While climate policy typically focuses on future decarbonization 10 to 20 years out, temperatures continue to rise. Greenhouse gases emitted upfront from the materials fabrication, construction, and renovation of our physical environment—embodied emissions—accelerate the rate of global warming now. They increase atmospheric carbon before our buildings and infrastructure are even used. While these emissions are often ignored or deemed too perplexing to resolve, this Article, excerpted from Thwart Climate Change Now: Reducing Embodied Carbon Brick by Brick (ELI Press 2021), addresses the need to reduce them immediately.

The collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex in Surfside, Florida, raised questions about how climate change and environmental impacts may cause damage to coastal buildings. Independent structural issues are suspected to be a major factor in the collapse, but scientists and legal researchers posit that environmental factors also played a role. On December 20, 2021, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts that explored the climate risks to coastal communities and buildings in Florida, California, and elsewhere. This Dialogue presents a transcript of that discussion, which has been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.

Agriculture’s contribution to climate change is much more substantial than official figures suggest. We will not be able to achieve our overall mitigation goals unless agricultural emissions sharply decline. Farms and ranches can be a major part of the climate solution, while protecting biodiversity, strengthening rural communities, and improving the lives of the workers who cultivate our crops and rear our animals. Agriculture climate solutions are critical elements both in ensuring our food security and in limiting climate change. This Article, excerpted from Farming for Our Future: The Science, Law, and Policy of Climate-Neutral Agriculture (ELI Press 2021), provides the current state of emissions in the agriculture sector, and argues that we must transform agriculture from one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases into a net sink.

The rapid transition of energy resources from fossil fuels toward renewables has been widely recognized as an essential tool in mitigating climate change. Yet, renewable energy development projects and facilities can be land use-intensive and have the potential to negatively impact conservation areas. To attempt to tackle these issues, President Joseph Biden signed Executive Order No. 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, which (1) outlines a way forward for increasing both renewable energy production and acreage of conservation areas, and (2) pledges a target of conserving 30% of the nation's lands and waters by 2030. On September 28, 2021, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts that explored the intersections of climate mitigation, renewable energy development, and biodiversity conservation. This Dialogue presents a transcript of that discussion, which has been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.