This Month's News & Analysis

China is working hard on an ambitious policy to become a world leader in addressing climate change, with plans to transform its energy policy primarily using carbon emissions trading. The National Development and Reform Commission announced on December 19, 2017, that it was deploying its National Carbon Emissions Trading Market Construction Plan for the Power Generation Industry. This rollout will go slowly, in three stages, and actual trading is not expected to begin until 2020. This Comment analyzes the climate goals that China's central government has set for the country; the legal issues that China must resolve as it rolls out its national emissions trading system (ETS) and the different ways the government can resolve the issues; how emissions trading is conducted in the United States; and the key legal lessons from China's struggle to roll out a national ETS and how that could provide a useful framework if the United States should decide to roll out its own national system.

It is undeniable that globalization has increased the extent to which corporate entities are connected to the daily lives of people from every corner of the world. Yet coupled to the growing reach of corporations is a growing demand that the behavior of private business reflect public aims. Specifically, there is a rapidly growing interest across business, government, and civil society in using disclosure regimes to transform corporate behavior. In many ways, this trend has been embraced by the corporate world through the adoption of voluntary reporting on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indicators. While the United States has certain environmental and social disclosure requirements in industry-specific contexts, there is currently no mandatory general ESG reporting framework. One safeguard shielding corporations from a potential mandatory disclosure regime is the free speech protections afforded by the First Amendment. This Comment analyzes the First Amendment implications if the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission were to implement a mandatory ESG disclosure regime.