Climate LawPub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/18786561-11020002
C. Schwarte
{"title":"EU Climate Policy under the Paris Agreement","authors":"C. Schwarte","doi":"10.1163/18786561-11020002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-11020002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The European Union has long sought to play a leadership role in the international response to climate change. As part of the “European Green Deal”, it announced new wide-ranging plans to step up its ambition, and in December 2020 updated its mitigation target under the Paris Agreement to an at-least 55 per cent reduction by 2030 compared to the 1990 level. In this article, I provide a legal analysis of the new EU climate change policy as outlined in the European Commission’s Stepping Up Europe’s 2030 Climate Ambition (September 2020) in light of the Paris Agreement itself and other norms of international environmental law. I find that the European Union provides a degree of leadership in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, but that there are also areas of concern, in particular the missing notification of member states’ individual emission levels as part of a joint ndc under Article 4 of the Paris Agreement.","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48112462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2021-04-01DOI: 10.1163/18786561-11010001
K. Bouwer
{"title":"Possibilities for Justice and Equity in Human Rights and Climate Law: Benefit-Sharing in Climate Finance","authors":"K. Bouwer","doi":"10.1163/18786561-11010001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-11010001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines benefit-sharing in the context of climate finance. Both benefit-sharing and climate finance are complex, heterogeneous, and fast-developing fields, where the interaction of international human rights law and climate law can create both clarity and confusion. Benefit-sharing as a means for greater equity and fairness is increasingly used or included in materials on climate finance, despite lacking clear conceptualization in this context. The article does three things. First, it establishes benefit-sharing as an emerging obligation in human rights law and environmental law. Second, it explores how benefit-sharing appears in the climate regime, with a view to determining whether benefit-sharing has a distinct meaning in this context – and, if so, what it is. The article argues that both the meaning and the practice of benefit-sharing in climate finance are incoherent. Third, the article interrogates the possibilities and problems of adopting universalized norms of benefit-sharing in this context, and suggests some places where norms might be beneficial.","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44359204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2021-04-01DOI: 10.1163/18786561-11010002
Emilie Yliheljo
{"title":"The Variable Nature of Ownership of Emission Units in the Intersection of Climate Law, Property Law, and the Regulation of Financial Markets","authors":"Emilie Yliheljo","doi":"10.1163/18786561-11010002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-11010002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article analyses the impact of the origins of emission units in transnational climate policy on market participants in the EU ets and the extension of financial-market regulation to the European carbon market. To assess the consequences of the public-private nature of emission units, a broad view of ownership is taken. Ownership is understood as the legal position of the holder of emission units, being an aggregate of elements of private law but also climate law and financial-market regulation. As a consequence, a picture emerges of a legal position variable in the personal, temporal, and spatial dimensions, following policy-design choices and the evolution of regulation of carbon markets. The ownership of emission units reflects the ongoing balancing of the different public-policy goals of the EU ets and differs from economic theories laying the foundations of emission trading. Due to the necessity for a proactive management of the scheme, regulatory intervention and risk have become inherent features of the ownership of the units, and the impact of changes will vary across different market participants.","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45452650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2021-04-01DOI: 10.1163/18786561-11010003
Tomáš Bruner
{"title":"Changing Climate, Unchanged Mandate: bric Countries in the UN Security Council","authors":"Tomáš Bruner","doi":"10.1163/18786561-11010003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-11010003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The UN Security Council has turned its attention to the link between climate change and security several times. Its members and other UN member states participating in discussions have remained divided over the Council’s engagement. Among vocal opponents are the bric countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. This article examines the argumentation of these countries during seven UN Security Council meetings between 2007 and 2020. The bric countries often concede that climate change is a threat, but they strongly resist the idea that such a threat could be addressed by the Council. I use a Critical Legal Studies approach to analyse how the bric countries bolstered their key argumentation before the Council. I find that the bric countries exploited a ‘background rule’ concerning the unsc mandate and used it to reaffirm the limits on the Council’s action. They were thus able to avoid self-contradiction and strengthen their political position through a legal argument. This complemented other objections they raised against the Council’s involvement: its insufficient expertise, inefficient tools, and the inapplicability of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities to its decision-making.","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43212446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2021-04-01DOI: 10.1163/18786561-11010004
Z. Ding
{"title":"Frank Fichert, Peter Forsyth, and Hans-Martin Niemeier, eds, Aviation and Climate Change: Economic Perspectives on Greenhouse Gas Reduction Policies","authors":"Z. Ding","doi":"10.1163/18786561-11010004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-11010004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42312104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2020-11-18DOI: 10.1163/18786561-10030004
C. Alexandraki
{"title":"mrv of Emissions and Mitigation Action: the Paris Agreement and Financial Support for Transparency-Related Capacity Building in Developing Countries","authors":"C. Alexandraki","doi":"10.1163/18786561-10030004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-10030004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines the role of the Paris Agreement in enabling developed-country financial contributions aimed at building transparency-related capacity in developing countries. It first analyses the legal means and institutional arrangements utilized by the Agreement to support developing countries in building transparency-related capacity. It then argues that even though the Agreement adopts certain legal and institutional means to foster transparency-related capacity building in developing countries through financial support, it does so in a way that risks undermining the meaningful and accountable use of climate finance, while softening the bindingness of the Agreement’s provisions. The lack of accountability obligations on climate finance for developing countries, the principle of flexibility, and the challenges intrinsic to climate finance, combine to weaken the climate-finance obligation, while calling into question the effectiveness of the Agreement.","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47894735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2020-11-18DOI: 10.1163/18786561-10030002
Gareth Davies
{"title":"Climate Change and Reversed Intergenerational Equity: the Problem of Costs Now, for Benefits Later","authors":"Gareth Davies","doi":"10.1163/18786561-10030002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-10030002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Climate change is often seen as an issue of intergenerational equity—consumption now creates costs for future generations. However, radical mitigation now would reverse the problem, creating immediate costs for current generations, while the benefits would be primarily for future ones. This is a policy problem, as persuading those living now to bear the cost of changes whose benefits will mostly accrue after their deaths is politically difficult. The policy challenge is then how to temporally match costs to benefits, either by deferring mitigation costs, or by speeding up climatic benefits. Geoengineering may provide some help here, as it might enable climate change to be slowed more immediately, at a lower upfront cost, and allow a greater share of the mitigation and adaptation burden to be passed on to those in the future who will benefit most.","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18786561-10030002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43923576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2020-11-18DOI: 10.1163/18786561-10030001
Joshua D. Sarnoff
{"title":"Negative-Emission Technologies and Patent Rights after COVID-19","authors":"Joshua D. Sarnoff","doi":"10.1163/18786561-10030001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-10030001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Governmental and particularly private funding has recently and dramatically expanded for both beccs and dac technologies. This funding and the associated research, development, and deployment efforts will generate intellectual property rights, particularly patent rights in nets. As with access to medicines, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted concerns that patent rights may incentivize RD&D at the cost of affordable access to the relevant technologies. Further, access may be restricted to particular countries based on sovereignty concerns to seek preferential supply agreements through up-front funding. As a result, nations will likely turn to controversial ex-post measures, such as compulsory licensing, to assure access and to control prices of the needed technologies. The same concerns with patent rights likely will affect RD&D of nets. Although international ex-ante measures exist (such as patent pools) which would help to minimize these concerns, such measures may not induce the requisite voluntary contributions, or may fail to materialize due to political disagreements. Focusing on both US law and international developments, this article proposes various ex-ante measures that can be adopted by national governments and private funders to minimize the likely forthcoming worldwide conflicts that will arise over balancing innovation incentives for, and affordable access to, patented nets.","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41708073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2020-11-18DOI: 10.1163/18786561-10030005
Haomiao Du
{"title":"Jesse L. Reynolds, The Governance of Solar Geoengineering: Managing Climate Change in the Anthropocene","authors":"Haomiao Du","doi":"10.1163/18786561-10030005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-10030005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46377370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate LawPub Date : 2020-09-22DOI: 10.1163/18786561-10030003
D. Shapovalova
{"title":"Arctic Petroleum and the 2°C Goal: a Case for Accountability for Fossil-Fuel Supply","authors":"D. Shapovalova","doi":"10.1163/18786561-10030003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-10030003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The Arctic is both a place disproportionately affected by climate change and a place that has been, and continues to be, subject to large-scale oil-and-gas development. Production and subsequent combustion of these resources would compromise the treaty-established target of keeping global warming ‘well below’ 2°C. The global regulatory efforts on climate change are centred on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuel consumption, almost ignoring the supply side. In the absence of universal and strict emission-reduction targets, petroleum exports and carbon leakage jeopardize the effectiveness of the climate change regime. Through the examination of treaties and national practice, this paper argues for the establishment of accountability for the production of Arctic petroleum in light of climate change.","PeriodicalId":38485,"journal":{"name":"Climate Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48597715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}