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.
Taking a sweeping look at the current and proposed legal aspects of coping with climate change, this is a comprehensive resource of laws aimed at increasing resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change. Written by authorities from private practice, government, and academia, this compendium examines the legal aspects of coping with climate change, both in the United States and around the world. Topics include water, energy, building and infrastructure, public lands, coastal issues, species and ecosystem impacts, disaster preparedness, and critical international issues.
Climate Change and the Law is the first scholarly effort to systematically address doctrinal issues related to climate law as an emergent legal discipline. It assembles some of the most recognized experts in the field to identify relevant trends and common themes from a variety of geographic and professional perspectives. In a remarkably short time span, climate change has become deeply embedded in important areas of the law. As a global challenge calling for collective action, climate change has elicited substantial rulemaking at the international plane, percolating through the broader legal system to the regional, national and local levels. More than other areas of law, the normative and practical framework dedicated to climate change has embraced new instruments and softened traditional boundaries between formal and informal, public and private, substantive and procedural; so ubiquitous is the reach of relevant rules nowadays that scholars routinely devote attention to the intersection of climate change and more established fields of legal study, such as international trade law. Climate Change and the Law explores the rich diversity of international, regional, national, sub-national and transnational legal responses to climate change. Is climate law emerging as a new legal discipline? If so, what shared objectives and concepts define it? How does climate law relate to other areas of law? Such questions lie at the heart of this new book, whose thirty chapters cover doctrinal questions as well as a range of thematic and regional case studies. As Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), states in her preface, these chapters collectively provide a “review of the emergence of a new discipline, its core principles and legal techniques, and its relationship and potential interaction with other disciplines.”
Ocean and coastal law has grown rapidly in the past three decades as a specialty area within natural resources law and environmental law. The protection of oceans has received increased attention in the past decade because of sea-level rise, ocean acidification, the global overfishing crisis, widespread depletion of marine biodiversity such as marine mammals and coral reefs, and marine pollution. Paralleling the growth of ocean and coastal law, climate change regulation has emerged as a focus of international environmental diplomacy, and has gained increased attention in the wake of disturbing and abrupt climate change related impacts throughout the world that have profound implications for ocean and coastal regulation and marine resources. Climate Change Impacts on Ocean and Coastal Law effectively unites these two worlds. It raises important questions about whether and how ocean and coastal law will respond to the regulatory challenges that climate change presents to resources in the oceans and coasts of the U.S. and the world. This comprehensive work assembles the insights of global experts from academia and major NGOs (e.g., Center for International Environmental Law, Ocean Conservancy, and Environmental Law Institute) to address regulatory challenges from the perspectives of U.S. law, foreign domestic law, and international law.
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.
A perfect introduction to climate change law, this textbook offers students and scholars an overview of the international law governing this fundamental issue. It demonstrates how to interpret the language used in the applicable instruments and conventions, and sets climate change law in its broader international legal 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.
This book comprehensively assesses the law and science of climate change, as well as the policy choices for responding to this global problem. Given the all-encompassing reach of climate change, Climate Change and the Law allows students to study how the many different areas of law-public international law, public administrative law, federal environmental law, state and municipal regulations, and the common law-can be implicated in addressing a major social issue. This textbook thus provides students with an integrated experience to study law and an understanding of the many climate-related challenges facing the next generation of lawyers. The book begins by exploring the international climate change regime, including a detailed investigation of emissions trading and the controversial regime for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through land use and forest management practices. It also explores options for a future international agreement in light of calls to reduce emissions by as much as 80 percent. The book also addresses how other international agreements can help spur climate change mitigation or adaptation, exploring, for example, whether petitions to list World Heritage Sites as endangered due to climate change and petitions to declare climate change a violation of human rights will advance global efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions. The second edition of Climate Change and the Law has been updated to include the following: The updated scientific findings, including information from the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The decisions of the Parties to adopt a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol. A discussion of the new rules for accounting emissions from forests and land use change under the Kyoto Protocol. An update on the climate negotiations after the Copenhagen Accord, including negotiation of and implementation of the Cancun Agreements. The state of play with regard to negotiations to build a new climate regime to take effect in 2020. A focus on short-lived climate forcers such as methane and HFCs in a range of multilateral forums, including the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Arctic Council. An expanded treatment of adaptation, particularly at the federal level in the United States. A discussion of the U.S. EPA's efforts to value the social cost of carbon. An updated overview of the U.S. approach to climate change since the 1970s. An expansive discussion of the U.S. EPA's regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, including regulations and case law related to vehicle emissions and stationary source emissions. A discussion of revisions to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and Renewable Fuels Standards. A reorganized discussion of energy policy, with a focus on renewable portfolio standards, net metering, feed-in tariffs, and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA). New information about states' implementation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and California's preliminary experience with its cap-and-trade program. This book also is available in a three-hole punched, alternative loose-leaf version printed on 8.5 x 11 inch paper with wider margins and with the same pagination as the hardbound book.
Courts have emerged as a crucial battleground in efforts to regulate climate change. Over the past several years, tribunals at every level of government around the world have seen claims regarding greenhouse gas emissions and impacts. These cases rely on diverse legal theories, but all focus on government regulation of climate change or the actions of major corporate emitters. This book explores climate actions in state and national courts, as well as international tribunals, in order to explain their regulatory significance. It demonstrates the role that these cases play in broader debates over climate policy and argues that they serve as an important force in pressuring governments and emitters to address this crucial problem. As law firms and public interest organizations increasingly develop climate practice areas, the book serves as a crucial resource for practitioners, policymakers and academics.
