Climate Law Blog

Ethan I. Strell, CCCL Associate Director and Fellow On March 21, 2014, President Obama signed into law the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 (2014 Act), whose stated purpose is to “delay the implementation of certain provisions of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Texas Hurricane Damage (photo credit: FEMA) Act of 2012, and for […]

A new paper by Katherine Carey looks at the different actions that state utility commissions in the Southeast have taken to ensure that their electric utilities are prepared for tomorrow’s storms. The Gulf Coast region in the Southeastern United States is at especially high risk of more severe hurricanes and tropical storms, but there are […]

Ethan I. Strell, CCCL Associate Director & Fellow In an historic decision that will serve as a nationwide model, the New York State Public Service Commission on February 20 unanimously approved a settlement requiring Con Edison to implement state-of-the-art measures to plan for and protect its electric, gas, and steam systems from the effects of […]

Ethan I. Strell, Esq. Associate Director & Fellow Columbia Center for Climate Change Law Earlier this week, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a massive 1582-page, over $1 trillion consolidated appropriations bill.  On page 706 of the current version of the bill, a one-sentence rider was inserted that would delay through next September implementation of […]

Meredith Wilensky, Associate Director & Fellow Columbia Center for Climate Change Law Just three days before the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC was set to begin in Warsaw, Poland, Typhoon Haiyan hit the eastern provinces of the Philippines killing as many as 10,000 people and displacing over 600,000. With winds up to […]

Rating State Hazard Mitigation Plans The Columbia Center for Climate Change Law released a report (and accompanying Excel database) today surveying and ranking all 50 State Hazard Mitigation Plans.  The Survey considers to what extent and in what manner climate change related issues are incorporated into existing plans.

by Fiona Kinniburgh A release of methane expected to occur as a result of Arctic warming is projected to cost an extra $60 trillion in climate change impacts according to a study published in Nature last week. This figure falls just short of the total value of the output of the global economy in 2012, […]

By Ann Tran, Summer Intern Among the many negative impacts of climate change, rising temperatures are causing more frequent and intense heat waves in numerous regions.  As many news outlets recently reported, on the weekend of June 28th, a heat wave struck in the West, breaking various temperature records and affecting parts of Nevada, Arizona […]

by CCCL Intern Congress passed the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act just two months before Sandy scoured the northeast, and “requires rates to rise 25 percent annually on some repeatedly flooded houses, second homes and businesses,” and on properties where the costs imposed by past floods exceed the property’s selling price.  The bill was a […]

Five months after Superstorm Sandy, the recovering northeast region continues to debate whether to rebuild in the most vulnerable coastal areas or whether to retreat and leave those lands as protective buffers.   A decision to engage in managed retreat would face significant legal, political, and practical challenges, but, according to a panel convened at Columbia […]