Reducing Carbon Emissions Through Compensated Moratoria: Ecuador's Yasuni Initiative and Beyond
A proposed alternative for reducing GHG emissions—payiing developing countries to forego fossil fuel exploitation in tropical forests, or "compensated moratoria"—could serve an important role in future climate change regulation. Ecuador's proposal to impose a moratorium on oil exploitation in the Amazon rainforest—the Yasuní-ITT Initiative—illustrates how compensated moratoria could help to improve the shortcomings of prevailing policy mechanisms for mitigating GHG emissions in developing countries.
Incidental Extinction: How the Endangered Species Act's Incidental Take Permits Fail to Account for Population Loss
Section 9 of the ESA boldly declares that any harm perpetrated upon a listed species, even a single animal, is illegal. Yet, the Incidental Take Permit provision of the ESA expressly allows nonfederal landowners to harm thousands, possibly millions, of listed species every year. Despite this obvious statutory contradiction, the system makes sense—if executed correctly.