Jolene Lin

The Asia-Pacific’s role in the emerging solar geoengineering debate

Increasing interest in climate engineering in recent years has led to calls by the international research community for international research collaboration as well as global public engagement. But making such collaboration a reality is challenging. Here, we report the summary of a 2016 workshop on the significance and challenges of international collaboration on climate engineering research with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Because of the region’s interest in benefits and risks of climate engineering, there is a potential synergy between impact research on anthropogenic global warming and that on solar radiation management. Local researchers in the region can help make progress toward better understanding of impacts of solar radiation management. These activities can be guided by an ad hoc Asia-Pacific working group on climate engineering, a voluntary expert network. The working group can foster regional conversations in a sustained manner while contributing to capacity building. An important theme in the regional conversation is to develop effective practices of dialogues in light of local backgrounds such as cultural traditions and past experiences of large-scale technology development. Our recommendation merely portrays one of several possible ways forward, and it is our hope to stimulate the debate in the region.

The First Successful Climate Negligence Case: A Comment on Urgenda Foundation v. The State of the Netherlands (Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment)

On 24 June 2015, the Hague District Court issued a long-awaited judgment in the case of Urgenda Foundation v. The State of the Netherlands . The decision has been heralded as a historical landmark ruling. It marks the first time that a court has ordered a government to curb a state’s greenhouse gas emissions. It is also the first case in which the tort of negligence has been successfully used to hold a state liable for failing to adequately mitigate climate change. This case commentary analyses key aspects of the decision and makes some observations about its significance for climate law and policy.

Climate Governance in China: Using the 'Iron Hand'

This chapter analyses the Chinese climate governance landscape that has emerged over the past decade, and focuses on the role of local governments. The central argument is that climate governance in China is predominantly top-down and highly bureaucratic in nature. Local initiatives to address climate change have tended to be responses to policy directions and performance targets imposed from the central government in Beijing. However, there is an interesting transnational dynamic to local climate governance in China as many local governments have embraced the financial opportunities afforded by the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Alongside environmental aid projects funded by multilateral agencies and private foundations, there is considerable climate mitigation activity at the local level because of the CDM.

Transnational Environmental Law on the Threshold of the Trump Era

Since its inception Transnational Environmental Law (TEL) has focused on the complex web of interactions across national borders in addressing environmental issues, including but going beyond the traditional domain of international environmental law. The content of TEL has been diverse but has encompassed several pervasive themes: mutual influence between legal systems, multilevel integration, regime fragmentation and overlap, and the erosion of traditional hierarchies, as governance frameworks evolve against a backdrop of uncertainty, contestation and unpredictable change. The last of these factors, unpredictable change, is vividly illustrated by the historical context in which this issue will appear, with that change taking the form of Donald J. Trump’s ascension to the United States (US) presidency. Although the final shape of Trump’s policy agenda is not yet clear at the time of this writing, all indications suggest a sharply different US role in terms of international environmental law. As a candidate, Trump expressed disbelief in the reality of climate change and pledged to repudiate the Paris Agreement and to repeal the Obama Administration’s signature regulation of carbon emissions, the Clean Power Plan. Trump’s cabinet nominees have close connections with the fossil fuel industry, and nearly all have a history of denying the reality of climate change. Most strikingly, his nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also expressed doubts about the reality of climate change and is best known for suing the EPA to halt climate and air pollution regulations. Thus, although Trump has proved

Global environmental law at a crossroads

PART I: ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORKS 1. Introduction 2. Strengthening National Environmental Governance to Promote Sustainable Development. Scott Fulton and Steve Wolfson 3. The Future We Want and Constitutionally Enshrined Procedural Rights in Environmental Matters. James R. May and Erin Daly 4. The Rights of Nature in Ecuador: An Opportunity to Reflect on Society, Law and Environment. Jordi Jaria i Manzano 5. Environmental NGOs and Sustainable Development in China. Yuhong Zhao PART II: ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES - A WORLD TOUR 6. The Middle East: Climate Change, Water Insecurity and Hydrodiplomacy. Itzchak Kornfeld 7. Land Grabbing and Food Security in Ethiopia: The Dilemmas of Sustainable Development. Mekete Bekele Tekle 8. Protecting Gifts from the Sea: Ocean Governance for Living Marine Resources after Rio +20. Anastasia Telesetsky 9. Lost in Translation: Threatened Species Law in Australia. Jacqueline Williams, Amanda Kennedy, and Donna Craig 10. Environmental Justice in Nigerias Oil Industry: Recognizing and Embracing Contemporary Legal Developments. Rhuks Ako 11. The Clean Development Mechanism and its Sustainable Development Premise: the Inadequacy of the Kyoto Protocol to Guarantee Climate Justice. Camille Parrod PART III: GOVERNANCE MODELS - LOOKING TO THE FUTURE 12. The Unbearable Tiredness of Sustainable Development. Nicola Lugaresi 13. Cap and Trade versus Carbon Tax to Mitigate Climate Change: One-Size-Fits-All Solution in China? Ping Chen and Frank Maes 14. Environmental Law, Policy, and Governance: Environmental Management Systems for Cities. Lye Lin-Heng 15. Sustainable Management, a Sustainable Ethic? Trevor Daya-Winterbottom 16. Payment of Ecosystem Services in Brazil: Between Efficiency and Equity. Ana Maria de Oliveira Nusdeo and Ana Luiza Garcia Campos 17. European Union Climate Law & Practice at the End of the Kyoto Era: Unilateralism, Extraterritoriality and the Future of Global Climate Change Governance. Lorenzo Schiano di Pepe 18. Legal Challenges in the Creation of a World Environmental Organisation Nils Goetey

By All Available Means: New Takes on Established Principles, Actions and Institutions to Address Today’s Environmental Challenges

With international negotiations under way to promulgate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a post-2020 climate change agreement anticipated by the end of this year, 2015 promises to be a milestone for environmental governance. The process to develop the SDGs, which will build upon the Millennium Development Goals and converge with the broader United Nations (UN) post-2015 development agenda, was launched at the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), better known as Rio+20. Thus far, the process has been an exemplary model of public participation. The UN has conducted the largest consultation programme in its history and has used a range of mechanisms, including traditional working groups, national consultations, and an online global survey to ascertain what the SDGs should include. The SDGs comprise 17 goals, within which are a proposed 169 targets. They are expected to be finalized and adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015. At the same time, the negotiations for the 21 session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to be held in Paris in December 2015, have been proceeding apace. At the sixth Petersberg Climate Dialogue in May 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized that climate finance will be a decisive factor in whether the Paris COP-21 is a success or a failure. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the Green Climate Fund became operational on 21May 2015; it can now begin to select and fund projects, which, it is hoped, will bolster the confidence and trust of developing countries ahead of

Governing Climate Change: Global Cities and Transnational Lawmaking

While there is a large body of literature on “cities and climate change governance” that continues to grow rapidly, few scholars have considered the legal effect and normative relevance of cities’ governance activities. This thesis aims to fill this gap in the literature by examining the emergence of cities as actors that are producing and implementing norms, practices and voluntary standards that transcend state boundaries to steer the behavior of cities towards reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and developing low carbon alternatives for the future. These norms, practices and voluntary standards impose limitations on how cities develop by requiring them to take climate risks into account and to consciously develop practices, policies and regulations to reduce their emissions of harmful GHGs from, for example, landfills, transportation systems and buildings. On this basis of the impact or effect that voluntary standards and practices have on cities and their authorities, it can be argued that they constitute normative products.

The Emergence of New Rights and New Modes of Adjudication in Transnational Environmental Law

The year 2015 ended on a euphoric note for many in the environmental law community. The climate negotiations in Paris (France) in late November and December, proceeding in the face of tragic terrorist attacks in that city only weeks before, yielded an historic agreement that may well serve as the international baseline for decades to come. We suspect that some will regard the 21 session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a belated victory for old-style international law. Yet the final agreement is far from old-style, for the parties relinquished the insistence, so manifestly present at COP-20 in Copenhagen (Denmark), on binding emissions reduction targets and rigorous enforcement mechanisms. What COP-21 has produced instead is scaffolding upon which states must supply nationally determined contributions (NDCs), established in a transparent, multilevel fashion. The Paris Agreement thus represents a different and more optimistic way forward, and one that relies deeply on the augmentation of alternative approaches to environmental governance. Discussions concerning precisely these alternative approaches have filled the pages of this journal during its formative years. On that note, we gratefully pause to recognize that 2016 is TEL’s fifth anniversary year. Since its launch TEL has published rigorous and challenging pieces on topics ranging from climate change adaptation law and regulatory convergence in nanotechnology governance to the legality of a meat carbon tax. That TEL fills an important niche in environmental

A Celebration of the Fifth Anniversary of Transnational Environmental Law

It gives us tremendous pleasure to introduce the Fifth Anniversary Issue of Transnational Environmental Law (TEL). To mark the occasion, last year the TEL Editorial Board launched a competition for innovative scholarship on the theme of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDRs) in the era of transnational law. It was hotly contested: over 25 abstracts were submitted which, after careful selection and full peer review, resulted in the eight top quality articles that make up this very special issue. Each of the eight anniversary issue articles makes a strong contribution to the burgeoning field of transnational environmental law. A competition, however, obviously needs a winner. We are delighted to announce that the Transnational Environmental Law Fifth Anniversary Prize winners are Sébastien Jodoin and Sarah Mason-Case with their article ‘What Difference Does CBDR Make? A Socio-Legal Analysis of the Role of Differentiation in the Transnational Legal Process for REDD+’. We extend them our warmest congratulations. As winners of the competition, Dr Jodoin and Ms Mason-Case have been invited to deliver the TEL Fifth Anniversary Public Lecture, which will take place in Cambridge (United Kingdom) in February 2017. We refer our readers to the TEL website at http://journals.cambridge.org/jid_TEL for further details of the time and venue. Reviewing and choosing between eight diverse and compelling scholarly contributions is no easy task. The TEL Editorial Board is therefore extremely grateful to Professor Jacqueline Peel for her willingness to adjudicate the competition. As one of the world’s leading scholars in international and transnational environmental law, and an experienced TEL author herself, we could not have wished for a scholar more suited to the task. Her decision was reached based on an assessment of anonymized versions of the articles. Immediately following this brief Editorial is a Foreword by Professor Peel, in which she frames the CBDR theme in the rapidly evolving context of transnational climate change law, discusses the contribution of each anniversary article to the theme, and conveys the reasons for

Geoengineering: an ASEAN position

Session 4: Key Future Impacts and Vulnerabilities (See: 4th Assessment Report, IPCC Workshop II, Ch10 Asia: Impacts, Adaptation, Vulnerability, 2007, paras 10.4; 10.1.2; 10.4.4)