EU's 2002 access-to-documents law, which gives individuals the right to view internal EU documents.

ClientEarth sued the Council over its alleged failure to disclose its in-house legal opinion about the review of the 2002 rules.

Employees of ClientEarth include Professor Ludwig Kramer and CEO and founder James Thornton.