Environmental Assessment as a Tool for Climate Change Mitigation

Book excerpt: Most governments have established procedures to appraise the environmental impacts of proposed activities. The focus of these environmental assessment procedures has long been on local environmental issues, such as air, water, and land pollution, which have a direct and concrete effect on communities. In recent years, however, these procedures have increasingly been used to consider how activities could result in the emission of greenhouse gases and exacerbate climate change. Environmental Assessment as a Tool for Climate Change Mitigation builds on a broad survey of over one hundred national environmental assessment practices - legislation, guiding documents, cases, and administrative practice - to reflect on the main conceptual and practical issues facing climate assessment. By presenting and discussing jurisdictional developments and national debates in a global comparative perspective, this book aims to enrich our collective understanding of the modalities of and, ultimately, the mitigation opportunities arising from, the use of climate assessment in relation to proposed activities. The author concludes this timely and forward-looking volume by identifying good practices that lawmakers, regulators, national agencies, judges, and lawyers should consider when developing and applying the law on climate assessment.