Brennan Justice Talks 2020 Climate Justice

>>Brynn: Don't you just think everyone's craving social interaction at this point Paul like anything you can hang on to anything, anything. Hi students hello. Yes somebody's like I am, I'm craving it. Somebody on the chat. Good for you good good that person yes.
>>Paul: Any break from a pandemic is welcome, even if it is... 
>>Brynn: Well there a little pandemic theme in this. This is perhaps more depressing, if there's one thing worse than a pandemic it's climate change but, yeah. 
>>Paul: Well it was a lovely quote you had from um um Arundhati Roy. It was a lovely article, the financial times you sent us, as were the others too of course. Well look maybe it's maybe I'll make a start 'cause I've got some housekeeping matters it'll take up a couple of minutes Brynn. Um so let's welcome everybody, good evening and welcome to this is the second event in the um in the Justice series talks in this in this the session of the um of the virus and this topic is the topic of course of climate justice. My name is Paul Redmond with um with Erika Serrano who's on uh on who's on the screen um I'm the joint director of the Brennan Program position and this year, and I'm joined by Erika but also by Crystal McLoughlin the program administrator, and most importantly by our special guest this evening, the presenter Brynn O'Brien. I'll introduce you to Brynn in just a moment but I've got some housekeeping matters that I need to share with people. I guess they're going to be familiar to most of you from classes but you each got have got the ability to hide and show your camera as well as a mute and unmute your microphones, as you may have found in your classes when you're not speaking please put your microphone on mute. If the event if you find the event is freezing on your Zoom please hide the camera, that'll free up some bandwidth. When you're speaking we'd love you to show the show your camera show your your screen, if you're comfortable in doing so. We asked that so we can see your friendly face. As we do expect quite a few Brennan community members tuning in you may like to turn off off your camera and only turn on when asking a question during question and discussion time and we'll get to that in the second half of this hour. Lastly an important request in order to get your five ROJ points if you could I would ask you to list your full name now in the chat box as it appears in the in on the UTS systems. The Brennan team here will reward you award you points on the basis of this event. You can also use this chat box for any other questions during the event: climate's justice related, or Brenham program related and Erika and Crystal will respond while Brynn presents. Now after all that housekeeping I'd like to introduce you to our our guest speaker Brynn O'Brien. This is the lovely part for me. Brynn's a lawyer and strategist she's got a background in human rights global work and migration issues, the executive director of the Australasian center the corporate responsibility. Brynn is an expert, and I can say this with great confidence and some authority, in in the field of the human rights responsibilities of business in particular the UN framework on business and human rights expressed in The Guiding Principles. Her experience is both covers both commercial and human rights law and she's worked extensively also in human trafficking and slavery in global global supply chains. Brynn's an alumna of UTS law school where she received First Class Honours in Law  Bachelor of Medical Science and she went on to take out a Master of Laws degree at Columbia University in New York. Now the Australian Center for Australasian Center for corporate responsibility, I've got some script to read but I think it may save your brain having to talk it through, promotes better performance of Australian companies on human rights environmental and governments issues. As an activist shareholder organization, the center engages with Australian listed companies and their investors on these issues including through filing shareholder resolutions. In 2019 enable the center file shared resolutions to mining utilities, Airline Retail Giants on climate change corporate governance and social issues. I invite you to look at the the Center's website just to see the resolutions that they have actually moved and the success of those resolutions over the last few years particularly under Brynns's leadership. The two I would draw your attention to particularly are the Santos AGM this this month in fact, uh a major oil and gas producer where the conditional resolution, and I won't take your time up in explaining that, but on the on the conditional resolutions on climate related lobbying and the Paris climate goals attracted voting of 46% and 43% respectively. The other one which I think is, I find really significant is the resolution relation to Qantas flying um children often from detention centers in breach of the uh you know, arguably in breach of the uh convention against the rights of the child. And the dramatic increase between the 2018 and the 2019 voting on that conditional resolution from six percent to 24% is really quite remarkable, and a tribute to Brynn's a very effective engagement with institutional investors both privately and in support of shareholder resolutions to address a range of really central issues to which the climate justice one is fundamental. Now Brynn I'm going to hush up and hand the floor to you and thank you and thank you in advance for the presentation and look forward not just to the presentation but to the questions and answer discussion that will follow, thanks Brynn. 
>>Brynn: Thanks so much Paul and um what I need to add to that um very generous bio is that I'm actually also a PhD dropout. I was Paul's uh PhD student for a number of years, he was my long-suffering um but very very very generous supervisor and at the point at which um ACCR sort of started to take off a couple of years ago I decided that um the time was right to exit. But really um the work that I did with Paul over that time and Michael Rawling, another academic at UTS, is foundational to basically everything that we do at ACCR. So our kind of activist shareholding and the way, that what so what we seek to do is influence companies by um getting them to live out the commitments they make to international standards. Tonight I'm talking about climate justice, um I as Paul said I was corporations lawyer and then I was a human rights lawyer, I started um working on climate change issues uh less than three years ago. So the first ever kind of act that I did as a climate activist was to file a shareholder resolution to BHP about its relationship with climate denial lobbying organizations like the minerals Council of Australia um in 2017. So if you're a um if you you haven't done climate change work before um don't feel intimidated by the science. I'm going to take you very briefly through some of the science and some of the kind of accepted um uh problems that we're up against tonight. I absolutely warn you it will be um very uh intense and depressing um but I'm really looking forward to the to the Q and A. Um so let's go to the first slide Paul um thankfully is steering my slides today because I'm not able to do it from my device. So I sent you a few readings um this is um from the world media meteorological report from the end of last year. Um this was uh released um before I guess the bushfires had run their course, um but what it shows is the record low rainfalls between the 1st of January and the 31st of December 2019. So um it, it sorry, this this is from from oh, so this must have been released after, anyway, I'm getting my uh diagrams confused. But um Australia, as we all know, had a horrific summer, um and uh and this is part of the reason for why so um low rainfalls uh attributable in part to changed weather patterns attributable to climate change has led to uh absolute um parched dryness on the East Coast of Australia, and we all know uh what happened over our last summer. Let's go to the next slide. So we hear a lot all the time, and I guess um we have heard uh from uh various actors in Australian public and political life um uh you know over the last two decades that um you know perhaps there isn't the evidence to support uh the theory that the world's temperature is increasing. So this is uh five of the leading earth scientists' uh research units um around the world. Basically at the end of last year we ended up uh where it [was] sort of one to 1.3 degrees of temperature increase. One to one point three um we see the kinds of impacts that we saw over the summer, so absolutely catastrophic um climate impacts in Australia and absolutely catastrophic human rights impacts for that matter. So in Australia we essentially had hundreds of thousands of people displaced over the course of of one summer. I probably don't need to um convince or persuade um many of the people on the call. Um the recent research shows that people in the age group of what I imagine are um is the average law student overwhelmingly uh accept uh climate science so perhaps we will move on to the the next slide. So climate change is uh it sounds trite to say it but climate change is everything change. Climate change um affects the predictability of the world as we know it. Predictability is really important in the way that our systems operate, it's really important in the way that legal systems operate, it's really important in the way that financial systems operate, it's really important in the way that insurance markets operate. So all of these kind of things that are connected with our our legal system and our our legal and financial order, climate change affects all of these things. So as you may know there are parts now of the New South Wales South Coast and of Queensland uh where uh property is uninsurable. As we also know climate change is is a threat to Human Rights, we need look only at the last summer to know how climate change can um take away people's shelter. It can take away people's, of course, right right to life. It can take away or it can erase um cultural sites for First Nations people. It is a a really a direct threat to Human Rights um and again it's a threat to organised human existence, it's a threat to um our our food systems, the way that we um the way that we work um there are you know over the last summer in those record temperatures there were many workers uh under stress from heat and from smoke. It really is a threat to to the way that we live and it's a threat multiplier. So climate change increases um the risk of resource conflicts between nations or between peoples. It increases the risk that people may need to migrate, perhaps because they're you know as I sent around one of the readings was a talk I gave to the UN Forum on business and human rights last year. And, as I said in that talk, um it increases the risk that you know a river that a person is living next to might um might flood and then never recede. It increases uh the risk that areas of fertile horticultural production are much drier or much wetter than before, therefore thereby not allowing for the same growth of crops and climate change is, and this is where where my expertise is primarily caused by the industrial extraction and combustion of fossil fuels. So it's not primarily caused by people using straws or plastic cups it's not primarily caused by people driving their car from A to B. It's not primarily caused by any of the kind of kinds of consumer activities that the fossil fuels industry has led us to believe um a matter of of shame for us. It is primarily caused by the industrial extraction and combustion of fossil fuels. So let's go to the next slide. So um this is a fabulous um a groundbreaking report um that came out in 2017 by my colleagues at the carbon disclosure project which is an NGO now housed out of basically ACCR's sister organization which is called Share Action and is based in in London. So they found in in their report that there were just 100 companies. 100 companies responsible for 71 of industrial greenhouse gas emissions between 1988 and 2015. And as you'll see on that you know that the top 20 or so um BHP and Rio Tinto both feature. So uh two Australian listed companies both dual listed in Australia and the UK, um but uh you know this is there are some state-owned Enterprises China coal, um Saudi Aramco, uh Gas prom, Uranium National Oil Company, Exxon. You know these are coal oil gas producers um and major diversified miners. Let's go to the next slide, oh so this is the slide that I don't think is going to work that Paul's going to give it a go and if it doesn't I don't think it's going to play. So it's a video and basically it just shows and and I you know it's hard um sometimes people think of climate change and and um this tables of companies as being a hard thing to relate, to a difficult thing to relate to. But really over this last summer things became very very personal for for us on the East Coast of Australia. So um the video that I was, um that is not playing right, is video of burned out bush less than 10 kilometers from my childhood home. It's in the bush in Kangaroo Valley um and it is absolutely uh burnt to to a crisp. It you know, it was an extraordinary summer for everyone, but for the south coast of New South Wales, um it was a a very scary and devastating time. But this is again 1.2 1.3 degrees of warming, we are on track for um, at the kind of most optimistic projections, three degrees plus. So let's go to the next slid. So um given all that we know about the relationship between the industrial um extraction of fossil fuels for combustion um we also then we what we now need to do is is translate that into um uh human rights language. Human rights and justice language. And um it may sound surprising for you to know that only recently and still really, it's still a kind of nascent area of work, and I'm supposed to be writing a paper for the UN working group on business and human rights kind of making these connections, but the pandemic unfortunately keeps dragging me onto other things. But um we we need now to put to position emissions reduction as a core human rights demand. A human rights demand, so a demand borne out in international human rights law and elucidated through the UN guiding principles on business and human rights which is Central to the state responsibility to protect human rights. So states in order to discharge that responsibility must be implementing policy to ensure that, at a national level, we are aggressively reducing emissions in line with the Paris agreement. So getting to add an absolute outfit net zero by 2050 but really moving very very uh quickly before then. Obviously Australia is not doing it, our emissions have increased over the last couple of years or the last five at least. It's also a non-negotiable component of the business response responsibility to respect human rights and I say non-negotiable because the business responsibility to respect human rights really is always up for negotiation and climate is, [and] emissions reduction is always negotiated out of it. So you know you can talk to some of the largest fossil fuels producers in the world, and certainly I have, that will say well we have a fantastic modern slavery policy, but you know our business model is incompatible with the, well they won't say this part of it, our business model is incompatible with the survival of organised human existence. And so coming to that that point, um aggressive emissions reduction is is absolutely at this point necessary human uh for human survival. So it's not happening and it's forcefully opposed by fossil fuels lobbyists um and the companies that pay them. Next slide please, yeah oh this is my.. Ijust think this is a part of a an article that um was circulated to you by Arundhati Roy, the absolutely incredible brilliant um Indian author and thinker. And this kind of brings our conversation of climate change and capitalism and the nature I guess of of extractive capitalism, fossil fuels extractives capitalism, into the present day. And I won't read it all out to you, but um essentially what she says is that there is now, and I've felt this actually quite deeply over the last couple of months, what there now exists is a disruption or she calls it a "rupture". I was more um kind of existentially despairing about the state of the world uh before the pandemic hit, I mean that sounds terrible um that I am now. This is not the disruption that anyone wanted or anyone wished, for but nonetheless it's the disruption that we have, and as Arundhati Roy says "nothing could be worse than a return to normality". And so she suggests then of course famously that this is a portal a gateway between one world and the next, and we have choices to make now about what we take with us into the future and about what we're willing to fight for and so there's an entire conversation swirling globally about recovery, what recovery looks like, and what um a climate solutions driven recovery looks like and a climate justice um driven recovery looks like. And I guess just a footnote on justice um I cannot recommend any piece more highly than Arundhati Roy's piece so if you if you haven't done any of the readings don't worry at all just go and read this one piece by Arundhati Roy, it's you know a thousand words or so in the financial times, it's a an opinion piece in a newspaper, and um I don't know if it mentions the word climate at all. But the way that she describes how uh the model of um global capitalism that we had up until uh the moment before the pandemic hit um says everything you need to know you know really about climate and justice. So we must be positioning ourselves for a just and green recovery um and a recovery that respects uh people's human rights. Now we're not and we can talk maybe about that in in the Q and A, but you know a really incredible piece of writing and I recommend it to you. Let's go to the next slide so um so where are the just to recap the journey a little bit we we spoke about what climate change is, the way that um temperatures are increasing, um 100 companies are responsible for 70% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions over this really critical time period. The pandemic is a portal and we can choose to walk through it through this through this gateway with um with better ideas about how to live our lives. But here we are this is the UN environment programs production gap uh report from the end of last year... So the pink line at the top is the uh production plans and projections. So this is where we are headed, um uh the blue line at the bottom is um production consistent with a 1.5 degree world. So the pink line at the top is like production consistent with a three plus degree world, the gold Line below the pink line is production implied by the climate pledges that states have taken. Now a small note on climate pledges Australia has pledged a very weak pledge to reduce our emissions by 26 to 28% by 2030. We're not going to go anywhere near that... so Australia is actually tracking above the peak line at this point in time. We're increasing our our production and then the green line or the teal line is production consistent with two degrees. So the portal is there, the Gateway is there, but the amount of luggage that we need to shed in order to walk through it is enormous, absolutely enormous. It is a fundamental radical shift to the way the ways that we or that our economies operate, but the thing that gives me optimism at this point in time is that we have in the last month proven that radical shifts are possible if so much is at stake if our lives are at stake and and they are with climate change. And they are abolutely at stake, they are. So um now our job is to communicate and to convince to persuade people that yes things will be difficult and the sacrifices will be will be significant and many, but we have just shown it's possible with the pandemic and in fact the sacrifices are much that they will drag over, you know, for the rest of the human existence maybe until we have technology to suck carbon out of the atmosphere, which we do not have now. But they are not nearly as severe over the medium term as as the ones we've had imposed on us over the last month that we have all accepted because they are necessary. So let's go to to the next slide. This one again it seems a little bit self-indulgent but um this is the text of um a talk I gave at the UN Forum last year where I just think it's really important that we know it's not just fossil fuel companies and governments. It's every other actor in our economic and political systems and cultural space that facilitates the expansion of the fossil fuels industry. We must, we simply must not, expand fossil fuels in this country anymore. So every major bank, global law firm, engineering services provider, investment institution, big four accounting and auditing practices. All of the, I say this quite directly, all of the organisations that have great summer clerkship programs. So the kinds of organisations that, you know rightly, many of you will seek to work for are all absolutely complicit in this horror at this moment in time. So and again every civil society organisation that blue and or green washes, every you know, Sydney Opera House is sponsored by Exxon what an absolute ridiculous thing at this point in time. We are in the kind of broken middle of this really difficult space that we must transition out of and I think that um one of the key uh drivers of corporate change, particularly at these kind of services, services level firms, is recruitment and retention of brilliant new graduates like yourselves. So when you're doing those interviews, if you feel that you can, ask them. Raise the question. You know I have discomfort with these kinds of activities,I can understand you know certain kinds of activities adjacent to the fossil fuels sector that don't involve expansion, but every one of these providers currently facilitates um the exploration for um more of the stuff that is incompatible with our existence. So let's go to the the final slide I think which is What Will You Fight For? So let's open it up to Q and A, I'm not sure quite how this is going to run, but I'm in your hands Paul and Crystal.
>>Crystal: Well I don't have anything to say at the moment, this is Crystal. Paul did you want to say anything, or Erika did you want to mention anything. I think open up to a Q and A. 
>>Erika: Just noting that in the book in the chat we have a question from Eugenia. Eugenia did you want to did you want me to read out the question? or did you wanna... oh here she's unmuted herself here we go. 
>>Eugeina: I just wasn't sure whether you wanted us to ask it in the chat, yes I'll start my video as well so you can see my face. I was just wondering, I'm really interested in came to litigation, and I was just wondering kind of what your perspective is on what the role of that will be, especially in Australia in the coming years? 
>>Brynn: great question um I'm an enthusiastic supporter of climate change litigation, and in fact may end up a plaintiff in my organisation and my orgsanisation may end up a plantiff to send some corporations law litigation uh this year, maybe. We're getting advice on a range of different issues but I think we need to be... Litigation is a really really interesting and powerful threat to make in particular to corporations, but we need to be realistic about the length of time that it takes litigation to run. I think that climate litigation can cover, as I said climate change is everything change, and I think we will see climate litigation become a part or climate things become a part of almost you know all commercial law themes or many commercial law cases as well as kind of public law cases. As we all know the the environment for public law and human rights litigation in Australia is very constrained. I'm aware of a couple of different cases going on. One there is a complaint to the UN Human Human Rights Committee on cultural rights made by Torres Strait Islanders and their representatives which is a law firm based in London called Client Earth and they have some excellent Australian lawyers working with them. There is also a fascinating case McVeigh and Rest. Rest is an industry superannuation fund. McVeigh is a 24 year old who is, who is litigating against his superannuation fund for failing to disclose certain things about how they manage climate change in their investments and failing to manage climate risk in their investments. I think fossil fuels companies will come under increasing scrutiny about how they represent the value of their investments. We've seen a really fascinating period over the last month in terms of the oil and gas industry. There's this kind of triple triple threat to the oil and gas industry which involves a Saudi Russian oil price war intending to bankrupt the U.S Shale Oil industry, there's the COVID-19 pandemic which has led to massively increased oil demand and then there's the carbon bomb. That those two threats are seen, or that that the recovery [and] potential recovery from those two threats are seen through a carbon lens. I think there may be, you know, significant litigation arising out of this kind of event and the failure of companies to plan for it. Absolutely if you're considering a career in litigation you'll almost certainly need to know something about climate change. 
>>Paul: Thank you, thanks thank you Eugeina and Brynn. Paul here, look if you if you would like to have a question maybe you could simply indicate through the chat screen now. I can see that Vincent Collins has a question. Vincent if you could unmute and let us have your question.
>>Vincent: Hi um first of all just wanted to say thank you to Brynn, Paul, Crystal and Erika for organising. I just wanted to go back to the point that you raised about law students thinking about clerkships and graduate careers in these big firms. As someone that wants to pursue environmental law in practice, what are some pathways that you can recommend to avoid that sort of rhetoric? Given as well that those opportunities obviously, being realistic, present much more of a sort of livelihood than volunteering at a Community Legal Center full-time. But yeah, what kind of pathways would you recommend in order to get your foot into practicing environmental law in an ethical way?
>>Brynn: So the first thing I should say when I mentioned all of those actors I'm certainly not saying don't go and work for any of them, I think you know if you feel comfortable but you know raise it during recruitment processes, I can't think of a single firm that would hold that against you. I think that's really important feedback for them for them to have, but if you feel comfortable, but also don't feel pressured to do it. I mean I'm being a bit yeah a bit rhetorical when I when I said that, but if you feel comfortable definitely do it. You also shouldn't feel, you shouldn't feel like climate change is your own personal responsibility alone. That is a lie a myth sold to a spider fossil fuels industry to make us, to paralyze us against action. So you know if you need to go, I started my career at Mallesons, I can't say that I was exceptionally happy there, but certainly it was an excellent training. So I would suggest that if if that is attractive to you, then pursue it without without guilt or shame, but put a time limit on it and and if what you truly want to do is to pursue environmental justice unless Mallesons shifts or I won't only say Mallesons unless any of those major firms shift dramatically they are not on the side of justice. So if that is important to you over your career I would say that don't think about it as the place you end up and don't get sucked into it. So I would say that as an initial pathway that the kind of training that you get at a major law firm or at a major accounting firm or management consultancy, if you can stomach them, for the initial period is excellent. So you know I wouldn't worry about it, but yeah I think it's that long game you know. What what do you want to stand for? And will you be able to? So I certainly think there are ways to influence those firms and I think them hearing from their recent graduates and perhaps you know the timing is a matter for for each individual interaction but raising these issues over time is really important and um when I was at Mallesons I started doing this thing where I just refused to work on a couple of matters. So I refused to work on for an asbestos company and that was kind of not seen badly so anyway I think you know those those pathways are there. I mean yeah maybe it's an unusual situation but I wouldn't feel overwhelming shame or guilt about making the kinds of professional choices you need to make as an early career lawyer. 
>>Vincent: Okay okay great thank you 
>>Paul: Thank you Vincent. Kurt Cheng has a question now.
>>Kurt: Thanks Paul, hello Brynn um my question is that um I'm very interested in the activist shareholders, activist shareholding that work within the AC um ACCR within the portfolio, and I I was wondering how they actively engage with companies um as a means to address the justice deficit? 
>>Brynn: Yeah great so um uh so a little bit of background so ACCR while it's an NGO a non-profit organisation we have an active shareholding in most of the ASX 5200 companies and we use that shareholding to avail ourselves of the rights afforded to shareholders under corporations law. Which is in filing uh and voting on shareholder resolutions and voting around directors and remuneration reports and so on, but also to present a kind of credible enough threat um that um bought through our collective powers as shareholders, so 100 shareholders acting together can file a shareholder resolution. So to present a collective enough, sorry a credible enough collective threat so that corporate executives meet with us and engage with us. So our average engagement and um so as Paul mentioned at the very start, we had a very large vote on Santos a couple of weeks ago. 43 and 46% on our resolutions. We've actually got an AGM tomorrow uh which is the Woodside AGM um another Australian oil and gas producer which we expect to be the first ever NGO resolution to tip 50%. I think we will get more than 50% and Paul alluded to um some complications around uh shareholder law you know corporations laws with respect to shareholders um earlier so we even if we get 50% we won't actually have a binding resolution but it will be a kind of historic moment I think tomorrow. So I give you that background to say that AGMs and voting behavior is one moment in a very long campaign um we have been holding Woodside and Santos for years we have been meeting with Woodside and Santos on a regular basis you know where perhaps a six monthly basis for the last three years. We have extensive engagement with their Institutional Investor base so we, you know, subscribe to the kinds of um Research Services like the Bloomberg Terminal that give you a list, or relatively accurate list, of you know the top 200 shareholders in a company we have relationships with maybe 100 of them and so we go and talk to them and we brief them. We brief other actors of I guess systemic importance in the um in the investment system so proxy advisors they are um uh organisations that advise investors on how to vote on shareholder resolutions and other matters um. So um we use this kind of um the the shareholdings that we have is this kind of little um we're cracking open the door to a range of other tactics that allow us to present arguments about climate change and human rights and labour standards and modern slavery to a um an ecosystem if you will of people and institutions that have economic power and they have economic power in Australia, they have political power significant political power in Australia but they also have um a kind of global economic power. So to give you one final example before we go to the next question. I hosted a webinar last week and and it was a bit of a we put it on very quickly we're working with um uh some really fantastic First Nations justice campaigners. There's an organisation called Original Power which is Indigenous Led and run that support  communities around Australia, and in this case in the Northern Territory on Country, um to be able to exercise their their rights over over land to protect country. So as the COVID-19 pandemic kind of played out, one of the key risks to Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory was their proximity to fifo fly in fly out workers. And so what we did was we put on a webinar a global a global investor webinar we invited people from Europe and the US and Asia and Australia of course to listen to two Indigenous women who are experts on mining and Indigenous communities in Australia and a doctor to speak about the potential Health consequences for Aboriginal communities if exposed to the COVID-19 crisis and we had I think in total about 25 trillion dollars of assets under management tune in. So it's like a crazy um way that that our at our financial systems our investment Systems globally our systems of capital are leaked and um yeah you know it's just kind of an example of how globalized the investment system really is and so when I say 25 trillion I mean one asset manager was responsible for 10 trillion of that. So I think we only had you know 15 people joined but but that was you know the total amount.
>>Kurt: Great thank you so much Brynn. 
>>Paul: Thank you Kurt. Emmy Gallagher has a question 
>>Emi: Hello um so Brynn you have highlighted just earlier that it's not only the kind of typical fossil fuel companies that are facilitating the expansion of emissions that's obviously incompatible with all of our survival, but obviously all those other businesses so banks, law firms they haven't necessarily aligned their operations with the Paris climate goals um so kind of looking at what's up with that. What sort of action do you think a director could actually take to respond to climate change when although the benefit would be very clear to Global Society in terms of reducing emissions, it might not be so obvious to their company.
>>Brynn: Great um two questions and I'll take them in turn. So I think um in terms of what's up with that professional services firms providing services to the expansionists of the fossil fuels industry. I think part of the the issue is that people really exist within a kind of, when you go to work and you're doing your thing you're able to compartmentalise and feel kind of comfortable, even if there's some other person in your law firm that has some massive fossil fuels practice. While you're doing you know the product liability litigation and that's, you know, you feel quite disconnected um and you also don't want to confront the person or you'd never dream of confronting the person doing the the fossil fuels expansion practice you know representing oil and gas producers in Western Australia um because that's just how not how things are done. Those kinds of drilling perspectives are on a collision course at this point in time because we are getting to the stage where um we will all recognise that certain kinds of um existences and business models are incompatible with our existence so I imagine that will really escalate I think one of the most effective things that can be done from within professional services firms is employee engagement with management. I know a little bit about um there's a Global Engineering Services firm called GHD which at the end of last year made a decision when a contract with the um with Adani for the Carmichael Mine finished they've been under a heap of pressure from civil society but more importantly from their own employees. A heap of pressure and I know that people had actually quit their jobs over it to not renew that contract and and so that was a moment where a professional services firm said we have um experienced enough pressure internally to not take that to not do that project again. So to not renew that kind of contract so I think that that um is uh a really important um area of activism and now I have lost the second question so you're going to need to remind me of what it was I'm sorry. 
>>Emi: No that's fine um it was sort of more in terms of looking at company leadership and a lot of responsibility for kind of external consequences of operations are put on them. How much room do they have to move if their sort of caught between needing to take action that benefits their company but also saving the world I guess?
>>Brynn: Yeah really fascinating question then um and Paul is probably the, you know, the Australian expert on on directors duties I would say so Paul please feel free to chime in.
>>Paul: Well Emi's doing a research thesis this semester and I'm in fact her supervisor so this question has in fact been canvased between us. We're after your smart intelligent view. 
>>Brynn: Yeah okay so um so yeah fascinating question I think the director's duties on climate change are untested. I think directors of fossil fuels companies um core business fossil fuels companies like Woodside for example face really significant challenges um but on both sides of the equation so they face potential director studies liability if they move too quickly I accept that, but also and perhaps more um uh likely, they face potential consequences if they don't move quickly enough and so as I'm sure you're aware we've seen um the the Hutley opinion um uh about you know likely um director's duties consequences in failing to consider uh climate risk appropriately. It is, it's an absolutely fascinating conundrum. I think there are um, I think there would be plenty of um uh sort of safe harbors. Not in a legal sense but in a uh potentially a legal sense for directors that move to align their business model with promises they've made to their investors over time. So most of the major companies in Australia have an open commitment to align their business with the Paris agreement or support for the Paris agreement which implies a commitment to align a business with the Paris agreement. None of the major remitters are doing that um so it's a fascinating uh fascinating tension and fertile ground for a thesis and you're in very good hands with um with Paul.
>>Emi: Thanks Brynn.
>>Paul:Thank you both. Look Alexis Castro Robles now I've got your question Alexis would you like to to present it or would you like me to do so?
>>Alexis: Um no I'm more than happy to um you know to ask that question um so hi Alexis Castro Robles um so I have a question to Brynn um so I only just started my degree this year and I'm interested in undertaking honours on climate change law and um and I'm obviously aiming to get you know first class honours like you did back in the day um and so yeah I was just wondering like how soon should I start thinking about my honours topic um and I'm finishing my degree in 2023 so 
>>Brynn: so um so you I love the ambition and commitment um I think this is a personal thing um as as Paul well knows I'm not much of a um a planner but I but my practical advice would be um a whole heap will change between now and um when you need to start writing your honours thesis. So I would stay across all of the climate law developments, particularly across the litigation, um I tend to think that the most interesting part of litigation is in corporations law. So corporations and securities law, so absolutely keep an eye on that but in terms of betting down your topic for an honest thesis you know it needs to be um quite discreet um and I would say let it play out and let it let it wash over you for um for the next couple of years and and start thinking about it at the end of or maybe the start of 2022 if you want to be really planned. But let it wash over you for the for two good years.
>>Alexis: Awesome thank you very much.
>>Paul: Thank you I think uh and Erika, Erika Serrano has a question. 
>>Erika: Hi Brynn, I've just got a question. Since we're able to see the stronghold that corporations and key greenhouse gas contributors have especially, especially for the example that you gave with Exxon sponsoring the Opera House, in what ways would we be able to in essence shake this stronghold and force them to adapt better practices other than litigation as you touched on earlier?
>>Brynn: um so sorry that just to clarify do you mean um to shape the fossil fuels companies, or do you mean to um shape the kind of political actors and cultural actors that they have that they enjoy power over? 
>>Erika: I think um shaping the actual companies and forcing them to adopt better practice for a better future.
>>Brynn: Yeah right so that's I mean look that's what we try to do at ACCR so again we're shareholders in all of these companies we are not um dismantling capitalism in any way. We are participants in it and we bring a kind of um shareholder sensibility a the sensibility of what's known in the industry as a universal owner and so if you Google Universal owner and investment then you'll find something like a shareholder, an institutional shareholder, that holds uh basically all of the companies across the index. So if you if you have an investment in fossil fuels company over here or you've got a big chunk of your portfolio and fossil fuels companies over here well um they are contributing to climate change and climate change is going to affect the value of your property assets and your tourism assets in this part of your portfolio or your banking assets here. In terms of how to shift fossil fuels companies or shift companies to make sure they're um not destroying the planet and the possibility of human survival, um I think that the mindset of a universal owner, particularly if that Universal owner has um members um whose retirement incomes are invested in it so if it's like a pension fund or a superannuation fund, that's a really really useful perspective to bring to this so that's the perspective that ACCR in general tries to bring to our engagements with companies so when as I said in response to um a question by I think it was Kurt um you know we go and meet with these companies we look at the commitments that they've made and again most of them have said well we are committed to the Paris agreement and the upholding of its goals and then we look at their business plans and so um Santos, for example, or Australian listed oil and gas company they say that they support the goals of the Paris agreement but they also say our climate plan literally they say our climate plan is to increase production by 60 to 2025. So increased fossil fuels production. So um I think that one of the key ways that we can influence companies is to and this is the way that we do it at ACCR is to scrutinise their actions against their commitments and to scrutinize their commitments against outcomes um so I look I think that that's a really um a great thing for lawyers and law students to apply our kind of um forensic minds too um and one of the ways that plays out is at AGMS Annual General Meetings of companies. So I always look at AGMs as an opportunity in a sense to cross-examine the witness so you get you get the witness the chairman or the CEO in the box um for a few hours one day per year and and it's not even for a few hours it's really you know the for the length of your interaction which is as um chairs get more frustrated it's getting shorter and shorter but um you know our job is to interrogate um the promises that uh companies are making to their investors against accurate verifiable credible information about their business model and also the climate trajectory that we are on.
>>Erika: Thanks so much Brynn.
>>Paul: Thank you. Are there other questions that people have? Please just unmute yourself and ask your a question, identify yourself and ask your question. Well while people are thinking Brynn can I just ask a question? Um you concluded you're extraordinarily powerful presentation at the UN global forum last November. That's almost half a year ago with these words. Every single one of us is on the collision course with both atmospheric physics and history, this is not someone else's problem this is our problem and we must not waste another year. Well almost half a year has moved on since then. What what would you say if you were a law student now as to what what how you would go about avoiding that collision with both atmospheric physics and history? Um what would you be doing? What advice do you give young people who are concerned about this issue so concerned that they give up an hour at this time of this busy semester busy time of the semester? What would you say they can effectively do both individually and collectively?
>>Brynn: Um fabulous um question I think one of the key ones I've already mentioned is to raise it with potential or early career employers um I think they're really vulnerable to that kind of pressure and um I think that lawyers for climate action I mean there's a group I think called Lawyers for Cimate Action that exists but they kind of write open letters rather than getting their own law firms to essentially um cancel client relationships. I think um two months ago Paul my answer would have been quite different I would have said um get in the way I, would have said turn up to you know non-violent civil disobedience, turn up to places and get in the way of being, I can't believe I'm saying this to a whole heap of lawyers but potential lawyer baby lawyers but um uh we are absolutely I mean I said it in the way that it is we're on a collision course with atmospheric physics and with history and the only way, it's actually really simple, the way that we can avoid it is to keep fossil fuels in the ground and that's the only way. Based on on what we know about um existing technology that is um a commercially viable um at scale. So um now um you know it is I don't know I actually I don't have much to say just yet but perhaps I'll have a better answer. Things are moving so quickly at this point in time. I think it's probably um demanding of our representatives um and of our the companies that we engage with in our lives and our superannuation funds that we have our savings going into um that they push hard right now for a climate positive recovery. The uh Minister for Energy and Emissions reduction, which is a totally bizarre concept, but um Angus Taylor has an out so we're going to have a gas-fired recovery I mean our recovery will be will be underpinned by the expansion of the fossil fuels industry this is an absolutely ludicrous offensive and catastrophic um uh economic model for our recovery and in fact it's also backing losers it is backing companies that um if the rest of the world acts as they say they will, do not have a future. It is spending taxpayers money on projects which are uneconomic and have nothing to say about the future let alone contribute to it. So um I think just really keep on top of it um uh talk to your family and friends about the the absolute essential um uh need to shift our political narratives but yeah two months ago I would have been saying get in the way so it's a dynamic space.
>>Paul: Yep well you've spoken so eloquently tonight and so powerfully um thank you Brynn. If any student if anybody hasn't read all of Brynn's papers or even read any of them, I suggest the one you start out is the text of her speech to the UN global forum um last year. Thank you so much Brynn for coming back and talking to us and for reminding reminding us of the importance of corporate law. Corporate law is not just about raising money on the stock exchange, it's concerned with a whole host it's concerned with our social organisation and the allocation and accountability of power which of course is a key concerns for lawyers concerned with the you know with the rule of law and with justice, so thank you again very much Brynn. To everybody here can I just say thank you for joining in and contributing. We'll award ROJ points tonight and if you haven't already registered and given us on the chat uh chat site your um your presence please register. We'll see you at our next events in May the LSS social justice Netflix watch parties. Watch this space, but you may actually need to jump onto the LSS Facebook page. The um the chat screen does show that that link but thank you all everybody and thank you especially Brynn again for such a stimulating engaging and challenging presentation.
>>Brynn: Thanks so much everyone see you later. 
>>Erika:Thank you Brynn.
>>Emi:Thanks Brynn.
>>Crystal: And that's a wrap, alright. Thanks guys.
>>Erkia: Hopefully we'll get this attendance for the watch parties.
>>Crystal: Oh we've got it we've got it in the bag. All right good night everyone have a good night restful night okay bye.