by Jessica Wentz On October 9, 2017, the Tubbs Fire ripped through Sonoma County, California, destroying nearly 5,000 homes and killing 22 people. It was the most destructive wildfire in California’s history and the largest urban conflagration in the United States since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake fires. And it […]
Adaptation & Resilience
89 posts
By William Omorogieva* The intensity of recent hurricanes and the damage they have caused in America have garnered lots of national news coverage. After Hurricane Katrina, it became evident how a lack of planning for natural disasters can have dangerous and deadly consequences. However, often hidden from public view is […]
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 at columbiaclimate at gmail dot com. HERE ARE THE ADDITIONS […]
by Justin Gundlach and Romany Webb Resilience—the capacity to withstand, absorb, recover from, and better adapt to disruption—is currently a popular topic of discussion and debate. Several factors, including a string of disasters and unrelated but coincident regulatory processes, have made resilience a key objective for a wide array of […]
By Richmund Sta. Lucia Extreme weather patterns can be easily seen in floods. Severe storms, especially during the rainy season, cause record rainfall to inundate both cities and countryside alike. Storm surges, another weather abnormality, create havoc in coastline areas by pushing meters-high water from the seas towards land. Indeed, […]
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 […]
by Justin Gundlach As a spate of disasters in the past few months has made painfully clear to people in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and northern California, designing the electric grid to be reliable at all times requires anticipating and preparing for destructive hazards that can interrupt its operation. […]
By Romany Webb Nearly three weeks after being hit by Hurricane Maria, 90 percent of Puerto Rico remains without electricity. While the island’s nine key generating facilities were not seriously damaged by Maria, they cannot be used, as the infrastructure required to transfer electricity to customers no longer exists. The […]