The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule that limits carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants—the Clean Power Plan—is an environmental regulation that powerfully influences energy law and forms a key part of the U.S. plan to meet its voluntary international commitments under the December 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Even if portions of the Plan are ultimately struck down, almost any viable pathway to lower carbon emissions will require greater integration of these two areas of law to address the large percentage of U.S. emissions from the energy sector. This integration produces both challenges and opportunities for governance.
Many officials have been considering whether it is possible or desirable to use choice architecture to increase the use of environmentally friendly (“green”) products and activities. The right approach could produce significant environmental benefits, including large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and better air quality. This Article presents new data from an online experiment in which 1245 participants were asked questions about hypothetical green energy programs.
This Article examines an unexplored issue arising at the intersection of international economic law and international environmental law: How might international economic law adapt to allow states in the Global South, which are disproportionately impacted by the sudden and unforeseen impacts of global climate change, to exit or modify economic relationships that render such states more vulnerable to these negative impacts?
Our brooks will babble in the courts,/Seeking damages for torts.
Over two decades ago, Professor Christopher Stone asked what turned out to be a question of enduring interest: should trees have standing? His question was recently answered in the affirmative by a creek in Pennsylvania, which successfully intervened in a lawsuit between an energy company and a local township to prevent the lifting of a ban against drilling oil and gas wastewater wells.
