Climate Solutions

The Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide is working with partners around the world to meet the challenge of protecting our global climate.

ELAW IS HELPING:
	Challenge proposed developments – such as coal-fired power plants – that would pump out too much greenhouse gas. Craft policies that move us toward a carbon-neutral future. Protect forests that absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Provide the scientific resources that our partners need to make the case for protecting the climate.

Good news from Germany

Germany has made exciting progress reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.  Part of Germany’s secret is a FIT, or Feed-in-Tariff. Germany adopted a FIT to help promote cleaner energy technologies such as wind power, biomass, hydropower, geothermal power, and solar photovoltaics.  Germany’s FIT has helped Germany surpass its renewable energy goals and put Germany on its way to dramatically reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

“We are taking winning solutions from Europe and spreading them around the world,” says Jen Gleason, ELAW Staff Attorney.

Jen serves on the steering committee of the Alliance for Renewable Energy, to promote FIT policies in North America.  She also teaches energy law at the University of Oregon School of Law.  Jen is helping people in the U.S.  and ELAW partners around the world learn from Germany’s success.

Malte Schmidthals (right) traveled to Eugene this summer to work with ELAW and learn about U.S.  efforts to educate young people and schools about climate change and energy conservation.  Malte chairs the Climate Change and Education Department at the Berlin-based Independent Institute of Environmental Concerns (UfU).  He is photographed here with Julia Harvey, a biology teacher at South Eugene High School.  Malte has been involved in energy education since 1992. He exchanged teaching materials with Julia and other educators across the U.S.

IFIs and Climate Change

International financial institutions (IFIs), such as the World Bank, could play a strong role in helping protect our climate.  Citizens need to play a role in encouraging IFIs to protect the climate.  Many IFIs have created accountability mechanisms, which enable citizens to challenge actions of the IFIs.
These accountability mechanisms could provide a tool for citizens to use to move the IFIs toward a climate friendly future.

ELAW Staff Attorney Jennifer Gleason and ELAW Director David Hunter have written a chapter for a new book, “Adjudicating Climate Change.” In that chapter, they explore ways citizens can bring claims to accountability mechanisms to encourage IFIs to protect the climate.

“Closer review of the World Bank shows the influence of the banks and their connection to climate change.  In addition to its direct financing, the World Bank is also an implementing agency of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which among other roles, acts as the financial mechanism for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  Through its Carbon Finance Unit, the Bank supports the global carbon market by financing the purchase of emission credits under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, and in 2008, the World Bank launched its $6 billion Climate Investment Fund to support the long-term transition to low-carbon energy systems.  The Bank’s influence is expanded further by coordinating other donors; mobilizing bilateral, and increasingly, private-sector financing; conducting policy research; and providing technical assistance to borrowing countries.”
Gleason and Hunter, “Bringing Climate Change Claims to the Accountability Mechanisms of International Financial Institutions,” in “Adjudicating Climate Change: State, National and International Approaches,” by William C.G.  Burns and Hari M.  Osofsky, Cambridge University Press, 2009.