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During the COVID-19 pandemic, most, if not all, animal rescues, sanctuaries, zoos, and aquariums experienced financial distress. This stress had an impact on the welfare of animals and their human caretakers, an issue important to ecological social work. We draw on a novel dataset (n = 2,060) to assess support for policies to extend emergency funding to animal support and conservation organizations in extreme events. We find that, on average women and nonbinary individuals, those with more education, people who have pets, people who are concerned about other humans (humanistic altruism), and those who have greater concern for animals report greater support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We shed new light on a long-standing question in political science: When confronted with costly policy choices, do citizens form their preferences using material (economic) concerns or other-regarding motivations, such as the distribution of costs, and how are these moderated by political ideology? Using the case of carbon taxation, a widely advocated policy solution to climate change, we conducted survey experiments in Germany and the United States to assess the relative importance of these forms of preferences. The results show that individuals are primarily concerned with how a carbon tax would affect their individual income. There are also important cross-national differences with high-income German respondents being more receptive to redistributive policy design, especially in contrast to high-income Democrats who significantly decrease support for carbon taxation. These findings highlight how the constituencies generated by new policies can significantly alter the distribution of mass support for action on emerging societal problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resistance to clean energy policy in the United States stems partly from public hesitancy and skepticism toward anthropogenic climate change. This article examines self-declared climate change skeptics' views of clean energy policy along a continuum of skeptical thought, spanning from epistemic denial to attribution doubt. To perform this, we use data from an online survey administered in the US Pacific Northwest and a series of pilot interviews conducted with skeptics in the same region. Results reveal that skeptics' support for clean energy policy is consistently linked with their environmental concern across the skepticism continuum. Conspiracy ideation and distrust in science lead to a reduction in support. However, the positive effect of environmental concern trumps the effects of these beliefs. Important and hopeful implications of these findings for climate change communication and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, the United States has shown a sometimes conservative and sometimes radical pendulum in its position on several key subsidiary climate treaties. For example, in 1997, the United States Congress refused to approve the Kyoto Protocol signed by former US vice president Al Gore. In 2015, President Obama used executive power to bypass Congress to sign the Paris Agreement. In 2017, President Trump announced the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement. These seemingly confusing behaviors actually reflect the contradictions and conflicts in the formulation of climate policy of the United States. Using neoclassical realism theory as the analytical framework, the authors of this paper explore how such several key variables as leader image and perception, partisan politics, and civil society and lobbying groups shape the climate policy of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States government has indicated a desire to advance environmental justice through climate policy. As fossil fuel combustion produces both conventional pollutants and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, climate mitigation strategies may provide an opportunity to address historical inequities in air pollution exposure. To test the impact of climate policy implementation choices on air quality equity, we develop a broad range of GHG reduction scenarios that are each consistent with the US Paris Accord target and model the resulting air pollution changes. Using idealized decision criteria, we show that least cost and income-based emission reductions can exacerbate air pollution disparities for communities of color. With a suite of randomized experiments that facilitates exploration of a wider climate policy decision space, we show that disparities largely persist despite declines in average pollution exposure, but that reducing transportation emissions has the most potential to reduce racial inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that public support for climate action can be increased by bundling environmental policy with social and economic programs – the Green New Deal being one of the most widely known iterations of this strategy. Yet, party cue theory suggests that public support for the policy will be shaped by the strong Democratic associations of the proposal. In a preregistered survey experiment conducted among 1,203 residents of the rural western United States, I find strong evidence that the phrase 'the Green New Deal' functions as a partisan cue, lowering support for a bundled climate policy among rural residents by 9.1 percentage points. This depressive effect is robust even when framing around region-specific climate impacts is added to the survey question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a carbon value has often been integrated in the frameworks established to guide public decision-making, benefit-cost analysis (BCA) has played no more than a minor role in the design of climate policies. It is urgently necessary to promote BCA in this area, and there is currently a unique opportunity for doing so. Major countries are designing new packages in order to meet their commitments, as illustrated by the European Green Deal, recent decisions on the part of the Biden Administration, and the creation of a Chinese national carbon market. These constructive processes must be based on BCA. BCA is absolutely necessary in order to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 at a reasonable cost. Indeed, abatement costs across and within sectors, and across and within countries, are extremely heterogeneous, and many of the policy instruments in use (subsidies, feed-in tariffs, technical standards, etc.) overlap inefficiently. The instrumental debate between carbon pricing and other instruments is sterile if it merely remains at the level of stating principles. BCA can help on this point too, by specifying comparisons between alternatives, identifying complementarities, and selecting the most relevant combinations of instruments. Its scope should therefore range from setting benchmarks for carbon pricing to assessing, e.g., green investments or measures to enhance carbon sinks. When applied to decarbonization policies, BCA requires firstly the selection of a carbon value, in order to monetize the climate benefits of investments and policies. However, the whole assessment framework must be updated, including the time horizon, the discount rate, the cobenefits of climate mitigation actions, and the pricing of climate risks. We show that such an updated framework leads to an upward revision in the assessment of the climate benefits of mitigation actions, and that combining the valuation of damages and cost-effectiveness approaches is necessary in order to meet the needs of policy assessment. Finally, there is a need to extend analysis beyond the efficiency criterion in order to deal with other dimensions of climate policies, particularly their distributive impacts. This requires specific analyses, which should be articulated with BCA and carried out at an early stage for a better implementation of climate policies than we have seen to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is complex during the best of times. It is commonly conceptualized as the quintessential global collective action problem: it affects those who do not contribute to it while the benefits of climate change mitigation measures are not restricted to those who pursue such measures. This conceptualization illustrates the high transaction costs involved in domestic policies as well as in international agreements addressing climate change, and it is of academic and practical interest. As such, this Article discusses the current challenges that climate change policies face, focusing on the linkages between the climate change policies of the Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic and on the effects of those linkages, both in the United States and globally. Specifically, this Article addresses the Trump administration's attacks on climate science and its deregulatory climate agenda, as well as the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. In addition, it discusses principles of international law and the challenges related to state liability for environmental harms in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. This Article also assesses how the United States' climate policies are likely to aggravate inequalities both domestically, as well as globally, in the aftermath of the pandemic. This Article offers several original contributions. First, it provides a unique assessment of how the deregulatory climate policies implemented nationally and internationally by the Trump administration have magnified the COVID-19 crisis. Second, the law and economics methodology used in this Article validates the claim that improving environmental quality is connected to optimizing early regulatory action. Third, this Article discusses the challenges of state liability for climate harms in the aftermath of the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and concurrent COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, this Article offers relevant insights for the literature on climate change that are likely to be applicable to critical future situations, whether they are health-related, a global economic crisis, or climate-related emergencies. Ultimately, this Article concludes that, in the aggregate, all such climate change policies have contributed to increased pollution, including elevated greenhouse gas emissions that have aggravated pre-pandemic inequalities embedded within the United States and among countries. Consequently, the domestic and international policy choices of the Trump administration are worsening the impact of the pandemic, particularly for those in more vulnerable positions, as well as indelibly poisoning the global commons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Valuation of fuel economy was causally impacted by the metric used. • Buyers valued fuel economy highest when presented as the full fuel economy label. • Fuel economy may be valued more than acceleration and premium features/trim. • Presentation of fuel economy information may increase selection of efficient vehicles. • Valuation varies across consumer demographics and features of the intended vehicle. Despite the large body of literature, there is still considerable debate and uncertainty about how consumers value fuel economy. This study explores how the presentation of fuel economy information can influence valuation using a stated choice experiment with comparative experimental conditions. We randomly assigned a nationally representative sample of 1,612 intended vehicle purchasers in the United States to one of six conditions, which varied in their presentation of fuel economy information as follows: miles per gallon, annual fuel costs, five-year fuel cost, lifetime fuel cost, amount of money saved/spent over five years compared to the average vehicle per class, and the full government-mandated fuel economy label (in the US). We find that consumer valuation of fuel economy is causally impacted by the information presented. In particular, we observe significantly higher willingness-to-pay values for participants in the condition with the full fuel economy label, relative to conditions only presented with the annual fuel cost, five-year fuel cost, and spend/save comparison. Valuation also varied with the demographic characteristics of participants: fuel economy was more highly valued among older participants and those that anticipated a relatively lower purchase price for their next vehicle. This study suggests that the observed inconsistencies in consumer valuation of fuel economy in the literature may stem in part from differences in the framing of fuel economy information across studies – at least for stated preference studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 4 years, the transportation sector has overtaken the power sector as the major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and it is expected to continue to be the dominant sector for emissions into the future. In contrast to the power sector, transportation faces substantially more challenges to reducing GHG emissions. This article will examine those barriers and then review three major strategies to reduce emissions in this sector. They include: (a) substantially improve the fuel economy of the passenger light vehicle fleet; (b) advance the usage of emerging alternatively‐fueled light vehicles, particularly electric vehicles, while reducing their GHG emissions; and (c) invest in and modernize public transportation to increase its use substantially. This article is categorized under:Energy and Transport > Economics and PolicyEnergy and Climate > Climate and EnvironmentEnergy Policy and Planning > Climate and Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Biden faces tremendous challenges to overcome political polarisation as he re-commits the United States to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and promises decarbonisation of the US economy over the next three decades. To achieve deep decarbonisation, recent scholarship identifies the crucial role of broad policy mixes that create reinforcing effects between climate and energy policies to trigger technological innovation, restrict polluting activities, promote green growth, and ensure just energy transitions. Drawing on this literature, the article explores the conditions for developing such policy mixes in the US context in three policy phases. How and why have key policy conditions developed differently in the climate- and energy policy fields, and to what effect for decarbonisation policies? The analysis shows that growing political polarisation blocked bipartisan agreement, produced negative policy feedback, and caused instability in the climate policy field, whereas these mechanisms did not dominate the energy policy field. A more bipartisan approach to renewable energy policy allowed long-term experience and positive feedback in energy-policy programmes that helped to trigger technology innovation and subsequent GHG emissions cuts. Different policy conditions within these policy fields discouraged a coupling between them that could have facilitated green-growth policies. The economic shock caused by the coronavirus pandemic may potentially change policy conditions and build a path to deep US decarbonisation in the future, but only if political polarisation on climate change can be overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on Freudenburg's concept of "privileged accounts" and Hajer's work on the discourse of environmental policy by analyzing the debate over coal-fired power in the United States before and after the 2016 presidential election. A mixed-methods analysis of qualitative interviews with federal energy policy actors shows that anti-regulation narratives were central to the discourse. Results highlight shifts in pro-coal narratives as members and supporters of the coal industry adapted their discursive strategies to align with political and market transitions: whereas respondents used varied narratives during the pre-election period, the core arguments in the post-election period revolved around a more cohesive set of narratives about legal opposition to regulations and the importance of coal as a source of affordable, reliable energy. Additionally, the themes of climate denial and coal jobs—documented as dominant in previous research—were relatively rare and remained peripheral to the central discourse coalitions identified in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas but it has received strikingly less social science attention than carbon dioxide in examining climate policy options. This article explores American state policy toward methane that is not captured and instead released into the atmosphere during oil and gas production. It examines whether states have adopted market‐based approaches to price methane flaring and venting through long‐standing severance taxes on natural gas extraction. Such taxes exist in all but one production state, routinely materializing after prolonged adoption battles. Most states have maintained methane release exemptions from these taxes through either statute or administrative discretion between 1960 and 2000, although a few have allowed some form of pricing. Two state legislatures have explored applying these taxes to methane releases on multiple occasions since 2000, amid expanded shale era output and growing public concern about climate and air quality impacts. Steadfast production industry opposition, rather than technical feasibility, emerges as the primary factor leading to rejection in these cases. Even when framing releases as a conventional air contaminant or as permanent loss of a nonrenewable natural resource, states largely continue to exempt flared or vented methane from severance taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swift and deep reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, are necessary to help avoid some of the most devastating effects of climate change. One aspect of US climate policy that is particularly contentious is the issue of the best economic tool to employ to reduce emissions: a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. This unnecessarily polarized debate has damaged the effectiveness of climate policy supporters in securing climate legislation. The logical way forward is a hybrid of the two policies—an approach incorporated in some of the recent climate bills, though it was not properly explained or highlighted. This approach would be a practical starting point when the United States next takes up a climate bill, the author writes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of emissions of nitrous oxide – a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) – are from agricultural sources, particularly nitrogen fertilizer applications. A growing focus on these emission sources has led to the development in the United States of GHG offset protocols that could enable payment to farmers for reducing fertilizer use or implementing other nitrogen management strategies. Despite the development of several protocols, the current regional scope is narrow, adoption by farmers is low, and policy implementation of protocols has a significant time lag. Here we utilize existing research and policy structures to propose an 'umbrella' approach for nitrogen management GHG emissions protocols that has the potential to streamline the policy implementation and acceptance of such protocols. We suggest that the umbrella protocol could set forth standard definitions common across multiple protocol options, and then modules could be further developed as scientific evidence advances. Modules could be developed for specific crops, regions, and practices. We identify a policy process that could facilitate this development in concert with emerging scientific research and conclude by acknowledging potential benefits and limitations of the approach. Key policy insights Agricultural greenhouse gas market options are growing, but are still underutilized Streamlining protocol development through an umbrella process could enable quicker development of protocols across new crops, regions, and practices Effective protocol development must not compromise best available science and should follow a rigorous pathway to ensure appropriate implementation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of climate change has started to be implemented in official strategic documents of the United States (US) in the first decade of the 21st century. This paper describes briefly the hierarchy of the US national security documents and climate change-related definitions. In the main part it makes an analysis of how climate change-related issues were introduced into the US national security strategic documents by the three 21st century American presidents. The paper comes to a conclusion, that climate change is treated as a national security threat and therefore reflected in a number of the US strategic documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To avoid irreversible climate damages, countries with different political systems must commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the world. The challenge posed to federal countries participating in international climate agreements through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is that successful implementation requires buy‐in from their subnational governments. However, subnational climate action may not be aligned with the political priorities of the national government and could either undermine or support commitments made through the agreement. To explore these dynamics, we review the incoherence between international commitments, national and subnational policies of Canada and the United States, relying on case studies of investments in low‐carbon energy and emissions outcomes. Political and policy incoherence has flowed in both directions. Both countries have seen periods of federal government action, which have been undermined by subnational inaction or opposition. Similarly, both countries have seen periods of federal government inaction, which has placed the onus on subnational governments. Our analysis enables a greater understanding about how the dynamics of federalist political systems influence policy, thus the energy investment and emissions outcomes of national commitments to international agreements. The implications of our findings for other federalist political systems are discussed. We suggest that during national leadership voids, subnational governments can counteract the associated negative policy outcomes by implementing climate policies that support low‐carbon technologies and reducing emissions. This type of system supports the development of a coordinated strategy among subnational governments in achieving international goals through cooperative federalism via subnational policy compacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Clean Power Plan stipulates a state-specific performance-based CO2 emission standard, delegating states with considerable flexibility for using either a tradable performance-based or a mass-based permit program. This paper analyzes these two standards under imperfect competitive. We limit our attention to (1) short-run analyses and (2) a situation in which all states are subject to the same type of standard. We show that while the cross-subsidy inherent in the performance- based standard might effectively reduce power prices, it could also inflate energy consumption. A dominant firm with a relatively clean endowment under the performance-based standard would be able to manipulate the electricity market as well as to elevate permit prices, which might worsen market outcomes compared to its mass-based counterpart. On the other hand, the "cross-subsidy" could be the dominant force leading to a higher social welfare if the leader has a relatively dirty endowment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a theoretical perspective, the effect of international climate policy on individual willingness to take up climate protection efforts is ambiguous. An effective international climate policy may motivate individuals to increase their voluntary efforts to mitigate global warming (crowding-in). However, if individuals perceive international climate policy to be effective, they may decide to scale back their own voluntary climate protection activities (crowding-out). Relying on data from representative household samples from Germany and the US, this article empirically explores the relation between individual perceptions of climate policy and their planned adoption of six climate protection activities. It also tests the effects of a ‘warm glow’ motivation and whether this effect varies with the perceived effectiveness of international climate policy. The econometric analyses provide suggestive evidence that higher perceived justification and effectiveness of international climate policy crowd in voluntary individual climate protection activities in the US and Germany. In both countries, these activities are also positively related to the warm glow indicator, confirming that feelings which go beyond pure altruism help explain individual voluntary climate protection efforts. For the German (but not the US) sample, the effect of warm glow is stronger when international climate policy is believed to be ineffective. Key policy insights More effective international climate policy is expected to spur additional voluntary climate protection activities by individuals. Enhancing people’s trust in the outcomes of international climate policy likely raises their engagement in voluntary actions. In some cases, policy failure may be somewhat compensated for by greater individual action, motivated by warm glow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers debate the cost-effectiveness of technology-specific versus technology-neutral climate policies, but few quantify the differences. Using the case of low-carbon vehicle technologies in the US passenger vehicle sector (ethanol, plug-in electric and hydrogen), we develop a technology adoption simulation model that represents increasing returns to adoption in both financial costs and consumer preferences, representing uncertainty through Monte Carlo analysis. We compare the policy costs ($/tonne CO 2 out to 2050) of: i) a technology-neutral carbon tax, ii) a somewhat neutral vehicle standard requiring low carbon vehicle sales, but allowing competition among technologies, and iii) technology-specific vehicle standards requiring sales of just one technology. On average across simulations, the carbon tax is twice as cost-effective as the best vehicle standard, in part because the tax more substantially affects vehicle use rates. Among the vehicle standards, a technology-specific standard that selects the right “winner” (plug-in electric vehicles) is more cost-effective than the neutral standard, as it more quickly stimulates technology improvement. However, there is risk in a technology-specific approach; mistakenly forcing a “loser” technology (hydrogen) results in policy costs that are 2 to 5 times higher than other policies. Results can help policymakers trade-off the costs and risks of different climate policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of 2014 forest inventory data for the contiguous United States shows nearly 8 million ha of forestland that are currently defined as nonstocked after recent natural and human disturbances. It is estimated that forest regeneration on these lands could result in an additional terrestrial sequestration of 48.9 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) annually. Analysis across a range of seven site productivity classes indicates that approximately 58% of the total area is productive timberland, defined as capable of producing merchantable volume of ⩾1.4 m3/ha/year. It is estimated that regeneration of just the productive timberland portion of the total could produce an additional 44.4 million metric tons of CO2e annually in carbon sequestration. On National Forest System lands, more than 50% of the total potential carbon sequestration benefit from regenerating nonstocked lands could be achieved by reforesting just the top 30% of these lands in the moderate-to-high site productivity classes. On private lands, more than 70% of the total potential carbon benefit can be achieved by regenerating the most productive 30%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central concern in policy studies is understanding how multiple, contending groups in society interact, deliberate, and forge agreements over policy issues. Often, public discourse turns from engagement into impasse, as in the fractured politics of climate policy in the USA. Existing theories are unclear about how such an 'adversarial turn' develops. We theorize that an important aspect of the adversarial turn is the evolution of a group's narrative into what can be understood as an ideology, the formation of which is observable through certain textual-linguistic properties. Analysis 'of' these narrative properties elucidates the role of narrative in fostering (1) coalescence around a group ideology, and (2) group isolation and isolation of ideological coalitions from others' influence. By examining a climate skeptical narrative, we demonstrate how to analyze ideological properties of narrative, and illustrate the role of ideological narratives in galvanizing and, subsequently, isolating groups in society. We end the piece with a reflection on further issues suggested by the narrative analysis, such as the possibility that climate skepticism is founded upon a more 'genetic' meta-narrative that has roots in social issues far removed from climate, which means efforts at better communicating climate change science may not suffice to support action on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes to our climate and oceans are already affecting living marine resources (LMRs) and the people, businesses, and economies that depend on them. As a result, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has developed a Climate Science Strategy (CSS) to increase the production and use of the climate-related information necessary to fulfill its LMR stewardship mission for fisheries management and protected species conservation. The CSS establishes seven objectives: (1) determine appropriate, climate-informed reference points; (2) identify robust strategies for managing LMRs under changing climate conditions; (3) design decision processes that are robust to climate-change scenarios; (4) predict future states of ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities; (5) determine the mechanisms of climate-change related effects on ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities; (6) track trends in ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities and provide early warning of change; and (7) build and maintain the science infrastructure required to fulfill NMFS mandates under changing climate conditions. These objectives provide a nationally consistent approach to addressing climate-LMR science needs that supports informed decision-making and effective implementation of the NMFS legislative mandates in each region. Near term actions that will address all objectives include: (1) conducting climate vulnerability analyses in each region for all LMRs; (2) establishing and strengthening ecosystem indicators and status reports in all regions; and (3) developing a capacity to conduct management strategy evaluations of climate-related impacts on management targets, priorities, and goals. Implementation of the Strategy over the next few years and beyond is critical for effective fulfillment of the NMFS mission and mandates in a changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientists predict a future with more natural disasters due to climate change. Up-to-date building codes can reduce carbon emissions and make the built environment more resilient. However, the hostile environment for code adoption and lax enforcement in many jurisdictions in the United States impede the full potential of building codes to moderate the impacts of climate change. There are three ‘realpolitik’ reasons that building codes are not as effective as they could be in moderating the impacts of climate change. First, most building code review and approval boards are comprised of construction industry professionals who rarely take climate change into account. Second, the homebuilding industry is waging an effective advocacy campaign against updating building codes in general, particularly objecting to improved energy efficiency through building energy codes. Finally, enforcement of building codes, especially energy codes, is uneven. Overcoming these political and practical challenges requires greater activity in the areas of participation, pricing and policing. Interest groups and policy-makers must become more engaged in code advocacy. Price signals must internalize the costs imposed on society by damage from climate change. Finally, improving compliance and enforcement through training and additional resources should be a priority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When and why do individual companies lobby on environmental policies? Given the structural strength of business interests, the answer to this question is important for explaining policy. However, evidence on the strategic lobbying behaviour of individual companies remains scarce. We use data from lobbying disclosure reports on all major climate bills introduced during the 111th Congress (2009–2010). We then link the lobbying disclosure reports to detailed data on the fuel choices of all electric utilities in the United States along with socioeconomic, institutional and political data from the states where the utilities operate. The expected winners (renewable energy, natural gas users) from climate policy are much more likely to lobby individually on federal legislation than the expected losers (coal users). We find that expected winners lobby for specific provisions and rents as a private good, whereas expected losers concentrate their efforts on collective action through trade associations and committees to prevent climate legislation. The results suggest that the supporters of climate policy believed the probability of federal climate legislation to be nontrivial. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Clean Air Act provides the regulatory framework for climate policy in the United States. Emissions rate performance standards are the metric identified for regulation of the electricity sector, the most important source of emissions. Rates for existing sources could be averaged to achieve flexibility in compliance, although the stringency of policies is ambiguous when flexibility is introduced. For example, a specific emissions rate improvement averaged over a larger set of generators may reduce the actual emissions change. We evaluate three policy designs according to emissions rate, emissions and marginal cost and show how a marginal abatement cost criterion can be applied within a technology-based regulation. This approach can quadruple the emissions reductions that are achieved, with net social benefits exceeding $25 billion in 2020, and with a 1.3 % electricity price increase. Over half of the benefits stem from improvements in conventional air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study whether to auction or to freely distribute emissions allowances when some firms participating in emissions trading are subject to price regulation. We show that free allowances allocated to price-regulated firms effectively act as a subsidy to output, distort consumer choices, and generally induce higher output and emissions by price-regulated firms. This provides a cost-effectiveness argument for an auction-based allocation of allowances (or equivalently an emissions tax). For real-world economies such as the Unites States, in which about 20 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions are generated by price-regulated electricity producers, our quantitative analysis suggests that free allowances increase economy-wide welfare costs of the policy by 40-80 percent relative to an auction. Given large disparities in regional welfare impacts, we show that the inefficiencies are mainly driven by the emissions intensity of electricity producers in regions with a high degree of price regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most governments emphasize the need for reciprocal (“give and take”) international commitments in global climate policy. Nonetheless, existing public opinion polls indicate strong support by individual citizens for unilateral climate policies as well. This raises the question of whether governments could, without risking electoral punishment, afford to pursue more ambitious unilateral climate policies, or whether surveys may have overestimated support for unilateralism due to measurement problems. Based on conjoint and framing experiments embedded in representative surveys in the world's two largest democracies, India and the United States, we engage in a critical re-assessment of earlier survey results. We find robust public support for unilateral climate policy in both countries. Such support declines with increasing costs and increases with growing co-benefits and problem solving effectiveness. We also find, however, that policy conditionality and possible institutional design mechanisms against free-riding by other states (which make the policy “less unilateral” by providing for reciprocation) play no significant role when citizens form their preferences with respect to climate policy. Neither is public support affected by whether policies focus on adaptation (which limits benefits to the investing country) or mitigation (which benefits all countries globally). Overall, these findings suggest that, in view of very slow progress in global climate policy, governments of rich and poor countries could politically afford to push ahead with more ambitious unilateral climate policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about policies affecting the consumption of oil, and on how to support development of substitutes, often represent environmental politics at its most polarizing. How can we explain the serial reversals in energy policy that result from changing perceptions about the availability of renewable versus non-renewable energy supplies? Application of a range of theories to the case of the United States since 1973 suggests that two distinct types of explanation interact to play crucial roles: socially constructed deliberation takes place over the purposes of energy policy; meanwhile, physical constraints in natural resources are also observed and processed into updated perceptions of relative feasibility among policy choices. Over time, different policy priorities – varying in emphases on economic growth, sustainability, scarcity, or innovation – rise and fall as market conditions test how policies correspond with reality. Opportunities to develop successful policy strategies for managing this century's energy transition – in any of the four directions described – will depend similarly on the absence or presence of political will, a condition shaped by perceptions of material feasibility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Regulatory measures have proven the favored approach to climate change mitigation in the U.S., while market-based policies have gained little traction. Using a model that resolves the U.S. economy by region, income category, and sectorspecific technology deployment opportunities, this paper studies the magnitude and distribution of economic impacts under regulatory versus market-based approaches. We quantify heterogeneity in the national response to regulatory policies, including a fuel economy standard and a clean or renewable electricity standard, and compare these to a cap-and-trade system targeting carbon dioxide or all greenhouse gases. We find that the regulatory policies substantially exceed the cost of a cap-and-trade system at the national level. We further show that the regulatory policies yield large cost disparities across regions and income groups, which are exaggerated by the difficulty of implementing revenue recycling provisions under regulatory policy designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe carbon dioxide mitigation scenarios specified by the Energy Modeling Forum study (EMF-24) "U.S. Technology Transitions under Alternative Climate Policies," using a global computable general equilibrium model that simulates world energy and agricultural systems through 2050. One set of scenarios covers variation across five major technology groups: end-use technology, carbon dioxide capture and storage, nuclear electricity generation, wind and solar power, and bioenergy. Other scenarios cover variation across policies. Policies such as a renewable portfolio standard for electricity generation or a clean electricity standard have the potential for significant emissions reductions, but at a greater cost than a cap-and-trade scenario with the same reduction in emissions. Cap-andtrade scenarios resulted in carbon dioxide leakage rates of 11 to 20 percent depending on the stringency of the targets. Oil-exporting regions without a mitigation policy may still have significant welfare losses when other world regions reduce emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although economists prefer a unique, economy-wide carbon price, climate policies are likely to continue to combine technology- and sector-specific regulations with, at best, some degree of carbon pricing. A hybrid energy-economy model that combines technological details with partial macro-economic feedbacks offers a means of estimating the likely effects of this kind of policy mix, especially under different scenarios of technological innovation. We applied such a model, called CIMS-US, in a model comparison project directed by the Energy Modeling Forum at Stanford University (EMF 24) and present here the interrelated effects of policies focused separately on electricity and transportation. We find that technological innovation encouraged by transportation regulation can inadvertently increase emissions from electricity generation and ethanol production to the extent that abatement from the regulation itself is effectively neutralized. When, however, regulation of electricity generation is combined with transportation policy or there is economy-wide carbon pricing, substantial abatement occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Energy Modeling Forum 24 study included a set of policy scenarios designed to compare economy wide market-based and sectoral regulatory approaches of potential U.S. climate policy. Models from seven teams participated in this part of the study assessing economy-wide cap-and-trade climate policy and sectoral policies in the transportation and electric sector in terms of potential greenhouse gas emissions reductions, economic cost, and energy systems implications. This paper presents an overview of the results from the U.S. policy scenarios, and provides insights into the comparison of results from the participating models. In particular, various metrics were used to compare the model results including allowance price, the efficient frontier, consumption loss, GDP loss, and equivalent variation. We find that the choice of economic metric is an important factor in the comparison of model results. Among the insights, we note that the carbon price should cautiously be considered when other non-cap sectoral policies affecting emissions are assumed in tandem. We also find that a transportation sector policy is consistently shown to be inefficient compared to an economy-wide capand-trade policy with a comparable level of emissions reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Protocols are the foundation of an offset program. [•] Using sample projects, we “road test” landfill, manure and afforestation protocols from 5 programs. [•] For a given project, we find large variation in the volume of offsets generated. [•] Harmonization of protocols can increase the likelihood that “a ton is a ton”. [•] Harmonization can enhance prospects for linking emission trading systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have different ways of framing climate change influenced the policy-making process in the United States? Frames related to energy security and green growth/economy have been most prominent in the agenda of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. Pairing climate change with other concerns is thought to increase support from constituencies not traditionally concerned with environmental problems and to overcome debates over science. However, the way in which these two frames have been presented allows for other concerns to override climate considerations, and eventually the climate message loses its potency. Support for climate legislation is more likely to increase through more tailored messages that re-emphasise the effects of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although it is likely that the political–economic coalition required for implementing a federal cap-and-trade programme for GHGs in the US is now sufficiently strong, the structural impediments that have prevented its legislative passage remain impressively durable and can be expected to continue to lay waste to congressional proposals for the foreseeable future. Indeed, given the complex history of environmental policy gridlock in Washington since the early 1980s, any expectations that a cap-and-trade programme could have been realistically achieved through the traditional legislative passage in Congress are fundamentally misplaced. Building on previous research, it is argued that – as with most other forms of environmental policy in the US over the past three decades – a national carbon market is more plausible given alternative policy pathways, which if taken are capable of circumventing the Federal Congress altogether. In particular, the interaction between litigation against the federal government and the ‘rulemaking’ authority possessed by the Executive Branch provides the potential space for the current administration to unilaterally establish a model rule for a national carbon-trading programme. Policy relevance This article aims to contribute to American climate policy debates by re-thinking the policy mechanisms most capable of establishing a national carbon market in the US. By taking into account the array of structural factors that have prevented the legislative passage of such a programme in federal Congress, a range of alternative policy ‘pathways’ is considered that have historically allowed progressive environmental policies to endure in Washington (despite increased Congressional gridlock over the past few decades). Two specific alternative strategies and the relationship between them are assessed: the use of litigation to impose legal obligations on federal agencies to regulate effluents, and the use of executive authority to define the nature and scope of environmental regulation. The administration's current potential to unilaterally develop a model-rule for a cap-and-trade programme under the Clean Air Act is emphasized, and the political implications of such a strategy are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article shows how domestic aspects influence the United States national and international climate policy. To accomplish the task, the authors analyzes the discussions when Bill Clinton was ruling the country, a time during which global discussions were forwarded. The paper recalls the debate in the Bush administration and the growing polarization since Barack Obama took office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the status of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) in the U.S. after the publication of the Special Report on CCS (SRCCS) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2005. It says that new developments on CCS have not been observed, such as public perception for CCS. It discusses the recommendations from the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) to address the barriers in CCS progress.

There is a broad literature that suggests that neoliberalism is the predominant force structuring climate change policy. However, analyses that focus only on the creation of carbon markets as neoliberalism's effect on climate policy are too restricted. Focusing on the United States, as the paradigmatic neoliberal state, it is demonstrated that, because neoliberal states must nevertheless intervene to promote accumulation, and because system-wide regulation of greenhouse gases has been impossible to achieve, the United States has developed a range of alternative means by which to pursue emissions reductions. These means derive from the ‘strategic selectivities’ (or historical path-dependencies) inherent in federal policy development in the United States. The focus is on three ways that this has occurred: the growth of sub-national regulation; the use of executive authority; and in particular the deployment of a dense network of research and development infrastructure through which the development of new energy and environmental technologies is supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management of forests, rangelands, and wetlands on public lands, including the restoration of degraded lands, has the potential to increase carbon sequestration or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions beyond what is occurring today. In this paper we discuss several policy options for increasing GHG mitigation on public lands. These range from an extension of current policy by generating supplemental mitigation on public lands in an effort to meet national emissions reduction goals, to full participation in an offsets market by allowing GHG mitigation on public lands to be sold as offsets either by the overseeing agency or by private contractors. To help place these policy options in context, we briefly review the literature on GHG mitigation and public lands to examine the potential for enhanced mitigation on federal and state public lands in the United States. This potential will be tempered by consideration of the tradeoffs with other uses of public lands, the needs for climate change adaptation, and the effects on other ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The international climate change negotiations leading to and including the Copenhagen and Cancun Conferences of the Parties in 2009 and 2010 have shown a very different balance of power from those of the 1997 Kyoto round. This “New World dis(Order)” is characterized by insecurity of the United States in the face of economic and political decline vis-à-vis China; fragmentation of the Group of 77 developing nations negotiating bloc; and weakening of the European Union, which was cut out entirely from the group negotiating the Copenhagen Accord. In addition to old alignments of developing countries based on solidarity, negotiating blocs have fractured along lines of responsibility for climate change, capability to address it, and national vulnerability to climate risks. This paper assesses whether, over the past two decades, negotiations have come closer to meeting basic criteria of international climate justice, and chronicles how environmental negotiations have come to reflect a different and shifting balance of power. Drawing insights from Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly Silver''s analyses of US hegemonic decline and the rise of China, the article argues that the roots of the worst stubbornness by the US in recent climate talks lie in growing insecurity about its ability to provide jobs for its workers in a future where all sorts of work is moving to China and India. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing us, and it requires urgent policy action. Although climate change policies are mainly being discussed at international level by means of the United Nations Conventions and the Kyoto Protocol, the bulk of the impact will be felt at regional and local level. Regional and local governments are thus important actors. Moreover, regional governments in many parts of the world hold a wide range of the competences to implement policy actions for both adaptation and mitigation. This paper illustrates the important role of regions in climate policies and considers many of the policy instruments being designed and implemented. The paper describes 23 leading regions in climate policy. Finally, the case of Basque climate policy is described as an example of an industrial region in Europe where the degree of decentralization is significant. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the implications of alternative allowance allocation designs for industry profits and GDP under a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We employ a general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy with a unique treatment of capital dynamics that permits close attention to profit impacts. Effects on profits depend critically on the relative reliance on auctioning or free allocation of allowances. Freely allocating fewer than 15% of the emissions allowances generally suffices to prevent profit losses in the most vulnerable U.S. industries. Freely allocating all of the allowances substantially overcompensates these industries. When emissions allowances are auctioned and the proceeds employed to finance cuts in income tax rates, GDP costs are about 33% lower than when all allowances are freely allocated. Our results are robust to policies differing in stringency, the availability of offsets, and the opportunities for intertermporal trading of allowances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of potential metrics for comparing black carbon (BC) to carbon dioxide has been requested within legislation in the United States and has been discussed at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Poznan: therefore, it is important to further investigate the advantages and drawbacks to using such a metric. For context, we summarize the various proposed CO2 equivalent metrics and the rationales for developing them. We use BC marginal abatement curves to examine the implications of using 100-year global warming potentials to include BC in greenhouse gas (GHG) trading regimes. This idealized study demonstrates the impacts on emissions of CO2, and radiative forcing over time. Finally, we address the drawbacks of trading poorly quantified short-lived emissions with GHGs despite different physical interactions with the climate system. While the case for reducing BC for both health and climate benefits is compelling, there are reasons for limiting the use of BC metrics to illustrative analyses, such as identifying which BC mitigation actions would provide the greatest climate benefits, rather than using these metrics for trading with GHGs. Indeed, market-based mechanisms in general may not be appropriate for BC regulation at this time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is seen as an important solution to solve the twin challenge of reducing GHG emissions, while utilizing fossil fuel reserves to meet future energy requirements. In this study an innovation systems perspective is applied to review the development of CCS technologies in the US between 2000 and 2009 and to come up with policy recommendations for technology managers that wish to accelerate the deployment of CCS. The analysis describes the successful built-up of an innovation system around CCS and pinpoints the key determinants for this achievement. However, the evaluation of the system''s performance also indicates that America''s leading role in the development of CCS should not be taken for granted. It shows that the large CCS R&D networks, as well as the extensive CCS knowledge base, which have been accumulated over the past decade, have not yet been valorized by entrepreneurs to explore the market for integrated CCS concepts linked to power generation. Therefore, it is argued that the build-up of the innovation system has entered a critical phase that is decisive for a further thriving development of CCS technologies in the US. This study provides a clear understanding of the current barriers to the technology''s future deployment and outlines a policy strategy that (1) stimulates technological learning; (2) facilitates collaboration and coordination in CCS actor networks; (3) creates financial and market incentives for the technology; and (4) provides supportive regulation and sound communication on CCS. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Planning for climate change is now occurring at multiple, sometimes interlocking scales of ecological governance and policy formulation. Within the context of this journal's past calls for fresh work on the 'spatialities of (un)sustainability', particularly around climate action, this paper examines new geographies of local climate policy within six major US metropolitan regions located in six different smart growth states. The methodological assumption of the paper is that these putatively pro-planning states in the USA should provide a particularly fertile legal and policy arena within which metropolitan-scale action might emerge. Focusing empirically on the US Mayors Climate Action Agreement, though, the discussion highlights an uneven local geography of planning for global climate change, with central cities apparently accepting responsibility and, in general, suburban municipalities concomitantly free-riding. Policy and research implications of these metropolitan geographies of (in) action are discussed in light of the extant literature on cities, planning, and the governance of climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present a new methodology for evaluating the distributional impacts of climate policy. This methodology builds directly on the framework introduced by Jorgenson, Slesnick, and Wilcoxen (1992), but generalizes it by including leisure time, as well as goods and services, in the measure of household welfare. We provide detailed results for 244 different types of households distinguished by demographic characteristics. In addition, we evaluate the overall impact of a cap-and-trade system, as represented in Energy Modeling Forum 22. While there is a wide range of outcomes for different demographic groups, the impact on economic welfare is regressive and generally negative but relatively small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an analytical general equilibrium model, we find solutions for the effect of energy policy on factor prices as well as output prices. We calibrate the model to the U.S. economy, and we consider a tax on carbon dioxide. By looking at expenditure and income patterns across household groups, we quantify the uses-side and sources-side incidence of the tax. When households are categorized either by annual income or by total annual consumption as a proxy for permanent income, the uses-side incidence is regressive. This result is robust to sensitivity analysis over various parameter values. The sources-side incidence can be progressive, U-shaped, or regressive. Results on the sources side are sensitive to parameter values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most climate change policy attention has been addressed to long-term options, such as inducing new, low-carbon energy technologies and creating cap-and-trade regimes for emissions. We use a behavioral approach to examine the reasonably achievable potential for near-term reductions by altered adoption and use of available technologies in US homes and nonbusiness travel. We estimate the plasticity of 17 household action types in 5 behaviorally distinct categories by use of data on the most effective documented interventions that do not involve new regulatory measures. These interventions vary by type of action and typically combine several policy tools and strong social marketing. National implementation could save an estimated 123 million metric tons of carbon per year in year 10, which is 20% of household direct emissions or 7.4% of US national emissions, with little or no reduction in household well-being. The potential of household action deserves increased policy attention. Future analyses of this potential should incorporate behavioral as well as economic and engineering elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change raises many questions with strong moral and ethical dimensions that are important to address in climate-policy formation and international negotiations. Particularly in the United States, the public discussion of these dimensions is strongly influenced by religious groups and leaders. Over the past few years, many religious groups have taken positions on climate change, highlighting its ethical dimensions. This paper aims to explore these ethical dimensions in the US public debate in relation to public support for climate policies. It analyzes in particular the Christian voices in the US public debate on climate change by typifying the various discourses. Three narratives emerge from this analysis: ‘conservational stewardship’ (conserving the ‘garden of God’ as it was created), ‘developmental stewardship’ (turning the wilderness into a garden as it should become) and ‘developmental preservation’ (God's creation is good and changing; progress and preservation should be combined). The different narratives address fundamental ethical questions, dealing with stewardship and social justice, and they provide proxies for public perception of climate change in the US. Policy strategies that pay careful attention to the effects of climate change and climate policy on the poor – in developing nations and the US itself – may find support among the US population. Religious framings of climate change resonate with the electorates of both progressive and conservative politicians and could serve as bridging devices for bipartisan climate-policy initiatives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]