Climate Law Blog

Last week saw the opening of the 71st session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In his inaugural address, incoming General Assembly President Peter Thompson declared that the session would focus on advancing the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in September 2015. The SDGs form part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable […]

Justin Gundlach Climate Law Fellow As round after round has passed in the political and legal struggle at the federal level over regulating sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, states have rushed in to try to fill the void. Minnesota sought to do so in 2007 when it passed the Next Generation Energy Act. That […]

The Sabin Center has recently posted a working paper, Downstream and Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Proper Scope of NEPA Review.  The paper was co-authored by Executive Director Michael Burger and Associate Director and Fellow Jessica Wentz and will be published in the Fall 2016 edition of the Harvard Environmental Law Review. The paper explores […]

Last week marked an important shift in executive policy on fossil fuel leasing: the Interior Department announced a moratorium on new leases for coal mined from federal lands, pending a comprehensive reexamination of the decades-old coal leasing program. Interior will prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to examine how the coal leasing program can […]

Michael Burger, Executive Director This morning the Sabin Center filed a motion for leave to participate as amici in the Clean Power Plan litigation on behalf of a nationwide local government coalition that includes the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities and the cities of Baltimore, MD; Coral Gables, FL; Grand Rapids, […]

By Michael B. Gerrard, Director The Paris Agreement on climate change reached on December 12, 2015 has a heavily negotiated sentence that, when closely read, seems to call for the virtual end of fossil fuel use in this century unless there are major advances in carbon sequestration or air capture technology. That, in turn, has […]

Each month, Arnold & Porter and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts.  If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us at columbiaclimate at gmail dot com. Here are the additions to the U.S. Climate Case […]

Jessica Wentz Associate Director and Fellow On November 8, Peabody Energy Corporation, the world’s largest publicly-traded coal company, reached a settlement with the New York Attorney General’s Office (“NYAG”) in which it agreed to revise its financial disclosures to reflect the potential impact of climate change regulations on its future business and cash flow. The […]

Each month, Arnold & Porter and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts.  If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us at columbiaclimate at gmail dot com. Here are the additions to the Climate Case Chart, […]

In March 2015, an Arizona trial court validated the University of Arizona’s denial of massive records requests by Energy & Environment Legal (“E&E Legal”), which sought 13 years of climate scientists’ emails under Arizona open records laws.[1]  E&E Legal, formerly named the American Tradition Institute, claimed it wanted these emails for its “transparency project.”[2]  The […]