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The Supreme Court tends to get all the attention, but for every Supreme Court opinion on environmental law there are probably fifty opinions in the lower federal courts. Collectively, the lower courts have done fat least as much to shape the law than the Supreme Courts occasional interventions. Any top ten list is a bit arbitrary.
Achieving climate goals requires significant investments in clean energy, transportation, and other climate technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere.
The next week has the potential to bring important developments for international governance of marine carbon dioxide removal (CDR). But in-ocean research could implicate various international and domestic laws that might affect whether, when, where, and how projects take place. seaweed) for carbon storage.
Energy law used to be an obscure niche subject. Energy law is a hot topic. Law students are thronging to the field, seeing an opportunity to combine social relevance with good-paying jobs. Top law schools are responding by competing for faculty. Energy use accounts for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions.
Monterey County Oil Field (credit: Monterey County Weekly) For the first two decades of this century, and under the able leadership of former Chief Justices Ronald George and Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the California Supreme Court was quite active in interpreting and shaping California environmental law. Well, break’s over.
Aviation is a significant and growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. But the federal government in the United States has failed to address it so far. Opponents will undoubtedly argue that such state-based initiatives conflict with federal law.
greenhouse gas emissions and 0.1% In addition, the impact statement was governed by the 1970 version of NEPA and the 1978 White House NEPA regulations. The eighty-mile stretch of track in question would connect the Uinta Basin with the national rail network. The Basin’s oil production would represent up to 0.8% of global emissions.
As of 2021, 30 emissions trading systems were in force globally, covering 16 – 17 % of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a compromise, California law (AB 398) has limited offsets to 4% of compliance obligations for the 2021-2025 period and capped the offsets without in-state benefits that can be utilized for compliance. .
That organization represents young people around the nation whose future–and present–is severely compromised by the country’s continued dependence on a carbon-based economy whose greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically changing our environment. Critically, the Juliana case relied on federal law. United States.
The prospect of climate interventions, particularly SAI, might offer large reductions in climate-change risks that are not possible through emissions cuts, adaptations, or atmospheric removals alone, but also raise serious new uncertainties, risks, and governance challenges. This may be on the cusp of changing, but it hasn’t yet.).
The sector—including personal transportation like passenger cars, as well as air, marine, and surface goods and people movement—is the largest source of greenhouse gasses in the U.S.: But, as our panelist Beth Osborne has argued , greenhouse-gas reductions will also depend on reducing the amount of driving we do in general.
In the past two years, however, the things have started trending upward after years of inaction by conservative governments. As in the US, Australia’s climate policy was long a victim of a lengthy period of divided government and political upheaval. As in the United States, state governments made some effort to pick up the slack.
City of New York , a 2022 lawsuit brought by a group of cooperative apartment and other building owners seeking to invalidate Local Law 97 of 2019 , New York City’s building performance standard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the City’s largest buildings. But it also offers a broader primer to local governments elsewhere.
This law is a clear setback for open and accountable energy planning and will mean Ontarians are left in the dark about how critical decisions regarding our energy system are made. By concentrating this much power in the hands of one office, the province’s energy planning will happen in backrooms, likely to the benefit of government insiders.
Glen Oaks – a 2022 lawsuit brought by a group of cooperative apartment owners – sought to invalidate Local Law 97 of 2019 , New York City’s building performance standard aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the City’s largest buildings.
The California Legislature recently enacted, and Governor Gavin Newsom last week signed into law, two major housing reform measures. SB 9 and SB 10 represent California’s most transformative new housing laws in decades, and are a belated but welcome legislative response to the state’s longstanding housing crisis.
The UNGA requested the ICJ render an opinion on the following questions: (a) What are the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHG) for States and for present and future generations? (b)
UCLA Professor of Law William Boyd. William Boyd is Professor of Law and Michael J. Klein Chair in Law at UCLA Law, with a joint appointment as Professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability ; Alex Wang is Professor of Law at UCLA Law. UCLA Professor of Law Alex Wang.
Three decades earlier, a class project by five law students had led to a major win on standing, though a loss on the merits. No one really thought that Mendelsohn could win when he petitioned EPA to regulate greenhouse gases from new cars and trucks. In the end, however, they came on board, along with several state governments.
Yesterday, Massachusetts Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer issued a report detailing how “to implement the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s whole-of-government approach to addressing the climate crisis.” Publish an annual report card on the Commonwealth’s progress to achieve mandated greenhouse gas emission reductions.
The scoping process has been key to California’s success in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The process requires the government to assess past progress, project future emissions, and come up with a strategy to meet its climate goals. b) The range of projected air pollution reductions that result from the measure.
It is 33 years now since the IPCC in its first report in 1990 concluded that it is “certain” that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities “will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.”
National governments are the most important systemic actors in the governance of climate action, primarily because they are the only actors with the ability to adopt economy-wide decarbonization measures. Over 80 government framework cases have been filed around the world, using a wide variety of legal and factual arguments.
A new wave of cases differs from traditional environmental lawsuits by highlighting the connections between preserving the Amazon and the climate, the grave risk of greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, and the critical role of the forest as a major global carbon sink. The timing of these climate disputes is not accidental.
When the a law is focused on one impact of coal, attempts to take into account other harms can get mired in controversies about considering “co-benefits” and direct versus indirect or cumulative impacts. The existence of these laws is a testament to the environmental harms of the activity. Combustion of fuels is an even bigger problem.
As more local governments in California and around the country develop robust climate action plans–and as federal action to reduce emissions remains unpredictable as ever–it is increasingly clear that local strategies will be a key driver of decarbonization and resilience. . 30), which voters statewide rejected.
The federal government is now supporting that role with federal funding for states. A key provision (IRA § 60114) appropriates $250 million to support emission reduction planning by state governments. It’s not just the direct funding for state governments that makes me think this. States have played a critical role in U.S.
Part 1 focused on discussions on applicable law, and the no-harm rule. Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) asserted that these legal consequences are governed by the general law of State responsibility. Part 3 focuses on the legal consequences of causing significant harm and reparations.
Yesterday, the Canadian Government introduced legislation, the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act , to achieve Canada’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Act will do the following: Legally bind the Government to a process to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Read Bill C-12 at this link: [link].
The same is true in environmental law. Was it a fundamental paradigm shift, re-centering the law on new values? With all this in mind, here are the cases that I see as making up the canon and anti-canons of environmental law. The Court then held that greenhouse gases are covered by the Clean Air Act as a type of air pollutant.
its district, appellate , and supreme courts decided in favor of Urgenda, an upstart environmental organization, ordering the government to more aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental Protection Agency (2007) forced the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Everyone produces greenhouse gases.
The Vanuatu-led effort, which was initiated several years ago by law students at the University of the South Pacific, is now coming to fruition. If successful, the vote will invite the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion to clarify how existing international laws can be applied to strengthen action on climate change.
The federal government has enacted a slew of policies meant to lower the cost of clean hydrogen and address other market pressures. The federal government is beginning to roll out many of those critical programs. Those policies invest significantly in developing clean hydrogen at scale. kilograms CO 2 e per kg of hydrogen.
Achieving global climate goals will require rapid and dramatic greenhouse gas emissions reductions, along with the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. At a high level, liability rules hold actors responsible when they breach a law or legal duty in a way that harms other people or the public at large.
After all, we live in a constitutional democracy and the voices of the governed must be part of the decisionmaking process. The US government is merely aligning incentives both financial and in intellectual property. It’s a political compromise with some simple changes to gun laws and some new investment in mental health services. .
Earlier this month, the US Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service hosted a public hearing on their recent proposed rules governing implementation of the Section 45Y Clean Electricity Production Credit and the Section 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit. My testimony is copied below.
On June 13, 2022, Chile published its Climate Change Framework Law (“the Climate Act”). It creates regulatory instruments, a new crosscutting governance, and opportunities for public participation. Governance. The Climate Act also creates important challenges and opportunities for Chile’s private sector.
If governments bypass or undermine science and public comments in policy making, our health could be in jeopardy from increased pollution, cases of foodborne illnesses, politically-driven medicine approvals or disapprovals, and more. This is a major federal law that governs if a chemical will be regulated, limited, or even banned.
They called expert witnesses to calculate the total greenhouse gas emissions caused by activity in Montana, a major gas and coal producing state, and connected that to tangible impacts on ecosystems and humans in the state. The state failed to show that the MEPA limitation serves a compelling government interest,” the decision reads.
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about geoengineering – the various scientific theories and governance ideas that could eventually lead to technological interventions to help cool the planet. How will governments deal with private startups if they continue to perform unscientific, unregulated experiments? A weather balloon.
The case concerns the scope of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act (CAA). Read the brief here.
Nevertheless, the summary for policymakers states the need for “rapid and deep and, in most cases, immediate greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors this decade” if we want global warming to keep below 1.5°C 3, which is from small samples of global climate models (sample size of 5-15) prone to “the law of small samples”.
This year, many on the far-right are attempting to rebrand Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing as “woke capitalism.” In fact, the Board of Directors’ response states that “reducing Chevron’s absolute Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is not in stockholders’ interests, nor should it be Chevron’s responsibility.”
As cases multiply, they increasingly depend on rigorous, interdisciplinary research to provide the evidence needed to hold governments, corporations, and other actors accountable for their role in the climate crisis, and to inform meaningful climate action. Climate litigation is rapidly expanding.
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