Climate change 2011: A status report on US policy

Abstract

A growing partisan divide in Congress stalled almost all new federal climate policy in 2011. The divide frustrated efforts to pass a cap-and-trade carbon permitting system, spawned a battle between the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Congress, pushed most substantive climate change policy down to the municipal level and hindered US ability to effectively negotiate an international climate agreement. Amid the federal partisan wrangling, US cities have enacted far-sighted climate policy initiatives, and the growing cost of fossil fuels has stimulated investment in renewable energy, edging the country closer to commercially viable alternatives to fossil fuels. These trends could help provide an alternate route to climate mitigation, even without international treaties or national legislation. But the inevitable shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources would be greatly hastened by federal action to tax carbon dioxide emissions and use the revenue generated to support alternative energy technologies. That action is extremely unlikely to occur unless climate change comes to be seen in the United States as a practical, rather than ideological, issue.

• cap and trade
• carbon dioxide regulation
• cities and climate change
• climate change in 2011
• climate change partisanship
• greenhouse gases
• US climate policy

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Additional information

Author biographies

Steven Cohen is executive director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, USA and professor in the practice of public affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). He is director of the master’s program in sustainability management at Columbia’s School of Continuing Education and directs the master’s in public administration program in environmental science and policy and the concentration in energy and environmental policy at SIPA. Cohen has served as a policy analyst and consultant to the US Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies. His books include Sustainability Management: Lessons from and for New York City, America, and the Planet (Columbia University Press, 2011), Understanding Environmental Policy (Columbia University Press, 2006), and The Effective Public Manager (Jossey-Bass, 2008). Cohen is also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.

Alison Miller is a senior program manager at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, USA. Miller received a master’s of public administration in environmental science and policy at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Prior to attending graduate school, Miller worked as a business development associate for an asset management firm. She is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green associate and has previously worked with New York City’s Division of Energy Management, providing project-management support for energy efficiency projects. Miller has also worked as a consultant to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.