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The latest issue of the Environmental and Planning Law Journal (Volume 41 Part 4) contains the following material:
Articles
No Time to Waste: A Discussion of Australia’s Current Plastics Strategy and How It Intends to Address the Global Crisis – Hannah Beaven
The problem of plastic pollution is a global problem requiring a global solution. The prospect of an international plastics treaty was promising but progress has been slow. While international discussions may have stalled, governments around the world are facing pressure to lead the move towards a circular plastic economy. In Australia, government attempts to regulate waste including plastic waste at a national and state level have transitioned from end-of-life processes to a more holistic or circular approach. This article analyses two of the regulatory tools used by the Australian governments to push the country towards a circular plastics economy, namely “command and control” laws (ie bans) and product stewardship schemes. Noting critical shortcomings in Australia’s current plastics strategy, the author implores the Federal Government to boldly spearhead a clear drive towards a circular economy for plastics with the support of the state and territory governments.
Can Nature-based Disclosure Transform Business for a “Nature-positive” Future? – Penelope Stevenson and Jan McDonald
This article examines the Recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD Recommendations) one year on from their launch. Without strong government action, the private sector plays a critical role in halting and reversing the loss of nature. The TNFD provides voluntary guidance for companies and financial institutions on how to report nature-related issues, using disclosure and transparency to improve organisational responses to nature-based risks. The TNFD improves on its climate counterpart, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), in enabling disclosure of both impacts on and from nature and biodiversity loss. However, the TNFD also has significant shortcomings. Measurement of “nature” is more complex and sitespecific than climate impacts. The concept of “nature-positive” is ill-defined, creating a risk of organisational greenwashing. Large corporate interests have confined the framework’s ambition and scope. These shortcomings should be addressed in future regulation making nature-based disclosures mandatory.
Climate-related disasters increasingly threaten lives, economies and ecosystems, necessitating effective risk management. While insurance has traditionally funded post-disaster recovery, it also plays a role in risk signalling, adaptation incentives and planning. The 2015 Paris Agreement positioned insurance as a key tool in climate disaster management, yet a decade later, its effectiveness remains uncertain. This article considers case studies from Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom to assess whether insurance has met expectations in terms of both compensating victims and incentivising climate risk adaptation. These examples demonstrate the affordability issues when insurance is left to the free market (Australia), the inefficiencies of bold government intervention when not matched by mitigation efforts and weakened by political pressures (the United States’ National Flood Insurance Program), but also the innovation, advocacy and stakeholder engagement that can result from a clear, government-ordained mandate for the private sector (the United Kingdom’s Flood Re).
Saving the Taj Mahal: Legal Activism and the Public Interest – Rob White
This article discusses the intervention by lawyer MC Mehta in bringing a significant environmental issue before the Indian Supreme Court in 1984; namely, the damage caused to the Taj Mahal because of pollution. This issue has continued to attract legal action since then, as the threats to the Taj Mahal have persisted over the decades. The Taj Mahal case is discussed in the light of its substantive contributions to public interest law and how this was progressed in India via concepts such as the precautionary principle, intergenerational equity, polluter pays and sustainable development. It is important to acknowledge and recognise the major contribution of lawyer activists like MC Mehta in shaping the orientation of the Indian Supreme Court regarding environmental issues and on environmental case law generally.
When Ideas Float Across the Nullarbor, Some of Them Evaporate – Alex Gardner
Western Australia has shunned two important environmental legal concepts that have gained currency on the east coast and could be important for responding to climate change: a “global carbon budget” analysis in environmental impact assessment of fossil fuel projects, and water access entitlements as perpetual shares in a consumptive pool of a water resource defined in accordance with a statutory water plan. The Minister for Environment (WA) implicitly rejected the global carbon budget analysis when determining appeals against the assessment report of the North West Shelf Project Extension in November 2024. The Minister for Water (WA) implicitly rejected the share entitlement concept when announcing in December 2023 that reform of our antiquated water resources law was not necessary. The political reasoning for rejecting these two concepts was legally fallacious. There is still the opportunity to adopt these concepts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
For the PDF version of the table of contents, click here: New Westlaw Australia – EPLJ Vol 41 No 4 Contents
Click here to access this Part on New Westlaw AU
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