On October 7, 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the most far-reaching corporate climate disclosure (CCD) requirements in the United States. This so-called California Climate Accountability Package consists of the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (Senate Bill (SB) 253), which requires certain companies to disclose greenhouse gas emission data, and the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261), which requires certain companies to disclose climate-related financial risks. This Comment provides background information on SB 253 and SB 261, discusses the inadequate CCD regime in the United States, and explains the benefits of state CCD mandates for both increasing corporate transparency and enhancing climate policy. It also analyzes SB 253 and SB 261 under modern First Amendment doctrine, and argues that these laws should not be invalidated on First Amendment grounds. It further contends that even if they are struck down, SB 253 and SB 261 may nevertheless succeed in increasing CCDs.

Today's climate impacts and those on the horizon increasingly infuse mitigation and adaptation efforts with urgency, causing policymakers to contemplate or issue formal declarations of a climate emergency and to streamline review processes to aid rapid development of mitigation and adaptation infrastructure and technology. Yet, this urgency and need have the potential to create injustice and sideline or overwhelm efforts to reduce existing injustice. The key question in the climate justice context is whether the commitment to justice today, and the provisions to protect justice that are adopted to advance that commitment, can and will endure as the pressures of high-level warming intensify. This Article, excerpted from Adapting to High-Level Warming: Equity, Governance, and Law (ELI Press forthcoming 2024), proposes a precommitments strategy to help make a present-day commitment to climate justice more enduring.

Many environmental law paradigms focus on fixed points. Sometimes, the fixed points are in the past, and environmental laws call upon us to look at a baseline or previous state of nature and compare our actions against it. Other approaches call for us to consider an ideal state and develop strategies regarding how to reach it. In a 4° Celsius world, both strategies fail. Adhering to baselines is meaningless and striving for goals that are unachievable may lead to paralysis. This Article, excerpted from Adapting to High-Level Warming: Equity, Governance, and Law (ELI Press forthcoming 2024), explores an alternative mode for moving forward with an approach that minimizes suffering.

Last September, the Biden Administration announced the American Climate Corps, a workforce training and service initiative with the goal of giving young people skills-based training for careers in the clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience sectors. The initiative will offer 20,000 Americans paid training in a variety of environmental fields, specifically prioritize equity and environmental justice, and collaborate with federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, and tribal, state, and local governments. On November 29, 2023, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts to discuss the American Climate Corps program and existing climate corps programs across the country. This Dialogue presents a transcript of that discussion, which has been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.