Law And The Global Climate Crisis

These laws have formed a foundation to fight climate change

John Letzing, April 14, 2023 (World Economic Forum)

“Nearly four decades ago, a US senator proposed legislation to draw up a national strategy for studying and addressing climate change. It quickly went nowhere…[But the steady construction of climate laws] around the world over the years has created the legal footing necessary to confront the threat of physical and financial destruction…[A Grantham Research Institute/Columbia Law School database] puts the cumulative number of global climate laws and policies at 3,145. It stretches back to Japan’s 1947 Disaster Relief Act to recent entries like] a UK plan to decarbonize and domesticate energy production, and Türkiye’s policy bid to ramp up the production and use of hydrogen…

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EU member states just approved a plan requiring that all new cars sold there must be emissions-free by 2035…[The historic legislation and policies crucial for climate progress] share a focus on curbing pollutants, fossil fuels, and the damage they can unleash…[from the Clean Air Act passed in the US in 1963 to Norway’s 1976 law to prevent products from damaging health and [the environment, and France’s law supporting nuclear power that made it] the advanced economy with the lowest emissions per capita…

Climate policy is a boring necessity drawn up in backrooms…It’s been nudged forward by decades of international efforts to spur discussion and pool global knowledge, setting crucial guideposts along the way for domestic lawmakers…[The UN’s International Panel on Climate Change included 743 experts from around the world in environmental physics, energy efficiency, and economics who] tend to be both profoundly committed and broadminded…[But the] recent UN panel report found that there’s very little remaining chance of limiting warming to the crucial threshold of 1.5°C, barring dramatic emissions reductions…” click here for more

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