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The article focuses on climate litigation, particularly the case of Held v. State in Montana, where youth plaintiffs challenged the state's environmental policies regarding climate change. It discusses how the court found in favor of the plaintiffs, ruling that the state had violated its constitutional environmental protections, marking a significant development in climate accountability litigation and demonstrating the potential of state constitutional rights in addressing climate impacts.

The significance of environmental governance is increasing worldwide, and Georgia is no exception. This article uses wide-ranging sources to provide comprehensive qualitative and quantitative data to discuss the most important aspects of environmental policy directions in Georgia. The results of the study show that: (a) it is crucial to increase public awareness about the importance of climate change and environmental protection; (b) introducing environmental and climate-related goals and objectives and green budgeting principles in national priorities is as important as implementing them effectively into practice; and (c) the practice of regulatory impact assessment needs further development in Georgia, especially in the environment and climate-related areas. Finally, the paper concludes that the lack of historical data is the main limitation for the current research, and proposes that scientific and practical work continues in the future to further explore the relationships between the country’s environmental policies and aspects of sustainable development on both an individual and public level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our planet is facing increasing challenges: climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, poverty, and many other problems closely linked to a deteriorating environment. Meanwhile, one of our most important assets, rangers working in protected and conserved areas responsible for managing large tracts of the planet's lands and waters, are often underutilized, underrecognized and underequipped. They are generally left out of the debate about conservation and sustainable development policy, despite being central to the success of those policies. This paper outlines the need for global leaders across multiple sectors to recognize the profession of rangers as essential planetary health workers and to position rangers more effectively within global conservation and environmental policy mechanisms. It introduces the challenges facing rangers, the emerging diversity of roles within the ranger profession and the important contribution of rangers to conservation and sustainable development. It presents policy and implementation avenues to improve recognition and professionalization of rangers as key executors of conservation and development policy, particularly considering the recent Global Biodiversity Framework ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The private law of torts, property, and contracts will and should play an important role in resolving disputes regarding how private individuals and entities respond to and manage the harms of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation (known in climate change policy dialogue as "adaptation"). While adaptation is commonly presented as a problem needing legislative solutions, this Article presents a novel and overdue case for private law to take climate adaptation seriously. To date, the role of private law is a significant blind spot in scholarly discussions of climate adaptation. Litigation invoking common-law doctrines in climate adaption disputes has not yet taken off the way that the wave of high-profile lawsuits against sources of emissions causing climate change has, but it is inevitable that it will, making it ripe for attention in legal scholarship. The Article begins in Part I by highlighting several features of climate change and adaptation that will place inevitable disruptive pressure on existing doctrines and principles of private law. The new normal of climate change questions some key factual predicates embedded in private law doctrine. For example, climate change is radically moving the long-stable upper and lower extremes of multiple biophysical conditions (what scientists call "nonstationarity"), meaning individuals increasingly will be unable to accurately predict the future based entirely on past data (what scientists call the "no-analog future"). Private law nonetheless must operate in a manner that provides practical and meaningful guidance to stakeholders, which will require it to confront the new realities presented by climate adaptation, including how private individuals and entities can no longer predict the future in the same ways that they have in the past. In Part II, the Article identifies a series of evaluative guideposts to help assess when changes to doctrines and principles of private law may be needed to address impending climate adaptation disputes. Private law's basic architecture helps to define and manage relationships, clarify responsibilities, and provide remedies for harm--a tripartite framework we use in Part III to unravel a few key doctrinal pressure points that private law faces as it addresses a novel set of impending climate change adaptation claims. The principle of foreseeability--central to numerous doctrines that define relationships, responsibilities, and remedies across tort, property, and contract law--is likely to face some of the strongest pushback as we confront climate adaptation. We propose a "foreseeability of nonstationarity" principle and evaluate what that might mean for some core private law doctrines. This points towards expansion of the scope of obligations private law recognizes for various actors within their adaptation footprints. Existing private law principles can address wrongfulness even in the no-analog future of climate adaptation. It is important, however, that private law defenses recognize the nonstationarity of climate risks, as well as the lack of an analog future available to predict and address the harmful effects of climate change. We conclude that private law can and will adapt to climate change. This process will be central to providing guidance as individuals, businesses, and other private actors confront new risks and harms as society adapts to a new natural world. But the path of private law's adaption matters, and how it approaches key principles such as foreseeability will be central to its capacity to provide meaningful guidance for private stakeholders adapting to the realities of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests provide ecosystem services (ES) that confer comparative advantages to the land market. The aim of research was to value forests that support ES in agricultural systems located in the Colombian Amazon piedmont. The hedonic price method was used to observe the influence of the forest on the price of farms and the contingent valuation method was used to find urban inhabitants' Willingness to Pay (WTP) for the conservation of the forests that guarantee these ES. Landowners identified carbon storage as the forest's main ES, but the price of the land did not reflect the economic benefits derived from these: the marginal WTP was - $ 964.4 dollars, a value that represents the opportunity cost of land use. However, the WTP per household was 0.33 dollars per year, a value that shows potential in the implementation of environmental conservation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major banks in the United States and globally have begun to assert an active role in the transition to a low-carbon economy and the reduction of climate risk through private environmental and climate governance. This Essay situates these actions within historical and economic contexts: It explains how the legal foundations of banks' sense of social purpose intersect with their economic incentives to finance major structural transitions in society. In doing so, this Essay sheds light on the reasons why we can expect banks to be at the center of this contemporary transition. This Essay then considers how banks have taken up this role to date. It proposes a novel taxonomy of the various forms of private environmental and climate governance emerging in the U.S. banking sector today. Finally, this Essay offers a set of factors against which to normatively assess the value of these actions. While many scholars have focused on the role of shareholders and equity in private environmental and climate governance, this Essay is the first to position these steps taken by banks within that larger context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although substantial attention has focused on efforts by the new Administration to block environmental policies, climate politics have been contentious in the US since well before the election of Donald Trump. In this paper, we extend previous work on empirical examinations of echo chambers in US climate politics using new data collected on the federal climate policy network in summer 2016. We test for the similarity and differences at two points in time in homophily and echo chambers using Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM) to compare new findings from 2016 to previous work on data from 2010. We show that echo chambers continue to play a significant role in the network of information exchange among policy elites working on the issue of climate change. In contrast to previous findings where echo chambers centered on a binding international commitment to emission reductions, we find that the pre-existing echo chambers have almost completely disappeared and new structures have formed around one of the main components of the Obama Administration’s national climate policy: the Clean Power Plan. These results provide empirical evidence that science communication and policymaking at the elite level shift in relation to the policy instruments under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We proposed and tested a conceptual model of how cultural cognition worldviews, climate change risk perception, and psychological barriers are related to reported energy conservation behavior frequency. Egalitarian and communitarian worldviews were correlated with heightened climate change risk perception, and egalitarian worldviews were correlated with weaker perceived barriers to reported energy conservation behavior. Heightened climate change risk perception was, in turn, associated with fewer perceived barriers to engagement in energy conservation behavior and more reported energy conservation behaviors. The relation between cultural worldviews and perceived barriers was partly mediated by climate change risk perception. Individuals with distinct worldviews perceived psychological barriers differently, and some barrier components were more strongly related to energy conservation behavior than others. Overall, climate change risk perception was the strongest predictor of perceived barriers and of energy conservation behavior frequency. Future efforts should focus on reducing the psychological barriers to energy conservation behavior identified in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political decision-making is at the heart of decisions on both mitigation and adaptation for climate change. While the norms are established internationally, they must be translated into domestic law in order to have bite. The making and enforcement of domestic law in many areas of environmental protection are frequently less than optimal. Legislation takes time to design and to enact. The details matter a great deal. Laggard governments around the world have been subjected to judicial review on their climate change policies. Furthermore, all statutes are subject to interpretation by courts. Administrators can and do make mistakes that are corrected by authoritative judicial interpretation. With particular emphasis on New Zealand law, this article will examine the degree to which judicial decisions can correct and encourage government policies on climate change and give them a "nudge" towards making them effective. The potential role of the Waitangi Tribunal will also be mentioned and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. The issue of whether constitutional protection for the environment, with application to climate change, could be useful will be canvassed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One response to political contestation over climate change is to promote formal public engagement to address diverse social values, encourage behavioral change, foster support for regulatory initiatives and bridge gaps among experts, policy makers and citizens. Scientism, a normative stance that grants implicit authority to scientific and technical experts to define the meaning of public issues, limits the democratic potential of such efforts. Current manifestations of scientism result in a disproportionate emphasis on fixing public knowledge and attitude deficits and a concomitant lack of scrutiny of the values and assumptions at play in the framing of public policy issues. Confronting scientism involves approaching climate policy as necessarily informed by science but not necessarily reducible to quantitative and statistical frames of reference. Critical geographers and scholars are well positioned to challenge scientism by opening the value commitments obscured or denied by technical approaches to climate change to scrutiny and debate. Such critical interventions are increasingly necessary in an era in which policy discussions are polarized and consensus-based action-oriented approaches advocated. More work is needed to bridge the gap between critical research and the professionals and citizens who orchestrate public engagement with climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An argument within the wider theory of postpolitics that has gained traction over the last decade is that environmental concerns in general, and climate policy in particular, are especially conducive to depoliticization. In this paper, we take issue with this notion by presenting an empirical case study of the repoliticization of Swedish mining and then, on the basis of this analysis, offer theoretical reflections on how to better understand depoliticization and repoliticization of the environment. We argue for the use of a narrow definition of 'depoliticization', and that sufficient attention must be paid to temporal and scalar differentiation of continuous processes of de- and repoliticization, and that normative assumptions of what constitutes the genuinely political should be abandoned. We argue that environmental concerns harbour large potential for effective politicization, and that this politicization occurs as a response to depoliticization, through concurrent, cross-fertilizing and intertwined processes of repoliticization across scales both inside and outside of formal channels of government, whereby previously depoliticized state agencies may become crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the need for the American people to have a sound understanding on scietific knowledge particularly when they pertain to the environment. The author mentions the different theories about the environment in the past including the role of aerosols in the destruction of the environment and theories and principles about the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The author mentions other researches and studies that are important to the environment.

Policies concerning the sector of green jobs on European level are related mainly to environmental protection, as well as those for clean energy and climate change. They require the application of policies for developing the sector of renewable energy and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating new sustainable jobs. The aim of the paper is based on the review and analysis of policies related to climate change, to assess their impact on the sector of green jobs. The first part of the paper presents a review of climate change policies and an assessment of their impact on the creation of green jobs. The second part of the paper includes general conclusions about the role of policies related to climate change for the sector of green jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing the protection of persons displaced by natural disasters and the impacts of climate change will require sustained attention. This article identifi es practical solutions, many of which are currently under consideration by governments and international organizations, to improve the lives of millions of people affected by environmental crises. It begins with a brief overview of why people move, the nature of those movements, and the relationship between human mobility and adaptation to environmental change by highlighting three types of mobility - migration, displacement and planned relocation. Next, the international and regional level will be discussed, with particular focus on legislative and policy frameworks for addressing human mobility in the context of environmental change. The article identifi es gaps in existing frameworks as well as recent efforts to address them, particularly through mini-multilateral initiatives aimed at identifying principles and practices that should guide governmental action. The article concludes that efforts to improve responses require a better evidence base than currently exists on issues such as the environmental determinants of migration, displacement and planned relocation; the multi-faceted ways in which environmental factors relate to the many other causes of population movements in the cases of human mobility; and the impact of such movements on the well-being of migrants, communities of origin, and communities of destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global environmental change requires responses that involve marked or qualitative changes in individuals, institutions, societies, and cultures. Yet, while there has been considerable effort to develop theory about such processes, there has been limited research on practices for facilitating transformative change. We present a novel pathways approach called Three Horizons that helps participants work with complex and intractable problems and uncertain futures. The approach is important for helping groups work with uncertainty while also generating agency in ways not always addressed by existing futures approaches. We explain how the approach uses a simple framework for structured and guided dialogue around different patterns of change by using examples. We then discuss some of the key characteristics of the practice that facilitators and participants have found to be useful. This includes (1) providing a simple structure for working with complexity, (2) helping develop future consciousness (an awareness of the future potential in the present moment), (3) helping distinguish between incremental and transformative change, (4) making explicit the processes of power and patterns of renewal, (5) enabling the exploration of how to manage transitions, and (6) providing a framework for dialogue among actors with different mindsets. The complementarity of Three Horizons to other approaches (e.g., scenario planning, dilemma thinking) is then discussed. Overall, we highlight that there is a need for much greater attention to researching practices of transformation in ways that bridge different kinds of knowledge, including episteme and phronesis. Achieving this will itself require changes to contemporary systems of knowledge production. The practice of Three Horizons could be a useful way to explore how such transformations in knowledge production and use could be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Ecosystem services” is a phrase with many meanings, yet very few studies have primarily focused on comparing different definitions of the term. Ecosystem services are now generally used in identifying an appropriately wide range of environmental variables for policy and management as well as better understanding the benefits provided by those aspects of the environment. A review of the dominant definitions of ecosystem services reveals the term is comprehensive in its scope and requires further specification for most purposes. Analysis further reveals that there are four main categories of conceptual definitions. The paper concludes that ecosystem services can be identified at various points along the spectrum of nature-human interaction depending on which specific definition is chosen and that the term was not created to identify a novel set of environmental objects or processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined existing policy instruments of the Indian forest, wildlife, and environment sectors for the period 1927–2008 to (a) assess their strengths and weaknesses in addressing information, market and policy failures in ecosystem service provision in the Indian Himalayan region and (b) determine if they were informatory or regulatory in nature and whether they encouraged the use of market-based instruments. Our analysis revealed that Indian policy measures can be categorized into four eras: Production (1927–1972), Protection (1972–1988), Community Participation (1988–2006), and Climate Change and Globalization (2006 onwards). The policies of the earlier two eras were largely regulatory in nature. From 1988 onwards, community participation in biodiversity conservation has made the policies more informatory and market-based. The recognition that Himalayas are a distinct ecosystem, crucial for their services but vulnerable to climate change impacts, has come about only with the National Mission on Sustaining Himalayan Ecosystem. Given the multiple stakeholders in Indian Himalayas and the off-site nature of ecosystem services, a complementarity of instruments and their ability to address the consequences of local decisions on downstream ecosystem services are essential. A participatory and sectorally coordinated mixed governance approach is needed to sustain ecosystem services in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The absence of boreal forests from global policy agendas on sustainable development and climate change mitigation represents a massive missed opportunity for environmental protection. The boreal zone contains some of the world's largest pools of terrestrial carbon that, if not safeguarded from a conversion to a net source of greenhouse gases, could seriously exacerbate global climate change. At the same time, boreal countries have a strong tradition of forest management-expertise that could be effectively leveraged toward global and national carbon mitigation targets and sustainable development. Current obstacles against such contributions include weak incentives for carbon sequestration and a reluctance to embrace change by forest managers and policy makers. We discuss possible solutions to overcome these obstacles, including the improvement of ineffective incentives, the development of alternative forest management strategies, and the need to maintain ecosystem resilience through the pursuit of policy and management options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years within the UK, behaviour change as a policy tool has gained popularity. Concurrently, the role of local authorities in both tackling unsustainability and reducing carbon emissions has become more prominent. This paper describes a recent study in the UK that aims to understand how local authorities are working to tackle unsustainability and encourage pro-environmental behaviour change in the population. Through interviews with local authority sustainability officers from London, this paper reviews the extent of sustainability work currently being undertaken by local authorities to assist residents transition to a more sustainable lifestyle. The study discusses key findings from the interviews, drawing on the commonalities and factors that influence local authority sustainability programmes. The key finding from these interviews is that there is a need for more robust monitoring and evaluation of local authority sustainability programmes. Robust evaluation would improve understanding of the potential contribution that local authority sustainability work could make towards addressing unsustainability and meeting national emission reduction targets. In addition, it would assist the development of the evidence-base on behaviour change interventions and their effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Notwithstanding ambiguities, long-term economic resurgence in Afghanistan amidst water insecurity exacerbated by climate change decisively requires a water protection strategy that will complement a multitude of agroindustrial and socioeconomic activities in an environmentally sustainable and climate resilient manner. In this paper, we begin with a perspective on institutions, legislation, and key issues in the water sector of Afghanistan. We then embark on linking the integrated water resources management (IWRM) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) approaches as a novel framework for strategic water management and subsequently propose a strategy for post-conflict water protection based on the coalesced IWRM and SEA. Context relevant good practices worldwide are presented to provide empirical evidence for this approach whereas perceived opportunities and vulnerabilities in the Afghan context are discussed. Examination of post-conflict water sector initiatives in Afghanistan reveals the critical role of foreign assistance in both water infrastructure rehabilitation and modernization of the institutional aspect of water management. The introduction of IWRM as the basis for a progressive water sector strategy has been seen as a major milestone which is detrimentally matched by substantial deficiency in national capacity for implementation. Concurrently, the role of extra-national actors in relevant policy interventions has been considered catalytic despite criticisms of proposed regulations as being anachronistic to field realities. Therefore the view is maintained to practicable policies by accelerating policy learning in the country's water and environment sectors to encourage homegrown water strategy innovations. Demonstratively, mainstreaming IWRM-SEA coalescence will bridge institutional gaps for better feedback between local and national water stakeholders, providing a venue for improved delivery of water services to sustain post-conflict socioeconomic recovery and promote environmental stewardship. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Climate change presents us with a problem of intergenerational justice. While any costs associated with climate change mitigation measures will have to be borne by the world's present generation, the main beneficiaries of mitigation measures will be future generations. This raises the question to what extent present generations have a responsibility to shoulder these costs. One influential approach for addressing this question is to appeal to neo-classical economic cost-benefit analyses and so-called economy-climate 'integrated assessment models' to determine what course of action a principle of intergenerational welfare maximization would require of us. I critically examine a range of problems for this approach. First, integrated assessment models face a problem of underdetermination and induction: They are very sensitive to a number of highly conjectural assumptions about economic responses to a temperature and climate regime, for which we have no empirical evidence. Second, they involve several simplifying assumptions which cannot be justified empirically. And third, some of the assumptions underlying the construction of economic models are intrinsically normative assumptions that reflect value judgments of the modeler. I conclude that, while integrated assessment models may play a useful role as 'toy models,' their use as tools for policy optimization is highly problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper presents the use of indicators in a site-specific assessment method for strategic environmental assessment in regional land use planning (here: SEA-REP). It is explained with the example of the state of environment indicator ‘LUCCA 4—Urban Areas at Risk of Flooding’, how SEA as a decision-aiding instrument can contribute to the prevention of conflicts with policy for adaptation to climate change. The method begins with the determination of impact factors for SEA. In the presented study, the physical impact factors of land consumption, land use change, and directed flooding were recognised. A core problem during the selection of indicators for land uses for the adaptation to climate change (here: LUCCA) and the derivation of assessment thresholds was a lack of region-wide policy objectives for the protection of land and resources. Therefore, in a second step, regional environmental orientation objectives were derived from national and EU environmental policy. A standard method for the selection of LUCCA indicators and the derivation of assessment thresholds for conflict analysis is described. Three classes of conflict classification for regional plan designations on the individual site are proposed. It is recommended that future adaptation measures of regional land use planning should be designations of specific land uses as priority areas for urban areas prone to flood risk. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Hundreds of local governments in the United States have adopted greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals during the past several years, requiring critical examinations of the role of the state in climate governance and the effects of these programs on urban citizenship. Using a study of Seattle, Washington, a city at the forefront of implementing climate regulations through formal government institutions, this article examines how and why climate is incorporated into local environmental policy. By deliberately connecting the causes and consequences of global climate change to the local community, Seattle has been able to use climate as a conceptual resource for urban environmental policy via the climatization of the urban environment. Furthermore, a key mechanism for making climate governable in Seattle is the carbonization of urban governance, where a relationship between the production of GHG emissions and specific urban activities is established through the use of GHG inventories and emissions monitoring. These practices facilitate the act of territorialization, where material natures and state institutions are coconstituted through the production of carbon territories. A key effect of these practices is that Seattle has begun to enroll its residents as a new type of carbon-relevant citizen in the regulation of global climate, while also reaffirming its ability to regulate infrastructural design, commercial activities, and community development. These findings are discussed with respect to their implications for how we understand state practice in climate governance, as well as the relationship between “the state” and “nature” in environmental politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited awareness of environmental remote sensing's potential ability to support environmental policy development constrains the technology's utilization. This paper reviews the potential of earth observation from the perspective of environmental policy. A literature review of "remote sensing and policy" revealed that while the number of publications in this field increased almost twice as rapidly as that of remote sensing literature as a whole (15.3 versus 8.8% yr-1), there is apparently little academic interest in the societal contribution of environmental remote sensing. This is because none of the more than 300 peer reviewed papers described actual policy support. This paper describes and discusses the potential, actual support, and limitations of earth observation with respect to supporting the various stages of environmental policy development. Examples are given of the use of remote sensing in problem identification and policy formulation, policy implementation, and policy control and evaluation. While initially, remote sensing contributed primarily to the identification of environmental problems and policy implementation, more recently, interest expanded to applications in policy control and evaluation. The paper concludes that the potential of earth observation to control and evaluate, and thus assess the efficiency and effectiveness of policy, offers the possibility of strengthening governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal scholars' discussions of climate change assume that the issue is one mainly of engineering incentives, and that "environmental values" are too weak, vague, or both to spur political action to address the emerging crisis. This Article gives reason to believe otherwise. The major natural resource and environmental statutes, from the acts creating national forests and parks to the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, have emerged from precisely the activity that discussions of climate change neglect: democratic argument over the value of the natural world and its role in competing ideas of citizenship, national purpose, and the role and scale of government. This Article traces several major episodes in those developments: the rise of a Romantic attachment to spectacular landscapes, a utilitarian ideal of rational management of resources, the legal and cultural concept of "wilderness," and the innovation of "the environment" as a centerpiece of public debate at the end of the 1960s. The Article connects each development to changes in background culture and values and the social movements and political actors that brought them into public debate and, eventually, legislation. The result is both a set of specific studies and the outline of an account of the ways that the political struggles of a democratic community have created new, and always contested, ideas of "nature" throughout American history. The Article then shows how past episodes cast light on the present: today's climate politics, including the seemingly anomalous (even "irrational") choices by municipalities to adopt the Kyoto carbon-emissions goals, makes most sense when understood as an extension of a long tradition of political argument about nature, which does not simply take "interests" as fixed, but changes both interests and values by changing how citizens understand themselves, the country, and the natural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental health problems in Malaysia are mostly attributed to atmospheric pollution, water pollution, climate change, ozone depletion, and solid waste management, as well as toxic, chemical, and hazardous waste management. The Ministry of Health, Malaysia, has been vigorously pursuing the environmental health agenda by collaborating with other agencies at district, state, national, and international levels. This article discusses the issues and management framework of environmental health in Malaysia. Some issues requiring further investigation in order to clearly understand the trade-off between atmospheric change and environmental health are suggested. These suggestions are developed with particular reference to appraisals concerned with the development and implementation of environmental policy, programs, and practice. Research on the relevant issues is discussed and a framework is built involving a comprehensive review of the literature and existing framework of Malaysian environmental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium's issue on 'Climate Justice and International Environmental Law: Rethinking the North-South Divide' asks contributors 'to explore the intersection between law and emerging ideas of climate justice, and how international environmental law is shaped by and in turn reshapes (or fixates, or interrogates) our understandings of the North-South divide'. In relation to the former, I posit that there appears to be a profound disconnect between the law and the politics of climate change, one that reflects a broader disconnect between those who view the challenge posed by climate change through an ethical lens, and those who see it in pragmatic terms. In relation to the latter, I consider the various arguments as to why we need to rethink North-South relations, and explain why many of those arguments need to be critically evaluated in terms of their embedded assumptions. I conclude by arguing that climate change requires us to move beyond a 'politics of the possible' to a 'politics of the improbable'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As climate policy decisions are decisions under uncertainty, being based on a range of future climate change scenarios, it becomes a crucial question how to set up this scenario range. Failing to comply with the precautionary principle, the scenario methodology widely used in the Third Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seems to violate international environmental law, in particular a provision of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. To place climate policy advice on a sound methodological basis would imply that climate simulations which are based on complex climate models had, in stark contrast to their current hegemony, hardly an epistemic role to play in climate scenario analysis at all. Their main function might actually consist in ‘foreseeing future ozone-holes’. In order to argue for these theses, I explain first of all the plurality of climate models used in climate science by the failure to avoid the problem of underdetermination. As a consequence, climate simulation results have to be interpreted as modal sentences, stating what is possibly true of our climate system. This indicates that climate policy decisions are decisions under uncertainty. Two general methodological principles which may guide the construction of the scenario range are formulated and contrasted with each other: modal inductivism and modal falsificationism. I argue that modal inductivism, being the methodology implicitly underlying the third IPCC report, is severely flawed. Modal falsificationism, representing the sound alternative, would in turn require an overhaul of the IPCC practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An innovative Action Aid-supplied project in Nepal has seen women's empowerment make rapid progress through the use of video discussions about climate change. In this exploration of the project, we ask what we can learn from the use of such technology, and consider the implications for international development agencies and their efforts to support women's rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the significant role of U.S. cities and their inhabitants in climate change governance in the country. It evaluates how voices from cities affect the implementation of climate change regulations, including emissions reduction strategies and the goal of adaptive management. Also, it explores how climate change debate and the search for legal solutions prevent the phenomenon that might take account of global urbanization.

This review examines the literature available on the state of the environment and environmental protection in the Russian Federation. As the largest country on Earth, rich in natural resources and biodiversity, Russia's problems and policies have global consequences. Environmental quality and management are influenced by the legacy of Soviet economic planning and authoritarian governance, as well as by Russia's post-Soviet economic recession and current strategies of economic development. Russia achieved a reduction in some pollutants owing to the collapse of industrial production in the 1990s, but many environmental indicators suggest growing degradation. Russia has signed on to a number of international environmental agreements, but its record on implementation is mixed, and it discourages environmental activism. Scholarship on the Russian environment is a limited, but growing, field, constrained by challenges of data availability, yet it offers great potential for testing scientific and social scientific hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern Australia's globally significant savannas and rivers face major threats, from cattle to weeds to land clearing to climate change. In the face of imperatives and pressures such as reducing carbon emissions, nature conservation, alleviating Indigenous disadvantage, the resources boom and global food security, how should development be managed to protect its globally significant ecosystems? Nine planks in a ‘Sustainable Northern Australia’ agenda are proposed: (i) enhance investment in mitigating pervasive landscape threats; (ii) strengthen support for Indigenous Caring for Country activities and incorporation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge into land management; (iii) align and strengthen invasive species control and management; (iv) facilitate new economic development pathways focused on sustainability; (v) build climate resilience by maintaining and enhancing landscape-scale connectivity; (vi) protect free-flowing rivers from dams and major water resource development; (vii) establish and effectively manage a large interconnected network of protected areas; (viii) develop cooperative governance arrangements; and (ix) enhance knowledge generation and research and monitoring capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the mandate for federal corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for light trucks in the U.S. The Ninth Circuit reviewed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Final Rule from the lawsuit, Center for Biological Diversity v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Petitioners challenged the standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The court found a number of problems with the standards as adopted and held that NHTSA should have included the impacts of climate change in its analysis.

The article focuses on the International Conventions, Treaties, and Protocols (ICTPs) and the implementation of its policies in Bangladesh. An overview of Bangladesh is presented and its environment related issues are discussed, which include air pollution, temperature rise, and local climatic changes. It presents an historical overview of ICTPs and mentions about the environmental policies and international conventions adopted by Asian countries to fight increasing pollution. It mentions several ICTPs undertaken by Bangladesh, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and states that the Bangladesh government has started activities to conserve wildlife and natural resources.

Despite widespread agreement that we have moral responsibilities to future generations, many are reluctant to frame the issues in terms of justice and rights. There are indeed philosophical challenges here, particularly concerning non-overlapping generations. They can, however, be met. For example, talk of justice and rights for future generations in connection with climate change is both appropriate and important, although it requires revising some common theoretical assumptions about the nature of justice and rights. We can, in fact, be bound by the rights of future people, despite the "non-identity problem," and the force of these rights cannot be diluted by "discounting" future costs. Moreover, a rights-based approach provides an effective answer to political arguments against taking mandatory measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions when these are unpopular with a democratic populace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three Kyoto flexible mechanisms-emissions trading, the clean development mechanism (CDM), and Joint Implementation (JI)-have always been controversial. Proponents saw the mechanisms as clever tools to ensure environmental outcomes were achieved at least cost. Reducing the costs of compliance, they argued, would make righter environmental targets possible, and certainly more politically feasible. Detractors have argued that the flexible mechanisms commoditize Earth's atmosphere in a manner that will allow dubious projects and the exchange of ‘hot air’ to substitute for serious engagement on climate change. This chapter reviews the Kyoto flexible mechanisms, which will become fully operative during the period 2008 to 2012. The review assesses their progress and success to date, examines the problems that have emerged, and considers suggestions for future developments in climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the way in which climate change's complexity calls forth dialogue on various cross-cultural dimensions which resonate with its multi-dimensional reality. While the IPCC science and the Kyoto Protocol approach this inclusiveness, they ultimately limit the range of voices heard due to the continuation of cultural assumptions that are intertwined with many environmental issues. Following the Earth Charter as an alternative model of cross-cultural dialogue that can inform a methodological approach of climate change, this analysis suggests that a more inclusive sharing can offer a way of attending to limiting assumptions as a means to creating viable regional and global responses. This climatic research etiquette is clarified through focusing upon the continued dominance of economic scarcity and its religious precursor, original sin, in contemporary environmental thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay portrays the urgency of global warming and discusses the role of environmental law in bringing about this crisis. It explains why our regulatory system ignored this problem for too long and offers a property-based perspective to frame government's responsibility in confronting climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change presents a choice for public policy: mitigate our contribution to it or attempt to adapt to a changing world. In its most radical form, adaptation accepts as a given fundamental changes to our environment caused by a warming climate and consequently demands similarly fundamental adaptations in our ways of life. Those adaptations could entail widespread and severe environmental impacts, complementing and enhancing the primary environmental consequences of climate change. While environmental law has, if haltingly, moderated our environmental impacts in the recent past, this Article suggests that we should not assume that its successes will be repeated in a warmer world Climate change threatens to exacerbate some of the problems of capacity that have limited environmental law. particularly the inability to plan comprehensively to minimize environmental effects. Climate change may also undermine the public support that has been integral to the creation and sustenance of environmental law by reorienting human relationships with the natural world. The environmental changes caused by a warming climate may convert "the environment" from an endowment to be protected to a hostile and unpredictable force to be controlled and from which we demand protection. Although pessimistic about the prospects for environmental protection in a world of unchecked climate change, the Article concludes with some optimism about our ability to avoid the worst of adaptation's consequences through a policy of climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the apportionment problems in terms of climate change. The apportionment problems of climate change depend on the shape of the damage function, which are yet unknown. The key factors to be considered in determining the apportionment problems of climate change include the tentative impact of greenhouse gas on emitters, the basis of currently or cumulative emissions, and the future impacts of current emissions. The principles for apportioning costs among emitters were also identified, including cost apportionments and the risks due to future insolvencies.

The author discusses scientific evidence regarding the earth's climactic changes. He reports most scientists agree that earth's temperature has risen over the past century and that carbon dioxide is one of the primary greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. The human species has reshaped Earth's landscapes on an ever-larger and lasting scale. The world's leading scientists tell us that a gradual warming of our climate is under way and will continue. This long-term warming trend poses serious risk to the world's economy and to the environment.

The article focuses on programs that have been launched by state and local governments in the U.S. to control climatic changes by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases from vehicles and power plants. The state governments have taken measures in response to climate changes by developing appropriate environmental laws. It seeks international cooperation for the solution of climate change. Energy reliability, protection of local industries, and innovative technology development are some benefits the state government can avail by regulating climate change.

The article examines the scientific basis of global climate change and the implications of the reticence of the U.S. government to deal with its consequences through mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. It explores why some scientists and world leaders believe global climate change is the most urgent threat that faces humanity. It also discusses the purpose and provisions of the country's National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which provides the statutory basis for some court cases dealing with climate change.

This Article discusses the ideal design features of a domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading program that are critical to the cost-effective implementation of future U.S. climate change policy. The discussion of a properly designed domestic GHG trading program is coupled with an analysis of both the European Union's Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions Trading Directive and the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003, proposed by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman. The Article begins with the argument that climate change policy does not necessarily entail huge compliance costs. Rather, implementation of well-designed domestic climate change policy will have the effect of aligning energy development and environmental protection goals while minimizing its short-term economic impacts. By encouraging reduced fossil fuel usage, climate change policy has the potential to integrate sustainability concerns into all levels of economic decision making, thereby producing ancillary societal benefits such as improvements in existing air quality and public health. In light of the large number of pollution sources and the relative ease in measuring CO2 emissions, this Article argues that emissions trading or a carbon tax system should be an essential part of any successful climate stabilization strategy. However, it is unlikely that a carbon tax will be politically acceptable in the United States despite the tax's theoretical appeal. Based on prior experiments with emissions trading programs in the United States, the Article discusses the ideal design features of domestic GHG emissions trading. These features include early reduction credits, banking and borrowing, opt-in, offset trading, international emissions trading, and effective monitoring and verification. During the course of discussion, the Article examines the program elements of the European Union's CO2 Emissions Trading Directive and the Climate Stewardship Act. Lastly, this Article briefly introduces several studies that have estimated the economic effects of the Climate Stewardship Act. The Article concludes that domestic climate change policy can be implemented in a cost-effective manner and stresses the need for the United States to take domestic action on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate over climate change focuses narrowly on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. A common justification for such emissions reductions is that they will lead to a reduction in the future impacts of climate on society. But research from social scientists and others who study environment-society interactions clearly indicates that the dominant factors shaping the impacts of climate on society are societal. A greater appreciation for this body of research would allow for consideration of a broader base of policy options to respond to the challenges of climate change, as well as the composition of climate research portfolios more likely to contribute useful knowledge to decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]