Climate Law Blog

The Center for Climate Change Law has completed the Clean Energy Investment US-India Project. The project aimed to ease the path for U.S. investors and solar and other renewable energy equipment manufacturers to access the Indian market. So far, investment in this expanding market has been limited by high transaction costs. Funded by a generous [...]

On May 6, 2013, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s dispute settlement system held that Ontario’s feed-in tariff (FIT) program to support renewable energy development was inconsistent with Canada’s international trade obligations.  The decision confirmed the conclusion reached by the dispute settlement panel which first ruled on the case in December 2012, [...]

by Teresa Parejo Navajas, Professor of Law, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). In December 2012 the European Commission awarded over €1.2 billion funding to 23 highly innovative renewable energy demonstration projects under the first call for proposals for the so-called NER300 funding program. Projects will be co-financed with revenues obtained from the sale of [...]

by Teresa Parejo Navajas, Professor of Law, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). Santa María de Garoña (Burgos), the oldest and smallest nuclear plant in Spain, will end its activity on July 2013. Even though it has been highly profitable, in 2011 it generated 1.3% of the total country’s electricity, a quantity that, at the [...]

by Professor Teresa Parejo Navaja, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid The Spanish Ministry of Environment has recently given a Resolution on the Environmental Impact Statement for the project on the construction of an oil refinery (“Balboa” oil refinery) in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura, western Spain. The statute that regulates the Impact Assessment of projects in [...]

by Professor Teresa Parejo Navaja, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Royal Legislative Decree number 1/2008, of 11th January, adopting the revised text of the Impact Assessment of projects Law (RTIAL) gathers, in one single act, for the sake of the principle of legal certainty (though the RTIAL has already been amended by Law 6/2010, of 24th [...]

On Saturday, December 8, the 18th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP) and the 8th Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) were concluded in Doha.  While the meetings may have taken a day longer than their original schedule, agreement was finally reached.  According [...]

This should have been the last of our reports from the UNFCCC negotiations in Doha, but it is now in the early hours of Saturday, December 8 and it appears that the negotiations are far from over.  A message frequently repeated today was the need to create a “package” outcome, which no party may think [...]

At the second last day of scheduled talks in Doha emotions were starting to run high. During a plenary meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), a delegate of the Philippines delivered an impassioned speech about the devastation caused in his country this [...]

There are now less than 48 hours until negotiations in Doha are scheduled to conclude, on the evening of Friday, December 7.  While the President of this 18th Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the UNFCCC remains confident that the negotiations will end on schedule, the feeling in the hallways is that talks are [...]