Law Commons^™

Climate Change As Systemic Risk, Barnali Choudhury

Articles & Book Chapters

Hindsight tells us that COVID-19, thought by former President Trump and others to have come out of nowhere, is more aptly labelled a “gray rhino” event, one that was highly probable and preventable. Indeed, despite considerable evidence of the impending threats of pandemics, for the most part, governments failed to prepare for the pandemic, resulting in wide-scale social and economic losses.

The lessons from COVID-19, however, should remind us of the perils of ignoring gray rhino risks. Nowhere is this more apparent than with climate change, a highly probable, high impact threat that has largely been ignored to date. Despite …

Leading Towards A Level Playing Field, Repaying Ecological Debt, Or Making Environmental Space: Three Stories About International Environmental Cooperation, Karin Mickelson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article considers a number of different ways of conceptualizing the relationship between South and North in the environmental context, focusing on international responses to climate change and, in particular, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It explores three stories about international environmental cooperation. One derives from the concept of "ecological debt," the second comes from the concept of "environmental space," and the third, which might be said to underlie the U.S. approach to the Kyoto Protocol at the present time, is labelled "leading towards a level playing field." The article provides an overview …