Symposium Issues: Energy, Water, Food, and Climate Change

This article explores ecologically responsible regulation within the global animal agriculture system. A case study of the global meat industry shows that only through radically reconceptualizing how food systems are regulated, including the use of multi-dimensions regulatory tools, will stake¬holders be able to address some of the detrimental challenges created by this form of food production.

This article highlights the complexities of crafting regulatory systems within the food-water nexus that respect competing interests such as Indigenous rights as they relate to traditional food-consumption practices, food sovereignty and security, commercial aqua/agricultural activities, and broader environmental considerations. The author traces the history of trditional fishing by the indigenous community in the Northern Territory of Australia, highlighting its importance in terms of subsistence and culture.

The ever-increasing expansion of offshore wind farms as an alternative to coal generated energy is creating a new flashpoint for conflict—that between innovative new energy producers and an aggressively expanding marine aquaculture industry. A robust regulatory framework that recognizes and embraces the importance of the marine food-water-energy-climate nexus and integrates tools that encourage multiuse activi­ties will allow both activities to thrive simultaneously within marine environments.

The Colorado River basin encompasses seven U.S. states, two Mexican states, and twenty-eight Na­tive American territories, producing food and energy for millions. This article focuses on the lessons international law can draw from the interstate management of the Colorado River.

This article features an in-depth analysis of the water-food-energy-climate change nexus as it relates to groundwater in the United States, the governance of which is highly decentralized and multifarious. The authors report on two U.S. state-level surveys conducted in 2013 and 2017, and a “three-case-study analysis of illustrative, regional approaches in the U.S. Sun Belt.” The work further illuminates the need for cross-jurisdictional cooperation to better—or more effectively—regulate groundwater.

This article focuses on the climate-energy-financial nexus, and the growing opportunities that exist within this space for addressing climate change. Risk—central to the climate change dis­course—and the need to effectively mitigate climate related risks has been, as the author argues, a catalyst for the development of climate finance regulation.

This article examines the cli­mate-energy nexus as it relates to the U.S. wholesale energy market and climate change activities. Energy in-betweens are innovations in non-energy sectors that do not neatly fit existing state and federal regulatory schemes. The author’s critique of the federal and state regulatory regimes, and the inherent tensions within when faced with these alternative sources of energy, serves to further highlight the need for regulatory reform. 

This article traces the social and economic importance—and impact—of the energy-water-food nexus within the broader Australian economy, providing the reader with a taste of the distinctive nature of the regulatory regimes that have been crafted to govern them. The author provides a cri­tique of key tools that could be integrated into any such governance framework including, for example, public trust and legal personhood for natural resources.

This article features an empirical examination of the energy-water-food nexus in the context of uncon­ventional gas developments in Queensland, Australia. Recognizing the need for improving descriptive and normative theories of nexus governance, the authors draw on their empirical findings to show that nexus gov­ernance in Queensland reflects “a hybrid governance architecture, where multiple instruments are used to respond to one or more nexus points.”