Center for Biological Diversity to devote $17 million to climate litigation and advocacy over five years
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) today announced the launch of its San Francisco-based Climate Law Institute. The stated mission of the Institute is to bring a strong climate focus to the Center’s five program areas -- Biodiversity, Public Lands, Oceans, Urban Wildlands, and International – in what the Center calls a “coordinated strategy to protect species and ecosystems from the sweeping and potentially catastrophic effects of warming.” The Center states that it is “dedicating” $17 million to this effort over the next five years.
What does the Center mean by a “coordinated strategy”? Apparently more climate-based litigation, and more administrative and regulatory action designed to serve as bases for additional climate-based litigation. The Institute states it will accomplish its mission through: strategic, creative litigation; scientific petitions to protect species; administrative and policy advocacy; and public education and outreach.
This announcement leaves no doubt that litigation is the Institute’s primary focus. The Institute’s Advisory Board includes:
- Luke Cole, Director of the Center for Race Poverty and the Environment, who often represents plaintiffs in citizen-based environmental actions including the Kivalina Relocation Planning Committee in the Kivalina climate litigation;
- Patrick A. Parenteau, Professor of Law at Vermont Law School (where he teaches a course entitled Climate Litigation), and Senior Counsel at its Natural Resources Law Clinic; and
- Deborah Sivas, an environmental litigator and Professor of Law at Stanford where she directs Stanford’s Environmental Law Clinic.
Coal is a major target of the Institute, which lists as one of its goals: “Prevent the construction of new coal-fired power plants and coal mines while quickly phasing out existing coal-fired power plants.” The Institute also says it intends to “[p]revent the creation of an oil-shale or tar sands energy sector.”
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