Vibrant Environment

Avoiding the worst effects of climate change—including drought, food insecurity and unprecedented migration—means limiting global temperature rise to 2°C (the Paris Agreement sets a more ambitious 1.5°C goal). A number of technologies are being pursued to help solve the climate crisis including carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-Based Features for Flood Risk Management, published by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, NOAA, the Environment Agency of the United Kingdom, Rijkawaterstaat, and the World Bank in September 2021, was celebrated with a virtual launch party underlining the exciting opportunity for progress.

In 2009, the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org submitted a citizen petition calling on EPA to institute a national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for greenhouse gas emissions. Twelve years later, in January 2021, Administrator Andrew Wheeler issued a letter denying the petition.

How prepared is the United States to adapt to climate change? To answer this question, on a recent People Places Planet Podcast episode, “Is the U.S. Government Ready for the Climate Crisis? Examining Federal, State, and Local Climate Adaptation,” Staff Attorney Cynthia Harris spoke with three climate experts: Dr.

In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications have rapidly become more sophisticated and widespread, “even as legal and regulatory frameworks struggle to keep up.” Moreover, AI’s often-overlooked environmental implications are simultaneously “sweeping and quite complicated,” and for all of its promise to help improve the environment, AI could in fact cause environmental harm. With those framing remarks, Andrew Tutt, a Senior Associate with the law firm Arnold & Porter, opened a February 18 webinar on “Environmental Applications & Implications of Artificial Intelligence,” the third in ELI’s GreenTech series running through 2021.

What products did you use this morning as you got ready for your day? Shampoo? Soap? Deodorant? Makeup? Likely at least one of these, along with other personal care products. The Environmental Working Group found that women in the United States use an average of 12 personal care products each day, and men an average of six. And, while many of the chemicals in these products likely pose minimal risk, some chemicals found in personal care products have been linked to cancer, reproductive harm, and other health problems. Further, women of color face disproportionate impacts. On average, women of color use more beauty products than white women, and the beauty products they use disproportionately expose them to hazardous ingredients.

Renewed interest in outer space has brought new sources of investment and technology. Last year witnessed 110 orbital launches, tied for the highest annual number since the early 2000s. Increased activity in outer space will accelerate potential environmental effects; for instance, space mining could lead to natural resources being extracted from the moon, Mars and other planets, and asteroids. The primary environmental issues include debris, pollution of earth’s atmosphere, and biological or nuclear contamination.

In this month’s issue of ELR—The Environmental Law Reporter, Scot W. Anderson, Julia La Manna, and Korey J. Christensen discuss the legal framework surrounding development of natural resources in outer space. The authors provide an overview of space mining regulations generally, and examine regulatory efforts to mitigate environmental issues.

A recent study by Eric Martinez and Christoph Winter surveyed over 500 legal academics regarding how and to what degree the law can protect future generations. Here, I discuss some of the authors’ findings and the implications for using law to take action against climate change.

The survey asked legal academics for their views on legal protection of future generations and other groups, which groups could be granted legal standing, the ability of law to influence the long-term future, and specific areas of law and sources of risk. Climate change and environmental law were featured in several questions, as both are commonly associated with future generations and the long-term future. This can be seen, for example, in the rise of environmental constitutionalism, scholarship on representing future people in climate governance and intergenerational justice, as well as a rapid increase in climate litigation, with global cases nearly doubling from 2017 to 2020.

Despite popular belief, natural hazards are not “great equalizers.” Environmental burdens fall disproportionately on marginalized groups. These inequities stem from legacies of racial injustice and systemic income disparities that have caused certain neighborhoods to have both poor infrastructure and limited access to financial resources, creating greater threats from hazard-related damage and difficulty with recovery efforts.

This summer, the Miami-Dade County’s Office of Resilience conducted a series of workshops inviting the community’s input into the drafting of the county’s climate action strategy plan. These workshops were held to offer community members the opportunity to comment on local policy measures as well as shape the direction of current and future policymaking by offering suggestions and ideas. Rather than simply checking off boxes for expectations of citizen engagement by local government, the stated goal of these workshops is to produce an accessible avenue for community members from all identities, especially those that have historically faced discrimination, to take the lead on local climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. In accomplishing this goal, language accessibility is a key consideration to ensure effective citizen engagement and maximized impact.