a) Enforcement of emission reductions
Cinnamon Piñon Carlarne 21, 19th President and Dean of Albany Law School, was the Associate Dean for Faculty & Intellectual Life at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, leading international expert in environmental and climate change law policy with a deep commitment to environmental equity and social justice, “The Essential Role of Climate Litigation and the Courts in Averting Climate Crisis”, Ohio State Legal Studies Research Paper No. 592, SSRN, 2021
The first wave of climate litigation was driven by actions brought in the United States, as well as in Australia, in response to political inaction. During this first wave, domestic claimants in the United States sought to use existing statutes and tort law claims to compel the federal government to limit greenhouse gas emissions pursuant to existing environmental laws and to force large corporate actors to reduce their emissions or provide compensation for the harms caused by climate change. In one of the most seminal cases to date in US environmental law, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) possessed regulatory authority over greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (CAA), and that the Agency’s decision on whether to regulate these pollutants must be statutorily grounded and based on scientific (not political) considerations.14 Following the Court’s ruling, the EPA issued an endangerment finding under the CAA that triggered obligations to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions from new automobiles.15 Subsequently, the EPA and the US Department of Transportation established the first-ever nationwide greenhouse gas emission standards for light-duty vehicles and the nation’s most progressive fuel-efficiency improvements. As a result of these and subsequently developed rules, automakers were required to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks by 2025. 16