Earlier this year, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was sued for its approval of a major oil drilling operation known as the “Willow project”. The project is controversial due to its contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and its location on the North Slope of Alaska, which happens […]
Cross-cutting Issues
319 posts
The New York Senate has an opportunity to ensure home buyers have the ability to protect their families from flooding by passing Senate Bill 5400, which would give home buyers the right to know a property’s flood risk. The Assembly has already passed a companion bill (A1967) granting home buyers […]
In the nine months since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law, much has been made of the law’s potential to fund, support, and catalyze local climate action (including by me). The IRA promises to be transformative for climate action at the local level and beyond. Still, […]
Over the last five years, cities, counties, and states across the country have sued fossil fuel companies alleging that the companies violated state law in marketing their products as safe. Collectively, these cases are known as climate liability cases or climate deception cases. On April 24, the U.S. Supreme Court […]
In September 2015, then Bank of England Governor Mark Carney gave a landmark speech on the “Tragedy of the Horizon.” The concept was simple: climate change creates tremendous risk for financial markets, but these mounting risks are ignored by investors due to the market’s tendency towards myopia. The speech marked […]
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is inviting all U.N. Member States to submit their views on the legal issues relevant to climate duties and obligations. To help States make these submissions, Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law has just released its Status Report on Principles of […]
The advisory opinion request to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on State Parties’ obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, Convention) to prevent, reduce, and control pollution of the marine environment from climate change, and to protect and preserve […]
While progress is being made, there is still a lot to do. The IPCC has said that, in addition to reducing emissions, it will likely also be necessary to draw greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere to mitigate climate change. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, an affiliate of the Columbia Climate School, has been exploring various ways of doing that, including through “blue carbon” approaches. Blue carbon is carbon captured by ocean and coastal ecosystems. In this post, we will focus specifically on ocean-based carbon dioxide removal and sequestration, also known as “ocean CDR”.