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On December 16, 2024, the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) released a notice soliciting comments on a number of specific questions to inform its implementation of the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (“CCDAA” or “SB 253”) and the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (“CRFRA” or “SB 261”) (the “Notice”).

The International Court of Justice has been asked to issue an advisory opinion on this question, and is currently hearing submissions from States, NGOs and international organisations.

The United Kingdom has become the first county in Europe to invest in the next generation of nuclear fuel, promising to award £196 million to Urenco’s Capenhurst site in northwest England to support production of up to 10 tonnes of high-assay low enriched uranium (“HALEU”) per year.

With the commitment of no less than 22 countries at COP 28 to triple global nuclear power capacity by 2050, and the UK government’s announcement in its Spring Budget that it would buy two sites for two new nuclear power plants (“NPPs”), it appears that nuclear energy sites will become a familiar part of our landscape, not just in the UK but globally.

As the world moves toward cleaner energy, lithium has become crucial, powering electric vehicles and renewable-energy storage systems. With lithium demand set to increase more than 40-fold by 2040, the race to extract this critical mineral has intensified, especially in the United States.

In this program, we focused on SEC developments affecting, and practical aspects of preparing for, public companies’ annual meetings and annual reports.

On November 5, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied a motion for summary judgment that sought to declare SB 253 and SB 261 (the “California Climate Laws”) invalid on their face under the First Amendment for compelling political speech.

Welcome to Vinson & Elkins’ Securities and ESG Updates.

On September 23, 2024, the State of California filed a new greenwashing salvo against an oil major by filing a plastics-related lawsuit in the San Francisco County Superior Court.

In a potentially significant development that may impact the economics of aviation, the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) is proposing a policy, as we previewed in January 2024, to update the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (“LCFS”) program, whereby CARB would eliminate the existing exemption for intrastate fossil jet fuel from LCFS regulations beginning in 2028.

In a landmark judgment handed down on 20 June 2024, R (Finch) v Surrey County Council and others [2024] UKSC 20, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has ruled that “Scope 3” greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from the eventual use of hydrocarbons produced from a proposed oil development should have been assessed in an environmental impact assessment (EIA) process carried out by a local authority.

In a significant legal maneuver with potentially far-reaching implications, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an amended complaint on June 10, 2024, to California’s high-profile lawsuit targeting five of the world’s largest oil companies: BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66, Shell, as well as the American Petroleum Institute (“API”).