As if legal efforts to address climate change weren’t complicated enough, a recently released study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics warns that U.S. Congressional efforts to reduce climate change could run afoul of international trade rules under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), leading to years of legal disputes in the World Trade Organization.
Continue Reading...Effects to plant and wildlife species and habitat attributed to global climate change have implications for how the federal government administers and complies with the Endangered Species Act. Two recent administrative actions taken by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service present the latest examples of how those agencies grapple with how, or whether, to address anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change-related effects under the ESA.
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In a budget President Obama described as “a blueprint for our future,” the Administration proposed a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions approximately 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and approximately 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. These proposals were detailed in the fiscal year 2010 budget outline delivered on February 26, 2008. Cap-and-trade programs have been used in the U.S. to reduce air pollutants like sulfur and nitrogen oxides that cause acid rain and smog, and Europe has a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Under such programs, industries must meet a government-specified cap on total emissions, but individual facilities could trade credits in a new market. For example, a plant that emits less than its allotment can sell credits to others that exceed their allowances.
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