Law Commons^™

Outcome Report On The Climate Crisis, Global Land Use And Human Rights Conference, Mateusz Kasprowicz, Sam Szoke-Burke, Kaitlin Y. Cordes

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

On September 27^th, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Landesa, the New York City Bar Association International Environmental Law Committee, and Wake Forest Law School hosted a day-long conference on the intersection between land use, the climate crisis and clean energy transition, and human rights.

Held at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, the conference brought together individuals from civil society organizations, governments, and academia, as well as lawyers, climate scientists, land-rights experts, indigenous representatives and other stakeholder groups. The panelists analyzed the critical role that land plays in …

Annual Review Of Developments Under Seqra, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

The courts decided 46 cases under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) in 2018. However, the most important action under SEQRA was in the Legislature, followed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

State Hazard Mitigation Plans & Climate Change: Rating The States 2019 Update, Dena P. Adler, Emma Gosliner

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Between 1980-2019, the U.S. endured 250 climate and weather disasters that each cost more than $1 billion, resulting in a total cost exceeding $1.7 trillion. Climate change contributes to a variety of hazards including extreme precipitation, drought, sea level rise, storm surge, heat waves, and flooding, and this effect will worsen over time. While the onset of natural disasters may be unavoidable, forgoing the opportunity to plan for changing conditions and increasing risks puts citizens in the path of preventable danger. Further investing in pre-disaster preparation or other resilience-building activities can save considerable money down the road – and many …

U.S. Climate Change Litigation In The Age Of Trump: Year Two, Dena P. Adler

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

More than two and a half years into the Trump Administration, no climate change-related regulatory rollback brought before the courts has yet survived legal challenge. Nevertheless, climate change is one arena where the Trump Administration’s regulatory rollbacks have been both visible and real. The Administration has delayed and initiated the reversal of rules that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary and mobile sources; sought to expedite fossil fuel development, including in previously protected areas; delayed or reversed energy efficiency standards; undermined consideration of climate change in environmental review and other decisionmaking; and hindered adaptation to the impacts of climate …

Determining Climate Responsibility: Government Liability For Hurricane Katrina?, Teresa Chan, Michael Burger, Vincent Colatriano, John Echeverria

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In St. Bernard Parish Government v. United States, Louisiana property owners argued that the U.S. government was liable under takings law for flood damage to their properties caused by Hurricane Katrina and other hurricanes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed, however, noting that the government cannot be liable on a takings theory for inaction, and that the government action was not shown to have been the cause of the flooding. On September 6, 2018, the Environmental Law Institute hosted an expert panel to explore this ruling and its potential implications for future litigation in a …

Threats To The Brazilian Environment And Environmental Policy, Thomas J. Trebat, Laura Nora, Inga Caldwell

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The Columbia Global Centers | Rio de Janeiro, in partnership with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University and the Brazil-American Institute for Law and Environment at Pace University, organized a Workshop on November 13, 2019 in New York City. The Workshop was convened to discuss and raise awareness of the scope and severity of the environmental crisis in Brazil with a focus on the severe threats to the Amazon.

The consequences of the Bolsonaro government´s environmental actions are serious for Brazil and for the world. That is one of the reasons why the Columbia Global Center …

Corporate Governance For Sustainability, Andrew Johnston, Jeroen Veldman, Robert G. Eccles, Simon Deakin, Jerry Davis, Marie-Laure Djelic, Katharina Pistor, Blanche Segrestin, William M. Gentry, Cynthia A. Williams, David Millon, Paddy Ireland, Beate Sjåfjell, Christopher M. Bruner, Lorraine E. Talbot, Hugh Christopher Willmott, Charlotte Villiers, Carol Liao, Bertrand Valiorgue, Jason Glynos, Todd L. Sayre, Bronwen Morgan, Rick Wartzman, Prem Sikka, Filip Gregor, David Carroll Jacobs, Roger Gill, Roger Brown, Vincenzo Bavoso, Neil Lancastle, Julie Matthaei, Scott Taylor, Ulf Larsson-Olaison, Jay Cullen, Alan J. Dignam, Thomas Wuil Joo, Ciarán O'Kelly, Con Keating, Roman Tomasic, Simon Lilley, Kevin Tennent, Keith Robson, Willy Maley, Iris H-Y Chiu, Ewan Mcgaughey, Chris Rees, Nina Boeger, Adam Leaver, Marc T. Moore, Leen Paape, Alan D. Meyer, Marcello Palazzi, Nitasha Kaul, Juan Felipe Espinosa-Cristia, Timothy Kuhn, David J. Cooper, Susanne Soederberg, Andreas Jansson, Susan Watson, Ofer Sitbon, Joan Loughrey, David Collison, Maureen Mcculloch, Navajyoti Samanta, Daniel J.H. Greenwood, Grahame F. Thompson, Andrew R. Keay, Alessia Contu, Andreas Rühmkorf, Richard Hull, Irene-Marie Esser, Nihel Chabrak

Faculty Scholarship

The current model of corporate governance needs reform. There is mounting evidence that the practices of shareholder primacy drive company directors and executives to adopt the same short time horizon as financial markets. Pressure to meet the demands of the financial markets drives stock buybacks, excessive dividends and a failure to invest in productive capabilities. The result is a ‘tragedy of the horizon’, with corporations and their shareholders failing to consider environmental, social or even their own, long-term, economic sustainability.

With less than a decade left to address the threat of climate change, and with consensus emerging that businesses need …

Regulating In The Face Of A Changing World: Legal Regulation Of Climate Change, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Everyone knows that the temperatures have been going up. While tern, peratures bounce around from year to year, when looking at five,year averages, the trend is unmistakable. A well,known adverse effect of these changes is that the Arctic is warming; the extent of Arctic sea ice declin, ing had dipped to a record low in 2015. A decreased level of sea ice has led to the rise of sea levels, which have increased at an accelerated pace. There are a number of projections about what the future pace of sea level rise will be, but most scientists believe it most …

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.

The Last Refuge Of Scoundrels: The Problem Of Truth In A Time Of Lying, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

This essay addresses the problem of truth today in light of the common belief, especially among progressives, that we have entered a post-truth age, as well as of the frequent claim that our post-truth society is the fault of postmodernists and their challenge to the objectivity of truth. The essay does not resolve the strategic question whether the post-truth argument is, as a purely tactical political matter, an effective approach to respond to the onslaught of misrepresentations and lies by President Donald Trump and the New Right. Instead, it explores the post-truth argument from a more synoptic perspective regarding the …

Changing The National Flood Insurance Program For A Changing Climate, Dena Adler, Michael Burger, Rob Moore, Joel Scata

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Congress established the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968 to reduce flood damages nationwide and ease the federal government’s financial burden for providing disaster recovery.1 To achieve this goal, the program was designed to perform three primary functions. First, the program provides federally backed insurance to property owners and renters. Second, the program established minimum requirements for building, land use, and floodplain management practices that local communities must adopt in order for their residents to be eligible to purchase NFIP insurance coverage. Third, the program is responsible for mapping high floodrisk areas. These maps inform local land use decisions …

Breaking The Cycle Of "Flood-Rebuild-Repeat": Local And State Options To Improve Substantial Damage And Improvement Standards In The National Flood Insurance Program, Dena Adler, Joel Scata

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Congress established the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968 to reduce flood damages nationwide and ease the Federal government’s financial burden for providing disaster recovery. Today, approximately 22,000 communities in all 50 states and U.S. territories participate in the NFIP. The program has 5.1 million flood insurance policies providing $1.3 trillion in coverage. Due largely to recent flood disasters, the NFIP is over $20.5 billion in debt.

A proportionally small number of properties insured through the program are repeatedly flooded, repaired, and rebuilt. These properties, known as “severe repetitive loss” (SRL) properties, contribute disproportionally to the rising debts of …