Editors' Summary: Rising global demand for energy, high energy prices, climate change, and the threat of terrorism all point to the need for greater energy efficiency and conservation in the United States. While technological innovation is plainly needed, our laws and institutional arrangements must also play an important role. The United States has scores of legal and policy tools from which to choose to improve energy efficiency and curb energy consumption.

Debra A. Jacobson is Professorial Lecturer in Law at The George Washington University Law School and the owner of DJ Consulting LLC. She led the legal and policy analysis work on this project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Wind Powering America Program and DOE's Clean Energy/Air Quality Integration Initiative. Alden Hathaway and Colin High led the technical analysis work. Liz Salerno, Policy Analyst with the American Wind Energy Association, provided input into the policy discussion.

Editors' Summary: It is often remarked that the global problem of climate change will require local solutions. Wind and wave energy projects are just two examples of alternative energy sources that may slow the effects of climate change, but may also have detrimental effects for the immediate regions in which the projects are located. In this Article, Mark J. Spalding and Charlotte de Fontaubert discuss the challenge of balancing local impacts against global benefits. They begin with a description of the nature of the conflict and identify stakeholders and their interests.

Editors' Summary: Legislators and regulators should incorporate environmental justice concerns and opportunities into climate change policies. In this Article, Prof. Alice Kaswan first addresses the environmental justice benefits and risks of cap-and-trade programs. The environmental benefits include enabling higher reduction goals, imposing absolute caps on emissions, and creating technology adoption and innovation incentives.

Editors' Summary: Emissions trading has emerged as the major policy instrument to address climate change, as evidenced by programs and proposals in Australia, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. A host of choices need to be made to design and implement a greenhouse gas emissions trading program, choices that are important both to the performance of the program and to the many private firms and groups that are affected. In this Article, David Harrison Jr., Per Klevnas, Albert L. Nichols, and Daniel Radov investigate these alternatives.

Editors' Summary: The two leading broad-based climate change bills in the U.S. Senate are America's Climate Security Act of 2007 (Warner-Lieberman Bill) and the Low Carbon Economy Act of 2007 (Bingaman-Specter Bill). In this Article, Prof. Kenneth R. Richards and Stephanie Hayes Richards examine the most important differences between the two bills, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Editors' Summary: Prof. Daniel Farber argues that compensation for harm caused by climate change is a moral imperative, and he surveys various mechanisms that have been used in other circumstances to compensate large numbers of victims for environmental and other harms. In response, Professor Feinberg cautions that significant hurdles remain before any realistic compensation system could be considered, but suggests that the most effective approach may be evolving parallel tracks of civil litigation and government action to address climate harm.

I. Introduction

Daniel Farber's excellent and timely article, Basic Compensation for Victims of Climate Change, offers a thorough analysis of a possible compensation system for victims of climate change. He canvases various types of injuries from climate change and several existing compensation schemes. His work will surely start an important Dialogueue.

Providing compensation for individuals or communities who may be impacted by climate change presents four fundamental questions: (1) who, if anyone, should receive compensation; (2) how much each recipient should receive; (3) who should pay; and (4) how much each payer should be required to pay. Prof. Daniel Farber presents a well thought-out foray into this thorny issue, setting forth the pros and cons of various compensation regimes utilized in other contexts and suggesting how they may be adapted to the question of climate change compensation.