States leading the way on climate change action: the view from the Northeast

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511535871.029

26 - States leading the way on climate change action: the view from the Northeast

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2009

Abbey Tennis

Edited by

Susanne C. Moser and

Lisa Dilling

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Abbey Tennis: Affiliation:
Massachusetts Office for Commonwealth Development
Susanne C. Moser: Affiliation:
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder
Lisa Dilling: Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder

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Summary

Introduction

As federal climate change policy has failed to keep pace with the need for urgent action, policy-makers across the country, indeed, across the world, increasingly are looking to individual US states for leadership in climate protection. And many states are taking action; more than half of US states and territories have released some form of climate plan. This chapter explores the role of state governments in US climate policy, and particularly the leadership and policy innovation in the Northeast.

While individual states may seem to be too small to make a significant difference in the global effort to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, even the smallest US state's emission levels are equivalent to those of many countries around the world. Massachusetts, for example, is responsible for only 1.35 percent of the total US GHG emissions (MA State Sustainability Program, 2004; NESCAUM, 2004; US EPA, 2002), yet it emits roughly the same amount of GHGs annually as Chile, Austria, or the Philippines and considerably more than Sweden or Switzerland. In fact, if emissions from all of the states in the Northeast were combined, they would release pollution equal to the eighth largest emitter in the world – more than the entire nation of Canada.

Aside from the direct emissions reductions individual states can make, perhaps most significant is states' role as “policy laboratories” for each other and for eventual federal policy development.

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: Creating a Climate for Change
Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change
, pp. 416 - 430

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511535871.029 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2007

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