Climate Law Blog

By Maria Antonia Tigre On October 26, 2021, Observatório do Clima (OC), a network of 71 civil society organizations, filed a class action at the federal court of Amazonas against the Environmental Ministry and Brazilian government (Laboratório do Observatório do Clima v. Environmental Ministry and Brazil). The case is the latest on a growing climate […]

By Maria Antonia Tigre   On September 20, 2021, the German environmental organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) filed two actions against the automakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz for refusing to tighten their carbon emissions target and stop producing fossil fuel fuel-emitting cars by 2030 (DUH v. BMW and DUH v. Mercedes-Benz). The cases represent the first climate […]

Today, the Sabin Center filed a motion on behalf of a nationwide local government coalition for leave to participate as amici curiae in the lawsuit challenging the first action undertaken by the Trump administration to roll back the greenhouse gas emission and fuel economy standards established for light duty vehicles (“clean car standards”). If the motion […]

By Jessica Wentz On December 20, the City of Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz County filed separate lawsuits in California Superior Court seeking to hold 29 fossil fuel companies accountable for their contribution to climate change. In doing so, they joined five other Californian local governments that have filed similar lawsuits in the past year. […]

On June 14, an Arizona trial court ruled that the University of Arizona must turn over more than a decade of university climate scientists’ emails to the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (“E&E”), a group that, in its own words, “pepper[s] universities around the country” with open records requests as part of a mission of […]

On November 19, the Washington State Superior Court issued a decision in which it affirmed that climate change affects public trust resources in the state, but ultimately held that the state was fulfilling its public trust obligations by engaging in rulemaking to establish more comprehensive greenhouse gas (GHG) standards. The decision was a partial victory […]

By Adam Riedel, CCCL Associate Director Environmental impact statements (EISs) should analyze the potential for energy efficiency to reduce the adverse impacts of new projects, to make the projects smaller, or to provide more benign alternatives.  The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its state counterparts require EISs for major actions, and provide numerous opportunities […]

By Shelley Welton, Deputy Director and Fellow The lawsuit of Alec L. and several other young climate change activists was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today. In Alec L. et al. v. Lisa P. Jackson et al., 11-cv-02235 (D.D.C. 2012), five teenagers and children joined the groups Kids vs. […]

By Julia Dobtsis, Fall 2011 CCCL Extern The Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School has added an energy facility litigation database  to its research resources. This new resource collects and organizes in one central database energy cases spanning the years 2005 through 2011, and contains a total of approximately 2000 decisions from […]

Laura Mulry Fellow April 2011 was an eventful month for massive solar projects in California and their unlikely opponent:  the desert tortoise. As climate change, overpopulation, and development place ever more plant and animal species at risk of extinction, prominent environmental groups, Native Americans, and local residents have brought a string of lawsuits to stop […]