This paper explores the relationship between rationality and equity in an intergenerational context of greenhouse gas emission reduction. It is shown that the least-cost trajectory to a constraint on cumulative emissions implies an upward-sloping emission reduction effort, whether technological...

Emissions trading has emerged as the major policy approach for addressing climate change, as evidenced by programs and proposals in the Australia, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. A host of choices need to be made to design and implement a greenhouse gas emissions trading program,...

Despite the complexities of climatology, certain consistent themes emerge with implications for water availability: as the world gets warmer, it will experience increased regional variability in precipitation, more frequent heavy precipitation events, becoming more susceptible to drought. This...

This article explains why policy makers should seriously consider substantial early reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as a part of any post-Kyoto framework, and sets out suggested elements of a framework for early action in a post-Kyoto agreement. Substantial early reductions are needed...

While climate change impacts on human life have well defined and different origins, the interactions among the diverse impacts are not yet fully understood. Their final effects, however, especially those involving social-economic responses, are likely to play an important role. This paper is one...

In the spring of 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must promulgate automobile tailpipe greenhouse gas emission standards under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act (CAA). American environmentalists hailed the Supreme...

Climate change presents the greatest collective action problem the international community has yet confronted. The unequal distribution of expected costs and benefits from climate change (based on mean damage estimates from probability distribution functions) creates different incentives for...

This article explains the basic elements of climate change law, with a particular focus on those issues that promise to be important for a considerable time as well as the major factors that are driving the development of this law. The emerging law of climate change is being constructed at the...

The growing prospect of comprehensive national climate change legislation raises many important questions about the role of state efforts in a national climate change program. This article identifies the key state/federal issues that should be addressed in any comprehensive national...

The Earth's climate is warming. This is the unequivocal conclusion of climate scientists. Despite the complexities of climatology, certain consistent trends emerge with implications for water availability: as the world gets warmer, it will experience increased regional variability in...