University of Georgia School of Law Professor Adam D. Orford presented in March at the Symposium on Just Transitions in the United States, UK, and the EU hosted by Indiana University School of Law at the European Gateway in Berlin, Germany. The symposium connected academics and social scientists for a conversation on “climate adaptation and the just transition in the United States, the United Kingdom, and European Union member nations.”
Below is a description of the symposium:
The purpose of this meeting is to connect invited scholars and practitioners writing on the topics of climate change and the just transition, broadly defined, with the goal of discussing recent developments in their respective jurisdictions and best practices for their research, as well as developing potential networks for collaboration. The day is built around brainstorming sessions and group activities to help foster conversation and possible collaborations.
Orford is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. His interdisciplinary research investigates legal and policy approaches to environmental protection, human health and wellbeing, and deep decarbonization of the United States economy. He also participates in collaborative research initiatives across UGA, including as the lead of the Georgia element of the National Zoning Atlas and as a participant in ongoing investigations into the legal, political, environmental and social dimensions of new energy manufacturing and emerging carbon removal technologies.
Adam D. Orford, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law, participated in the recent 29th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan. He served as an observer for the American Bar Association. Orford’s interdisciplinary research investigates legal and policy approaches to environmental protection, human health and well-being, and deep decarbonization of the U.S. economy. He also participates in collaborative research initiatives across the University of Georgia, including as lead of the Georgia element of the National Zoning Atlas and as a participant in investigations into the legal, political, environmental and social dimensions of new energy manufacturing and emerging carbon removal technologies.
In his guest post below, Orford summarizes the ABA’s role and the major outcomes at COP29. More detail on this issues can be found in the four COP primers he published at Environmental Law Prof Blog (here, here, here, and here).
ABA’s Role
I participated in COP29 as a delegate for the ABA, which has sent delegates to the climate COPs since 2021. This program followed a 2019 ABA resolution on climate change that urged
“federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and the private sector, to recognize their obligation to address climate change,”
and called on lawyers to
“engage in pro bono activities to aid efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change, and to advise their clients of the risks and opportunities that climate change provides.”
The focus of the ABA’s delegations has been to work with other national bar associations to educate the profession about the critical role that lawyers and law associations play in responding to climate change—an issue which may arise unexpectedly, in practices as diverse as environment and energy, human rights, corporate governance, personal injury, real estate development, trusts and estates, municipal management, international trade, and more.
Participating law associations have developed a Climate Registry that is posted on the International Bar Association’s website, providing ready tools to other lawyers and law associations for adopting climate resolutions and other guidance to address climate change. The ABA does not take positions on negotiating outcomes at the COPs, but its delegations work to assist ABA members in understanding the often complex climate COP processes and outcomes.
COP29 Outcomes
As part of my work, I tracked the progress of dozens of negotiations aimed at implementing commitments made by the parties to the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement. Here are some of the most significant outcomes of this year’s negotiations:
A contentious and chaotic COP
Azerbaijan, this year’s host and lead facilitator for the conference’s negotiations, came into COP29 with little climate leadership experience, and it often struggled to maintain trust among the parties.
From remarks praising fossil fuels to open the conference, to procedural maneuvering to achieve controversial results, to protests from many parties that they were not being sufficiency included in negotiations, to delays in the development and circulation of draft negotiating texts, to limited participation from civil society, to relatively disappointing outcomes on many important issues, COP29 highlighted just how difficult climate negotiations have become as the world has continued to warm and countries have fallen behind on taking necessary actions to abate their greenhouse gas emissions.
Disappointing climate finance commitments
This was the year that the parties were required to agree upon a so-called “New Quantified Collective Goal” for climate finance, meaning the amount of annual funding that wealthy developed countries are committed to “mobilizing” for the benefit of poorer developing countries. The prior commitment, $100 billion per year, had only ever been met once, and the actual need is estimated to exceed $1 trillion per year.
After two weeks of contentious debate that included developed countries pushing for expanding contributions from emerging economies and developing countries pushing for $1.3 trillion with a significant public finance component, developed countries only agreed to commit to achieving $300 billion per year—by 2035.
This result was so far below the developing country goals that at one point they walked out of the negotiations entirely in protest.
Procedural machinations to allow carbon credit trading
After years of controversy and delay, the parties at COP29 agreed to finalize the “Article 6 rulebook,” meaning the rules and definitions for international trade in carbon credits originally contemplated by the Paris Agreement in 2015. This outcome was achieved through an irregular procedure, however: A subsidiary implementing body had ratified the rules months before the COP and then provided them to the parties as a take-it-or-leave-it fait accompli. The parties did quickly agree to accept the new rules, but then developed lengthy further guidance intended to promote transparency and environmental integrity in the markets.
Backsliding on the commitment to transition away from fossil fuels
At last year’s COP28 in Dubai, all parties had agreed to include text indicating a goal to “transition away” from fossil fuels as part of the global climate response. However, major oil producers, including especially Saudi Arabia, have since backed away from this commitment, and they worked vigorously throughout COP29 to avoid repeating this language in any form at any point. This opposition nearly derailed several negotiations, and resulted in at least one item being deferred until COP30 next year.
In addition, although countries are supposed to submit their third voluntary climate action plans in February 2025, very few made firm commitments to reduce their climate emissions at COP29—a troubling change from the relatively robust pledges at prior COPs.
Leadership vacuum
COP29 began just days after the U.S. Presidential election. That election’s outcome will have major implications for the trajectory of United States, and therefore global, climate policy.
With the U.S. delegation largely unable to make credible future commitments, there was some speculation that this would provide an opportunity for China to take on a larger global leadership role, particularly in the development of low-carbon energy technologies necessary to respond to climate change. However, China’s most significant efforts at COP29 were quite different:
China opposed calls for it to join developed countries and make firm climate finance commitments; and
It pushed unsuccessfully to add international trade issues to the negotiating agenda.
With the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters both taking a back seat, global climate policy lacks clear leadership at a critical time. 2024 is likely to be the warmest year in human history; and 2025 is likely to be warmer still.
Nonetheless, the COP process remains the most important forum for developing international commitments to climate change response. While imperfect, the parties do continue to make progress—sometimes a little, sometimes a lot—every year.
Many parties are already pointing to the disappointing outcomes of COP29 as the basis for redoubling their efforts to strengthen commitments at future COPs. Next year’s COP30 will be held in Belém, Brazil.
Left: The ABA delegation included (from left to right) Uma Outka, law professor at the University of Kansas; Kamran Jamil, law clerk at SD California and co-chair of the ABA International Law Division young lawyers division; and Adam D. Orford, Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law. Top Right: COP29 plenary session with Mukhtar Babayev, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Azerbaijan Republic.
This Article examines the social, political, and legislative history of the United States Oil Pollution Act of 1924. A century after its enactment, the nation’s first federal antipollution law remains undeservedly obscure. At the height of the conservative Lochner era, during the conservative Coolidge Administration, with conservative majorities in both houses of Congress, and in the face of opposition from the oil and marine shipping industries, the United States Congress enacted a national law prohibiting oil pollution. How did this happen? Who was involved? And what can be learned about today’s conservative legal and political environment?
This work is part of a larger project to synthesize histories of political conservatism and national environmental legislation in the U.S. prior to the 1970s. The author’s prior work has traced this development back to through the postwar years. This work extends the inquiry further, examining U.S. federal antipollution legislation within the context of the social and political environment of the post-progressive 1920s, with attention to the role of private associations and business interests in promoting the legislation, and of technological feasibility in ultimately securing passage while also limiting the law’s scope.
There has not been a major study of this law since the 1980s, providing an excellent opportunity to integrate new historical perspectives – including environmental history and the recognition of political conservatism as an important historical force – as well as newly available archival records.
Orford is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. His interdisciplinary research investigates legal and policy approaches to environmental protection, human health and wellbeing, and deep decarbonization of the United States economy. He also participates in collaborative research initiatives across UGA, including as the lead of the Georgia element of the National Zoning Atlas and as a participant in ongoing investigations into the legal, political, environmental and social dimensions of new energy manufacturing and emerging carbon removal technologies.
Coastal U.S. states, including many that have opposed proactive U.S. climate policies, are contemplating entrance into the supply side of the international carbon credit markets by, among other things, hosting revenue-generating blue carbon projects on their submerged lands. The voluntary carbon credit markets already facilitate private investment in such activities, and the emerging Paris Agreement Article 6 framework is poised to generate investment interest at the national level as well. Reviewing these trends, this Perspective questions whether this is good climate, environmental, and social policy, and advises further oversight and accountability.
Orford joined the University of Georgia School of Law in the fall of 2021. His interdisciplinary research investigates legal and policy approaches to environmental protection, human health and wellbeing, and deep decarbonization of the United States economy. He also participates in collaborative research initiatives across UGA, including as the lead of the Georgia element of the National Zoning Atlas and as a participant in ongoing investigations into the legal, political, environmental and social dimensions of new energy manufacturing and emerging carbon removal technologies.
When I first landed in New Zealand last summer, I was both exhausted and excited for what the next few months would bring me. I had just finished the University of Georgia School of Law’s Global Governance Summer School, and I was worn out from the travel from Amsterdam to Atlanta to Auckland to my final destination of Wellington, New Zealand. Wellington is where I would spend the rest of my summer as a legal extern with the Department of Conservation through the Global Externships Overseas initiative.
My work in New Zealand involved picking apart the World Heritage Convention text. Specifically, I evaluated what language made the text binding and what policy documents and case law were made binding by the text itself. I also worked with case studies involving New Zealand land that was in conservation under the World Heritage Convention. I worked alongside lawyers within my department, lawyers who worked in foreign affairs, and even those who worked directly with the New Zealand Parliament. I designed my research to act as a guide for the international team at the Department of Conservation to assist in keeping New Zealand in compliance with the World Heritage Convention. As part of my externship, I was able to visit the New Zealand Parliament and observe members debating new legislation. I was also given the opportunity to attend the ICON-S Public International Law conference held in Wellington.
Along with my work experience, I had the opportunity to engage in the culture of my host community. I was in New Zealand during Matariki, the Māori New Year. Here, I saw a haka, a ceremonial performance within the Māori culture that is often performed at important events. I visited the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum and learned about the history and culture of the people of New Zealand. I tried yellow kiwi fruit, manuka honey, Wellington chocolate, and New Zealand pies. I also visited Zealandia, where part of the forest is fenced in to keep predators out and to provide the native birds within the sanctuary a place to thrive and recover their populations. Finally, one of my favorite parts of the trip was a drive to Hobbiton, where they filmed The Shire scenes in Lord of the Rings films. It was surreal being able to step inside a hobbit hole and have a drink at the Green Dragon Inn.
My Global Externships Overseas experience was everything I had hoped for and even more than I expected. I walked away from my 1L summer with significant international legal experience, new cultural understandings and appreciation, and even a tattoo of a New Zealand silver fern, an important indigenous plant that serves as a symbol of the country’s national identity.
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Applications are now open for summer 2024 Global Externships Overseas (GEO). This initiative places University of Georgia School of Law students in four-to-twelve week international placements each summer, where they gain substantive, hands-on experience in diverse areas of legal practice. Over the last fifteen years, more than 200 Georgia Law students have completed a GEO in law firms, government agencies, corporate legal departments, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations around the world. Current 1Ls and 2Ls are encouraged to apply for summer GEOs. All applicants should reference this instructional video for step-by-step information regarding how to create and successfully complete an application for GEOs in UGA’s Study Away Portal by the March 10th deadline. For more information, email: ruskintlaw@uga.edu
Director of GreenCo SA and National University of the South professor Eduardo Conghos (LL.M., ’98) spoke to students at the University of Georgia School of Law last week about environmental law in Argentina and the effects of “constitutional greening” in Latin America. The conversation was moderated by Adam D. Orford, Assistant Professor of Law.
Conghos provided students with historic context for environmental legal developments in Latin America, tracing the global period of “constitutional greening” that stretched from the 1970s through the 90s. Over these two decades, 14 of the 20 countries in Latin America encoded environmental considerations and protections into law. Some common characteristics included protection of natural resources, wildlife, and protected natural areas; a right to the environment; and a right to public participation in environmental processes. Despite these strong constitutional protections for the environment, Conghos noted that the lack of statutory laws created tension between judicial rulings in favor of environmental protection and consistent implementation and oversight of environmental regulations. He used the 2007 Argentinian Supreme Court decision, Mendoza, Beatriz Silvia et al. v. National Government et al. about damages (damages derived from the environmental pollution of the Matanza Riachuelo River) and the rulings that followed it to illustrate this conflict. Students asked Conghos about the reality of the private sector being able to adapt to new environmental regulations and whether arbitration would be the appropriate way to address some of these issues.
Conghos is an environmental lawyer, consultant, and professor based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is currently the Director of GreenCo S.A., an environmental consulting business that provides services to both public and private institutions. Conghos is also professor at the National University of the South in Buenos Aires, where he has worked in several faculty positions since 1999. His specialties include environmental legislation and environmental training, skills that he has honed over several decades of experience in both the public and private sectors in Argentina. Dr. Conghos received his LL.M. from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1998, as well as postgraduate degrees from the University of Salamanca, the National University of the South, the University of San Andres, and Buenos Aires University.
exchange of notes 