This book presents an integrated, multi-disciplinary analysis that combines climate science, economics, technology and political analysis of US climate policy changes undertaken during 2021.
The book begins with an up-to-date discussion of the climate crisis as of 2021, with key concepts, problems and data all represented in straight-forward graphs and tables. This introduction to climate science and climate conditions establishes the context in which US climate policy is being made. The second chapter presents information about issues and policies at the advent of the Biden administration in January 2021 within the institutional context of the US political system. The chapter focuses on the initiatives taken by the new administration in a remarkable display of wide-ranging decision-making during its first year in office, and it also includes the policies of state and local governments. The third chapter offers a detailed analysis of the climate budget developed for the fiscal year 2022, a budget that marks dramatic increases in the amounts of funds for a wide variety of climate change programs—and also reductions in the subsidies for fossil fuel industries. A series of sectoral chapters examine the economics and technologies, as well as the government policies, in key industry sectors: energy, transportation, agriculture and finance. The final chapter is based on scenarios of future climate changes and policy paths that can address the mitigation and adaptation challenges of the next decade.
The book offers specific information, so the reader can understand the contemporary climate issues and policies in the USA. At the same time, it provides the enduring concepts and fundamental features of the science, economics, technologies and political institutions that will shape the future.
Author(s): Thomas L. Brewer
Series: SpringerBriefs in Energy
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 72
City: Cham
Preface
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Boxes
2 U.S. Policy Agendas
2.1 New Beginnings
2.2 Executive Orders in January 2021
2.3 American Jobs Plan
2.4 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act [5]
2.5 Build Back Better Bill [6]
2.6 Executive Order on Federal Government Sustainability [7]
2.7 International Context
2.7.1 The Paris Agreement
2.7.2 Leaders’ Summit [9]
2.7.3 G-20 Meeting [10]
2.7.4 COP26 in Glasgow [11–15]
2.7.5 Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
2.8 Domestic Institutional Constraints
2.9 Public Opinion
2.10 Implications: Presidential Power and Its Limits
Annex 1: President Biden’s Executive Orders on: (A) Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis’, (B) ‘Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad’, and (C) ‘Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability’
Annex 2: U.S. Public Opinion Survey Data: Detailed Analyses of Selected Issues
References
3 Who Gets What in the Budget
3.1 Overview of the Budget Process
3.2 FY2022 Request to Congress
3.3 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) [4–6]
3.4 Infrastructure Bill [7]
3.5 Build Back Better Bill [9]
3.6 An Un-representative Senate
3.7 Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Annex 1: Request for NOAA Appropriations for FY2022 [13]
Annex 2: Build Back Better Budget Changes
Annex 3: Calculations of the ‘Social Costs of Carbon’ in the Budget [14–19]
Annex 4: States’ Carbon-Intensity and Representation in the Senate
References
4 The Future
4.1 Reframing the Issues
4.2 The U.S. as an International Leader and Laggard
4.3 Pricing Carbon
4.4 Institutional Constraints
4.5 The Generation Gap in Public Opinion
References
