As world governments meet in Brazil for the COP30 climate conference, citizens around the world are taking action into their own hands and demanding change. For law students in Scotland, participating in initiatives such as the Fossil Free Law campaign can provoke reflection on the role of lawyers in delivering a just transition away from fossil fuels.
The power of the law as a tool for change
What I find very valuable about Fossil Free Law is that it offers a different perspective on the law than the one we are often faced with when learning it. In law school the main focus is theory, often centuries old.
We examine how the law changes and how it evolves to meet societies’ needs. Yet what we don’t seem to talk about is the power the law has as a tool for change, and how we can use it to help build a fairer more sustainable future. This is the perspective I’ve been brought to explore after joining Fossil Free Law.
Fossil Free Law brings students together to imagine a legal profession that doesn’t just serve the law as it is, but the justice it should uphold. To a student at an early stage of my career development, it’s about bridging the gap between what we learn in theory and what’s happening in reality.
The future of the legal sector
The future of the legal profession depends on our ability to see the law not as static, but as dynamic, something that must respond to the world’s most urgent challenges. The law is a living system. It’s constantly rewritten through the choices of those who practice it. And that starts with education.
As students, we’re in a unique position. We can still see both sides: the academic theory and the real-world impact. We can ask, what kind of justice do we want to serve?
Decarbonisation is a legal challenge
Decarbonisation isn’t only an engineering or political challenge, it’s a legal one. Law structures how power, resources, and responsibility are distributed. If law firms continue to serve fossil fuel clients without question, they’re not neutral actors, they’re active participants in delaying the transition.
A just transition means that our movement away from fossil fuels must also protect workers, communities, and those historically excluded from decision-making. Lawyers are key in making that transition fair by choosing who they represent, by shaping contracts, and by giving voice to those most affected.
As a student, I’ve started to see how law doesn’t exist in isolation. Every piece of legislation, every legal decision, has real-world consequences. Law shapes who gets protected and who gets left behind. And when it comes to the climate crisis, those consequences are global, generational, and deeply unequal.
Embedding climate consciousness into law students
That’s why I believe that the just transition might be able to start as early as in law schools, offering this climate conscious perspective to students who can take it forward with them into the legal work they will one day have the power to do.
We, as law students are the future of this profession. We can set the ethical standards that today’s firms will one day have to meet. The just transition begins with learning, with students who believe that justice isn’t something we only read about, but something we can create.
If we can start embedding that awareness now then we can build a generation of lawyers who see the climate crisis not as a distant problem, but as a defining part of their duty.
That is how we can make a just transition, not just in our legal sector, but in our understanding of justice itself.
This blog was authored by Layla Vansoh, a second-year law student at the University of Edinburgh and member of the Fossil Free Law campaign. It is an edited version of a speech that was originally presented at the virtual gathering held as part of the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice.
