Law Commons^™

Climate Zoning, Christopher Serkin

Notre Dame Law Review

As the urgency of the climate crisis becomes increasingly apparent, many local governments are adopting land use regulations aimed at minimizing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The emerging approaches call for loosening zoning restrictions to unlock greater density and for strict new green building codes. This Article argues that both approaches are appropriate in some places but not in others. Not all density is created equal, and compact multifamily housing at the urban fringe may actually in-crease GHG emissions. Moreover, where density is appropriate, deregulation will not necessarily produce it. And, finally, green building codes will increase housing costs and so …

Climate-Induced Human Displacement And Conservation Lands, Jessica Owley

Articles

As climate change leads to both internal displacement and mass migrations, we need not only new places for people to live but also new locations for infrastructure projects and other public needs. Some of the most attractive areas for these new land uses are currently unoccupied land, including land set aside for conservation. Numerous laws restrict the availability and possible uses of public conservation land. Individual agreements and property restrictions encumber private conservation land, varying in the ease with which the restrictions can be modified. For example, privately protected areas in the United States are often encumbered with perpetual conservation …

Avoiding Maladaptations To Flooding And Erosion: A Case Study Of Alaska Native Villages, Elizaveta Barrett Ristroph

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

This article offers perspective on how Alaska Native Villages (ANVs), which are small and rural indigenous communities, are adapting to changes in flooding and erosion. It considers which adaptations might be maladaptations and what might be done to facilitate adaptation short of relocating entire communities. It outlines the United States' legal framework applicable to flooding and erosion and considers why this framework may do little to assist ANVs and similarly situated small and rural communities. Findings regarding adaptation strategies and obstacles are drawn from my Ph.D. research, which involved a review of plans for fifty nine ANVs and 153 interviews …

Energy And Eminent Domain, James W. Coleman, Alexandra B. Klass

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article examines the growing opposition to the use of eminent domain for energy transport projects such as oil pipelines, gas pipelines, and electric transmission lines. Such projects were protected from the state legislative reforms that restricted eminent domain following the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Kelo v. City of New London in 2005 but are now under increased scrutiny. This Article evaluates why U.S. energy transport projects have become so controversial and suggests how states and the federal government should evaluate the need for eminent domain for these projects and enact appropriate reforms. We first detail the significant changes …

Tribal Tools & Legal Levers For Halting Fossil Fuel Transport & Exports Through The Pacific Northwest, Mary Christina Wood

American Indian Law Journal

As alarming scientific predictions crystallize into the realities of today’s climate crisis, tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest find themselves on the front lines of a global assault launched by the fossil fuel industry. Encouraged by President Trump’s declaration of intent to unleash $50 trillion of America’s domestic fossil fuels, corporations push for massive expansion of the nation’s fossil fuel infrastructure—even as the world races towards irrevocable climate thresholds. The unprecedented onslaught hinges on the Pacific Northwest as a key link in a global market scheme. The coastal region sits as a proposed industrial gateway for huge export facilities transporting …

The Societal Impacts Of Climate Anomalies During The Past 50,000 Years And Their Implications For Solastalgia And Adaptation To Future Climate Change, Edward P. Richards

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Climate Change Challenges For Land Conservation: Rethinking Conservation Easements, Strategies, And Tools, Jessica Owley, Federico Cheever, Adena R. Rissman, M. Rebecca Shaw, Barton H. Thompson Jr., W. William Weeks

Articles

No abstract provided.

Foiled By The Banks? How A Lender's Decision May Support Or Undermine A Jurisdiction's Environmental Policies That Promote Green Buildings, Darren A. Prum

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

A United Nations Environmental Programme report addressing climate change states that the built environment in both emerging and developed countries accounts for more than forty percent of global energy usage and at least one third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The report further asserts that the built environment offers an unsurpassed opportunity to supply cost effective, lasting, and meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In response to this call to action, state and local governments in the U.S. have turned to a variety of policies to ensure that real estate developments within their jurisdictions further green building objectives. However, …

Taking The Oceanfront Lot, Josh Eagle

Faculty Publications

Oceanfront landowners and states share a property boundary located between the wet and dry parts of the shore. This legal coastline is different from an ordinary land boundary. First, on sandy beaches, the line is constantly in flux, and it cannot be marked except momentarily. Without the help of a surveyor and a court, neither the landowner nor a citizen walking down the beach has the ability to know exactly where the line lies. This uncertainty means that, as a practical matter, ownership of some part of the beach is effectively shared. Second, the common law establishes that the owner …

Zoning Neighborhoods For Resilience: Drivers, Tools And Impacts, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

A new urban design is needed, one that if not climate-determinist, is climate-cognizant. The built environment should be structured and the natural environment must be managed and protected in a way that regards climate forces that if left unchecked will sap the energy, the very existence of the city.7 A new urban design must begin with a statement of clear ends to be achieved, be based upon authoritative scientific, legal and social principles and must be implemented with an understanding of the costs--monetary and socio-political, that are demonstrably justified in the light of the alternatives. The extravagant and pretentious historical …

Enhancing Conservation Options: An Argument For Statutory Recognition Of Options To Purchase Conservation Easements (Opces), Federico Cheever, Jessica Owley

Articles

Land conservation transactions have been the most active component of the conservation movement in the United States for the past three decades. Conservation organizations have acquired property rights-mostly conservation easements-to protect roughly 40 million acres of land nationwide. However, climate change threatens this vast edifice. Climate change means that the resources that land conservation transactions were intended to protect may not persist on the land protected. Options to purchase conservation easements ("OPCEs") have long played a modest but important role in conservation law practice. In the world climate change is creating, with its substantial uncertainties and shifting windows of opportunity, …

Introduction To Property, History & Climate Change In The Former Colonies Symposium Special Issue, Jill M. Fraley

Jill M. Fraley

None available.

They Had Nothing, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Building Resilient Communities In The Wake Of Climate Change While Keeping Affordable Housing Safe From Sea Changes In Nature And Policy, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article will explore the twin interests of responding to climate change and preserving accessible and affordable housing. Part II will give a broad overview of the scientists' climate change predictions. Part III will discuss what these predictions portend for populations, housing, and communities. Part IV will describe the broad responses that the federal, state, and local governments are making to climate change to create communities that are thriving and resilient. Part V discusses the efficacy of these responses and their potential impact on the poor, housing, and communities. Part VI looks for parallels between the resilient cities movement and …

Land Use And Climate Change Bubbles: Resilience, Retreat, And Due Diligence, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines events on the ground in several localities where climate change is lowering property values and analyzes how those changes in value can be reckoned with by regulators. It merges practices and principles of real estate transactions and finance with those of land use and environmental regulation.

Climate change is a planetary phenomenon whose environmental implications are far-reaching. Reports on climate change consequences increasingly focus on what is happening locally and presently, while speculation continues about long-term global consequences. In numerous communities, property values are declining because of repeated flooding, continued threats of storm surges, sustained high temperatures, …

Strategies For Making Sea-Level Rise Adaptation Tools 'Takings-Proof', Michael Allan Wolf

Michael A Wolf

While the costs of some Sea-Level Rise (SLR) adaptation tools are undeniably daunting, the American legal system poses an additional, potentially budget-busting impediment — the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Officials at all governmental strata and from all three branches should keep the demands made by the Takings Clause, as interpreted by the judiciary, in mind as they choose tools from the diverse SLR-adaptation toolbox, as they justify their choices to the electorate and other constituencies, as they put those tools to use, and as they defend that use from litigants claiming abuse. This …

Rising Sea Levels: A Tidal Wave Of Legal Issues, Kenneth Kristl

Kenneth T Kristl

No abstract provided.

Agenda: Free, Prior And Informed Consent: Pathways For A New Millennium, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law. American Indian Law Program

Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Pathways for a New Millennium (November 1)

Presented by the University of Colorado's American Indian Law Program and the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy & the Environment.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), along with treaties, instruments, and decisions of international law, recognizes that indigenous peoples have the right to give "free, prior, and informed consent" to legislation and development affecting their lands, natural resources, and other interests, and to receive remedies for losses of property taken without such consent. With approximately 150 nations, including the United States, endorsing the UNDRIP, this requirement gives rise to emerging standards, obligations, and opportunities …

Strategies For Making Sea-Level Rise Adaptation Tools 'Takings-Proof', Michael Allan Wolf

UF Law Faculty Publications

While the costs of some Sea-Level Rise (SLR) adaptation tools are undeniably daunting, the American legal system poses an additional, potentially budget-busting impediment — the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Officials at all governmental strata and from all three branches should keep the demands made by the Takings Clause, as interpreted by the judiciary, in mind as they choose tools from the diverse SLR-adaptation toolbox, as they justify their choices to the electorate and other constituencies, as they put those tools to use, and as they defend that use from litigants claiming abuse. This …

Introduction To Property, History & Climate Change In The Former Colonies Symposium Special Issue, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

None available.

The Increasing Privatization Of Environmental Permitting, Jessica Owley

Articles

No abstract provided.

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.

Water Rights, Markets, And Changing Ecological Conditions, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Conventional environmentalist thought is suspicious of private markets and property rights. The prospect of global climate change, and consequent ecological disruptions, has fueled the call for additional limitations on private markets and property rights. This essay, written for the Environmental Law Symposium on 21st Century Water Law, presents an alternative view. Specifically, this essay briefly explains why environmental problems generally, and the prospect of changing environmental conditions such as those brought about by climate change in particular, do not counsel further restrictions on private property rights and markets. To the contrary, the prospect of significant environmental changes strengthens the case …

Slides: Environmental Water In Australia, Chris Arnott

Conversation with Water Management Reps from Colorado and Australia: "Adapting to Climate Change: Lessons Learned from Australia" (February 14)

Presenter: Chris Arnott, Managing Director, Alluvium Consulting

30 slides

Innovation Cooperation: Energy Biosciences And Law, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This Article analyzes the development and dissemination of environmentally sound technologies that can address climate change. Climate change poses catastrophic health and security risks on a global scale. Universities, individual innovators, private firms, civil society, governments, and the United Nations can unite in the common goal to address climate change. This Article recommends means by which legal, scientific, engineering, and a host of other public and private actors can bring environmentally sound innovation into widespread use to achieve sustainable development. In particular, universities can facilitate this collaboration by fostering global innovation and diffusion networks.

Tribes As Essential Partners In Achieving Sustainable Governance, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Indigenous peoples have modeled sustainable development around the world. Incentivizing the innovation and instillation of wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources can come in the form of public funding, including renewable portfolio standards, feed in tariffs and green tag programs. This article analyzes ways in which tribal communities are helping to expand cooperative good governance.

From Coase To Collaborative Property Decision-Making: Green Economy Innovation, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This Article considers the advantages and disadvantages of market-based program design, natural gas regulation, and enhanced international understanding. Transitioning to a green economy involves dedicating efforts towards environmentally sound energy innovation. RGGI, natural gas, and climate change represent sustainability challenges. Optimizing cooperative transboundary green innovation can facilitate inclusive decision-making just as public participation by civil society can help economies transition to environmentally sound energy use. Building upon progress made in the human rights and environment fields can advance both and enhance resilience.

Conservation Easements At The Climate Change Crossroads, Jessica Owley

Articles

No abstract provided.

Distributed Graduate Seminars: An Interdisciplinary Approach To Studying Land Conservation, Jessica Owley, Adena R. Rissman

Articles

No abstract provided.

Changing Property In A Changing World: A Call For The End Of Perpetual Conservation Easements, Jessica Owley

Articles

No abstract provided.