A deepening understanding of the importance of climate change has caused a recent and rapid increase in the number of climate change or climate-related laws. Trends in Climate Change Legislation offers an astute analysis of the political, institutional and economic factors that have motivated this surge, placing it into context.
This timely and incisive book combines an introduction to the core legal and policy issues presented by climate change with a deeper analysis of decisions that will define the path forward. Offering a guide to key terms, concepts, and legal principles in the field, this book will help readers develop a sophisticated perspective on issues central to climate change law and policy.
Climate Change Law and Policy in the Middle East and North Africa Region provides an in-depth and authoritative examination of the guiding principles of climate change law and policy in the MENA region. This volume introduces readers to the latest developments in the regulation of climate change across the region, including the applicable legislation, institutions, and key legal innovations in climate change financing, infrastructure development, and education. It outlines participatory and bottom-up legal strategies—focusing on transparency, accountability, gender justice, and other human rights safeguards—needed to achieve greater coherence and coordination in the design, approval, financing, and implementation of climate response projects across the region. With contributions from a range of experts in the field, the collection reflects on how MENA countries can advance existing national strategies around climate change, green economy, and low carbon futures through clear and comprehensive legislation. Taking an international and comparative approach, this book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners who work in the areas of climate change, environmental law and policy, and sustainable development, particularly in relation to the MENA region.
This comprehensive, current examination of U.S. law as it relates to global climate change begins with a summary of the factual and scientific background of climate change based on governmental statistics and other official sources. Subsequent chapters address the international and national frameworks of climate change law, including the Kyoto Protocol, state programs affected in the absence of a mandatory federal program, issues of disclosure and corporate governance, and the insurance industry. Also covered are the legal aspects of other efforts, including voluntary programs, emissions trading programs, and carbon sequestration.
This textbook, by three experts in the field, provides a comprehensive overview of international climate change law. Climate change is one of the fundamental challenges facing the world today, and is the cause of significant international concern. In response, states have created an international climate regime. The treaties that comprise the regime - the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement establish a system of governance to address climate change and its impacts. This book provides a clear analytical guide to the climate regime, as well as other relevant international legal rules. The book begins by locating international climate change law within the broader context of international law and international environmental law. It considers the evolution of the international climate change regime, and the process of law-making that has led to it. It examines the key provisions of the Framework Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. It analyses the principles and obligations that underpin the climate regime, as well as the elaborate institutional and governance architecture that has been created at successive international conferences to develop commitments and promote transparency and compliance. The final two chapters address the polycentric nature of international climate change law, as well as the intersections of international climate change law with other areas of international regulation. This book is an essential introduction to international climate change law for students, scholars and negotiators.
This groundbreaking book collects contributions from many of the world's leading climate and energy law scholars and provides the first major study of national Climate Change Acts. This cutting-edge type of legislation originated with the first Climate Change Act framework which was passed in the United Kingdom in 2008, and is intended to enable the law to grapple effectively with one of the great problems of our times, anthropogenic climate change. Since 2008, national framework climate legislation has been slowly but steadily emerging in countries across the world. This trailblazing collection employs a comparative analytical legal methodology and offers the first comprehensive study of this new, innovative form of legislative regime. In addition to containing broad internationalist chapters, deep-dive national case study chapters are included that focus on individual countries and provide analytical depth. A final chapter draws together the threads of the book's foregoing contributions to deduce generalisable conceptual insights based on current knowledge and experience. Uniquely, the book provides a conceptual model for Climate Change Acts that can usefully inform the development of national framework climate legislation in all countries.
Existing climate change governance regimes in the US and the EU contain complex mixtures of regulatory, market, voluntary, and research-based strategies. The EU has adopted an approach to climate change that is based on mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions; it is grounded in 'hard' law measures and accompanied by 'soft' law measures at the regional and Member State level. In contrast, until recently, the US federal government has carefully avoided mandatory emission reduction obligations and focused instead on employing a variety of 'soft' measures to encourage - rather than mandate - greenhouse gas emission reductions in an economically sound, market-driven manner. These macro level differences are critical yet they mask equally important transatlantic policy convergences. The US and the EU are pivotal players in the development of the international climate change regime. How these two entities structure climate change laws and policies profoundly influences the shape and success of climate change laws and policies at multiple levels of governance. This book suggests that the overall structures and processes of climate change law and policy-making in the US and the EU are intricately linked to international policy-making and, thus, the long-term success of global efforts to address climate change. Accordingly, the book analyses the content and process of climate change law and policy-making in the US and the EU to reveal policy convergences and divergences, and to examine how these convergences and divergences impact the ability of the global community to structure a sustainable, effective and equitable long-term climate strategy.
The warming of the Earth has been the subject of intense debate and concern for many scientists, policy-makers, and citizens for at least the past decade. Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, a new report by a committee of the National Research Council, characterizes the global warming trend over the last 100 years, and examines what may be in store for the 21st century and the extent to which warming may be attributable to human activity.
