Net Zero and Natural Resources Law

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Abstract Net Zero and Natural Resources Law offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of the nature, scope, and guiding principles of natural resources law and policy in a net zero era. In response to the climate emergency, several countries, corporations, and other actors worldwide have announced programmes aimed at bringing down global emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change to net zero by the year 2060 or earlier. While the need for a clean energy transition is clear, incoherently designed transition programmes could produce complex environmental, social, and governance risks, including legal liability and protracted disputes. At the same time, the growing rush for minerals needed to manufacture clean energy technologies raises fundamental questions. Most crucial is how to ensure the exploration and development of energy transition minerals in a manner that does not exacerbate resource conflicts, resource nationalism, human rights violations, protectionism, energy insecurity, social exclusions, and inequity, especially in conflict-affected and high-risk regions. With case studies from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Australasia, this book offers a multijurisdictional exposition of how legal and regulatory systems are responding and can better respond to the wide range of sovereignty, security, and solidarity risks in the clean energy transition. Consideration is given to a nexus and integrated resource governance roadmap—focusing on net zero-aligned natural resource contracts, legislation, mineral strategies, human rights due diligence tools, dispute resolution and cooperative mechanisms—needed to improve coherence and coordination in the design, financing, and implementation of energy transition programmes across the entire natural resource value chain.