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The law is the principal mechanism by which society resolves disputes and implements policies. For more than forty years, I have worked to use the law to address environmental problems, initially by trying to stop projects that would increase pollution and harm communities. But there are limits to what the courts can do without explicit direction from legislatures. Climate change is a prime example. Some have seen litigation as a silver bullet, but at least so far that has not been the case. Elections matter more than lawsuits. Until and unless elections bring to power a president, a Congress, and local officials who will take the necessary measures, litigation is needed to inhibit those who will try to move backwards, spur on those with good intentions, help implement the policies set by wise Congresses past, and continue the quest for redress for victims. Well-crafted laws can also lead the way to solutions.

The legal landscape around climate change is complex, unstable, and expanding.Scientists continue to publish new findings, policy makers regularly adopt new regulations, and petitioners file new litigation, nationwide and around the world.Hence the need for this third edition.

Rising seas are endangering the habitability and very existence of several small island nations, mostly in the Pacific and Indian oceans. This is the first book to focus on the myriad legal issues posed by this tragic situation: if a nation is under water, is it still a state? Does it still have a seat at the United Nations? What becomes of its exclusive economic zone, the basis for its fishing rights? What obligations do other nations have to take in the displaced populations, and what are these peoples' rights and legal status once they arrive? Should there be a new international agreement on climate-displaced populations? Do these nations and their citizens have any legal recourse for compensation? Are there any courts that will hear their claims, and based on what theories? Leading legal scholars from around the world address these novel questions and propose answers.

This commentary details the United States’ progress in advancing climate change law since President Barrack Obama’s re-election in 2012, in spite of congressional dysfunction and opposition. It describes how the Obama administration is building upon earlier regulatory efforts by using existing statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from both new and existing power plants. It also explains the important role the judiciary has played in facilitating more robust executive actions, while at the same time courts have rejected citizen efforts to force judicial remedies for the problem of climate change. Finally, it suggests some reasons why climate change has gained more prominence in the Obama administration’s second term agenda and considers how domestic actions help the United States to reposition itself in international climate diplomacy.

During the Cold War the United States detonated sixty-seven nuclear weapons over the atolls of Bikini and Enewetak in the Marshall Islands. In the late 1970s the United States addressed the massive amount of residual contamination by abandoning Bikini as permanently uninhabitable and pushing much of the waste at Enewetak into the open lagoon. Much of the plutonium was dumped into the crater that had been left by an atomic bomb explosion, and then covered with a thin shell of cement. The resultant \"Runit dome\" sits unmarked and unguarded in a small island and one day will be submerged by the rising waters of the Pacific Ocean, unless it is first torn apart by typhoons. Radiation from the Marshall Islands has already been detected in the South China Sea. Using the experience of the Marshall Islands as a case study, this article seeks to shed light on the environmental and security challenges of nuclear waste disposal in the Pacific and beyond.

The legal landscape around climate change is complex, unstable, and expanding. Scientists continue to publish new findings, policy makers regularly adopt new regulations, and petitioners file new litigation, nationwide and around the world. Hence the need for this third edition. Most of it is completely new, and the few chapters carried over from the second edition have been thoroughly updated.

Millions of Americans are impacted by energy insecurity each year, in part due to unaffordable and inequitable electricity rates. The electric ratemaking process presents opportunities to confront issues of affordability and equity or to instead entrench traditional approaches. State legislatures, public utility commissions (PUCs), and advocates all play vital roles in making the former a reality. Historically, ratemaking has been criticized as an insular and highly technical process that caters to utilities rather than customers. But states like California and New York are making strides by broadening PUC legal authority to include explicit consideration of equity issues, adjusting incentives and values within the rate formula, implementing novel rate designs alongside other low-income customer protections, and instituting measures to make ratemaking a more procedurally just process. Other states should replicate these efforts, and those that have started making progress must continue, as energy insecurity persists.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been meeting since 1995, and in recent years, it has increasingly focused on facilitating and funding climate change adaptation in developing countries. Other sources of financing, from multilateral development banks to bilateral and multilateral agreements among countries, are also providing resources for adaptation. Simultaneously, climate scientists around the world are updating their forecasts on the nature of future climate change. This article seeks to examine the scope of funding available for climate change adaptation and how climate change forecasts are used to plan for and evaluate climate change adaptation. We narrow our focus to sources and examples relevant for the African Sahel. After surveying recent UNFCCC negotiations, the financing frameworks of numerous funding sources, and an adaptation project in Ethiopia, we find that most adaptation projects in this region address vulnerabilities to current climate, without considering where climate change will bring new or increased risks. Therefore, today's adaptation projects, while effective in enhancing climate resilience in the short run, may well fail to adequately prepare the people of the Sahel for long-term climate change. Recognizing the need of many countries to cope with current climate variability as well as to prepare for future climate change, this paper concludes with recommendations for how climate adaptation funds could strike a better balance between the two in a way that helps the people of the Sahel and other developing countries get ahead of the curve and prepare for the emerging new climate.