This blog was first published by Law.com
As usual, things ran over, but eventually the parties meeting under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and, separately but together (kind of), under the Paris Agreement, adopted two “Decisions” by consensus, being CP.26 and CMA.3 respectively.
Continue reading at Law.com.
By A. Scott Hecker, Brent I. Clark, Benjamin D. Briggs, James L. Curtis, Adam R. Young, Ilana Morady, Patrick D. Joyce, and Craig B. Simonsen
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) lottery selected the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to hear
In McCann v. City of San Diego (2021) 70 Cal.App.5th 51, the Fourth District Court of Appeal found that the Plaintiff, Margaret McCann (McCann), was barred from bringing a judicial action challenging the City’s approval of projects for undergrounding utility lines because she failed to exhaust the City of San Diego’s (City’s) administrative appeal process. With regard to a second set of undergrounding projects also challenged by McCann, the Court ruled that the City’s mitigated negative declaration (MND) failed to adequately examine whether the projects were consistent with the City’s Climate Action Plan (CAP). However, it ruled in favor of the City on the Plaintiff’s allegation regarding aesthetic impacts, concluding that generalized claims and reliance on the comments of a single speaker did not support a fair argument and, further, case law suggests that small utility boxes do not require preparation of an environmental impact report (EIR).
This is the second post in our series on the recently enacted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, covering how the Act invests in strengthening our electric grid, which could better prepare us for the shift from fossil fuel generated electricity to renewable power.
To decarbonize our energy system, electrify transportation and buildings, and drastically
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law today not only makes critical investments in our core infrastructure, it creates several new programs to support the increasing electrification of the transportation sector.
Especially notable in the $1.2 trillion package are the investments in electric vehicle charging stations, clean-powered buses, and electric-powered ferries. These investments
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) final National Recycling Strategy, released yesterday, includes prominent mention of “extended producer responsibility” (EPR) as a prime example of programs that advance the “circular economy” by increasing “materials recovery at the state and local levels.” The inclusion is notable in that EPR was not mentioned in earlier drafts
On November 15th, 2021, President Biden signed the highly anticipated $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. Among other infrastructure-related incentives, the bill includes billions in funding to help fight climate change and support clean energy technologies. Specifically, the bill allocates approximately (1) $65 billion for power infrastructure, of which nearly $29 billion is devoted to bolstering the electric grid (including transmission), (2) $47.2 billion to address critical cyber and climate resilience and (3) $7.5 billion to build out a national network of electric charging infrastructure.[1] These incentives are critical for facilitating broader proliferation of renewable energy projects and the transmission assets needed to carry their output to load centers, which is expected to help the nation achieve stated climate change goals.
Prior to COP26, we published an article that identified several issues being discussed at COP26 that could be of critical importance to business.
During COP26, we followed the developments of these issues in a special Viewpoints series.
And now that COP26 is concluded, people are asking: What impact did it have? Where does the world stand on these issues?
You probably read the mixed reviews with regard to success of this COP. The New York Times reported Nov. 13 within minutes of the banging of the final gavel: “Global negotiators in Glasgow agreed to do more to fight climate change and aid vulnerable nations, but left crucial questions unresolved.”
What was resolved? For those of us who have studied agreements coming out of the COPs, this agreement, called the Glasgow Climate Pact is notably weak. The parties could only agree to language that “notes” certain issues or “urges” certain actions, as opposed to strong language that “decides” any points or “commits” parties to any defined metric.
The Pact does “reaffirm” the Paris Agreement temperature goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 above pre-industrial levels but that will require all nations to slash their carbon dioxide emissions by nearly half this coming decade to hold warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
However, the Pact merely “emphasizes” the urgent need for parties (as opposed to “the parties agree to…”) to increase their efforts collectively to reduce emissions through accelerated action and implementation of domestic mitigation measures in accordance with Article 4, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement and merely “urges” parties that have not yet communicated new or updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to do so as soon as possible in advance of the next session of the Conference of the Parties (as opposed to “the Parties that have not yet communicated new or updated nationally determined contributions agree to submit by [insert date]”).
It also “urges” wealthy nations (as opposed to “wealthy nations agree…”) to “at least double” funding by 2025 to protect the most vulnerable nations from the hazards of a hotter planet. And it explicitly mentions the need to curb fossil fuel usage, the first time a global climate agreement has done so.
The SBTi’s standard aims to clarify the target for net zero emissions, whilst the Common Ground Taxonomy indicates China-EU cooperation on sustainable finance issues.
By Paul A. Davies, Michael D. Green, and James Bee
Last month, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) launched its Net Zero Standard, which aims to provide a globally recognised, science-based target for companies that wish to commit to net zero emissions, to ensure consistency in approach and avoid accusations of greenwashing.
Shortly after the SBTi announcement, the EU and China took a step towards further consolidation of ESG-related standards by agreeing to set out the extent to which their visions for defining green investments are aligned. The Common Ground Taxonomy-Climate Change Mitigation (CGT) builds on the EU Green Taxonomy and Chinese Green Bond Catalogue, and marks the culmination of two years’ work by the International Platform on Sustainable Finance (IPSF), a forum for dialogue between policymakers from numerous countries, with the aim of increasing the amount of private capital channelled into sustainable investments.
On November 1, ASTM International (ASTM) released a revised standard for conducting Phase I Environmental Site Assessments (Phase I ESAs). The new standard – ASTM E1527-21 – establishes new requirements for complying with the “All Appropriate Inquiry” (AAI) rule in 40 CFR Part 312. The AAI is an essential element of environmental due diligence used