Subnational Climate Research Articles

Research priorities for supporting subnational climate policies

AbstractGrowing momentum for decentralized climate policy and the falling costs of low‐carbon technologies are creating new climate change mitigation opportunities for subnational actors. Here we discuss how research can best support these subnational efforts to allow limited resources to stretch further. To stimulate this discussion, we identify four research priorities. (1) Innovation mechanisms examines local policy opportunities for technology improvement to achieve high returns on investments. (2) Co‐benefits analyzes the non‐climate benefits of emissions reductions to highlight how local policies can affect communities directly. (3) Emissions monitoring develops rapid, low‐cost, local measurement strategies to allow communities to assess and weigh in on the emissions impacts of local energy systems. (4) Decision levers reframes large‐scale analyses into more targeted and actionable metrics for local policy decisions. This piece was informed and inspired by a set of interviews we conducted with representatives in business, government, NGOs, and educational institutions actively engaged in local climate action, and by our own research.This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Policies, Instruments, Lifestyles, Behavior Policy and Governance > Private Governance of Climate Change

Low-impact land use pathways to deep decarbonization of electricity

A growing number of jurisdictions are passing ambitious clean energy policies. Yet few studies have accounted for natural and agricultural land impacts of low-carbon pathways and how environmental siting constraints affect electricity costs and technology choices. To address this gap, we developed an integrated land-energy planning framework to examine the land use trade-offs of renewable energy development required to achieve ambitious clean energy goals, using the state of California as a case study. Using high-resolution ecological and agricultural datasets for 11 Western U.S. states, we modeled environmentally-constrained onshore wind, solar photovoltaic, and geothermal potential and used an electricity capacity expansion model to build generation portfolios for 2050. Here we show that California can meet its targets, but the technology mix, spatial build-out, and system costs are sensitive to land protections and availability of out-of-state renewable resources. Results suggest that failure to consider land availability in energy planning could increase uncertainties, environmental impacts, and risks in meeting subnational climate targets.

Patterns of Adaptation Response by Coastal Communities to Climate Risks

Coastal communities are among the most vulnerable to climate risks. Despite the negligence of climate policy at the federal level in the United States, subnational governments have taken action to adapt to climate change impacts. Using national-level data on subnational government climate activities, this research examines three aspects of coastal community adaptation actions. First, it examines whether there are differences in climate adaptation activity between coastal and non-coastal communities. It then tests the relative importance of political partisanship, population, perception of climate risk, and awareness of state-level climate planning effort. Lastly, it examines the impact of participation within climate policy networks on the likelihood of a subnational government taking a climate adaptation action. Three types of network partners are examined: those focused on sea-level rise and coastal communities, climate change mitigation, and general environmental organizations. Concern about severe storms, awareness of state plans, and having a network partner focused either on climate mitigation or the environment were found to be statistically significant indicators of climate adaptation action. The paper discusses the importance of understanding the localized context of adaptation within nested governance structures, and how informal policy networks can facilitate learning and innovation across coastal communities.

Comparing a global high-resolution downscaled fossil fuel CO2 emission dataset to local inventory-based estimates over 14 global cities

BackgroundCompilation of emission inventories (EIs) for cities is a whole new challenge to assess the subnational climate mitigation effort under the Paris Climate Agreement. Some cities have started compiling EIs, often following a global community protocol. However, EIs are often difficult to systematically examine because of the ways they were compiled (data collection and emission calculation) and reported (sector definition and direct vs consumption). In addition, such EI estimates are not readily applicable to objective evaluation using modeling and observations due to the lack of spatial emission extents. City emission estimates used in the science community are often based on downscaled gridded EIs, while the accuracy of the downscaled emissions at city level is not fully assessed.ResultsThis study attempts to assess the utility of the downscaled emissions at city level. We collected EIs from 14 major global cities and compare them to the estimates from a global high-resolution fossil fuel CO2 emission data product (ODIAC) commonly used in the science research community. We made necessary adjustments to the estimates to make our comparison as reasonable as possible. We found that the two methods produce very close area-wide emission estimates for Shanghai and Delhi (< 10% difference), and reach good consistency in half of the cities examined (< 30% difference). The ODIAC dataset exhibits a much higher emission compared to inventory estimates in Cape Town (+ 148%), Sao Paulo (+ 43%) and Beijing (+ 40%), possibly related to poor correlation between nightlight intensity with human activity, such as the high-emission and low-lighting industrial parks in developing countries. On the other hand, ODIAC shows lower estimates in Manhattan (− 62%), New York City (− 45%), Washington D.C. (− 42%) and Toronto (− 33%), all located in North America, which may be attributable to an underestimation of residential emissions from heating in ODIAC’s nightlight-based approach, and an overestimation of emission from ground transportation in registered vehicles statistics of inventory estimates.ConclusionsThe relatively good agreement suggests that the ODIAC data product could potentially be used as a first source for prior estimate of city-level CO2 emission, which is valuable for atmosphere CO2 inversion modeling and comparing with satellite CO2 observations. Our compilation of in-boundary emission estimates for 14 cities contributes towards establishing an accurate inventory in-boundary global city carbon emission dataset, necessary for accountable local climate mitigation policies in the future.

Climate Assessment Moves Local

AbstractState and local governments, businesses, community organizations, and the general public are taking an increasingly significant role in climate impact assessment. Driven by impacts to constituents and customers and threats to human health, essential services, and property values, local organizations are on the front lines of responding to climate change. National and international efforts such as the U.S. National Climate Assessment and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provide fundamental scientific understanding as well as methods and modeling tools. Subnational climate assessments can build on this foundation and tailor models and analyses to specific local or decision contexts. However, subnational climate assessment and adaptation presents new scientific and research challenges, such as those related to downscaling climate models, simulating extreme events, and understanding local values and institutional practices. As state, local, and sectoral assessments become more common across the nation, there is a critical opportunity to share learnings and identify challenges and pitfalls. Building off a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine activity focusing exclusively on subnational climate assessment, we consider the methods and results from a variety of examples to synthesize findings about current practices and the future of subnational climate assessment.

Global Climate Change Knowledge and the Production of Climate Subjects in Vietnam

Critical scholarship on climate change knowledge has largely overlooked the latter’s influence on the formation of political subjects. This article addresses this gap; it draws on literature of political and environmental subjects to examine how political authorities use global climate change knowledge to form ‘climate subjects.’ It argues that through formation of climate subjects, political authorities can steer the climate change response and simultaneously reproduce structures of political authority. The article takes Vietnam as a case. Vietnam is projected to be one of the countries most affected by climate change, and political authorities have been active in responding, with policies emphasizing knowledge dissemination. The article traces the influence of global climate change knowledge in Vietnamese climate change policy through analysis of national policymaking. It then examines policy implementation and subject formation in sub-national levels of government, as sub-national officials’ climate subjectivities are a potent political tool. Such ‘street-level bureaucrats’ translate policy to practice and shape local climate change responses, livelihoods and lives. The article draws on interviews with sub-national officials and document review of sub-national climate change policies and training documents. The article finds that climate subject formation in Vietnam reflects and contributes to the reproduction of existing political and economic structures. It thereby limits alternative visions of climate change response. This indicates the importance of diverse forms of knowledge – ontologies, epistemologies and conceptualizations of climate change – to support transformational responses rather than functional persistence.

The Constitutionality of State and Local 'Norm Sustaining' Actions on Global Climate Change Actions: The Foreign Affairs Federalism Grey Zone

States and cities have long been leaders on global climate change by participating in international meetings, forming cross-border alliances, entering into bilateral memoranda of understanding, and even harmonizing their regulatory systems, as in the case of the California-Quebec emissions trading program. Such subnational efforts have taken on a new importance in the wake of President Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Although states and cities cannot be parties to this international agreement, they can contribute to its success by engaging in what I describe as “norm sustaining” activities. However, how can such norm sustaining activities survive constitutional scrutiny when the Supreme Court has often said the nation should speak with “one voice” on foreign affairs? The analysis of several different cross-border climate agreements between subnational actors raises some concern, especially for California’s linked cap-and-trade program with Quebec, which the Trump administration has challenged in court. Under the Compact Clause, the presumed constitutionality of existing agreements between states and foreign governments largely turns on the assumption that the interstate doctrine applies. Under the Supremacy Clause, the Supreme Court’s expansive reading of executive power could be interpreted to give preemptive effect to President Trump’s repudiation of the Paris Agreement. If California’s emissions trading program is perceived as a tax under the dormant Foreign Commerce Clause, then the requirement that the nation speak with one voice on international commerce could be violated. However, two trends—one legal and one factual—suggest otherwise. First, the legal and historical justifications for foreign affairs exceptionalism may make less sense in today’s society than at our nation’s founding. Recent cases suggest that the Supreme Court may be more likely to treat foreign affairs like domestic matters, at least where national security is not at issue. Second, when one considers the other ways in which state and local governments have engaged in the grey zone of foreign affairs law—such as by conducting trade and investment missions, entering into agreements to facilitate cross-border legal processes, and engaging in human rights treaty processes —subnational climate actions do not seem so extraordinary. Even the agreement creating the California-Quebec emissions trading program is similar to other cross-border activities, such as an agreement between New York and Quebec on driver’s licenses and an agreement between states and provinces on the Great Lakes. Through a unique analysis that situates subnational climate change agreements within a broader legal and factual context, this Article argues that cross-border climate action by states and cities is well-positioned to survive constitutional scrutiny.

Adaptive Governance and sub-national Climate Change Policy: A comparative analysis of Khyber Pukhtunkhawa and Punjab Provinces in Pakistan

This study explores the adaptive governance and effective implementation of climate policies at the subnational level in a developing country context. We focused on Pakistan as our central case as it is considered one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and has also gone through a recent governance devolution process. This study is conduced to investigate climate governance at subnational level in Pakistan by looking at the province of Punjab and Khyber Pukhtunkhawah (KPK). We employ the Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework for this study. The framework as methodology is important to uncover the complexity of adaptive governance at subnational level after devolution and transformation of environmental institutions in Pakistan. Different aspects of governance such as engagement of local actors, activism of political leadership, awareness campaigns, and capacity building are the notable initiatives in the provinces. The study identifies the differences of initiatives in these provinces are manifest in subnational climate change policy differentiation, research capacity and institutional maturity. The study finds that the provincial government of the KPK follows more participatory and decentralized approach while Punjab is more centralized. The IAD framework provided an effective means of understanding these complex differences in outcome and scale.

Exploring links between national climate strategies and non-state and subnational climate action in nationally determined contributions (NDCs)

ABSTRACTNon-state and sub-national actors (e.g. companies, civil society, cities and regions, collectively referred to as ‘NSAs’) could bridge the ambition gap left by insufficiently ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Increasing effective non-state and sub-national contributions could both support NDCs’ implementation and spur ambitious updates to these national climate action plans. The impact of NSAs depends partly on whether and how national climate strategies recognize them. Yet, systematic knowledge about the extent to which national governments envisage a role for non-state and sub-national climate action is scarce. How do governments refer to NSAs in their NDCs; and what capacities, functions, and in which sectors do they envisage non-state contributions? We apply structural topic modelling (STM), an efficient quantitative text analysis technique seldom used in global climate governance research, to 147 NDCs to explore whether and how national governments incorporate non-state and subnational contributions into their international climate commitments. Using this method, we identify key topics for non-state and subnational engagement in NDCs, including vulnerability and adaptation, monitoring, general and sector-specific collaboration, and policy support. We find that developing countries overwhelmingly reference NSAs more frequently than developed countries. We also find predominantly negative trade-offs in how countries link to NSAs, suggesting countries tend to mention NSAs’ contributions in specific roles rather than across multiple sectors. Our findings suggest there is scope for countries to broaden their linkage to NSAs in their updated NDCs to further catalyze engagement.Key policy insightsLinkages to NSA initiatives (including cities, regions, businesses or civil society) in NDCs under the Paris Agreement are mostly made by developing countries.Developing countries describe NSAs primarily in the context of vulnerability and adaptation policy implementation, while developed countries mainly describe these actors’ role as collaborators across a range of functions.Closer coordination between NSAs and national governments, to fully leverage NSA contributions to NDCs, can be achieved by explicitly outlining NSAs’ contributions in future updates of NDCs.

Subnational Climate Policies: a proposal for monitoring in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Monitoring and evaluation of climate policies promote transparency and enable public engagement. Covering the period 2011 to 2017, this essay presents a qualitative analysis of the Policy on Adaptation to Climate Change adopted by the state of Rio Grande do Sul, as contribution to the debate about subnational adaptation policies. We use the set of tools developed by the Open Climate Network, which differs from the measurement of greenhouse gas emissions by the territory to assess the progress made in the implementation of the adaptation policies through public governance. While adoption by the state government started 2010, we conclude that this subnational adaptation policy still is in the stage of validation against the emission reduction targets proposed by the Paris Agreement, until 2025. Several adaptation policies are under way in Rio Grande do Sul, however, in a (still) fragmented mode. We identified gaps in the state budget, as well as governance constrains for the next step of implementation.

The dynamics of advancing climate policy in federal political systems

AbstractTo avoid irreversible climate damages, countries with different political systems must commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the world. The challenge posed to federal countries participating in international climate agreements through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is that successful implementation requires buy‐in from their subnational governments. However, subnational climate action may not be aligned with the political priorities of the national government and could either undermine or support commitments made through the agreement. To explore these dynamics, we review the incoherence between international commitments, national and subnational policies of Canada and the United States, relying on case studies of investments in low‐carbon energy and emissions outcomes. Political and policy incoherence has flowed in both directions. Both countries have seen periods of federal government action, which have been undermined by subnational inaction or opposition. Similarly, both countries have seen periods of federal government inaction, which has placed the onus on subnational governments. Our analysis enables a greater understanding about how the dynamics of federalist political systems influence policy, thus the energy investment and emissions outcomes of national commitments to international agreements. The implications of our findings for other federalist political systems are discussed. We suggest that during national leadership voids, subnational governments can counteract the associated negative policy outcomes by implementing climate policies that support low‐carbon technologies and reducing emissions. This type of system supports the development of a coordinated strategy among subnational governments in achieving international goals through cooperative federalism via subnational policy compacts.

Global climate adaptation governance in the Amazon through a polycentricity lens

The 2015 Paris agreement has made adaptation to climate change a global goal and increased the polycentricity of the governance landscape. This study uses insights from polycentric governance theory to analyze the emergence of adaptation governance (AG) in Brazil and its implications for the state of Acre, situated in the Amazon region. By using a qualitative data analysis, including subnational climate policies and semi-structured interviews, we aim to analyze the advantages and challenges of polycentric AG in Acre and provide recommendations for improved AG in the region.

A research roadmap for quantifying non-state and subnational climate mitigation action

Non-state and subnational climate actors have become central to global climate change governance. Quantitatively assessing climate mitigation undertaken by these entities is critical to understand the credibility of this trend. In this Perspective, we make recommendations regarding five main areas of research and methodological development related to evaluating non-state and subnational climate actions: defining clear boundaries and terminology; use of common methodologies to aggregate and assess non-state and subnational contributions; systematically dealing with issues of overlap; estimating the likelihood of implementation; and addressing data gaps.

Achieving the 2°C goal: the potential of India’s building sector

ABSTRACT India’s growth of energy demand in the building stock, and efforts to curb it, are placed into an international context by adapting the reporting criteria developed for the Global Alliance on Building & Construction's (GABC) Global Status Report (2017) on buildings and construction. A survey of state and non-state actor climate commitments submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Non State Actors Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA) database and recent research on the status of building energy codes and standards globally are also presented. To contribute to a 2°C pathway, India must achieve a 50% reduction in building energy demand and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. India is taking steps toward this goal through initiatives such as recent upgrades to the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC), encouraging green building rating and energy certification, and stimulating markets for low-carbon/high-efficiency technologies. However, despite improvements in building energy intensity, neither the global or the Indian building sectors are currently decarbonizing. The adoption of consistent national energy and GHG emission reduction goals could further align national, subnational and private-sector climate action commitments to facilitate a transition to a low-carbon emissions pathway and contribute to limiting global warming to well below 2°C.

Metropolitan Strategies and Climate Governance: Towards New Evaluative Approaches

AbstractIn the new millennium, cities have become an emerging force among new forms of subnational climate governance. Of interest is how cities act unilaterally and directly in this new climate politics via the provision of relevant tools. Since metropolitan planning strategies have been considered as important mechanisms for achieving urban sustainability in this period, this research has sought to investigate the importance of these master plans in the delivery of urban responses to climate change. For this purpose, the study has employed a qualitative research methodology with the application of a comparative case study and the progression of a conceptual framework for evaluating climate policies in metropolitan plans of two selected cities—London and Melbourne. The study's results suggest that both the ‘London Plan’ and ‘Plan Melbourne’ incorporate critical elements to enhance climate governance, including the promotion of coordination principles, innovative technologies, a participatory planning approach and a long‐term planning scale. However, the review identified a consistent omission of key principles as identified through the proposed matrix for analysing the climate policies of a city's government, which include risk assessment tools, monitoring systems, distribution, impact frame and accountability. Moreover, the research also revealed the lack of vertical integration in policy formulation and implementation of ‘Plan Melbourne’. Our study suggests that a city's governance structure influences the way it undertakes its climate actions and the potential efficacy of these on a metropolitan scale.

The Role of Intermediaries in Supporting Local Low-Carbon Energy Initiatives

Recent scholarly attention shows that grassroots civil society low-carbon energy initiatives increasingly become part of the subnational climate change governance landscape. Despite their potency in view of consumer-owned distributed generation and enhanced citizen influence in the organization of the energy infrastructure, local low-carbon energy initiatives (LLCEIs) struggle to become viable alternatives to the centralized, private oriented energy system. To further LLCEI development, support needs to build their capacities; alleviate institutional hurdles and barriers stemming from the fossil fuel-based energy regime; and open up the system for the uptake, acceptance or breakthrough of LLCEIs. Evidence suggests that so-called “intermediaries” form a part of the solution in addressing these issues. Despite previous attempts at analyzing intermediary roles and activities vis-à-vis the development of community energy, the reality of the various roles and strategies intermediaries can employ and the support LLCEIs require to further develop have not yet been synthesized in a comprehensive analytical framework. This article aims to fill this gap by developing such a framework. We reflect on the analytical framework by evaluating the intermediary support structure in a specific case: the Province of Fryslân. From the analysis, we conclude that the Frisian case provided modest support to the claim that intermediary support is effective in addressing the needs of LLCEIs as the strategies and roles observed represent a complete and coherent support structure.

El Ni\xf1o and the K\xf6ppen\u2013Geiger Classification: A Prototype Concept and Methodology for Mapping Impacts in Central America and the Circum-Caribbean

The aim of this pilot study conducted by the consortium for capacity building was to develop a prototype concept and methodology for the classification and visualization of the geographic impacts of El Niño on annual climates and seasonality. Our study is based on the Köppen–Geiger climate classification scheme for a set of selected countries affected by strong El Niños in Latin America. By identifying and visualizing the annual and seasonal changes in regional, national, or subnational climate regimes that generally accompany an El Niño event, this research proposes an efficient way to detect and describe climate shifts and variability across time and space. Such knowledge provides a support tool for risk analysis and can potentially enhance government efforts of climate risk management, including disaster risk reduction activities that prevent, mitigate, and improve coping responses to El Niño-related hydrometeorological threats. Details of the conceptual approach and methodology to classifying and mapping El Niño’s impacts are described and explained using the Central American and circum-Caribbean region as a case study. The potential applications for disaster risk reduction as well as its limitations and future work are also discussed.

Subnational climate justice for the French Outre-mer: postcolonial politics and geography of an epistemic shift

This paper presents France's relation to climate change from the perspectives of the French overseas territories: the Outre-mer. Scattered across the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean, these formerly colonized territories are subnational jurisdictions of France. Through examining their greenhouse gas emissions, their ecological importance, their economic conditions, as well as their policies, I argue that understanding the Outre-mer climate change perspectives demands an epistemic shift characterized by two theoretical gestures. Firstly, the Outre-mer perspectives require moving beyond the single geographical imaginary of France that only represents its European mainland. Contributing very little to France's greenhouse gas emissions, these territories are particularly exposed and particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, making the case for a subnational climate justice. Secondly, beyond their portrayal as foreign and voiceless victims, the Outre-mer perspectives also recognize the presence of postcolonial subjects as political and historical actors facing climate change, calling forcefully for postcolonial equality and social justice.

Factors Shaping Policy Learning: A Study of Policy Actors in Subnational Climate and Energy Issues

AbstractThe concept of learning has long played a central role in the theories and frameworks used to understand policy processes. Findings described here aim to contribute to the theoretical and methodological understanding of individual learning in the policy process by explicitly examining belief change and belief reinforcement as products of policy learning, measuring both, as well as measuring the absence of either. The objective of this study is to use the lens of the Advocacy Coalition Framework to examine some of the factors that promote and shape policy learning, including policy actors' beliefs and the extent to which policy actors engage in various policy activities within and between belief coalitions. The results indicate that extreme beliefs are associated with belief reinforcement, relative to policy actors with more moderate beliefs, and that collaboration with individuals with differing policy views is associated with belief change.

In the Corporate Interest: Fossil Fuel Industry Input into Alberta and British Columbia’s Climate Leadership Plans

Background This article examines the narrative strategies used by fossil fuel industries in responding to and shaping Alberta and BC’s climate leadership plans. Analysis This article makes inferences about fossil fuel industry influence by examining submissions of industry players to both regions’ public consultation processes. Conclusions and implications Key themes include: a need to take a leadership stance, a balance between environmental protection and economic growth, an appeal to protect industry competitiveness, and an emphasis on demand-side policies. These themes align with a policy discourse of weak ecological modernization and are central to advisory panel recommendations and subsequent subnational climate policies that facilitate market expansion and increased oil and gas production at a time when strong greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation efforts are urgently required.