From the Editor
By Ed Bean
No debate on this: Businesses and law firms are seeing opportunity in climate change.
Most important man in Georgia
By Janet L. Conley
Southern Co. CEO David Ratcliffe is betting on coal and nuclear as he considers how to produce power in a carbon-constrained world. At stake are billions of dollars in shareholder wealth, plant construction, employee jobs and customer revenues—and the Southeast’s energy future.
Common Ground
By Janet L. Conley
With all of her experience working with warring factions in Congress, Siemens Corp.’s Alison Taylor never thought she’d see environmental groups and corporate polluters unite over limiting greenhouse gases.
Timeline: A science is born
Winners and losers
By Janet L. Conley
Big business sees risks and opportunities from going green in today’s climate, as a broad-based Lehman Brothers’ report, authored by Senior Economic Policy Adviser John Llewellyn, reveals.
Go-to guy
By Andy Peters
Duke Energy’s CEO James E. Rogers has become a driving force behind the shaping of climate change laws. As he likes to say, there is no silver bullet solution to global warming—only a silver buckshot.
Change in the air
By Janet L. Conley
Companies that once spent millions supporting groups designed to discredit scientists who said human activity was causing the Earth to warm have switched now to become believers in anthropogenic climate change.
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Fighting for Water
By Janet L. Conley
Farmers in the Southeast can adjust to rising heat and CO2 levels. But if climate change brings drought or saps aquifers, everyone in the region—from the cities to the suburbs to the sea coast—may end up battling over the most precious resource of all: water.
Behind the science
By Janet L. Conley
Climate models all seem to offer slightly different views on what the future of a warming Earth might look like. Noted Georgia Tech scientist Judith A. Curry offers insight for those who’d like to understand why supposedly objective science yields such seemingly inconsistent projections of the future.
Gathering storm
By Janet L. Conley
Despite some profitable periods, an examination of the entire 75 years during which Allstate has written homeowners’ policies shows that, in the end, it never made money insuring peoples’ dwellings—largely because of hurricane damage occurring just during the past 15 years.
Chart: How heat makes hurricanes
Risk Management
By Janet L. Conley
Predicting the future is big business, as climate scientist Celine Herweijer knows. Her company, Risk Management Solutions, helps insurers assess the potential cost of catastrophe. The RMS view: Global warming will dramatically change both scientific modeling and the price of risk.
Seas “certain” to rise
By Janet L. Conley
Though many aspects of climate change still are uncertain, some scientists say they’re sure that rising sea levels will snatch parts of Georgia’s shoreline and make the state’s coastal-area residents and beachfront real estate vulnerable to rising waters.
Map: Rising seas and coastal Georgia
Map: Tipping points for catastrophe across the planet
Map: How will climate change affect Georgia:
Climate change across the U.S.
By Janet L. Conley
All states are not created equal when it comes to climate change. Different U.S. regions already have shown disparate degrees of warming, and more is coming. Although the Southeast will fare better than some areas, the summer heat index still could rise by 15 degrees Fahrenheit—or more.
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A rush to the courthouse
By Janet L. Conley
Plaintiffs’ attorney Gerald Maples believes oil companies and other polluters are to blame for Hurricane Katrina. His suit against 33 oil, gas, coal, utility and chemical companies may be a long shot, but all over the United States, climate change has prompted a wide variety of state and federal litigation.
Full disclosure
By Janet L. Conley
Climate change isn’t just affecting the polar bears’ habitat; it’s altering the corporate habitat, too. More companies than ever are disclosing the risks and possible opportunities related to global warming in their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and investors are demanding even more disclosure.
On the docket
By Janet L. Conley
At least 17 suits related to climate change are pending in the United States now, covering laws and issues as varied as the Clean Air Act, the Freedom of Information Act, nuisance and pre-emption. Our listing offers a synopsis of each pending case, as well as some climate change suits that already have been resolved.
Liability for a warming earth
By Janet L. Conley
Although an uncertain regulatory environment may give shareholders more latitude to sue companies that don’t adequately disclose climate risk, directors’ and officers’ insurance policies may—at least for now—offer an unexpected boon. The standard pollution exclusion may not apply to greenhouse gases.
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Opportunity in thin air
By Janet L. Conley
Atlanta attorney John Varholy went to London six years ago to help clients trade an invisible commodity in a market that didn’t exist. His forward-thinking move paid off. Today, Europe’s carbon market is worth $30 billion, and offers a preview of what may be coming in this country.
Across the pond
By Janet L. Conley
Margaret Thatcher—not Al Gore—was the first politician to make global warming a public policy issue. As a former chemist, Britain’s one-time prime minister understood the science early on, and that has made all the difference in her country’s attitude and adaptation to global warming.
Carbon future(s)
By Janet L. Conley
Congress is considering climate change legislation that one day could be as big as Superfund or the Clean Air Act. Although a U.S. carbon cap-and-trade system could be lucrative or perilous, one thing is clear: Lawyers are going to make money.
Graphic: Candidates' views on climate change
Energy innovation
By Janet L. Conley
Sometimes innovation is driven more by tax incentives and regulatory certainty than by the simple presence of a good idea. That’s the case with technology designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—corporations are simply waiting for regulators to create a market for what they’d like to create.
Climate change heats up Capitol Hill
By Tim Bentley
The past year has seen an unprecedented level of congressional energy devoted to bills, hearings and lobbying about climate change. According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, some 125 bills deal with the issue of a warming Earth.
Georgia lawmakers on climate action
By Andy Peters
While other states have jumped ahead of the federal government to combat climate change, Georgia legislators are taking a wait-and-see—or even skeptical—view. As one legislator says, “The poles of Mars are melting, and we didn’t sneak any SUVs up there.”
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Green law comes of age
By Janet L. Conley
The first national survey of how law firms are changing their business strategies because of global warming shows that in the brave new world of climate change law, opportunity often appears in unexpected places. Big law firms and small around the country are generating billables from wood chips, sugar cane, geothermal brine and garbage.
Chart: AmLaw 200 survey results
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