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As climate change progresses, natural hazards are projected to continue to increase in frequency and intensity, posing a new form of social risk, implicating both the welfare and environmental state and raising the salience of ecosocial policy as a mechanism to attend to the distributional effects of climate change mitigation and adaptation. This study posits a novel conceptual framework for ecosocial policy and offers the US ecosocial safety net as a case analysis. While we conceptualise disaster relief policy as a mode of the environmental state, it includes unique ecosocial policies that constitute the backbone of the US ecosocial safety net. This study describes and compares the developmental and functional synergies between the US welfare and environmental state manifested in the form of an ecosocial safety net by explicating the Individual Assistance Program and the National Flood Insurance Program. Our findings reveal synergies between US disaster relief and welfare, including parallel developmental trends, philosophies of deserving/undeserving, functions of racial capitalism and relationships with economic growth. This study and its conceptual framework of ecosocial policy offer a groundwork for the study of ecosocial policy in other contexts.

The imaginary significance of cities to address the climate change crisis seems to have no ceiling. But the outcomes of urban climate governance have fallen short of the high promise placed on cities to contribute climate solutions. This research examines the widely observed gap between the highly expected role of cities in climate control and the disappointing reality from a perspective of the environmental state. Through a comparative study of two low-carbon city (LCC) experiments in Shenzhen and Huizhou, as well as an analysis of nation-wide administrative legal disputes related to decarbonization issues, this paper identifies an interesting legitimacy space created and manipulated locally along with the emergence of a carbon-focused environmental nation-state. Four rationales, namely carbon re-regulation, carbon formalization, carbon rationalization, and carbon exceptionalism, are identified underpinning different urban actors' articulation and leverage of the national priority of decarbonization to advance their respective agendas. Success or failure of urban climate experiments is found to be contingent upon the effective management and mediation of different rationales, giving rise to a distinctive process of "localizing the low-carbon state." The findings of this research shed light on the multifaceted effects of the greening state on the urban politics of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty, inequality and climate change are profoundly interconnected issues and represent grave threats to the future of our planet and civilization. Failure in one will result in failure in the other; thus, government responses to such threats must be meticulously coordinated, especially across environmental and welfare state programs. In recent years, a growing body of research has examined the links between these two domains, lauding the eco-welfare state as a viable path forward. As the literature on the eco-welfare state is at an early stage, this study proposes two essential theoretical and empirical contributions. First, it examines the most prominent theoretical interpretations of the concept of eco-welfare state and proposes a refined understanding. Second, using model-based cluster analysis for 42 countries, this study empirically unveils a global shift towards and the existence of an eco-welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the development of the environmental state, climate change is accelerating. The concept of the 'glass ceiling' – denoting an unexplained barrier, impeding the state from using its powers effectively to mitigate threats that it acknowledges should be addressed – has been put forward to account for this. Here, a structural account of this phenomenon is advanced, which suggests that environmental policies are generally outcompeted among government priorities wherever they threaten the capitalist growth imperative. In addition, social/cultural factors, based on the psychology of denial, provide a necessary contribution to our understanding. A three-fold denialism is at work: of climate change itself, the measures required to tackle it (where these contradict a modern faith in material progress), and the potential incapacity of the state to protect society (discouraging close attention to the effectiveness of its climate policies). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary liberal democratic states seem to be headed towards inevitable environmental crisis. These states are locked into unsustainable practices and appear to lack the political institutions that could help them change path. Although there is broad social awareness of the problem of climate change, for example, this has not translated into robust environmental policymaking. Should democracy be regarded as a constitutive part of the 'glass ceiling' to socio-ecological transition? Here, I defend democracy, sketching a model of 'ecological agonism' in which democratic disagreement over environmental issues is understood to be crucial in provoking the emergence of alternatives, disrupting unsustainable conventions, and engaging citizens in a lively politics. Democratic disagreements should not be transcended or rationalised but regarded as a political (re)source. State institutions are key in ensuring the legitimate, provocative, and respectful expression of agonistic conflict over environmental concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the space of a few years, China's global image with regard to environmental matters has significantly improved. Particularly since Xi Jinping's coming-to-power in 2012 China's reputation in the global climate change regime has improved markedly and it has gained accolades for a new determination to reverse environmental degradation at home. China's incipient green transformation is partly due to a new actor constellation in environmental governance, a striking feature of which is the prominence of ad hoc campaigns that offer quick results but that may undermine the creation of law-based enforcement mechanisms in the long term. Another development -China's increasing use of emerging technologies and big data analytics - has given rise to new forms of government-business alliances. These new players and innovative approaches have injected momentum into China's environmental governance system and suggest that, contrary to conventional wisdom, authoritarian regimes can be responsive to citizen demands under certain circumstances. Yet it remains to be seen whether long-term environmental goals can be met, due to a pervasive lack of accountability, the weakening of civil society and heavy constraints on public participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies a modified conceptual framework derived from Sabatier’s advocacy coalition framework and Haas’ epistemic communities’ framework to analyze climate advocacy coalitions in Guangzhou, China, a largely unexplored area of study. Our analysis reveals several key features of the climate policy advocacy groups working to promote policy change within the policy subsystem of a nonpluralistic regime: (a) mutual interdependence (consensus building) in the creation of an advocacy coalition system, (b) government recognition and endorsement of newly established or professionally oriented coalition organizations, (c) coalition formation in a top-down manner rather than by accumulative bottom-up demands, and (d) bottom-up motivators, such as changing societal values and the external environment, which contribute to and accelerate the reform of policy orientation and the administrative structure of coalition formation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]