An affiliate of the Columbia Climate School, the Sabin Center frequently collaborates with their scientists on cutting edge interdisciplinary research. Our activities are spearheaded by Michael Gerrard, Faculty Director of the Sabin Center; and Andrew Sabin, Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School; Michael Burger, Executive Director of the Sabin Center and Senior Research Scholar at Columbia Law School; and Romany Webb, Deputy Director and Research Scholar at Columbia Law School. Our broader team includes 16 full time lawyers and support staff. Learn more about our team members here.
Since its creation in 2009, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School has been known as a center of expertise, providing timely information and resources on key topics and promoting advances in the interrelated fields of climate change law, environmental regulation, energy regulation and natural resources law. The core mission of the Sabin Center is to develop and promulgate legal techniques to combat the climate crisis and advance climate justice, and to train the next generation of leaders in the field. The Center is both a partner to and a resource for those engaged in climate change work, and promotes government and private sector accountability through the compilation and dissemination of information for academic and practitioner communities.
Columbia Law School is specially situated to make fundamental contributions to the development of the legal structures needed to address climate change. As one of the world’s preeminent law schools, our faculty has unsurpassed depth in the many legal disciplines that must be harnessed to address the critical issue of climate change. This initiative benefits from great synergies with the school’s other centers and programs around Columbia University.
Solving the climate change problem requires profound changes in the behavior of governments, corporations, nonprofit institutions and individuals around the world. A complex legal structure is needed to induce and manage these alterations. While environmental and energy law are at the center of this structure, many other areas of law play important roles—corporate, securities, real estate, property, international trade, intellectual property, tax, human rights, contracts, criminal, and others.
Domestic legislation and international agreements leave many key questions to the implementation of new laws and regulations. Developing the international regime and national framework laws, and working out these questions, solving the operational problems, and pushing through the needed behavioral changes—through legal compulsion, where necessary—is one of the most critical global projects of our time.
An effective legal response to climate change requires the intensive attention of dedicated lawyers who understand the profound implications of what might seem like subtle differences in statutory or regulatory language, who understand the ways that the law can be applied to address this global threat, and who are not beholden to any corporation, industry, or other interest group or political constituency. The legal academy has the rare combination of expertise and independence to play an essential role here.
Impact
The Sabin Center’s work shapes climate law and policy in the United States and globally. You can access our annual reports and our diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism plan below: