Law Commons^™

Natural Resources In The Arctic: The Equal Distribution Of Uneven Resrouces, Ganeswar Matcha, Sudarsanan Sivakumar

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

This paper analyses the governance machine in place at the Arctic and examines the application of the principles of “common heritage of mankind” at the Arctic. This paper also offers some tentative propositions aimed at protecting Out Bound investment rights and how the World Trade Organization or other countries, like the U.S., can intercede in the Arctic investment sphere and attempt to regulate along with the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea.

The Great Climate Migration: A Critique Of Global Legal Standards Of Climate-Change Caused Harm, Mariah Stephens

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Approximately 2.4 billion people, or about forty percent of the global population, live within sixty miles (one hundred kilometers) of a coastline. The United Nations (“U.N.”) determined that “a sea level rise of half a meter could displace 1.2 million people from low-lying islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, with that number almost doubling if the sea level rises by two metres.” The U.N. also reports that “sudden weather-related hazards” have internally displaced an annual average of 21.5 million people since 2008. Within the next few decades, this number is likely to continue to increase. …

Climate Choice Architecture, Felix Mormann

Faculty Scholarship

Personal choices drive global warming nearly as much as institutional decisions. Yet, policymakers overwhelmingly target large-scale industrial facilities for reductions in carbon emissions, with individual and household emissions a mere afterthought. Recent advances in behavioral economics, cognitive psychology, and related fields have produced a veritable behavior change revolution. Subtle changes to the choice environment, or nudges, have improved stake-holder decision-making in a wide range of contexts, from healthier food choices to better retirement planning. But the vast potential of choice architecture remains largely untapped for purposes of climate policy and action. This Article explores that untapped potential and makes the …

The Case For Corporate Climate Ratings: Nudging Financial Markets, Felix Mormann, Milica Mormann

Faculty Scholarship

Capital markets are cast as both villain and hero in the climate playbill. The trillions of dollars required to combat climate change leave ample room for heroics from the financial sector. For the time being, however, capital continues to flow readily toward fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive industries. Drawing on the results of an empirical study, this Article posits that ratings of corporate climate risk and governance can help overcome pervasive information asymmetries and nudge investors toward more climate-conscious investment choices with welfare-enhancing effects.

In the absence of a meaningful price on carbon, three private ordering initiatives are trying to …

Held V. State, Alec D. Skuntz

Public Land & Resources Law Review

On March 13, 2020, a group of 16 Montana children and teenagers filed a complaint in the First Judicial District, Lewis and Clark County against the State of Montana and several state agencies. These young Plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief against Defendants for their complicity in continuing to extract and release harmful amounts of greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. Plaintiffs premised their argument on the Montana Constitution’s robust environmental rights and protections. The Defendants filed a motion to dismiss which the District Court granted in-part and denied in-part. Held provides a roadmap for future litigation by elucidating …

The Carbon Price Equivalent: A Metric For Comparing Climate Change Mitigation Efforts Across Jurisdictions, Gabriel Weil

Scholarly Works

Climate change presents a global commons problem: Emissions reductions on the scale needed to meet global targets do not pass a domestic cost-benefit test in most countries. To give national governments ample incentive to pursue deep decarbonization, mutual interstate coercion will be necessary. Many proposed tools of coercive climate diplomacy would require a one-dimensional metric for comparing the stringency of climate change mitigation policy packages across jurisdictions. This article proposes and defends such a metric: the carbon price equivalent. There is substantial variation in the set of climate change mitigation policy instruments implemented by different countries. Nonetheless, the consequences of …

Juliana V. United States, Daniel Brister

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 2015, a group of adolescents between the ages of eight and nineteen filed a lawsuit against the federal government for infringing upon their civil rights to a healthy, habitable future living environment. Those Plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States alleged that the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels was causing catastrophic and destabilizing impacts to the global climate, threatening the survival and welfare of present and future generations. Seeking to reduce the United States’ contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, Plaintiffs demanded injunctive and declaratory relief to halt the federal government’s policies of promoting and subsidizing fossil fuels, due to the …

A Comparative Study On Carbon Emission Reduction Systems, Mingde Cao

Dissertations & Theses

The overwhelming majority of scientists have concluded that global warming is unequivocal. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth report in 2013 concluded that the challenge of climate disruption to human beings is even more imperative than the previous report claimed, and that anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions have extremely likely been the dominant causes of the observed global warming since the mid-20th century.

Anthropogenic GHGs emissions have many implications, including more intensive, extreme meteorological events, spreading of diseases, and threatening human health and life. Climate change also causes injustice in human society because of the dislocation of the …

Wrongful Benefit & Arctic Drilling, Nicolas Cornell, Sarah E. Light

Articles

The law contains a diverse range of doctrines — “slayer rules” that prevent murderers from inheriting, restrictions on trade in “conflict diamonds,” the Fourth Amendment’s exclusion of evidence obtained through unconstitutional search, and many more — that seem to instantiate a general principle that it can be wrong to profit from past harms or misconduct. This Article explores the contours of this general normative principle, which we call the wrongful benefit principle. As we illustrate, the wrongful benefit principle places constraints both on whether anyone should be permitted to exploit ethically tainted goods, and who may be permitted to profit …

Slides: Regulating Oil And Gas Emissions In The Denver Julesberg Basin, Garry Kaufman

Water and Air Quality Issues in Oil and Gas Development: The Evolving Framework of Regulation and Management (Martz Summer Conference, June 5-6)

Presenter: Garry Kaufman, Deputy Director, Colorado Air Pollution Control Division

25 slides

Cool Lawsuits: Is Climate Change Litigation Dead After Kivalina V. Exxonmobil?, Mark L. Belleville

Mark L. Belleville

Can emitters of greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) ever be held liable for harms caused by climate change? That is the limited question this Article addresses. While many commentators saw the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA (“Mass. v. EPA”) as an indication that such claims may receive favorable review, recent decisions suggest that there may be no theory under which the ExxonMobils of the world can be held liable for the effects of climate change. Specifically, in September 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a native Alaskan village on the tip of a barrier reef, whose …

Agenda: The Promise And Peril Of Oil Shale Development, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Fully one-half of the world’s oil shale lies within 150 miles of Grand Junction, Colorado, and about 80% of these reserves are on federal land. Estimates of recoverable reserves in the Green River Formation range from 500 billion to 1.53 trillion barrels. At present consumption rates, this is enough oil to satisfy 100% of U.S. demand for well over 100 years.

Development of oil shale could cause significant impacts on the Colorado Plateau. It would provide for …

The Evolution Of Natural Resources Law And Policy, Lawrence J. Macdonnell, Sarah F. Bates

Books, Reports, and Studies

This digital resource contains only an abstract, cover image and table of contents information from the published book.

Print copy of book is available in the University of Colorado’s Wise Law Library: http://lawpac.colorado.edu/record=b444104~S0

Contents: Introduction / Bruce Babbitt -- PART I : REFLECTIONS ON NATURAL RESOURCES LAW AND POLICY: Historical evolution and future of natural resources law and policy / Sally Fairfax, Helen M. Ingram, Leigh Raymond -- Ethical perspectives on resources law and policy : global warming and our common future / Sarah Krakoff -- Why care about the polar bear? : economic analysis of natural resources law and …

Saving Special Places: Trends And Challenges With Protecting Public Lands [Outline], Robert B. Keiter

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

7 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"Robert B. Keiter, Wallace Stegner Professor of Law, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law"

Slides: Summary: Sources Of Stress And The Changing Context Of Natural Resources Law And Policy In The New West, William R. Travis

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Dr. William R. Travis, Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder

43 slides

The Growing Influence Of Tort And Property Law On Natural Resources Law: Case Studies Of Coal Bed Methane Development And Geologic Carbon Sequestration, Alexandra B. Klass

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

19 pages.

"Alexandra B. Klass, Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School"

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative And California Assembly Bill 1493: Filling The American Greenhouse Gas Regulation Void, Michael H. Wall

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Integrated Environmental Control: The Expanding Matrix, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

Professor Guruswamy addresses the configuration of forces creating global warming, and canvasses the action necessary to deal with this challenge. He identifies key reasons accounting for the failure of the United States to take adequate measures to control emissions of carbon dioxide at the national level, and for resisting international attempts to do so. Guruswamy argues that the problem of global warming should be dealt with within the framework of Integrated Environmental Control (IEC)--a radical approach to pollution prevention and modification of product demand. He reasons that by encompassing energy policy within the matrix of pollution control, IEC will promote …