Tag: climate causation

Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #40 – Doug Kysar

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This Thursday’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast is our 40th episode! It features Yale Law School’s Doug Kysar talking with University of Colorado’s Sharon Jacobs about his research on “Tort Law & Climate Litigation.”

Sharon and Doug first discuss the different types of climate litigation, including causes of action based on nuisance, arguments that the government holds the climate in trust for future generation, and claims that fossil fuel companies have misled investors and the public about the dangers of climate change. They go on to discuss the challenges of holding companies liable when greenhouse gas emissions were also caused by consumers around the world, and how that may prevent or dissuade judges from allowing these suits to go forward. Finally, they discuss the remedies that the various plaintiffs are looking for to protect them from climate harm.

The conversation builds on a 2017 article that Doug and Henry Weaver published in the Notre Dame Law Review, which was titled “Courting Disaster:  Climate Change and the Adjudication of Catastrophe.”

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #37 – Eric Biber

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Another week, another EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode. This week, the University of California at Berkeley’s Eric Biber talks with David Spence about his research on “How Law Must Change in the Anthropocene.”

Eric explains his argument that as humans change the global environment, legal doctrines will have to change to accommodate regulatory responses as well as to address wider problems triggered by environmental harm. Eric describes the comprehensive challenges that will arise from climate change and other global environmental challenges and how they are caused by the “full range of human activity.” As a result, he argues that these challenges will require, in David’s words, “fundamental changes in the relationship between governments and individuals.” Eric describes how governments might be forced to rethink traditional approaches to legal rules for tort causation, federalism, and state coercion.

The conversation builds on Eric’s 2017 article on “Law in the Anthropocene Epoch” , which was published in the Georgetown Law Journal.

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #33 – Michael Burger

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Another week, another EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode. This week, Michael Burger of Columbia University talks with the University of Texas’s David Spence about Michael’s work on “Climate Litigation & the Green Transition.”

Michael and David talk about the variety of lawsuits that have been brought to try and hold fossil fuel companies responsible for the costs of climate change. (A chart collecting and organizing the wide variety of these cases can be found here.) Michael and David discuss the difficulty of finding just some companies liable for global climate change caused by many companies around the world. They also describe the possibility that climate change could be attributed to the consumers that burn fossil fuels rather than the companies that sell the fuels and how plaintiffs could draw analogies to lawsuits over tobacco, opioids, and guns.

The conversation builds on some of Michael’s recently published research including co-authored papers titled “The Status of Climate Change Litigation: A Global Review,” and “The Law and Science of Climate Change Attribution.”

The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links: 
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