Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States provides a "legal playbook" for deep decarbonization in the United States, identifying well over 1,000 legal options for enabling the United States to address one of the greatest problems facing this country and the rest of humanity. The book is based on two reports by the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) that explain technical and policy pathways for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. This 80x50 target and similarly aggressive carbon abatement goals are often referred to as deep decarbonization, distinguished because it requires systemic changes to the energy economy. Legal Pathways explains the DDPP reports and then addresses in detail 35 different topics in as many chapters. These 35 chapters cover energy efficiency, conservation, and fuel switching; electricity decarbonization; fuel decarbonization; carbon capture and negative emissions; non-carbon dioxide climate pollutants; and a variety of cross-cutting issues. The legal options involve federal, state, and local law, as well as private governance. Authors were asked to include all options, even if they do not now seem politically realistic or likely, giving Legal Pathways not just immediate value, but also value over time. While both the scale and complexity of deep decarbonization are enormous, this book has a simple message: deep decarbonization is achievable in the United States using laws that exist or could be enacted. These legal tools can be used with significant economic, social, environmental, and national security benefits. Book Reviews "A growing chorus of Americans understand that climate change is the biggest public health, economic, and national security challenge our families have ever faced and they rightly ask, ''What can anyone do?'' Well, this book makes that answer very clear: we can do a lot as individuals, businesses, communities, cities, states, and the federal government to fight climate change. The legal pathways are many and the barriers are not insurmountable. In short, the time is now to dig deep and decarbonize." --Gina McCarthy, Former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator "Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States sets forth over 1,000 solutions for federal, state, local, and private actors to tackle climate change. This book also makes the math for Congress clear: with hundreds of policy options and 12 years to stop the worst impacts of climate change, now is the time to find a path forward." --Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator, Rhode Island "This superb work comes at a critical time in the history of our planet. As we increasingly face the threat and reality of climate change and its inevitable impact on our most vulnerable populations, this book provides the best and most current thinking on viable options for the future to address and ameliorate a vexing, worldwide challenge of extraordinary magnitude. Michael Gerrard and John Dernbach are two of the most distinguished academicians in the country on these issues, and they have assembled leading scholars and practitioners to provide a possible path forward. With 35 chapters and over 1,000 legal options, the book is like a menu of offerings for public consumption, showing that real actions can be taken, now and in the future, to achieve deep decarbonization. I recommend the book highly." --John C. Cruden, Past Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice "This book proves that we already know what to do about climate change, if only we had the will to do it. The path to decarbonization depends as much on removing legal impediments and changing outdated incentive systems as it does on imposing new regulations. There are ideas here for every sector of the economy, for every level of government, and for business and nongovernmental organizations, too, all of which should be on the table for any serious country facing the most serious of challenges. By giving us a sense of the possible, Gerrard and Dernbach and their fine authors seem to be saying two things: (1) do something; and (2) it''s possible. What a timely message, and what a great collection." --Jody Freeman, Archibald Cox Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program

The science is unequivocal: stabilizing climate change implies bringing net carbon emissions to zero. This must be done by 2100 if we are to keep climate change anywhere near the 2oC warming that world leaders have set as the maximum acceptable limit. Decarbonizing Development: Three Steps to a Zero-Carbon Future looks at what it would take to decarbonize the world economy by 2100 in a way that is compatible with countries' broader development goals. Here is what needs to be done: -Act early with an eye on the end-goal. To best achieve a given reduction in emissions in 2030 depends on whether this is the final target or a step towards zero net emissions. -Go beyond prices with a policy package that triggers changes in investment patterns, technologies and behaviors. Carbon pricing is necessary for an efficient transition toward decarbonization. It is an efficient way to raise revenue, which can be used to support poverty reduction or reduce other taxes. Policymakers need to adopt measures that trigger the required changes in investment patterns, behaviors, and technologies - and if carbon pricing is temporarily impossible, use these measures as a substitute. -Mind the political economy and smooth the transition for those who stand to be most affected. Reforms live or die based on the political economy. A climate policy package must be attractive to a majority of voters and avoid impacts that appear unfair or are concentrated on a region, sector or community. Reforms have to smooth the transition for those who stand to be affected, by protecting vulnerable people but also sometimes compensating powerful lobbies.

Shows readers how we can all help solve the climate crisis by focusing on a few key, achievable actions.

The world is transforming its energy system from one dominated by fossil fuel combustion to one with net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary anthropogenic greenhouse gas. This energy transition is critical to mitigating climate change, protecting human health, and revitalizing the U.S. economy. To help policymakers, businesses, communities, and the public better understand what a net-zero transition would mean for the United States, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine convened a committee of experts to investigate how the U.S. could best decarbonize its transportation, electricity, buildings, and industrial sectors. This report, Accelerating Decarbonization of the United States Energy System, identifies key technological and socio-economic goals that must be achieved to put the United States on the path to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The report presents a policy blueprint outlining critical near-term actions for the first decade (2021-2030) of this 30-year effort, including ways to support communities that will be most impacted by the transition.

The Climate Change Encyclopedia responds to the outstanding risk, survival, and ethical issue of our time, requiring action and providing opportunity. Primary-source expert authors write in a unique case-study structure that enables the Encyclopedia to be approachable, informational, and motivational for the public. The key focus areas are Climate Change and Finance, Economics, and Policy, with many other related climate categories included. The over 100 case studies provide realistic and interesting views of climate change, based on authors' published papers, reports, and books, plus climate-related activities of organizations, and selected topics. This inspiring work can enhance optimism and courage to act urgently and persistently on climate change, with foresight for a livable future.For more information on the list of contributors, please refer to https://www.worldscientific.com/page/encyclopedia-of-climate-change.Related Link(s)

This outlook highlights climate-safe investment options until 2050, policies for transition and specific regional challenges. It also explores options to eventually cut emissions to zero.

The signals are everywhere that our planet is experiencing significant climate change. It is clear that we need to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere if we want to avoid greatly increased risk of damage from climate change. Aggressively pursuing a program of emissions abatement or mitigation will show results over a timescale of many decades. How do we actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make a bigger difference more quickly? As one of a two-book report, this volume of Climate Intervention discusses CDR, the carbon dioxide removal of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere and sequestration of it in perpetuity. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration introduces possible CDR approaches and then discusses them in depth. Land management practices, such as low-till agriculture, reforestation and afforestation, ocean iron fertilization, and land-and-ocean-based accelerated weathering, could amplify the rates of processes that are already occurring as part of the natural carbon cycle. Other CDR approaches, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, direct air capture and sequestration, and traditional carbon capture and sequestration, seek to capture CO2 from the atmosphere and dispose of it by pumping it underground at high pressure. This book looks at the pros and cons of these options and estimates possible rates of removal and total amounts that might be removed via these methods. With whatever portfolio of technologies the transition is achieved, eliminating the carbon dioxide emissions from the global energy and transportation systems will pose an enormous technical, economic, and social challenge that will likely take decades of concerted effort to achieve. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration will help to better understand the potential cost and performance of CDR strategies to inform debate and decision making as we work to stabilize and reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

This comprehensive, current examination of U.S. law as it relates to global climate change begins with a summary of the factual and scientific background of climate change based on governmental statistics and other official sources. Subsequent chapters address the international and national frameworks of climate change law, including the Kyoto Protocol, state programs affected in the absence of a mandatory federal program, issues of disclosure and corporate governance, and the insurance industry. Also covered are the legal aspects of other efforts, including voluntary programs, emissions trading programs, and carbon sequestration.

The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

About the Book: Land use climate bubbles are popping up throughout the nation at an alarming rate, creating an economic crisis that will be more damaging than that of the housing bubble of 2008. The costs to ecosystems and low- and moderate-income households are equally severe. These bubbles, where land and building values are declining, provide extensive, objective evidence that climate change is real and must be dealt with on the ground. And it sidelines the ideological battles over the political response and instead requires us to focus on the practical question: what can we do to respond? Climate action seeks to avoid the harm we can't manage and to manage the harm we can't avoid. Local leaders understand the urgency of the crisis and are highly motivated to learn how to prevent and mitigate its consequences. This book describes how the local land use legal system can leverage state and local assistance to reduce per capita carbon emissions as an important and now recognized component of global efforts to manage climate change. The tools and techniques presented in the book are available to the nation's 40,000 local governments, if led by courageous leaders choosing to succeed in this epic battle. About the Author: John R. Nolon is Distinguished Professor of Law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University where he teaches property, land use, dispute resolution, and sustainable development law courses and is Counsel to the Law School's Land Use Law Center which he founded in 1993. He served as Adjunct Professor of land use law and policy at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies from 2001-2016.