UK Law and Practice Contributed by: Ruth Knox and Julian Wolfgramm-King, Paul Hastings LLP
meeting its 2030 target, National Inventory Data on emissions and trends, details of NAP3 and support for developing countries. The next report is due to be submitted this year. The UK made commitments under the Paris Agree - ment to cut methane emissions by 2030 by joining the Global Methane Pledge (GMP) which was launched at COP26. The UK is a GMP Champion, designat - ing high level officials to advance the GMP’s work. The UK released a Methane Action Plan in October 2025, which alongside the Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery plan (CBGDP), outlines the policies and pro - posals needed to reduce emissions, including those of methane, to deliver Carbon Budgets 4-6 and our Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) on a path - way to net zero. 2.2 Constitutional Framework for the National Legal Regime for Climate Change Climate Change Act 2008 The UK was one of the first nations to commit to reduc - ing national climate change-inducing GHGs under law, through the Climate Change Act 2008, which is underpinned by a carbon budget-setting process that sets a legally binding, five-year cap on the quantity of GHGs which can be produced from UK-based assets. Role of Climate Change in the UK Constitution While the UK does not have a written constitution, it comprises written and unwritten conventions, trea - ties, statutes and common law. Certain commenta - tors consider protection against the harm created by climate change to be a human right, and this argument has been led in a number of cases before the English courts. Namely, in R ( Plan B Earth and others ) v The Prime Minister and others [2021] EWHC 3469 (Admin), the High Court of England and Wales refused an appli - cation for judicial review by climate litigation charity, Plan B, in respect of the UK government’s investment decisions concerning roads, condition-free loans for fossil fuel based companies and a natural gas project in Mozambique. The claim was based on the grounds that the government’s financing of the climate crisis was a violation of their human rights (under the Human Rights Act 1998) and of UK law (Climate Change Act 2008) and international law (Paris Agreement). The
court held all four grounds of the claim should be refused owing to procedural defects. Other Legislative and Regulatory Tools to Frame the National Response to Climate Change The UK also frames its national response to climate change through a number of other legislative instru - ments. • Disclosures required by UK companies through climate-related financial disclosures (see 4.1 Cli- mate Financial Reporting (Longstanding disclo - sure regimes)); • The regulation of the carbon footprint of heavy industry through the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (see 2.3 National Legal Regime (UK ETS)); • The incentivisation of low carbon energy genera - tion through financial instruments (see 2.3 National Legal Regime (Incentive schemes)). 2.3 National Legal Regime Mitigation The UK was the first nation to commit to reduce national climate change-inducing GHGs, through the Climate Change Act 2008, which initially set a target to reduce GHGs by 80% by 2050. In 2019, this was amended so that the total amount of GHGs shall be net zero by 2050. This is underpinned by a carbon budget-setting process that sets a legally binding, five-year cap on the quantity of GHGs which can be produced from UK-based assets. Despite that much of climate change is a devolved matter, emissions are The UK established the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) in January 2021, which establishes caps on GHG emissions from regulated sectors including manufacturing facilities, power stations and aviation. Regulated businesses are required to (i) hold a GHG emissions permit, (ii) surrender an equal number of emissions allowances to the total volume of emissions generated from their in-scope installations in any giv - en year and (iii) monitor, report on and verify the GHG emissions from regulated installations. Allowances can be purchased at auction and some are allocat - ed for free by the EA. It is overseen by the UK ETS reported on a whole of UK basis. Command and Control Measures UK ETS
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