Cities around the U.S. have long demonstrated leadership on climate change, with more than 170 of them having set targets to phase out fossil energy and many others committing to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. American cities, towns, counties, and other forms of local government have pioneered path-setting approaches to economy-wide […]
Cross-cutting Issues
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By Matthias Petel and Antoine De Spiegeleir * VZW Klimaatzaak v. Kingdom of Belgium & Others is a climate lawsuit brought in Belgium in 2015 modelled on the famous Dutch Urgenda case. In this groundbreaking judicial procedure, plaintiffs argued that Belgian public authorities have undertaken insufficient climate action and called […]
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 […]
By Maria Antonia Tigre The last few days saw two major developments in international rights-based climate litigation, with the adoption of a new resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) and a long-awaited decision on a climate case by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC). […]
By Jacob Elkin This past year has seen significant developments in how we understand and address the risks facing workers in an era of extreme heat. Multiple reports, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States, have highlighted the risk that extreme heat […]
The summer of 2021 underscored that we are all affected by climate change impacts, whether in the form of heatwaves, fires, or extreme flooding. But some Americans are more affected than others. Urban centers are hotter than rural areas due to urban heat island effect, a phenomenon caused by pavement, […]
By Margaret Barry and Korey Silverman-Roati Each month, Arnold & Porter and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts. If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us […]
By Korey Silverman-Roati and Romany M. Webb The Sabin Center today released the second in a series of white papers discussing legal issues associated with different ocean-based carbon dioxide removal techniques. Today’s paper focuses on seaweed cultivation—i.e., the growing of kelp and other macroalgae which may be harvested for food, […]