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This paper considers key drivers to climate policy development with an emphasis on the role of a jurisdiction's underlying energy resource. The states of Hawaii in the United States and Victoria in Australia provide an insightful comparative case study given their differing energy resources: Hawaii has no native fossil fuel resources but abundant renewable energy options while Victoria has an economy traditionally reliant on cheap, plentiful coal. The Advocacy Coalition Framework is applied to analyze why the two states, despite the different incentives provided by their energy resources, developed similar climate policies in the earlier period of policy response to global warming. Analysis finds the stable parameter of energy resources is counterbalanced by other policy drivers including public opinion, leadership and, in particular, features of policy-making particular to the subnational level that provide a different context for climate policy development to that offered at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization defined climate change as the most important issue for the 21st century. In 2014, the State of Hawaii called climate change "a matter of security" that directly threatens "economic systems - food, water, energy, biodiversity and health" and has called for "actionable information for local decision making." According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the burden of human morbidity attributable to climate change is relatively small although not well quantified. Nevertheless, generic climate change impacts are often used to justify actions without adequate supporting local evidence. This paper analyzes Hawaii's health risks in relation to air pollution, heat extremes, ultraviolet radiation, and weather extremes and finds that Hawaii's natural geography, robust water, and sanitation infrastructure render the islands less vulnerable to many of the often-mentioned climate change threats. It concludes that the health security threat posed by climate change effects on Hawaii's physical environment over the next 35 years is slight in most areas and moderate with regard to ecosystem health. Because all global communities tend to be both discrete and unique in their vulnerability, it recommends the collection of grassroots, community-based resilience data to reveal local vulnerabilities that can inform strategic statewide planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]