For nearly forty years, environmental law has evolved alongside everything else that has to do with environmental policy, green building, and clean technology innovation...
In August, I wrote about the changing face of higher education, embracing sustainability studies as they become a prominent part of the academic world — from architecture schools to specific degrees in graduate and undergraduate studies.
More and more, law students are seeing a significant change to their course requirements: the increasing focus on climate change.
Climate change will, no doubt, greatly affect every economic sector, including energy and transportation... and this will require an understanding of how the legal side of these sectors works now and how they must be adapted as things continue to change.
Environmental issues — particularly climate change — have increasingly been matters for public policy. It has become more and more apparent that many law students, politicians, and lawmakers are generally clueless on environmental science, whereas the scientists who are fluent in these matters cannot apply their knowledge to the political and economic climate in which the laws are being made.
Making climate change a priority in legal education seems the best way to bridge this gap.
Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville has hashed out extensive core requirements for students, including courses that would foster what one professor refers to as "Carbon Literacy:" basic understanding of climate science and an understanding of the principal greenhouse gases, their sources, and the emission reductions and atmospheric target levels needed to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change.
The courses would also provide an understanding of the costs and benefits of climate mitigation and adaptation policies; an understanding of justice or equity issues; and an understanding of the global, national, regional, state, and local policy instruments that are available to policymakers.
And following suit are some of the nation's top law schools, making climate change a curricular priority.
Columbia University Law School launched its Center for Climate Change Law this year, in the hopes of executing effective legal responses to climate change and giving students a foundation by which to examine and shape environmental policy and leadership.
In August, UCLA School of Law featured a Forum on Climate Change for students, a program featuring distinguished science and policy experts discussing the latest climate research and the economic opportunities arising from climate policy.
Besides their comprehensive Environmental Law and Natural Resources Courses (Environment and Energy Workshop and Environmental Science for Managers and Policy Makers, to name two), Stanford Law School now offers a Climate Change Workshop.
Vermont Law School is in the process of developing a track for climate change in its masters program. Patrick Parenteau, law professor at Vermont Law School, says that when he entered the field of environmental law, he had no prior expertise in climate change. He has since shifted most of his teaching to an almost exclusive focus on climate.
"It is multi-disciplinary, demanding a solid grasp of science, economics, technology, land use, ethics, domestic law, international law, and many other subjects. There is a huge volume of literature to digest," Professor Parenteau said. "There are still huge uncertainties in the science regarding the speed with which changes are happening and the consequences of climate change at various spatial scales.
Also this year, New York University saw its first class of graduates from its Environmental Studies program, an undergraduate track that prepares the country's future policymakers to be competent in science, as well as the other side of the coin: scientists who understand what can be achieved in a given social, economic, and political environment.
The 2009 academic year at Pace Law School in New York brought a climate change track to its environmental law masters program, the first American university to do so. Pace's program features six specially developed courses: Climate adaptive management; climate and insurance; climate and corporate practice; climate change practice; disaster law and emergency preparedness; and state and regional climate initiatives.
Pace keeps one eye on the horizon and how future environmental policymakers will be prepared, and on a global scale. The institution offers students a chance to participate in a program called the Environmental Diplomacy Externship at the United Nations. This externship, one of Pace's signature programs, allows students to work at the United Nations with delegations and environmental agencies that provide legal and policy support on climate change and sustainability issues.
"One of the challenges with climate change is that the law of today is not the law of the future," Prof. Parenteau says. "We have to be honest with ourselves in academia and say we don't really know where the law is going."
Environmental law will indeed continue to be a shifting and fluid field, as law, policy, and science continue to find their common ground.
More and more, American schools will likely see the emergence of academic programs and concentrations specific to climate change — whether in law, science, or public administration.
Brigid
