The federal district court for the Southern District of Florida adopted a settlement agreement between Center for Biological Diversity and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the Secretary of the Interior, and the FWS’s director to resolve a lawsuit filed in 2025 to compel the federal defendants to take final actions under the Endangered Species Act regarding reptiles and plants facing climate change threats. In the settlement agreement, the defendants agreed to a schedule for publishing final listing determinations for three reptiles and for final critical habitat designations for eight South Florida plant species listed in 2016 and 2017 as endangered or threatened.

Lawsuit to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue final determinations on the proposed listing of three small reptiles and to designate critical habitat for eight plant species threatened by climate change in Florida.

Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

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Fish and Wildlife Service Agreed to Schedule for Listing and Critical Habitat Determinations for Florida Reptiles and Plants

Filed

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives