Law Commons^™

Climate Change Adaptation Chapter: Marshfield, Massachusetts, Joshua H. Chase, Jonathan G. Cooper, Rory Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Filipe Antunes Lima, Sally R. Miller, Toni Marie Pignatelli

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

Climate change, understood as a statistically significant variation in the mean state of the climate or its variability, is the greatest environmental challenge of this generation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Marshfield is already being affected by changes in the climate that will have a profound effect on the town’s economy, public health, coastal resources, natural features, water systems, and public and private infrastructure. Adaptation strategies have been widely recognized as playing an important role in improving a community’s ability to respond to climate stressors by resisting damage and recovering quickly.

Based on review of climate projections for the …

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

Patricia E. Salkin

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 …

Can You Hear Me Up There? Giving Voice To Local Communities Imperative For Achieving Sustainability, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

Sustainable development is an international challenge that demands attention at all levels of government. The calls to action to achieve sustainability have varied over the last few decades. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s attention was focused on the need for environmental review and growth management strategies. In the 1990s the rhetoric shifted to smart growth and livable communities, and today, the issue has been reframed as advocates view sustainability through the lens of global warming and climate change. Regardless of the nomenclature, however, the end game is the same. While the United States as a whole speaks through …

Cooperative Federalism And Wind: A New Framework For Achieving Sustainability, Patricia Salkin, Ashira Ostrow

Patricia E. Salkin

This Article proposes a federal wind siting policy modeled on the cooperative federalism framework of the TCA’s Siting Policy. Part I describes some advantages of wind energy, focusing specifically on the environmental, economic, and social benefits. This Part also discusses several technical obstacles to wind energy development, including the need to supplement wind energy with conventional energy sources and the lack of adequate transmission infrastructure. Part II assesses the current regulatory regime for the siting of wind turbines, reviewing general practices across the United States at both the state and local levels. Although a number of states have been active …

Addressing Climate Change Mitigation And Adaptation Through Insurance For Overseas Investments: The Example Of The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In 2008, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) estimated that investments of between US$540–570 billion in physical assets and other financial flows will be needed to adequately reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to combat climate change; additionally, tens and possibly hundreds of billions of dollars may be necessary to enable countries to adapt to the phenomenon’s challenges. Through climate negotiations under the UNFCCC in Copenhagen and Cancun, developed country governments committed to provide developing countries roughly US$30 billion between 2010 and 2012 and to mobilize approximately US$100 billion per year by 2020 for climate change activities. …

Resolving Conflicts Over Climate Change Solutions: Making The Case For Mediation , Alana Knaster

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article explores the role that mediation can play in resolving the conflicts that are emerging in the climate change arena. Case studies describing mediation of disputes over air quality standards, timber harvesting, species protection, and ecosystems restoration, which resulted in consensus agreements among multiple, diverse stakeholder groups, demonstrate its applicability to the climate change arena. Mediation is not suited to every dispute or set of disputants. However, an analysis of the opportunities and constraints for addressing climate change disputes at the state, regional, and local levels suggests that mediated negotiations is well suited for resolving a number of the …

Arctic Justice: Addressing Persistent Organic Pollutants, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This article recommends enhanced governance of persistent organic pollutants through incentives to develop environmentally sound, climate friendly technologies as well as caution in developing the Arctic. It highlights the toxicity challenges presented by POPs to Arctic people and ecosystems.

Managing Climate Change Through Biological Sequestration: Open Space Law Redux, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Climate change management involves strategies that mitigate its causes and adapt human communities to its consequences. This article describes a legal strategy that does both: a national biological sequestration policy. This policy will increase the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that biological sequestration currently removes from the atmosphere and will enable human settlements to adapt to the harsh effects of a changing climate, while realizing a number of other objectives that preserved open space preservation achieves. The article sketches the influences of international and national climate change law, which largely ignore the benefits of biological sequestration on privately owned land …