STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford Law School has announced the appointment of environmental scholar Michael Wara as assistant professor of law.

Trained as a lawyer and a scientist, Wara’s current research focuses on the emerging global carbon trading market and mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. His broader scholarship encompasses the legal, financial, and technological constraints on the production of energy.

Wara’s most recent research sheds light on the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a carbon trading market that works by paying developing countries to adopt lower-polluting technologies. Wara’s findings, published in Nature in February 2007 and the subject of a follow-up working paper with co-researcher Professor of Law David Victor, suggest that CDM is not an effective incentive for reducing emissions.

Wara, who is also a fellow at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), draws on an extensive background in oceanography, geochemistry, and climate science. He holds a doctorate in ocean sciences from UC Santa Cruz (2003) and has published work in Science on the history of the El Niño/La Niña system and its response to changing climates.

Wara joined Stanford in 2007 as a research fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law and as a FSI research fellow. Previously, Wara was an associate in Holland & Knight's Government Practice Group, where his practice focused on climate change, land use and environmental law. In addition to a Ph.D. in ocean sciences, he holds a B.A. from Columbia University (1996) and a JD from Stanford Law School (2006).

Stanford Law School (www.law.stanford.edu) is one of the nation's leading institutions for legal scholarship and education.