by Michael Gerrard Faculty Director In January my Columbia colleague Jeffrey Sachs told me that the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (with which he had worked for several years) was organizing a conference at the Vatican of judges, prosecutors and legal scholars from around the world to discuss how the […]
International
281 posts
By Michael B. Gerrard, Director The Paris Agreement on climate change reached on December 12, 2015 has a heavily negotiated sentence that, when closely read, seems to call for the virtual end of fossil fuel use in this century unless there are major advances in carbon sequestration or air capture […]
Michael Burger, Executive Director Jessica Wentz, Associate Director and Fellow Today, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published a report that we co-authored on Climate Change and Human Rights, with forewords from UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and John Knox, the Independent Expert on Human Rights and Environment. The release […]
Justin Gundlach Climate Law Fellow Justin spent the past week at the Paris climate conference working on behalf of the Legal Response Initiative Negotiators at the Paris climate conference have completed a first draft of an agreement, but one that is full of “brackets” – meaning that many of the […]
Michael Burger Executive Director Today marks the official beginning of the long-anticipated 21st Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, in Paris, France. As in the past—Copenhagen in 2009, Kyoto in 1997—hopes are high that government leaders will sign an international agreement that puts the planet on course to avoid […]
On November 4, 2015, Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party was sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada. Less than 48 hours later, the new administration announced it was ending restrictions on federal scientists’ public communications.[1] The previous Conservative government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, tightly vetted communications from all […]
Gabriel Wedy Visiting Scholar, Brazilian Judge, and Law Professor at ESMAFE/RS* The approval of 17 goals and 169 targets for sustainable development by the United Nations Conference on Post-2015 Development Agenda is unquestionably an advance for humanity. Economic development alone is unsatisfactory: it must be paired with human development, respect […]
Last week, the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne hosted an official COP21 side event: Social Dynamics and Climate Change. The conference was commissioned by the French government to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the social and institutional changes that will be needed to mitigate and adapt to global climate change. […]