The Three Degrees Project

The Three Degrees Project is a multidisciplinary think tank, housed at the UW School of Law, dedicated to pioneering the burgeoning field of climate justice. Our goal is to build the intellectual infrastructure that will be needed to boldly confront the urgent humanitarian crisis at the heart of climate change. Bringing together the best minds in law, policy, and the physical and social sciences, the project will reorient climate discourse to address issues of health, food and water, security, equity, and justice, while providing leadership opportunities to students and faculty seeking to prepare the world for a warmer future.

We do this by:

1. Applying proven and powerful law and policy tools in new ways to assess and address the human rights impacts of climate change around the world;
2. Building the capacity for multidisciplinary collaboration within the University of Washington by supporting the creation of fully integrated teams of lawyers, scientists, and policy makers to assess climate risks and apply empowering adaptation strategies that protect human rights; and
3. Creating and demonstrating a clinical educational model that trains students and faculty to work directly with communities impacted by the climate crisis.

Our Tools

• Speaking Tours and Presentations
• Climate Adaptation Analysis & Pro-Bono Consulting
• Exploring the Effects of Climate Change on Humans Rights: An Experiential Curriculum
• Simulation Summits: Facilitated Socratic Workshops on Predicted Futures
• Climate Justice Graduate Seminar
  (Deadline to apply for this year’s Seminar is October 28, 2009)

Three Degrees in the News

October 13, 2009
UW Law Students Take Climate Justice to Stanford, Europe
Two UW School of Law students have brought the issue of climate change as it relates to human rights to the forefront and are on the road presenting their work this week at Stanford Law School and next week in Europe.

July 27, 2009
UW Law Students Present at International Climate Change Conference
Following on the heels of organizing an internationally-renowned climate change conference of their own, two UW School of Law students were invited to present at an international conference on climate change in Shanghai, China.

Coverage of Three Degrees: The Law of Climate Change and Human Rights Conference
Connecting polar bears to people - Real Change
Think of the children, or think of your ski trip: Two ways to tell the climate story - Grist
Using Human Rights Law to Address Climate Change - WorldChanging
Can human rights be the climate movement's moral guide? - Grist
Conference examines human-rights side of climate change - The Daily
The UW School of Law hosted Three Degrees May 28 and 29, a UW law student-led effort to develop a legal system addressing the impacts of climate change on human rights.

April 10, 2009
UW School of Law Conference Addresses Climate Change and Human Rights
The UW School of Law will host a law student-led conference in an effort to develop a legal system addressing the impacts of climate change on human rights May 28 and 29, 2009.