"A Study of Policy Evaluation in Local Climate Change Policy: Case of Incheon Metropolitan City"

Growing attention is being directed towards understanding the ways in which climate change policy is shaped by the actions and interests of local governments. This study explores connections between local government’s efforts to uphold and maintain the public trust and their considerations about climate change adaptation associated with water management. Document analysis and 24 interviews with local public officials are used to shed light on these considerations in three small municipalities in central Pennsylvania: Chambersburg, Carlisle, and Gettysburg. The analysis provides indications that a paradox of public trust leads to public officials pursuing actions and considerations that are consistent with climate change adaptation, but not recognizing that they are doing so. The implications of this governing mindset for climate change outreach and policy are explored. Suggestions for countering the logic of inaction expressed by public officials that justified a lack of adaptation are identified, and the potential for state and federal interventions to stimulate climate adaptation in contexts like these local governments is explored.

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Does Climate Change Policy Depend Importantly on Population Ethics?

Philosophy and Climate Change ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198796282.003.0006 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 111-136

Author(s):

Gustaf Arrhenius ◽

Mark Budolfson ◽

Dean Spears

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Policy Evaluation ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Policy Response ◽

Population Ethics ◽

Impossibility Results ◽

Climate Policies ◽

Change Policy ◽

Population Axiology

Choosing a policy response to climate change seems to demand a population axiology. A formal literature involving impossibility theorems has demonstrated that all possible approaches to population axiology have one or more seemingly counterintuitive implications. This leads to the worry that because axiological theory is radically unresolved, this theoretical ignorance implies serious practical ignorance about what climate policies to pursue. This chapter offers two deflationary responses to this worry. First, it may be that given the actual facts of climate change, all axiologies agree on a particular policy response. In this case, there would be a clear dominance conclusion, and the puzzles of axiology would be practically irrelevant (albeit still theoretically challenging). Second, despite the impossibility results, the authors prove the possibility of axiologies that satisfy bounded versions of all of the desiderata from the population axiology literature, which may be all that is needed for policy evaluation.

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Developing Green Cities: Explaining Variation in Canadian Green Building Policies

Canadian Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0008423916000846 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 49 (4) ◽

pp. 621-641 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Elizabeth Schwartz

Keyword(s):

Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Urban Politics ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Organizational Capacity ◽

Green Building ◽

Gas Emissions ◽

Local Climate ◽

Change Policy ◽

Local Climate Change

AbstractBuildings produce a large proportion of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and municipalities control a number of policy levers that can help to reduce those emissions. This article explains variation among Canadian cities regarding policies adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with a particular focus on green building standards. By applying insights from the study of the politics of public policy to urban politics, this article finds that while electoral disincentives prevent most cities from enacting high impact green building policies, the success of some cities can be attributed to the influence of independent municipal environment departments. These departments facilitate policy learning by providing information and resources. The findings suggest that policy makers could improve the effectiveness of local climate change policy by creating municipal environment departments that have organizational capacity—funding, staff, and a cross-cutting mandate—and are insulated from interference from politicians and line departments.

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THE CHOICE OF DISCOUNT RATE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY EVALUATION

Climate Change Economics ◽

10.1142/s2010007812500248 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 03 (04) ◽

pp. 1250024 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

LAWRENCE H. GOULDER ◽

ROBERTON C. WILLIAMS

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Social Welfare ◽

Interest Rates ◽

Discount Rate ◽

Policy Evaluation ◽

Numerical Optimization ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Pareto Improvement ◽

Ethical Considerations ◽

Change Policy

Nearly all discussions about the appropriate consumption discount rate for climate-change policy evaluation assume that a single discount rate concept applies. We argue that two distinct concepts and associated rates apply. We distinguish a social-welfare-equivalent discount rate (r SW ) appropriate for determining whether a given policy would augment social welfare (according to a postulated social welfare function) and a finance-equivalent discount rate (rF) suitable for determining whether the policy would offer a potential Pareto improvement. Distinguishing the two rates helps resolve arguments as to whether the choice of discount rate should be based on ethical considerations or empirical information (such as market interest rates), and about whether the discount rate should serve a prescriptive or descriptive role. Separating out the two rates also helps clarify disputes about the appropriate stringency of climate change policy. We find that the structure of leading numerical optimization models used for climate policy analysis may have helped contribute to the blurring of the differences between r SW and rF. In addition, we indicate that uncertainty about underlying ethical parameters or market conditions implies that both r SW and rF should decline as the time-horizon increases.

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