Notice
Professor Richard Lazarus
Charles Stebbins Fairchild Professor of Law, Harvard University
The challenge of climate lawmaking in the United States
Time: 3-4 pm. Hybrid: in-person in Main Seminar Room (1.25) in DAB + online in Zoom
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Abstract: Making law to address climate change is exceedingly hard for any lawmaking system. The United States is no exception. Indeed, climate lawmaking in the United States has proven particularly hard because the manner in which climate change spreads cause and effect over enormous spatial and temporal dimensions creates redistributive challenges for which the U.S. lawmaking system is distinctively ill-suited. This includes how the Framers of the U.S. Constitution deliberately separated lawmaking authorities horizontally and vertically, and also made lawmakers subject to reelection susceptible to the short term and near-space demands of their geographically-defined constituents. Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have made it even harder still. These lawmaking hurdles raise the serious question whether the United States can act in time to avoid some of climate change’s worst global consequences. Fittingly, this seminar presentation will take place only a few days before the U.S. Presidential Election.