Chicago partner and Climate Change practice co-director Jeff Fort focuses his practice by utilizing a wide variety of skills, legal tools and knowledge to advance and resolve the most challenging environmental and energy issues. Jeff has extensive experience in issues relating to Renewable Energy and Climate Change, in particular with respect to mitigation, investment, adaptation, environmental commodities and compliance strategies. He has been repeatedly recognized by Chambers USA in the Nationwide Climate Change category, and the firm's Climate Change practice is recognized as one of the top global law firms in Voluntary Carbon Markets by Environmental Finance.

In this interview, Jeff Fort discusses the unique strengths of Dentons' global Climate Change practice and the opportunities it can unlock for the firm's clients.

How has the Dentons combination strengthened the firm's Climate Change practice?

The Climate Change practice is not a unique specialty. It is a focal point from which a wide variety of legal issues and challenges are arising every day, and will continue to arise.

We start from a very strong foundation. Prior to the Dentons combination, each legacy firm already had its own Climate Change practice. With our combined global strength, we have been able to seize worldwide opportunities and position ourselves as a firm with a business-centric focus on climate issues across borders. More specifically, we are able to better communicate our expertise. We have started doing that with a  newsletter and page on the firm's website that features articles from each region of the firm.

Additionally, Dentons offers a group within the Energy and Natural Resources practice area that includes experts on the central legal issues associated with climate practice: regulatory requirements (whether cap and trade or traditional command-and-control rules for energy companies), low carbon fuels standards or a wide variety of other legal matters that are caused or driven by changes in the climate of the planet.

What distinguishes us from our competitors in this space?

Our practice focuses on providing clients with pro-business solutions that are also socially responsible and economically viable. Companies are wary of politicized command-and-control regulations that are usually associated with environmental impact reduction regimes, but many are more comfortable with the notion of trading environmental commodities—one of our specialties. We can actually produce monetary value by creating the tangible currency of carbon and renewable energy trading systems. 

Two features distinguish us. First, we bring a business focus to the climate issues. We understand the business proposition and work to craft solutions for those business problems within the available legal structures.

Second, most law firms are recognized for their climate litigation work, typically by contesting actions to control climate change by regulatory authorities. In contrast, Dentons focuses on developing financial solutions to clean energy and related issues -- for example, by deploying carbon and renewable energy credits that can provide support for new clean energy ventures and financing of clean energy projects. We believe these initiatives help our clients effectively adapt their business strategies to mitigate environmental risk, while providing them with opportunities to profit from what is generally perceived as an adversarial relationship between business and the environment.

Can you provide us with an example of your recent work that demonstrates the practice's core strengths?

My work for the Forestry Administration of the Royal Government of Cambodia on the Oddar Meanchey REDD+ project is one such example.

This is an avoided deforestation project, which we recently supported and created a path for monetization with the execution of an Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA) between our client and a US-based carbon development and trading firm, Terra Global Capital (TGC). The agreement allows TGC to sell credits on behalf of the Forestry Administration, which will generate resources for the self-policing communities that live in the threatened forests, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The road to finalizing the agreement, however, was fraught with the challenge of deep-set cultural differences. Clearing these hurdles required training governmental officials on the legal and property issues relating to carbon offset markets, explaining  the business needs of the parties who would ultimately buy the credits,  as well as patiently navigating a complicated international contract negotiation. 

Read more about the Oddar Meanchey REDD+ project

We were proud to see that project featured in the Global Social Impact Report.

What are some climate issues and opportunities in various sectors?

Climate change issues touch nearly every industry and service we provide at the Firm. Here are just a few examples.

Energy companies face climate issues in their daily operations and long term planning. Any transaction involving an energy company, even if it is not already subject to a climate regulation, necessarily involves climate issues. I recall one transaction where the seller tried to create a value in the possibility of future regulations and that as an incumbent, it would be entitled to more credits than our client, the buyer, would be.

There is an emerging debate on valuations of companies, particularly public companies, with respect to whether the "climate costs" or the "cost of carbon" are potentially material. This issue arises from time to time, and there are indications that this issue will continue to develop, perhaps led by Europe.

Technology sector businesses are also affected in at least two ways. First, to the extent they are focused on clean energy, whether bio-fuels, waste to energy, or making gasoline out of the carbon in the atmosphere, there are hundreds of technologies being developed to solve one or more of the climate issues. We are often brought in to help analyze the market and the issues presented. Second, established technology companies have sustainability goals which often take the form of securing carbon offset credits.

Infrastructure projects, from Public-Private Partnerships to projects to restore an area after a devastating storm event (think Hurricane Sandy) are another. Mining projects in third world countries, if they collect the appropriate baseline information, may be able to set up a future income stream—but input is needed in the planning stage. Recovery efforts that involve rebuilding and issues such as storm events also involve the technical issues that the climate and environmental lawyers have spent their legal careers addressing.

And, of course, the legally-allowed information to be used for underwriting many kinds of insurance products depends on the appropriate baseline information. 

What are the hottest trends and developments in your practice?

Environmental policy and programs for carbon and renewable energy continue to expand. California's cap and trade program is well underway and is driving conduct not just in California, but also in the rest of the United States (through offset mitigation projects) and through relationships with the Canadian province of Quebec. Alberta also has a substantial carbon market.

Globally, the market for environmental commodities is shifting and growing. China is in the process of developing their own carbon trading programs, and Australia implemented a Carbon Pricing Mechanism that is continually being modified to provide value to the country. Additionally, the US is focusing more on development of renewable energy projects and the homogenization of the renewable energy credit trading programs. Many Asian countries also have programs to promote renewable energy with energy prices that are very attractive for developing projects.

We're currently following carbon tax talks in South Africa with keen interest. We're also continuing to build on our most productive efforts in North America, where we are helping clients with compliance practices and carbon credit investment opportunities in established markets like California, Quebec and Alberta.

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