Profile: David J Hayes

Regulating Carbon: New Challenges for Environmental Lawyers

Globalisation of the legal profession has accelerated in recent years, particularly with the growth of cross-border transactions and increased access to international capital markets. Until relatively recently, environmental law has resisted the trend toward legal globalisation, given its traditional focus on the localised impacts of projects and businesses. Global warming, however, is changing all of that. Environmental lawyers are finding themselves at the forefront of a newly-international environmental practice as companies around the world address a kaleidoscope of new regulatory requirements, investment opportunities, and disclosure obligations arising out of international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol and fast-developing domestic requirements aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other ‘greenhouse’ gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

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