Climate Change

California cap and trade survives industry tax challenge

Auctions can proceed in one of the state’s signature climate change programs

ARB’s winning streak in climate cases continues.  A California superior court has rejected a prominent set of industry challenges to the state’s cap-and-trade program, upholding a significant element of California’s suite of programs to comply with AB 32 and to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. (Opinion here.)  The cases were filed by the …

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The Olympics of Climate Change: Warsaw 2013

What to know, where to watch

It’s that time again! The United Nations’ COP19/CMP9 Climate Change Conference kicked off this week in Warsaw, the start of two weeks of international discussion on climate change.  The conference hosts the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, as a yearly update and check-in on these treaties, …

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Renewable Energy Beyond 2020 — Lunchtime Conference at UCLA Law next Tuesday

Free event will also launch a new report from UCLA and UC Berkeley law schools on this topic

Please join us on Tuesday, November 19th at UCLA Law for a free lunchtime panel presentation on the future of California’s renewable energy policies beyond 2020.  California is on pace to meet the goal of securing 33 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2020.  What energy goals should …

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Capturing Carbon

A recent CRS report provides a wealth of information about carbon capture.  You can learn a lot about the various technologies and how close or far they are from possible adoption.  But for most of us, the technical details matter less than the answers to some key questions: Is carbon capture technically feasible?  Can it …

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Will Anyone Have Standing to Challenge EPA’s Rules for New Coal Plants?

EPA has issued rules that will essentially require new coal plants to use carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that has not been implemented at full scale yet.  No doubt that coal industry and utilities will try to challenge the rules in court.  But they probably lack standing to do so for a simple reason: …

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Are Polar Bears Really Endangered?

“Glib contrarianism” in environmental journalism

The news web site Slate is known for its counterintuitive articles – so much so, that the term “slatepitch” has been coined.  But sometimes trying to write a counterintuitive article leads you to write something, well, just wrong. Today, Slate ran an article about “Five Species You Thought Were Endangered That Really Aren’t (Including the …

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Energy and Climate Conference — Thursday November 14th at UC Berkeley Law

State Bar event will cover renewables, fuels, and markets in an era of climate change

For Legal Planet readers interested in hearing the latest on energy and climate change law and policy, the Environmental Law Section of the California State Bar will be holding a one-day conference on the subject at the UC Berkeley School of Law on Thursday, November 14th.  Entitled “Energy and Climate Change: California’s Efforts to Reduce …

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New Standing Barriers Erected for Federal Court Climate Change Litigation

Recent Ninth Circuit Decision Likely to Spell the End of Much Citizen Suit Litigation Over Climate Change in Federal Courts

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court’s famously ruled in Massachusetts v. USEPA that petitioners in that case had standing to sue the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court to challenge EPA’s failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Observers then could have been forgiven for thinking that this ruling flung open …

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ELQ’s Annual Review issue now available online

Every year, Ecology Law Quarterly publishes its Annual Review of Environmental and Natural Resource Law. The latest version is now available at ELQ’s web site. Check out these articles from the issue. You’ll find they cover a tremendous amount of ground in a way that is both educational and entertaining. And at the ELQ site …

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The Climate Gamble

Paul Krugman has a review of a new book by William Nordhaus about climate policy.  By way of preface, I should say that Nordhaus is not particularly popular with environmentalists, who have generally considered him as too conservative in his policy recommendations.  Nordhaus does, however, more or less define the mainstream view — he’s very …

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