Climate Change and Environmental Assessment Law

Abstract:     
This article considers the ability of environmental assessment laws to bolster legal responses to climate change. Using the California Environmental Quality Act as an example, it explains that environmental assessment laws already impose legal limits upon greenhouse gas emissions. It then evaluates whether those legal limitations are desirable. It concludes that while environmental assessment laws do not provide comprehensive or independently sufficient mechanisms for limiting climate change, they can substantially improve regulatory portfolios for addressing the problem, and can limit greenhouse gas emissions while allowing creative and reasonably efficient compliance methodologies.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 63

Keywords: Climate Change, Environmental Assessment, California Environmental Quality Act, National Environmental Policy Act

Accepted Paper Series