How Are States Driving Climate Action in India? Evaluating the Performance of State-Driven Domestic Climate Action

Climate change is a politically-polarised issue, with conservatives less likely than liberals to perceive it as human-caused and consequential. Furthermore, they are less likely to support mitigation and adaptation policies needed to reduce its impacts. This study aimed to examine whether John Oliver’s “A Mathematically Representative Climate Change Debate” clip on his program Last Week Tonight polarised or depolarised a politically-diverse audience on climate policy support and behavioural intentions. One hundred and fifty-nine participants, recruited via Amazon MTurk (94 female, 64 male, one gender unspecified, Mage = 51.07, SDage = 16.35), were presented with either John Oliver’s climate change consensus clip, or a humorous video unrelated to climate change. Although the climate change consensus clip did not reduce polarisation (or increase it) relative to a control on mitigation policy support, it resulted in hyperpolarisation on support for adaptation policies and increased climate action intentions among liberals but not conservatives.

Download Full-text

The Energy Politics of the United States

The Oxford Handbook of Energy Politics ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190861360.013.16 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 371-405

Author(s):

Juliann Emmons Allison ◽

Srinivas Parinandi

Keyword(s):

Energy Policy ◽

The United States ◽

Political Polarization ◽

Future Research ◽

Future Research Agenda ◽

Production And Consumption ◽

Energy Politics ◽

Climate Action ◽

Subnational Governance

This chapter examines the development and politics of US energy policy, with an emphasis on three themes: the distribution of authority to regulate energy between national (or federal) and subnational governments, the relationship between energy and environmental policy and regulation, and the role of climate action in energy politics. It reviews patterns of energy production and consumption; provides an overview of national energy politics; and reviews literatures on federalism and energy politics and policy, the increasing integration of energy and environmental policies, and the politics of energy and climate action. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a future research agenda that underscores the significance of political polarization, subnational governance, and technological innovation for understanding US energy policy.

Download Full-text

Neighbourhood Modelling for Urban Sustainability Assessment

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13094654 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (9) ◽

pp. 4654

Author(s):

Javier Orozco-Messana ◽

Milagro Iborra-Lucas ◽

Raimon Calabuig-Moreno

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Impact Assessment ◽

Urban Policy ◽

Sustainability Assessment ◽

Open Data ◽

Policy Impact ◽

Physical Parameters ◽

Data Repositories ◽

Digital Twins ◽

Climate Action

Climate change is becoming a dominant concern for advanced countries. The Paris Agreement sets out a global framework whose implementation relates to all human activities and is commonly guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), which set the scene for sustainable development performance configuring all climate action related policies. Fast control of CO2 emissions necessarily involves cities since they are responsible for 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) is clearly involved in the deployment of SDG 13 (Climate Action). European Sustainability policies are financially guided by the European Green Deal for a climate neutral urban environment. In turn, a common framework for urban policy impact assessment must be based on architectural design tools, such as building certification, and common data repositories for standard digital building models. Many Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment (NSA) tools have been developed but the growing availability of open data repositories for cities, together with big-data sources (provided through Internet of Things repositories), allow accurate neighbourhood simulations, or in other words, digital twins of neighbourhoods. These digital twins are excellent tools for policy impact assessment. After a careful analysis of current scientific literature, this paper provides a generic approach for a simple neighbourhood model developed from building physical parameters which meets relevant assessment requirements, while simultaneously being updated (and tested) against real open data repositories, and how this assessment is related to building certification tools. The proposal is validated by real data on energy consumption and on its application to the Benicalap neighbourhood in Valencia (Spain).

Download Full-text

Big data for climate action or climate action for big data?

Big Data & Society ◽

10.1177/2053951720982032 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 205395172098203

Author(s):

Maria I Espinoza ◽

Melissa Aronczyk

Keyword(s):

Big Data ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Global Climate ◽

Intergovernmental Organizations ◽

Address Climate Change ◽

Data Practices ◽

Climate Action ◽

User Data ◽

Climate Crisis ◽

Depth Interviews

Under the banner of “data for good,” companies in the technology, finance, and retail sectors supply their proprietary datasets to development agencies, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations to help solve an array of social problems. We focus on the activities and implications of the Data for Climate Action campaign, a set of public–private collaborations that wield user data to design innovative responses to the global climate crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews, first-hand observations at “data for good” events, intergovernmental and international organizational reports, and media publicity, we evaluate the logic driving Data for Climate Action initiatives, examining the implications of applying commercial datasets and expertise to environmental problems. Despite the increasing adoption of Data for Climate Action paradigms in government and public sector efforts to address climate change, we argue Data for Climate Action is better seen as a strategy to legitimate extractive, profit-oriented data practices by companies than a means to achieve global goals for environmental sustainability.

Download Full-text