In order to understand where we are with our energy resources and consumption patterns today, it's worth taking a look back at how human energy use has changed over time. Most of us have trouble imagining a day without interior lighting in our homes or Internet connectivity, so imagining early humans and their most primitive of energy resources is somewhat challenging.

The Industrial Revolution and Energy Use

It really wasn't until the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s that human's ability to harness energy on a (relatively) large, efficient scale took place and truly revolutionized our ways of life and ability to perform work. Prior to that, early people relied primarily on caloric energy from the food they consumed to give the energy they needed to perform their basic tasks for survival. With the discovery of fire and the ability to burn biomass (wood, animal dung, charcoal), humans then had an important source of heat.

With the domestication of animals, humans were able to transition from a more nomadic way of life as a hunter/gatherer into a more agrarian society. Harnessing animal energy allowed early humans to grow more food more efficiently and stay in one place. It comes as no surprise that the ability to produce more food easily translated into sustained population growth. Early society was taking a different shape, thanks in large part to human's ability to utilize these energy opportunities.

As the graph above illustrates, wood remained the dominant fuel source until it was surpassed by coal powering the Industrial Revolution in the late 1880s. Throughout wood's reign as the world's primary fuel source, overall energy consumption grew steadily, but remained quite low compared to the levels that would develop in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Coal was our primary energy source until around the late 1940s when it was overtaken by oil, which remains out main energy source.

This explosion in energy consumption changed human history in almost every way. The ability to mass produce goods and a focus on a consumption-based economy were huge paradigm shifts from previous subsistence societies. The migration of people from rural areas to cities for work led to issues associated with poor sanitation and working conditions. But many of the modern conveniences on which we've become reliant were born out of this era.

Vaclav Smil defines an energy transition as, "the time that elapses between the introduction of a new primary energy source (coal, oil, nuclear electricity, wind captured by large turbines) and its rise to claiming a substantial share of the overall market" (2010).

If we explore historical energy transitions, we will see that they all have one thing in common - they tend to be slow, spanning decades or more. Let's look at some examples (also from Smil's Energy Myths and Realities):

• For millennia, people relied on biomass fuels to meet their energy needs. Coal did not overtake biomass as the primary fuel source until the late 1880s.
• Oil was first commercially produced in the 1860s; however, it did not reach 10% of the market share until 50 years later. It took another 30 years to raise that from 10% to 25%.
• Natural gas, first available in 1900, did not reach 20% of the total energy market until 1970. Its share in 2008 was just half of what had been anticipated in the 1970s.

What's happening with these energy transitions that are causing them to take so long to develop? Infrastructure is a big consideration. Think about the global infrastructure that exists to extract, process, transport, and utilize our current mix of fossil fuels. Even if we assume a utopian scenario of the discovery of a new energy resource that is plentiful, clean, easily accessible, and cheap, that doesn't change the reality of our past investments. And the physical infrastructure is only part of the equation. There's also a global workforce of individuals whose livelihoods are based on the development of these resources.

In addition, people are creatures of habit, and a reluctance to accept change can be a significant challenge to overcome in the quest to grow the market share of a new energy resource. One easy example is that of hybrid cars - many people are uneasy about purchasing an alternative fuel vehicle because they fear the unknown. What if something happens to the battery? The technology is still too new. Our own reluctance to accept new risks influences the marketplace. Many people are willing to accept less efficiency for more predictability.

Finally, another consideration of the timing of transition is dealing with the aspects of reliability, security, accessibility, and sustainability of energy. In short, reliability is the need for baseflow and 24/7 provision; security is that our supply is secure and safe; accessibility is that most people can get to it; and sustainability is that the source is clean and safe. In some cases, these considerations can be competing, and the need to reconcile inconsistencies can take time. A good example is renewable energy. One reason that conversion to all renewables is slow is that there is not enough capacity to ensure the 24/7 baseload supply needed for society to function.

A New Transition is Afoot

And now we find ourselves in the midst of the next big energy transition as we look to move beyond the hydrocarbons that have propelled our society for two centuries now in favor of lower-carbon, more environmentally sustainable alternatives. The transition to a low carbon economy is one borne more out of necessity from the perspective of addressing climate change than it is a response to dwindling supplies of fossil-fuel-based energy supply. However, that concern also factors into the decision. And like the energy transitions of the past, this one is playing out over an extended time frame, though the more rapid deployment of technology may expedite this journey a bit. And while we can't perfectly predict how the transition will unfold, corporations and governments the world over are trying to understand the likely scenarios and plan for them. Complicating this calculus is the emergency of AI and its large energy and water demands.

This graphic below is really nicely done because it lays out peaks in various resource use as well as the overall peak in our global demand for energy along with the ramping up of renewable capabilities. DNV GL offers a projection of the next 10 years Their Energy Transition Outlook (spoiler: there is progress, but we are not transitioning fast enough to carbon neutrality), if you are so inclined. This is of course one think tank's best guess at what the transition will look like as they seek to prepare their partners for the changes ahead. Can you find examples of other models of what our transition to a sustainable energy future might look like? Feel free to share them in our HAVE A QUESTION discussion board!

Text description of Figure 1.3 image.

The trajectory for CO2 emissions in North America and the rest of the world between 2024-2060

For North America, the emissions decline is delayed by about five years compared to what was predicted just a year prior because of federal policy reversals in the United States.  By 2060, North America drops from roughly 5.5 GtCO2/yr to approximately 1 GtCO2/yr.

The rest of the world remains on a trajectory similar to what was most recently predicted last year.  Energy-related emissions are expected to drop from almost 30 GtCO2/yr to less than 15 GtCO2/yr by 2060. 

Credit: DNV GL Energy Transition Outlook 2025

It would be difficult to discuss the history of human energy use without at least a brief discussion of the Industrial Revolution. And, in a class where we're focusing on energy not just for energy's sake, but also incorporating the climate impacts of our energy use, it's absolutely critical.

And while we tend to think of the Industrial Revolution in a historical context, because it occurred so long ago in the western world (starting in England, and spreading readily to other European countries and the colonies now known as the US), it's important to remember - especially in the context of energy policy - that much of the world is still striving to achieve industrialization. Industrialization serves as a major sticking point for international climate policy negotiations, with lesser industrialized countries lamenting the fact that the western world enjoyed unmitigated development with cheap, dirty fuel sources and had no climate considerations burdening their desire to grow and evolve. The western world, however, recognizes the implications of continued growth in carbon-intensive fuel sources to support a higher quality of life around the world and (from the luxury of their industrialized societies) calls for cleaner, more expensive energy alternatives moving forward.

The Industrial Revolution marks a turning point in how we viewed energy, consumption, and our environment. Prior to this, the manufacturing process was small and on a highly localized scale. Skilled laborers worked in small groups to create complex goods. The Industrial Revolution saw increased farm production and efficiency, allowing more people to abandon subsistence farming for livelihoods in industrial centers. Fewer farmers feeding more people allows society to advance and branch out in all areas, with individuals able to devote time to livelihoods in manufacturing, textiles, services, and other areas.

And while it's termed a 'revolution,' these changes still took time. Remember our discussions about energy transitions and how they are slow-moving events? The Industrial Revolution was no exception to that. The primary difference here is that the Industrial Revolution marks a time in history when we had a fundamental shift in how we did things, and this transcends just a system of factories. Agricultural practices, economic policies, and societal norms were all upended to make way for more efficient ways of doing business and a rapid pursuit of a higher quality of life. On a rudimentary level, we can think about the Industrial Revolution as being similar to the advent of e-mail. E-mail fundamentally changed how businesses operate - and seemingly helped make them more efficient. 

However, even as revolutionary as some of our recent technological advancements have been, few things will ever be quite the spot-on history that the Industrial Revolution has been. Lumped under this heading is a series of events that cascaded into the very real quality of life improvements for people of the times, and people today. Modern-day conveniences like washing machines and sewing machines (just to name a few) owe their roots to the Industrial Revolution.

For many people, living the reality of the Industrial Revolution's changes on the ground, it wasn't all good. Poor working conditions, child labor, crowded living conditions with little sanitation, and extreme air pollution are but a few of the consequences of the growth and advancement during this time. And lest we forget that industrialization in the West would not have been possible without the social implications of slavery, colonialism (historical colonialism as well as neocolonialism that arguably exists today), and resource exploitation. And this phenomenon is not only historical. A bevy of research has found that airborne pollution - largely from manufactururing and energy generation associated with industrialization - causes major health impacts. One recent study found that pollution reduces the averages Chinese citizens' life by almost 3 years. There are negative impacts from things like mining rare earth metals, toxic electronic waste pollution, land grabs to secure raw materials, and more - all resulting as a consequence of the current energy transition and global industrialization. These impacts can be disproportionately visited upon marginalized populations domestically and globally. It's important to keep these side effects in mind as we think about radical shifts in energy sources. While our goal to be more efficient and provide more people with a better quality of life isn't all that different from the goals of large-scale industrialization, we must be mindful of the unintended consequences and externalities of our actions.

In 1976, Amory Lovins wrote about 'hard' and 'soft' energy paths  and how the path the nation chooses would dictate the energy future that would follow. Now, more than three decades later, we can recall the energy futures Lovins predicted based on policy choices in the 1970s and understand the implications of energy policy of that time.

Characteristics of hard energy paths:

• centralized high technologies
• increasing supplies of energy (especially electricity)

Projected U.S. Gross Primary Energy Use under the ‘Hard Path’ (1975–2025), showing heavy reliance on coal, oil and gas, and nuclear power as demand steadily increases.

Click here for a text description of the An Illustrative Schematic Future for US Gross Primary Energy Use - The Hard Path

This graph depicts Amory Lovins' description of a hard energy path, reliant on centralized fossil fuels. While nuclear fuel is projected to play a much bigger role post-2000, the reliance on coal and natural gas still leads us down a heavily carbonized path. What this graph wasn't able to predict at the time of its conception was the boom in natural gas production, both domestically and globally, with unconventional plays in shale formations creating a surge in its market share, snuffing out coal to a large extent.

Credit: Amory Lovins

Characteristics of soft energy paths:

• emphasis on energy efficiency
• development of renewable energy sources - matching in scale and quality to the end use need

Projected U.S. Gross Primary Energy Use under the ‘Soft Path’ (1975–2025), highlighting a transition away from coal and oil toward efficiency and renewable ‘soft technologies.’

Click here for a text description of the An Illustrative, Schematic Future for US Gross Primary Energy Use- The Soft Path

This graph depicts Amory Lovins' concept of a soft energy path, emphasizing energy efficiency and increased use of renewable sources. This illustration of the soft energy path not only demonstrates a downward trend over time in overall emissions, but more importantly, a relatively rapid decline in reliance on traditional centralized fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal, in favor of what Lovins described as soft technologies, including decentralized renewable energy like residential rooftop solar.

Credit: Amory Lovins

Summary

In this lesson, we've taken a brief look at human energy use throughout history. By understanding how people have harnessed energy resources in the past, we can more fully appreciate the nuances of our energy challenges moving forward. We've learned that energy transitions of any kind take time, money, and support in order to be successful - and often take more of each of these things than initially estimated or anticipated. Understanding these patterns of transition has critical importance for effective and realistic energy policy development. Establishing achievable timetables for measured success requires an understanding and appreciation of the pace with which new energy resources can realistically be expected to have any real impact commercially.

One fact that will be critical for us to remember as we continue on in the course is that we're always writing history - so be thinking about what students taking a graduate-level energy policy course will be learning about in 30 years. Or 50. What will be the history we write? Will it be one of the rapid adoption of more sustainable and renewable energy technologies with more distributed infrastructure? Will it be one of the continued reliance on traditional fossil fuels with little widespread adoption of newer sources? These are tricky questions to answer, given the likelihood of currently unpredictable events that will shape our energy outlook and policy. Unforeseen technological advancement, new scientific discovery highlighting major benefits or detriments of any particular energy resource, and the real wild card of societal behaviors and preferences make it difficult to foresee what's coming. Thirty years ago, it would have been nothing short of science fiction to imagine an iPhone, or how a hybrid car coaches the driver to drive it with maximum efficiency - spitting out nearly continuous MPG data and suggestions for improvement. Only fifteen or so years ago, the thought that electricity from renewable energy would be as cost-effective as coal or natural gas (aka grid parity) was almost laughable. Now properly-stied onshore wind and utility-scale solar are cheaper on a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) basis - without subsidies.

This course is designed to approach issues of energy policy in a two-pronged (somewhat conflicting) manner.

• Dream Big. I want you to think outside the box, imagine radical shifts in thinking and governance, and develop idealistic and utopian views of our future. What future do you want to see, and how can we get there?
• Stay Grounded. I also want you to recognize all of the constraints and conflicts tugging at the very core of energy policy - current and future. Our social, cultural, economic, and political circumstances are real and likely here to stay.

It is our hope that if we take a little bit of each of these approaches, we can all learn something about the energy policies governing our world and what exactly we need to do to improve them. Without the ability to dream big, we get stuck in the status quo, and our policies don't change and evolve with the times. But, if we don't stay grounded to some extent, we risk losing the ability to affect real change in the social constructs in which we must operate. Finding this delicate balance will be our goal.

This lesson was also about tradeoffs.

• There is no magic energy source. As we continue to refine existing technologies and develop new ones, we may be improving upon the social and environmental consequences of our energy consumption, but we cannot yet eliminate that from the equation. We value non-renewable energy resources for their abundance and relatively cheap costs ("cheap" ignoring externalities, of course), but are becoming increasingly discontented with their environmental pollution and social impacts, particularly with regard to greenhouse gas emissions. We value the lower emission rates of renewable resources, but find the costs, lack of social acceptance, and new environmental consequences to be barriers to widespread adoption. With this foundation, let's take a look at how policies can help alleviate some of these challenges to renewable resource adoption!
• The path we've chosen might be a bumpy road. In your review of the Amory Lovins article, you learned that even several decades ago, people were questioning our energy choices and the consequences we'd be faced with depending on what we value most in energy in this country. While his concepts of hard and soft energy paths might seem a little extreme on either end of the spectrum, he illustrates the point that we cannot (yet) have it all. Cheap, centralized energy is dirty. Energy efficiency and conservation are hard to incentivize with cheap energy. If nothing else, walk away from that article with the understanding that the decision to hop from one path to another is a complicated and daunting proposition, and one which requires strong policy decisions.

Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson tasks!

You have reached the end of this lesson! Double-check the Lesson Requirements in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the tasks listed there.

Energy Policy and Climate Policy

These two are inextricably linked as we move forward. We cannot address the challenges associated with reducing human-induced climate change without taking a good, long look at our energy policies and the resources on which we depend so heavily. So much of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are tied directly to energy extraction, production, and consumption - as you can see in the image below, nearly 75% - therefore, any efforts to reduce these emissions will necessarily have very real consequences for all facets of the energy industry.

In effect, generally speaking, climate policy IS energy policy. In reality, it gets a bit more complicated in that each has its own drivers and there are times when one does not have a compatible effect on the other.  For example, energy policy decisions to ensure adequate petroleum supply may not align well with climate goals.  Alternatively, climate change reducing goals may impact energy security, accessibility, and reliability considerations.

Emissions by Sector in the U.S., 2016. Credit: Our World in Data, 2023. Download the Global GHG Emissions Excel sheet to access the raw data and click on the image for a larger version of the visualization.

What are the goals of climate policy? While many countries (and other levels of government) are still trying to figure out what an effective climate policy really means for them, we can broadly explore some of the goals of instituting climate policies, recognizing that no one policy can be all things to all people.

Generally, we can sort climate policy objectives into the following two categories:

Addressing climate change has always been a two-fold challenge and will continue to be one. In order to avoid more severe consequences of change in the future, we must look for ways to mitigate our emissions now and moving forward. But mitigation efforts alone are not enough, because the emissions we've already released will inevitably impact the climate and because we are already seeing climate change impacts that we must react to. Adaptation policy is often more complex and less easily quantifiable than mitigation policy, but it's important to understand that together they represent a comprehensive approach to addressing global climate change. Further compounding the issue is that natural climate change, which has been part of the Earth’s history since day one, is also still happening which further influences challenges.  And since we cannot control this geological, natural pattern, the more we can do to address the human component, the better we will be.

Over the past several decades, there have been various legislative attempts to combat climate change at the federal level, with varying degrees of success. Here is an excellent summary (required reading!) from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. You'll see on that summary that several attempts at carbon pricing (mostly through cap and trade) emerged with bipartisan support.

The list stops at 2020 and does not capture actions during the Biden term and the early Trump second term. While we could devote an entire semester (or doctoral dissertation! or career!) to an analysis and discussion of the merits, drawbacks, and politics of climate legislation in the United States, we need to condense it into part of just one lesson in our course. If you find yourself really interested in this material and would like to know more, feel free to explore the links on your own and/or post to the class discussion board.

The Economy....from late 2007 through mid 2009, the United States experienced an economic downturn and recession unparalleled in scope and severity since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Triggered largely by risky lending and the securitization of mortgages, coupled with increases in commodity prices like food and oil, the "Great Recession" and substantial job loss made it quite a difficult proposition for elected officials to support climate policies perceived (to some extent, correctly so) to increase energy prices.

The Politics...every facet of tackling climate change is politically charged. As we saw last lesson, many people question the validity of the science that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are influencing our climate system. Others worry that climate policy will affect end users of energy more than energy producers. Still others are concerned that until the fast-growing, developing countries of China and India commit to reducing their unchecked emissions, the United States will put itself at a global competitive disadvantage for manufacturing goods (ignoring that the U.S. emitted GHGs unchecked for hundreds of years to establish itself as a global superpower). Climate policy is an issue with so much at stake - for everyone - that tensions run high and fears are plentiful. It isn't the goal of this class to draw political lines in the sand - instead, you need to understand the motivations of all sides and how the vested interest of various parties influences the decisions that are made about this issue.

This is a list (certainly not exhaustive) of some of the major attempts at climate legislation in the House and Senate over the past several years. While somewhat redundant with the C2ES list linked above, I include it here mostly for the summaries of these various pieces of legislation. I encourage you, as you're working on your research projects, to seek out summaries from credible, non-partisan think tanks. They can be quite helpful!

The Process...In case you are not familiar with how a bill becomes law, USA.GOV provides a resource titled How Laws are Made, which is a good starting point. Congress.gov also provides a more detailed resource titled The Legislative Process: Overview, which includes videos that provide a step-by-step explanation of the process, from the U.S. Congress. 

Of course, the process is almost never this straightforward, as things such as "horse trading" (I'll support your bill if you support mine, I'll support your bill if you publicly state this or that, etc.) and political posturing have resulted in this process often being referred to as "sausage making" after the famous quote: "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." Whether Otto von Bismarck said it or not, the quote and characterization are still used to this day.

Furthermore, the process is dynamic, with things changing from year to year.  Sometimes it is driven by changing presidential administrations and sometimes by changes in the balance of Congress. The table below shows some examples of climate legislation efforts, but the list becomes outdated almost as soon as it is created, so consider this more of a historical demonstration than an all-inclusive list.

The role of government is often a contentious issue in policy development. Views on the role of government represent one of the fundamental defining characteristics of how people align themselves politically. While Republican-leaning individuals and companies tend to emphasize a minimal role for government (particularly the federal government), Democratic-leaning individuals often place more stock in the ability of government-led programs to be successful and cost-effective. This course isn't about deciding whether one of those views is right or wrong - there are valid elements in each approach. What we hope you take away from this material is first, that there is a role for our government in the context of energy policy. Given that governments are at a minimum charged with helping to protect the welfare of their citizens, energy and climate change are essential considerations and require some government involvement, even if it is just oversight. Second, regardless of how much of a role you think they should play, the government is involved, and so it is important for us to understand how they impact policy development, implementation, and enforcement.

As we've discussed earlier, climate policy is energy policy - and often actions we can implement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are cost-saving and carry additional ancillary benefits. It's no surprise, then, that in the absence of federal climate policy, smaller-scale bodies of government are working hard to address these challenges in their own regions, states, and localities.

We find ourselves at a tumultuous point in US climate policy history. Retreating from the commitments of the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Agreements and renewed investment in the fossil fuel industry puts us at odds with what the scientific community understands about climate change and the actions we must take to address it. As you can imagine, in the years (decades, really) prior to 2015, the very noticeable absence of federal leadership on this problem created a void that smaller geographic scales just couldn't ignore. The next several pages of this lesson will take you through the climate policy efforts that emerged at a variety of sub-national geographic scales and introduce you to new ones growing out of the intervals of stalled progress we've seen in the past several years with federal climate policy.

Addressing climate and energy challenges at smaller scales of government offers a degree of flexibility in the strategies implemented to solve the problems, which are best suited to a particular place in a way that a blanket federal approach would fail to accommodate. It affords policy makers the opportunity to explicitly tailor plans to the economic, social, and environmental factors and incorporate these place-based nuances into their decision-making process. However, the piecemeal approach also leaves room for inconsistency and for leakage of emissions from more stringently regulated states to those that are more lax, and it may fail to spur innovation across all states. This was really what was so innovative (and smart) about the Clean Power Plan's design; it was structured to strategically have the best of both worlds - a federal program with national targets that allows states to choose their own pathways to meeting reduction goals.

As you go through the various sub-national scales of climate action, think about where you live and what action, if any, your region, state, or municipality has taken. Do you live in an active region? Or, is there a lot of work to do? Maybe that's work you will want to do when you graduate!

Without national climate policy, regional efforts sprout up

Despite the federal government's ability to enact comprehensive climate legislation to mandate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (the IRA should lead to emissions reductions, but does not mandate it), much of the United States is moving forward to address climate change.

There are 3 Regional Programs committed to greenhouse gas reduction, which together represent 23 states and 4 Canadian provinces, and account for half the US population and more than a third of US greenhouse gas emissions. This too is often in flux as to specific players and actions, and we suggest these sources a great places to get up-to-date information.

US State Carbon Pricing Policies

Carbon Pricing Dashboard

These programs represent a widespread interest in mandatory greenhouse gas reduction across the country. As you look at the participating states and provinces, you'll see a wide diversity of politics, resource consumption, economies, and environmental concerns. Their willingness to address climate issues represents not only an acknowledgment of the problem but also an acceptance of the challenge of solving the problems while juggling economic and political considerations. Because the states are all so varied, addressing climate change at this sub-national scale represents an opportunity for the states to tailor their programs specifically to their assets and handicaps.

State Participants in Regional Greenhouse Gas Programs Around the United States

Click Here for Text alternative to regional greenhouse gas programs image

Regional Greenhouse Gas Programs

Program	Participant(s)
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and TCI	Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania (new as of 2022 via Executive Order by Governor Wolf)
Midwest GHG Reduction Accord	Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas
MGGRA Observer	Ohio, Indiana, South Dakota
Western Climate Initiative	Washington, Montana, Oregon, California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico
Western Climate Initiative Observer	Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Alaska

Credit: U.S. Regional Cap-and-Trade Programs. World Resources Institute (WRI). January 15, 2009

Many states across the country have drafted, adopted, and implemented state-level climate action plans. Some states have done this as part of their commitment to regional initiatives. In addition to making the progress we need now to address the climate crisis, these state level efforts might just spur federal action, too.

How does state climate action take shape? In many cases, state-level policy makers and stakeholders enlist the assistance of external organizations and consultants to help them determine an appropriate list of actions and policies the state could adopt, to achieve climate goals. Often this process begins with an inventory of the state's greenhouse gas emissions across sectors, and then the adoption of reduction targets. It's quite similar to how actions arise at larger scales. Groups such as the Center for Climate Strategies come in and meet with relevant state stakeholders to scope inventories and devise strategies for emissions reduction and cost savings.

When the Trump Administration came into office and started the procedure to eventually withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement and dismantled the Clean Power Plan, states took notice.  Many had already been preparing for the coming Clean Power Plan requirements, and therefore weren't going to suddenly backtrack on those investments simply because the federal political winds had changed.  States are often better at seeing the ancillary economic and environmental benefits, are moving forward as if the plan were still in place.

In Pennsylvania, Governor Wolf signed an executive order in January 2019 to address climate change and conserve energy, and eventually signed an Executive Order joining RGGI in 2022.  RGGI was controversial in the largely conservative state legislature, though and in November 2025, Governor Shapiro agreed to repeal legislation facilitating Pennsylvania's participation in the regional program in part to resolve a budget impasse.  Governor Shapiro hoped that taking RGGI off the table would lead to renewed dialogue in clean energy policy at the state level, but that has yet to materialize.  

• If you're interested, you can read more from the Natural Resources Defense Council about the PA RGGI Repeal.

Local Governments Solving A Global Problem

While we tend to think of climate change as a global problem, the solutions are often highly localized in nature. Therefore, it makes sense that local governments take action to reduce emissions and develop sustainable energy solutions. To an even larger extent than state governments, local scale climate change mitigation efforts offer supreme flexibility for creating solutions tailored specifically to local circumstance. Whether it's an old coal mining town in the northeast hoping to revitalize its economy with newer energy technologies or a farm town in the Midwest seeking additional revenue sources for its small-scale agricultural producers, local action empowers people because they are able to feel more connected to what is happening.

And the story of local action has never been more important than it is right now. Early local action efforts rose out of dissatisfaction with the US decision not to actively participate in the Kyoto Protocol more than 20 years ago. Local municipalities and states filled the void left by a lack of federal leadership on climate change. During the Obama presidency, that void was filled in a bit with hallmark achievements, including the Clean Power Plan and the ratification of the Paris Agreement. Then the U.S. again found itself with an alternative approach on climate action during the Trump Administration, and states, municipalities, and private businesses all recognized the best path forward for continuity was to take their own action.

• Notably, the We Are Still In campaign is a pledge of American businesses, non-profits, universities, and municipalities who remained committed to achieving the reductions outlined in the Paris Agreement no matter what is happening at the federal level.
• The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy is a worldwide alliance of more than 7,500 cities and towns committed to climate action and provides resources for both inventorying emissions and enacting climate action plans to reduce them.
• The US EPA's Local Climate and Energy Program helps local governments around the country reduce emissions and meet other sustainability goals through training and competitive grants. Check out their website to learn more about what's going on where you live (perhaps you'd like to discuss this with your classmates).
• The International Council for Local Environment Initiatives (ICLEI) has been around since 1990. Their climate program is but one of many sustainability-driven initiatives the Council runs. Their Climate Program is structured into 3 areas - Mitigation, Adaptation, and Advocacy - recognizing that all parts are necessary if we're to address the totality of the problem. Specifically, their Cities for Climate Protection campaign has gained notoriety for drawing more than 1,000 members from local governments all over the world. ICLEI members can draw on an extensive network of in-house research, training programs, and the support of other members as they devise strategies for handling climate policy at their local government level. Signatories to the Global Covenant are able to access ICLEI's ClearPath software for free to conduct local GHG inventories.
• The Urban Sustainability Directors' Network joins together folks working on sustainability issues in towns and cities across the country. This focused group allows them to share ideas and best practices about programs and approaches that work.

What about your community? What's going on there? If not, maybe it's time for you to change that! You could start by reviewing some of the resources above, which provide a wealth of suggestions and models, as well as best practices. It only takes one person to get something going, especially at the local level!

Penn State is home to the Local Climate Action Program (co-directed by course author and instructor, Brandi Robinson) which partners students like you with local government officials around the state to conduct greenhouse gas emissions inventories and engage in climate action planning.  If you're interested in spending two semesters taking an intensive dive into local climate policy, let's talk!  Since 2022, the program has worked with more than 30 municipalities and counties and 70 students (about half of whom are from ESP and RESS!).  Local governments often want and need to work on climate but lack the capacity to do the work.  LCAP creates an experiential learning opportunity for students to build capacity while providing you as students with transferable skills and experience.  Everyone wins!

While climate change has not historically been a politically divisive issue until recent years, the fiercely partisan divide as it currently exists makes garnering the support necessary for meaningful change very challenging. 

Despite Congressional stalemates to produce meaningful, broadly-scoped legislation to address greenhouse gas emissions, President Obama utilized executive authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act based on the landmark 2007 Supreme Court ruling that categorizes carbon dioxide as a threat to human health. In doing so, he directed the EPA to establish rules for both new coal-fired power plants, and perhaps more controversially, for existing coal-fired power plants (in what became known as the Clean Power Plan). The former was viewed by environmentalists as a bit of a lame duck policy, since you could argue that in 2014, it seems silly to be building ANY new coal-fired power plants. But to regulate the 600+ existing facilities in the country - this could have wide-reaching implications for not only emissions themselves, but also how we as a nation view and value the carbon cost of our energy generation.

The Trump Administration rolled back the Clean Power Plan and implemented the Affordable Clean Energy Plan, which significantly neutered the original legislation. This afforded states more authority to choose to regulate (or not regulate) the emissions from their power plants, citing executive overreach of the Clean Power Plan's structure. As we know, during the Biden era, the main federal climate policy has been the Inflation Reduction Act, though the Infrastructure Investment Act also addressed emissions. In 2025, One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) repealed and scaled back many of the clean energy and climate provisions of the IRA.  Some of the more notable rollbacks included the discontinuation of federal tax credits for residential renewable energy and energy efficiency credits, clean vehicle tax credits, and more.

But what did the rollback really mean for overall emissions reductions? 

It depends on where you are.

This NY Times summary provides an excellent overview (and these great maps!) of what the rollback (and eventual repeal) would really mean. Remember, a lot of actions were already set into motion before the Trump Administration rolled back the requirements. So for some states, moving forward regardless of the current political winds just makes good economic sense based on recent investments. As interesting as this study was, it is now almost ten years old, and we are two Administrations beyond.  It would be an interesting exercise to revisit!

You can learn more about the Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule that lays out the specifics for regulation under the Clean Air Act, as well as a brief history timeline of this action. EPA went on to structure the proposed rules to afford states the flexibility to meet their emission standards through the employment of a cap-and-trade system or carbon tax. And while these efforts would have certainly been smaller in reach than an economy-wide system, because these stationary sources are such a big part of the emissions profile, the potential GHG reductions are profound.

The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions offers this list (required) of ways in which Congress can work to achieve GHG emissions reductions without necessarily explicitly crafting climate policy.

In this lesson, we've learned about climate and energy policy at all scales of government, from local municipalities to intergovernmental panels. Climate change is unlike many other environmental challenges, in that it is a global issue. So, while we can all work separately to achieve reductions in greenhouse gases locally, we can't fully address the problem without global cooperation.

Global cooperation on anything is a challenge in itself. Integrating the disparate interests, intentions, and abilities of all the world's nations and finding a path forward is daunting to even consider. As the Kyoto Protocol experience illustrated, we really need to all be in this together. Will climate change be the ultimate tragedy of the commons? Will some countries recognize the economic potential of developing large-scale renewable energy technologies and out-compete us on the global stage? Will the US rise to the challenge of addressing climate change? These are not questions we can answer easily in one lesson or one course. But these will be the types of questions you may encounter throughout your own careers.

Yearly Meetings of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties

Each year since 1995, the UNFCCC's Conference of the Parties (COP) gathers to discuss a global response to climate change - both in terms of mitigating future climate change through emissions reductions and adapting to the change we're already committed to experiencing thanks to present and past emissions. (COP 1 was in Berlin, Germany in 1995.) For many years, it seemed that the venue was the only thing that really changed at the annual climate talks. Until Paris.

Paris 2015: The year we finally did something.

At the COP 21 in Paris in late 2015, participating countries signed a landmark agreement to contain global average temperature warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (with an ultimate goal of keeping it much closer to 1.5 degrees). Unlike the framework used to develop the Kyoto commitments 20 years ago, one of the most important developments which led to the success of getting 195 countries in agreement in Paris was to focus less on this developed vs. developing country designation for responsibility for reducing emissions. Instead, many of the largest emitting developing countries (like China and India) have come together to acknowledge the role they, too, must play in reducing global emissions. The agreement acknowledges that developed countries must take the lead in reducing emissions, but it does not absolve developing countries of setting and meeting targets. You can read the entirety of the Paris Agreement on the UNFCCC website. And while the Trump Administration withdrew the US from the Agreement, the rest of the world marched boldly on - recognizing the gravity and urgency of the climate crisis we collectively face - until the Biden Administration entered the U.S. back in on his first day in office, 20 January 2021. Until the Biden Adminstration signed on, the US was the only country to not be party to the Agreement, after the other remaining holdouts - Nicaragua and Syria - had signed on a few years prior.

UNFCCC leaders celebrate the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

Credit: Arnaud Bouissou - MEDDE. Adoption of the Paris Agreement at COP 21 in Paris. United Nations. July 20, 2016.  CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0.

COP30 - Belém

In an attempt to recover from the disappointments of Baku, Belem did establish an agreement to mobilizing $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 from developed nations and "other contributors" (read: private investment).  They also tripled commitments to adaptation financing, which is very important.  The longer and less stringent our mitigation efforts, the more important adaptation becomes in our overall response to climate change. If you're interested in what some of these documents look like, here is a summary list of the Outcomes from Belem.

COP29 - Baku

The expectation for COP29 in Baku was that it was the Climate Finance COP. The hope was that the industrialized, wealthy global north (including many petrol states) would come to the table prepared to commit the funding to climate adaptation and loss & damages, largely for the developing economies who are simultaneously more vulnerable to climate change and less able to bear the burden of its costs.  After tense debates that ran past the closing of the meeting itself, the agreements fell short.  Developed countries agreed to mobilize about $300 billion annually by 2035 for developing nations under the New Collective Quantified Goal; which was about 25% of the estimated $1.3 trillion it will take to truly address the issue.  Here is a nice summary from the Clean Air Task Force about the takeaways from COP29.

COP28 - Dubai

COP28 was in Dubai, the heart of the oil and gas producing world.  And while that may seem counterintuitive or contradictory to you (as it did to me at first), I would like to argue that it was exactly the right place to have these important conversations.  UAE hosting COP led to historic participation from the energy industry and ultimately, if we're going to decarbonize the global economy, the energy industry must be part of that solution. There were several key takeaways from this COP I'll draw your attention to:

• The establishment of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP).  This helps to more intentionally integrate subnational climate efforts into nationally determined contribution development and implementation across the almost 80 member states.  The United States was an initial member, but is no longer actively engaged after withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC more broadly in 2025. I'll admit, as someone who works on local climate issues, seeing the commitment to subnational efforts on the global stage at this meeting was nothing short of inspiring! 
   
• It was the first time that the COP agreed to language to "transition away from" fossil fuels.  This fell short of "phase out fossil fuels" which was what many negotiators wanted, but again these meetings are consensus-based, not majority and so getting the entire world to agree to transition away from fossil fuels as they sat in one of the most prolific fossil fuel producing countries in the world is still an historic accomplishment.  You can read more about this language in the UNFCCC's Press Release post-COP28.

COP 27 - Sharm-el Sheikh

One of the important outcomes of COP 27 was the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund, which "allocates money to assist low and middle-income countries respond to climate disasters" according to Reuters. There was also some movement on limiting or eliminating the use of coal. If you would like to learn more, check out Reuters summary of the economic impact

COP 26 - Glasgow

Some important agreements were made in Glasgow in 2020. This includes the Glasgow Pact, which - though not containing any binding requirements - recognizes the importance of immediate and sustained action in a number of ways, including providing funding for mitigation and adaptation, as well as moving away from fossil fuels. If you'd like to learn more, check out the UN Summary of agreements and deficiencies.

COP 25 - Madrid

COP 26 in Madrid, Spain was a mixed bag of successes and failures to reach an agreement. If you'd like to learn more, check out the Carbon Brief summary.

COP 24 - The Kawotice Rulebook

If you'd like to learn more, check out the December 2018 COP Meeting Outcomes. Despite the US plans to withdrawal formally from the Paris Agreement, the rest of the world remains committed to achieving the Paris Agreement goals.  

COP Meetings Leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement

Lima 2014

Lima set the stage for the success of the Paris talks. The Lima Call for Climate Action laid the foundation for the idea that the agreements reached in Paris would be binding for both developed and developing countries. Nothing agreed upon in Lima really had any strong enforcement behind it, it was merely a stepping stone for what was expected to come in Paris the following year.

Delegates to the Lima COP20 gather in late 2014.

Credit: COP 20 - UN Climate Change Conference - Lima by UNclimatechange is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

Warsaw 2013

Participants have agreed to stay on track to adopt a new 'universal climate agreement' in 2015, which will be implemented no later than 2020. In preparation for this, countries have been instructed to begin working on logistics at home in advance of the next COP in Peru so that everything will be set by 2015 in Paris. Another big outcome of this meeting was the decision to increase funding for vulnerable countries experiencing damage and hardships from severe weather events and rising sea levels.

Warsaw COP Meeting

Credit: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Doha 2012

Like many of the meetings before it, a primary point of debate for this series of talks is the developing and developed country classifications for the purpose of emission reduction and adaptation funding responsibility. Near the end of the meeting, participating countries finally adopted the agenda of the Durban Platform.

Doha Climate Change COP Meeting

Credit: UNclimatechange from Flickr is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Durban 2011

The most significant development to come out of this Conference of Parties was the Durban Platform. For the first time in global climate negotiations, this document sets for binding targets for all parties. This is a significant deviation from earlier agreements and incremental progress that has focused primarily on the developed/developing country divide.

Durban COP 2011

Credit: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Cancun 2010

This meeting followed the disappointments of the 2009 Copenhagen meeting as member countries left without making any real, solid progress on post-Kyoto plans for global reductions in emissions. The hopes for Copenhagen had been high - the US had a sitting president (Obama) who expressed interest in the importance of climate legislation, and had the Congressional backing to do so. But, the high hopes of Copenhagen were eventually met with disappointment, as that meeting failed to produce a binding climate deal. (If you aren't sure why it failed, it may be helpful to read why did Copenhagen fail to deliver a climate deal?) Therefore, expectations going into the Cancun negotiations were much more measured and conservative. This means that they did not tackle some of the broad, contentious issues that have held up previous meetings, but instead focused on some important, more narrowly defined issues.

Some outcomes of the Cancun Climate Negotiations include:

• stricter and more detailed reporting guidelines for measuring, reporting, and verifying greenhouse gas emission mitigation efforts;
• $30 billion in aid through 2012 (called 'fast-start' funding) and eventually $100 billion in public/private funding annually by 2020 for mitigation efforts;
• developing national strategies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (known as REDD).

Cancun COP 2010

Credit: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

In this lesson, we've explored the connection between energy policy and climate policy. Climate change mitigation is a relatively new consideration for energy policy, but the ancillary benefits from enacting policies to curb anthropogenic climate change often overlap with goals of modern energy policy like improved efficiency, decreased dependence on foreign oil, air quality improvement, and job creation. We introduced the idea of scale of governance as a key factor in climate policy considerations, as it will factor particularly predominantly in this SP 2020 offering of the course with our local scale climate action planning project. We'll get into a bit more detail later this semester, primarily through assigned readings, but this lesson was intended to give you an overview of the interconnected nature of climate and energy and get you thinking about scale. Geography matters!

Important Concepts to take away from this lesson

• Climate policy inherently is energy policy - At a high level, because so much of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions results from the combustion of fossil fuels to meet our energy needs, any policy to address climate change has substantial consequences for energy policy as well.
• Climate policy is happening at every scale - local climate change efforts enjoy the specificity of really addressing a place's unique circumstances, while national-scale policies have the benefit of influencing international agreements on the issue. Regional efforts combine the like-minded goals of geographically clustered states to address climate issues and take advantage of regionally specific resources and talent in the absence of more direction from the federal government. It is the combined efforts at all scales that will allow us to tackle the problem holistically. Our lawmakers may be unwilling to address greenhouse gas emissions at a large scale, but there are other legislative courses of action, namely through the Clean Air Act, that we can pursue. Perhaps they aren't as efficient or practical, but they are likely better than nothing.
• Climate action can occur without policy – On the point of climate action happening at every scale, we see that actions can be taken, and are being taken, regardless of where the policy stands. 

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Local GHG emissions vary tremendously from place to place, depending on each area’s biophysical, socioeconomic, and cultural contexts. For example, a college town in central Pennsylvania (hey, I know one of those!) will have a significantly different emissions profile than an agricultural area in southwestern Kansas or an industrial city in northwestern Ohio. Indeed, each place’s GHG emissions profile is unique, but a few important sources appear in most locales. Those sources are energy use, transportation, waste disposal, and land use.

Local energy use is complex and varies with the specific type of user: residential, industrial, or commercial.

Residential: The graph below shows how we're using energy in our homes here in the United States. More than half of it is to heat and cool our spaces (which means this also represents our biggest opportunities to reduce energy demand through gains in efficiency or moderated use). Understanding our energy consumption at home empowers us to make decisions that lower our utility bills and reduce our demand.

Residential GHG emissions are extremely important in both their quantities and their symbolism. Symbolically, residential emissions are vital because almost every person has a primary residence and has (some) control over his or her energy use and resulting GHG emissions. Large opportunities exist in reducing household energy consumption. Local emissions obviously vary with climate, socioeconomic status, energy systems, and more.

Our energy use at home is determined by a variety of factors. EIA points them out on their Energy Use In Homes page:

• Location - hey look, geography matters! (spoiler alert - geography always matters!) Your climate will dictate your heating and cooling needs, and we already determined those are the biggest piece of our energy use pie.
• Type of housing - Maybe your apartment is snuggled in among others and stays pretty cozy in the winter without needing to crank the heat too much. Or, maybe you rent a house where you can see the blinds and curtains move when the wind blows because it's so drafty.
• Devices - we're adding devices to our daily lives all the time. These all require energy.
• Household size - this is an interesting one because there are some efficiency gains to be made by more people living in one spot than occupying separate individual spaces that need to be heated/cooled separately, but that is then offset by the increased demand on laundry, hot water for showers, running the dishwasher more frequently, etc. 

Do you know what kind of energy sources are used to power your home? Check out this visualization from Carbon Brief illustrating electricity sources across the US.

 

Credit: US EIA Residential Energy Consumption Survey (2020). U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). (Public Domain)

Industrial uses of energy reflect their GHG emissions. Utilities emit the most GHGs; manufacturing emits the next greatest proportion; mining and related extractive industries emit a smaller yet still significant proportion; and all other industrial activities emit a small quantity of GHGs. Manufacturing involves hundreds of products and processes including such diverse activities as dog food manufacturing, yarn spinning, house slipper manufacturing, ethyl alcohol manufacturing, and lime manufacturing. Local manufacturing can be specific and unique, meaning that local GHG emissions from manufacturing can also be specific and unique. For instance, because Seattle is home to Boeing’s main production facilities, emissions from aircraft manufacturing is unusually dominant in that city.

Millions of commercial enterprises consume energy daily. Keeping the commercial space comfortable for employees and customers through lighting, space heating, and ventilation consumes much of the energy, though these percentages are fluctuating as energy efficiency in various areas improves. For example, a decade ago, lighting was 25% of the total consumption. Commercial food preparation also uses a large amount of energy. While local commercial energy use and GHG emissions are unique, there is a remarkable uniformity in commercial enterprises across modern society. For local scale inventorying work, commercial energy consumption typically generates a 'low-hanging fruit' opportunity to reduce emissions and save building owners/occupants money by doing so. The data in the table below represent the most recent finalized data published by EIA. A more recent Commercial Energy Survey was conducted in 2018 (see Preliminary Results), but the space heating demand shown below has not yet been released (c'mon, EIA!).

Institutions, which include such diverse entities as government buildings, prisons, military facilities, and schools, colleges, and universities, are important consumers of energy and emitters of GHGs (and are considered commercial buildings). Each local institution has a unique energy use pattern and GHG emissions profile, but, until recently, construction of most institutional buildings focused on building costs and not on energy efficiency. The net result is that the institutional sector tends to waste energy; large opportunities for energy savings and GHG reductions exist.

Local land use varies dramatically over space and time. Different places use their land for agriculture, commerce, industry, transportation, mining, forestry, or conservation. Some places have mixed land use, whereas other places have only one or two primary land uses. Each land use is associated with a particular GHG emissions pattern. Cropland emits relatively large amounts of nitrous oxide from the surface, while pastureland emits relatively large amounts of methane from cattle and other ruminants; feedlots emit much greater concentrations of methane than pastures. Forests tend to be sinks for carbon dioxide, but clear-cutting and then burning of the wood releases significant amounts of this GHG. Urbanized and suburbanized areas are hotbeds for GHG emissions: they emit large quantities of GHGs through residential, commercial, institutional, and possibly industrial activities; urban transportation activities similarly emit huge amounts of GHGs; even suburban fertilized lawns emit nitrous oxide. Thus, localities must account for their land-use emissions when addressing climate change.

Many different actors are promoting local mitigation. Four important –– or potentially important –– actors are local government, universities, business, and environmental, social, and faith-based organizations.

Local government and politicians have taken leadership for local mitigation at thousands of locations around the world. Perhaps the best case of local government leadership is the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. More than 1,000 mayors have signed the Agreement, committing to the following three actions (Mayors Climate Protection Center, 2011) (Note that since this was signed, the Kyoto Protocol has expired and been superseded by the Paris Agreement):

• strive to meet the Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities, through a variety of context-relevant actions;
• urge their state governments and the Federal government to enact policies and programs to meet the United States GHG emission reduction target suggested by the Kyoto Protocol;
• urge the U.S. Congress to pass bipartisan GHG reduction legislation establishing a national emissions trading system.

Universities have proven to be key agents in local mitigation efforts (Knuth et al., 2007). As large institutions, universities emit significant amounts of GHGs and have the expertise to quantify those emissions. They provide moral leadership by developing their own mitigation plans. University researchers develop new GHG inventory and mitigation techniques. Universities educate students about climate change and GHG emissions, often facilitating community outreach involving students. They also often provide scientific expertise to local governments and other local actors to help these entities develop climate mitigation plans. In the U.S. alone, hundreds of universities are engaged in climate change mitigation.

Numerous non-profit, non-governmental environmental organizations are involved in local mitigation efforts, including the following three notable examples.

1. ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability started with 14 international cities in the mid-1990s. Today, this program provides climate mitigation guidance to hundreds of cities around the world, including a couple hundred in America. ICLEI also serves as the focal point for the Local Government and Multilevel Action constituency group to the UNFCCC.  The State College Borough, Ferguson Township, and the Centre Region are all ICLEI members. There are many others throughout the state, too! I work closely with ICLEI as part of the Penn State Local Climate Action Program (which you'll learn more about on another page in this lesson).  
    
2. Cool Air-Clean Planet is a U.S.-based organization that partners with companies, campuses, communities, and science centers to help reduce their GHG emissions.
    
3. The Center for Climate Strategies has helped at least 40 state governments, their officials, and their stakeholders build consensus and take action on climate change. Their work extends beyond the US, and they're doing low emissions development planning around the world.

We are!  Reducing Emissions!

As we think about the unique opportunities that local scale climate action affords, it's worth exploring the unusual localities that are our university and college campuses.  Well-delineated and largely autonomous, university campuses offer a different perspective on emissions accounting and reduction efforts.  Beyond that, universities and colleges are home to the front lines of education and research related to climate change, and so it makes sense that their campuses could serve as living laboratories for addressing these important contemporary climate challenges.

Penn State has been tracking its greenhouse gas emissions annually since 2002.  Fun fact: some of the initial work on this effort as well as their early mitigation planning was born out of the Department of Geography! As you can see in this graph below, not only is your university tracking its emissions, it has adopted relatively aggressive reduction targets and is working toward meeting them. It takes a lot of different efforts and initiatives, each working together, to pull that emissions trend downward. There is no magic carbon bullet here to save us - we must take aggressive incremental action to achieve our reduction goals. The recent Solar Power Purchase Agreement was the biggest piece of that puzzle in a while, and it will continue to pull that curve down by supplying 25% of the university's electricity needs, but even that is just a portion of the story.

Caption: Annual GHG emissions by sector for Penn State through 2019 and projected through 2050  

Credit: Penn State Sustainability

You can learn more about the GHG Emissions Inventories (they track them for all 24 Commonwealth campuses, too!) and other sustainability-related initiatives here at Penn State by visiting Penn State Sustainability.  You can also track other sustainability metrics (including waste and water consumption).

In April 2020, the University Faculty Senate* passed a climate action resolution calling for the administration to take the following actions:

1. develop a university-wide climate action and adaptation plan
2. reduce purchased electricity emissions by 100% by 2030
3. reduce net GHG emissions by 100% by 2035
4. increase investment in initiatives focused on climate science, solutions, and management
5. engage peer institutions to raise awareness and reduce impacts of a changing climate

It's important to understand that Faculty Senate resolutions are non-binding. So even though this passed quite handily (the vote was 104-14), it didn't have any teeth in that it didn't then REQUIRE that the university do anything with it). It's more of a visible and tangible expression of the collective will of the faculty. And while they didn't have to do anything with it, I can tell you that (1) the administration knew it was coming and was supportive of it being taken up by the Senate and (2) have since started taking action! The administration has convened a carbon emissions reductions task force that is meeting regularly and working to develop an action plan. The prior instructor of this class, Brandi Robinson, was the author of this climate action resolution! While it was a collective effort with colleagues at the Sustainability Institute, she was able to bring it to her Senate colleagues for a vote!

One of the things about Penn State is that because it is so big, it can be very difficult to keep track of everything that's going on. The Sustainability Institute website has this nice summary of ongoing initiatives related to climate and sustainability, which may be of interest to you.

What about other colleges and universities?

Penn State is certainly not unique in its pursuit of ambitious environmental initiatives and greenhouse gas reduction efforts. However, Penn State was one of the early pioneers in this space. It's exciting to see the breadth and depth of work happening in this space now in a variety of formats:

• AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education)
• PERC (Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium)
• Second Nature's University Climate Change Coalition
• Harvard - fossil fuel-free by 2050 and more recently the Harvard faculty votes to divest from fossil fuels
• Top Universities for Climate Action
• We Are Still In -University Climate Change Coalition

But, that's not to say we couldn't be doing more.

Supporting Community Efforts to Address a Changing Climate

From 2018-2021, the DEP partnered with ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability to offer training to PA local governments interested in pursuing climate action in a program they called the Local Climate Action Program (or, LCAP).  They structured this by working with faculty and students from colleges and universities around the state.  Students were helping local governments complete greenhouse gas emissions inventories and draft climate action plans.  Talk about awesome real world experience in a class!

Then in 2021, DEP offered Penn State the opportunity to take over LCAP.  We enthusiastically said yes, and Peter Buck and I have been co-directing the program ever since!  We have now worked with almost 40 local governments - mostly municipalities but some regional orgs, counties, and even the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources over 4 academic years and 70 students to do greenhouse gas emissions inventories and support climate planning.  About half of the students who've completed the program with us have been World Campus students in ESP and RESS!  

Local governments are on the front lines of the impacts of climate change and up to 70% of carbon emissions occur in cities.  So it makes perfect sense that we'd try to tackle this problem at this scale too.  Now, not everything is under the jurisdictional control of a local government, but they do have particular influence in land use planning which directly corresponds to the resulting transportation emissions and sequestration opportunities.  Beyond that, working on climate at the local level gives us a chance to help the places we live, work, and play be better prepared for a changing climate.  And now, with the rise of AI energy demand and the rush to build out data center campuses, local governments once again find themselves in the middle of energy and climate decision-making.

In this lesson, you learned about local GHG emissions and mitigation. Specifically, you found that each place has a different energy profile, but that nearly every place has important contributions from energy use, transportation, waste disposal, and land use. You saw that local energy use varies greatly among industrial, residential, commercial, institutional, agricultural, and other users. You explored ways that industrial, residential, commercial, institutional, waste disposal, and land-use practices contribute to local GHG emissions. You discovered that local governments, universities, businesses, and environmental, social, and faith-based organizations are leading local efforts to mitigate GHG emissions. You thought about the fact that a place’s emissions are a function of local physical properties and the drivers of GHG emissions (technology, economics, politics, and culture, and you observed that a place's mitigation plans are a function of local economics, politics, and culture.

Despite all of these incredibly important reasons to address climate change causes at the local scale, it's also really important to understand that it's limited. We have, after all, one atmosphere--action or inaction anywhere in the world will contribute to the global climate picture. That is why it is so important to engage as many as possible. This is also a great example of “think globally, act locally” in that it will be the sum total of many actions that will have notable impact.

Even if Pennsylvania, one of the most energy-intensive states in the country, suddenly went carbon neutral, we alone can't halt climate impact. Even if the entire US became carbon neutral, it would not halt climate impacts. As you think about the role of local governments in reducing emissions, think too about the role that those actions play in spurring action at wider scales of governance as well. We need bottom-up and top-down approaches to truly address the challenges of transitioning to a low carbon economy.

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In 2009, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication published Global Warming's Six Americas which identified these 6 categories into which the American public falls based on their cultural, ideological, political, and other reasons for responding in a given way to the science of climate change.  They continue to update this study regularly and have greatly expanded upon the depth and breadth of the questions asked.  We'll use this framework this week as we think about the importance of engaging our entire community in our climate change efforts, and not simply those whose ideas might align most closely with our own.

Credit: Michael Sloan. "Global Warming's Six Americas." Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. 

The danger in generalizations: It's important to note that some of the material we'll discuss in this lesson includes generalizations that may not translate to truth at the individual level.  For example, while it's factually correct that more Republican lawmakers deny the existence of climate change than their Democratic counterparts, it is NOT true that all Republicans deny climate change and all Democrats support aggressive action.  So please keep this in mind as we work through some of these generalizations - there are certainly nuances to all of this.  (Check out RepublicEN and Climate Solutions Caucus, for examples.)

But, let's take a look at this graph depicting the League of Conservation Voters' scoring of members of the House and Senate on their environmental voting records from 1970 through 2016 (as recent as I could find comprehensive data for).  The divide is growing, and climate change is a big part of that. What was once roughly a 20 point separation is now about 80.  This graph is an important reminder that climate does not have to be a politically divisive issue, even if it is in our current politics.  Remember, some of the earliest efforts to address climate change involved market-based approaches like cap-and-trade systems sponsored by Republicans like John McCain.  And we can look further into the history of major environmental legislation to find that some of our hallmark laws passed under Republican-controlled administrations, such as the formation of the EPA and many seminal federal policies such as the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act when Richard Nixon was president.

The characteristics for each of these categories is pulled from the 2009 Global Warming's Six Americas research from Yale.

• The Dismissive - they're sure climate change isn't happening (or at the very least is not caused by humans), it's not important to them on a personal level, and they don't worry about it; however, they contend they are well-informed and highly unlikely to change their mind; they think the scientific community does not agree on the causes of climate change or that the scientific consensus is not widespread. Within this group are those who believe that climate change is not happening--a subgroup we could also call climate change deniers.  Note that noat all in. the dismissive group are climate change deniers.
• The Doubtful - these folks aren't sure if it's happening or not, but like the dismissive group, this issue is not important to them on a personal level and they don't worry about it.  While they also believe there is a lot of disagreement among scientists, the Doubtful consider themselves less informed on the issue than the Dismissive. And while the Dismissive group does not see climate change affecting people in the US ever, the Doubtful think it won't affect people in the US for at least 100 years, but that it could after that.  We could also call this group climate change skeptics.
• The Disengaged - this is an interesting group because they identify as the most likely to change their minds on the topic.  So while they haven't previously thought much about the issue broadly or from a personal perspective, and they only know a limited among about it, some disengaged folks do believe people are the cause of the change, but they just don't know enough about it to know whether scientists agree on that.  They give just a 30-year time horizon for impacts to negatively affect the US.
• The Cautious - these people haven't thought too much about the issue, but they are open to the idea that humans are causing the changes we see in the climate.  And while it might not be of high personal importance or perceived threat to them, they recognize the future threat it poses.
• The Concerned - these folks understand the scientific consensus on the issue but are decidedly not as emphatic as the Alarmed.  And while they might not think it's currently a problem for people in the US, they only put the time horizon on it becoming a problem at about 10 years.  Generally, they feel relatively well-informed about the issue, but haven't devoted as much time to it as the Alarmed.
• The Alarmed - this portion of the population is most convinced about climate change; it's very important to them, and they're really worried about it.  They believe themselves to be very well-informed and, much like the Dismissive group on the other side, they are highly unlikely to be persuaded away from their current stance on the issue.  They view climate change as a current threat to themselves and others.

It's important to note that misinformation at either end of the spectrum - either from Alarmists (which could be described as a small faction of the Alarmed category as described by the folks at Yale) or the Dismissive is problematic in advancing sensible and appropriate action to address the causes and consequences of climate change.  For instance, ten years ago, it wasn't yet clear whether climate change would cause more intense and more frequent hurricanes; but we now understand that it is more likely and will continue to do so.  The disagreements among scientists on this topic were pretty intense. Climate alarmists, like their dismissive counterparts, tend to leave little room for doubt or caveats. In contrast, climate scientists tend to be a cautious lot and usually prevaricate by using terms like “likely,” “unlikely,” “possible,” and “probable.” Many of the topics that used to be relegated only to alarmists (such as hurricane intensity) have been proven with rigorous and replicable science, and so the line between a climate change alarmist and centrist is getting a bit blurrier.  

As the current instructor, I would like to add to these points. I have been involved with climate policy and private sector climate action for many years at the local, state, federal, and international level. It is interesting to note that underlying some of the disagreement among the above-mentioned categories of people is the frame of reference. It is important to be on the same page as to what those in these categories are arguing. For example, I have encountered many who are completely on board that climate change is an issue, and believe it is happening, but when the dialogue gets more detailed, disagreement arises. For example, I have noted that the following subtopics tend to be the root of many differences, even among climate change “believers,” but are often mistaken as generalizations of “believers and non-believers.” These include:

• How much of documented climate change is human-induced vs natural?
• Have we examined a long enough period of time to draw conclusions?
• Have we corrected for all possible natural aberrations?
• What are the real impacts of climate change? (What? How severe? For how long?)
• How impactful have global agreements really been vs more local actions?

The point is that substantive dialogue is important to look beyond misinformation and misunderstandings on what people are referring to and what their point of view is.

Take a look at the Climate Opinion Maps the Yale folks produce.  This allows you to explore (by state, county, or congressional district) the prevailing public opinion around a variety of facets of climate change.  

Because the Yale work on surveying public opinion on climate change began more than a decade ago now, it's starting to provide some interesting longitudinal data about how the American perception of climate change is evolving over time.  Let's take a look.  This first graph comes from the original 2009 publication.  

Credit:  Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach and Connie Roser-Renouf. Global Warming's Six Americas, 2009. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. May 20, 2009

One decade later you can see opinions shifting toward concern and alarm:

Credit:  Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. December 2018

And here is December of 2022, which interestingly (and alarmingly) shows that opinion shifted just a bit to the right despite record-breaking heat waves, wildfires, and other signs of climate change:

Click here for a tabular description of the previous 3 images.

There are three images that show the proportion of the U.S. adult population hold specific attitudes towards climate change. The attitudes are, from the highest belief in global warming/most concerned/most motivated to lowest belief in global warming/least concerned/least motivated are alarmed, concerned, cautions, disengaged, doubtful, dismissive. The following table shows the data of each category from 2009, 2018, and 2022.

American's attitude towards climate change over time

Attitude	2009	2018	2022
Alarmed	18	29	26
Concerned	33	30	27
Cautious	19	17	17
Disengaged	12	5	11
Doubtful	11	9	11
Dismissive	7	9	11

Credit:  Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. September 10, 2023

But what does this shift mean for meaningful and effective action to address climate change? We can see that the Alarmed group (which, if you remember, are the folks that unequivocally believe climate change is happening, that humans are the cause of it, and that it's already affecting people in the US) saw the most marked change - jumping from 18% of survey respondents to 29% in 2019 and 26% in 2022.  The 3% and 6% decrease in Concerned individuals is likely at least partially explained by moving from Concerned to Alarmed.  And while these numbers are encouraging from the perspective of engaging in meaningful policy measures to address climate change, there's also something going on at the other end of this spectrum.  The percentage of Dismissive has gone up by 2% then 2% again.  Are we simply becoming more polarized in our views? Take a look at the Disengaged group and remember that they were identified as the group most likely to change their opinion on the topic.  They've gone from 12% to just 5% over one decade, then up to 7%.  It appears that the American people are becoming more solidified in their stance on climate change. It will be interesting to follow these trends as climate policies change from administration to administration, and as weather patterns continue to get weird and "natural" disasters continue to occur. 

Here are five common lines of argument climate change deniers or skeptics may use. These lines tend to be hierarchical. But first, a note about semantics: I use the term "deniers" to refer to individuals who refuse to accept well-founded scientific evidence and/or logic and/or increasingly, basic reality. "Skeptics" are individuals who accept evidence, but who may have some doubts or otherwise would like firm proof. Remember that scientists are skeptics, at least legitimate ones. Skepticism is at the core of the scientific method after all, as the purpose of good science is to try to disprove theories.

1. There is no conclusive evidence that climate change is happening. This argument ignores the global body of scientific research demonstrating that climate change is happening. Alternatively, to counterbalance the overwhelming weight of climate science research, it selectively uses the relatively few inconclusive empirical studies conducted by credible scientists or work written by fellow deniers but discredited by mainstream climate scientists.
2. The changes in measured temperatures are part of the natural cycle. These deniers are admitting that there is climate change, but not that it is anthropogenic. On the surface, this argument is much more plausible than the first argument. However, climate scientists have gone to great lengths to develop methods that show how anthropogenic climate change rises above the natural signal (the so-called “fingerprinting” of climate change). Moreover, some argue that the more important natural cycles should be causing global cooling at present.
3. Climate change and CO₂ are good. Skeptics who take this line of argument are acknowledging that climate change is happening, and that humans may be causing it, but they extoll the virtues of climate change and are skeptical of potential negative impacts. For example, they claim that agriculture will benefit from higher temperatures, increased rainfall, expansion into northern latitudes, and the fertilization effect of CO₂. Climate scientists, ecologists, and agronomists have shown that negative impacts far outweigh positive effects of climate change on agriculture. In fact, the weight of evidence suggests that negative impacts will swamp positive impacts in all sectors.
4. The scale of climate change is not sufficiently large to take action beyond sensible least-cost measures. This line of reasoning accepts that climate change is likely, that it is human-induced, and that most impacts are negative. Nonetheless, these skeptics do not believe that climate change will be as bad as mainstream science thinks it will be. As time goes by, however, observed climate changes are greater, and observed impacts are worse than originally projected by climate scientists. Although most experts agree that it is prudent to use least-cost measures when possible, they also agree that combating climate change cannot be cheap because the scope is so large.
5. The economic impact of making substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions on the scale suggested by the IPCC and other groups is too large. This final line of reasoning by skeptics accepts the conclusions of climate scientists but says that society cannot afford to make the cuts needed to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. Numerous analyses, however, show that the ultimate cost to society of inaction or limited action will be far greater than the cost of robust responses to climate change. Delaying action now necessitates more aggressive action in the future, which is likely to be more expensive.

Senators Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) and John McCain (R-Arizona) authored an early and innovative cap and trade program for US emissions, recognizing the opportunity for a market-based solution to an environmental problem.

Credit: Russell Berman. "Climate Change Bill Will Test McCain-Lieberman Alliance." The New York Sun. June 3, 2008

Today, American politics appears to be polarized, with loud voices on the left and right drowning out anybody in the middle. This tendency extends to views on climate change, with dismissives and alarmists dominating public discourse. As in politics, there are many individuals and organizations in the middle of the climate debate that have difficulty being heard. These so-called climate centrists acknowledge that humans are warming the Earth and that it is prudent to be good stewards of the natural services provided by the climate system. Although their philosophical and political homes may be in the right or left wings, they challenge their peers on the right and left to act on mitigating climate change. They offer innovative, yet common sense solutions to the problem. When all is said and done, our greatest hope may lie with these in the middle.

Sometimes, strong opponents of climate science use dishonest or unethical tactics to counter climate change science. This can create a false equivalency in the climate narrative, in which public news outlets offer equal airtime to dissenting views, which leads viewers to believe that the jury is still out on climate science, and it masks potentially valid dialogue on the nuances with the subtopics we've mentioned.

One of the most condemning indictments of deniers’ culpability is a 2007 publication by the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Smoke, mirrors and hot air: How ExxonMobil uses big tobacco’s tactics to manufacture uncertainty on climate science.” Here is the executive summary from that report:

In an effort to deceive the public about the reality of global warming, ExxonMobil has underwritten the most sophisticated and most successful disinformation campaign since the tobacco industry misled the public about the scientific evidence linking smoking to lung cancer and heart disease. As this report documents, the two disinformation campaigns are strikingly similar. ExxonMobil has drawn upon the tactics and even some of the organizations and actors involved in the callous disinformation campaign the tobacco industry waged for 40 years. Like the tobacco industry, ExxonMobil has:

• Manufactured uncertainty by raising doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence.
• Adopted a strategy of information laundering by using seemingly independent front organizations to publicly further its desired message and thereby confuse the public.
• Promoted scientific spokespeople who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings or cherry-pick facts in their attempts to persuade the media and the public that there is still serious debate among scientists that burning fossil fuels has contributed to global warming and that human-caused warming will have serious consequences.
• Attempted to shift the focus away from meaningful action on global warming with misleading charges about the need for “sound science.”
• Used its extraordinary access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming.

The report documents that, despite the scientific consensus about the fundamental understanding that global warming is caused by carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions, ExxonMobil has funneled about $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of ideological and advocacy organizations that manufacture uncertainty on the issue. Many of these organizations have an overlapping — sometimes identical — collection of spokespeople serving as staff, board members, and scientific advisors. By publishing and republishing the non-peer-reviewed works of a small group of scientific spokespeople, ExxonMobil-funded organizations have propped up and amplified work that has been discredited by reputable climate scientists.

ExxonMobil’s funding of established research institutions that seek to better understand science, policies, and technologies to address global warming has given the corporation “cover,” while its funding of ideological and advocacy organizations to conduct a disinformation campaign works to confuse that understanding. This seemingly inconsistent activity makes sense when looked at through a broader lens. Like the tobacco companies in previous decades, this strategy provides a positive “pro-science” public stance for ExxonMobil that masks their activity to delay meaningful action on global warming and helps keep the public debate stalled on the science rather than focused on policy options to address the problem.

In addition, like Big Tobacco before it, ExxonMobil has been enormously successful at influencing the current administration and key members of Congress. Documents highlighted in this report, coupled with subsequent events, provide evidence of ExxonMobil’s cozy relationship with government officials, which enable the corporation to work behind the scenes to gain access to key decision makers. In some cases, the company’s proxies have directly shaped the global warming message put forth by federal agencies.

As far back as 1978, one of Exxon's own scientists warned that increasing CO₂ emissions could have negative consequences. (Click here for the internal memo from 1978 - it is an interesting, and surprisingly accurate!) You can see a timeline of many of Exxon's (now Exxon-Mobil) warnings about climate change and actions resisting efforts to address it from Greenpeace here.

There are many sad conclusions that emerge from this and other efforts of deniers. Scientists have had their research vilified and their motives and ethics questioned. The public has become distrustful of scientists and as a result has grown increasingly skeptical about climate change. Ultimately, deniers’ tactics have delayed mitigation and worsened climate change, with the public suffering the consequences. 

As clear cut as this sounds, the Union of Concerned Scientists has itself experienced challenges as to their motives and accuracy. All this simply means is that the Climate Citizen has a responsibility to be informed, and willing to do the work necessary to get there.

Listen in as the University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann (formerly a Penn State professor) discusses How Climate Change Denial is Ruining Our Planet on WPSU.

Exploration into climate change can be really fascinating.  If we have any hope of addressing the problem effectively, we need to understand the motivations of various actors, including the public.  Ultimately, the public puts elected officials in office, and therefore drive the policy narrative to some extent. And while the Yale framework of Six Americas provides us with a useful way of thinking about the issue, particularly in terms of how to frame the discussions depending on someone's ideology, it's important to always remember that we're all in this together, and it will take all of us to solve the problem.  The key is identifying those pieces of the climate change story that resonate with people who perhaps vote differently than we do, come from different cultural or educational backgrounds, or simply just hold different views.  Because so much of the action we take to solve the climate crisis has numerous cobenefits related to human health, environmental quality, and economic prosperity, it's actually not a big stretch to make the case for action.

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To understand what drives policy development, we need to think about the geographic scales of influence on any given body that may develop and implement policy. A useful framework for this is to think about vertical and horizontal policy diffusion.

• Vertical policy diffusion occurs when a policy mechanism adopted at one scale of governance transfers to others (and this can occur in either direction). An example might be a state adopting ambitious Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards for fuel economy, which are then adopted by the federal government. In this example, the policy mechanism (CAFE standards) moves from the state to the federal level - or diffuses vertically.
  
  This makes a lot of sense, and not just in issues related to climate change. Sometimes we try things out at one scale as a bit of a pilot for what it might look like at a larger scale. This was true with the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) at the state level - that was widely thought to be a testing ground for a national RPS system that never came about. We are a constitutional republic, not a traditional simple democracy, so states have certain unique rights and freedoms, including self-governance to an extent, relative to Federal requirements. This allows states that have compelling reasons or a desire to try something new for its own benefit, to get out ahead of the Federal action.
• Horizontal policy diffusion occurs when a policy mechanism adopted at a scale of governance transfers to other areas at that same scale. An example of this might be a state adopting renewable portfolio standards after seeing a neighboring state do so, or a municipality choosing to set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target after learning about success in other municipalities around the country. In this example, the policy mechanisms are staying at the same geographic scale, but diffusing horizontally outward to other entities at that same scale.
  
  It's not just policy where we look to our peers to see how they're handling a particular challenge or issue, so this is no surprise that policy creation would follow a similar pattern. Being able to speak to the success of a policy mechanism in a similar application elsewhere lends credibility and can assuage concerns about effectiveness, popularity with constituents, or costs.

Horizontal and Vertical Reinforcement in Global Climate Governance (Martin Jänicke, 2015)

Credit: Martin Jänicke. Horizontal and Vertical Reinforcement in Global Climate Governance. MDPI. June 16, 2015

Both types of policy diffusion are critical to addressing the global climate challenges we face. The Obama era Clean Power Plan - while inherently a federal policy, it offered states wide-ranging flexibility in how they'd set and meet their targets, including the opportunity to collaborate regionally. This illustrates both vertical and horizontal policy diffusion. The Paris Agreement is another example - it's an international agreement with nationally determined contributions that very likely would require integration at the state and local scales as well. But what if one level of governance isn't as active as others? This has happened in the past where an Administration may not have been as aggressive with certain policy areas, but states and other players wished to continue moving ahead. While the federal government in the U.S. wasn't actively seeking to address climate change through federal policy measures, states, municipalities, and businesses were continuing to work in this space and were learning from what their counterparts were doing - a strong example of horizontal diffusion.

One common way that policies are actively diffused is through publishing best practices, case studies, and other resources. Not only can you save time by modifying an existing policy instead of creating it from scratch, but you can also evaluate the effectiveness of the policy where it was originally applied. See e.g. the Resource Library for the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. The Horizontal and Vertical Reinforcement in Global Climate Governance article is a good read if you're interested in understanding this better.

Who is developing our climate policy? It depends heavily on the scale of governance. For this discussion, we'll focus primarily on federal level energy policy - but keep in mind that similar networks exist at other scales. Let's take a look at the roles these groups play and how they work together.

Legislators

Our elected officials provide the voice for legislation as it works its way through its designated approval process. Here, we could be talking about a township adopting a resolution or state or federal representatives proposing a bill.

Executive Branch and the Executive Office of the President

Our Agencies can develop and implement types of policy. Usually, this relates to agency-specific topics and cover issues that do not require Congressional approval or authorization. Remember that legislators and Congress are but one of three branches of government; the Executive Branch, headed by the President, has its own set of powers and authorities. The Executive Order is a great example of Executive Branch-level policy.

Special Interest Groups

Special interest groups are coalitions of people and organizations banded together by common beliefs on policy decisions. Working together, these groups have the power to inform and influence policy decisions through correspondence with legislators and their staff. While we often think only of the negative side of special interest groups, they do also serve an important role in keeping policymakers informed.

Scientists

The scientific community has an important role to play in the development of policy, especially with issues related to energy and the environment. Many scientists directly inform the president, through mechanisms that vary from administration to administration.  Much advice comes from scientists and staff within the Executive Office of the President, which includes the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Scientists and researchers are also called on to testify at congressional hearings related to energy bills. For environmental and energy challenges, legislators usually rely on the scientific community to provide them with the basis for legislation must exist. At the local level, scientists still often provide an important voice to the validity of proposed measures. There are also scientists within the Federal agencies who can offer advice. 

With regard to energy policy specifically, here are just a few of the issues on which the scientific community provides its expert opinions to policymakers:

• acceptable levels for criteria pollutants produced during the extraction, processing, and combustion of fossil fuels
• quantity of fuel reserves available for extraction
• safe levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
• potential consequences of a warming climate due to increased greenhouse gas concentrations
• understanding uncertainty and unknowns associated with natural systems
• risks associated with the extraction of fossil fuels
• issues related to necessary infrastructure for new energy technologies

Private Citizens

Believe it or not, as a voter, your voice matters! Last week, we looked specifically at the role citizens play in climate policy decisions. It's important not only that you stay informed about the issues affecting your life, but that you voice your preferences for policies about them to your elected officials. Politicians want to stay in office, and that means keeping their constituents happy. Be a proactive and engaged citizen. Let your leadership know that you're paying attention.

It is exceedingly rare to have perfect circumstances under which to develop and pass policy. It's important to recognize that policy development must fit within larger agendas, and sometimes seemingly unrelated issues can make it difficult to pass even a popular policy. Let's take a look at some of the threats to policy change and think about how they relate specifically to energy policy.

Political Disagreement

Sometimes it's not about finding agreement that something should or should not be done, but how it should be done that causes problems. Energy policy is a perfect example of this. On both sides of the aisle, politicians agree that revamping domestic energy policy is a worthwhile venture, agreeing most about the national security benefits of reducing US dependence on foreign oil. However, there is a clear disagreement about how to achieve that goal, with Democrats generally more interested in renewable energy and Republicans tending to promote domestic fossil fuel extraction and more of a multiple solution approach. Interest groups' influence often weighs heavily in these decisions - especially at the federal level, less so at the local level - though constituents can also be influential. This is particularly true with energy and climate policy, as there are many interest groups that get involved, some of which are quite influential and well-funded (e.g. fossil fuel companies and individuals who make money from the fossil fuel industry). It is also not uncommon for one policy to be "held up" until an agreement is made on a separate policy (aka "horsetrading").

Status Quo

Inertia is a powerful force in politics. While all sides might agree that a current practice isn't the best or most efficient, a known inefficiency is often less daunting than the potential negative impacts of an unknown alternative, leaving things unchanged. Economic impacts are an especially potent consideration in energy politics in this regard. Addressing energy challenges often involves internalizing the cost of environmental degradation associated with traditional fuel sources, which increase prices in the short term, and lawmakers and citizens alike approach the idea of increasing costs for energy with great trepidation. (This is why subsidies and other incentives are common in pro-renewable policy.) While this is true irrespective of the broader economic context, it is particularly difficult to justify during times of economic hardship. After the financial crisis in 2008, many lawmakers backed away from the ideas of a clean energy overhaul for the country or a price on carbon. With the economy crippled and Americans struggling to combat rising unemployment and decreasing home values, clean energy legislation was perceived as a luxury we could simply not afford, despite its macroscale cost savings over time.

But does it have to be that way? After the economy recovered (for some), many energy and climate policy advocates focused more on the economic benefits of adopting less carbon-intensive energy policies. Job growth in the design, manufacture, installation, and maintenance of these technologies as well as lowered energy costs due to enhanced efficiency, became the lead talking points in the conversations for the advancement of clean energy policy. These were certainly themes before the economic downturn, but now they represent a more pressing concern for Americans. One prominent example of this is the Inflation Reduction Act, for which the name speaks for itself. Even though it is as much a climate bill as an inflation reduction bill, it is (justifiably) couched in the language of economic and employment benefits, since they have a broader bipartisan appeal.

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a characteristic of climate change impacts that comes up frequently. While scientists understand the anthropogenic forcing of the climate and can anticipate the types of responses the physical environment may exhibit, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when and where a climate change impact will be felt and how severe it will be. This uncertainty surrounding the issue provides an opportunity for people and groups opposed to climate and energy reform to suggest the issue is not immediately pressing. Consider this: uncertainty over policy outcomes leads to more reactive -instead of proactive - policies, which are typically more expensive and less effective at addressing the problem. For climate change specifically, this is particularly problematic because, despite the uncertainty about some of the specifics, it is quite possible that if we're 'wrong' it is because we've underestimated the possible impacts and severity. 

What if? Cartoon of the Copenhagen Climate Summit suggesting that efforts to reduce climate change might make the world a better place, based on a 'hoax'. Presenter has a slide that says "Energy Independence, Preserve Rainforests, Sustainability, Green Jobs, Livable Cities, Renewables, Clean Water/air, Healthy Children, Etc". An audience member stands up and asks, "What if it's a big hoax, and we create a better world for nothing?"
Cartoon by Joel Pett run in USA Today right before the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009.

Credit: Joel Pett. "What if it’s all a big hoax, and we create a better world for nothing!” USA Today. December 13, 2009.

We've spent a lot of time this semester discussing the role of all scales of government in developing energy policy. But it should be clear by now that they aren't the only players. Industry plays a huge part in shaping policy of all kinds, and energy is certainly no exception. Let's take some time to explore the advantages and disadvantages associated with having industry involved with the development of energy policy. Collectively, we'll refer to anyone spending money to influence energy policy as the energy lobby.

How do they participate?

What does it really mean to be part of the energy lobby? It means working directly and indirectly with the nation's lawmakers in Washington to inform and influence the content and scope of legislation. This can take on many forms, from donating to campaign funds for candidates who support favorable policies to preparing brief documents to be distributed to committee members, to working with congressional staffers, to actually drafting language to be included in the text of legislative bills.

Why do they participate?

They have a lot at stake. In the case of energy policy, specifically, we are talking about billions of dollars, national security, and international relations. A commonly used metaphor for energy companies and their participation in energy policy (even policies that limit emissions or impose other restrictions) is that companies would rather be at the table than on the menu. If they are able to help inform the development of policy, they are more likely to ensure that the policies eventually adopted have less negative (or more positive) consequences for them, and it helps policy makers understand how policies will affect their businesses.

It's not rocket science - public policy, for better or worse, can have significant impacts on individual companies and entire industries. Lobbying can and does influence these policies, so lobbying is seen as an investment that can provide returns. 

Political advantages to participation

Recall that as previously noted, legislators cannot be expected to be experts on energy, education, health care, homeland security, the environment, and any other number of issues that are impacted by their policy decisions. Instead, politicians rely on experts in the field to provide them with accurate, complete information as they try to navigate policy alternatives and options. Experts such as private industry executives, scientists, environmentalists and many others participate in this process. They play an important role in educating legislators and allowing them to focus on passing policies (and getting re-elected).

Disadvantages to participation

Of course, no action taken by any individual or company is done in a vacuum. Everyone has motives and goals, and sometimes these do not align with policy development goals. For example, if Congress considers decreasing a subsidy to oil companies, citing recent profits as a demonstration that the subsidy is no longer needed, lobbyists from oil companies will likely lobby against it. There is also the risk of "regulatory capture," which is when corporate (or rarely, other than corporate) interests have such an outsized influence on a regulatory agency that the agency creates regulations that favor the outside interest instead of achieving the agency mission. This has more to do with the application of policy, but is a consideration for lawmakers when crafting a bill as well. It is such a widespread problem that Sheldon Whitehouse introduced a federal bill to prevent it in 2011. (It never made it out of committee, unsurprisingly.) There are also organizations such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a libertarian (and anti-renewable) non-profit that exists primarily to write legislation that they would like adopted word-for-word by legislators at all levels of government, to varying degrees of success.

All of this speaks to why it is important for legislators to seek the advice and input of many diverse interests as they develop policies. Simply letting the companies and organizations with the loudest voices (which translates to the deepest pockets) have the final say in how policies are structured does not result in beneficial or effective policy — energy or otherwise.

In this lesson, we've talked about the factors influencing the development and change of energy and climate policy. 

Important Concepts to take away from this lesson

Hopefully, this content has you thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of industry's involvement in the development of policy. Without their expertise and insight, it might be difficult to construct policies that are realistic, feasible, and achieve the desired results. The other side of that coin, however, is that industry stakeholders bring to the table their own agendas and motives, many of which are (understandably) self-serving, not altruistic. So, where and how we draw the line on industry's policy influence is a real challenge.

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Nemet et al. (2016) explore the pitfalls of our historically shortsighted policy responses to energy crises and proposes a different model for approaching our energy challenges which are so longitudinal in scale and scope while Rashidi et al. (2018) try to identify what role network membership has on local scale climate action. 

*Students who register for this Penn State course gain access to assignments, all readings, and instructor feedback, and earn academic credit. Information about registering for this Penn State course is available through the ESP Program Office.

In this lesson, we've talked about the factors influencing the development and change of energy and climate policy. 

Important Concepts to take away from this lesson

Think about these considerations in the context of your municipality's work. Who are the stakeholders with the most to gain (or lose) from its implementation, and how have they been/might they be involved? You should also be thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of industry's involvement in the development of our policies. Without their expertise and insight, it might be difficult to construct policies that are realistic, feasible, and achieve the desired results. The other side of that coin, however, is that industry stakeholders bring to the table their own agendas and motives, many of which are (understandably) self-serving, not altruistic. So, where and how we draw the line on industry's policy influence is a real challenge.

Ferns growing in hardened lava

Credit: Anthony Robinson

I like to think of energy and climate policy formation in terms of the image shown above (taken by my husband, on a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii). When lava oozes from a volcano, and blankets out across the landscape with no regard for what was there before, it covers everything in a crunchy, challenging, and rocky landscape. I feel like this is where we're starting right now in terms of addressing our energy and climate challenges. The current federal political environment, much like this lava field, seems totally inhospitable and wholly incompatible with our climate goals. But, despite that seemingly impenetrable layer of political stalemate, some good will find a way, just like these ferns have found a way (are those vertically diffusing ferns?!?). We've also seen that how inaction on the lava-covered national stage hasn't stopped smaller-scale efforts from sprouting up. I wanted to end the lesson on a hopeful note, recognizing that very quickly these topics can seem a bit hopeless or too big to address. So - chin up! There are so many folks just like you who are working hard to make sure the ferns of climate policy are able to sprout and thrive.

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Most of the policy issues presented to this point have focused exclusively on public policy. We've been talking a lot about what governmental bodies can do to develop policy. Most of what we think of related to environmental and energy policies is public. Clean water, clean air, safe food - these are all topics on which public policies are developed for the greater public good.

Environmental policies (and energy policy in particular), however, also spill over into the private sector. Institutions, organizations, and privately held companies all establish their own internal policies related to environmental stewardship and energy use, and this trend is only gaining in popularity as environmental awareness and emphasis on sustainability work their way up the priority lists of legislators, shareholders, and consumers.

Smart energy policy is smart business policy. Anything an organization can do to cut back on energy consumption will save it money in utility costs. So, environmental benefits aside, there are tangible cost-saving reasons to encourage conservation and increase efficiency.

Let's take a look at some examples of policy planning at the corporate level. As you go through the next page's material, think about the greater implications of these policies on society. Are they reducing environmental pollution? Consumption? Greenhouse gas emissions? What message and ethic does this policy send to employees, shareholders, and customers? If this corporation produces a good, how does its energy policy align with the type of good it provides?

After we explore corporate energy policy broadly, we're going to take a look at a specific case study - Penn State! So, continue with the lesson to learn more about what private companies and your own university are doing (and be thinking about what they aren't doing as well).

Dealing with the real complexities

To an extent, we have oversimplified the story in places to help define the process.  For example,

• Agency missions are not always clear-cut, and in some cases, one agency’s mission could contradict another’s. And there are numerous agencies that touch energy policy. 
• Government has a responsibility first and foremost to address the safety and well-being of its citizens, and the answer is not always clear-cut.
• As we are a capitalistic society, industry looking out for its survival can ensure a stable and secure economy. The wide fluctuations in oil prices when supply is threatened are a great example. The truth of the matter is, energy production in the US is private sector-driven, and the energy industry must be an integral part of policy development.