The 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 ...
CONTINUE READINGU.S. single track proposal sounds a lot like WTO ‘single undertaking’
By Jesse Swanhuyser -- One in a series of posts from the UCLA delegation at COP 15, Copenhagen It appears the global North is once again seeking a compromise deal with the South, based on a promise that they can deliver political support at home. The developing world is bringing experience from WTO negotiations into the climate arena and are thus far resolute that the North prove their commitment by acting first. During WTO negotiations in the early 1990s, the U.S. ...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia publishes new report on adapting to climate change impacts; is anyone paying attention?
All eyes are on the COP-15 proceedings in Copenhagen, and specifically on the prospects for greenhouse gas reductions emerging from the meeting. At the same time, we need to plan to adapt to some measure of climate change impacts, some of which are unavoidable regardless of our success at reducing GHG emissions, and to build resilience to those impacts. This aspect of the problem and solution is getting comparatively little attention from the media or from advocate...
CONTINUE READINGUCLA Sustainable Technology Policy Program Receives Grant for Alternatives Assessment
The Sustainable Technology Policy Program, an interdisciplinary project of UCLA School of Law and the UCLA School of Public Health, has received a research grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Public Health Law Research Program to study safer alternatives to the use of lead in industrial and consumer products and processes. The grant, in the amount of $400,000, will fund the 2 ½ year study "Deploying Safer Alternatives through Public Health Law." UCLA School ...
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