How can courts respond to the health impacts of climate change? On the occasion of a conference at Harvard Law School on 29 October 2026, sponsored by the Walter de Gruyter Foundation, we spoke with one of its conveners, Alicia Ely Yamin, about the right to health, climate change, and the role of judicial enforcement.
On Oct. 5, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that has the potential to greatly impact state and local municipalities’ ability to fight widespread threats to public and environmental health.
The provision of healthcare is responsible for roughly 8.5 percent of total carbon emissions in the United States. In turn, carbon emissions cause climate change and harm human health.
In July 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 on the climate emergency, one of the most comprehensive judicial pronouncements on climate change to date.
The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. As part of our retrospective and the Salata Institute’s Climate Week, journey through our past and present climate justice work. Introduction Events The Petrie-Flom Center hosts lunchtime discussions, book talks, conferences, and webinars throughout the year,…
Recently three key areas have attracted special EU attention: sustainability, biodiversity, and food supply and security.
The range of adverse mental health effects resulting from climate change include triggering or exacerbating anxiety, depression, grief, and suicide. Natural phenomena from heatwaves and droughts to floods and fires that are fueled by climate change cause trauma, distress, and other mental health conditions. So can chronic, slow-onset effects of global warming, such as water and food insecurity, community breakdown, and conflict. Members of marginalized groups, especially Indigenous peoples, feel these effects in unique and especially acute…
For the past week, I have watched my beloved city of Los Angeles become engulfed in flames. My heart aches knowing that the places I once loved—the Will Rogers beach house, the Palisades lookout, and a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway—will never be the same.
By Anna Aguilar and Sidney Lee In 1971, Congress tasked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with establishing procedures to “eliminate as far as practicable” the dangers of lead poisoning. Yet, HUD has repeatedly fallen short of accomplishing this. More than 50 years later, for children in federally assisted housing in the…
Conclusion of the Digital Symposium Climate Change and Health
