Energy & Climate
Come hell & high water
Huge uplift needed on climate adaptation, starting with finance commitment at COP29, warns UNEP.
7 November 2024
A groundbreaking new collaboration between Save the Children Global Ventures (SCGV), a foundation focused on finance and technology innovation to transform children’s lives, and eight of the UK’s leading law firms (through Legal Charter 1.5) is projected to see an initial $5 million invested over 10 years in western Kenya to support livelihoods impacted by climate change.
This is the first time SCGV has used carbon finance to invest in child-focused climate adaptation in vulnerable communities over a long horizon.
The partnership will see the law firms provide funding for carefully selected projects that deploy nature-based solutions to improve community resilience.
‘This collaboration opens exciting new opportunities for Save the Children Global Ventures, the eight law firms and other private sector partners to help fill the massive funding gap for climate adaptation – and particularly the gap in child-responsive climate finance.’
PAUL RONALDS
CEO Save the Children Global Ventures
Climate change is having an adverse impact on children in Save the Children’s core mission areas of education, health and nutrition and child protection. One billion children live in countries at extreme risk.
It is proposed the initial funding facilitated by the collaboration will be in agroforestry and reforestation in and around the tea-growing areas of the Nandi region in Kenya, where child poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity are high, and climate change is impacting farmers.
The law firms taking part are effectively pooling their climate action budgets for greater impact.
The eight firms include Freshfields, Clyde & Co, Slaughter and May, DLA Piper, Taylor Wessing, Charles Russell Speechlys and Simmons & Simmons.
As a co-benefit, the scheme will generate high-integrity carbon removal credits for the firms funding it (verified and aligned to ICVCM’s approved standards and Core Carbon Principles).
By committing to a 10-year funding window, the law firms allow Save the Children to plan a decade ahead, while establishing an ongoing revenue source to support children over the carbon projects’ 30+ year lifetimes.
‘We have to raise our sights to higher value, longer term, collaborative initiatives to get anywhere near the scale required to protect communities from climate change, especially those that lack the financial means to adapt.’
JAKE REYNOLDS
Head of Client Sustainability and Environment at Freshfields and Chair of The Legal Charter working group behind the project
Save the Children is the world’s largest independent children’s charity, operating in 116 countries.
The project creates a replicable template for other law firms, professional services and businesses from other industries to support climate adaptation in priority locations where Save the Children works.
‘Almost all economic activity has an impact on climate and lawyers are involved in much of it, including the governance, financing, contractual and regulatory architectures of business. Law firms can therefore play a vital role in supporting climate transition, both through their advice and the way they role model climate action. This ground-breaking collaboration demonstrates how law firms can support climate transition with new ways of working.’
AMANDA CARPENTER
Co-founder of Legal Charter 1.5
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