Fossil Fuels
It's time to leave fossil fuels behind.
To protect people and nature, we need to cut our use of fossil fuels. We’re using the law to build a clean energy future.
Our world is experiencing dangerous climate change.
89%
of global CO2 emissions came from fossil fuels and the fossil fuel industry in 2018.
1
tonne of coal is burned every second at Bełchatów coal plant in Poland- Europe’s biggest carbon emitter.
What we're doing
We work with campaigners around the world, learning from their expertise and sharing ours. Together, we devise the best ways to use law to hold governments and businesses to account, from challenging pollution permits of coal plants to bringing cases before the UN.
Challenging plants - new and existing
We find new ways to use the law to challenge polluting plants. We’re using a never-before-used section of Polish civil law to challenge Europe’s biggest coal plant, Bełchatów. In the UK, we took the government to court over plans to build Europe’s biggest gas plant.
Supporting a transition to a sustainable, renewables-based energy system.
We work with investors to support fossil fuel companies to cut emissions and align their businesses with the Paris Agreement. We put pressure on governments to move away from coal and speed up the transition to cleaner energy. Since we began, fifteen governments in the EU have either moved beyond coal or announced a coal phase-out.
Blocking coal mines
In Poland, we are taking legal action to block the planned Złoczew mine, which would otherwise guarantee mega-plant Bełchatów several more years of survival. In Bulgaria, we are supporting a farmer to prevent expansion of a mine that would see his family’s land taken away from him. And in Germany, we are working with villagers on a campaign to block the expansion of the already colossal Garzweiler mine.
What we’ve achieved
In Greece, we’ve won court cases against four coal plants and are challenging many more. Our success helped trigger a national coal phase-out, and the country’s biggest coal company set a date to go coal-free. In Poland, our court cases stopped planned coal plants Polnoc and Ostrołęka C from ever being built. In a landmark decision, in our case against Europe’s biggest coal plant – Bełchatów - a judge demanded the coal plant operators to negotiate with our lawyers to accelerate the plant’s closure.