During the 1990s scholarship about water security abounded. However that debate abated at the ‎turn of this century. This lack of exploration is surprising, particularly given the negative impacts ‎of climate change upon the world's water resources, and the concomitant water insecurity that...

“Extreme” weather has become the new normal. What were previously considered to be inexplicable and unpredictable “acts of God” can no longer reasonably be said to be so. They are acts of man. The established doctrine of contractual impracticability rests on the notion that a party may...

This paper describes the challenges victims, insurers and governments face in dealing with insurance for low-probability high-consequence events in both developed and developing economies. In developed economies, given their limited experience with catastrophes, there is a tendency for all three...

The issue of climate change has at long last made its way into mainstream policy discussions in the United States. However, the focus both in the United States and internationally has been on reducing energy production and transportation emissions. This has led the media, policy makers and the...

Currently, there are no adequate mechanisms under international law to balance the competing tensions climate change presents to state sovereignty. On one hand, climate change threatens state sovereignty because the catastrophic loss of life and property of millions of people would deprive...

This article assesses the prospects for liable entities under Australia’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) to rely on international and domestic offset credits. This is crucially important for liable entities as, under the CPRS, they must surrender a permit for every tonne of...

In this article, the author builds on previous work in the area of electricity restructuring to pay special attention to proposals to privatise the electricity sector in New South Wales, Australia. The privatisation initiative is assessed in the context of moving to a low carbon economy under an...

This article explores the difficulties faced by regulators when they decide to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. For a long time, there was sufficient scientific uncertainty as to encourage a 'wait and see' approach. More recently, as the science has hardened with the release of the IPCC Fourth...

In Part II of this article, the author discusses and analyses the various emissions trading schemes that have emerged around the world, with the imprimatur of the Kyoto Protocol, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The emissions trading schemes are analysed against a theoretical model for...

This article places the current controversy around coal seam gas production in Australia in the context of various global energy resources and climate change scenarios. It highlights the range of concerns that have arisen in Australia with regard to this resource including threats to water, farm...