Michael Gerrard

Michigan Sues Oil and Gas Companies for Sabotaging Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles The suit claims there was a vast conspiracy to maximize profits despite driving a climate crisis

"Renewable energy is central to the fight against climate change, and this suit alleges that the companies have stood squarely in the way. Michigan has opened up a whole new battleground in the climate fight" said climate law expert @michaelgerrard.bsky.social

www.sierraclub.org/sierra/michi...

Memorandum Opinion and Order – #50 in American Sustainable Business Council v. Hegar (W.D. Tex., 1:24-cv-01010) – CourtListener.com Memorandum Opinion and Order

companies for all manner of protected expression concerning fossil fuels."

The case is American Sustainable Business Council v. Hegar. The decision is by Judge Alan Albright (who was named to be bench by President Trump in 2018) of the U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas. bit.ly/4qlN3Qq

Memorandum Opinion and Order – #50 in American Sustainable Business Council v. Hegar (W.D. Tex., 1:24-cv-01010) – CourtListener.com Memorandum Opinion and Order

A federal court just invalidated the Texas law that prohibits state entities from investing in or contracting with companies that boycott fossil fuels. The court found that the law violates the First Amendment by being both overbroad and unconstitutionally vague, and "permits the State to penalize

⚖️🌏 🗣️ Call for #Presentations
The Sabin Center & @climate.columbia.edu invite submissions for the Attribution Science & Climate Law Conference, June 10–11, 2026 at Columbia Law School in NYC. Learn more➡️
climate.law.columbia.edu/content/seco...

⚖️A Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to protect a Caribbean island from #climatechange.

The Sabin Center’s Dr. Maria Antonia Tigre (@matigre.bsky.social) notes in an interview with @nytimes.com that “there’s a very clear state responsibility now” following the decision.

🔗 buff.ly/d0oabJU

📜 On January 26, we filed an amici brief in Renew Northeast v. US DOI, in support of plaintiffs who are challenging a number of anti-renewables federal actions that implicate wind and solar projects on rural private lands. 🍃 ☀️

Read the brief ➡️ buff.ly/vpSirJ6

The decision of the Hague District Court (you can toggle to English version): bit.ly/4bvMCiJ

and states are required to protect particular places or address particular kinds of impacts. It also shows that some domestic courts, which have the power to issue binding orders, will pick up the guidance of international tribunals and turn them into more concrete actions.

a detailed adaptation plan to be implemented within four years. The case was brought by eight residents of Bonaire and Greenpeace Netherlands.

This decision is a foretaste of more cases to come, where the general obligations of states are made more specific,

It's highly vulnerable to sea level rise, extreme heat, storms, and flooding The court found the government had discriminated against Bonaire's residents in failing to treat them the same way as residents of the European Netherlands. The court ordered the government to draft

Important new climate decision: A court in The Hague ruled today that the Dutch government violated European Convention on Human Rights in failing to take sufficient action to protect the residents of Bonaire, an island off the coast of Venezuela that's a special municipality of the Netherlands. 🧵

⚖️🌏💻Next Monday, February 2, the Sabin Center is hosting a #webinar, in which leading legal scholars and practitioners will explore the evolving landscape of #climatelitigation across #Asia. @matigre.bsky.social will deliver opening remarks.
Info ➡️ buff.ly/JkAYwvA
Register ➡️ buff.ly/CJ8sW10

whether to take up one of them (from Boulder, Colorado), but this suit is on completely different grounds and should not be affected by however that one turns out.

restrain competition from renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels and delay the energy transition. The complaint: bit.ly/45tOmVI. Numerous pending suits allege climate change deception by the companies, and the Supreme Court will decide soon ....

The State of Michigan just launched a novel lawsuit against the big oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute. It charges them with conspiracy to restrain trade under the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act. It alleges a coordinated strategy to ...

🏙️📉 Today, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law releases a new report titled Navigating State Law in Local Climate Action, which unpacks key state-local preemption issues in 19 states.
📰Press release: buff.ly/PZkpFCJ
✍️Blog: buff.ly/wMSG0dD

#Cities #climatelaw #climateaction

🚀🎯Today, we & @csldf.org relaunch the #SilencingScience Tracker, a tool that tracks attacks on science. 8 years, 3 administrations, 700+ entries later, we bring you a new & improved platform: silencingscience.org
📰➡️ buff.ly/MaSdIFc
✍️➡️ buff.ly/09VeKPD

One year ago today, Trump's second inauguration day, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law launched our Climate Backtracker to track his actions in moving backwards on climate action. As of today it has exactly 300 items. That's 1.15 for every working day.
climate.law.columbia.edu/content/clim...

As this chart shows, the eleven warmest years since measurements began in 1850 are the eleven most recent years.

Clark Mindock (@clarkmindock) NEW: Another judge has blocked the Trump administration’s stop-work order that halted the development of five offshore wind projects along the East Coast. U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols, a Tr...

NEW: Another judge has blocked the Trump admin’s offshore wind stop-work order, which had stalled development of the Empire Wind project in New York waters.

Read more here: substack.com/profile/1044...

📰🌪️Proliferation of climate-related disasters points to the urgent need for climate resilience leadership. Sabin Center's Michael Burger, Columbia Climate School's Jeffrey Schlegelmilch & Lucia Bragg outline how FEMA could be a source: scholarship.law.columbia.edu/sabin_climat...

The Happy Birth and Timely Death of the MetroCard - Climate Law Blog The retirement of the MetroCard as the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve was bittersweet for me. In 1983, as a young lawyer, I took a year’s leave of absence from my law firm to serve as special counsel ...

🚇💳NYC’s iconic #MetroCard has officially been retired after 30+ years, making way for contactless tap-to-pay OMNY. It began as a tech leap over subway tokens and ended as a beloved piece of NYC transit history. Michael Gerrard shares his reflections: blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechang...

NEWS: Judge Royce Lamberth ruled against the Trump admin, allowing Orsted to continue construction on its Revolution Wind offshore wind farm.

He said Orsted is "likely" to succeed on claims the admin's stop work order targeting offshore wind violates the Administrative Procedures Act.

Trump pulled US out of Paris Climate Agreement in 2017 & again (after Biden rejoined) in 2025. Now he withdraws US from UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as Project 2025 wanted. In 1992 the Senate unanimously ratified & President GHW Bush signed it. Re-ratifying requires a 2/3 Senate vote.

"Ecuador is the only country in the world whose constitution recognizes nature’s rights to exist, regenerate and be restored, though hundreds of court rulings, local laws, nonbinding declarations and other initiatives worldwide recognize nature’s rights in some form. " 🐸

had been since 1953. New technologies have emerged that weren't envisioned in 1983 when we did our study, rendering the MetroCard obsolete, and it goes away when the ball drops at Times Square. But it served the city well for a generation.

to happen; the transit bureaucracy and unions had to be convinced, the computer systems needed to be created, all the subway turnstiles and bus fareboxes had to be converted, and much else needed to be done. But since 1994 the MetroCard has become as much a part of life in New York as the token ...

to students and seniors; and allow fare increases without needing replacement cards. They were harder to counterfeit than tokens and didn't require riders to carry metal in their pockets. So Steve and I recommended the adoption of fare cards with magnetic stripes. It took a decade for this ....

technologically sophisticated systems used magnetic stripes. This was a revolutionary advance over the token. It could store the value of multiple trips, and delete them as they were used; allow unlimited trips for a day or a month; vary the fare with distance or time of day; provide discounts ...

but there was no 15 cent piece.) So in 1983 my colleague Steve Polan and I separately visited the major cities in North and South America, Europe and Asia that had electronic fare collection systems, rode their subways, and interviewed their managers. We found that the most ...