I. Introduction
Emissions trading is increasingly recognized as a cost-effective policy instrument to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in our atmosphere. The concept, which until recently was treated with suspicion by many countries, has seen in the last 12 months unprecedented proliferation and success.
Editor's Summary: Last year, Tony Blair and Arnold Schwarzenegger signaled their commitment to join the United Kingdom and California in efforts to combat climate change. In this Article, Hannah Chang examines whether California can legitimately join its carbon market to the European Union's emissions trading scheme. She sets forth the foreign affairs federalism considerations that California must address and points to elements of its transnational action that ought to persuade a court to uphold its state legislation in the face of a foreign affairs preemption challenge.
Editors' Summary: This Article explores the legal and practical issues that arise where globalization and federalism intersect. A number of states and provinces in the western part of North America have joined together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade program. The agreement passes scrutiny under the U.S. Constitution because it is essentially a voluntary measure intended to strengthen traditional forms of domestic environmental regulation.
Editors' Summary: What leads to effective resolution of environmental policy disputes? When is conversation about a topic constructive, and when is it pointless? Can people with diametrically opposed interests dialogue constructively in today's highly partisan environmental policy arena? At the November 2007 ALI-ABA course, "Clean Air: Law, Policy, and Practice," the key players in several recent and highly controversial air policy issues discussed these questions and identified the elements necessary to help encourage dialogue on pressing environmental policies.
Editor's Summary: During the past decade, public perception of global climate change has transformed from a gloom and doom scenario not to be taken seriously to a nearly universally recognized peril to the planet. Native Americans, especially those in the Arctic region, experience changes in climate with greater immediacy than the general population, and this disproportionate result is expected to become more severe as the effects of climate change escalate.
Editors' Summary
There was a palpable sense of expectation around the world that the December 2009 Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Copenhagen, Denmark, would result in a binding agreement among governments to substantially reduce pollution-causing climate change.
As lawmakers debate the best way to confront the issue of global warming, it is becoming clearer that the issue may be one of this generation's most important policy decisions. Despite increasing public awareness of the perceived problem, the federal government successfully circumvented the issue for most of this decade, thereby creating a regulatory void that environmentalists and scientists have sought to address.