Climate Change Law and Policy

Catalog description

Climate change is one of the most significant challenges confronting the world’s legal, political, and economic systems. Students will learn about the science of climate change, climate change laws and policies at the international, national, and state levels, and climate change litigation. Students will also have the opportunity to develop their legal writing skills through the completion of a research paper and through providing feedback on fellow students’ papers. After providing some background on the science and economics of climate change, the course will first explore the history of the UNFCCC process, including the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. We will also consider potential successor regimes to the current “pledge-and-review” structure. The course will then cover U.S. federal law and policy, including regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as proposed policy options that might be 15 featured in future legislation. The course will then consider state and local efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate impacts and how they fit into the global picture. Finally, we will address the possibility of geoengineering.