Climate Adaptation and Federalism: Mapping the Issues

Steering Social Outcomes in America’s Energy Heartland: State and Private Meta-Governance in the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania

“…28,44 Third, because the effects of environmental variability and change are location-specific, a polycentric approach permits tailoring of adaptation activities to suit local-regional circumstances and community preferences. 28,45 Fourth, polycentric systems allow for specialisation and the division of tasks between central, regional, and local levels, thus improving the efficiency of adaptation activities by matching the governance level to the geographic scale of the problem. 30 Fifth, many scholars believe polycentric systems to be flexible in their ability to configure and reconfigure alliances rapidly in order to achieve specific goals, which in turn makes them inherently adaptive.…”

Managing Adaptation: Developing a Learning Infrastructure in the United States’ Federal System

“…The centralization of authority might also involve a more restrained 'partial de-fragmentation'. This might involve the consolidation of a couple of resource programs, or the establishment of substantive review by a central governmental authority (such as the President) of another's functions (Buzbee 2003;Farber 2009). In any event, the intent is to consolidate substantive decision-making authority in fewer and more central institutions.…”

Ecologically sustainable development in broader retrospect and prospect: evaluating national framework policies against climate adaptation imperatives

“…To sharpen the relevance of the evaluation, we explore the implications of the evaluation for national coordination of climate change adaptation policy, as a current issue that -like ecologically sustainable development (ESD) -crosses sectors and levels of government and therefore demands both horizontal and vertical policy integration. There is debate over how the task of climate adaptation should be allocated between levels of government, particularly in a federation (Farber 2009;Harrington 2010;Glicksman & Levy 2010). As with other policy issues, two key questions arise: when is it appropriate for the federal government to act and what form might that action take?…”

“…As with other policy issues, two key questions arise: when is it appropriate for the federal government to act and what form might that action take? State and local governments are the natural 'first responders': they own or license critical infrastructure, provide health services and control land use (Farber 2009). Yet the federal government may step in to provide mandatory standards for adaptation efforts, disseminate information in relation to risk assessments and mitigation options, or to finance adaptation.…”