Projects

For several years, EPC has partnered with Our Children’s Trust (OCT), a nonprofit public interest law firm, on OCT’s landmark constitutional climate litigation brought on behalf of youth plaintiffs and future generations. This litigation aims to secure the legal rights of youth to a stable climate by challenging state and federal governments’ support of the fossil fuel energy system and other official actions contributing to the climate crisis.

EPC is partnering with Kanji & Katzen P.L.L.C., one of the premier firms protecting the sovereignty and vitality of Indian nations and their members, to advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental protection. EPC students are working with attorneys at Kanji & Katzen on litigation preventing pipeline development on Tribal lands, upholding Tribal treaty fishing and water rights, and defending the authority of Tribal governments to regulate environmental matters on their lands.

New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) is one of the most ambitious climate laws in the country, mandating that at least 40 percent of clean energy investments go to “disadvantaged communities” in New York who have historically shouldered disproportionate environmental burdens. UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community-based organization, is working to operationalize the CLCPA and facilitate a just transition in the Sunset Park neighborhood through the GRID Plan 2.0. EPC is providing policy analysis and technical support to implement the GRID Plan 2.0, with the aim of building scalable and replicable community-led models for regenerative economic development rooted in racial, economic, and environmental justice.

Deforestation and forest degradation are significant drivers of the climate and biodiversity crises. Although the international community has largely focused on deforestation in the tropics, countries in the Global North have historically sidestepped scrutiny for industrial logging of boreal and temperate forests. To promote global action on forest protection — including from the Global North — EPC is working with NRDC to advance a campaign for countries to adopt a forest equity accountability framework.

Governments are increasingly joining the 30x30 movement, which seeks to protect at least 30 percent of land and 30 percent of ocean areas by 2030. However, these ambitions, which often seek to increase the number of protected areas, have faced criticism from those who view the exclusion of human activities as unjust and leading to inequitable differences in access to nature. EPC is working with NRDC to develop recommendations on incorporating equity and justice principles in ocean conservation policy, with a focus on social equity in the establishment of marine protected areas.

In 2024, Vermont became the first governmental entity in the United States to pass a law requiring major fossil fuel companies to shoulder the loss and damage costs of climate change. Similar “climate superfund” bills have been contemplated in California, New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland. The fate of Vermont’s law will influence whether these legislative efforts spread. EPC is working as part of a coalition of NGOs and other environmental law clinics to defend Vermont’s law from legal challenges.

For the 2024–2025 academic year, EPC includes projects from the Climate, Animals, Food, and Environmental Law & Policy (CAFE) Lab. Greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture make up more than 11 percent of global emissions. Furthermore, livestock and their manure are the top source of methane, a climate super-pollutant, in the United States. Despite these harms, animal agriculture has received little public or legislative scrutiny for its contributions to climate change. EPC and CAFE Lab are collaborating with NGOs to develop novel litigation and legislative models to hold industrial food producers accountable for the currently uncounted, externalized costs of industrial agriculture on animals, workers, communities, and the environment.