Many US municipalities are engaged in climate mitigation planning, or efforts to reduce their communities' greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through land-use, transportation, and energy planning. However, they face a number of procedural and institutional obstacles that limit the adoption and implementation of those plans. The literature identifies some of the factors that lead municipalities to join relevant policy networks, but provides little guidance for overcoming the aforementioned obstacles and adopting policies to reduce community-wide GHG emissions. With this study I increase the understanding of climate mitigation planning by examining whether the adoption of these plans and policies is driven primarily by local demographic, economic, environmental, or political^institutional characteristics. My research is based upon a survey of 255 US municipalities. I combine the survey responses with secondary data and use multiple regression techniques to estimate the impact of fifteen demographic, political^institutional, economic, and environmental variables on the adoption of climate mitigation plans and policies. The influence of neighboring jurisdictions, the presence of staff members assigned to energy or climate planning, and the level of community environmental activism are found to have the greatest impact on climate mitigation policy adoption. These findings support the conclusion that the extent of climate mitigation planning is driven primarily by internal processes, and municipalities that are successful in this area do not fit any one profile according to their demographic, economic, or environmental characteristics.
Many US municipalities are engaged in climate change mitigation planning or efforts to reduce their communities' greenhouse gas emissions. However, most have adopted very few policies to implement their climate change mitigation goals, and many others are not pursuing climate change mitigation at all. This study examines municipalities' approaches to energy and climate issues and identifies the "keys to success" that influence the extent to which they adopt climate change mitigation policies.Prior researchers have characterised climate change mitigation efforts as an example of multi-level governance, in which policies are formulated through a variety of networks and interactions between government actors and civil society. I find that municipalities that engage community interests and coordinate with neighbouring jurisdictions in their energy and climate planning processes are far more likely to adopt meaningful policies and conclude that such multi-level governance approaches are actually critical to the success of climate change mitigation planning. IntroductionThe past 5 -10 years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of US municipalities engaged in climate change mitigation planning or efforts to reduce their communities' greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through land use, transportation, and energy-related programmes and policies. Municipal approaches to climate change mitigation are important, as most forms of energy use can be traced to actions that are in one way or another influenced by local government policies. For example, approximately 40% of end-use energy consumption is attributable to buildings (US Department of Energy 2008b), and 17% comes from passenger vehicle travel (US Department of Energy 2008a, 2008c), both of which are affected by local land use regulations, building codes, and transportation plans. Additionally, to achieve meaningful long-term GHG emission reductions will require not just policy initiatives, but also a concerted effort among citizens, businesses, and institutions to reduce their respective energy use and carbon footprints, and local governments are well positioned to encourage and facilitate such efforts at the community level.Betsill and Bulkeley (2007) have distilled the previous research on climate change mitigation planning into three predominant themes: city approaches to climate change are an example of multi-level governance (e.g. Gupta 2007, Selin and Van Deveer 2009); they demonstrate the importance of technical knowledge in shaping public policy and the role of multiple actors in knowledge accumulation; and the rhetoric of climate protection is not fulfilled by the realities of current climate change mitigation policy. Some of the prior works have characterised climate change mitigation planning as "Type II" multi-level governance, which Betsill and Bulkeley describe as a form of governance "dominated by networks between public and private actors across levels of social organization" (2007, p. 449).This study examines the approaches taken in 17 US cities to ...
Introduction Climate change is recognized as a global problem, but it is influenced in many ways by local-level policy decisions. This global^local nexus is acknowledged by a growing number of municipalities that are actively planning for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction, for which we use the term`climate protection' planning. (1) In this paper we explore some of the obstacles that municipalities encounter in their climate protection planning efforts, including obstacles to the planning process itself and the difficulty of achieving local GHG emission reductions due to physical, political, and institutional conditions often outside the control of a local government. Planning-related obstacles include lack of manpower, expertise, or funding, difficulty accessing data, and methodological uncertainties. In addition, a local government's ability to plan for GHG emission reduction may be severely restricted by state enabling legislation, state and federal funding priorities, and regional energy supplies. We use the term`municipalities' to refer to local government entities, which can include cities or counties. We use the term`cities' only when necessary to distinguish between cities and counties, or when referencing the previous literature on climate protection planning (most of which has focused specifically on cities). While the terms municipalities',`cities', and`counties' refer to local government entities, we use the term communities' when discussing the entirety of a given locality, including its residents, businesses, and institutions. Thus`community climate protection planning' efforts, which are the focus of this paper, seek to reduce GHG emissions not just from
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.