What’s up with climate change and climate law? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it is going to cancel the “endangerment finding” of 2009 that provided the legal basis for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. In July, the Department of Energy released “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate,” which downplayed the research, the impacts and the importance of climate change. The Trump Administration has pretty much declared that is it going to eliminate anything that suggests climate change is a threat. And fossil fuel companies have been unleashed to produce anywhere the is even a hint of fossil carbon. At the same time, three international courts—the International Court of Justice, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea—have issued opinions that international climate law requires countries to act now to reduce emissions. What does the law say? What is law’s impact?
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Professor Alice Kaswan of the University of San Francisco School of Law. Professor Kaswan’s scholarly work focuses on climate change with a particular emphasis on federalism and on environmental justice. She has written extensively about the role of state and local governments in climate change adaptation and mitigation policy. In addition, she has addressed the environmental justice dimensions of domestic climate change policy. Feeling warm? Tune in!
Photo Copyright: Photographs©2015 Barbara Ries. All rights reserved.
