Facing the Climate Crisis

The Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide is collaborating with lawyers around the world to protect our climate through law. ELAW scientists are helping grassroots advocates work to reduce the climate impacts of proposed projects.

For example, we are helping attorneys challenge plans to build coal-fired power plants that would damage the climate. ELAW partners around the world are helping communities make their voices heard to challenge proposed projects that would harm the climate.

Energy law

ELAW has launched a new initiative to help craft energy laws and regulations that will protect the climate. We are pleased to be working with the European-based Climate Justice Programme and the World Future Council to help develop policies that boost renewable energy.

Policymakers around the world have realized that we must take action to protect the climate, and they are looking for policy tools that will move us in that direction. As nations and states begin adopting new policies, we must ensure that these policies truly protect the climate. ELAW and its partners are doing the background work to ensure that these policies will be effective.

One such policy area is "renewable energy feed-in tariff" (FIT) policies. These policies aim to encourage the production of electricity from renewable sources. They require electricity distributors to purchase electricity generated from renewable sources and pay a fair price for that electricity.

Another approach to boosting renewable energy production is renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies. RPS laws generally require energy distributors to supply a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources, with that percentage increasing over time. Both RPS laws and FIT laws influence energy markets with the aim of increasing the production of energy from renewable sources. Most U.S. states have chosen RPS laws rather than FIT laws, while some countries are choosing FIT laws.

We have found that there is a huge amount of information available about energy policies, but little legal analysis about what makes such policies effective. We want to ensure that policymakers adopt the approach that is most effective at increasing the amount of electricity that comes from renewable sources in their jurisdiction. And we want to ensure that such policies are well crafted to achieve the maximum impact to protect the climate. We want to encourage policymakers to take a careful look at FIT policies.

The World Future Council will soon launch a web site that will present comprehensive information about FIT policies and how they can help protect the climate. For more information, see Policy Action on Climate Toolkit (<http://www.onlinepact.org>).

ELAW is pleased to be working with strong partners to find solutions to the climate crisis.

We congratulate Al Gore and the IPCC team for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. After receiving the award, Gore said, "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity." We couldn`t agree more.