The US Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision on 2 April, concluding that the US Environmental Protection Agency had the power and the duty to regulate emissions of greenhouse gas emissions.
The decision is a remarkable one in many ways, not least because of the assured way it deals with the science of global warming and because it also gives credence to all efforts to reduce emissions, even if not within the framework of an international agreeement. In this regard Justice Stevens, delivering the majority opinion, noted (at page 23) that '[a] reduction in domestic emissions would slow the pace of global emissions increases, no matter what happens elsewhere.'