A Commentary on the Current State of Environmental Law

On February 15, 2025, scholars, practitioners, students, and policymakers convened at the New Directions in Environmental Law 2025 conference at Yale Law School to analyze changes and emerging issues in environmental law. Student reporters Abigail Murphy and Clara Cusanelli prepared this edited summary of the Keynote Address given by Ali Zaidi, former White House National Climate Advisor. 

The unifying theme of the keynote address given by Mr. Zaidi, former White House National Climate Advisor, was the necessity for hopeful, non-partisan collective action in the face of the increasingly common “doom and gloom” of climate change. On a daily basis, we, as Americans, are bombarded by disasters and tragedies. News publications and social media sites are filled with reports of severe fires, droughts, floods, and dangerous storms. These events lead to a sense of powerlessness, which threatens the advances made globally in the fight against the inherited injustices resulting from historic and continued environmental degradation, economic inequality, and structural racism. In these instances, Mr. Zaidi conveyed that events like the New Directions in Environmental Law Conference are critical; they bring together people with shared values to reaffirm the importance of community and our duty, as a legal community, to help people realize their own power. Although it becomes hard to remember, “the arc of history bends towards justice.” 

After opening, Mr. Zaidi addressed the current state of environmental law and the efforts that we, as attorneys and environmental advocates, can take to address climate change. He called particular attention to the deregulation narrative, which is gaining increasing prominence as an ostensibly pragmatic solution to not only environmental but also public health issues that persist in the US. He urged caution and argued that some such efforts could ultimately harm the process of raising the capital necessary to finance new US manufacturing capacity and clean energy development and could also undermine the well-being of individuals, families, and communities. This has occurred in tandem with a wider conservative backlash against market-driven, voluntary environmental, social, and governance investment policies (ESG), which have prompted major companies to downplay or back away from sustainability efforts. For example, in January 2025, investment company BlackRock left the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAMI), an investment network pledged to a zero-carbon future, following legal pressure from conservative politicians. 

Mr. Zaidi explained the potential of a counter-narrative grounded in a new substantive strategy to address climate change based on partnership rather than blame. The finger-wagging approach to promoting sustainability and decarbonization in the face of a systemic crisis is unlikely to produce a durable and much-needed foothold, and is even less likely to shape policy in the direction our world requires to remain habitable and avoid preventable destruction. Transparent, flexible, and performance-based regulations can provide the substantive tools to create space for such partnerships and build certainty for private capital and corporate entities. This type of regulatory “scaffolding” can be accomplished in ways that reflect our values and enable investment in the solutions we need.

 

Building Resilience

In addition to the broad need to elevate partnerships, Mr. Zaidi set forth two specific areas that require attention to make environmental law more effective in the face of climate change: resilience and micro thinking. To begin with the former, he emphasized that resilience must have a larger presence in environmental discussions to identify potential threats and downscale those threats to local decision-makers. He identified three current risks that impede our resiliency capacity: outdated climate laws, an unmanaged market, and high costs for post-disaster remediation.

 

 

The first risk to resilience, according to Mr. Zaidi, is that our laws governing natural resources are too old to be effective. He called for laws that reach past band-aid solutions and instead reach into the future to offer leverage for change. One example he shared was about the laws that govern the Colorado River. Despite a long history of laws regulating the river, Mr. Zaidi noted that these laws are not yet robust enough to handle mega-droughts, which can last years. To remain resilient, we must seek to create laws that rigorously commit to protecting our future in this changing climate. 

The second risk limiting the resilience of the US is our unmanaged economic market. Mr. Zaidi believes that systemic biases within our economy hold us back from repairing communities after climatic destruction. He looked to the harms stemming from racist housing policies (called “redlining”) that continue to hamper our ability to repair communities and algorithmic biases that keep the playing field unlevel. He discussed how these issues compound on the ground, for example, as insurers pull out of areas at high risk for climate disasters, where minority populations are more likely to reside due to redlining policies. This process exacerbates historic inequities. These rejections affect property destroyed in climate disasters. These discriminatory practices slow our resiliency efforts because not every citizen is given the chance to rebuild.

The final resilience concern Mr. Zaidi noted was the prohibitively high cost of remediation and rebuilding after climate disasters. Throughout his address, Mr. Zaidi frequently referred to the country’s stifled progress in technology and environmental innovation. He advocates for better technological frameworks and legal innovation to bring down the costs of remediation. Recently, there have been efforts to drive public and private investment towards resilient and adoption technologies, but those efforts need to continue. Resiliency can be strengthened when we do the work to break down cost barriers so there are fewer people and environments left in destruction after a disaster. 

 

Micro Thinking

The second important area Mr. Zaidi set forth was micro thinking, meaning focusing closely on the roots of environmental issues and identifying local solutions. He noted, with humor, the irony of advocating smaller thinking during a conference held at Yale Law School of all places. However, he continued, environmental law requires just as many smart minds to source and scale micro on-the-ground solutions as focus on big national solutions to reach our collective goals. He explained that while climate work attracts a lot of macro thinkers, which has led to meaningful progress, we also need to think on a smaller scale to ensure effective implementation. He identified four sectors within the environmental field that stand to benefit from micro thinking: conservation of natural spaces, clean energy transitions, construction projects, and industrial sector decarbonization.

Mr. Zaidi explained that our current conservation ambitions cannot be reached at a large-scale level alone. Micro thinking will help environmentalists harness the potential of smaller projects such as parks, urban greening, and local agriculture. In the aggregate, these smaller efforts add up and allow us to reach larger goals. He also noted the need for intellectual and legal work in conservation; we already have much of the necessary data for algorithmic work, but the challenge is translating that knowledge into results. Localized solutions nationwide will be more effective than sweeping efforts that target the entire country.

 

 

The transition to clean energy could also benefit from micro thinking. Mr. Zaidi stressed the growing need to update our power grids. While this national conversation has largely centered on the US bulk power grid, he emphasized that we should also consider the opportunities at the distribution level. To further this point, he spotlighted Nebraska’s passage of community solar legislation and commended this bill for increasing market competition. He believes the increase in market competition will, in turn, increase the speed of success in environmental solutions. Mr. Zaidi asserted that the market should display issues, rather than hide them, to reveal challenges that competition can address. 

Transportation is one sector of the clean energy transition, and the need to focus on industrial capacity is of significant importance. Mr. Zaidi called attention to the need to focus on input materials like lithium and on strengthening supply chains through investment in the ability to produce cathodes and anodes. He also raised the importance of local policy to accelerate the permitting of charging infrastructure. He noted these more micro issues are of incredible importance to the success of whether macro emission reduction standards or other such schemes are ultimately successful.

To close his discussion on clean energy, Mr. Zaidi described the importance of undoing a binary we often subject our fellow citizens to: either fully supporting extracting resources forever or not at all. We need to recognize that the shift to clean energy is a journey, and this restrictive binary will only slow our progress. More localized, smaller thinking can help defeat this binary by pulling focus away from overly broad policies and toward discrete solutions that improve people’s lives. 

The third area Mr. Zaidi identified that can benefit from micro thinking was construction, specifically building codes and permitting. While the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, adopted under the Biden administration, was a step in the right direction, local economic work is necessary for success. As for permitting, he advocated for more time spent on the circulation of distributed energy resources. He praised a California measure aimed at improving the predictability and reliability of heat pumps, a form of distributed energy that offers a cleaner alternative to burning fossil fuels. These heat pump improvements, though very localized actions, will encourage consumers to implement the pumps in their homes. Further legislative and regulatory improvements can be made to ensure access and efficiency when switching to clean energy at an individual level. More legislation to protect access to the pumps will ensure consumers get their products faster and remain interested. These small tweaks have a large impact on the overall construction of our buildings. 

 

 

Lastly, Mr. Zaidi emphasized the need for micro thinking in industrial sector decarbonization work, especially when considering international imports and exports. Carbon dioxide is an international problem, and our global reliance on it stems from our need to bolster our economies through international trade. While sweeping trade reform may seem like a solution, such reforms, if not well thought through, can carry detriments to underprivileged communities and worsen the inequitable divide between the Global North and South. Smart solutions require shaping advances in trade law that create pathways for localized industrial sector innovation. These solutions will require lawyers and advocates, with sensitivity to social impacts, to ensure everyone is brought along on the decarbonization journey. Mr. Zaidi noted Europe’s 2026 decarbonization deadline, which aims to price imports in correlation with the carbon emissions of the products, as an opportunity to push for this sort of local impact analysis and sensitivity. Smaller-scale thinking on trade law issues addresses the hyper-local impacts of trade and ensures inequities are corrected. 

 

Moving Forward in Environmental Law

Mr. Zaidi closed his keynote address by sharing a personal experience he had with Andy, a young woman he met from North Carolina, who lived in a supposed “climate haven.” Andy’s community was devastated by Hurricane Helene, which motivated her to sign up for the American Climate Corps. Our future promises increasing destruction and uncertainty, whether it comes from erratic federal policy or severe weather events fueled by climate change. In moments of fear and doubt, Mr. Zaidi encouraged us, as future lawyers, advocates, and policymakers, to regroup and collaborate to build our collective future. 

 

 

Audience Discussion

During the audience question-and-answer session following the keynote address, an audience member raised an insightful question about how political partnerships can be forged, given Mr. Zaidi’s suggestions and the high degree of political polarization regarding climate policy. Mr. Zaidi answered by reminding the attendees of the importance of climate efforts. He stated that such investments should not be seen as a “right or left strategy,” but instead, the focus should be on organizing and delivering value to all areas of the country— regardless of whether they are urban or rural, rich or poor, red or blue. For instance, under the Inflation Reduction Act, care was taken to direct development and investment into “red” or conservative districts with lower incomes and educational attainment, thereby localizing efforts and helping to build investment for those who might be politically averse to these efforts otherwise. “Selling” climate policy requires localizing efforts and delivering value by meeting citizens where they are and understanding how policy can benefit them. This approach is likely to become even more critical in the current moment and near future, as we expect to see limited federal investment under the current administration. 

Another audience member inquired about what existing laws can safeguard the environment from the current Trump administration. Mr. Zaidi answered that the widespread popularity of many environmental policies, such as clean air and clean water, serves as a crucial area for political salience that can shape the actions of any administration and hold all elected officials accountable. However, to make this happen, we, as citizens, need to engage with the democratic process and build trust on the ground to animate accountability. 

Mr. Zaidi concluded by highlighting the past successes of bipartisan environmental policy as proof these efforts can succeed. For instance, the ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol came after a long process of negotiations across the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations before being ultimately ratified under the Biden administration. As a result, the US has agreed to phase out the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which were adopted as an alternative to ozone-depleting chemicals, like CFCs, but were found to contribute to climate change. In addition, the bipartisan 2018 Farm Bill included elements that incentivize climate-friendly policies, such as the use of cover crops, longer crop rotations, and riparian buffer zones. These past efforts (and ones currently being rolled back) have allowed the nation to understand what we need to do and how. Even still, a backslide in climate policy will mean our clock is even shorter while the road remains long.