Environment and climate risks, technology law, and legal advice in England and Wales

I need to say up front that I do not have all the answers here. Rather, this is a blogpost on a topic which I have been mulling for a while, and which I thought was interesting enough to document, even at this nascent stage. The nub of my pondering is this: if a client comes to me, a solicitor in England and Wales, to what extent must I explain environmental and climate risks? The Law Society’s guidance on the impact of climate change on solicitors The Law Society has published a guide to the impact of climate change on solicitors. This says that: climate change may have an impact on a solicitor’s duty to warn clients of the legal risks in certain contexts. It goes on to say that that: In the context of climate change, this means that a solicitor who becomes aware in the course of acting on a retainer that there are climate legal risks that might impact the client’s interests in scope of the retainer should disclose such risks to your client in a clear and understandable way. “in…