Climate Protection and Energy Sustainability Policy in California Cities: What Have We Learned?

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Local governments have undertaken climate protection and energy sustainability policy actions to comply with state environmental protection legislation. However, noncollaboration and high up-front costs involved in sustainability programs hinder some cities from adopting climate protection and energy sustainability policy actions. This study examines climate protection and energy sustainability policy actions in 172 California cities and develops a framework from literatures in environmental protection policy, institutional analysis, policy innovation, policy entrepreneurship, and urban politics to construct hypotheses which are tested with data from a 2010 International City/County Management Association (ICMA) survey. Comparative descriptive analyses indicate that California cities are more advanced in the use of these policy actions than the rest of theUnited States. A set of Poisson regression and negative binomial regression analyses provides evidence that financial independence, education, homeownership, form of government, ICLEI membership, and the intergovernmental impacts of entrepreneurial state legislators influence the use of these policy actions at the local level. The influence of these factors differs across sustainability, environmental conservation, and energy use reduction policy actions.