Climate change and the welfare state? Exploring Australian attitudes to climate and social policy

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 741-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Spies-Butcher ◽  
Adam Stebbing
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Environmental Causes ◽  
The Relationship

Despite growing evidence of significant impacts from human-induced climate change, policy responses have been slow. Understanding this policy inertia has led to competing explanations, which either point to the need to build a consensual politics separated from economic partisanship, or which encourage solidarities between environmental and social movements and issues. This article analyses a recent successful mobilisation, leading to the passage of the Clean Energy Act in Australia, to explore the relationship between attitudes to environmental and social protection, particularly among the core constituency in favour of stronger climate action. Using social survey data from the Australian Election Study, the article finds evidence of independent associations between prioritising environmental concerns and support for welfare state expansion, and a realignment of materialist and post-materialist values. This we argue is consistent with Polanyian analysis that posits a link between social and environmental causes based on resistance to commodification.

How constructions of the future shape organizational responses: climate change and the Canadian oil sands

Organization ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 722-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane K. Lê
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Oil Sands ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Organizational Responses ◽  
Athabasca Oil Sands Region ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Strategic Environments ◽  
The Future ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Relationship

This empirical study examines the relationship between constructions of the future and anticipated organizational responses to climate change. Findings from the Athabasca oil sands region of Alberta, Canada indicate that actors’ views of climate change affect not only the way they construct the future of oil sands development, but also which responses they see as legitimate. Specifically, whether actors construct a future of no development, partial development or full development of the oil sands, influences the combinations of organizational responses they recommend (i.e. not responding, lobbying, engaging, developing and informing). These findings contribute to our understanding of organizational responses to climate change by showing that (1) climate action requires more than actors simply viewing climate change as strategic; (2) different constructions of the future create alternative strategic environments that necessitate divergent responses; (3) strong future constructions narrow the repertoire of business responses to climate change; and (4) in this process governments play a crucial role beyond setting climate change policy. This study thus highlights the importance of studying future constructions if we want to understand current organizational responses to environmental issues that contribute to climate change.

Informing Climate Change Policy Through Economics and Engineering Perspectives on Energy Efficiency

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priya Sreedharan ◽  
Alan H. Sanstad ◽  
Joe Bryson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
State And Local ◽  
End Use

Energy “sustainability” and energy supply have again emerged as central public policy issues and are at the intersection of the economic, environmental, and security challenges facing the nation and the world. The goal of significantly reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with energy production and consumption, while maintaining affordable and reliable energy supplies, is one of the most important issues. Among the strategies for achieving this goal, increasing the efficiency of energy consumption in buildings is being emphasized to a degree not seen since the 1970s. “End-use” efficiency is the core of the State of California’s landmark effort to reduce its GHG emissions, of other state and local climate-change initiatives, and is emphasized in emerging federal GHG abatement legislation. Both economic and engineering methods are used to analyze energy efficiency, but the two paradigms provide different perspectives on the market and technological factors that affect the diffusion of energy efficiency. These disparate perspectives influence what is considered the appropriate role and design of public policy for leveraging not just efficient end-use technology, but other sustainable energy technologies. We review the two approaches and their current roles in the GHG policy process by describing, for illustrative purposes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s assessment of energy efficiency in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 Discussion Draft. We highlight opportunities and needs for improved coordination between the engineering, economic and policy communities. Our view is that a better understanding of disciplinary differences and complementarities in perspectives and analytical methods between these communities will benefit the climate change policy process.

Russia will lag on climate action despite policy shift

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Policy Shift ◽  
International Climate

Subject Climate change policy views in Russia. Significance After years of delay, the Russian government has acceded to the Paris Agreement to limit global warming. This is a positive step, although the decision is more symbolism than substance. Moscow's obligations under the agreement are very limited and powerful domestic interests are obstructing implementation of a more active climate policy. Impacts Due to warming in the Arctic, Russia plans to increase cargo traffic along its Arctic maritime route to 80 million tonnes per year by 2024. As Russia promotes itself as an international climate leader, state-owned Rusnano is promoting high-tech solutions to emissions reductions. Objections to radical policy change will not be couched in the language of climate change denial.

scholarly journals The Carbon Footprint of the Games – International Climate Change Law and the Olympics

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 362-367
Author(s):  
Rebecca Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Olympic Movement ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Local Host ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Multi Level

Olympic Games do not happen in a vacuum or a sports bubble. They are embedded in both local and global realities of a social, economic, and environmental nature. Environmental factors, in particular, have impacted the Olympic Movement for several decades. In this context, climate change is a more recent, yet increasingly important, issue on the agenda. This essay examines the Olympic Movement's multi-level climate change policy. Based on the goals established in the Paris Agreement, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) launched the Sports for Climate Action Initiative in 2018. In the context of the Olympics, this Initiative is implemented through the interplay between the IOC and actors at the local, host city level. Consequently, the system is highly dependent on local organizers’ capabilities to meet the Initiative's ambitious targets, as well as on the IOC's willingness and ability to take an active role in steering and supporting host cities in this process.

scholarly journals The European Parliament as an Arena and Agent in the Politics of Climate Change: Comparing the External and Internal Dimension

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Wendler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Future Goals ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Energy Efficiency Standards

Climate change policy is a key example for globalized multi-level governance, involving the European Parliament (EP) both as legislator of internal European Union (EU) regulation and discursive agent in global climate negotiations. Based on the comparison of decision-making in external and internal climate change policy, the article investigates the link between the role of the EP as a political actor and arena for the interaction of competing party groups: Does EP involvement in negotiations on legally binding legislation prompt or constrain partisan polarization in comparison to declaratory statements about future goals of climate action? Harnessing a discursive institutionalist theoretical framework, the article compares EP resolutions about annual Conferences of the Parties (COPs 20 to 24) with the revision of four legislative acts for Phase IV of EU Climate Action: namely, emissions trading, effort sharing between Member States, the promotion of renewable energies, and energy efficiency standards. Using roll-call voting data and the review of legislative documentation, the contribution tracks the emergence and negotiation of political conflict in these two sets of cases. Overall, the case studies indicate a low level of external politicization, as indicated by low party group polarization, internalization of political conflict at the committee level, and compromise-building between issue dimensions.

Reset or Revert in the New Climate Normal

2021 ◽  
pp. 425-444
Author(s):  
Navraj Singh Ghaleigh ◽  
Louise Burrows
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
The World ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Zero Emission ◽  
Recovery Trajectory

This chapter argues that ambitious climate action should be central to the “new normal” in Asia and that law has an important role in delivering it. From the perspective of climate change policy and law, the Covid-19 catastrophe offers the slim possibility that the world will “build back better,” restoring societies and economies along climate-friendly lines. This approach—resetting—envisages national stimulus packages and allied actions of central banks and financial regulators which are oriented toward economic growth and net-zero emission pathways in the months and years following Covid-19. The alternative narrative—reversion—identifies a recovery trajectory in which policies that are supportive of carbon-intensive pathways push the Paris Agreement targets further out of reach. Components of such recovery packages include unconditional bailouts for the fossil fuel sector and conventional mobility. The chapter then explores the tension between these two approaches in the immediate response to Covid-19, focussing on the coal sector as an emblematic variable in climate change debates.

Climate Policy Statement

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-124
Author(s):  
The Blue Green Alliance
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Statement ◽  
International Union ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Energy Economy ◽  
Back To Work

The four labor unions and two environmental organizations that comprise the Blue Green Alliance worked intensively during the fall of 2008 and winter of 2009 to craft a joint statement on comprehensive climate change policy. The United Steelworkers, Sierra Club, Communications Workers of America, Natural Resources Defense Council, Laborers International Union of North America, and Service Employees International Union together released a policy statement on climate change and energy in late March. The goal of this undertaking is to articulate a framework by which the United States can rapidly put millions of Americans back to work building a clean-energy economy and reducing global warming emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

scholarly journals On the Physics of Three Integrated Assessment Models

2017 ◽  
Vol 98 (6) ◽  
pp. 1199-1216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Calel ◽  
David A. Stainforth
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Integrated Assessment ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Integrated Assessment Models ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Assess Climate Change ◽  
Economic Analyses

Abstract Integrated assessment models (IAMs) are the main tools for combining physical and economic analyses to develop and assess climate change policy. Policy makers have relied heavily on three IAMs in particular—Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE), The Climate Framework for Uncertainty, Negotiation and Distribution (FUND), and Policy Analysis for the Greenhouse Effect (PAGE)—when trying to balance the benefits and costs of climate action. Unpacking the physics of these IAMs accomplishes four things. First, it reveals how the physics of these IAMs differ and the extent to which those differences give rise to different visions of the human and economic costs of climate change. Second, it makes these IAMs more accessible to the scientific community and thereby invites further physical expertise into the IAM community so that economic assessments of climate change can better reflect the latest physical understanding of the climate system. Third, it increases the visibility of the link between the physical sciences and the outcomes of policy assessments so that the scientific community can focus more sharply on those unresolved questions that loom largest in policy assessments. And finally, in making explicit the link between these IAMs and the underlying physical models, one gains the ability to translate between IAMs using a common physical language. This translation key will allow multimodel policy assessments to run all three models with physically comparable baseline scenarios, enabling the economic sources of uncertainty to be isolated and facilitating a more informed debate about the most appropriate mitigation pathway.

Gender mainstreaming in climate change adaptation strategies in Bangladesh and Nepal.

2021 ◽  
pp. 211-219
Author(s):  
S. Shehwar
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

Abstract This chapter discusses the state of gender mainstreaming in climate action activities and policies in two South Asian neighbors, Bangladesh and Nepal, based on a review of key climate change policy documents. Three questions are addressed: (1) How do Bangladesh and Nepal mitigate the detrimental effects of climate change for rural women? (2) How do climate policies and programmes in Bangladesh and Nepal respond to the different needs and concerns of these women within their national adaptation strategies? (3) What are the opportunities and challenges of mainstreaming gender in climate action policies and programmes in Bangladesh and Nepal? A key argument of this chapter is that climate change is not gender-neutral, and it has become increasingly necessary for Bangladesh and Nepal to learn from one another in order to build gender-sensitive strategies that are cognizant of the needs of rural women.

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