Legal Scholarship on Climate Change
I did a survey of all articles with "climate change" in the title in the past couple of years, and then did a rough breakdown of topics. Although the survey was unscientific, the results were intriguing: Topic Number of Articles Adaptation Biodiversity and public lands 11 Governance 5 Public health 1 Water 6 Economics 9 Ethics 10 General 41 Mitigation Energy 20 Instrument choice and design 19 Federalism 36 Land use 5 Litigation 29 ...
CONTINUE READINGAnother enviro law prof in the administration
It's a time for catching up, so here's an appointment I'm embarrassed to admit I missed when it was announced. Marcilynn Burke has taken a leave from the University of Houston Law Center to become Deputy Director (Programs and Policy) of the Bureau of Land Management. This is a terrific appointment. The BLM is the nation's largest land manager, but its more than 250 million acres, lacking the charisma of the national parks or the national forest system, have too often be...
CONTINUE READINGChristianity and Environmental Stewardship
The title of this post refers to a subject that I lack standing to discuss. But this being Christmas, I thought it might be appropriate to link to the Evangelical Environmental Network, which has this to say: The earthly result of human sin has been a perverted stewardship, a patchwork of garden and wasteland in which the waste is increasing. "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land...Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in...
CONTINUE READINGThe Great Environmental Christmas Tree Debate
Real or artificial? I haven't been able to find a full lifecycle analysis of the environmental impacts. The real trees don't release carbon when they're growing, but it does take carbon to get a fresh tree to market every year. The artificial ones require carbon but only have to be shipped once. In addition, there are possible health effects from the artificial tree. And so on and so on. One site recommends the real tree primarily because it can be recycled an...
CONTINUE READINGCopenhagen in a Nutshell
Rob Stavins has a good, concise overview of the session and the outcome on the Belfer Center website. Not as negative as some other observers, he highlights the extraordinary procecess that resulted in the Copenhagen Accord: It is virtually unprecedented in international negotiations for heads of government (or heads of state) to be directly engaged in, let alone lead, negotiations, but that is what transpired in Copenhagen. Although the outcome is less than many peo...
CONTINUE READINGAfter Copenhagen — Where Do We Go From Here?
Copenhagen was a letdown, and it would have been a complete disaster without President Obama's last-minute efforts. Where do we go from here? How do we get the climate change effort back on track? We'll be holding a conference at Berkeley on January 28 to explore those issues. "Beyond Copenhagen: Forging a Global Response to Climate Change," will feature a spectrum of Berkeley experts, nearly all of whom were at Copenhagen: Panel 1: The International Dynamic Wha...
CONTINUE READINGCopenhagen: The Story Isn’t Over Yet
For those who are interested, the text of the accord can be found here. There's an important feature that does not seem to have gotten much attention, found in paragraphs 4 and 5. Paragraph 4 says: Annex I Parties commit to implement individually or jointly the quantified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020, to be submitted in the format given in Appendix I by Annex I Parties to the secretariat by 31 January 2010 for compilation in an INF document. Annex I Partie...
CONTINUE READINGCEQA thresholds of significance for greenhouse gas emissions: a strange but good process
Way back in the old days, before 2006 and AB 32 (California's landmark law limiting greenhouse gas emissions statewide), the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was the critical tool to limit greenhouse gas emissions from projects around the state. CEQA is the law that requires state and local agencies to assess the significant environmental impacts of their actions and mitigate where feasible. Those actions include granting permits to real estate projects, a...
CONTINUE READINGOverall impressions of COP/MOP: World Governance for the Climate-as-Artifact
By Jed Ela, UCLA Law delegation -- part of a series of posts on COP 15 from Copenhagen: Deep in the bowels of COP15, in a temporary, metal-walled conference room nestled like a shipping container into a vast temporary hangar housing national delegation offices, a presenter from Google is apologizing. The Google team has lured fifteen busy NGO leaders away from lobbying delegates for a preview of climate-related technologies, and time’s a-wasting as they struggle to ho...
CONTINUE READINGAddressing Climate Change: Is there a special role for the private sector?
By Bianca Zambao da Silva, UCLA Law COP 15 delegation -- one in a series of posts from Copenhagen Since the first day of this COP, I have been on a waiting list to attend a tour of an offshore wind power farm, hosted by an initiative promoting wind power during the conference. The tour is part of a series of parallel initiatives encouraging everything from the adoption of clean energy sources to the exaltation of a vegetarian diet. In all of them there is an evident ...
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