U.S. Climate Change Litigation In The Age Of Trump: Year One

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law - Dena Adler

Donald Trump claims to have delivered on deregulation in his first year as President.
While independent reporting questions the veracity of his assertions, climate change is one arena where the Trump Administration’s regulatory rollbacks have been both visible and real.
The Administration has delayed and initiated the reversal of rules that:

• reduce greenhouse gas emissions from stationary and mobile sources;
• sought to expedite fossil fuel development, including in previously protected areas;
• delayed or reversed energy efficiency standards;
• undermined consideration of climate change in environmental review, and
• hindered adaptation to the impacts of climate change.

In total, the Sabin Center’s U.S. Climate Deregulation Tracker identifies a total of 64 actions taken by the executive branch in 2017 to deregulate climate change.
These actions correspond to at least two dozen climate-related protections.
However, the Trump Administration’s efforts have met with constant resistance, with those committed to climate protections bringing legal challenges to many, if not most, of the rollbacks.
U.S. Climate Change Litigation in the Age of Trump, a new working paper from Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, seeks to give shape to the current moment in climate change litigation.
It categorizes and reviews dozens of climate change cases filed during 2017 to understand how litigation countered—and at times courted—the influx of climate change deregulation during the first year of the Trump Administration.
The analysis focuses specifically on 82 “climate change cases,” defined as cases that raise climate change as an issue of fact or law.
To explain the effects of climate change litigation in 2017, this paper sorted cases into five categories:

1. Defending Obama Administration Climate Change Policies & Decisions;
2. Demanding Transparency & Scientific Integrity from the Trump Administration;
3. Integrating Consideration of Climate Change into Environmental Review & Permitting;
4. Advancing or Enforcing Additional Climate Protections through the Courts; and
5. Deregulating Climate Change, Undermining Climate Protections, or Targeting Climate Protection Supporters.

The working paper sorts 2017’s climate change cases into five categories. LARGE IMAGE

The first four categories are “pro” climate protection cases, where, if their plaintiffs or petitioners are successful, they will uphold or advance climate change protections.
The fifth category contains “con” cases—if their filing party or parties are successful, these cases will undermine climate protection or support climate policy deregulation.
Sixty of the reviewed cases were pro climate protection and twenty-two were con.
The pro cases outweigh the con cases roughly 3:1 (73 percent to 27 percent).
To understand how federal climate change litigation is shaping national climate policy in the absence of federal leadership, U.S. Climate Change Litigation in the Age of Trump looks across and within these litigation categories to further examine:

1. who are the litigants; 
2. what laws are they utilizing; and 
3. how far have these cases progressed in year one of the Trump Administration.

See the Executive Summary and Full Report for the results.

Links

• Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
• U.S. Climate Change Litigation In The Age Of Trump: Year One (pdf)
• Climate Deregulation Tracker
• NYC is Suing Five Major Oil Companies Over Climate Change

Trump’s Top Spy Just Contradicted The White House’s Line On Climate Change

Vox - Umair Irfan

The director of national intelligence warned Congress that climate change could cause “upheaval” this year.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 13 Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 

The top US intelligence official warned Congress this week about the threat of “abrupt” climate change, contradicting the Trump administration’s efforts to drive climate out of national security discussions.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, whose office oversees 17 intelligence agencies including the CIA and the NSA, submitted written testimony this week to the Senate Intelligence Committee. In addition to warnings about Russian interference in the upcoming midterm election and the militarization of space, he identified climate change as a significant concern.
“The impacts of the long-term trends toward a warming climate, more air pollution, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity are likely to fuel economic and social discontent — and possibly upheaval — through 2018,” Coats wrote.
He noted that the past 115 years were the warmest in modern civilization and that the past few years were the warmest on record. And there’s a possibility of a sudden shift in the global climate once it reaches a tipping point, he said.
Coats also observed that worsening air pollution is causing unrest in countries like India, water scarcity is driving tensions between nations, and ecosystems threatened by rising temperatures could jeopardize “critical human systems.”
This assessment follows testimony from Defense Secretary James Mattis, who earlier this month told lawmakers that climate change is an integral part of military planning.
“This is a normal part of what the military does, and under any strategy, it is part and parcel,” he told the House Armed Services Committee.
Over at the White House, well, it’s a different story. Trump himself mocked global warming on Twitter in December. And his administration officials regularly dismiss well-established climate science and are removing climate change from policy discussions, particularly around national security.
In an interview on February 6 with a Las Vegas television station, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said that rising global temperatures are “not necessarily a bad thing” and that “humans have flourished’’ as the planet has warmed.
And the White House completely omitted climate change as a security concern from the National Security Strategy report released last December, bringing it up only to note that climate change policies in other countries could hurt the fossil fuel industry.
However, Coats’s remarks show that the practical realities of climate change are impossible to ignore for those who have to contend with its real-world consequences. And as temperatures rise, Trump, his Cabinet, and the entire national security apparatus will increasingly have to contend with rising seas, more intense weather, and the devastation that ensues.

Links

• Worldwide Threat Assessment of The US Intelligence Community (pdf)
• Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
• Climate Change Is Happening in the U.S. Now, Federal Report Says — in Charts
• US Intelligence Agencies Break With Trump Over Climate Threats
• US intelligence agencies warn of global instability related to climate change

Scientists Just Issued a Grim New Warning on Climate Change: 'We Are Not Prepared'

Time - Justin Worland


The Legal Reasons Why President Trump Won't Take A Stand On Climate Change

New research shows that countries around the world are falling short of greenhouse gas goals in the Paris climate deal, and the consequences will likely be unprecedented extreme weather.
Published in the journal Science Advances this week, the study found that the likelihood of extreme heat, dryness and precipitation will increase across as much of 90% of North America, Europe and East Asia if countries do not accelerate their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“We are not prepared for today’s climate, let alone for another degree of global warming,” says study author Noah Diffenbaugh, a Stanford University professor of earth system science.
The 2015 Paris Agreement, which President Donald Trump has promised to exit when the U.S. is eligible to do so, aims to keep temperature rise below 3.6°Fahrenheit by 2100 with an ideal target of 2.7° Fahrenheit. Though the differences seem minor, the study shows the difference between those targets would lead to dramatic increases in the likelihood of record warm or wet days, according to the study.
Under the agreement, countries from across the globe offered their own individually determined pledges to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but those collective commitments still allow temperatures to rise 5.8° Fahrenheit, according to data from the United Nations Environment Program. Some countries do not seem eager to meet their commitments at all.
Scientists say the clock is ticking if countries aim to actually reduce emissions in a way that’s consistent with the Paris Agreement’s targets. In some cases, greenhouse gases emitted today will stay in the atmosphere decades.

Links

• Unprecedented climate events: Historical changes, aspirational targets, and national commitments
• Risk of extreme weather events higher if Paris Agreement goals aren't met
• Deadly heat waves projected in the densely populated agricultural regions of South Asia
• Even with pledges to fight global warming, you'd better brace yourself for more extreme weather
• Risk of extreme weather events higher if Paris Agreement goals aren't met
• Why One Degree Really Matters in the Paris Agreement Temperature Goal
• World Needs to Prepare for Extreme Weather Even if Paris Goals Are Met