The last two weeks have included many important developments on the climate change front.  On November 17, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its “Synthesis Report” concluding that climate change is happening even faster than previously anticipated.  The report is available online HERE.  On November 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to reconsider its relatively weak effort to update U.S. fuel economy standards.  Agreeing with the arguments by environmental groups and states, the court in Center for Biological Diversity v. NHTSA, No. 06-71891, declared that the standards were arbitrary and capricious and contrary to the Energy Conservation Act.  It ordered NHTSA to prepare new standards as well as an environmental impact statement.  A copy of the decision is available online HERE.  The author of the decision was Judge Betty Fletcher, for whom one of my former students is currently serving as a law clerk.

On Saturday, November 24, Australian voters decisively booted Prime Minister John Howard of Australia from office, replacing him with Labor party leader Kevin Rudd.  This will result in a dramatic shift in Australia’s policy toward climate change.  Rudd has pledged immediately to seek ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which will leave the U.S. as the only signatory not to have ratified it.  Rudd also announced that he will attend the Bali conference that begins on December 3 where the nations of the world will meet to discuss a post-Kyoto regime for responding to climate change.  This meeting will be the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP-13) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Third Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

The EU had been considering adopting a tax on imports of products from countries that have not taken sufficient action to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  Such a tax could have provided a powerful incentive for U.S. companies exporting products to the EU to demand greater U.S. action to control GHGs.  However, fears that the tax would ignite a protectionist trade war have now persuaded EU enterprise commissioner Gunter Verheugen to instead seek voluntary, industry-wide agreements for reducing energy use.

I am about to leave for three weeks in Asia where I will be making presentations on the emergence of global environmental law at conferences in China and India and lecturing on risk regulation at Qingdao University.  I hope to be able to post updates from the road.