Think Globally, Act Globally: the Limits of Local Climate Policies

This Symposium has focused primarily on recent efforts by several states of the United States to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These state-level efforts include common law liability actions (such as public nuisance lawsuits) brought by several states against large GHG emitters.1 They also include states’ regulation of GHG emissions from mobile sources (such as California’s 2002 law restricting carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles 2) and from stationary sources (such as California’s Global Warming Act of 2006, 3 an emerging initiative of western states, and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) of seven northeastern states4). They include efforts by states to force the federal government to act, such as the lawsuit in Massachusetts v. EPA,5 recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.6