The Legal Response Initiative (LRI) is a pro bono initiative designed to assist and support least developed countries (LDP) with legal advice and legal capacity-building services during UN climate change negotiations. It strives to establish equity between the wealthier countries that have better access to legal resources and LDPs that are burdened by limited legal resources and are also the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The LRI was launched in 2009 in a joint initiative between WWF-UK and Oxfam GB and has successfully created a network of highly-qualified international lawyers to provide rapid response to legal queries submitted by delegates from LDPs and NGOs during climate negotiations. Aside from its real-time assistance during climate negotiations, the LRI has begun to provide additional services between negotiations, producing legal papers and hosting legal training workshops.
The Columbia Center for Climate Change Law (CCCL) is proud to announce its partnership with the LRI. CCCL will serve as the North American hub volunteering the expertise of its legal scholars. CCCL is currently recruiting pro bono attorneys to assist with LRI's efforts surrounding the upcoming climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa in the two weeks after Thanksgiving, as well as work afterwards. Lawyers with expertise in a variety of fields will be needed, including public international law, the governance of international institutions, international trade and the WTO, and carbon trading. The work would be done in the lawyers' home cities (it does not require travel to South Africa). Attorneys intested in assisting in these efforts should complete and submit the LRI Volunteer Form below.
LRI Background Information
How to Use LRI
Become an LRI Expert
LRI Volunteer Form
Issue Introductory Papers
Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs)
Green Climate Fund (GCF)
Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV)
Background Research Materials
UNFCCC
1) “First steps to a safer future: Introducing The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
2) “Climate Change Secretariat”
3) Convention Bodies
4) Climate Change Policy: Understanding the Governing Bodies and Agreements
5) Daniel Bodansky & Elliot Diringer, The Evolution of Multilateral Regimes: Implications for Climate Change
6) Climate Change Policy: Understanding the Governing Bodies and Agreements
7) Annual Status Report on Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) 2011
· Kyoto Protocol and Clean Development Mechanisms
1) “Making those first steps count: An Introduction to the Kyoto Protocol”
2) The Kyoto Protocol: Mechanisms
3) Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
4) About CDM: What is the clean development mechanism? Including: Project cycles, how to guides, CDM Benefits
5) History of Climate Negotiations, A David Suzuki Foundation Report
6) Paige Brown, Climate, Biodiversity, and Forests: Issues and Opportunities Emerging from the Kyoto Protocol
7) Duncan Austin et al., How Much Sustainable Development Can We Expect from the Clean Development Mechanism?
REDD and Deforestation
1) Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD)
2) Fact sheet: Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action
3) Forests for Good: World Wildlife Fund Brief 2010
4) Global Goal for Reducing Deforestation and Degradation: World Wildlife Fund Brief 2010
5) National Programmes: Proper Framework for REDD+: World Wildlife Fund Brief (2010)
6) REDD: The Realities in Black and White, Friends of the Earth International (November 2010)
7) REDD Myths: Executive Summary, Friends of the Earth International December 2009: A critical review of proposed mechanisms to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries
8) Pathways for Implementing REDD+, Experiences from Carbon Markets and Communities (2010)
9) At the Intersection of Climate and Deforestation: Can We Solve Two Problems at Once?
10) Daniel F. Morris & Andrew Stevenson, REDD+ and International Climate Finance: A Brief Primer
Copenhagen Conference
1) Copenhagen Accord
2) Fact Sheet: Copenhagen: Background Information
3) International Action on Adaptation and Climate Change: What Roads from Copenhagen to Cancun?, Germanwatch & WWF International Briefing Paper (June 2010)
4) The Copenhagen Accord: A Stepping Stone?, WWF Publication ( Janurary 2010)
5) The Emissions Gap Report: Are the Copenhagen Accord pledges sufficient to limit global warming to 2° C or 1.5° C?, A Preliminary Assessment (November, 2010)
Bali Conference and Bali Roadmap
1) Bali Road Map
Monitoring, Reporting and Verification
1) Coordination issues for REDD+ and MRV Activities: Presentation at UNFCCC SBSTA REDD MRV expert meeting
2) MRV of REDD+ Safeguards: World Wildlife Fund Brief 2010
3) Plugging the Gap: an easy guide to a safe climate future: World Wildlife Fund Brief, (August 2010)
4) Hilary McMahon & Remi Moncel, Keeping Track: National Positions and Design Elements of an MRV Framework
5) Taryn Fransen et al., Measuring the Way to a New Global Climate Agreement
6) Taryn Fransen, Enhancing Today's MRV Framework to Meet Tomorrow's Needs: The Role of National Communications and Inventories
Compliance
1) An Introduction to the Kyoto Protocol Compliance Mechanism
2) Compliance under the Kyoto Protocol
Emissions Trading
1) Emissions Trading
2) Emissions Trading: The "carbon market"
3) A Dangerous Obsession: The Evidence Against Carbon Trading and For Real Solutions to Avoid a Climate Crunch, An Executive Summary Report by Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland for its Demand Climate Change Campaign (November 2009)
4) Global Warming Campaign: Cap and Trade Programs, An Audobon Society Fact Sheet
5) Carbon Market Design & Oversight: A Short Overview
International Trade and WTO Issues
1) Trade and climate change: A WTO and UNEP Report
2) Trade and Climate Change, A report, Vesile Kulacoglu, Director, Trade and Environment Division, WTO
3) Trade and Environment: Use of Protectionist Environmental Trade Measures. A presentation by India
4) Is World Trade Law a Barrier to Saving our Climate?, Friends of the Earth and the Center for International Environmental Law, 2009
5) WTO (World Trade Organization). 2008. The Multilateral Trading System and Climate Change
6) World Bank. 2008. International Trade and Climate Change
7) J.D. Werksman, Competitiveness, Leakage and Comparability: Disciplining the Use of Trade Measures Under a Post-2012 Climate Agreement
8) Jeffrey A. Frankel, Options for Addressing the Leakage/Competitiveness Issue in Climate Change Policy Proposals
Financing Mechanisms for Mitigation and Adaptation
1) Financial Mechanisms
2) REDD finance mechanisms: TFD Background Paper
3) Non Carbon Market Financing for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in developing countries
4) Investment and financial flows relevant to the development of an effective and appropriate international response to Climate Change
5) Special Climate Change Fund
6) Transitional Committee for the design of the Green Climate Fund
7) Out of the Bunker: Time for a Fair Deal on Shipping Emissions: Oxfam/WWF Briefing Note (September, 2011)
8) Financial Transaction Taxes for climate change and development: WWF Recommendation Paper (November, 2010)
9) High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, WWF Recommendation Paper 2010
10) The ABC of Climate Finance: The Involvement of Annex 1 countries, Banks, and Companies in Climate Finance, Report from Friends of the Earth International (December 2010)
11) Capitalizing on Climate: The World Bank’s Role in Climate Change & International Climate Finance, Friends of the Earth (June 2010)
12) Blending Climate Finance Through National Climate Funds, A Guidebook for the Design and Establishment of National Funds to Achieve Climate Change Priorities
13) Rupert Edwards, The Green Climate Fund and the Implementation of Emission Reduction Underwriting Mechanisms