In a published opinion filed June 23, 2023, the Fourth District Court of Appeal (Div. 1) affirmed a judgment granting a writ of mandate directing the City of San Diego (City) to set aside its approvals of an ordinance submitting to the voters a ballot measure that would exclude the Midway-Pacific Highway Community Plan Area from the City’s 30-foot height limit on construction of buildings in the Coastal Zone.  The Court held the City could not rely on a 2018 program EIR (PEIR) certified for an update of the area’s community plan as CEQA compliance because the PEIR did not contemplate or analyze the environmental impacts of removing the height limit and substantial evidence supported a fair argument that its removal may have significant unexamined impacts on views.  Save Our Access v. City of San Diego (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 819.

Greenwashing_-_Main

The risk of an accusation of “greenwashing” is now an important concern for many companies. Greenwashing is an ill-defined concept but, nevertheless, is increasingly a source of litigation and regulatory scrutiny – with more of both expected. It carries with it reputational, regulatory and litigation risks for which companies should be prepared. Whilst the risks are always context specific – varying by jurisdiction, industry…

Renewable fuels of non-biological origin would play an expanded role in satisfying EU decarbonisation targets.

By Paul A. Davies, JP Sweny, Michael D. Green, James Bee, and Alexander Leighton

The European Council has formally endorsed the proposed amendments to Directive (EU) 2018/2001 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (the Renewable Energy Directive), as provisionally agreed in principle between the European Council and European Parliament during the trilogue process.

The amendments, commonly referred to as RED III, would mandate that the share of renewable energy in the EU’s overall energy consumption must rise to a minimum of 42.5% by 2030, with a further non-binding EU-wide goal to achieve 45% by this date, in order to meet the EU’s legally binding target of a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as compared to 1990 levels. RED III therefore proposes a more ambitious mandatory target than the 32% set under the existing text of the Renewable Energy Directive.

Governance

Climate-related litigation is increasingly being used as a tool to hold private and public sector actors to account over their contributions to climate change. According to the Grantham Institute’s 2023 Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation Policy Report (the “Report“) – which was published on 29 June 2023 – around two-thirds of climate-related cases have been filed since 2015: between 1986 and 2014, approximately 800 cases were filed, but between 2015 and May 2023, approximately 1,557 cases were filed.

Although the majority of the climate-related cases identified in the Report were brought against regional and national governments, the Report identified an increase in the number of climate-related cases brought against private sector actors. Of the 190 climate-related cases identified in the Report as being filed between June 2022 and May 2023, around 46% were filed against an increasingly diverse pool of private sector actors. This reflects the growing recognition by prospective litigants of litigation as an effective means of influencing the actions private sector actors are taking to address climate change. We discuss the trends identified in the Report in this blog post.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, California lost a wonderful man, a talented planner, and an amazing mentor who changed the landscape of California. Larry Mintier avidly sought economic and environmental balance and succeeded in promoting both in his planning efforts across California, north to south and east to west. He was the primary author…

Would you rather pay your bills tomorrow or next year?  What about your paycheck?  Intuitively, most people want delayed costs and immediate benefits, and so want checks now and liability later.  This poses a challenge for policymakers when weighing the costs and benefits of a new policy: is reasonable to pay 90 cents today for a dollar tomorrow—and what if tomorrow’s dollar is a benefit other than money?  When federal agencies undergo notice-and-comment rulemaking, they have to make these calculations.  Immediate costs and benefits must be considered, while future factors are discounted to their present value to account for the intervening time.  Selecting the discount rate can have material implications for any economic analysis, and especially for environmental rules which tend to involve front-loaded compliance costs and primarily future benefits.