Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:58:18.772Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - How Existing Environmental Laws Respond to Climate Change and Its Mitigation

from Part IV - Interplay with International & Domestic Environmental Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2018

Michael Burger
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Justin Gundlach
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Get access

Summary

Existing environmental laws interact with public health priorities and with aspects of the changing climate in numerous and varied ways. This chapter does not attempt to catalogue those interactions, but instead focuses on two that are especially important and illustrative of the operation and limitations of existing environmental laws vis-à-vis climate change-driven challenges. The first interaction is between pollution levels boosted by climate change and pollution control laws that employ health-based standards to determine pollution limits. The second is between a wider array of existing laws and the effects of climate change mitigation measures on public health. Examining these interactions reveals the inadequacy of existing laws to the tasks of (1) tracking the public health impacts of – much less adapting to – climate change, and (2) ensuring that climate change mitigation efforts reflect a rational accounting of impacts on public health, whether from foregoing mitigation or undertaking it.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×