Climate Law Blog

By Romany Webb Despite scientists’ dire warnings about the catastrophic impacts of climate change, the greenhouse gases that cause it continue to be emitted in substantial amounts. There is no question that deep, across the board cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are essential, but many scientists now agree that simply cutting future emissions will not […]

Since January 2017, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University has been tracking the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to rewrite federal climate change policy and deconstruct climate governance. Today, the Sabin Center released a collaboratively authored report that outlines a series of executive actions that a Biden administration could take to do […]

By Lauren Kurtz This week the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) officially launched a series of guides to scientific integrity at nine federal agencies. The guides are intended to help researchers understand their employers’ policies and navigate the process of filing a scientific integrity complaint. They also reveal which agencies have strong policies and […]

By Michael Burger, Jessica Wentz, and Radley Horton The evolving field of climate change attribution science plays a critical role in shaping our understanding of how humans are affecting the global climate system, and in informing discussions about responsibility for climate change impacts. Attribution science, which explores the links between climate change and extreme weather […]

By Madeleine Siegel and Alexander Loznak Climate change is already generating enormous costs to the environment and public health both in the United States and around the world. These costs will only escalate over time with increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), U.S. federal agencies must assess the environmental […]

By Dena Adler A newly released Sabin Center White Paper, “State Hazard Mitigation Plans & Climate Change: Rating the States 2019 Update,” reviews how well the states have integrated climate change into their State Hazard Mitigation Plans (SHMPs). SHMPs serve as “blueprints” for state efforts to prepare for natural and man-made hazards and must include […]

The Trump administration has undertaken a sweeping portfolio of actions aimed at weakening federal climate protections and promoting the development and use of fossil fuels. A new report from Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law takes a critical look at what this effort has actually accomplished. It concludes that the administration has […]

By Romany Webb Last Tuesday, June 4, the D.C. Circuit decided the latest in a string of cases challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)’s approval of new interstate natural gas pipelines. The case – Birckhead v. FERC – focused largely on FERC’s obligation to consider the climate change impacts of pipeline development, which has […]

By Dena Adler The Trump Administration is losing on climate in the courts. More than two and a half years into the Trump Administration, no climate change-related regulatory rollback brought before the courts has yet survived legal challenge.   Nevertheless, climate change is one arena where the Trump Administration’s rollbacks have been both visible and real. […]

By Dena Adler Last month the Midwest faced historic floods that devastated rural communities, drowned farms, contaminated water supplies, and resulted in billions of dollars in damages. As climate change exacerbates the risk of these catastrophic flooding events in the Midwest and throughout the U.S., a growing number of citizens will need support rebuilding their […]