The Legal Dimensions of Climate Change: Conference Report

The conference was attended by more than 150 participants representing a broad spectrum of the legal community: law students and faculty, in-house counsel, law firm attorneys, government policymakers, and public interest advocates. The attendees gained information about the latest developments in the field, with a special focus on the challenges and opportunities faced by the business sector. Case studies explored how leading companies assess risk, evaluate their emissions, and develop reduction strategies. Participants left the event with information and skills they will be able to use to help assess corporate climate risks and opportunities, and develop strategies for the future. This report provides a précis of the panelists’ presentations

Car Use: Intentional, Habitual, or Both? Insights from Anscombe and the Mobility Biography Literature

Policy-makers have recognized that changing travel behavior is important. People, however, do not change their behavior so readily, particularly the use of the car. A central concept that has been invoked to account for this has been the concept of habit. However, various studies also present people as having concrete reasons for driving: Their choices are intentional. This interdisciplinary study attempts to reconcile these two understandings of travel behavior by drawing on insights from the philosopher Anscombe and a growing body of travel research termed the mobility biography literature. It applies some of Anscombe’s insights from Intention to the act of driving. With regard to the mobility biography literature, it draws out conceptual implications both from theoretical and empirical aspects: In particular, the characterization of travel decisions as nested in a hierarchy of life decisions and the association of life events with changes in travel decisions. It concludes that a broader conceptualization of human behavior leads to a broader view as to what policy-makers can do. It reminds us that transport is ‘special’, that transport and policy are inextricable, and that the importance of infrastructure provision should not be ignored

Sustainable Development through Policy Integration in Latin America: A comparative approach

Whereas sustainable development used to be conceptualized in relation to differentiated development stages and contrasts between "consumer" and "basic needs" societies (Redclift 1991), the emerging green economy has internalized the new geopolitical conditions created by "globalization". Latin American countries, for instance, have characteristics of both "consumer" and "basic need" societies. Their challenge today is in large part similar to that of developed countries, in that they too need to translate socioeconomic development objectives into a model that maintains ecosystem services, biodiversity and low carbon emissions to support Earth Stewardship (Chapin et al. 2011). This paper examines how social and political actors in Brazil and in Ecuador propose to govern natural resource use sustainably, and how they work at building an alternative political economy based on ecosystem protection, biodiversity, renewable energy use and poverty reduction. The first case study shows how sustainable development is being reinvented by Brazilian grassroots organizations working in partnership with government agencies at various levels (municipal, state and federal) and with large Brazilian companies such as Braspetro. Nominated for a Global Award last year, this project combines popular education with a whole range of environmental conservation programmes to address structural poverty and environmental degradation in a semi-arid region from which people have had to migrate in order to survive. Through its holistic approach to sustainability in a municipality of around 38,000 inhabitants, the project has created the conditions for the flourishing of a local economy based on family farming and local services. It has already inspired other municipalities, both in the Amazon region (in Brazil and in neighbouring Spanish-speaking countries) and in Mozambique and other locations in Africa. This project illustrates the fundamental role played by small and medium-sized towns in creating resilient socioecological systems in the tropics. It also demonstrates the ways in which engaged citizenship can deepen the quality and the meanings of 'development'..

The Legal Dimensions of Climate Change: Conference Report

The conference was attended by more than 150 participants representing a broad spectrum of the legal community: law students and faculty, in-house counsel, law firm attorneys, government policymakers, and public interest advocates. The attendees gained information about the latest developments in the field, with a special focus on the challenges and opportunities faced by the business sector. Case studies explored how leading companies assess risk, evaluate their emissions, and develop reduction strategies. Participants left the event with information and skills they will be able to use to help assess corporate climate risks and opportunities, and develop strategies for the future. This report provides a précis of the panelists’ presentations