Architecture, Planning, and International Law: Building Postcarbon Futures

In July 2025, the International Court of Justice published a groundbreaking advisory opinion that establishes the legal obligation for states to adopt significant measures to combat climate change—particularly industrialized nations that have contributed most significantly to the crisis. The charge is clear, now scientifically and legally: We must transform infrastructure to ensure the planet’s future for all those who inhabit it. But what does a postcarbon future look like? And how can the infrastructure of that future serve to not only repair and restore environments but fundamentally reimagine the unjust, inefficient, and unsustainable systems that, quite literally, fuel the climate crisis and its inequitable impacts? The scale of the question—and its consequences—is daunting. But answers can be found all around us, as chronicled in scholar Billy Fleming‘s 2026 book, Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions. Celebrating 29 works of climate justice from around the world, the book foregrounds the tactics and modes of practice being employed, often by marginalized peoples, to create more humane, hospitable places—from a geothermal renewable energy plant in British Columbia, to Indigenous-led wildfire management efforts in Northern Australia, to a Sao Paolo social housing initiative that invests in ecological restoration and community resilience. A continuation of the League’s Architecture, Planning, and International Law series and co-organized with the Center for Brooklyn History of the Brooklyn Public Library and the Climate and Community Institute, this event will present a selection of case studies, followed by a panel discussion with leading experts at the intersection of climate policy and the built environment to draw a roadmap for building climate justice in our cities, landscapes, and communities. Panelists include: Daniel Aldana Cohen works on the intersections of the climate emergency, housing, political economy, social movements