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Rethinking Environmental Federalism in a Warming World

Author

Listed:
  • Shobe, William M.
  • Burtraw, Dallas

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract
Climate change policy analysis has focused almost exclusively on national policy and even on harmonizing climate policies across countries, implicitly assuming that harmonization of climate policies at the subnational level would be mandated or guaranteed. We argue that the design and implementation of climate policy in a federal union will diverge in important ways from policy design in a unitary government. National climate policies built on the assumption of a unitary model of governance are unlikely to achieve the expected outcome because of interactions with policy choices made at the subnational level. In a federal system, the information and incentives generated by a national policy must pass through various levels of subnational fiscal and regulatory policy. Effective policy design must recognize both the constraints and the opportunities presented by a federal structure of government. Furthermore, policies that take advantage of the federal structure of government can improve climate governance outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Shobe, William M. & Burtraw, Dallas, 2012. "Rethinking Environmental Federalism in a Warming World," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-04, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-12-04
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    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-12-04.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Meier, Jan-Niklas & Lehmann, Paul, 2022. "Optimal federal co-regulation of renewable energy deployment," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Ansell, Christopher K. & Bartenberger, Martin, 2016. "Varieties of experimentalism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 64-73.
    3. Hannum, Christopher & Cutler, Harvey & Iverson, Terrence & Keyser, David, 2017. "Estimating the implied cost of carbon in future scenarios using a CGE model: The Case of Colorado," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 500-511.
    4. Burtraw, Dallas & Fraas, Arthur G. & Richardson, Nathan, 2012. "Tradable Standards for Clean Air Act Carbon Policy," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-05, Resources for the Future.
    5. Leard, Benjamin & McConnell, Virginia, 2015. "New Markets for Pollution and Energy Efficiency: Credit Trading under Automobile Greenhouse Gas and Fuel Economy StandardsAbstract: Recent changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard," RFF Working Paper Series dp-15-16, Resources for the Future.
    6. Reinhard Steurer & Christoph Clar, 2015. "Is decentralisation always good for climate change mitigation? How federalism has complicated the greening of building policies in Austria," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(1), pages 85-107, March.
    7. Edenhofer, Ottmar & Flachsland, Christian & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Knopf, Brigitte & Pahle, Michael, 2019. "Optionen für eine CO2-Preisreform," Working Papers 04/2019, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
    8. Marcel J. Dorsch & Christian Flachsland, 2017. "A Polycentric Approach to Global Climate Governance," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(2), pages 45-64, May.
    9. Tanvir Pavel & Pallab Mozumder, 2019. "Household Preferences for Managing Coastal Vulnerability: State vs. Federal Adaptation Fund," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 281-304, October.
    10. Achim Hagen & Leonhard Kaehler & Klaus Eisenack, 2016. "Transnational Environmental Agreements with Heterogeneous Actors," Working Papers V-387-16, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2016.
    11. Millimet, Daniel L., 2013. "Environmental Federalism: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Burtraw, Dallas & Woerman, Matt, 2013. "Economic ideas for a complex climate policy regime," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(S1), pages 24-31.
    13. Meier, Jan-Niklas & Lehmann, Paul, 2020. "Optimal federal co-regulation of renewable energy deployment," UFZ Discussion Papers 8/2020, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    14. Creutzig, Felix & Goldschmidt, Jan Christoph & Lehmann, Paul & Schmid, Eva & von Blücher, Felix & Breyer, Christian & Fernandez, Blanca & Jakob, Michael & Knopf, Brigitte & Lohrey, Steffen & Susca, Ti, 2014. "Catching two European birds with one renewable stone: Mitigating climate change and Eurozone crisis by an energy transition," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1015-1028.
    15. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen L., 2013. "Mixing It Up: Power Sector Energy and Regional and Regulatory Climate Policies in the Presence of a Carbon Tax," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-09, Resources for the Future.
    16. Evelyne St-Louis & Adam Millard-Ball, 2016. "Cap-and-trade, crowding out, and the implications for municipal climate policy motivations," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1693-1715, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    climate change; subsidiarity; states; federalism; climate governance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations

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