Hello readers,
Welcome to #Women4theClimate on CleanbuildVoices!
It’s another Wednesday and you know what that means. You guessed right! Another interesting reveal of our Woman Crush of the day.
She is none other than the amazing Olivia Rumble who is a Director at Climate Legal, a specialist legal consultancy based in South Africa that helps governments, the private sector, start-up visionaries, and civil society use law to realize climate change and environmental ambitions on the African continent and to navigate challenges when they arise.
Olivia specializes in environmental law, energy law policy and governance, climate change (mitigation and adaptation), climate finance, carbon markets, and carbon tax.
She is admitted as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng and Western Cape) and holds a PPE (University of Stellenbosch); an LLB (University of Cape Town); and an LLM in Environmental Law (University of Cape Town).
Olivia has a strong background in water law as well as climate change law and has acted for governments and regional institutions by pioneering legal reform initiatives in climate change and water law in South Africa and SADC.
She regularly counsels clients on the legal considerations relevant to emerging opportunities in low carbon development and sustainable energy practices and has expertise in South Africa’s complex air quality and greenhouse gas legal regime.
Olivia co-led the drafting team of the South African Climate Change Bill and worked on framework climate change laws for Zimbabwe, Thailand, and Seychelles. She is heavily involved in the South African carbon tax and related offsetting regulations and has worked extensively on carbon pricing approaches in East Africa as well as Sub-Saharan Africa extensively.
She is currently part of the drafting team of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, writing on climate change legislative developments internationally and on the African continent. In addition to her work on climate change, she specializes in transboundary water management, having previously worked with the Zambezi Watercourse Commission as well as the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission on transboundary water management agreements.
Olivia is the co-editor and co-author of Climate Change Law and Governance in South Africa (Juta, 2016) and a Concise Guide to Carbon Tax (Lexis, 2020).
She was one of the guest speakers at Climateaction.africa’s Climate Conversations for Africa bi-weekly Twitter Spaces event where she spoke extensively on climate change laws in Africa and made key recommendations to governments on the continent.
She has been recognized as a leading environmental lawyer by Chambers and Partners 2021 (Environment, South Africa) and Best Lawyers 2020 & 2021.
Watch this space as we’ll be back for another edition of our #Women4theClimate.
