PrintAs we've discussed earlier, climate policy is energy policy - and often actions we can implement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are cost-saving and carry additional ancillary benefits. It's no surprise, then, that in the absence of federal climate policy, smaller-scale bodies of government are working hard to address these challenges in their own regions, states, and localities.
We find ourselves at a tumultuous point in US climate policy history. Retreating from the commitments of the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Agreements and renewed investment in the fossil fuel industry puts us at odds with what the scientific community understands about climate change and the actions we must take to address it. As you can imagine, in the years (decades, really) prior to 2015, the very noticeable absence of federal leadership on this problem created a void that smaller geographic scales just couldn't ignore. The next several pages of this lesson will take you through the climate policy efforts that emerged at a variety of sub-national geographic scales and introduce you to new ones growing out of the intervals of stalled progress we've seen in the past several years with federal climate policy.
As you read through these pages, think about the advantages and disadvantages of tackling these problems at different geographic scales (geography matters!). Greenhouse gas emissions are a unique environmental problem, in that, while emissions are localized and certainly the impacts of climate change are localized, the problem is global. Think about this - most GHG emissions come from the industrialized and rapidly developing parts of the world, the US, China, India. But that doesn't mean these are the countries most adversely affected by a changing climate (take a look at which places are most vulnerable). Rather, some of the most disproportionately affected countries are unindustrialized, low-lying island nations and coastal regions. So, emissions reductions in a given area don't always correlate to reducing that same location's vulnerability to climate change.
Addressing climate and energy challenges at smaller scales of government offers a degree of flexibility in the strategies implemented to solve the problems, which are best suited to a particular place in a way that a blanket federal approach would fail to accommodate. It affords policy makers the opportunity to explicitly tailor plans to the economic, social, and environmental factors and incorporate these place-based nuances into their decision-making process. However, the piecemeal approach also leaves room for inconsistency and for leakage of emissions from more stringently regulated states to those that are more lax, and it may fail to spur innovation across all states. This was really what was so innovative (and smart) about the Clean Power Plan's design; it was structured to strategically have the best of both worlds - a federal program with national targets that allows states to choose their own pathways to meeting reduction goals.
As you go through the various sub-national scales of climate action, think about where you live and what action, if any, your region, state, or municipality has taken. Do you live in an active region? Or, is there a lot of work to do? Maybe that's work you will want to do when you graduate!