Climate Adaptation
Spotlight on San Antonio
The role of transparency in municipal climate plans
Last week, San Antonio’s City Council approved its first-ever Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. This Plan’s main benefit is its ability to track and measure GHG emissions, while also signaling to City agencies, other municipalities, and the state that it is committed to climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. This is a big win for a …
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CONTINUE READINGLights Out, Everybody’s Home
Protecting California’s Most Vulnerable from Climate Effects
Today, rather than walking to campus, I’m home learning the features of Zoom Conference to conduct meetings and classes remotely: UC Berkeley’s campus is shut for its second day in a row, as Pacific Gas and Electric seeks to minimize risk of a wildfire (and associated liability) in the present high wind conditions. Even as …
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CONTINUE READINGAging Dams, Forgotten Perils
You’ve heard it before but it’s still true: U.S. infrastructure is a mess.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Critical U.S. infrastructure is dilapidated and unsafe. Regulation is week, and enforcement is weaker. Everyone agrees on the need for action, and climate change will only make the problem worse. but no one seems to do anything about it. Sadly, this has become a familiar story. Take …
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CONTINUE READINGSixth International Geoengineering Governance Summer School, 2019
A brief report from a recent Emmett-convened event
As the severity of climate change risks and the inability of current efforts to adequately limit risks become clear, geoengineering technologies – active large-scale environmental interventions to reduce disruptions caused by elevated greenhouse gases – are increasingly receiving attention and generating controversy. These proposals would either remove and sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide or modify the …
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CONTINUE READINGLaunching the California-China Climate Institute
Welcoming a famous new faculty member and a critical new initiative.
I have two exciting announcements to make. The first is that Jerry Brown has accepted an appointment as visiting professor at the law school and the College of Natural Resources (CNR) at Berkeley. That appointment would be exciting enough. But it goes hand in hand with my other news: the public launch of the California-China …
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CONTINUE READINGGovernance infrastructure for water resilience
CLEE comments on Governor Newsom’s water portfolio executive order
Governor Gavin Newsom has directed state agencies to prepare a water resilience portfolio. Executive Order N-10-19 describes a set of broad principles to inform the development of the portfolio, as well as extensive outreach that should accompany the process, which is being conducted on an aggressive timeline. The EO states, correctly, that California needs a …
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CONTINUE READINGPrinciples of Climate Governance
We need to address the procedures and structures for climate policymaking.
There’s a lot of discussion about the substance of climate policy today. That’s obviously critical, but we also need to think about the procedural and institutional issues involved in making climate policy. For instance, we need to think about how to divide authority between the states and the federal government. I thought it would be …
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CONTINUE READINGLaw Schools and the Environment: East Coast Version
Environmental law centers aren’t just a California thing. .
Readers of this blog probably have some sense of what the environmental law centers at UCLA and here at Berkeley are doing. There are too many environmental law centers to do a a comprehensive nationwide survey, and trying to pick a top-10 list would be completely subjective. To keep this post manageable, I’ll only discuss …
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CONTINUE READINGOf War and the Environment
War and environmental disruption are like evil twins, often found together.
A Vietnam-era slogan proclaimed that “war is not healthy for children and other living things.” And war is indeed a danger to the environment. But perhaps less obviously, environmental disruption also makes wars more likely. The slogan was appropriate for its time. The U.S. deforestation campaign in Southeast Asia caused environmental harm on an unprecedented …
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CONTINUE READINGMaking Key Policy Decisions in Advance of Droughts
Part 6 in a Series on Improving California Water Rights Administration and Oversight for Future Droughts
It’s hard to respond effectively to a crisis when you don’t have clearly defined priorities. This is true for sudden-onset crises, like floods and wildfires, and also for slow-onset crises, like droughts. My recent posts have explored why the State Water Resources Control Board (Board) should develop a contingency-based framework to support its drought decisions …
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