The perspective of climate justice is being brought to the practice of law in response to increasing extreme weather events and the correlating impact on communities. The people that community legal centres support are often those most at risk of climate impacts as they have fewer resources to cope, adapt and recover said Hume Riverina Community Legal Centre Principal Lawyer Deborah Fisher.
Funding from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation allowed the Federation of Community Legal Centres to develop a comprehensive guide that can be used by any Victorian Community Legal Centre seeking more information or a past case study specific to climate justice.
Ms Fisher said many people seeking legal services did not realise that their issues were being exacerbated by climate impacts.
“When you talk to people in the community they don't come and say I have a disaster related legal problem or I have got a climate justice issue,” she said.
“People come to us needing help with everyday legal problems – family, money and housing issues and increasingly these are made worse by climate impacts or disaster.”
The field guide was developed to be a reference point of all of the research and learnings that have gone into climate justice over the last five years.
“Prior to 2020, sector and community response was quite fragmented and when the 2019 bushfires hit, everyone scrambled to figure out what to do, and how we as lawyers fitted into the emergency response,” Ms Fisher said.
“We did not want to lose sight of what we had learnt, we knew disasters would keep coming and we did not want to have to start from scratch every time.”
The Federation and more than 15 legal centres that have been at the forefront of climate disasters shared their lessons and experiences to form the field guide.
“The Federation did an amazing job in Victoria of pulling everyone together and creating an environment where we were able to share, learn and grow,” Ms Fisher said.
“I certainly know that the confidence we have in addressing climate justice issues has come from that collaborative response.”
Coordinator of the Climate Justice Support Unit Clint Westig said the field guide was a really unique piece of work.
“Having this resource has helped community legal centres to see climate justice as its own discipline,” he said.
“People are becoming increasingly aware of climate change but how that relates to law and justice, and your day-to-day work is still quite unclear for a lot of people.
“Now there is this resource that really helps to fast track everyone’s knowledge, to come up to speed with what are some of the best practices and some of the best thinking around how to work with communities.
“We’re asking, what are some things to work towards in terms of advocacy to create broader change and address this issue more holistically.”
Foundation program manager Dr Karyn Bosomworth agrees, “This work is also helping inform and advocate for legislative changes to help build and support resilience. Ultimately, working to help prevent those impacts occurring in the first place.”
Mr Westig said climate change can go across all areas of law and impacts people both directly and indirectly.
“There's all sorts of ways in which climate events and climate change are impacting everyday Victorians and exacerbating a lot of their existing legal issues but also creating new ones,” he said.
“And we're trying to help embed that way of thinking.
“How do you consider climate justice as you address whatever issue your community's facing or while trying to work with an individual on a legal problem or pulling together an advocacy campaign.
“And that’s where the field guide as a resource comes in. It is chock full of case studies that give real life examples to exactly that question.” Article written by Mackenzie Archer.