Law Commons^™

Climate And Transportation Policy Sequencing In California And Quebec, Sonya Ziaja, Mark Purdon, Julie Witcover, Colin Murphy, Mark Winfield, Genevieve Giuliano, Charles Séguin, Colleen Kaiser, Jacques Papy, Lewis Fulton

All Faculty Scholarship

We compare flexible low-carbon regulations in the transportation sector and their interaction and sequencing with greenhouse gas emissions trading systems in California and Quebec. As momentum builds for greater climate action, it is necessary to better understand how carbon markets and other low-carbon transportation policies influence one another. First, we demonstrate that emissions trading between California and Quebec has been asymmetric, with linking having little influence on carbon prices from California's perspective but leading to a considerable cost reduction from the point of view of Quebec. Second, we present evidence that Quebec has replicated many of California's low-carbon transportation policies …

Carbon Credits As Eu Like It: Property, Immunity, Tragico2medy?, Kelvin F. K. Low, Jolene Lin

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

While there have been many legal studies of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), none seem to have considered the EU ETS from the perspective of private law, particularly the private law issues that stem from the ambiguous legal nature of the 'carbon credit'. Such ambiguity translates into regulatory uncertainty and business risks of the sort that occurred in Armstrong DLW GmbH v Winnington Networks Ltd [2013] Ch 156, an English case involving fraud and 'stolen' European Union Allowances (EUAs). From an environmental law and policy perspective, uncertainty does not bode well for the EU ETS's regulatory effectiveness …

Could A State-Level Carbon Tax Work In The Intermountain West?, Adele C. Morris

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

With the U.S. federal government stuck in partisan gridlock, attention increasingly turns to states and localities for innovative climate solutions. This talk will explore the option for Intermountain West states to tax carbon, including how they could establish a tax base, set price signals, and manage revenue. The presentation will pay special attention to the option of “swapping” a carbon tax for revenue sources that more negatively impact economic growth, such as taxes on business activity. This research will explore the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches and consider the issue of the burdens on lower income households and certain …

Climate Change And International Trade: Conflict Or Opportunity?, Joshua Meltzer

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

How can international trade negotiations provide incentives or limit progress on domestic and international climate change policy? This presentation will explore how trade negotiations can reduce trade barriers to low carbon produced goods, the implications of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and free trade agreements, and how pricing carbon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can lead to international competitiveness and carbon leakage concerns. This presentation will consider the implications of the November 6th election on short and long-term climate policy initiatives.

The Curious Case Of Greening In Carbon Markets, James Salzman, William Boyd

Faculty Scholarship

Over the last several years, so-called carbon markets have
emerged around the world to facilitate trading in greenhouse gas
credits. This Article takes a close look at an unexpected and
unprecedented development in some of these markets—premium
“green” currencies have emerged and, in some cases, displaced
standard compliance currencies. Past experiences with other
environmental compliance markets, such as the sulfur dioxide and
wetlands mitigation markets, suggest the exact opposite should be
occurring. Indeed, buyers in such markets should only be interested in
buying compliance, not in the underlying environmental integrity of the
compliance unit. In some of the compliance carbon …

The Loophole That Would Not Die: A Case Study In The Difficulty Of Greening The Internal Revenue Code, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

Congress and the Treasury have commissioned the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) “to undertake a comprehensive review of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to identify the types of and specific tax provisions that have the largest effects on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and to estimate the magnitude of those effects.” The hope of the proponents of the NAS carbon audit is that Congress, once informed of the results of the audit, will respond by “greening” the Internal Revenue Code. This Essay cautions that a more environmentally friendly Code will not necessarily follow from the legislative consciousness-raising of …

Stepping Stone Or Stumbling Block: Incrementalism And National Climate Change Legislation, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the effects of incremental domestic legislation on international negotiations to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating the effects of climate change is a global public good, which, ultimately, only an international agreement can provide. The common presumption (justified or not) is that national legislation is a step forward to an international agreement. This Article analyzes how national legislation can create a demand for international action but can also preempt or frustrate international efforts. The crucial issue, which has been largely ignored thus far, is how incremental steps at the domestic level alter international negotiations. This paper identifies four …

Alternatives To Regulation?: Market Mechanisms And The Environment, David M. Driesen

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This book chapter presents a discussion of instrument choice in institutional context, with an emphasis on the Kyoto Protocol as an example of environmental benefit trading under a multilevel governance arrangement. Typically, economic models and qualitative discussion of instrument choice implicitly assume that a single regulator selects, designs, and enforces regulatory instruments. Increasingly, however, multiple polities implement regulatory instruments together. The Kyoto Protocol, for example, includes international, regional, national, sub-national, and private roles in the design and enforcement of emissions trading. This chapter emphasizes that design and enforcement are critical, as market mechanisms do not "automatically" produce environmental progress; rather …

Linkage And Multilevel Governance, David M. Driesen

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Economic models of emissions trading implicitly assume a simple unitary governance structure, where a single regulator designs and enforces an emissions trading program. The Kyoto Protocol, however, employs a multilevel governance structure in which international, regional, national, sub-national, and even private actors have significant roles in designing and enforcing the trading program. Under this structure, international trading of credits requires complex linking of disparate regional, national, and subnational trading program. This paper describes the multilevel governance model employed in the Kyoto Protocol and then analyzes some of the problems this complexity creates for the project of creating an international market …

California Climate Change And The Constitution, Christopher H. Schroeder, Neil S. Siegel, Erwin Chemerinsky, Brigham Daniels, Brettny Hardy, Tim Profeta

Faculty Scholarship

While the United States has of yet not passed meaningful legislation that addresses climate change, several U.S. states are taking steps to reduce the carbon footprints of their industries and citizens. As it has in the past, California is leading the way. But are its actions legal?

Maximum Carbon Intensity Limitations And The Agreement On Technical Barriers To Trade, Charles O. Verrill Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Emission of greenhouse gases is a global problem. Any nation seeking to restrict such emissions by its manufacturers should avoid putting them at a disadvantage in world and domestic markets where they are likely to compete with producers that do not bear the cost of emission controls. One approach being considered in the United States would be adoption of technical regulations limiting the carbon intensity of basic products, such as cement, aluminum, steel, etc., offered for sale in the US market (carbon intensity would be defined as the C02 equivalent emissions per ton of product). Domestic and imported products that …

The Changing Climate For United States Law, David M. Driesen

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Just a few years ago, the subject of American climate change law would not merit an article like this one, let alone the book that the American Bar Association has recently published on the subject. But the United States has changed, at least somewhat. At the moment, most important United States climate change law consists of state and local law, but there are signs that the federal government may create significant climate change law as well, at least after President Bush leaves office.

This article has two goals. The obvious one is simply to describe some of the American climate …

Slides: In The Nick Of Time: Pathways To A Post-2012 Climate Treaty Framework, Annie Petsonk

Climate Change and the Future of the American West: Exploring the Legal and Policy Dimensions (Summer Conference, June 7-9)

Presenter: Annie Petsonk, Environmental Defense, Washington, DC.

22 slides.

Day 5. Friday, August 15, 2003: Rocky Mountain National Park, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Energy Field Tour 2003 (August 11-16)

1 page.

Contains references.

Agenda: Energy Field Tour 2003, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Energy Field Tour 2003 (August 11-16)

Congressional staff tour held August 11-16, 2003

Summary: Binder of assorted articles, maps, brochures and other materials prepared for participants of the tour

Contents:

MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 2003: BLUE SPRUCE PEAKER PLANT: University of Colorado Natural Resources Law Center : congressional staff tour of Blue Spruce Energy Center / Peggy Duxbury -- 'Power Struggle', National Journal, June 27, 2003 / Margaret Kritz -- 'Calpine's Blue Spruce Energy Center begins commercial operation', Calpine press release, April 17, 2003 -- NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LAB: NREL at a glance -- NREL technologies -- SHOSHONE HYDROELECTRIC PLANT: 'River District Board supports spring Shoshone call …

What's Property Got To Do With It?, David M. Driesen

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews Daniel Cole's "Pollution & Property," a recent book on property rights regimes for pollution control. It questions the utility of property rights typologies as a means of understanding pollution control regimes. The review provides a detailed analysis of the shift of rights that occurs in going from a traditional regulatory program to an emissions trading program. It finds that the shift does not create a fundamentally different property regime and explains precisely what changes. This analysis also explains the meaning of calls to perfect property rights in this context. The review concludes that Professor Cole's book does …

Reconstructing Climate Policy: Beyond Kyoto, Jonathan B. Wiener, Richard B. Stewart

Faculty Scholarship

In their comprehensive analysis of the Kyoto Protocol and climate policy, Richard B. Stewart and Jonathan B. Wiener examine the current impasse in climate policy and the potential steps nations can take to reduce greenhouse gases. They summarize the current state of information regarding the extent of global warming that would be caused by increasing uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions. They explain why participation by all major greenhouse gas-emitting countries is essential to curb future greenhouse gas emissions and also note the significant obstacles to obtaining such participation.

Stewart and Wiener argue it is in the national interest of the United …

Free Lunch Or Cheap Fix?: The Emissions Trading Idea And The Climate Change Convention, David M. Driesen

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Emissions trading has become a key component of U.S. environmental legal regimes. The U.S. has successfully lobbied to make international environmental benefit trading, an expanded form of emissions trading, a part of international efforts to address the threat of global climate change through the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol to that Convention. Legal scholars have lauded emissions trading as a "free lunch" that will encourage innovation, enhance democratic accountability, and reduce the cost of environmental cleanup. This article argues that emissions trading functions as a cheap fix, reducing short-term costs while tending to lessen innovation and …

Legal Issues Presented By A Pilot International Greenhouse Gas (Ghg) Trading System, Jonathan B. Wiener, Richard B. Stewart, Philippe Sands

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.