Climate Change
EPA Wins the First Round in Clean Power Plan Litigation
…But this is just the beginning—and the Supreme Court will have a say
As we reported last week, on January 21st, a D.C. Circuit panel denied Clean Power Plan opponents’ request for a “stay”—or temporary suspension—of the rule pending judicial review. Read the court order here. We have discussed the Clean Power Plan litigation at length on Legal Planet. As a quick refresher, the Clean Power Plan is …
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CONTINUE READINGA Little Quieter, Please
Hollywood Stars Might Not Be the Best Public Critics of the Fossil Fuel Industry
Canada’s new Liberal government can hardly be accused of being soft on climate change: at the recent Paris Summit it endorsed a target of holding global warming to 1.5 Degrees Celsius over historic levels. So when you hear this from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, listen: Most recently in Davos on Wednesday, [Leonardo] DiCaprio used a …
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CONTINUE READINGDC Circuit Denies Stay of Clean Power Plan
The DC Circuit issued a judgment denying the request for a stay in the case challenging the Clean Power Plan, West Virginia v. EPA. The decision simply states that the petitioners failed to meet the “stringent requirements for a stay pending court review.” The court ordered the parties to submit a proposed briefing schedule by …
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CONTINUE READINGTwo Record-Breaking Hot Years in a Row
Recent World Temperatures Provide Strong Evidence of Climate Change
Scientists in the United States, Japan, and Britain have all confirmed that 2015 was the warmest year in average world temperature in the historical record. This breaks the previous record temperatures of 2014. You wouldn’t really expect a record that has been around for many years to be broken two years in a row, unless something was …
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CONTINUE READINGQuestioning the Questioners
Examining the role of moderators in Presidential debates
On Sunday night, the three remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination took the stage in South Carolina for the third Democratic primary debate. I was pleased that one of the video questions of the night asked the candidates for their plan to address climate change. Although the Democratic candidates have discussed climate change policies …
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CONTINUE READINGWant an Economy-Wide Cap on U.S. Climate Emissions? Consider This Corner of the Clean Air Act
New report on Section 115 of the Act suggests an interesting post-Paris approach
A largely-untapped provision of the Clean Air Act authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop and implement an economy-wide, market-based program to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions and achieve the Obama Administration’s Paris Agreement pledge, according to a report released today by several coordinating law school centers, including the Emmett Institute at UCLA. See …
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change, Energy, and the State of the Union
Quite a focus on climate change, this time around.
“Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You’ll be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Politics as a War of Attrition
Don’t expect a quick end to battles over climate policy. It could be a long war.
It may be a mistake to assume that opponents of climate policy will see the handwriting on the wall and gracefully give way to the inevitable. In politics, decisions are rarely made for all time, and agreements between opposing sides may not be enforceable. In such situations, game theorists have proposed war-of-attrition models for conflicts. In …
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CONTINUE READINGThat Takes the Prize!
National Science & Technology Medals for Renewable Energy Research
The White House announced the names of the scientists and engineers who will be receiving National Medals next year. I was very pleased to see that one of the winners of the National Medal of Science is Paul Alivisatos from Berkeley. Dr. Alivisatos is a chemistry professor who is also Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory …
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CONTINUE READINGStudent Guest Blogger Terra Laughton: Perspectives on COP21
Terra Laughton, UCLA School of Law JD class of 2017, shares her perspective on attending the Paris climate negotiations
I am a second-year student at UCLA School of Law. I recently returned from two weeks in Paris attending COP21. My classmates and I had already boarded our plane at Charles De Gaulle when the Paris Agreement was officially adopted—we learned of the news upon landing in Los Angeles. While it would have been exhilarating …
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