Search

Public policies increasingly address complex problems such as climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation that require forging connections across existing areas of policy activity. Despite the emerging prominence of these types of policymaking challenges, more research is needed to understand policy responses to them. In this paper, I use survey responses from 287 cities and a hurdle model to comparatively examine the factors that underlie the adoption of climate change mitigation and adaptation as issues influencing city policymaking and their extension across areas of city policymaking. I find evidence that while social change, crisis, and conditions supporting nascent coalitions were associated with adoption, extension across areas of policymaking was associated with the city?s prevailing political economy as well as the resources for expanding communities of interest. In the process, I offer empirical evidence for existing similarities and differences in cities? considerations about climate change mitigation and adaptation; particularly that the number of policymaking areas influenced by mitigation was associated with financial factors while the number influenced by adaptation was associated with socioeconomic ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overlaps between economic development, sustainability and climate change objectives have both political and practical implications for the development of policies addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, little empirical research has systematically investigated factors underlying these overlaps. Here, survey responses from 287 cities in the US are used to explore associations between the presence of such overlaps and these cities’ policy actions and contextual conditions. Patterns in the presence of these overlaps are described, which help shed light on the political economy underlying policymakers’ considerations about overlapping climate change mitigation and adaptation considerations with economic development or sustainability. Policymakers’ considerations about the possible political co-benefits and political trade-offs of these objective overlaps will play a critical role in shaping interconnected policy responses to complex challenges like climate change in the years ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those examining climate compatible development and triple-win policy efforts that simultaneously negotiate sustainable development, climate change mitigation, and climate change adaptation considerations are on the cutting edge of exploring why and how policymakers address complex social problems that require balancing considerations about multiple, interrelated policy issues. Enhancing understanding of factors underlying the emergence of these efforts can help strengthen incentives for action, address implementation challenges, and anticipate inequities. This paper uses survey responses from 287 cities and logistic regression analyses to explore conditions and policy actions associated with potential climate compatible development efforts when economic development, sustainability, climate change mitigation, and climate change adaptation considerations overlap. It finds evidence that potential climate compatible development efforts were present in 10% of the cities studied. Adaptation was the issue most likely to act as the missing link when each of these other issues influenced city policy actions, and mitigation was the least likely. Contextual factors associated with these efforts included budget stress, leadership from a policy entrepreneur, higher college degree attainment rates, having an environmental department or commission, and the area of the city composed of water versus land. Examining factors associated with these issues acting as missing links revealed contradictions that highlight the necessity of further exploration of processes affecting the pursuit of climate compatible development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]