Climate Law Blog

Since January 2017, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University has been tracking the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to rewrite federal climate change policy and deconstruct climate governance. Today, the Sabin Center released a collaboratively authored report that outlines a series of executive actions that a Biden administration could take to do […]

By Susan Biniaz*, A new Administration will invariably seek to restore U.S. leadership on climate change through a wide range of domestic and international initiatives.  These will include rejoining the 2015 Paris Agreement, from which the United States is set to exit on November 4th of this year.  While rejoining Paris per se will be straightforward, […]

By Susan Biniaz With Madrid behind us and Glasgow on the horizon, it is a good time for Parties and others to consider the future of the annual COP. (By “COP,” I mean the climate conference writ large, rather than the “Conference of the Parties,” the narrower technical name for the Parties to the UN Framework […]

Governmental officials, concerned citizens, and experts will gather this week to mobilize climate action during the United Nation’s Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit and Climate Week NYC.  Millions around the world are expected to demand urgent action ahead of these events  in climate strikes inspired by Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg. As conversations unfold on […]

by Susan Biniaz* On June 1st, we will hit the two-year mark since President Trump announced his intention to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement.  We are also getting closer to November 4th, the first day on which the withdrawal process can actually begin.  While there is no realistic expectation that the […]

By Michael B. Gerrard Despite the Paris Climate Agreement, the seas will continue to rise, coastlines around the world will recede, and many low-lying islands will disappear. This could cause the exclusive economic zones of the small island states to shrink or disappear if international law allows maritime boundaries to move.  This note argues that, […]

By Susan Biniaz* In Katowice, Poland, the Parties to the Paris Agreement just adopted the so-called “Paris rulebook,” i.e., the various guidelines and procedures that put meat on the bones of the Agreement’s provisions.  The outcome on “transparency,” which sets forth extensive reporting requirements and review processes, is particularly noteworthy.  It is designed, among other […]

By Ama Francis After delays and closed-door dealings, this Saturday marked the conclusion of Conference of the Parties Twenty-Four (COP24), the annual meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. COP24 set in motion the momentous Paris Agreement, wherein 196 countries agreed to keep  global average temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels while […]

By Ama Francis After years of struggling to identify and address the needs of people compelled to move in the context of climate change, the international community is poised to affirmatively recognize the relevance of climate-induced migration and displacement.* Over the next week, world leaders are gathering in Marrakech, Morocco to adopt the Global Compact […]

By Dena Adler It has been a busy few weeks in global climate change litigation. Even as world leaders gather in Poland this week to continue writing the rulebook for the Paris Agreement, countries are already being sued for their failure to deliver climate action. Here is a snapshot of a few key legal developments, […]