Search

In this article, we provide a comparative case study analysis of the differentiated climate change engagement of the Bank of England (BoE), European Central Bank (ECB) and Federal Reserve (Fed). Drawing on semi-structured interviews and a newly composed database of central banker speeches and legislative documents, we argue that climate (in)actions of these central banks are shaped by concerns over their reputation. A broad socio-political consensus on the need for climate change mitigation enabled the BoE and ECB to begin integrating CRFRs into their supervisory frameworks without affecting their socio-political reputation while the carbon bias in their own asset purchase programs compelled both central banks to also start greening their monetary policy to preserve their performative reputation. The Fed's more cautious moves have been driven by a fear of loss of technical reputation in the face of a growing transnational consensus on the financial stability risks of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of various environmental issues and legislative developments related to climate change and sustainability. It discusses concerns over extreme weather events, the lack of leadership in resiliency planning, and the need for long-term strategies to address increasing temperatures. The article also mentions a landmark case where Switzerland was found to have breached human rights by failing to protect citizens from climate change effects. It provides updates on bills being considered in Parliament, EU regulations on greenhouse gases, and domestic case law examples. Additionally, the article includes a list of ongoing and closed consultations on topics such as clean heat market mechanisms, carbon border adjustment mechanisms, and climate-related financial disclosures. It also highlights select committee reports on issues like deforestation, electric vehicles, and government resilience to extreme weather. The article concludes with news articles on the impact of climate change globally, including record-breaking temperatures in 2023 and the potential breach of the 1.5C temperature rise threshold. These findings emphasize the urgency of addressing climate change. [Extracted from the article]

Global warming and consequent climate change have emerged as serious issues and have started featuring on almost all multilateral forums with statements warning the global leadership to get increasingly proactive about addressing the issues. In world politics, countries are viewing climate change as an issue to gain influence in international politics. India is no exception to this rule and has been shaping its role as a rule-shaper and policy advocate and is an active participant in climate change negotiations. This article traces India's role since the talks on climate change began as part of wider environmental concerns. It also enumerates the way global leadership viewed and addressed this pressing issue from time to time. The article provides a brief but critical account of India's policy interventions at global and national levels to appraise India's growing role and relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semiconductor industry is experiencing a rising demand for environmentally friendly processes with the emphasis on green policies and worldwide environmental sustainability. Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), the most common plasma chamber cleaning agent gas, poses a significant concern as a potent greenhouse gas since it has global warming potential (GWP), 740 times and 6 times higher than that CO2 and N2O. This study investigated the exhaust gas using quadrupole mass spectroscopy (QMS) and analyzed the change in cleaning speed and the type of exhaust gas through plasma monitoring using optical mass spectroscopy (OES). The objective is to lower the use of the amount of NF3 gas in chamber cleaning process to partially contribute the environmental sustainability in the point of semiconductor manufacturing. When a small amount of N2 was added to NF3 whose ratio of 7:23, the cleaning efficiency reached to 90% compared to NF3 gas alone. Addition of N2 positively affected electron density and temperature to increase the F-radical in remote plasma system. In conclusion, 18% of NF3 usage amount was reduced during the Sio2 deposition chamber cleaning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This article examines the relationship between environmental health threats, personal experiences with climate change, and their association with attitudes toward global warming and willingness to pay for clean energy. Methods: Using a nationally representative survey of Latino adults (n = 1200), we use categorical regressions to examine the relationship between environmental health threats and policy preferences. Results: Latinos who have personally experienced climate change and who view air pollution as a threat, are more likely to be concerned with climate change and believe that passing stricter environmental laws will improve the economy as opposed to reduce econonic growth. Latinos who have experienced climate change and worry about the impact of climate change in their homeland are also more willing to pay $5 or $10 for clean energy. Conclusion: This study has implications for our collective knowledge of Latinos' connections to the environment and policy outcomes and contributes to the growing area of environmental public opinion among ethno‐racial groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, The Public Religion Research Institute and the American Academy of Religion released a report called Believers, Sympathizers, & Skeptics: Why Americans Are Conflicted About Climate Change, Environmental Policy, and Science, which found that a total of 78% of Jewish Americans considered climate change a "crisis" or a "major problem." (Jones et al., 2014, p. 12). In this article, I argue that even as Jewish perspectives on climate change and the environment are varied, there are significant resources within the Jewish tradition that contributed to the development and growth of Jewish environmentalism and climate change activism and advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at how conservative Justices have undermined the extent of federal wetland protections available under the Clean Water Act. Topics include an analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's push to gain control over environmental policy, caselaw surrounding wetland jurisdictional disputes to examine how conservative Justices have reduced federal wetland protections, and developments in Court jurisprudence that threatens the public's interest in mitigating the impacts of climate change.

The article focuses on climate litigation, particularly the case of Held v. State in Montana, where youth plaintiffs challenged the state's environmental policies regarding climate change. It discusses how the court found in favor of the plaintiffs, ruling that the state had violated its constitutional environmental protections, marking a significant development in climate accountability litigation and demonstrating the potential of state constitutional rights in addressing climate impacts.

The research analyzes the Twitter network made up of users and their interactions during the Conference of the Parties (COP) COP15 held in Montreal from December 7 to 19, 2022. The main objective is to measure the characteristics of the network and identify the key players in the conversation and the main topics addressed. We also sought to recognize if there was any relationship between the format of the messages and the level of engagement. To carry out the analysis, we used a methodology that combined quantitative and qualitative social network analysis techniques. The results suggest that communication through Twitter was a key factor in the successful mobilization of the environmental movement during COP15 and in raising awareness of the need to take concrete actions to address climate change. Likewise, the highest engagement was generated by mostly critical and urgent messages, focused on the need to take concrete action to address the biodiversity and climate change crisis. This reflects a separation between the activism reflected in the network and the scientific and political leadership present at the Summit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a decades-old concept, has recently garnered significant support and investment as a leading method for decarbonizing the atmosphere. However, regulation of CCS technology lags behind its rapid development. In most cases, primary regulatory control belongs to the Environmental Protection Agency, though state regulations also play a role. However, an increasing number of states seek control over their own CCS programs through a process known as primacy. This Comment provides an overview of CCS regulation within states that already have or are currently seeking primacy over CCS from the Environmental Protection Agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of green industrial policy strategies around the world is taking place within a broader global context of a turn toward deglobalization and the pursuit of national self-sufficiency. The political economy of domestic renewable energy support and the basic principles of global trade regimes are in direct conflict, with direct implications for nations' abilities to transition to low-carbon economies. Many are calling for decoupling clean energy supply chains from China, yet such responses could slow the global clean energy transition, increasing the cost of deployment in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Sustainabilities" salons, organized by the Fellows of the American Folklore Society, drew together folklorists from the United States, Europe, and Asia, who were interested in frameworks for the study and stewardship of culture at the nexus of economy, ecology, nature, and the multi-species ethnographic and ontological turn. Conversations highlighted the continuing friction between public environmental policies grounded in Western instrumental, anthropocentric attitudes toward nature, and deeply relational values espoused by Indigenous and environmental justice communities, and by the growing numbers of climate refugees and host communities—urban and rural—with whom folklorists and heritage scholars are increasingly engaged. Exploring what is most needed from folklorists in a time of global environmental instability, participants identified ways to build on solid foundations developed over decades of public folklore's place-based community engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a conceptual and analytical framework of states' legitimacy-seeking to comprehensively investigate the motivation behind China's climate and environment policy. While previous research has largely overlooked political factors that underlie China's climate policy, this paper argues that these factors are crucial in understanding China's policy changes, which are evident at both domestic and international levels. By examining sources such as government documents, leaders' speeches and authoritative literature, this study contends that China's climate change initiatives are part of a broader effort to enhance domestic and international legitimacy. The issue of climate change has become highly politicised in China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, and it serves as a crucial test of the ruling party and the state's capacity to govern effectively. As such, legitimacy-seeking is the key driver that links China's domestic measures and international commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"We need to make it easier to build electricity transmission lines." This plea came recently not from an electric utility executive but from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the Senate's champions of progressive climate change policy. His concern is that the massive scale of new climate infrastructure urgently needed to meet our nation's greenhouse gas emissions reduction policy goals will face a substantial obstacle in the form of existing federal, state, and local environmental laws. A small but growing chorus of politicians and commentators with impeccable green credentials agrees that reform of that system will be needed. But how? How can environmental law be reformed to facilitate building climate infrastructure faster without unduly sacrificing its core progressive goals of environmental conservation, distributional equity, and public participation? That hard question defines what this Article describes as the Greens' Dilemma, and there are no easy answers. We take the position in this Article that the unprecedented scale and urgency of required climate infrastructure requires reconsidering the "Grand Bargain" of the 1970s that established stronger environmental protection in exchange for more challenging infrastructure development. Green interests, however, largely remain resistant even to opening that discussion. As a result, with few exceptions, reform proposals thus far have amounted to modest streamlining "tweaks" compared to what we argue will be needed to accelerate climate infrastructure sufficiently to achieve national climate policy goals. To move beyond tweaking to a "New Grand Bargain," we explore how to assess the trade-off between speed to develop and build climate infrastructure, on the one hand, and ensuring adequate conservation, distributional equity, and public participation on the other. We outline how a new regime would leverage streamlining methods more comprehensively and, ultimately, more aggressively than has been proposed thus far, including through federal preemption, centralizing federal authority, establishing strict timelines, and providing more comprehensive and transparent information sources and access. The Greens' Dilemma is real. The trade-offs inherent between building climate infrastructure quickly enough to achieve national climate policy goals versus ensuring strong conservation, equity, and participation goals are difficult. The time for serious debate is now. This is the first law review article to lay the foundation for that emerging national conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the ongoing decade, the importance of security as a topic has heightened, not least because of the health and broader implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian attack on Ukraine. We have also seen a rapid acceleration in extreme weather events influenced by climate change, including forest fires in Australia, the United States, and Europe; severe flooding in many parts of the world; and extreme heat waves in, for instance, India and Pakistan. These demonstrate how climate change is also increasingly a matter of human and national security. Therefore, climate change as a policy issue and a political topic reaches beyond the remit of sectoral climate or environmental policy. It should be seen as a horizontal cross-government policy area that increasingly affects the security of the whole society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, climate change events have surged in both frequency and intensity. Paradoxically, the most vulnerable and economically disadvantaged states, despite contributing the least to global emissions, face the gravest consequences. Developed nations, despite their wealth of resources, have consistently failed to act in the face of this crisis. For example, the recent United States Supreme Court Decision, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, limited the administrative state's rulemaking authority and thus, its ability to enact necessary climate policy. This decision, based in the infamous "major questions doctrine," asserts that administrative agencies must have explicit authority from Congress when deciding questions of vast economic and political significance - even in times of crisis. This Note, in four parts, traces the evolution of the American judiciary's interpretation of administrative rulemaking from Chevron to the present, ultimately urging Congress to enact legislation that requires courts to defer to the expertise of administrative agencies when interpreting the law--ultimately strengthening the administrative state and its ability to fight climate change. This Note aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse surrounding climate policy and administrative law, emphasizing the imperative for coordinated efforts to address the climate crisis at both the national and international levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the complexities between air quality and climate change, highlighting the interconnected nature of these two critical environmental issues. Drawing from the latest scientific findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it elucidates the dual impact of emissions on local air quality and global climate systems. The discussion pivots on the roles of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), emphasising the need for integrated mitigation strategies that address both air quality and climate change. The article explores how some mitigation efforts can yield synergistic benefits for both domains, while others may present trade-offs. It also delves into the challenges of current GHG reporting protocols that focus predominantly on well-mixed GHGs, arguing for a more inclusive approach that accounts for the diverse effects of SLCFs. Ultimately, the article highlights the need for holistic environmental policies that balance the objectives of improving air quality and managing climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women and youth support climate policies to a larger extent than their counterparts, and they are underrepresented in formal politics. This paper explores whether descriptively underrepresented groups also are substantively underrepresented on climate issues. I study issue congruence between the public and elected representatives on climate policies in Norway and find high levels of overall congruence. However, representatives are less congruent with women and youth than they are with men and older age groups, linking descriptive and substantive representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the importance of the melting of the Arctic ice for Mexico. The research examines the impacts of this process, the Mexican government’s environmental policies, citizen’s perception and the media’s approach to climate change and the melting of the Arctic ice. To obtain the results, an exploratory analysis was carried out, from which it was concluded that, despite the importance of the Arctic melting in the current climate crisis affecting all countries, and specifically Mexico, within the political agendas of the nation, the citizenry and the mass media, both climate change and the Arctic melting are secondary issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of environmental governance is increasing worldwide, and Georgia is no exception. This article uses wide-ranging sources to provide comprehensive qualitative and quantitative data to discuss the most important aspects of environmental policy directions in Georgia. The results of the study show that: (a) it is crucial to increase public awareness about the importance of climate change and environmental protection; (b) introducing environmental and climate-related goals and objectives and green budgeting principles in national priorities is as important as implementing them effectively into practice; and (c) the practice of regulatory impact assessment needs further development in Georgia, especially in the environment and climate-related areas. Finally, the paper concludes that the lack of historical data is the main limitation for the current research, and proposes that scientific and practical work continues in the future to further explore the relationships between the country’s environmental policies and aspects of sustainable development on both an individual and public level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urgency and threats of climate change have elevated the issue to a prominent – albeit often contested – position within the policy process. Resultantly, climate politics and climate change governance have received enhanced attention in both the academic literature and in real-life discourse. Yet, except regarding certain empirical contexts, there has been a lack of conceptualization or analysis of intermediating actors in climate politics – what we term "climate intermediaries" – that bridge between different types of actors and different levels of governance. This Special Issue sought to reduce this research gap by analyzing the strategies, interactions, and impacts in the policy process of these "go-betweens", across three continents. In this concluding article, we take stock of the insights provided by the individual contributions and offer answers to the three research questions that guided the Special Issue. In addition, we provide some suggestions for future research avenues and concluding reflections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change governance systems comprise a wide variety of actors. Here, we introduce "climate intermediaries" as one potentially influential yet often neglected type of actor, behaving as "go-betweens" that connect different types of actors and/or governance levels. This Special Issue analyses two under-researched forms of climate intermediaries: those that exist for reasons unconnected to climate change, and new or uncommon forms of climate intermediaries that have yet to be examined. In this Introduction article, we present the conceptual framework employed within our Special Issue. We begin by problematizing the definition of intermediaries within climate research before clarifying our own relational understanding of "climate intermediaries". A climate intermediary is thus a role, assumed by any type of actor, while potentially assuming other roles when interacting with other actors. Second, we summarize the existing research on the strategies of intermediaries, the interactions that may exist between them, and the impacts of these actors on the climate policy process. These three foci then guide our three research questions for the Special Issue. Third, we examine existing research on myriad types of intermediaries, such as interest groups, faith-based actors, and funding bodies. Finally, we provide an overview of the contributions included within the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies that focus on different urban governance structures, especially unitary states and semi-authoritarian regimes, are still lacking in the urban climate governance literature. This research aims to explain how climate change is governed under a unitary state structure, particularly focusing on how urban climate governance incorporates higher-level government policy and external stakeholders to set a climate agenda and actions. Four main themes are framed from the urban climate governance literature, including agenda setting, the divergence between the existing policies and urban climate agendas, policy entrepreneurs' roles, and civil society organizations. By focusing on the four themes, we aim to understand how climate change is governed in Istanbul, the biggest and the richest city of Turkey, under a unitary system of government. Based on semi-structured interviews, field notes based on participant-observations, and review of existing official documents, we find that swings in political leadership, the divergence between the existing laws and newly adopted urban climate agendas, and conflicting priorities between policy entrepreneurs generate barriers to long-run and tangible climate change actions in Istanbul. Nevertheless, we argue there is an opportunity space for local governments to co-create new governance mechanisms, as the national government does not have the capacity to lead climate change action, nor is there a political will and focus at the highest levels of government to engage deeply in this policy space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses how environmental issues have been incorporated into the strategic association between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean. It analyses whether the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals are reflected in the EU-CELAC declarations, and what bi-regional programmes and projects have been developed in relation to the environmental SDGs. The analysis shows how the environment has become a key priority in both the political dialogue and development cooperation pillars, although it has only recently been included in the trade pillar, and in an incipient way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our planet is facing increasing challenges: climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, poverty, and many other problems closely linked to a deteriorating environment. Meanwhile, one of our most important assets, rangers working in protected and conserved areas responsible for managing large tracts of the planet's lands and waters, are often underutilized, underrecognized and underequipped. They are generally left out of the debate about conservation and sustainable development policy, despite being central to the success of those policies. This paper outlines the need for global leaders across multiple sectors to recognize the profession of rangers as essential planetary health workers and to position rangers more effectively within global conservation and environmental policy mechanisms. It introduces the challenges facing rangers, the emerging diversity of roles within the ranger profession and the important contribution of rangers to conservation and sustainable development. It presents policy and implementation avenues to improve recognition and professionalization of rangers as key executors of conservation and development policy, particularly considering the recent Global Biodiversity Framework ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept, and implementation, of coordinated global climate governance at the metropolitan level is one of the biggest challenges in most of the world's cities. Yet--ironically--it is also one of the most overlooked aspects of the international environmental agenda. Specifi- cally, one of the main challenges is to achieve coordination in decision making, as well as in the implementation of actions to homologate the objectives of the different government agendas at all levels, i.e. the constitution of climate and environmental policies not only at the federal level but also at the state and municipal level (in the Mexican case). This article reviews the link achieved between the nine municipal governments that make up the metropolitan area of Guadalajara (AMG) through PACmetro, which promotes coordinated climate governance and addresses the gaps in international mechanisms for climate change policies. The above, generated through the synergies of different agendas, through the Institute for Development Planning and Management (Imeplan). Imeplan has integrated different actors, from different levels, to carry out coordinated actions on urban climate policies in western Mexico that contribute to the construction of a common urban agenda. The conclusion shows the contributions of Latin American local governments to a coordinated climate governance according to local contexts and how the will of cities contributes to the strengthening of the link between global climate governance, the exercise of paradiplomacy between different public, private and hybrid actors towards a common urban agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian environmental governance formally began in the 1970s with an ambitious vision critical of the status quo. Until the Justin Trudeau government from 2015, this vision had been largely eroded when compared to the transformative environmental ideas, ambition, and efforts initially put forth. Drawing on elite interviews in Canadian environmental politics and an articulation of the dominant system, we develop and demonstrate a novel explanation for Canada's systematic failure to act more ambitiously on the environment. We argue that this failure is the result of progressive selection of Canadian environmental governance in relation to the dominant system at key selection moments. It is at those moments when the environment is least prioritized and the economy most urgently needs attention that environmental governance suffers the most. The paper concludes by emphasizing how features of the dominant political-economic system not typically thought of as environmental can have systematic environmental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the European Union's main instrument for agricultural planning, with a new reform approved for 2023–2027. The CAP intends to align with the European Green Deal (EGD), a set of policy initiatives underpinning sustainable development and climate neutrality in the European Union (EU), but several flaws cast doubts about the compatibility of the objectives of these 2 policies. We reviewed recent literature on the potential of CAP environmental objectives for integration with the EGD: protection of biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable management of natural resources. The CAP lacks appropriate planning measures, furthering instead risks to biodiversity and ecosystem services driven by landscape and biotic homogenization. Funding allocation mechanisms are not tailored to mitigate agricultural emissions, decreasing the efficiency of climate mitigation actions. The legislation subsidies farmers making extensive use of synthetic inputs without adequately supporting organic production, hindering the transition toward sustainable practices. We recommend proper control mechanisms be introduced in CAP Strategic Plans from each member state to ensure the EU is set on a sustainable production and consumption path. These include proportional assignment of funds to each CAP objective, quantitative targets to set goals and evidence‐based interventions, and relevant indicators to facilitate effective monitoring of environmental performance. Both the CAP and the EGD should maintain ambitious environmental commitments in the face of crisis to avoid further degradation of the natural resources on which production systems stand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Green New Deal has been defined as "an unprecedented mobilization of resources to achieve 100% renewable energy to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions" (NEF, 2019, p.4). Currently there is consensus about its purpose, however, little has been theorized about its establishment in Colombia. In this sense, our objective is to identify the institutional changes required to establish a Green New Deal in Colombia, using a Delphi methodology, appropriate for interviewing experts. As a result of this research, it was found that, of the twelve useful public policies for their establishment identified in the theoretical framework, seven comply with the guidelines for assessing environmental policy instruments proposed by Labandeira et al. (2007) and therefore are considered necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While chemicals are vital to modern society through materials, agriculture, textiles, new technology, medicines, and consumer goods, their use is not without risks. Unfortunately, our resources seem inadequate to address the breadth of chemical challenges to the environment and human health. Therefore, it is important we use our intelligence and knowledge wisely to prepare for what lies ahead. The present study used a Delphi‐style approach to horizon‐scan future chemical threats that need to be considered in the setting of chemicals and environmental policy, which involved a multidisciplinary, multisectoral, and multinational panel of 25 scientists and practitioners (mainly from the United Kingdom, Europe, and other industrialized nations) in a three‐stage process. Fifteen issues were shortlisted (from a nominated list of 48), considered by the panel to hold global relevance. The issues span from the need for new chemical manufacturing (including transitioning to non‐fossil‐fuel feedstocks); challenges from novel materials, food imports, landfills, and tire wear; and opportunities from artificial intelligence, greater data transparency, and the weight‐of‐evidence approach. The 15 issues can be divided into three classes: new perspectives on historic but insufficiently appreciated chemicals/issues, new or relatively new products and their associated industries, and thinking through approaches we can use to meet these challenges. Chemicals are one threat among many that influence the environment and human health, and interlinkages with wider issues such as climate change and how we mitigate these were clear in this exercise. The horizon scan highlights the value of thinking broadly and consulting widely, considering systems approaches to ensure that interventions appreciate synergies and avoid harmful trade‐offs in other areas. We recommend further collaboration between researchers, industry, regulators, and policymakers to perform horizon scanning to inform policymaking, to develop our ability to meet these challenges, and especially to extend the approach to consider also concerns from countries with developing economies. Environ Toxicol Chem 2023;42:1212–1228. © 2023 Crown copyright and The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC. This article is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the King's Printer for Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, has attracted the attention of researchers in recent years. However, the indirect effects of environmental policies in the process were not sufficiently considered. This study uses a panel threshold methodology to examine the nonlinear impact of environmental policy stringency on the relationship between FDIs and GHG emissions in 25 OECD countries. Our results show a negative relationship between FDIs and GHG emissions if the countries have environmental policy stringency index above a threshold level of (2.22). The results are also supported by the fixed effects model, which indicates a threshold effect of (2.88). The threshold effect is mostly due to the stringency of nonmarket-based environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains the convergence among Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) on climate change? While Brazil, India, China and South Africa caught attention due to their economic dynamism in the 1990s and accelerating momentum as of the early 2000s, Russia progressed to increase its influence in the twenty-first century. This shift in the material capabilities of BRICS has increased their significance in global climate governance. Merging governmentality and social constructivist approaches, this article argues that material changes in the post-Cold War period led Brazil, India, China and South Africa to experience a change in their ideational framework, repositioning themselves at the international level, recognising new responsibilities, and reaching a common point on the road to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in 2009. Therefore, they went through a convergence process, bringing them closer to Russia, whose position invited major developing states to take tangible actions for emissions reduction. This process of convergence marked the onset of the future BRICS partnership on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defense ministries regularly frame climate security in their national security strategies. Recently, "civil" ministries also begun mentioning climate security. However, they do not mean the same thing. This article develops four indicators to assess the commitment of climate security framings to an understanding of climate security as either human/environmental or national security issue. It applies the indicators to fifty submissions of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) by civil ministries and seventy defense publications. The paper finds that NDC commonly refer to climate changes' anthropogenic origins and biophysical impacts but rarely to indirect consequences such as migration or conflict. In contrast, military administrations rarely mention anthropogenic origins but warn more often than NDC of indirect consequences. This shows that a civil domestic discourse on climate security has emerged, more attuned to human security and environmental security and more conducive to climate change mitigation and adaptation. The paper argues that organizational theory can explain these differences in securitization: defense and civil ministries frame climate security differently so that it falls in line with their respective mandates and established organizational features. The article concludes with a checklist for assessing framings of climate security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how preferences for public policy instruments shape policy support helps policymakers to design policies that begin to tackle large‐scale and complex problems, such as climate change. Climate change policies generate both local and global costs and benefits, which affect the public's policy preferences. In this article we investigate the role of perceived conditional cooperation and distributive concerns on climate policy attitude formation. We identify a range of climate policies and test public opinion for adoption of these policies at different scales of government. The important theoretical distinction is the scale‐driven distributional nature of policy costs and benefits as well as concerns regarding the cooperation of other actors. We use data from Sweden and a conjoint experimental design where we vary level of government, type of policy, and the targeted group. We find evidence that people support policies when costs are shared broadly. We also find that support for climate policy is conditional on expected policy adoption by other units of government at various scales. This implies that unpopular climate policies might be more popular if the funding structure of the policy allows for binding policy and that the cost‐sharing is taking place at higher levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this interview, Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, outlines the climate change problem in the Arctic, tells of the increasing speed with which the ice is melting, and outlines some possible solutions, ranging from relatively benign approaches to methods that call for increasingly more intrusive tinkering with the planet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The private law of torts, property, and contracts will and should play an important role in resolving disputes regarding how private individuals and entities respond to and manage the harms of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation (known in climate change policy dialogue as "adaptation"). While adaptation is commonly presented as a problem needing legislative solutions, this Article presents a novel and overdue case for private law to take climate adaptation seriously. To date, the role of private law is a significant blind spot in scholarly discussions of climate adaptation. Litigation invoking common-law doctrines in climate adaption disputes has not yet taken off the way that the wave of high-profile lawsuits against sources of emissions causing climate change has, but it is inevitable that it will, making it ripe for attention in legal scholarship. The Article begins in Part I by highlighting several features of climate change and adaptation that will place inevitable disruptive pressure on existing doctrines and principles of private law. The new normal of climate change questions some key factual predicates embedded in private law doctrine. For example, climate change is radically moving the long-stable upper and lower extremes of multiple biophysical conditions (what scientists call "nonstationarity"), meaning individuals increasingly will be unable to accurately predict the future based entirely on past data (what scientists call the "no-analog future"). Private law nonetheless must operate in a manner that provides practical and meaningful guidance to stakeholders, which will require it to confront the new realities presented by climate adaptation, including how private individuals and entities can no longer predict the future in the same ways that they have in the past. In Part II, the Article identifies a series of evaluative guideposts to help assess when changes to doctrines and principles of private law may be needed to address impending climate adaptation disputes. Private law's basic architecture helps to define and manage relationships, clarify responsibilities, and provide remedies for harm--a tripartite framework we use in Part III to unravel a few key doctrinal pressure points that private law faces as it addresses a novel set of impending climate change adaptation claims. The principle of foreseeability--central to numerous doctrines that define relationships, responsibilities, and remedies across tort, property, and contract law--is likely to face some of the strongest pushback as we confront climate adaptation. We propose a "foreseeability of nonstationarity" principle and evaluate what that might mean for some core private law doctrines. This points towards expansion of the scope of obligations private law recognizes for various actors within their adaptation footprints. Existing private law principles can address wrongfulness even in the no-analog future of climate adaptation. It is important, however, that private law defenses recognize the nonstationarity of climate risks, as well as the lack of an analog future available to predict and address the harmful effects of climate change. We conclude that private law can and will adapt to climate change. This process will be central to providing guidance as individuals, businesses, and other private actors confront new risks and harms as society adapts to a new natural world. But the path of private law's adaption matters, and how it approaches key principles such as foreseeability will be central to its capacity to provide meaningful guidance for private stakeholders adapting to the realities of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2009, the Australian Senate rejected the government's ambitious Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. In the prevailing narrative surrounding these events, the Labor government, under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, made a series of strategic errors that led to the scheme's – and ultimately, Rudd's and the Labor Party's – downfall. However, by taking a closer look at of some aspects of Australia's parliamentary system, including the norms of partisan voting and the numbers game in parliament, a different story is apparent. A counter-narrative is that the Rudd Labor government's approach was reasonable at the time, but that institutional factors and election outcomes presented significant obstacles to passing climate legislation of any kind. Correcting this narrative will enable a better understanding of the political circumstances in which environmental policies are enacted in Australia, a country with the potential for regional policy leadership on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant proportion of the US population does not believe that climate change is a serious problem and immediate action is necessary. We ask whether individuals' experiences with long-run changes in their local climate can override the power of partisanship that appears to dominate this opinion process. We merge individual-level data on climate change perceptions and the main determinants previously identified by the literature with county-level data on an exogenous measure of local climate change. While we find that local climate change significantly affects perceptions and in the expected direction, partisanship and political ideology maintain the strongest effect. We then field a randomized online experiment to test whether partisanship also drives support for pro-climate policies and the willingness to make environmentally friendly individual choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The threat Of climate change demands far-reaching, systematic changes to the global economy-and similar changes to how governments around the world set environmental policies. In recent years, many environmental policymakers have developed plans to "decarbonize" the economy. These plans provide detailed, sector-specific plans for how the latest scientific consensus on climate change can be incorporated into the policymaking process and for how the Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved. But articulating the policies is one thing-actually setting them is another. Frequently absent from this conversation is the role that American constitutions can play in averting climate change. Other countries, however, do not have this problem. Around the world, many countries' supreme courts have issued bold and far-reaching decisions in the climate change arena. Many of these decisions have forced governments to comply with their commitments under the Paris Agreement; others have recognized environmental "rights, possessed either by individual people or even by nature itself And many of these decisions have been predicated on supportive language in national constitutions. In the United States, however, no court has issued a similarly sweeping ruling-and few constitutions contain provisions that are meant to systematically address climate change or other environmental crises. Accordingly, in this Article, I argue that state constitutions could serve a vital role in decarbonizing the American economy. I conduct a comprehensive survey Of provisions in nineteenth-century state constitutions that affected the environment-through resource allocation, land management, water rights, eminent domain, and so on-and arguethatmany of the principles underlying these provisions could be adapted to contemporary constitutional drafting. I also critically survey the handful of environmental "bills of rights" in state constitutions and explore why these provisions have been largely ineffective so far. Ultimately, I argue for the ratification Of state constitutional amendments that set environmental policies to decarbonize the American economy-and outline what these amendments might look like in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues different policy issue framings of climate change—ranging from security to energy, economics, humanitarian response, and health frames—play critical roles in altering policy outcomes. Specifically, we focus on the several windows of opportunity that altered the pathway of the US climate change debates from 1985 to 2017. Progressing from the underpinnings of issue framing literature and public policy discourse, we conduct content analysis of news articles, academic papers, policy documents and other archival evidence, to show why and when environmental framings shift, and to what effect. Our innovative models provide generalization of these trends and their implications for environmental agenda setting, complemented by a qualitative section that contextualizes impact as well as the feedback mechanisms of issue framing on environmental politics in the United States. The findings highlight the need for future case study analysis to trace the causal mechanisms between climate change framings and US policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the extent to which the academic community engaged with climate change in Central Asia between 1991 and 2021. The article finds that climate change has been neglected in the field of Central Asia area studies. Out of a total 13,488 journal articles in eight key journals for Central Asia research, only 33 articles (0.24%) were on climate change or a related topic. Climate change has been similarly neglected at the events of 17 Central Asia area studies associations. Out of 1305 conference panels, none was focused on climate change. Out of 10,249 individual presentations, only two (0.02%) were focused on climate change. The very same scholars who have been most active in the securitization of Central Asia have ignored the severe security threats that climate change poses to the region. The article contributes to the field of Central Asian studies by drawing attention to severe knowledge gaps that hinder the Central Asian countries from adapting to climate change. It concludes with six recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing impacts of climate change observed across ecosystems, there is an urgent need to consider climate change in all future environmental policy. But existing policy and management might be slow to respond to this challenge, leading to missed opportunities to incorporate climate change into practice. Furthermore, invasive species threats continue to rise and interact with climate change—exacerbating negative impacts. Enabling natural resource managers and individuals to be proactive about climate-driven invasive species threats creates a win–win for conservation. Recommendations include expanding opportunities for information sharing across borders, supporting proactive screening and regulation of high-risk species on the horizon, and incentivizing individual actions that reduce ecological impacts. In addition, invasive species risk should be considered when crafting climate mitigation and adaptation policy to reduce compounding stressors on ecosystems. As we develop much-needed tools to reduce harm, policy and management must consider the combined threats of invasions and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper my thought experiment leads me to posit that South Africa's environmental governance often results in what I term "hollow environmentalism". This term describes the inevitable long-term outcome of promulgating laws and policies that are idealistic and seem symbolic and that at times fail to achieve their intended objectives or environmental promise. On a narrower scale, hollow environmentalism can also manifest when such symbolic environmental laws and policies lead to judicial decisions that lack substantive ecological justifications, perhaps even resembling symbolic judgments. I substantiate this argument through four key considerations. I commence with a reality check on environmental governance, emphasising that the state is not a neutral actor, necessitating closer scrutiny of state decisions. This leads me to the conclusion that governance stands at a critical juncture. I argue that the symbolic nature of our environmental laws, broadly speaking, often makes it challenging for the state to fully meet the lofty ideals it presents, thereby also complicating court decisions in these matters. Next, I align my thoughts with recent literature on adjudication in the context of the climate crisis. This literature stresses the need for courts to be bold and innovative in their judicial roles, given the precarious nature of stabilising environmental disputes. In the penultimate section I bring the discussion to a close by suggesting two interconnected possibilities to address hollowness in the face of climate change: "sunsetting" and "substitution". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I investigate the origin, limits, and possibilities of just transition as a policy framework to support labor organizing in the energy sector. Just transition first emerged within the labor movement to describe measures to "make whole" workers laid off as the result of necessary environmental policy. Following Gidwani (2015), I analyze claims for income replacement or continued employment as an assertion of "jobs property" based on the collectively bargained standards that unions have negotiated for dangerous jobs in fossil fuel sectors. Although the uses of just transition have grown to encompass broader demands for a democratic and equitable shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy including energy, environmental, and climate justice, I observe that the objectives of labor-centered climate policy often remain focused on the defense of jobs property for dislocated workers. I argue compensation for the loss of jobs property is insufficient to address historical exclusions of people of color and women from energy industry employment or secure the livelihoods of dislocated workers given increasing precarity. Drawing from more than eighty interviews and field work with energy justice campaigns in Atlanta, I consider the case of energy-sector workers in the U.S. South to center a just transition framework that reconstitutes a social wage to address the uneven spatial development of the U.S. labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As climate change continues to increase both the frequency and intensity of environmental hazards and disasters, the need for a cohesive national mitigation policy grows. As the environmental federalism scholarship indicates, the inherent tension in federal, state, and local policy implementation highlights that despite a national need, environmental quality is a local public good. To complicate matters, there is disagreement about the optimal level of decision‐making regarding the adoption and implementation of environmental policy. This study addresses this gap by considering the role of policy ambiguity and conflict in policy implementation. The analysis relies on primary qualitative data collected from open‐ended interviews with 22 local government officials in 12 municipalities following Hurricane Harvey. Through the lens of policy ambiguity and conflict, we find confirmatory support for the idea that policies with less ambiguous goals are more likely to be implemented. Furthermore, we find that policy conflict arises when local governments perceive there is little for the community to gain by implementing the federal program. Thus, the level of protection afforded to citizens varies greatly between communities and is influenced heavily by politics. This research supports the Ambiguity‐Conflict Model of policy implementation, an oft‐cited but rarely tested theoretical framework for assessing the intergovernmental politics of policy implementation. It also demonstrates the barriers to local implementation of federal environmental policy in a nested system of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]