Policy Matters
Supreme Courts and the Future of Climate Change Policies and Regulations: The Role of Aligning National Objectives with International Commitments, such as the Paris Agreement View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Silvia Fregoni
Climate change litigation is skyrocketing across the globe and becoming a tool to hold governments accountable for the climate crisis, as a great number of cases challenge authorities' responses to the problem. These claims have been filed in different spheres, including local and federal courts, quasi-judicial bodies, or other adjudicatory bodies, and some cases have already reached the highest federal court in certain countries. This paper analyses these highest courts’ decisions on claims against governments to identify the role of Supreme Courts in addressing climate change and shaping the future of policies and regulations. I argue that, being the last resort for those seeking justice, Supreme Courts have performed a fundamental role in aligning national objectives with international commitments, such as the Paris Agreement. Due to the novelty of the cases, judges have based their decisions on principles from various areas of law, as exemplified by the human rights approach adopted by the Dutch Court. The remedies have also been innovative, including ordering the creation of a new climate law (Nepal). Furthermore, as climate change is a global phenomenon, we are witnessing a cross-border exchange between courts worldwide. Despite progress in climate litigation, I argue that there are some important obstacles. One of them is the risk of courts assuming the role of political decision-makers, an issue taken into consideration in the recent decision of the Spanish Supreme Court. Another challenge is ensuring compliance with court decisions, which is evidenced by the difficulty of the Colombian case of Future Generations.
For-profit and Non-profit Collaborations Support Ecological Regeneration and Land Commons: Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Via Community-level Behavior Change View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Christa Nunez
Land-based socio-economic forces have shaped American communities primarily along racial lines, separating whites from BIPOC while relegating resources and opportunities to white communities and forcing BIPOC to seek refuge and economic opportunities in urban regions. These communities often also face oppression in the forms of police violence, legal injustice, mass incarceration, employment and educational bias, disenfranchisement, housing and food insecurity, and associated health disparities, and voter suppression. In American storytelling, BIPOC people are predominantly portrayed via slanderous and demoralizing character representations and story devices, mainly relegated to revulsion-inducing urban settings, which blame the decrepit living conditions of the marginalized on their moral failures rather than on racist social, political, and economic policy. This paper shares the current stories of intentional farming community members who are working to shift land and food-sharing standards in New York State. Through social networks, cooperative modeling can be used to communicate with climate-impacted and displaced communities about avenues to belonging, climate-conscious change, and wellness in new and impacted geographies. It is becoming increasingly clear that climate change is a result of inadequately regulated capitalist land exploitation. This paper discusses the refuge-making work of a new intentional farming community in Ithaca, NY, that is led by individuals from communities most impacted by capitalist land and labor theft. They are creating a set of new built environments that draw on the economic and social arrangements of pre-capitalist community agrarians as well as develop new food and land-sharing exemplars that combine both beneficial capitalist and anticapitalist ideals.
Computing Research for the Climate Crisis View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elizabeth Bradley, Claire Monteleoni
Computing research can play a role in mitigation, adaptation, and resilience in response to the existential threat of climate change. This goes far beyond the well-known predictive power of climate models. Computing researchers can develop and deploy smart sensor networks for monitoring drought, wildfire, and other salient variables and processes. AI can be used to develop new materials for renewables, or new crop variants that accommodate climate change. Computer algorithms can plan smart crop-rotation strategies that adapt to changing conditions, or optimize the spatial distribution of a crop along a wet-dry gradient to make production robust in the face of precipitation variations. Similar algorithms can predict how essential systems, like supply chains and electric grids, will react to extreme events—and use that information to plan a response (e.g., rolling blackouts to protect a power grid). Crafted properly, these algorithms can produce a full accounting of the hidden and downstream costs, including those to individuals, as well as to society, the environment, and the economy. This is a direct contribution to equity and climate justice. Bringing this type of expertise into the global, interdisciplinary climate-change community could be transformative. Purpose-driven organizations like the Computing Research Association (cra.org/ccc) can serve as effective points of contact for this effort. Of course, computing itself contributes to the climate emergency. The data/compute centers that support the Cloud, for example, now have a larger carbon footprint than the entire airline industry. Accordingly, there is a strong need for computing research to mitigate its own impact.
Do Adaptation Interventions Reduce Vulnerability and Disaster Risk and Strengthen Socio-ecological Resilience?: Lessons from Coastal Odisha, India View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Souryabrata Mohapatra, Sumanta Banerjee
Adaptation measures stand as powerful instruments in the battle against the adverse effects of climate change. Understanding the status of adaptation efforts in developing nations like India, with a specific focus on disaster-prone regions such as Odisha, holds paramount importance. This study delves into how adaptation initiatives contribute to mitigating vulnerability and reducing disaster risks while bolstering socio-ecological resilience. Leveraging insights from the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, Sendai framework, and Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, we scrutinize adaptation strategies. Employing the frameworks outlined by Smit and Pilifosova (2003) and Tompkins (2012), we compile an adaptation inventory, drawing from various published and unpublished sources, including peer-reviewed literature, grey literature, and documents from International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) and state-level Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The inventory meticulously documents the purpose, providers, beneficiaries, timing, functions/effects, and overall outcomes of adaptation measures in Odisha. While not exhaustive, this inventory sheds light on how these measures mitigate disaster risks and enhance socio-ecological resilience. Notably, it underscores the role of adaptation interventions by the state, INGOs, and NGOs in driving development, reducing disaster risks, and fortifying citizens' resilience to climate change impacts. Moreover, it presents a blueprint for scaling up successful adaptation interventions from local to regional or national levels, exemplified by the experiences in Coastal Odisha, which can be replicated across broader geographical scales. This comprehensive review serves as a valuable resource for understanding and advancing adaptation efforts in similar contexts worldwide.
Climate Change and Glacier Melt in California View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Zeneida Parente Alves Neta, Danelle Meeks
This research explores the critical issue of glacier melt and its serious effects on our planet. It examines the causes behind glacier melting, such as global warming and human activities like burning fossil fuels. This study emphasizes the serious consequences of glacier melt, including rising sea levels, disrupted weather patterns, and threats to ecosystems and communities in California. It highlights the urgency of addressing this issue through collective action, advocating for measures to reduce our carbon footprint and promote longevity. Ultimately, it emphasizes the importance of understanding and minimizing glacier melt to protect the future of our environment.
