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Showing 1,485 results

Frank Ackerman | February 14, 2019

Climate Damages: Uncertain but Ominous, or $51 per Ton?

Originally published on Triple Crisis. Second in a series of posts on climate policy. Find Part 1 here. According to scientists, climate damages are deeply uncertain but could be ominously large (see the previous post). Alternatively, according to the best-known economic calculation, lifetime damages caused by emissions in 2020 will be worth $51 per metric ton of […]

Frank Ackerman | February 11, 2019

On Buying Insurance, and Ignoring Cost-Benefit Analysis

Originally published on Triple Crisis. The damages expected from climate change seem to get worse with each new study. Reports from the IPCC and the U.S. Global Change Research Project, and a multi-author review article in Science, all published in late 2018, are among the recent bearers of bad news. Even more continues to arrive […]

Daniel Farber | February 7, 2019

Does the Future Have Standing?

Originally published on Legal Planet. Climate change is not just a long-range problem; it's one that will get much worse in the future unless major emissions cuts are made. For instance, sea levels will continue to rise for centuries. But the people who will be harmed by these changes can't go to court: they haven't […]

Amy Sinden | January 30, 2019

Cap-and-Trade Could Fill Gaps in Governor Wolf’s Climate Change Executive Order

This post was originally published by JURIST. The news on the climate crisis has been bad lately and getting worse. In the face of President Trump's continued denial and his administration's diligent efforts to roll back every shred of progress made by the Obama administration and to prop up an ailing coal industry, the warnings […]

Daniel Farber | January 24, 2019

The Worst of a Bad Lot

Originally published on Legal Planet. The Trump administration has many energy and environmental initiatives, none of them good. But in terms of shoddy analysis and tenuous evidence, the worst is the administration's attempt to freeze fuel efficiency standards. For sheer lack of professionalism, the administration's cost-benefit analysis is hard to match. And you can't even […]

Daniel Farber | January 22, 2019

What’s Wrong with Juliana (and What’s Right?)

Originally published on Legal Planet. Juliana v. United States, often called the "children's case," is an imaginative effort to make the federal government responsible for its role in promoting the production and use of fossil fuels and its failure to control carbon emissions. The plaintiffs ask the court to "declare that the United States' current […]

Daniel Farber | January 14, 2019

Using Emergency Powers to Fight Climate Change

Originally published on Legal Planet. Republicans are apparently worried that if Trump could use emergency powers by declaring border security a national emergency, the next president could do the same thing for climate change. There's no doubt that this would be far more legitimate than Trump's wall effort. Border crossings are much lower than they were […]

Daniel Farber | January 8, 2019

The Thin Gray Line

Originally published on Legal Planet. "Bureaucrat" is just another name for public servant. It has been said that a thin blue line of police protects us from the worst elements of society. But it is a thin gray line of underpaid, overworked, anonymous bureaucrats who protect society against more insidious risks – risks ranging from nuclear […]

Daniel Farber | December 31, 2018

The Year Ahead

A version of this post was originally published on Legal Planet. What are the key things to watch for in 2019 in the environmental area? Regulations. According to the Trump administration’s schedule, three big rules should be issued in March: repeal of the Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS), repeal and replacement of the Clean […]