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CONTINUE READINGCOP 15 Kicks Off!
By Maya Kuttan, UCLA Law delegation -- first in a series of posts from COP15: Today we were inundated with weighty rhetoric and a shiny vision of what the future could hold. The COP 15 opening was inspiring and seemed to focus on influencing developed nations, like the US. The conference started with a short film about a girl who has nightmares about climate change until she is able to find her voice. The Prime Minister of Denmark, Lars Rasmussen, focused his we...
CONTINUE READINGThe Other Shoe Drops
Today, EPA made its long-expected official finding: climate change is real, and we human beings are the cause. More than two years after the Supreme Court ordered EPA to address the issue, EPA has now formally ruled that greenhouse gases cause climate change that endangers human health or welfare. EPA also found that motor vehicles contribute significantly to levels of greenhouse gases. These findings trigger regulation under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles.�...
CONTINUE READINGWinning Hearts and Minds on Climate Change: Climategate, EPA Announcement and Copenhagen
Proponents of rigorous regulation of greenhouse gas emissions finally have the international stage today as all attention shifts to Copenhagen. And the EPA has chosen this opening day to announce the finalization of its finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Moreover 56 of the world's newspapers -- led by The Guardian -- issued a joint editorial today urging international action to c...
CONTINUE READINGThe World’s Our “Oyster”
Belfast University has launched the world's largest wave generation device, which has been named the Oyster. According to its sponsors, the marine energy industry could provide as many as 12,500 jobs, contributing £2.5 billion to the UK economy by 2020. Marine energy such as that produced by Oyster has the potential to meet up to 20 per cent of the UK's energy demands....
CONTINUE READINGOff to Copenhagen…
Tomorrow afternoon, the UCLA Law / Emmett Center on Climate Change delegation to COP 15 departs from LAX for Copenhagen. I'll be there with six terrific law school students, all of whom have backgrounds in climate and the environment and who have been studying the history of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in preparation for our trip. We'll be there until the 13th, meeting with delegates and participating in conference sessions and briefings. You can rea...
CONTINUE READINGGreening the Web
I always feel virtuous when I send something by email rather than using hard copy, saving trees, transportation fuels, etc. It's probably true that a single email, even with a large attachment, uses very little energy. Cumulatively, however, Internet servers eat up a lot of power. A new project at Syracuse is one of many efforts to address this issue: IBM and Syracuse University plan to build a $12.4 million, 6,000 foot data center that will effectively be powered ...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change and International Human Rights Law
A report released today by the International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and the Center for Law & Global Justice at the University of San Francisco School of Law finds that climate change policies may unintentionally increase global inequality and human suffering and would be strengthened by incorporating a “do no harm” principle guided by human rights....
CONTINUE READINGClimate adaptation developments
With hopes for rapid global or domestic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions fading, the importance of adaptation becomes ever more apparent. Those responsible for protecting public health, maintaining infrastructure, and managing water and wildlife understand that they are facing enormous challenges. Policymakers, resource managers, stakeholders, and the scientific community are all beginning to respond. Here are a handful of recent developments: California's Natura...
CONTINUE READINGTwo Stories from Eastern Europe
Arthur Max from AP has an excellent piece on the environment in Eastern Europe, contrasting two rivers. The Danube flows through Germany and then Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria. It was an environmental disaster, but both the river itself and its environs have been improved greatly for three reasons: (a) the countries involved have been eager to clean up their act in order to join the EU, (b) they signed an international agreement on the river, an...
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