Climate Change

Climate change represents one of the most significant economic developments of this decade. Even as it poses significant risk to existing business enterprises, climate change is dramatically impacting economies and industries worldwide, resulting in a wide array of new business opportunities. It will have lasting effects on how our clients do business or provide their services now and for years to come. The implications and opportunities are so manifold that tackling these issues requires counsel with a uniquely broad perspective and comprehensive experience.

Clients routinely call upon Chadbourne's experience facilitating private equity investments and venture capital deals, capital markets access, temporary and long-term financing, and mergers and acquisitions of new or established enterprises. The firm has extensive experience working with early stage investments in start-ups and has already helped build industries where none previously existed in fields such as independent power and biofuels and in markets as diverse as Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.

Chadbourne possesses the experience to assist corporations, insurers and reinsurers, entrepreneurs, investors, lenders and funds in developing and executing their climate change strategies. Chadbourne understands that a climate change practice must transcend geographical boundaries and an array of legal specialty areas. Our Climate Change practice emanates, in part, from our widely recognized work on emissions and energy credit trading, renewable energy and environmental issues, and is primarily built upon traditional strengths in such areas as insurance/reinsurance, financial, energy, regulatory, and corporate. In addition to these core practice areas, Chadbourne also possess extensive experience in litigation and corporate governance. Our attorneys regularly perform complex environmental due diligence, assist with regulatory compliance, monitor legislative developments and assist with various insurance aspects of climate change.

Moreover, Chadbourne possesses unique knowledge and experience from Climate Change team members George Pataki, the former Governor of New York, and John Cahill, former Commissioner of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. Governor Pataki currently is co-chairing the Independent Task Force on Global Warming, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations and is focusing on climate change issues as a member of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations' General Assembly. Governor Pataki and Mr. Cahill were also instrumental in introducing the first carbon cap and trade program in the nation for the State of New York. Their expertise combined with Chadbourne’s thorough and in-depth understanding of climate change issues provides our clients with the advice they need to understand and prepare for the local, national and global impact of climate change.

An interview with Mr. Cahill, who discusses the climate change practice, U.S. and European climate initiatives, carbon trading and other issues, can be found here.

Representative Experience