Region: International

China and the Environment: Some Progress on Lead Pollution

It’s a pleasure to be joining the excellent group here at Legal Planet.  My focus will largely be on issues related to China and its environmental and energy challenges. I returned to the U.S. last month after seven years working in China on environmental protection and legal reform (mostly for the Natural Resources Defense Council).  …

CONTINUE READING

Millenium Development Goals Report 2011

We’re a little late on this, but early last month the United Nations issued its 2011 Millenium Development Goals report, which really should be at the top of the environmental community’s focus.  Usually, the MDGs are thought of simply as concerning poverty and development, but of course these issues deeply concern the environment.  More directly, although not …

CONTINUE READING

Post-Tsunami Japan Teaches the World About Energy Within Limits

Earlier this summer, I accompanied a class of renewable energy law students to a home in Vermont that is “off the grid”.  The family lives quite comfortably – television, microwave oven, electric washing machine, sizable refrigerator.  With the exception of a small diesel generator, which they use once or twice a year, they derive all …

CONTINUE READING

Is Climate Denial Like Appeasing Hitler?

  Britain’s Energy Secretary thinks so: World leaders who oppose a global agreement to tackle climate change are making a similar mistake to the one made by politicians who tried to appease Adolf Hitler before World War Two, British Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne said on Thursday…. “This is our Munich moment,” he added, referring to …

CONTINUE READING

The Greening of South Korea

Lincoln Davies has a nice post over at Environmental Law Prof about clean energy in South Korea.  He discusses a conference relating to Korea’s planned change from a feed-in-tariff to a renewable portfolio standard as means of promoting clean energy.   Most Americans aren’t aware of this, but Korea has embraced “green growth” as a national …

CONTINUE READING

But Will You Love My Energy Source in the Morning?

In the wake of cataclysmic energy disasters occurring on opposite sides of the globe, some interesting regional and national reflections are currently underway that may–or may not–alter long-term energy futures in the U.S. and abroad. One development this week that drew surprisingly little public attention is that no less a personage than the Prime Minister of …

CONTINUE READING

Assessing the British Ecosystem

The British government has issued a new report assessing the value of the U.K. environment.  The assessment is based on an economic evaluation of ecosystem services.  For instance, the report found that: • The benefits that inland wetlands bring to water quality are worth up to £1.5 billion per year to the UK; • Pollinators …

CONTINUE READING

Oil and Food

Today’s NY Times has two unusually interesting pieces, one on food and the other on oil. The article about food examines the difficulty of feeding an expanding and more affluent world population in the face of climate change: A rising unease about the future of the world’s food supply came through during interviews this year …

CONTINUE READING

Tough Political Choices On Climate Are Hardly Unique to U.S: The Case of Germany and Nuclear Power

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made headlines this week when she announced that the country would phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022.  The Fukishima nuclear crisis in Japan led Germany to review its reliance on nuclear power and the result of that review was Merkel’s decision to shut down the country’s existing plants. Here’s …

CONTINUE READING

Globalizing Public Nuisance

Let’s assume, as most of us on this blog do, that the Supreme Court will get rid of the public nuisance climate change when it decides Connecticut v. AEP a few weeks from now.  Does that get rid of public nuisance climate cases?  Not necessarily. Whatever one may think of the Clean Air Act’s displacement …

CONTINUE READING

TRENDING