Columbia Climate School's Office of Faculty Affairs is pleased to announce that our next Research Seminar will be by Michael Burger, titled "Climate Change and the Courts" on Wednesday, November 13, from 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm in the Forum Room 301.
If joining on Zoom, please RSVP here. If you cannot access this link, please email [email protected] to be added to the Zoom list.
Abstract: In its Sixth Assessment Report, the IPCC concluded (medium confidence) that climate lawsuits brought against governments and corporations have the potential to affect "the stringency and ambitiousness of climate governance." But climate litigation does not move in a single direction. In this talk, I will discuss two key trends in U.S. climate litigation. First, I will discuss the significance of a series of recent decisions by the Supreme Court that constrain federal agencies' ability to address novel and complex crises, including climate change. I will discuss these cases and what they mean for climate change regulation and response. Second, I will discuss the theory, status, and evidentiary issues involved in lawsuits brought by more than two dozen state and local governments have against fossil fuel companies under a range of tort and consumer protection theories, seeking compensation for the costs of responding to climate disasters and adapting to future impacts. Throughout the presentation, I will touch on the relationship between climate science and the law, and issues of justice and responsibility.
Bio: Michael Burger is the Executive Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, and a Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer-at-Law at Columbia Law School. He is a co-author of Urban Climate Law (Columbia U Press, 2023), and an editor or co-editor of Global Climate Change and U.S. Law; Combating Climate Change with Section 115 of the Clean Air Act: Law and Policy Rationales; and Climate Change, Public Health and the Law.
