The UN Summit of the Future that took place in New York over the weekend pitched strengthened diplomatic cooperation as the key to protecting the rights of present and future generations from environmental breakdown, amongst other issues.

As politicians, business leaders and civil society gathered in New York to discuss urgent progress needed on climate and nature, the upcoming diplomatic calendar was in sharp focus – in particular, the deadline for updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in February 2025. NDCs are commitments on emissions-cutting that countries submit to the UN every 5 years, and they are central for the Paris Agreement’s mechanism to ratchet up countries’ decarbonisation ambitions over time.

But now is also the moment to start asking, what comes after and with the NDCs?

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The conversation must evolve to ensure that international targets are translated into strong national laws to guarantee their full delivery. For us at ClientEarth, that looks like two things at national level; the adoption of Future Generation Acts to incorporate long-term thinking into governance, and the implementation of ambitious and science-driven framework climate laws.

UK leads the way

So far, framework climate laws have been adopted in almost 60 countries around the world. The first was the UK’s groundbreaking 2008 Climate Change Act. It committed the UK government to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a pathway to achieving ‘Net Zero’ by 2050, and setting 5-year carbon budgets. It also established the Climate Change Committee – an expert, independent body that advises the government and ensures emissions targets are evidence-based and independently assessed.

Research says it has been working: a study from the London School of Economics suggests that the act has helped to reduce UK emissions over its 16 years, especially in the power sector: the share of low-carbon generation increased from 20% in 2008 to 45% in 2016, and experts say the act was a major driver of this transformation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its sixth assessment report, agreed that “climate laws have been growing in number and have helped deliver mitigation and adaptation outcomes”.

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Such framework climate laws create a clear and binding legal foundation for climate action that stands the test of time and changing politics. They create stronger obligations on states to protect both present and future generations. They also provide clarity to business and investors on the long-term direction of policy and economic change.

It’s an area of environmental advocacy and legislation ClientEarth has worked in for over a decade. In Poland, in the absence of a legally binding government-level plan to tackle climate change, our lawyers put together a draft law to put pressure on the government to act. Our lawyers, alongside partners, are now supporting the development of framework climate laws in multiple countries, as we did with New Zealand’s Zero Carbon Act in 2018.

Future generations in focus

Future Generations Acts, like that introduced by Wales in 2015, are also a significant step that countries can take. Children and those not yet born have no recourse to participate in current decision-making processes, yet they stand to suffer the effects of our deteriorating climate far more than those currently holding power.

The first ever Declaration on Future Generations, agreed on Sunday by world leaders at the UN, was a commitment by countries to take account of future generations in decision-making. Their rights should now also be fully recognised in national law.

The law has an immense power to shape the world around us – both for those living in it today, and those who will inherit it in the future – and that’s why having the commitments made in the heady world of international diplomacy enshrined in binding national laws is a crucial next step for global climate action.

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US climate researchers are being so stifled, ignored or blackballed that France has now offered sanctuary to these misunderstood souls.

One might prefer to think of Trump as an outlier in an otherwise environmentally sane world. But alarmingly, there’s just too much evidence to the contrary.

A recent analysis, led by Guillaume Chapron of Sweden’s Agricultural University, reveals a rising tide of assaults on environmental safeguards worldwide. If nothing else, it illustrates the sheer range and creativity of tactics used by those who seek to profit at the expense of nature.

The assaults on environmental protections are so diverse that Chapron and his colleagues had to devise a new “taxonomy” to categorise them all. They have even set up a public database to track these efforts, giving us a laundry list of environmental rollbacks from around the world.

As the above examples show, essential environmental safeguards are being conveniently downsized, diminished, ignored or swept under the carpet all over the world.

Viewed in isolation, each of these actions might be rationalised or defended – a small compromise made in the name of progress, jobs or the economy. But in a natural world threatened with “death by a thousand cuts”, no single wound can be judged in isolation.

Without our hard-won environmental protections, we would all already be breathing polluted air, drinking befouled water, and living in a world with much less wildlife.

Bill Laurance is distinguished research professor and Australian Laureate at James Cook University. A fully-referenced version of this article was first published on The Conversation.

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