Law Commons^™

Incorporating Climate Considerations Into Investment Assessment Processes: Guidance For National And Local Governments, Esther Akwii, Grace Brennan, Leslie Hannay, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Nora Mardirossian

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Global climate change impacts pose complex, dynamic challenges to the success of land-based investments — such as agriculture, forestry, and wind and solar energy — which can further exacerbate detrimental climate change impacts if they are not sustainably implemented. Countries outline in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) their goals and plans to reduce GHG emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. To ensure their success, governments must fully integrate their NDCs into national climate strategies, plans, and policies that drive government action and decisions. Improved land-based investment decision-making through the incorporation of climate considerations in investment assessment processes (IAPs) can …

Climate Damages, Globalism, And Federal Regulation, Arthur Fraas, John D. Graham, Kerry Krutilla, Randall Lutter, Jason Shogren, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed for public comment new higher estimates of damages from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The estimates, called the social cost of carbon (SCC), are "the monetary value of the net harm to society of emitting a metric ton of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in a given year." Ranging from $120 to $340 per metric ton of carbon dioxide (C02) emitted for 2020, these estimates represent harm to everyone on earth from a metric ton of C02 emissions, and therein lies a key issue. Recent administrations have split on whether the U.S. government should …

Centrality And Compliance: Unitary Vs. Federalist Political Systems In The Implementation Of The Kyoto Protocol In Argentina And Uruguay, Aidan Homan

Baker Scholar Projects

When Uruguay and Argentina first gained their respective independence in the early 1800s, they appeared to be following the same path of development As countries that came from the same Spanish colonization, share almost identical agricultural economies, and retain a close relationship, it is logical that they would follow similar trajectories. This assumption proves to be inaccurate in more ways than one, but most prominently within the environmental sphere. One way to analyze this difference in policy implementation lies in compliance with international environmental treaties which contain specific goals and limits for all parties involved. The Kyoto Protocol presents a …

Delegating Climate Authorities, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

The science is clear: the United States and the world must take dramatic action to address climate change or face irreversible, catastrophic planetary harm. Within the U.S.—the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gas emissions—this will require passing new legislation or turning to existing statutes and authorities to address the climate crisis. Doing so implicates existing and prospective delegations of legislative authority to a large swath of administrative agencies. Yet congressional climate decision-making delegations to any executive branch agency must not dismiss the newly resurgent nondelegation doctrine. Described by some scholars as the “most dangerous idea in American law,” the …

Decarbonization Pathways For Paraguay’S Energy Sector, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Lab, Centro De Recursos Naturales, Energía Y Desarrollo (Crece)

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In light of the upcoming renegotiation of Annex C of the Treaty of Itaipú, the Ministry of Finance of Paraguay asked Professor Jeffrey Sachs and his team to revisit the 2013 report, with support from the Development Bank of Latin America (Banco de Desarrollo de América Latina [CAF]) and in partnership with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

CCSI, the Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Lab at Columbia University, and the Centro de Recursos Naturales, Energía y Desarrollo (CRECE) authored the report Decarbonization Pathways for Paraguay’s Energy Sector, published by CCSI in November 2021.

The report – available in English …

Emerging State-Level Environmental Justice Laws, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

Environmental justice (EJ) has grown in prominence in the political discourse in the last several years While most of the attention has gone to federal actions, several states have just adopted their own laws to advance EJ.

The basic idea behind EJ is that disadvantaged communities should not be disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards, that these communities should have a say in the actions that affect their environment, and that the environmental laws should be vigorously enforced there.

The Comet Framework: Greenhouse Gas Data Transparency To Enable The Success Of Eu Climate Policy, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Solina Kennedy

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

To further and fully understand how to plan for the decarbonization of mining value chains, we need better data on carbon and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, neither consumers, corporates, or financial institutions know the embodied emissions in the products they produce or sell. While methods like life-cycle analysis and environmental product declarations exist, none use a verifiable, comparable, or widely adopted emissions reporting framework capable of sending supply chain signals.

To truly reform material supply chains, new solutions for markets, capital, and policy are required. COMET (the Coalition on Materials Emissions Transparency)—an alliance launched at Davos in January …

Climate Policy & Environmental Justice Recommendations For Colorado: Environmental Justice And The Climate Action Plan To Reduce Pollution, Kevin J. Lynch, Edwin Lamair, Evan Healey

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This report was primarily drafted in the Spring of 2019, as the Colorado Legislature considered, and ultimately enacted, HB 19-1261. Since that time, developments have only highlighted the critical importance of considering the justice impacts of any public health and environmental responses to the threat of climate change. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the stark racial and class disparities that environmental conditions have on the health of a community. The same facilities and mobile sources that emit climate pollution also typically emit particulate matter and smogforming pollution that cause respiratory illness in many communities. These underlying conditions are …

Forks In The Road, Michael P. Vandenbergh, J. M. Gilligan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Essay outlines a simple heuristic that will enable public and private policymakers to focus on the most important climate change mitigation strategies. Policymakers face a dizzying array of information, pressure from advocacy groups, and policy options, and it is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Many policy options are attractive on the surface but either fail to meaningfully address the problem or are unlikely to be adopted in the foreseeable future. If policymakers make the right decision when confronting three essential choices or forks in the road, though, the result will be 60% to 70% …

New Climate Law Will Reshape Ny’S Key Sectors, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

Deep changes in the way electricity is generated, people and goods move around, and buildings are erected and renovated in New York will be required by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which both houses of the state Legislature have passed and Governor Andrew Cuomo has promised to sign.

Could Official Climate Denial Revive The Common Law As A Regulatory Backstop?, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival

All Faculty Scholarship

The Trump Administration is rapidly turning the clock back on climate policy and environmental regulation. Despite overwhelming, peer-reviewed scientific evidence, administration officials eager to promote greater use of fossil fuels are disregarding climate science. This Article argues that this massive and historic deregulation may spawn yet another wave of legal innovation as litigants, including states and their political subdivisions, return to the common law to protect the health of the planet. Prior to the emergence of the major federal environmental laws in the 1970s, the common law of nuisance gave rise to the earliest environmental decisions in U.S. history. In …

Incentive Compatible Climate Change Mitigation: Moving Beyond The Pledge And Review Model, Gabriel Weil

Scholarly Works

Climate change represents a global commons problem, where individuals, businesses, and nation-states all lack sufficient incentives to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to levels consistent with meeting their collectively agreed upon mitigation goals. The current "pledge and review" paradigm for global climate change mitigation, which many see as a major breakthrough, relies primarily on moral pressure, reputational incentives, and global public opinion to foster cooperation on mitigation efforts over and above those driven by maximization of narrow conceptions of national interests. Given the scale of the emissions reductions required to meet stated mitigation goals, the substantial economic costs of deep …

How Oil And Gas Companies Can Help Meet The Global Goals On Energy And Climate Change, Lisa E. Sachs, Nicolas Maennling, Perrine Toledano

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement lay out a global consensus on the need to curb human-induced climate change and to achieve sustainable development. These concepts are linked. The urgency of addressing climate change is critical for global efforts to reduce poverty and advance sustainable development, but also climate-change mitigation must be pursued in a manner consistent with ending poverty, promoting economic development, respecting human rights, and ensuring social inclusion. CCSI and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) have published a briefing note summarizing the ways in which international oil and gas companies can help expand …

Legal Pathways To Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under Section 115 Of The Clean Air Act, Michael Burger, Ann E. Carlson, Michael B. Gerrard, Jayni Foley Hein, Jason A. Schwartz, Keith J. Benes

Faculty Scholarship

Under President Barack Obama the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has promulgated a series of greenhouse gas emissions regulations, initiating the necessary national response to climate change. However, the United States will need to find other ways to reduce GHG emissions if it is to live up to its international emissions reduction pledges, and to ultimately lead the way to a zero-carbon energy future. This paper argues that the success of the recent climate negotiations in Paris provides a strong basis for invoking a powerful tool available to help achieve the country’s climate change goals: Section 115 of the Clean Air …

Presidential Power To Address Climate Change In An Era Of Legislative Gridlock, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unilateral Climate Regulation, James W. Coleman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

It is now plain that decades of negotiation toward a binding global climate treaty have failed. Yet, at the same time, many nations are adopting a range of unilateral policies to address climate change. The existing literature on climate policy neglects these unilateral climate regulations because it focuses on the necessity and possible design of a multilateral climate treaty. But these domestic regulations present a unique puzzle: given that climate outcomes are determined by global emissions, and that unilateral regulations inevitably influence incentives to regulate elsewhere, how can domestic action achieve the greatest marginal reduction in global emissions? In other …

Endangered Species Act Listings And Climate Change: Avoiding The Elephant In The Room, Michael Blumm, Kya Marienfeld

Faculty Articles

The Endangered Species Act (ESA), with its reputation as the nation’s strongest environmental law, might be expected to impose some limits on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions adversely affecting listed species due to rising global temperatures. Although the federal government recently ended a long period of denial by conceding that some species warrant listing because of climate change, the accompanying listing decisions revealed a federal refusal to apply the ESA to constrain GHG emissions causing the listings. In this article, we explain those decisions — involving the American pika, the polar bear, the wolverine, and the Gunnison sage-grouse — and their …

A Flaw In California's Cap-And-Trade Plan, Alan Ramo, Janet Redman

Publications

California has made clear its intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But is it taking the right steps to do so? The state has set a goal of returning to 1990 emissions levels by 2020. It has adopted renewable energy standards, driven the national trend in controlling automobile emissions and instituted a cap-and-trade program aimed at curbing climate pollution from power plants, refineries and other "stationary sources" of emissions. But a low-profile bill scheduled for consideration by the Legislature next year has exposed that, at least as far as its cap-and-trade program is concerned, California may be off-track. As it …

Insuring Island States: The Role Of Insurance For Small Island States In Responding To The Adverse Effects Of Sea Level Rise, Maria Antonia Tigre

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Student Publications

Small island states are likely to suffer the greatest impact of sea level rise. They are also generally low emitters of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), meaning they have contributed little to the problem of human-induced climate change. For an array of reasons, including their reduced economic and political power relative to the international power of other states, these smaller islands and states have come together, forming the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Jointly, they have been battling to gain the attention of the international community in their search for solutions. However, they are still left with many unanswered questions …

Slides: Shale And Air Quality: The View From The Other Side, Jeremy Nichols

Shale Plays in the Intermountain West: Legal and Policy Issues (November 12)

Presenter: Jeremy Nichols, Climate & Energy Program Director, WildEarth Guardians, Denver, CO

18 slides

Framing Water Policy In A Carbon Affected And Carbon Constrained Environment, Robert H. Abrams, Noah D. Hall

Journal Publications

Climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions is substantially altering water availability while increasing water demand. Shifts in domestic energy policy and production, while needed to confront the challenge of climate change, may further stress the nation's water resources. These changes and new demands will be most severe in regions that are already experiencing water stresses and conflicts. This article examines the extent of the changes in water supply and demand by assessing how water conflicts will be addressed in the four overarching water use categories: water for population security, water for ecological security, water for energy security, and water …

Climate Change Adaptation And The Structural Transformation Of Environmental Law, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The path of environmental law has come to a cliff called climate change, and there is no turning around. As climate change policy dialogue emerged in the 1990s, however, the perceived urgency of attention to mitigation strategies designed to regulate sources of greenhouse gas emissions quickly snuffed out meaningful progress on the formulation of adaptation strategies designed to respond to the effects of climate change on humans and the environment. Only recently has this adaptation deficit become a concern now actively included in climate change policy debate. Previously treating talk of adaptation as taboo, the climate change policy world has …

Climbing Mount Mitigation: A Proposal For Legislative Suspension Of Climate Change "Mitigation Litigation", J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

New York Climate Change Report Card: Improvement Needed For More Effective Leadership And Overall Coordination With Local Government, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

New York ranks eight out of the 50 states in terms of carbon emissions. While the State government is just beginning to enact meaningful programs and incentives to encourage municipal policies and actions that will reduce the impact of local decisions on our carbon footprint, a number of local governments across the State have already been at work developing and adopting "greening" strategies, policies and regulations. While the New York State Bar Association has released for comment a report of its Task Force on Global Warming which documents an impressive two-dozen current state-level laws and programs on climate change, the …

Linking Land Use With Climate Change And Sustainability Topped State Legislative Land Use Reform Agenda In 2008, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

Linking land use with climate change and sustainability topped state legislative land use reform agenda in 2008. The only discernible state land use reform trends in 2008 have focused primarily on themes surrounding sustainability. Many states pursued statutory reforms to address the strong linkages between land use and climate change, green development and affordable housing. Only one state, Michigan, focused on recodification of its planning and zoning enabling acts.

Comments On The Epa’S Advance Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking, Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under The Clean Air Act, 73 Fed. Reg. 44354 (July 30, 2008), Deborah Nicole Behles

Environmental Law and Justice Clinic

On behalf of Communities for a Better Environment and Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic at Golden Gate University submits these comments in response to EPA’s Federal Register publication of its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under the Clean Air Act, which solicits public comment on how to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA and how to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. 73 Fed. Reg. 44354 (July 30, 2008).

Like A Nation State, Douglas Kysar, Bernadette A. Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Using California's self-consciously internationalist approach to climate change regulation as a primary example, this Article examines constitutional limitations on state foreign affairs activities. In particular, by focusing on the prospect of California's establishment of a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading system and its eventual linkage with comparable systems in Europe and elsewhere, this Article demonstrates that certain constitutional objections to extrajurisdictional linkage of state GHG emissions trading systems and the response that these objections necessitate may be more complicated than previously anticipated. First, successfully combatting the Bush Administration's potential claim that state-level climate change activities interfere with a federal executive …

Slides: Global Warming And The Endangered Species Act, Kieran Suckling

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Kieran Suckling, Center for Biological Diversity

15 slides

The Mismatch Between Public Nuisance Law And Global Warming, David A. Dana

Faculty Working Papers

The federal courts using the common law method of case-by-case adjudication may have institutional advantages over the more political branches, such as perhaps more freedom from interest group capture and more flexibility to tailor decisions to local conditions. Any such advantages, however, are more than offset by the disadvantages of relying on the courts in common resource management in general and in the management of the global atmospheric commons in particular. The courts are best able to serve a useful function resolving climate-related disputes once the political branches have acted by establishing a policy framework and working through the daunting …

Sepas, Climate Change, And Corporate Responsibility: The Contribution Of Local Government, Catherine J. Lacroix

Faculty Publications

Municipalities in the United States are increasingly active in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Data suggest that the physical layout of communities and the buildings they contain make significant contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and thus to climate change. One useful tool for municipalities could be the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), pioneered in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at the federal level and subsequently adopted as a policymaking guide in the State Environmental Policy Acts (SEPAs) of many states. A SEPA requires state governments - and, in six states, local governments as well - to consider the …