We are all living in a period of unprecedented change and one of great peril. The scientific consensus is clear. The world confronts an urgent carbon problem. The carbon in our atmosphere has created a blanket of gas that traps heat and is changing the world’s climate. Already, the planet’s temperature has risen by 1 degree centigrade. If we don’t curb emissions, and temperatures continue to climb, science tells us that the results will be catastrophic (well for the human race at least).

For years Governments, led by global organisation such as the UN, but sensitive to business lobbies fighting the ‘tax disincentives’ that have been Governments’ tools of choice, have debated the science and struggled to achieve consensus on what is needed and by when. In recent years we have seen co-operation growing but in 2019 the mood changed. The general public, guided by trusted voices including as Sir David Attenborough and by activists such as Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion, became 'emergency aware’. At the same time a top lawyer Polly Higgins' Stop Ecocide Campaign put pressure on the ICC to  introduce a 5th International law that criminalises ecocide. This sets the moral baseline of corporations to have a ‘duty of care’ not only to humans, but to whole ecosystems.