State and Local Officials Push for Continued Climate Action

The Paris Climate Agreement of December 2015 marks a decisive break from the unsuccessful Kyoto regime. Instead of targets and timetables, it established a Pledge and Review system, under which states will offer Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to reducing emissions that cause climate change. But this successful negotiation outcome was achieved at the price of vagueness of obligations and substantial discretion for governments. Many governments will be tempted to use the vagueness of the Paris Agreement, and the discretion that it permits, to limit the scope or intensity of their proposed actions. Whether Pledge and Review under the Paris Agreement will lead to effective action against climate change will therefore depend on the inclination both of OECD countries and newly industrializing countries to take costly actions, which for the OECD countries will include financial transfers to their poorer partners. Domestic politics will be crucial in determining the attitudes of both sets of countries to pay such costs. The actual impact of the Paris Agreement will depend on whether it can be used by domestic groups favoring climate action as a point of leverage in domestic politics—that is, in a “two-level game” simultaneously involving both international and domestic politics.

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The Paris Agreement and the Prospects for Socialization into the Climate Norm: Lessons from the U.S. and China

International Studies Review ◽

10.1163/2667078x-02101004 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 73-97

Author(s):

Jinhyun Lee

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

The United States ◽

Paris Agreement ◽

Institutional Transformation ◽

Climate Regime ◽

Critical Elements ◽

The Us ◽

Climate Action ◽

The U.S

The Paris Agreement made a breakthrough amid the deadlock in climate negotiations, yet concerns are raised regarding how much impact the new voluntary climate regime can make. This paper investigates the socialization mechanism that the Paris Agreement sets up and explores the prospects of “institutional transformation” for it to make a dent. It examines the factors that can facilitate voluntary climate action by using the cases of the most recalcitrant emitters, the United States and China. It argues that the US and China cases suggest that the socialization from the bottom-up by domestic actors may be one of the critical elements that determine states’ position on climate change.

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Subnational Bipartisanship on Climate Change: Evidence from Surveys of Local and State Policymakers

10.31219/osf.io/znr52 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Nathan Lee ◽

Dominik Stecula

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Local Governments ◽

Democratic Party ◽

Carbon Tax ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Address Climate Change ◽

Change Policy ◽

State And Local ◽

The U.S

While the U.S. Congress has repeatedly failed to pass national legislation to address climate change over the years, there has been much more progress among state and local governments. But is this progress on climate change policy at the subnational level merely a reflection of the dominance of the Democratic party in certain regions of the country, or does it reflect successful bipartisan action? In this essay, we present novel evidence from two surveys of subnational policymakers, conducted in 2015 and 2017, to demonstrate that there is widespread bipartisan agreement among Republican and Democrat policymakers at the subnational level about (1) the existence of global warming and (2) what to do about it. Specifically, a majority in both parties believe global warming is happening and support the use of renewable energy mandates—rather than cap-and-trade, carbon tax, or emissions standards—to address the problem.

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A National Crisis or Localized Problems? Getting Perspective on the Scope and Scale of the Teacher Shortage

Education Policy Analysis Archives ◽

10.14507/epaa.v11n23.2003 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 11 ◽

pp. 23 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Patrick Murphy ◽

Michael DeArmond ◽

Kacey Guin

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Teacher Shortage ◽

Low Income Students ◽

Absolute Size ◽

Teacher Shortages ◽

National Crisis ◽

Local Officials ◽

State And Local ◽

Using Data ◽

The U.S

Despite the considerable attention the popular press has devoted to the question of teacher shortages, there have been surprisingly few attempts to systematically measure the size and nature of the problem. This article attempts to estimate the size and nature of the celebrated teacher shortage of the late 1990s by using data from the U.S. Department of Education’s 1999-00 School and Staffing Survey. While limitations of the SASS data do not allow us to directly estimate the absolute size of the shortage, they do allow us investigate its relative impact. An examination of the data shows that the problem was distributed unevenly: urban schools and those with relatively high populations of minority and low-income students bore the brunt of the shortage; southern and western states had more problems filling teaching slots than other regions did. These findings suggest that state and local officials should keep distributional concerns in mind when they design policies to improve teacher recruitment and retention.

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Is Climate Change a Threat to International Peace and Security?

Michigan Journal of International Law ◽

10.36642/mjil.42.3.climate ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 527

Author(s):

Mark Nevitt

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

International Peace ◽

Intergovernmental Panel ◽

Climate Assessment ◽

The Earth ◽

Peace And Security ◽

Climate Action ◽

International Climate ◽

National Climate Assessment ◽

The U.S

The climate-security century is here. Both the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) and the U.S. Fourth National Climate Assessment (“NCA”) recently sounded the alarm on climate change’s “super-wicked” and destabilizing security impacts. Scientists and security professionals alike reaffirm what we are witnessing with our own eyes: The earth is warming at a rapid rate; climate change affects international peace and security in complex ways; and the window for international climate action is slamming shut.

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The Role of Late-Night Infotainment Comedy in Communicating Climate Change Consensus

10.31234/osf.io/ufg9r ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Edward John Roy Clarke ◽

Anna Klas ◽

Joshua Stevenson ◽

Emily Jane Kothe

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Policy Support ◽

Mitigation Policy ◽

Behavioural Intentions ◽

Late Night ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Climate Action ◽

Adaptation Policies ◽

Diverse Audience

Climate change is a politically-polarised issue, with conservatives less likely than liberals to perceive it as human-caused and consequential. Furthermore, they are less likely to support mitigation and adaptation policies needed to reduce its impacts. This study aimed to examine whether John Oliver’s “A Mathematically Representative Climate Change Debate” clip on his program Last Week Tonight polarised or depolarised a politically-diverse audience on climate policy support and behavioural intentions. One hundred and fifty-nine participants, recruited via Amazon MTurk (94 female, 64 male, one gender unspecified, Mage = 51.07, SDage = 16.35), were presented with either John Oliver’s climate change consensus clip, or a humorous video unrelated to climate change. Although the climate change consensus clip did not reduce polarisation (or increase it) relative to a control on mitigation policy support, it resulted in hyperpolarisation on support for adaptation policies and increased climate action intentions among liberals but not conservatives.

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