Earlier this month, on June 2, 2025, Atlanta’s City Council unanimously passed a state-of-the-art ordinance to require cool roofs throughout the whole city, immediately propelling Atlanta to the forefront of local climate adaptation measures. The new requirements will help make Atlanta cooler, improve its air quality, and lower residents’ energy […]
Cross-cutting Issues
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A plaintiff from the Global South. A carbon giant from the Global North. And a courtroom in a mid-sized German city. On May 28, 2025, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm issued its ruling in what has become Germany’s most high-profile climate lawsuit — Lliuya v. RWE. While the court […]
As of June 2025, Brazil had the third largest number of climate litigation cases of any country in the world. To date, a total of 135 climate cases have been brought in Brazil—surpassing other major jurisdictions and trailing only the United States and Australia. Remarkably, the vast majority of these […]
Note: The views reflected in the post are those of the author and the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sabin Center or anyone at the Sabin Center. At a colloquium co-sponsored at Columbia Law School by the Ira M. Millstein Center […]
As global efforts to tackle climate change intensify, attention is turning to carbon dioxide removal (“CDR”)—strategies that draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it for long periods. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) has emphasized that CDR will be necessary, alongside deep emissions reductions, to limit global […]
Last Thursday, May 22, the New York State Court of Appeals – the State’s highest court – issued a decision upholding New York City’s Local Law 97 of 2019. Local Law 97 is one of the country’s most ambitious municipal climate policies, requiring the City’s largest buildings to comply with […]
In a powerful and precedent-setting advisory opinion, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Court has declared that European Union law—applicable pursuant to the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement—prohibits the approval of fossil fuel projects without first assessing the global climate impacts of their emissions, including those generated when oil and […]
On March 12, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced plans to reconsider EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, along with all regulations and actions that rely on the finding. This process was initiated pursuant to an executive order issued by President Trump on the first […]