United Nations Human Rights Committee finds that Australia is violating human rights obligations towards Torres Strait Islanders for climate inaction By Maria Antonia Tigre On September 23, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) delivered a landmark decision in Daniel Billy and others v Australia (Torres Strait Islanders […]
Guest Commentary: Legal action in a time of climate crisis By Katie de Kauwe and Millie John-Pierre* On July 18, 2022, one of the hottest days on record in the UK, an equally ground-breaking judgment was handed down by the High Court of England and Wales in R (Friends of […]
This month, Carolina Arlota joins us as an Associate Research Scholar. Her work explores international and domestic (U.S.) laws governing the cross-border transport of carbon dioxide (CO2) for sequestration, and how such transportation fits into broader climate and environmental protection regimes, including the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, carbon markets […]
By Jacob Elkin While the most prominent climate litigation to date has primarily focused on mitigation—reducing greenhouse gas emissions—adaptation litigation will also increase as climate impacts become more frequent, extreme, and intense. Adaptation cases frequently rely on evidence drawn from scientific research into past and future climate change. In a […]
By Jacob Elkin and Elza Bouhassira Going back to 1978 and through this month, Congress has acknowledged climate change in a total of 87 enactments, as shown by a database just posted by Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. The database collects Congress’s references to climate change, along with […]
By Romany M. Webb The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has been described as being “all carrot” and “no stick” but that is not entirely correct. It is certainly true that the IRA uses “carrots” – principally in the form of tax credits – to incentivize actions that will reduce greenhouse […]
By Amy Turner On August 16, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (or “IRA”), widely hailed as the most ambitious piece of climate legislation in U.S. history. The bill is sprawling, covering climate and energy topics as diverse as electric vehicles, building decarbonization, clean energy manufacturing and supply chains, […]
By Romany M. Webb At Tuesday’s signing ceremony, President Biden described the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as “one of the most significant laws in our history.” Political rhetoric aside, its passage is a major achievement. After decades of inaction on climate change, the U.S. Congress has finally taken a step […]