Course Description
The law of climate change in the United States.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate law students will not be doing any extra work beyond that required of the Juris Doctor students. J.D. students are
post-baccalaureate students and the workload expected of them is the same workload expected of post-baccalaureate graduate students. Law students are professional students, not undergraduate students. Graduate law students are primarily international lawyers seeking expertise in the American legal system. This expertise is gained through exposure to Juris Doctor courses.
Athena Title
Climate Change Seminar
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
- Students will leave this course with a detailed understanding of how U.S. state and federal governments have responded to the evidence for climate change.
- Students will leave this course with a detailed understanding of the details of various legislative proposals to respond to climate change.
- Students will leave this course with a detailed understanding of how U.S. state and federal governments have defined, developed, compared, assessed, and chosen strategies to respond to climate change.
- Students will leave this course with a detailed understanding of how and why the United States has participated (and not participated) in international programs intended to respond to climate change.
- Students will leave this course with a detailed understanding of how U.S. environmental regulatory agencies have incorporated climate change into their agendas and requirements.
- Students will leave this course with a detailed understanding of how litigants have attempted to use the U.S. courts to force governmental action on climate change, and the outcomes of that litigation.
- Through participation in a graduate-level discussion seminar with a writing requirement, students will practice analysis of a complex, science-based regulatory topic.
Topical Outline
- Climate change: what we know, how we know it, and what it means to trust or doubt that
- Climate goals: how we measure the problem and define desired future outcomes
- Response strategies: what they are, and how to compare them
- Mitigation: decarbonizing the energy, transport, agricultural, and other sectors
- Adaptation: planning for a world we don’t want
- Engineering: solar radiation management, carbon capture and storage, carbon removal, and other engineered solutions
- The United Nations framework: the Montreal protocol antecedent, UNFCCC, Kyoto, and Paris
- Domestic Litigation and the Courts: Massachusetts, AEP, Juliana, and beyond
- Federal Regulatory Integration: NEPA, CAA, CWA, ESA, and beyond
- Corporate Regulation: Securities Disclosure, #ExxonKnew, and related litigation
- Legislation: McCain-Lieberman, ACES, AB32, and beyond
