Reconciling Energy, the Environment and Sustainable Development: The Role of Law and Regulation

Reconciling Energy, the Environment and Sustainable Development deals with one of the most intriguing questions of modern life from an under-explored legal perspective: energy transition and its relationship with law and regulation. It also explores the scope and meaning of sustainability and sustainable development in the energy field. Challenged by sustainability imperatives, the world faces a transition in how it uses and produces energy. Yet, despite the indisputable interdependence between energy and the environment, law in these two areas has developed separately, with little consideration for how the logic and aims of each might be reconciled. This innovative book addresses this crucial nexus, exploring the role that law must inevitably play as the effects of fossil fuel–induced climate change continue to radically affect every aspect of life on Earth.

What’s in this book:

Focusing on the emerging concept of reflexive regulation, the analysis takes giant steps in paving the way for effective legal engagement in the energy transition process. Issues and topics explored in detail include the following:

• energy’s distinctive characteristic as an economic activity that works in a chain;
• relation of physical aspects of energy to its legal and social dimensions;
• main aspects of regulation, environmental law and the concept of sustainability;
• specific security of supply challenges faced by the industry; and
• emergence and worldwide adoption of the environmental impact assessment as a procedural mechanism and its connection with Reflexive Regulation.

The author supports her arguments with a detailed and critical examination of the theoretical framework regulation and includes citations of case law, rules and regulations from diverse jurisdictions. A case study on the development of the Brazilian electricity sector – an exemplary case, considering the country’s abundance of natural energy resources, industrial efficiency prerogatives, regulatory incentives to ensure investment in supply expansion, and increasing demands in meeting sustainability objectives, all as highlighted by ongoing litigation – illustrates the arguments put forward.

How this will help you:

This book presents a meaningful reading of sustainable development within the energy field by privileging an integrated perspective. This book makes a substantial contribution to developing a framework aimed at linking potential divergent policy objectives in diverse and distinct interdependent fields. This book is a starting point for changing the future legal landscape in the field by offering a unique opportunity to rethink the reasons why energy and environmental law have developed in an uneasy and disconnected way. It will be welcomed by energy and environmental lawyers and policymakers, as well as by economists, scholars and other professionals concerned with the meaning of law and regulation in relation to energy, environment and development, and the possible roles law and regulation may play in a pressing scenario of change.