Changing Climates in North American Politics

by Selin, Henrik; Vandeveer, Stacy D.

• ISBN13: 9780262512862
• ISBN10: 0262512866
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-30
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

North American policy responses to global climate change are complex and sometimes contradictory and reach across multiple levels of government. For example, the U.S. federal government rejected the Kyoto Protocol and mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) restrictions, but California developed some of the world's most comprehensive climate change law and regulation; Canada's federal government ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but Canadian GHG emissions increased even faster than those of the United States; and Mexico's state-owned oil company addressed climate change issues in the 1990s, in stark contrast to leading U.S. and Canadian energy firms. This book is the first to examine and compare political action for climate change across North America, at levels ranging from continental to municipal, in locations ranging from Mexico to Toronto to Portland, Maine. Changing Climates in North American Politicsinvestigates new or emerging institutions, policies, and practices in North American climate governance; the roles played by public, private, and civil society actors; the diffusion of policy across different jurisdictions; and the effectiveness of multilevel North American climate change governance. It finds that although national climate policies vary widely, the complexities and divergences are even greater at the subnational level. Policy initiatives are developed separately in states, provinces, cities, large corporations, NAFTA bodies, universities, NGOs, and private firms, and this lack of coordination limits the effectiveness of multilevel climate change governance. In North America, unlike much of Europe, climate change governance has been largely bottom-up rather than top-down. American and Comparative Environmental Policy series

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction
Changing Climates and Institution Building across the Continent	p. 3
Between Kyoto and Washington
Climate Change Politics in Mexico	p. 25
Looking for Leadership: Canada and Climate Change Policy	p. 47
States and Cities Out Front
Second-Generation Climate Policies in the States	p. 67
Proliferation, Diffusion, and Regionalization
Field Notes on the Political Economy of California Climate Policy	p. 87
Climate Leadership in Northeast North America	p. 111
Local Government Response to Climate Change	p. 137
Our Last, Best Hope?
Continental Politics
NAFTA as a Forum for CO2 Permit Trading?	p. 161
Renewable Electricity Politics across Borders	p. 181
Arctic Climate Change	p. 199
North American Actors in Circumpolar Knowledge Production and Policymaking
Climate Action among Firms, Campuses, and Individuals
Business Strategies and Climate Change	p. 219
Insurance and Reinsurance in a Changing Climate	p. 241
Campus Climate Action	p. 263
Communicating Climate Change and Motivating Civic Action	p. 283
Renewing, Activating, and Building Democracies
Conclusion	p. 303
North American Climate Governance	p. 305
Policymaking and Institutions in the Multilevel Greenhouse
About the Contributors	p. 327
Index	p. 331
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