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Full-Text Articles in Law
International Executive Agreements On Climate Change, Hannah Chang
International Executive Agreements On Climate Change, Hannah Chang
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
The difficulty of ratifying any future climate change agreement through the Article II treaty process calls for an understanding of the scope of the President’s independent power to enter into internationally binding commitments related to climate change. This power is necessarily limited, but as this paper shows, the President’s foreign affairs powers, together with authority derived from existing treaty obligations and federal statutes, provide legal authority for the President to enter executive agreements relating to measurement, reporting, and verification; aviation emissions; cooperative research and development in science and technology; and capacity-building for developing countries.
Feeding Climate Change: Federal Food Procurement And Its Effects On Global Warming, Amanda Hungerford
Feeding Climate Change: Federal Food Procurement And Its Effects On Global Warming, Amanda Hungerford
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
This paper examines the technical aspects and policy implications of each of four strategies to effectuate environmentally conscious policies in the federal government's food procurement procedures: a litigation strategy, a rulemaking strategy, a NEPA strategy, and a legislative strategy.
Addressing The Energy Efficiency Financing Challenge: The Role And Limitations Of A Green Bank, Christopher Angell
Addressing The Energy Efficiency Financing Challenge: The Role And Limitations Of A Green Bank, Christopher Angell
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
This paper will address how a federal program to aggregate and potentially guarantee loans made to finance energy efficiency projects can be leveraged to promote best practices on the state and local level for opening up energy efficiency projects to external financing. There are a number of existing financing tools that have started to solve the problem of providing access to capital for efficiency projects, but the programs are all relatively small and have had limited market penetration. One essential, but not exclusive, solution will be to create a federal entity, based on existing green bank proposals, that has the …
Painting Redd Offsets Green: A Case For Statutory Deuteranopia, Rommel Casis
Painting Redd Offsets Green: A Case For Statutory Deuteranopia, Rommel Casis
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Offsets generated by projects for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (“REDD”) is a particularly controversial form of carbon offset. Excluded from the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms, REDD offsets are now making a comeback ever since the Bali Action Plan specifically referred to REDD. Most recently, the Copenhagen Accord recognized the crucial role of REDD and the need to enhance removals of GHG emissions by forests and agreed on the need to provide incentives to such actions to enable the mobilization of financial resources from developed countries.4 It would seem therefore that the issuance and trade of REDD offsets may finds …
Cash For Clunky Appliances, Anna S. Fleder
Cash For Clunky Appliances, Anna S. Fleder
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
This paper examines the viability of a “Cash for Appliances” (“CfA”) program that targets home appliances toward the goal of increasing energy efficiency and decreasing greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions. Analyzing an existing CfA effort at the federal level, this paper argues that the case for a federal CfA program is strong, but that the current federal effort falls short of fulfilling its potential. The analysis proceeds in four parts. Part I makes the case for a Cash for Appliances program as a policy tool for promoting energy efficiency. Part II examines existing programs that have done just this – utilized …
Access To Environmentally Sound Technology In The Developing World: A Proposed Alternative To Compulsory Licensing, Neel Maitra
Access To Environmentally Sound Technology In The Developing World: A Proposed Alternative To Compulsory Licensing, Neel Maitra
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
In 2008, a report published by McKinsey & Co. predicted that a successful program of action on climate change would require the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 76% by the year 2050. In order to achieve this seemingly daunting target, the report recognized that the transfer of environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) from the developed to the developing world was an urgent necessity. The report cited other sources to acknowledge that such technology transfer was unlikely to be achieved even by a combination of market incentives and funding from developed-world governments.
If market-oriented means, supported by governments, do not suffice …
The Costs Of Carbon: Examining The Competitiveness And International Trade Dimensions Of The Waxman-Markey House Bill, Svetlana German
The Costs Of Carbon: Examining The Competitiveness And International Trade Dimensions Of The Waxman-Markey House Bill, Svetlana German
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
As the United States considers unilateral climate change action, uncertainty exists as to the compatibility of the proposed trade related measures to global warming. This paper considers the rationale behind any trade measures designed to address competitiveness and carbon leakage following the introduction of unilateral climate change legislation (Part I). The paper then assesses the international legality of the proposed measures in the Waxman-Markey Bill under World Trade Organisation (WTO) law (Part II) and proposes alternative mechanisms that may yield economically sound solutions while remaining mindful of equitable principles (Part III).