Digital Commons Network^™

Opposition To Renewable Energy Facilities In The United States: June 2024 Edition, Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Harmukh Singh, Noah Schaffir

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Achieving lower carbon emissions in the United States will require developing a massive number renewable energy facilities at an unprecedented scale and pace. Although many renewable energy facilities are sited without any problem, local opposition often arises. This report updates and considerably expands three previous Sabin Center reports, published in September 2021, March 2022, and May 2023, which document local and state restrictions against, and opposition to, siting renewable energy projects, as well as energy storage and transmission projects that are closely tied to renewable energy generation. The time period covered by this report ranges from as early as 1995 …

Shocking Financed Emissions: The Effect Of Economic Volatility On The Portfolio Footprinting Of Financial Institutions, Ilmi Granoff, Tonya Lee

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Many financial institutions are now calculating and disclosing their financed emissions, a class of metrics enabling these institutions to calculate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with investment and lending activities. These institutions have widely adopted the metric to estimate exposure to climate-related financial risk associated with GHG-emitting activities and to provide shareholders and investors a picture of how their financial activity impacts global climate change. Financed emissions metrics, despite widespread adoption, face two key methodological challenges: lack of comparability of outputs within and between portfolios, and vulnerability of calculations to portfolio volatility. Markets are naturally volatile, but the economic …

The Private Litigation Impact Of New York’S Green Amendment, Evan Bianchi, Sean Di Luccio, Martin Lockman, Vincent Nolette

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The increasing urgency of climate change, combined with federal environmental inaction under the Trump Administration, inspired a wave of environmental action at the state and local level. Building on the environmental movement of the 1970s, activists have pushed to amend more than a dozen state constitutions to include “green amendments” — self-executing individual rights to a clean environment. In 2022, New York activists succeeded, and New York’s Green Amendment (the NYGA) now provides that “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”

However, the power of the NYGA and similar green amendments turns …

Climate Change And Human Health: A Synthesis Of Scientific Research And State Obligations Under International Law, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This report synthesizes the latest scientific research on the human health effects of climate change and discusses the legal implications of this research, specifically with regards to State obligations under international law. In doing so, the report seeks to provide insights on issues to be analyzed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its upcoming advisory opinion on the legal obligations of States with respect to climate change. It also seeks to enhance the capacity of judges, advocates, and governments to understand these issues in the context of current and future proceedings involving international law obligations related to climate …

Government Procurement, Financial Services, And Environment: Linkages And Implications For The Eu And Brazil, Adeet Dobhal, Lucas Moreira Jiminez

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

The relationship between trade and the environment is increasingly a priority for policymakers and civil society. However, some of the disciplines covered by modern trade agreements have not received enough attention when it comes to their potential impact on the environment. Financial services and government procurement are two such areas, even though they are increasingly consequential topics for international trade policy and negotiations. This blind spot merits greater consideration as the connections definitely exist: the regulation of government procurement and financial services can have positive or negative implications for environmental outcomes on the ground, which makes understanding these links a …

Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, And Electric Vehicles, Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger, Samuel Lavine

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Achieving the United States’ ambitious emissions reduction goals depends in large part on the rapid adoption of wind and solar energy and the electrification of consumer vehicles. However, misinformation and coordinated disinformation about renewable energy is widespread and threatens to undermine the transition. In this report, the Sabin Center identifies and examines 33 of the most pervasive false claims about solar energy, wind energy, and electric vehicles, with the aim of promoting a more informed discussion.

International Governance Of Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal: Recent Developments And Future Directions, Romany M. Webb

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

With the impacts of climate change intensifying, and progress in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it continuing to lag, the parties to the Paris Climate Agreement have emphasized the need to accelerate efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, while simultaneously curbing emissions. As the parties have recognized, the ocean is already a major carbon sink, and could play an important role in future carbon dioxide removal (“CDR”) efforts. Scientists have proposed a variety of ocean-based CDR approaches, but most require further research to fully evaluate their efficacy, benefits, and risks. In-ocean testing of the approaches, and …

Common But Differentiated Constitutionalisms: Does ‘Environmental Constitutionalism’ Offer Realistic Policy Options For Improving Un Environmental Law And Governance? Us And Latin American Perspectives, Erin Daly, Maria Antonia Tigre, Natalia Urzola

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Environmental law and governance have taken many different forms in the Americas in response to climate change mitigation. This contribution describes recent developments in the United States, Colombia, and Brazil, illustrating the divergent approaches to climate protection. The chapter highlights the common but differentiated ways in which the three countries in the Americas approach environment constitutionalism in the midst of the climate crisis. On one hand, Brazil and Colombia adopt a rights-based approach to tackle complex issues related to environmental law and governance in their context-specific responses to climate protection. In particular, the courts of Colombia and Brazil have been …

Sabin Center For Climate Change Law Annual Report 2023, Sabin Center For Climate Change Law

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This year the Sabin Center for Climate Change introduces its first annual report, which highlights and synthesizes our cutting-edge research and innovative engagements in 2023.

The Right To A Healthy Environment In Latin America And The Caribbean: Compliance Through The Inter-American System And The Escazú Agreement, Maria Antonia Tigre

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The Escazú Agreement has brought a myriad of environmental rights and duties to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), including the recognition of a right to a healthy environment and rights of environmental defenders. As a new agreement, the task of implementing the Escazú Agreement still lies ahead. Significantly, a non-judicial, non-punitive, consultative and transparent Committee to support Implementation and Compliance was established as a subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to promote implementation. Concomitantly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognised an autonomous right to a healthy environment, establishing it as directly justiciable within the Inter-American System …

Harms From Concentrated Industries: A Primer, Denise Hearn

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Market concentration within sectors and across global value chains has increased in recent years, leading to new scholarship on the benefits and harms of concentrated industries. The macroeconomic effects of market concentration, and its effects on stakeholders like workers, consumers, and citizens, will significantly impact the achievement of the SDGs. Read CCSI's primer on the Harms from Concentrated Industries here.

Billion-Dollar Exposure: Investor-State Dispute Settlement In Mozambique’S Fossil Fuel Sector, Lea Di Salvatore, Maria Julia Gubeissi

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Alongside preparing for climate change, Africa should invest in the zero-carbon future, avoiding locking itself into the declining fossil fuel–based economy while taking advantage of the opportunities presented by decarbonization. However, investment treaties and investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) hinder, rather than catalyze, the transition to climate-friendly investment opportunities. This report shows how Mozambique’s international investment agreements and publicly available oil, gas, and coal contracts allow foreign investors to bypass the national judicial system and bring multi-billion-dollar ISDS claims against Mozambique. Such claims can result in significant costs for the country, and they also have a chilling effect on new public-interest …

How The International Investment Law Regime Undermines Access To Justice For Investment-Affected Stakeholders, Ladan Mehranvar

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

For over a decade now, the international investment law regime, which includes investment treaties and their central pillar, the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, has been facing sustained calls for reform. These have largely centered on the concerns regarding the high costs of ISDS, the restrictions placed by the investment treaty regime on the right—or duty—of states to regulate in the public interest, and the questionable benefits arising from these treaties in the first place. Several states have taken proactive measures: some have revised investment treaty standards to better protect their regulatory powers; others have introduced new approaches to investment …

New York City Relaxing Environmental Review Rules For Housing Construction, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Faced with a severe housing shortage, New York City is exempting the construction of much new housing from the environmental review processes and taking many other steps to encourage such construction throughout the city. Several of these moves will also help the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

New York Environmental Legislation In 2023, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

In 2023, New York enacted laws to aid the state in achieving the renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction mandates of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).The state also now has new laws to reduce exposure to lead in drinking water and paint; to ban natural gas furnaces and stoves in new buildings; to restrict neonicotinoid pesticides; and to encourage “nature-based solutions” for stabilizing tidal coastlines. These and other new and amended environmental and energy laws—as well as notable vetoes—are discussed in this article.

California And Europe Require Scope 3 Climate Disclosures Despite Sec Retreat, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

In March 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued proposed regulations on disclosure of climate-related information by public companies, including their material Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This created a firestorm, drawing more than 24,000 comment letters.On March 6, 2024, the SEC issued its final rule, significantly narrowing the requirements and, notably, eliminating the Scope 3 disclosures. Companies that do not want to make Scope 3 disclosures should not rejoice and environmental advocates and others who do want to see such disclosures should not despair, because new requirements from both California and Europe do mandate this information …

Legal Issues In Oceanic Transport Of Carbon Dioxide For Sequestration, Carolina Arlota, Michael B. Gerrard, Pria Deanna Mahadevan

Faculty Scholarship

A number of large facilities intended for the permanent sequestration of carbon dioxide are being developed in the United States. Several of them will be located in Texas and Louisiana on or near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, making them easily accessible to ships. At the same time, there is substantial interest in Europe in installing equipment to capture carbon dioxide from certain industrial operations before it is emitted into the atmosphere, but currently there are inadequate facilities existing in Europe to sequester much of this carbon dioxide. Therefore, there is interest in the possibility of using ships …

The Role And Relevance Of Investment Treaties In Promoting Renewable Energy Investments, Ladan Mehranvar, Lisa E. Sachs

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Co-authors Ladan Mehranvar and Lisa Sachs discuss the effect of investment treaties as catalysts for critical investments in the energy transition, with a particular focus on the Spanish renewable energy cases. The book chapter, "The Role and Relevance of Investment Treaties in Promoting Renewable Energy Investments," is featured in Investment Arbitration and Climate Change, published by Kluwer Law International B.V.

Investor–State Dispute Settlements: A Hidden Handbrake On Climate Action, Lea Di Salvatore, Lorenzo Cotula, Anirudh Nanda, Chloe Yuqing Wang

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

To achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate goals, states must move away from fossil fuels. But investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) — a system that enables companies to take states to international arbitration — can increase the cost of this transition.

Our research shows that fossil fuel companies have historically secured at least US$82.8 billion in damages and large sums continue to be invested in fossil fuels worldwide. To address this problem, investment governance must be harmonised with global climate goals.

The Legal Case For Equity In Local Climate Action Planning, Amy E. Turner

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Over the last half decade, local climate action plans have regularly come to incorporate considerations of racial and socioeconomic equity, recognizing the ways in which low-income communities and communities of color experience earlier and worse consequences from global warming, and these communities are also at risk of being harmed by policies meant to address climate change. Until now, however, the discourse on equity in climate action planning has largely pertained to policy; it acknowledges the disproportionate harm that certain communities experience as a result of climate change and policies to address climate change, and suggests policy tools that can address …

Turning The Tide: How To Harness The Americas Partnership For Economic Prosperity To Deliver An Isds-Free Americas, Daniel Rangel, Lori Wallach, Ladan Mehranvar, Alvaro Santos, Mario Osorio

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

During the Summit of the Americas in June 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden announced the launch of negotiations for an Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP). The Biden administration hopes this initiative can rebuild relationships with countries in the region by increasing cooperation to address economic development and inequality, climate, and other challenges affecting the entire Western Hemisphere. To fulfill this vision and its associated goals, the participating countries must address the severe challenges posed by the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) regime and its escalating threats to the transition to a post-carbon society and the establishment of resilient public health …

Circularity In Mineral And Renewable Energy Value Chains: Overview Of Technology, Policy, And Finance Aspects, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Jack Arnold

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

The mineral-intensive global energy transition and the increasing material needs of a growing population will exacerbate mining’s footprint on the planet, under current linear economy conditions. Responsible primary production of minerals and metals needs to be combined with circular economy approaches. CCSI’s report, Circularity in Mineral and Renewable Energy Value Chains: Overview of Technology, Policy, and Finance Aspects, examines existing conditions as well as reforms needed to enable global circularity in the mineral value chains of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines, zeroing in on four key materials: aluminum, copper products, silicon, and steel. The project was supported by …

Beyond The North–South Divide: Litigation's Role In Resolving Climate Change Loss And Damage Claims, Maria Antonia Tigre, Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Within the international climate regime, legal aspects surrounding loss and damage (L&D) are contentious topics, implicating liability, compensation and notions of vulnerability. The attribution of responsibility and the pursuit of redress for L&D present intricate legal and governance challenges. The ongoing debates under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are characterized by a pronounced North–South divide and have done little to provide tangible support to those most affected by L&D. This apparent neglect has prompted exploration of alternative avenues for climate harm redress. The burgeoning field of litigation for liability and compensation of climate harm holds potential significance …

Transnational Insights For Climate Litigation At The European Court Of Human Rights: A South-North Perspective In Pursuit Of Climate Justice, Melanie Murcott, Maria Antonia Tigre, Nesa Zimmermann

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The global climate crisis is increasingly recognised as an issue of climate injustice, including because it is causing (and worsening) inequalities and human rights violations. Moreover, responsibility for emissions and vulnerability to climate impacts are not evenly distributed. They vary among and within states. In order to tackle these issues of justice both within and among states, litigants have taken to domestic and regional courts to engage in climate litigation. A body of transnational climate jurisprudence is emerging in which courts are increasingly looking to laws beyond their relevant state or region, engaging with the moral aims of human rights …

Carajás Corridor In Brazil: Could An Sea Have Reconciled Shared-Use Infrastructure And Environmental Protection?, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

The 998km Carajás railway corridor connects the world’s largest iron ore mine, operated by private mining company Vale S.A. (Vale) in Brazil’s northern state of Pará (PA), to the company’s maritime terminal in São Luís, the capital of the northeastern state of Maranhão (MA). Carajás is one of the few integrated railway corridors financed by a mining company that, apart from transporting the iron ore that made the infrastructure investments viable, also transports general cargo and operates passenger services along the corridor. This corridor was born from the Brazilian government’s plans in the mid1950s that foresaw the iron ore reserves …

Antitrust And Sustainability: A Landscape Analysis, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, Sabin Center For Climate Change Law

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Competition policy and antitrust law are experiencing a global renaissance. New market realities such as digital market gatekeepers, the financialization of firms, highly concentrated markets, a rising labor movement, industrial policy, and trade wars, among others, are radically reshaping how this policy area is understood and applied.

Sustainability concerns have also been a driving force for reconstituting antitrust to meet twenty-first century challenges. It is now widely accepted that competition policy – both its aims and its enforcement – has wider societal impacts beyond competition, including effects on democracy, economic inequality, growth and innovation, racial and gender imbalances, privacy, geopolitical …

Harmonizing Product-Level Ghg Accounting For Steel And Aluminum, John Biberman, Gyunbae Joe, Perrine Toledano

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting methods for steel and aluminum products have begun converging towards common standards within their respective industries in recent years. However, accounting methods for steel products and aluminum products are still not fully comparable with each other. If emissions are measured and allocated differently for these products, then these accounting differences have the potential to influence materials choices for manufacturers concerned about reducing their reported GHG footprint. Companies could therefore be motivated to make a choice between aluminum and steel according to emissions benefits that materialize from differences in accounting frameworks, but which do not actually exist …

Opposition To Renewable Energy Facilities In The United States: May 2023 Edition, Matthew Eisenson

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Achieving lower carbon emissions in the United States will require developing a very large number of wind, solar, and other renewable energy facilities, as well as associated storage, distribution, and transmission, at an unprecedented scale and pace. Although host community members are often enthusiastic about the economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy facilities, local opposition often arises. This report updates and considerably expands two previous Sabin Center reports, published in September 2021 and March 2022, and documents local and state restrictions against, and opposition to, siting renewable energy projects for the period from 1995 to May 2023. Importantly, the …

Enabling A Just Transition: Protecting Human Rights In Renewable Energy Projects: A Briefing For Policymakers, Hansika Agrawal, Laura El-Katiri, Kimathi Muiruri, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

This briefing provides guidance to policy- and decision-makers (hereafter, “policymakers”) on the benefits of and strategies for taking a human rights-based approach to renewable energy policy. It highlights the various impacts of utility-scale renewable energy projects on peoples and communities, associated risks for policymakers, and explains how national, regional, and global policies can help mitigate those impacts and risks. The briefing addresses different agents of policy- and decision-making: Host states, where renewable energy projects are proposed or located; Home states where corporations pursuing renewable energy investments, especially investments abroad, are based; Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) financing renewable energy investments, especially …

Commentary: Nature-Based Insetting: A Harmful Distraction From Corporate Decarbonization, Nora Mardirossian, Jack Arnold

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Carbon offsetting is used worldwide on a massive scale, purportedly to mitigate climate change by capturing atmospheric carbon or by increasing or protecting carbon storage. Yet, in recent years, offsetting has been increasingly criticized as a strategy that can harm Indigenous peoples and local communities, exacerbate land inequality, and, paradoxically, worsen the global climate crisis. “Carbon insetting” has emerged as an alternative approach to offsetting that localizes nature-based solutions projects and other greenhouse gas removal activities within company value chains and has been adopted by major global brands such as Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Burberry. This commentary takes a deep dive …