Blog

Debunking UBC’s dubious legal position on divestment

UBC continues to resist divesting its $1.75 billion (Canadian) endowment from the fossil fuel industry, despite years of pressure from groups including UBC350 and recent encouragement from top UBC officials including President Santa Ono and Board of Governors Chair Michael Korenberg.

Sign the Zero Emission University pledge and open letter!

Air travel is a big part of most academic researchers’ lives. We fly much more than most other people. Workshops, conferences and research often lead us to travel by air several times a year. Racking up an impressive list of conference presentations, public lectures and international research travel is seen by many researchers, university administrators and peer evaluators as crucial for receipt of tenure, promotion, grants, awards and merit pay. Yet a growing number of academics recognize that our jet-setting culture is inconsistent with facing humanity’s climate change emergency.

CLE Speaker Series: A Climate for Change: Governing Knowledge for Innovation under the Paris Agreement and the Global Climate Funds

Join us on November 13 when CLE visiting scholar Dr. Katherine Owens (Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney Law School) explores the connection between innovation, knowledge and climate governance. Remaining within the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change will require profound and complex transformations in our energy, land, urban and infrastructure, transport and industrial systems.

CLE Speaker Series: The Promise and Problems of Border Carbon Adjustments: Findings from California and Europe

Border carbon adjustments, also known as carbon tariffs, would support carbon pricing policy by protecting domestic carbon-constrained producers against competition from greenhouse gas-intensive imports and by preventing leakage of greenhouse gas emissions to jurisdictions with less demanding carbon regulation. But governments are loath to use them. Join us on Tuesday, October 15 for the next event in the CLE Speaker Series, when sustainability expert and Allard PhD candidate Stefan Pauer explains why.

Marching for Climate Accountability

The Centre for Law & the Environment will be marching in tomorrow’s Global Climate Strike in Vancouver, demanding accountability for climate crimes.

CLE Speaker Series: Legal Environment for Artificial Owl: AI in Energy and Environment

Join us for a talk by Japan-based energy, climate and environmental law expert Dr. Maciej M. Sokołowski PhD, Visiting Associate Professor at Keio University, Tokyo and Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Warsaw. Dr. Sokołowski will speak on artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of energy and environmental law. The talk is part of the Centre for Law & Environment’s Speaker Series.

Welcome the CLE’s first visitor of 2019-20, Maciej Sokołowski

We are very pleased to welcome the Centre’s first visitor of the 2019-20 academic year next week. Dr. Maciej M. Sokołowski, a Japan-based energy law expert, will be with us for a whirlwind visit of just a few days. He gave a fascinating public talk on artificial intelligence (AI) in the environmental and energy fields on Tuesday, September 24.

The Great Ape Project: A First Step toward International Recognition of the Rights of Nature?

Vancouver's climate change accountability motion

On June 24, 2019, twenty-eight law professors from across Canada issued an open letter urging local governments to explore legal and other avenues to hold major fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change-related damage to public property. Professor Stepan Wood, Director of the UBC Centre for Law and the Environment, submitted the letter to the Vancouver City Council, which is considering a motion instructing Mayor Kennedy Stewart to do three things...

A conference by Students for Mining Justice: "Protecting the Land: Communities, Law and the Mining Industry"

Book Launch: The Constitution of the Environmental Emergency

The Canada Research Chair in Law, Society & Sustainability and the Centre for Law and the Environment present the book launch of "The Constitution of the Environmental Emergency" by Jocelyn Stacey, with remarks by the author, Dean Catherine Dauvergne and Professors Mary Liston and Stepan Wood.

Workshop: NAFTA's Environmental Submissions Process & Public Engagement

Learn about the history of the CEC and NAFTA's environmental submissions process, and engage in a roundtable discussion on the role of public engagement, including submissions related to the effective enforcement of environmental law in Canada.