We created this Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization (LPDD) website to help accelerate a sustainable U.S. transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. This website provides more than a thousand resources, including enacted and model laws, for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at the federal, state, and local levels, and in private governance. By providing these resources, we hope to make it easier for the necessary laws to be proposed, adopted, and implemented. This website is designed for anyone—not just lawyers—who seeks to make a contribution.
The website is based on a 2019 book, Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (Environmental Law Institute, Michael B. Gerrard and John C. Dernbach eds.), which recommends more than 1,000 legal options for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The book’s 35 chapters were written by 59 contributing authors. The book itself is more than 1,100 pages long. No other source contains such a comprehensive set of recommendations. In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enactment of these recommended laws would help create jobs, build businesses, foster the development of new technologies, reduce energy costs, and improve environmental quality.
This website contains electronic copies of, or links to, hundreds of proposed, enacted, and model laws that can be customized to fit the needs of particular jurisdictions. It also has many of the resources cited in Legal Pathways and other reports and analyses of the legal tools.
After the book’s publication in the spring of 2019, we began recruiting pro bono law firms and lawyers to draft model laws and other legal documents keyed to the recommendations in the book. After we finalize these model laws and other legal documents and subject them to peer review, they will be posted here.
The Coronavirus pandemic is rightly consuming enormous public attention and energy as we launch this website. While the pandemic will subside at some point, hopefully in the near future, the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be with us for a much longer time. We are stubbornly optimistic that this country—and the world—can also rise to the climate change challenge. This website provides a great many resources for doing just that.