Federalism, Multilevel Governance, and Climate Change Politics across the Atlantic

Stacy Vandeveer

Federalism is the mixed or compound mode of government, combining a general government (the central or 'federal' government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial or other sub-unit governments) in a single political system. Its distinctive feature, exemplified in the founding example of modern federalism by the United States of America under the Constitution of 1787, is a relationship of parity between the two levels of government established. [1] It can thus be defined as a form of government in which there is a division of powers between two levels of government of equal status. [2] Federalism differs from confederalism, in which the general level of government is subordinate to the regional level, and from devolution within a unitary state, in which the regional level of government is subordinate to the general level. [3] It represents the central form in the pathway of regional integration or separation, [4] bounded on the less integrated side by confederalism and on the more integrated side by devolution within a unitary state. [5]

Federalism, Multilevel Governance and Climate Change Politics across the Atlantic Henrik Selin 1 and Stacy D. VanDeveer 2 Presented at the EUSA Twelfth Biennial International Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, March 3-5, 2011 This paper is forthcoming in P. F. Steinberg and S. D. VanDeveer (Eds.) Comparative Environmental Politics. Cambridge: MIT Press. Introduction Human activities and their many byproducts are changing the climate of our planet. These changes, like the contributions of different countries and communities to climate change, vary substantially around the world. Every year, the average US citizen pushes almost 20 tons of carbon into the atmosphere, while Europeans, Chinese, and Indians average about 8.5, 5.7, and 1.4 tons, respectively (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency 2009). Political systems respond very differently to climate change issues. Some countries and local communities have acted to slow and reverse their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while others have ignored the problem or refused to act. Often, those who take action use different policy options, as climate change related decisions occur at every level of human organization, from choices made by individuals when purchasing a product to every level of public sector governance (cities, states and provinces, national governments, and international organizations). Comparative politics research offers tools for examining this complex set of outcomes. The dominant discourse about “global warming” and “global climate change” sometimes leads analysts and observers to think of climate change politics and policymaking predominantly in global terms, as does media coverage of the United Nations climate change regime. Yet the dynamics and outcomes of global, regional, national, and local level climate change politics result from a huge number of factors cutting across these governance scales (Andonova and Mitchell 2010; Schreurs 2010; Koehn 2010; Selin and VanDeveer 2009a). Some of these factors are ecological while many others are political, economic, social, and cultural. The significance of this large number of factors is evidenced by the varied national and subnational political responses to climate change and energy challenges all over the world. These complex combinations of political processes and the results they produce are “the stuff” of comparative political analysis. Two geographical regions and political systems that have responded differently to the threats posed by climate change are Europe and North America; this despite the fact that the European Union (EU) and the United States share many basic political values and have similar levels of economic development and economies of about the same size. Since the early 1990s, the EU has repeatedly enacted more aggressive policies to induce energy efficiency, expand renewable energy production, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, than has the United States. 1 Henrik Selin, Associate Professor, Department of International Relations, Boston University (selin@bu.edu) 2 Stacy D. VanDeveer, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of New Hampshire (stacy.vandeveer@unh.edu) 1 Furthermore, EU officials seek to maintain a global leadership role on climate change and energy issues while the US became an (in)famous climate change laggard under the George W. Bush administration. While the Obama administration brought US and EU climate change rhetoric into greater accord, climate change policies did not rapidly converge across the Atlantic. The complexities of transatlantic climate change politics are illustrated by the fact that the city of Portland, Oregon and the state of California are widely recognized for their innovative and aggressive sets of policies to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy use and to reduce GHG emissions from the transportation, building, and energy production sectors (Gore and Robinson 2009; Farrell and Hanemann 2009). Yet both are located within a county known for its national government’s failure to enact meaningful GHG reduction policies despite being among the world’s top emitters and energy users. At the same time, European energy and climate change policy leaders like Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have reduced their emissions substantially, via different combinations of economic changes and policy measures, while some other EU states have seen significant increases in their emissions since 1990. In many respects, California’s climate change and energy policies more closely approximate those of the EU than those of the US federal government, while Germany’s political responses are closer to California’s than to those in Italy, Greece or Romania (Schreurs, Selin and VanDeveer 2009). The EU and the US both have federalist systems of government. In addition, some EU member states, such as Belgium and Germany, are themselves federal, while the US shares a continent and the North American Free Trade Agreement with its Canadian and Mexican federalist neighbors. While specific definitions in the literature vary, a federalist system is one with rules that divide public policy authority among national and subnational governments (Scheberle 2004). Jenna Bednar (2009, 18–19) specifies requirements for “robust federation,” including firm boundaries of territory and authority that cannot be unilaterally abolished by the constituent states and national government. However, authority over taxation, pollution regulation, natural resource management, national security, criminal justice, healthcare, education and a host of other issue areas is shared and distributed quite differently across various federations. The study of differences and similarities across federal systems – and their causes and ramifications – is known as comparative federalism (Burgess 2006). Comparative federalism has a long tradition in comparative politics, but is a much newer area of inquiry among those interested in international environmental politics. Comparative politics scholars have long been interested in the influence of governance systems on politics and policymaking, as discussed in chapters 1 and 2 of this volume. This chapter combines approaches associated with comparative federalism scholarship with the multilevel governance literature as it explores climate change politics in North America and Europe. This combination of analytical approaches remains rare. Comparative federalist research tends to ignore the international level of governance – that is, it ignores the institutions “above” the national level – focusing instead on the national-subnational relationships. Yet climate change policymaking happens at every level of government within the US and EU federalist systems, making it well suited for the combination of approaches used in this chapter. Such combinations further illustrate the untapped potential for knowledge creation by bringing comparative politics, environmental studies, and global environmental politics closer and into more sustained conversation. In short, this chapter argues that sweeping statements – many of them oversimplifications – of transatlantic differences cannot satisfactorily explain US and EU divergence on climate 2 change policy (and many other environmental issues). In fact, many discussions of transatlantic politics greatly overstate the divergence, in part because they focus exclusively on a single level of government on each side of the Atlantic (Schreurs, Selin and VanDeveer, 2009). Instead, to understand why the EU has enacted so many climate change and energy related policies over the last twenty years, while US federal policy in these areas has changed little since 1990, it is necessary to focus careful attention on the structure and operation of the different systems of government on each side of the Atlantic and the different political dynamics these federal systems induce. Rather than assuming, for example, that Europeans care more about the environment or that Americans distrust government too much to enact serious government regulation (claims belied by public opinion data and the fact that Americans have quite a bit of government regulation in many realms), it is essential to understand how the EU and the US are governed. The chapter begins by outlining transatlantic differences on climate change, embedding them in a larger debate surrounding political differences between the US and the EU on environmental issues. This is followed by a discussion of the chapter’s two primary concepts: multilevel governance and federalism. Next, US and EU responses to climate change are compared, demonstrating that substantial differences at the federal levels mask significant commonality and interaction at lower levels of governance among US states and municipalities and European national governments and municipalities. This more nuanced picture of comparative transatlantic climate politics shows the importance of institutional structures in shaping political dynamics and policy outcomes. The chapter concludes by taking comparative climate politics global, arguing that many research opportunities exist to study how the growing set of countries with federalist systems 3 respond to climate change. Why transatlantic differences? The well-documented divergence between Europe and the United States on climate change is part of a broader pattern of divergence on environmental issues. Much ink has been spilled describing and trying to explain past and ongoing transatlantic differences around a host of issues, including biotechnology and genetically modified organisms, food safety, chemicals management, asbestos regulation, waste reduction and disposal policies, support for sustainable development, environmental standards used by export credit agencies, hazardous waste exports, the promotion of renewable energy, agricultural subsidies, and dozens of product and accounting standards (Schreurs, Selin and VanDeveer 2009; Jasanoff 2005; Vig and Kraft 2004; Harrington, Morgenstern and Sterner 2004; Vogel 2003). Given the many areas of transatlantic cooperation and competition on the environment, climate change policy divergence serves as a window into a much larger set of domestic and international political processes. Many other issues could be studied through the lenses of comparative federalism and multilevel governance dynamics. In the 1960s and 1970s, many environmental policy ideas and regulations diffused across the Atlantic, particularly from the US to Europe, in areas such as vehicle emission standards and controls of hazardous substances (Vogel 1995; Jänicke and Weidner 1997; Lafferty and Meadowcroft 2000; Schreurs 2002). The EU and the US also cooperated in the establishment of several multilateral environmental agreements. This pattern of collaboration changed as different policy approaches came to dominate on the two sides of the Atlantic starting in the 1980s. 3 According to Bednar (2009, 2), approximately half of the world population lives in federalist or quasi-federalist systems. 3 Whereas in Europe a regulatory role for the state in environmental protection is well accepted, in the US a regulatory intervention by the state for conservation and pollution control has often been challenged (Kraft and Kamieniecki 2007; Klyza and Sousa 2008). There has also been a transatlantic rift in relation to global environmental treaties; while the EU has ratified nearly every one since the early 1990s, the US has refused to ratify most of them (Schreurs, Selin and VanDeveer 2009). Thus, the transatlantic divide on climate change is a high profile example of a larger set of issues. Why, when transatlantic economies and societies are increasingly integrated, are the accompanying politics so often discordant? With the growing influence of global environmental norms, international expert communities, multinational corporations, international organizations, and international environment and trade agreements, all coming together under the umbrella of “economic globalization,” should not environmental policy differences between the EU and the US be narrowing instead of expanding? Given that the forces of economic globalization are alleged to be strong and bringing countries closer together, why in the past decades have the EU and the US diverged on so many important policy issues? Analysts have offered a host of plausible explanations for transatlantic divergences on the environment. Five commonly invoked sets of explanations are discussed here, including explanations that focus on overlapping (sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary) factors. One set of explanations focuses on the importance of diverging societal and cultural norms with respect to protection of the environment and human health, including climate change (Martinelli 2007; Guehlstorf and Hallstrom 2002). Such norms include higher levels of acceptance of concepts such as the precautionary principle and sustainable development in European countries compared with the United States (Grant et al. 2000; Vig and Faure 2004; Sadeleer 2007). These kinds of explanations often stress that a stronger European commitment to the social welfare state may help to explain why Europeans overall have seemed more prepared to absorb a share of GHG reduction costs than their US counterparts. As the EU, national European governments, and many citizens believe that the threat from climate change is serious and that someone has to take the lead, Europeans – more used to paying taxes and incurring costs as the price for the security afforded them by the social welfare state – believe that this is an area where the EU should take on a regional and global leadership role. A second set of explanations claim that European public opinion is more informed or more supportive of environmental protection and climate change than in the US. Some related scholarship points out that green parties and environmental advocacy groups in Europe have been more influential in domestic and regional politics than has the US environmental movement (Bomberg 1998; Burchell 2002; Müller-Rommel and Poguntke 2002). Dunlap and McCright (2008) show that self-identified US Democrats and Independents have become more informed and concerned about climate change over time, while Republicans have not. These trends help to explain the continuing and bitter partisan differences in the US, a phenomenon both less common and less pronounced in Europe. However, the growing fissure in US public opinion may also be a product of partisan division, rather than the cause of it. Rabe and Borick’s (2010) public opinion work demonstrates that Americans’ awareness of and concern about climate change has grown over the last decade, as has their support for policy actions to address climate change, but there remains substantial reluctance to pay the additional costs associated with potential new policies. A third set of explanations proposes that transatlantic differences over environmental policy emerged as a political artifact tied to the rise in influence of the Republican Party in the 4 different branches of US politics since the 1980s, as it seeks to reduce the size of government and limit intervention in the private sector. The Republican Party has traditionally been a stronger supporter of business interests than environmental ones, which recently have been more the domain of the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, with the backing of the George W. Bush administration, favored industrial, mining, land use, and energy interests (Kraft and Kamieniecki 2007; Klyza and Sousa 2008). In Europe, the rise of green parties influencing the stands of social democratic, liberal and Christian democratic parties may help to explain the greater acceptance of environmental regulation in Europe relative to the US. However, the influence of political parties within democratic systems can only be explained with attention to the structure of the political institutions in which they operate (see Michael O’Neill’s chapter in this volume). A fourth set of explanations points towards the ability of interest groups to influence environmental policymaking in different political systems. This approach suggests that the neoliberal and neoconservative revolution that began under the Reagan administration, was strengthened with the 1994 appointment of Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and solidified with the George W. Bush administration, resulted in deep institutional changes such as the weakening of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the empowerment of conservative think tanks, the increased voice of industry-related lobby groups in Washington DC and state capitals, and the decline of environmentally activist courts. Collectively, these changes put environmental advocacy groups on the defensive and encouraged a search for non-regulatory approaches to pollution control and environmental protection, such as voluntary agreements and public-private partnerships that are less likely to result in an all out assault from entrenched private sector interests (Morgenstern and Pizer 2007; Klyza and Sousa 2008; see also the discussion by Gallagher and Weinthal in this volume). A fifth set of explanations focuses on the expanding legal and political role of EU organizations, leading to important developments in European environmental policymaking. Beginning in the 1980s, a series of treaty-based changes to the legal basis of the EU expanded the authority of the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council at the expense of national parliaments across most environmental issue areas. Working with green leader states, these EU institutions strengthened a host of regulatory standards. They also provided new avenues for environmental and other societal interests to influence policymaking in Brussels and elsewhere, as new environmental advocacy groups formed all over Europe, shaping local and regional policy development. Furthermore, concepts of sustainable development and the precautionary principle became deeply embedded in EU laws and treaties, shaping both European debates and policymaking (Baker et al. 1997; Hunter and Smith 2005; Baker 2006). While all five sets of factors have some discernable influence in different environmental policy areas, this chapter focuses attention on federalist structures and multilevel governance. The last 20 years have witnessed substantial centralization of environmental policymaking authority in the EU, while US states and municipalities continue to be the laboratories of environmental policy innovation on their side of the Atlantic, as organized interests that are generally hostile to or skeptical of environmental regulation remain influential in the US congressional and executive branches. Our analysis highlights these dynamics while integrating aspects of the five rather ad hoc explanations into a framework that focuses on institutions of governance, which can explain transatlantic climate change differences and can be applied to (and tested with) other issue areas and other national and regional comparisons. 5 From global regimes to multilevel governance and federalism Scholars have long been interested in how states, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) interact to create and maintain global and regional institutions to manage specific issues. There are many definitions of “institutions” in the social science literature, but most scholars view them as socially created and maintained structures that in different ways shape interactions, constrain activity, and define what is regarded as “appropriate” and “permitted” behavior of actors operating within these institutions (Krasner 1982; Keohane 1989). Early institutional analysis often focused on the role of states and larger IGOs in creating and maintaining these kinds of structures, but there has been a large expansion in the literature focusing on the influence and activities of NGOs and social movements in international politics over the past several decades (see Kate O’Neill’s chapter in this volume). Within the broad field of international institutional analysis, regime analysis is often used in studies of particular environmental issue areas (Young 1989; Haas, Keohane and Levy 1993; Levy, Young and Zürn 1995; Hasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger 1997; Breitmeier, Young and Zürn 2006; Young, King and Schroeder 2008; Selin 2010). An international regime is commonly defined in the international relations literature as consisting of “sets of implicit and explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations” (Krasner 1983, 2). Regimes, as issue-specific social institutions, define acceptable behavior and shape perceptions within a particular policy area. In more formalized regimes, many regulatory and management components are codified in one or several legal multilateral instruments, as in the case of the climate change regime. The two main climate change agreements are the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. In 2009, the Copenhagen Accord was created by a group of national leaders, and global climate change politics are set to continue for a long time. However, climate change politics are not simply about UN-sponsored treaties and high-profile multilateral negotiations. In fact, global commitments are considerably less stringent than many policies and standards developed at regional, national, and local levels, which are integral parts of climate change politics (Andonova and Mitchell 2010). “Global” climate change politics happens at multiple levels of human organization, from UNsponsored negotiations in which almost 200 countries are formally represented, to national, state, and provincial legislatures, to city council meetings. This multi-scale climate governance includes governing bodies and institutions at various levels of government as well as the civil society and private sector actors engaging these organizations and institutions. Drawing on concepts from institutional analysis, research on multilevel governance studies how politics and policymaking efforts are linked within and across governance scales (Young 2002; Bache and Flinders 2004; Finger, Tamiotti and Allouche 2006; Selin 2010). Issues of multilevel governance – involving multiple public and private sector actors operating across horizontal and vertical levels of social organization and jurisdictional authority – have become increasingly important across many issue areas as policy is developed simultaneously in multiple forums ranging across global, regional, national, and local scales. Multilevel governance was first studied mostly by scholars of European governance (Hooghe and Marks 2001), but has since been applied to multi-scale policymaking outside Europe (Betsill and Bulkeley 2006; Harrison and Sundstrom 2007; 2010; Selin and VanDeveer 2009a; Schruers 2010). Multilevel environmental governance, including in the area of climate change, is typically characterized by horizontal and vertical linkages. Horizontal linkages operate among 6 instruments and programs at similar levels of social organization (among city governments, for example). Vertical linkages exist among different levels of social organization (such as national governments and multilateral forums). Climate change governance in Europe and North America includes extensive horizontal and vertical interaction among federal, state, provincial and municipal policymakers, private sector leaders, and civil society representatives. Analysis of political dynamics in multilevel systems often focuses on authority and outcomes within and among different levels of jurisdiction. While such issues may be highly contested, many multilevel systems include formal structures that proscribe official relationships between different governance levels. This is, of course, also true of federal systems where policymaking authority is dispersed across levels of government. Federalism is a major theme in comparative politics, a subset of the field’s interest in governance structures. Research on the influence of federalism focuses on topics such as institutional structure, authority and power, and how federalist institutions aggregate, centralize or decentralize interests, social mobilization and other political activities. Analysis of comparative federalism has a rich history, expanding as the list of states with federalist structures has grown over time and with growing interest in varieties of “fiscal federalism” (Burgess 2006; Hueglin and Fenna 2005; Watts 2008). Today, this work is a subset of comparative institutionalist research. But federalist concepts trace back to the ancient Greeks, and through theorists such as Aquinas, Kant, Hume, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Althusius and Rousseau (Ward and Ward 2009). These theorists, and many others, influenced the thinking of the early American federalists and their extensive debates with the “antifederalists” and other critics. Federalist governance and government is dynamic over time, as some of the rules for division of authority and responsibility change and as new areas of policy are added to the system (such as poverty alleviation, healthcare access and delivery, natural resource conservation or pollution regulation) (Erk and Swenden 2010; Breton et al. 2009). But federalist systems do not necessarily change in similar ways over time. Some increase centralization on some issues, while others may decentralize authority on similar issues (Weibust 2009). Dimensions for comparative analysis include similarities or differences across countries in policy practices and the allocation of authority, as well as on explaining variation across time and across issues areas. Also, as the number of federalist systems has grown, a growing number of comparative research opportunities exist across a host of continents, levels of economic development, cultures and national histories (see Table 1). Table 1 Selected Federalist Systems Argentina Australia Belgium Brazil Canada European Union Germany India Iraq Malaysia Mexico Pakistan Russia Spain Switzerland United States As James Meadowcroft describes in his contribution to this volume, the quantity of environmental policy has grown over time at every level of government on both sides of the 7 Atlantic. As the diversity of environmental issues and policy instruments has increased, and as states and societies have grappled with questions about the centralization or decentralization of regulatory and decision making authority, a scholarly subfield of environmental federalism has emerged (Anderson and Hill 1997; Weiburst 2009). US and European contributors to this research are interested in how the cooperative, collaborative and/or dysfunctional nature of relations among levels of government authority impact the implementation of environmental policy (Scheberle 2004). This research often focuses on institutional models that can improve implementation by engendering greater collaboration among levels of government (what public policy students refer to as “intergovernmental relations”). Multilevel governance scholars often focus on similar themes, asking how to achieve effective governance across levels of authority and among increasingly diverse governmental, civil society and private sector actors. Kelemen (2000; 2004) treats the EU as a federalist structure, despite the frequent objection to this usage in European political circles. He notes that, while some characteristics of the EU are unlike other federalist systems, EU environmental policy operates in ways consistent with federalism. Kelemen often quips that some EU scholars and policymakers are uncomfortable “using the F word,” instead calling the EU quasi-federal or federal-like. Despite this reluctance, he argues that the EU has the basic attributes of a federal system. We agree with Kelemen’s assessment given the diversity of federalist structures in the EU and its divisions of authority across many issues. Kelemen points to several EU and US similarities, including the fact that both political systems centralize considerable policymaking authority while assigning much of the funding, implementation, and enforcement activity to constituent states. In both systems, actors pursue litigious and coercive strategies to increase or to limit state discretion. Transatlantic Comparisons The 2001 decision by the George W. Bush administration to withdraw US support for, and participation in, the Kyoto Protocol strained the transatlantic relationship. But national-level leaders and public policies in the US have often been at odds with their European counterparts for many years, both at the EU and national levels. For example, while renewable energy is still a small share of total energy in both the EU and the US, and both sides of the Atlantic introduced energy conservation measures in response to the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks, Europe persisted with these efforts at the supranational level far more aggressively than did the US. In 2001, the EU introduced a directive with the goal of meeting 12 percent of energy demand with renewable sources by 2010, and in 2007, EU officials and member states proposed to increase the goal to 20 percent by 2020. In the US, several states promote renewable energy with more or less ambitious goals and means, but national standards and programs remain limited in both scope and stringency (Rabe 2004; 2010; Selin and VanDeveer 2005; 2006a; 2009a; 2009b). This difference illustrates a general pattern across the Atlantic. While Europe has increasingly centralized climate and energy policymaking at the EU level, sometimes leaving member states broad discretion in the implementation of these goals, the US federal government has enacted virtually no serious GHG regulation in over twenty years. 4 As such, climate change policy has developed very differently within the EU and US federal systems. The EU has taken a top-down approach, although European environmental leader states have also been very active in 4 A partial exception is the reduction of GHG emissions that accompanied US federal efforts to reduce emissions of ozone-depleting gases and methane emissions under the Clean Air Act. 8 trying to shape pan-European policy. Climate policy activity has occurred over the same period of time that EU member states have continued to invest greater authority in EU institutions. In contrast, US federalist climate change politics are characterized by bottom-up dynamics. The US government has been largely inactive, and has even worked actively against several domestic efforts to set GHG regulations. While debates about US policy have raged among NGOs and firms and in congressional committees in Washington, years of contentious politics have produced no policies designed to alter the country’s GHG emissions. In this policy vacuum, subnational entities – states and municipalities – have sometimes stepped in and developed their own climate change policies and standards. As is highlighted below, states and cities have also built collaborative institutions to assist them in their joint efforts to curb emissions and to push for more federal policymaking. EU Climate Change Politics: Brussels in the Drivers Seat The EU, which began with six members in the 1950s, consists of twenty-seven member states, and more countries may join in the future. The population of the EU-27 is close to 500 million, so roughly one in fourteen people in the world live in the EU. EU climate change policy has a relatively long history compared to decision making in other regions, dating back to at least 1991, when the climate change issue began to gain salience and member states responded by adopting collective measures to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and improve energy efficiency (Jordan et al. 2010). Current policies are guided by a set of “20-20-20” goals adopted in 2007 to be met by 2020: reduce GHG emissions by 20 percent; increase the share of renewable energy to 20 percent; and improve energy efficiency by 20 percent. The EU also formulated a goal to increase the share of petrol and diesel consumption from biofuels to 10 percent. “Brussels” is the apex of much European climate change politics (Jordan et al. 2010; Oberthur and Pallemaerts 2010). EU climate change policy is formulated by the European Commission (the administrative bureaucracy), the Council of Ministers (government officials from each member state), and the European Parliament (members elected directly by citizens in each member state). Legislative proposals put forward by the European Commission are negotiated and passed by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament through a process requiring several iterations of negotiations between and within each of the three institutions. The Council of Ministers takes most decisions on new environmental policies via a “qualified majority” of member states. The requirements for this qualified majority have changed over the last decade as EU membership has expanded and decision making procedures have changed as a result of treaty revisions. The current system for qualified majority decision-making is scheduled to change in 2014, in accordance with the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. EU legislative acts come in the form of directives and regulations. Directives stipulate standards that must be achieved, but leave most aspects of implementation to individual member states to carry out. Regulations contain more uniform and detailed requirements for implementation, leaving only limited room for member states to take individual action. Both the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament became more important venues for climate change policy development in the 2000s, where Council and Parliament leaders repeatedly advocated for more ambitious policies and pushed for European leadership in international negotiations (Oberthur and Pallemaerts 2010). Each member state is responsible for implementing EU legislation. When a member country fails to meet its obligations or 9 commitments, the European Commission can (and often does) seek to have it found derelict by the European Court of Justice, and is ordered by the Court to meet its obligations. EU policy is explicitly linked to multilateral agreements formulated within the global climate change regime. Under the Kyoto Protocol, after extensive negotiations the then 15 EU member states (EU-15) took on a collective target of reducing CO2 emissions 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Eight of the ten countries that joined the EU after the Kyoto Protocol was adopted also have individual Kyoto targets. The EU-15 divided up their Kyoto target in a 1998 burden-sharing agreement under which several relatively wealthy members took on more aggressive commitments so that less wealthy member states could increase their GHG emissions as part of their efforts to expand industrial production and economic growth. The GHG reduction goal for 2020 is expected to be implemented largely through the EU Emission Trading System (ETS), the world’s first public, mandatory GHG emissions trading scheme, modeled in part on US trading schemes for SO2 and NOx emissions. The EU ETS was launched in 2005 with a three-year pilot phase and a second phase from 2008–12. It covers more than 11,500 major energy-intensive installations across all member states, although most are located in a few larger ones (Germany has more than 20 percent of all ETS allowances). The ETS third phase (2013–20) plans to gradually shrink the EU-wide cap, incorporate more emission sources (including aviation) and greenhouse gases (nitrous oxide and perfluorocarbons), and increase national auctioning of emission allowances, which have hitherto largely been given away for free to participating installations. The ETS has also been expanded to include participation by non-EU members such as Norway and Lichtenstein. This trading scheme illustrates the growing centralization in EU climate and energy policymaking, as member state discretion on enforcement and implementation is quite limited and participating firms and installations trade allowances in pan-European (not national) markets within pan-European institutions. Oberthur and Pallemaerts (2010) argue that the 1990s served as both an agenda-setting stage for EU climate change politics, and an era in which the EU’s global climate change initiatives outstripped its abilities to meet its goals. Climate change leadership offered EU officials and institutions opportunities to further the ongoing project of deepening European integration and to position themselves as global leaders in environmental politics. In the early 1990s, an EU carbon tax proposed by the European Commission failed to achieve the required unanimous support from member states, and was never formally introduced (although some member states have domestic carbon taxes). By the early 2000s, the EU’s global leadership on climate change was not matched in its internal policies, yielding a “credibility gap.” For example, EU GHG emissions were still growing in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After the US rejected the Kyoto Protocol and EU policymakers decided to implement the agreement following its entry into force, more aggressive policy action was required to meet their Kyoto commitments. In the 2000s, the European Council (of national, member state political leaders) and successive (rotating) EU Presidencies instituted a set of expert groups, negotiating teams and lead negotiators (in cooperation with the European Commission) for climate change and energy issues. The result is a substantial increase in negotiating and analytical capacity for the EU and the construction of a consistent body of knowledge within the EU leadership teams and institutions, as they participate simultaneously in global climate change negotiations and EU policymaking (Oberthur and Pallemaerts 2010). As regional consensus increased around the need to take the climate change issue seriously, the earlier reluctance of some member states to enact 10 common policies declined, resulting in the adoption of the ETS and a host of other initiatives. These include directives and regulations on product design, energy efficiency, biofuels and renewable energy. In 2007, the 20-20-20 policy goals noted above were initiated, seeking to bring together a wide set of policies toward a clear set of goals and timetables. One set of reasons for this increasingly centralized – sometimes called “Europeanized” – leadership over the last two decades relates to the institutional contexts of policymaking (on “Europeanization” see Andonova and VanDeveer’s chapter in the volume). EU-level actors used climate change to advance the project of European integration, building more authoritative policies around a host of energy and climate issues, seeking to legitimize integration and regional institution building. EU organizational incentives often align in efforts to advance pan-European integration and policy development while attempting to establish global leadership for the EU. Other factors driving climate change policymaking include the relative lack of vocal private sector or citizen opposition to climate change policies. Private sector actors lobby, of course, to avoid unwanted costs or for details that may offer them competitive advantage, but only rarely do they state categorical opposition to new or proposed regulations. Furthermore, the European Parliament has not been a place where private sector actors have been able to weaken new regulation; instead the European Parliament has acted to strengthen many environmental and energy standards. By the 2007-2009 period, in the run-up to the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, the EU’s socalled “climate and energy package” of policies included a substantial revision of the ETS directive, a new renewable energy directive, and other directives designed to promote carbon capture and storage and to help to reduce GHG emissions from economic sectors not covered by the ETS. Added to this package in 2009 were additional policies aimed at increasing vehicle efficiency and lowering carbon and other pollutants from vehicle fuels. This suite of policies enacted the 20-20-20 goals into law across the EU’s economy and its member states, renegotiating (and renaming) the earlier burden-sharing agreements of the 1990s into “effortsharing” targets. These targets afford member states substantial implementation discretion, allowing them to prioritize sectoral policies and trade and borrow emissions credits to achieve targets across sectors, years, and so on (Oberthur and Pallemaerts 2010). By late 2010, some environmental activists and leading member states were calling for more ambitious goals for 2020 and beyond. An oft-cited strength of federalist systems – the tendency to induce actors to innovate at multiple levels of policymaking – has also been on display in the EU. The ability of member states to meet collective targets by designing their own domestic implementation measures has resulted in a plethora of domestic policy approaches. Environmental leader states have long focused on both supply and demand aspects of energy issues, as they use different mixes of energy sources based on domestic conditions and public opinion. For example, Sweden has introduced CO2 taxes on fossil fuels, subsidized the expansion of domestically produced biofuels and wind power, and given consumers rebates for buying biogas and electric vehicles or vehicles that emit less than 120 grams of CO2 per kilometer. Swedish authorities, like those in other leader states, have also focused on improving energy efficiency in buildings and expanding public transportation systems, while introducing congestion fees for driving in urban areas. In multilevel and federal governance systems, the ability to meet collective GHG reduction goals is determined by the capacity of most (if not all) jurisdictions to find ways to bring down their emissions. Of course, the enactment of a multitude of different policies neither guarantees their implementation nor ensures the promised emissions reductions. There are many 11 implementation challenges for the EU, as there is significant variation in domestic implementation and some member states have been decidedly more successful than others in reducing emissions. Between 1990 and 2006, member states’ trends in GHG emissions ranged from –18 percent (Germany) to + 51 percent (Spain). A 2010 report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) judged both the EU-15 and the EU-27 to be on track to meet their Kyoto commitments (EEA 2010). The EEA estimates that 2009 EU-15 emissions came in under the –8% Kyoto commitment and that EU-27 emissions were 17.3% below 1990 levels. While 2008 and 2009 emissions declines are attributed largely to the economic recession and slow growth, EEA’s analysis suggests that EU policies will keep emissions levels in compliance with set goals even as economic recovery and growth accelerate. US Climate Change Politics: Washington As the Last to Know (and Act) Since its inception, the United States has been home to contentious debates and relations between the federal government and state governments competing for legal authority and resources (Rabe 2010). US climate politics has been characterized by a lack of federal leadership, as many leading politicians have either ignored the issue or downplayed its importance and rejected the need for government interventions. The US federal government enacted no significant climate change or energy efficiency policies in the run-up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which was signed by the Clinton administration. There was also strong Senate opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. In nearly every international forum, and in a host of congressional debates, US national policymakers generally remained unwilling to commit to GHG emissions reductions comparable to those adopted by the EU, and often argued that other industrialized countries should follow the US on this issue. In the early 2000s, the few congressional attempts to regulate GHG emissions all failed. Instead, Congress added amendments to appropriation bills prohibiting the use of funds “to propose or issue rules, regulations, decrees, or orders for implementation, or in preparation for implementation, of the Kyoto Protocol.” 5 The number of officials in the EPA working on climate change was also dramatically cut, and many left their posts in response to the federal government’s unwillingness to take any serious action (Schreurs, Selin and VanDeveer 2009). The George W. Bush administration announced voluntary programs claiming to support energy efficiency and some emissions reduction efforts, but these initiatives yielded little or nothing in the way of demonstrable emissions reductions. Through Bush’s two terms as president (200109), the Environmental Protection Agency consistently opposed all efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the existing Clean Air Act. In the absence of any meaningful leadership by the federal government, US subnational jurisdictions have stepped in (Selin and VanDeveer 2007; 2009a; Rabe 2004; 2010). These developments follow a longer historical trend of “environmental federalism,” where states have taken the lead on issues such as air pollution and hazardous substance abatement in the face of federal inaction. Under the US federal system, states also have substantial authority and discretion as they implement many federal environmental laws. For example, they issue more than 90 percent of all environmental permits, and conduct more than 75 percent of all environmental enforcement actions (Rabe 2004). With respect to climate change, states can control GHG emissions through the many policy areas in which they have regulatory 5 Title V, Sec. 577 of H.R. 4811: Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2001. 12 competence, including the generation and distribution of electricity, transportation infrastructure, land use and planning, agriculture and forestry, and waste management. While many US states have taken policy actions to reduce GHG emissions, California has emerged as a leading force on policy development and GHG mitigation – sometimes ahead of EU policy goals (Farrell and Hanemann 2009). Many states in the northeastern US were also early in formulating state-level policy (Selin and VanDeveer 2006a, 2009b). By 2007, over half of all the states had formulated individual climate change action plans. States are also setting GHG emission reduction goals. As in Europe, there are large differences in state GHG emission trends; since 1990, states range from a 5 percent decrease to a 43 percent increase (Rabe 2008). These differences stem from many factors, including disparities in economic and population growth rates, in energy and environmental policies, and in the sources of energy used. US states also vary considerably in their emission profiles due to geographic differences in major economic sectors such as energy production and transportation. Nevertheless, states are taking a host of energy-related actions including establishing renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that require electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable sources. By 2010, 29 states had enacted such standards; some of these are fairly ambitious while others are much more modest. Many states are also formulating ethanol mandates and incentives, and at least ten will adopt California’s CO2 vehicle emission standards as these come into force. Furthermore, many states are updating energy codes, adopting green building standards and mandating the sale of more efficient appliances and electronic equipment. A few states, including California, Oregon, and Colorado, have established climate change and renewable energy initiatives as a result of supportive referendums, in an example of how local elections can play a direct role in federal systems (Rabe 2008). Also, a 2010 referendum question on the California ballot to roll back the state’s climate change standards was rejected by voters. This suggests public support for ambitious climate change policies in some states. In addition, US states enact collaborative GHG policies. In 2000, the Conference of New England Governors (which includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) joined the Eastern Canadian Premiers (Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Quebec) in adopting a resolution recognizing climate change as a joint environmental and economic concern. Out of this emerged a 2001 Climate Change Action Plan under which states and provinces pledged to reduce their GHGs to 1990 levels by 2010 and 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. They also agreed to ultimately decrease emissions to levels that do not pose a threat to the climate, which according to an official estimate would require a 75-85 percent reduction from 2001 emission levels (Selin and VanDeveer 2005). The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a second multi-state initiative setting important domestic policy precedents (Selin and VanDeveer 2009b). First proposed in 2003, by 2009 RGGI created a cap-and-trade scheme for CO2 emissions from major power plants in the participating ten states: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. There is nothing in the RGGI statutes preventing other states in the same region or from other parts of the country from joining the trading scheme in the future. RGGI is designed to stabilize CO2 emissions from the region’s power sector between 2009 and 2015. Between 2015 and 2018, each state’s annual CO2 emissions budget is expected to decline by 2.5 percent per year, achieving a total 10 percent 13 reduction by 2019. While the goals of both the regional initiatives in the northeast are relatively modest, they are ahead of federal policy. In 2007, the largest group of states to date to join a collaborative climate change policy initiative was announced: 31 states signed on as charter members of The Climate Registry. This registry is a collaborative effort to develop a common system for private and public entities to report their GHG emissions, allowing officials to measure, track, verify and publicly report emissions in a consistent manner across states. By 2010, 43 states, three native tribes and the District of Columbia were members—together with ten Canadian provinces and six Mexican states. Working together, these subnational levels of government in all three federal systems are standardizing GHG reporting procedures for public and private sector emitters, laying an important technical basis for possible expansions of political cooperation. In addition, the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), set in motion with leadership from California, involves technical and political collaboration among seven US states and four Canadian provinces and is working to launch a cap-and-trade emissions reduction system and other joint measures in 2012. Furthermore several states and provinces around the North American Great Lakes have begun discussions about how to enhance climate change cooperation, issuing a joint accord of recommended actions. These subnational actors may establish a cap-and-trade system of their own or may find ways to connect with RGGI or the WCI. In 2010, these three regional cooperation initiatives issued a joint white paper about ensuring the quality of GHG offsets as part of a joint “three regions” initiative, and officials from all three regions were studying the prospect of strengthening linking among the initiatives. If developed further, these initiatives could have a notable impact on federal (and potentially continental) politics and policymaking. Cities often play important agenda setting and policymaking roles in federal systems, and there is also considerable US action at the municipal level. Over 830 mayors from all 50 states, representing approximately 80 million Americans, signed a declaration of meeting or exceeding the reductions negotiated in the Kyoto Protocol for the US (a 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012). Over 260 North American municipalities are members of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives and its Cities for Climate Protection program. While many municipal climate change programs are modest, some have achieved impressive results (Gore and Robinson 2009). American municipalities are increasingly developing new GHG reduction and energy efficiency programs that rely in part on innovative private financing. The most successful municipalities often link climate change issues, including efforts to cut CO2 emissions, to broader goals associated with promoting smarter growth and sustainable urban development and transportation systems. US federal climate change politics are also shaped by the judicial branch (O’Leary 2010; Selin and VanDeveer 2009b; Doran 2008). In 1999, environmental groups petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to set CO2 emissions standards for vehicles. This request was rejected on the grounds that during the Clinton era the agency did not believe that Clean Air Act provided authority for regulating CO2. Frustrated by federal inaction, in 2003 attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington filed suit in federal court challenging the earlier agency decision. Following a long legal process – with the George W. Bush administration, several states, and the auto industry in opposition – in April 2007 the US Supreme Court determined in a five-to-four ruling that CO2 can be classified as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act (Austin 2007). The ruling has served as a basis for extensive EPA activity, 14 preparing to regulate carbon emissions. Advocates of federal climate change policy regularly hold up EPA carbon regulation as a threat should Congress fail to act. By early 2011, the US Congress had not passed climate change legislation, and the EPA continued to move ahead with rulemaking based on the Supreme Court decision. In 2009, the EPA issued an “endangerment finding” stating that the current and projected concentrations of the six GHGs – CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride – in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. However, while almost 30 US states comprising over 80 percent of the US population had enacted renewable portfolio standards, the federal government remained unwilling to mandate any stringent renewable energy or GHG standards. Throughout the 2000s, the ability of opponents of climate change policy to stop or significantly weaken policy initiatives was stronger at the federal level than elsewhere in the federal system. Environmental leader states and municipalities continued to advocate for stronger federal action, while significant public and private sector opposition remained focused on the US Congress. Particularly challenging for advocates of climate change action has been the need, according to Senate rules, to obtain 60 (out of 100) votes to advance a piece of legislation to the Senate floor for voting (where it then needs only a majority vote to pass). Any bill that passed the Senate would also need to be reconciled with legislation that passed in the House of Representatives. The substantial Republican gains in the 2010 Congressional elections appeared to make the passage of climate change legislation less likely in 2011-12, since the vast majority of the new members stated their opposition to capping or taxing GHG emissions. The 2009 arrival of the Obama administration produced some federal action, most of it based in the executive branch. Automobile efficiency standards (so-called CAFE standards) were raised and EPA’s preparations to issue carbon emissions regulations accelerated, as did agency efforts to further raise efficiency standards for automobiles, trucks, vehicle fleets and other products. Nevertheless, the early years of the Obama administration demonstrated that opponents of climate change and clean energy policies remained strongest at the federal level, though advocates in government and in civil society vowed to continue to push for significant GHG mitigation and renewable energy legislation. Challenges to climate change policymaking and implementation also exist at the state and local levels. The 2010 electoral outcomes in governors offices and state legislatures seemed likely to reduce some states’ commitment to emissions reductions goals. Meanwhile, the extremely low price for emissions permits in the RGGI trading scheme resulting from an over-supply of permits, and the fading hope of a federal GHG trading scheme, threatened to undermine RGGI’s effectiveness. US national GHG emissions were 14% higher in 2008 than they were in 1990 (EPA 2010). While emissions declined in 2008 as a result of economic recession, they are expected to increase as most GHGs remain unregulated nationally. If federal, state and local emissions reduction are implemented, however, US emissions could be curbed. Transatlantic Interaction and Hybridization As these brief case descriptions demonstrate, patterns of climate policymaking and politics across the Atlantic have both similarities and differences. Many similar policies have been enacted on each side, but the EU has seen substantially more federal-level policymaking, while the more stringent policies on the US side are found in a minority of leading states and cities. But climate change politics across the Atlantic cannot be characterized as two totally separate processes or isolated and controlled experiments. Many public officials, advocacy 15 groups, and firms are connected across the Atlantic. Officials from Washington, Brussels, and the capitals of EU member states meet regularly at the Conferences of the Parties to the UNFCCC as well as in other multilateral forums. Many of the policy proposals debated at the federal level in the US since the mid-2000s have already been enacted in some US states and in the EU. Details of these policies differ, of course, and the differences can be quite significant, but climate policy debates are increasingly transatlantic in content, as are the networks of the participants in these debates (Schreurs, Selin and VanDeveer 2009b). At the same time, Weiner (2004) cautions against thinking in exclusively binary terms about convergence and divergence in policy outcomes. He suggests that transatlantic politics more often produces a kind of “hybridization” through which political systems borrow from one another. Because of institutional differences, this borrowing does not necessary produce convergence or divergence in a strict sense. Rather policymaking on each side of the Atlantic influences the other side. For example, bills debated in the US Congress that include emission trading mechanisms draw lessons from the ETS experience in Europe, while EU action on low carbon fuels is influenced by California’s activity on this issue. The frequent claim that globalization is producing convergence does not mean that “everything becomes the same.” Instead, hybridization means that comparative politics researchers must explore how states moving in the same direction – toward more GHG emissions regulations, for example – do not necessary become identical or converge in their policies and practices. Transatlantic comparisons tend to focus on national-level outcomes. However, such toplevel interaction is only part of the story. In the case of climate change, the most interesting and significant policy activity in the US since early 2000s has occurred at state and municipal levels and in the private sector (Selin and VanDeveer 2007; 2009a). Reactions to Washington’s dismissal of the Kyoto Protocol and its opposition to mandatory GHG regulations were not only strong in Europe, but also in many environmentally progressive states and cities across the US. Despite their differences, as US federal, state, and municipal policies expand alongside European climate change policies, there are increasing opportunities for transatlantic cooperation and lesson learning, as North American and European states share many multilevel governance opportunities and challenges. The developing transatlantic networks often bypass formal channels between Washington and European capitals, creating new channels of communication and political influence. Members use these networks and associated organizations to share knowledge and policy ideas beneficial to both the United States and the EU. For example, the International Carbon Action Partnership held its first meeting in 2007 to share best practices in designing and implementing GHG cap-and-trade systems. Founding members include the European Commission, several EU member states, and a multitude of US states working on emissions trading issues under RGGI and the Western Climate Initiative. Other jurisdictions and organizations may join in the future. Such collaboration not only supports the diffusion of policy ideas and lesson learning across different trading schemes, but also influences transatlantic and federal politics (Selin and VanDeveer 2010). These kinds of collaborative networks and forums may be important for stimulating transatlantic policy hybridization. A growing number of US and European cities are expanding collaboration in both old and new forums. In addition to the Cities for Climate Protection program operated by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, the Clinton Foundation launched its Clinton Climate Initiative, which works with twelve large European and twelve large American cities. This initiative is linked with the C40 Cities program, an association of large cities around 16 the world seeking to accelerate efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Several municipal networks connect efforts in the United States and Europe, diffusing information about mitigation and adaptation efforts and building local capacity in important policy areas such as building codes, transportation, and waste management. These networks and initiatives are part of the complex web of interactions that characterize multilevel governance. Comparative politics research must pay increasing attention to these dynamics if its explanations are to capture the changing contours of politics. Comparative climate change politics around the globe Differences between Washington and Brussels on climate change policy since the 1990s have been stark, often described as symbolic of a deep “climate divide” across the Atlantic (Schreurs 2002; 2004; 2005; Busby and Ochs 2004; Cass 2006). Yet when viewed at a sub-national level, the divide becomes less visible and the similarities among a host of public and private sector actors are more apparent. For example, the climate change policies and actions of Germany and California are more similar to each other than are those of Germany and Greece or California and Mississippi. Just as EU Member States have different levels of commitment to climate change action, so too do states and municipalities within the US (Selin and VanDeveer 2007). There are climate change policy leaders and laggards on both sides of the Atlantic. To explain their influence on US and European politics, we must attend to the similarities and differences in the federal systems on each side. Looking beyond the cases discussed in this chapter, what global lessons can be drawn from these transatlantic comparisons? One lesson certainly is that researchers and observers should avoid overstating the causal role of either economic development levels or public opinion in explaining the cross-national differences in environmental politics. It is common in global climate debates to speak primarily of economic development levels when debating mitigation and adaptation issues. While some focus on the industrialized North versus the global South, others focus on variations within the South, contrasting the situation of China and other high growth, large GHG emitters with that of poorer, low growth, low emitters (Axelrod, VanDeveer and Downie 2010). Levels of economic development are significant explanatory variables, of course, but they do not tell us why the US and the EU have taken such different policy paths at the federal level. Nor do they explain US, Canadian and Mexican climate policy outcomes (Selin and VanDeveer 2009a). Comparative research on environmental federalism calls attention to the importance of governance structures of all kinds, as well as the formal and informal roles of public and private sector actors operating within and across these structures. While this chapter compares two federalist systems with similar levels of economic development and some similarities in their approaches to climate change policymaking, a collective understanding of climate change politics would be advanced by comparing other, more diverse federal cases such as Canada and Mexico or the US and Brazil, to name just two examples. A related question is whether China and India should be so casually tossed together, as they sometimes are in policy debates and scholarly analyses of international climate politics, given that one is governed via one-party authoritarian rule and the other is a federalist democracy. In addition to the US and EU, high-income federalist systems include Australia, Canada and Switzerland, as well as a number of individual EU member states. Climate change policies at national and subnational levels vary substantially across these states and societies. Might an examination of the structure of each country’s federalist system help us to understand why? 17 Australian climate politics suggest patterns that are similar to the United States: federal level hostility and inaction on GHG emissions, active state-level policymaking and interstate collaboration, and a similar set of climate policy opponents. Similarly, Canadian climate change politics is characterized by contentious debates between the federal government and provinces over issues of policymaking jurisdiction and responsibilities to take action. Comparative political research can help us to understand the Australian and Canadian cases in light of the politics of climate change in other federal systems. Other comparative opportunities stem from the fact that all three large North American countries have a federal structure. Climate change policies are being debated, adopted, and implemented at the federal level, in states and provinces, in municipalities, and in many private sector initiatives across the North American continent. However, decision making authority is divided differently in each of the three federal systems, and many federal divisions of authority remain unsettled. For example, the emergence of the province of British Columbia as a policy leader with its use of carbon taxes may have implications for politics in Canada and in other countries, but the nature and form of this influence may vary across political systems. Unlike in Europe, North American citizens and public officials show little interest in transnational federalist structures. However, there are likely to be many benefits from greater cooperation on climate change and energy policy among the continent’s three large federal systems (Selin and VanDeveer 2009c). There is no need to confine comparative analysis of multilevel governance to federalist states, of course. Drawing from the work on environmental federalism, one can compare federalist states to other types of governing systems, such as more centralized states operating under parliamentary or presidential systems. Our understanding of industrial democracies can be expanded by comparing the influence of federalist versus non-federalist democratic structures on environmental politics and policy outcomes. As Sowers’ contribution to this volume demonstrates, multilevel governance matters in authoritarian states as well, and the institutions mediating interactions between central and local authorities differ across parts of the state and change over time. Moreover, governance institutions vary across systems with “the same” type of government. When examined through the analytic lenses of comparative politics, variance in governance institutions and in the interaction of domestic and transnational actors can help to explain political and physical outcomes in a host of countries around the world. References Anderson, Terry Lee and Peter Jensen Hill, eds. 1997. Environmental Federalism. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Andonova, Liliana B. and Ronald B. Mitchell. 2010. The Rescaling of Global Environmental Politics. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 35:255–82. Axelrod, Regina S., Stacy D. VanDeveer and David Downie, eds. 2010. The Global Environment: Institutions, Law and Policy. Third Edition. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Baker, Susan. 2006. Sustainable Development. London: Routledge. 18 Baker, Susan, Maria Kousis, Dick Richardson, and Stephen Young, eds. 1997. The Politics of Sustainable Development: Theory, Policy, and Practice within the European Union. London: Routledge. Bednar, Jenna. 2009. The Robust Federation: Principles of Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Betsill, Michele M. and Harriet Bulkeley. 2006. Cities and the Multilevel Governance of Global Climate Change. Global Governance 12 (2):141–59. Bomberg, Elizabeth. 1998. Green Parties and Politics in the European Union. London: Routledge. Breitmeier, Helmut, Oran R. Young and Michael Zürn. 2006. Analyzing International Environmental Regimes: From Case Studies to Database. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Breton, Albert, Giorgio Brosio, Silvana Dalmazzone, and Giovanna Garrone, eds. 2009. Governing the Environment: Salient Institutional Issues. Northampton: Edward Elgar. Burchell, Jon. 2002. The Evolution of Green Politics: Development and Change within European Green Parties. London: Earthscan. Burgess, Michael. 2006. Comparative Federalism: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Busby, Joshua, and Alexander Ochs. 2004. From Mars and Venus Down to Earth: Understanding the Transatlantic Climate Divide. In Climate Policy for the 21st Century: Meeting the LongTerm Challenge of Global Warming, edited by David Michel, 35–76. Washington, DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Cass, Loren R. 2006. The Failures of American and European Climate Policy: International Norms, Domestic Politics, and Unachievable Commitments. Albany: State University of New York Press. Dunlap, Riley E. and Aaron M McCright. 2008. A Widening Gap: Republican and Democratic Views on Climate Change. Environment 50 (5):26–35. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2010. Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2008. Executive Summary. Washington, DC: Environmental Protection Agency. Erk, Jan and Wilfried Swenden, eds. 2010. New Directions in Federalism Studies. London: Routledge. European Environment Agency (EEA). 2010. Tracking Progress Toward Kyoto and 2020 Targets in Europe. Copenhagen: EEA. 19 Farrell, Alexander E. and W. Michael Hanemann. 2009. Field Notes on the Political Economy of California Climate Policy. In Changing Climates in North American Politics, edited by Henrik Selin and Stacy D. VanDeveer, 87–110. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gore, Christopher and Pamela Robinson. 2009. Local Government Responses to Climate Change: Our Last, Best Hope? In Changing Climates in North American Politics, edited by Henrik Selin and Stacy D. VanDeveer, 137–58. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Grant, Wyn, Duncan Matthews, and Peter Newell. 2000. The Effectiveness of European Union Environmental Policy. New York: St. Martin's Press. Guehlstorf, Nicholas and Lars Hallstrom. 2002. Culture Wars over the Risks, Regulations, and Responsibilities in Genetic Agriculture: A Comparison of Food Biotechnology Policy in the United States and the European Union. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA, August 28. Haas, Peter M., Robert O. Keohane and Marc A. Levy. 1993. Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Harrington, Winston, Richard Morgenstern and Thomas Sterner, eds. 2004. Choosing Environmental Policy: Comparing Instruments and Outcomes in the United States and Europe. London: RFF Press. Harrison, Kathryn and Lisa Sundstrom, eds. 2007. Comparative Politics of Climate Change – Special Issue of Global Environmental Politics 7(4). Harrison, Kathryn and Lisa Sundstrom, eds. 2010. Global Commons, Domestic Decisions: The Comparative Politics of Climate Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hasenclever, Andreas, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger. 1997. Theories of International Regimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hooghe, Liesbet, and Gary Marks. 2001. Multi-Level Governance and European Integration. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Hueglin, Thomas and Alan Fenna. 2005. Comparative Federalism: A Systemic Inquiry. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hunter, Janet R. and Zachary A. Smith. 2005. Protecting our Environment: Lessons from the European Union. Albany: State University of New York Press. Jänicke, Martin, and Helmut Weidner, eds. 1997. National Environmental Policies: A Comparative Study of Capacity-Building. Berlin: Springer. 20 Jasanoff, Sheila. 2005. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jordan, Andrew, Dave Huitema, Harro van Asselt, Tim Rayner and Frans Berkout, eds. 2010. Climate Change Policy in the European Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelemen, Daniel R. 2000. Regulatory Federalism: EU Environmental Policy in Comparative Perspective. Journal of Public Policy 20 (2):133–67. Kelemen, Daniel R. 2004. Environmental Federalism in the United States and the European Union. In Green Giants? Environmental Policies of the United States and the European Union, edited by Norman J. Vig and Michael G. Faure, 113–34. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Keohane, Robert O. 1989. International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory. Boulder: Westview Press. Koehn, Peter. 2010. Climate Policy and Climate Action Underneath Kyoto: China and the United States. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 1:405–17. Kraft, Michael E. and Sheldon Kamieniecki, eds. 2007. Business and Environmental Policy: Corporate Interests in the American Political System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Krasner, Stephen D. 1983. Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables. In International Regimes, edited by Stephen D. Krasner, 1–21. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Klyza, Christopher McGrory, and David Sousa. 2008. American Environmental Policy, 19902006. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lafferty, William M., and J. Meadowcroft. Eds. 2000. Implementing Sustainable Development: Strategies and Initiatives in High Consumption Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levy, Marc A., Oran R. Young and Michael Zürn. 1995. The Study of International Regimes. European Journal of International Relations 1 (3):267–331. Martinelli, Alberto, ed. 2007. Transatlantic Divide: Comparing American and European Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morgenstern, Richard D. and William Aaron Pizer, eds. 2007. Reality Check: The Nature and Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan. London: RFF Press. Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand and Thomas Poguntke, eds. 2002. Green Parties in National Governments. London: Frank Cass. 21 Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. 2009. Global CO2 Emissions: Annual Increase Halves in 2008. June 25. Online at http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/2009/ Global-CO2-emissions-annual-increase-halves-in-2008.html Oberthur, Sebastian and Marc Pallemaerts, eds. 2010. The New Climate Policies of the European Union. Brussels: University of Brussels Press. Rabe, Barry G. 2004. Statehouse and Greenhouse: The Emerging Politics of American Climate Change Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Rabe, Barry G. 2008. States on Steroids: The Intergovernmental Odyssey of American Climate Policy. Review of Policy Research 25 (2):105–28. Rabe, Barry G., ed. 2010. Greenhouse Governance: Addressing Climate Change in America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Rabe, Barry G. and Christopher Borick. 2010. The Climate of Belief: American Public Opinion on Climate Change. Issues in Governance Studies 31:1–12. Scheberle, Denise. 2004. Federalism and Environmental Policy. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Schreurs, Miranda A. 2002. Environmental Politics in Japan, Germany, and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schreurs, Miranda. 2004. The Climate Change Divide: The European Union, the United States, and the Future of the Kyoto Protocol. In Green Giants? Environmental Policy of the United States and the European Union, edited by Norman J. Vig and Michael G. Faure, 207–30. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Schreurs, Miranda A. 2005. Global Environment Threats and a Divided Northern Community. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law, and Economics 5 (3):349–76. Schreurs, Miranda A. 2010. Multi-level Governance and Global Climate Change in East Asia. Asian Economic Policy Review 5: 88–105. Schreurs, Miranda A., Henrik Selin, and Stacy D. VanDeveer, eds. 2009. Transatlantic Environmental and Energy Politics: Comparative and International Perspectives. Aldershot: Ashgate. Selin, Henrik. 2005. Canadian-U.S. Environmental Cooperation: Climate Change Networks and Regional Action. American Review of Canadian Studies 35 (2):353–78. Selin, Henrik. 2010. Global Governance of Hazardous Chemicals: Challenges of Multilevel Management. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 22 Selin, Henrik and Stacy D. VanDeveer. 2006. Canadian-U.S. Cooperation: Regional Climate Change Action in the Northeast. In Bilateral Ecopolitics: Continuity and Change in CanadianAmerican Environmental Relations, edited by Philippe G. Le Prestre and Peter John Stoett, 93– 114. Aldershot: Ashgate. Selin, Henrik and Stacy D. VanDeveer. 2007. Political Science and Prediction: What's Next for U.S. Climate Change Policy? Review of Policy Research 24 (1):1–27. Selin, Henrik and Stacy D. VanDeveer, eds. 2009a. Changing Climates in North American Politics: Institutions, Policymaking and Multilevel Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Selin, Henrik and Stacy D. VanDeveer. 2009b. Climate Leadership in Northeast North America. In Changing Climates in North American Politics: Institutions, Policymaking and Multilevel Governance, edited by Henrik Selin and Stacy D. VanDeveer, 111–36. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Selin, Henrik and Stacy D. VanDeveer. 2009c. Continental Climate Governance in North America. Issues in Governance Studies (30):1–14. Selin, Henrik and Stacy D. VanDeveer. 2010. Multilevel Governance and Transatlantic Climate Change Politics. In Greenhouse Governance: Addressing Climate Change in America, edited by Barry G. Rabe, 336–52. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Vig, Norman J. and Michael G. Faure, eds. 2004. Green Giants? Environmental Policies of the United States and the European Union. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vogel, David. 1995. Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vogel, David. 2003. The Hare and the Tortoise Revisited: The New Politics of Consumer and Environmental Protection in Europe. British Journal of Political Science 33 (4):557–80. Ward, Ann and Lee Ward. 2009. The Ashgate Research Companion to Federalism. Aldershot: Ashgate. Watts, Ronald L. 2008. Comparing Federalist Systems. Third Edition. Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Weibust, Inger. 2009. Green Leviathan: The Case for a Federal Role in Environmental Policy. Aldershot: Ashgate. Wiener, Jonathan B. 2004. Convergence, Divergence and Complexity in US and European Risk Regulation. In Green Giants? Environmental Policies of the United States and the European Union, edited by Norman J. Vig and Michael G. Faure, 73–110. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 23 Young, Oran R. 1989. International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural Resources and the Environment. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Young, Oran R. 2002. The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Young, Oran R., Leslie A. King and Heike Schroeder, eds. 2008. Institutions and Environmental Challenges: Principal Findings, Applications, and Research Frontiers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 24

Log In

Federalism, Multilevel Governance, and Climate Change Politics across the Atlantic

Federalism, Multilevel Governance, and Climate Change Politics across the Atlantic

Related Papers

RELATED PAPERS