Climate change is a public law issue 

Ahead of our upcoming ‘Public Law and the Planet’ conference on Tuesday 3 March 2026, PLP is turning its focus to the global fight against climate change and why public law is one of the most powerful tools we have to challenge environmental injustice and defend the rights of communities on the frontline. PLP’s CEO Jamie Peters explores this below.

Climate change isn’t just an environmental issue. It’s a public law failure. 

This crisis we are living through is shaped by countless government decisions:  what can be built or extracted, where resources and funding flow, who is protected from harm, and who is left to bear the risks. And as ever, those least responsible for the damage being caused are paying the highest prices.  

Many communities are already experiencing devastating impacts, while climate breakdown threatens to deepen inequalities across housing, health, migration, and access to justice. These harms compound and reinforce one another. 

Public Law Project has always been about protecting rights and fighting for justice. Over the years, that mission has taken many forms. We have used public law to challenge unfair decision-making,  to hold public bodies to account, and to stand alongside people and communities most often shut out of power. 

For the first time, PLP‘s strategy now explicitly includes climate change. The reason is simple: justice. Climate change magnifies injustice, and public law is one of the few tools capable of exposing and confronting the decisions that drive environmental harm. 

As interim CEO of PLP, I am truly excited about this new chapter of our work — one shaped by experience, grounded in justice, and focused on how public law can meet the realities of the climate crisis.  

Communities, public law, and environmental decision-making 

Having spent over a decade at Friends of the Earth, working in roles ranging from community organiser to CEO, I saw first-hand how public decisions can profoundly affect communities — sometimes offering protection and opportunity, but too often exacerbating harm and exclusion.  

I had the opportunity to work at both ends of the scale: from the UN climate talks where international legal treaties bring nations together to tackle shared challenges, to communities far removed from the corridors of power but on the frontline of environmental struggles. 

Across that spectrum, I saw communities empowered to take on the state through judicial reviews and planning inquiries. I saw people stand up for their rights and use the courts to demonstrate that the law should be a tool for justice for all, and not something to wield power against those already marginalised. And I saw communities working alongside NGOs, lawyers, and campaigners to successfully challenge the fossil fuel industry time and again — most notably in defeating the insidious fracking industry. 

Many of these community-led victories did more than stop individual projects. They resulted in landmark legal rulings that improved decision-making and access to justice for everyone.  

One powerful example is the recent Supreme Court win by Sarah Finch and the Weald Action Group, which challenged the approval of fossil fuel extraction and set an important precedent for future cases. 

“The Weald Action Group turned to the law after years fighting oil extraction in our area. It was a big learning curve. I had no expectation that our fight over one oil development would have such a big impact. It’s exciting to be part of one of the increasing number of cases that are challenging the status quo on climate around the world. The law is a powerful tool for climate campaigners – and we need to defend it from regressive forces who want to use the law against us.” Sarah Finch (Campaigner, Weald Action Group) 

As PLP increasingly engages with environmental injustice, our long-standing commitment to standing alongside marginalised communities will remain central to our work. 

The intersection of climate, race, class, and justice 

PLP is proud to work in solidarity with marginalised groups, using our power, privilege, and expertise to help create a fairer society through public law. Much of this work has focused on immigration, where we have challenged unjust systems and policies that deny people safety, dignity, and fairness. 

We know that climate change will intensify these in justice, and we will see a rise in those looking for a safe haven as they flee from increasingly unsafe areas of the world. At the same time, it is working-class communities and racialised communities who are on the sharp end of environmental injustices. It is often poorer areas of society most blighted by air pollution or facing unwanted infrastructure projects at their doorstep. 

The connections between environmental harm, race, class, and inequality are clear, and PLP will be making and strengthening those links and joining forces with the movements for justice that span across them all.  

Environmental justice must be rooted in social justice, and public law has a critical role to play in achieving both. 

Our ‘Public Law and the Planet’ conference in March marks the beginning of a new chapter for us, bringing together these issues and showcasing how public law can be used to challenge environmental injustice and support movements for justice in all their forms. 

I hope you can join PLP as we explore this new work.

– Jamie Peters, Interm CEO of PLP