Flattening the Curve - What Climate Change Advocates Can Learn from COVID-10 Pandemic and Response

The ABA has posted the video for our June 30 webinar on "Flattening the Curve" - What Climate Change advocates can learn from the COVID Pandemic and response. The ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice hosted a panel discussion including Sara Bronin, the Faculty Director, Center for Energy & Environmental Law, University of Connecticut School of Law, Michael Gerrard, the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Law School; Faculty Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School, Adam Zipkin, Legislative Counsel, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, and me, TraceyRoberts – Associate Professor of Law, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University. Lisa Benjamin, Assistant Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School, moderated the panel.

Everyone has now heard of "flattening the curve," a call for collective action to limit the worst effects of COVID-19. Advocates of climate action have begun to note the uncanny similarities between unchecked climate change and the pandemic, including the challenges brought by exponential growth, increased public awareness of the problem, and the imperative of a unified public response. Both pandemics and climate change know no boundaries and have the most impact on vulnerable communities; but ultimately they affect us all. Both jeopardize the safety, well-being and inherent dignity of those affected. And both trigger legal and ethical obligations of governments and the private sector to protect and safeguard the civil, political, economic, social and cultural human rights that pandemics and climate change threaten equally. Because climate change, like COVID-19, is a global problem with local consequences, addressing it will require a collaborative and coordinated set of solutions implemented locally, nationally, regionally and internationally. Attorneys have a major role to play by writing and advocating for meaningful change. Speakers will describe the lessons COVID-19 has taught us about the need for an effective global response; and they will identify a variety of legal actions governments and the private sector must take to "flatten the curve" and keep the worst effects of climate change at bay.