Search Results

This chapter provides an overview of how the US political system functions, focusing on the role of federalism in shaping policy-making. It reviews the history of environmental policymaking in the US and explores how climate change policymaking reveals a significant shift in the role and relationship between sub-federal and federal governmental entities in environmental law and policymaking. It seeks to provide an inclusive review of US federal climate change policies, beginning with the White House climate change strategy promoted by President Bush before exploring more recent efforts to overhaul the federal approach to climate change. It also endeavours to shed led light on how shifting federal climate change strategies influence domestic engagement in global climate change politics.

This Chapter deals with the issue of energy security in the UK. Although energy security is commonly viewed from the perspective of consumers, this Chapter distinguishes the dual identities of the UK as an energy producer and a consumer state and highlights the policies aimed at ensuring energy security from both perspectives. The discussions first focus on the International Energy Agency’s Coordinated Emergency Response Measures and on the Energy Charter Treaty within the contexts of supply disruption mechanisms, energy diversification and access to markets. It subsequently introduces the European Union dimensions of the UK’s energy security. It considers the EU policies that have developed in parallel with the IEA measures, and those that developed in response to climate change concerns, and their impact on the UK’s energy security. The Chapter also views the energy security issue from the UK’s producer state identity and considers the policies aimed at increasing the indigenous production.

Energy presents the EU and Taiwan with serious political and existential challenges. The EU and Taiwan have to cope with trade-offs between secure energy supplies, environmental costs and benefits, and global competition for resources in an environment in which domestic public opinion tends to favour or reject some energy sources (such as nuclear energy) over others (such as renewables). Both Taiwan and Europe compete with mainland China for access to secure energy supplies and both have strong domestic constituencies concerned about climate change. Profound readjustments to political priorities on energy are likely to follow, as tough - and potentially expensive - choices regarding energy supplies will have to be made in a more contested and competitive global environment.

The chapter focuses on the analysis of energy resource balance and the ecological limits on energy resources with special reference to the oil crisis in both the global and the Indian context. It discusses the roles of fossil fuels, nuclear energy, hydro resources, renewables like biomass, bioliquids and other aboitic renewables particularly wind and solar energy resources in providing the energy security for India with some sectorwise details as well as their implications in respect of environmental degradation over the full life cycle of their respective uses. The chapter further discusses the economic effects of the ecological limits as expressed in the forms of resource scarcity and environmental pollution. It then reviews the trend of past energy and carbon efficiency of India and the projections of the same in future as per the study of the expert group of the planning commission and discusses their policy implications

This chapter begins by exploring the concept of energy security: it sketches its theoretical trajectory and engages with the principal philosophical debates of energy security studies. It then problematizes the relationship between energy and security using the framework of securitization theory to foster a more critical engagement with the politics of energy security. Drawing on the work of International Political Sociology, the last section outlines five theses of energy securitization that delineate the alternative theoretical approach of this study to account for the actually existing complexity of the process.

The first of a set of cases, this examination of the history of Danish energy policy shows that a classic green spiral effect has led over time to the decoupling of emissions and economic growth. This spiral begins with Denmark’s response to the oil crisis of the 1970s, which led to energy security policies that shifted commercial and industrial infrastructure toward high energy efficiency, developed a thriving wind energy industry, and encouraged a broad grass-roots constituency that benefited from wind generation. These shifts in interest fed back into policymaking. Ultimately, policy-industry feedback over time has led to a paradigmatic shift in Denmark’s energy industry and policy. Denmark’s energy industry now sees its own interests as invested in, not threatened by, green policy. For example, DONG Energy is pulling back from investment in coal power and expects to derive future growth from low-carbon investments and green regulation.

This chapter presents the assessment methods available for moving from the previously constructed growth model to an understanding of the concrete conditions for the transition to a green economy. This transition is still only in its infancy, with the first moves to introduce the value of natural capital into the economy now being taken. With regard to the climate system, the value collectively attributed to its preservation is measured by the costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions, more commonly termed the “carbon price.” The methods for introducing this price into the economic system are now well known, but both nationally and internationally.

Building on the three previous chapters’ findings on collective ‘European’ identity, norms and moral concerns, this chapter turns to collective EU interest formulations. There are numerous collective interests such as terrorism, hybrid threats, economic volatility, climate change and energy security that have been identified by the EU Global Strategy (EU HR/VP 2016). These interests not only bind EU member states into acting together, but also signify to other, non-EU states what the EU is focusing on. The practitioners who participated in the study also identified migration, the environment, organised crime and transport as collective EU interests. Unsurprisingly they identified energy security as the most pressing common security interest that unites EU member states. Three main patterns emerge from the corpus. First, practitioners’ constructions of energy interests are examined. The second pattern reveals practitioners’ accounts of future plans to manage the collective EU concern over energy supplies. In the third and final pattern, practitioners offer justifications of EU interests in the eastern region, beyond the collective interests in energy supplies, and again through invoking moral concerns and the vocation attributes the EU has for the eastern neighbours.

This chapter focuses on green jobs programs that targeted low-income residents, especially Blacks living in chronically distressed communities. The period under study begins with the date the United States Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 and continues until the height of the congressional budget fights in March 2011. This chapter argues that green jobs programs targeting a marginalized workforce were more likely to be adopted in cities where advocates were able to leverage municipal officials, especially mayors, and collaborate with local economic and racial justice activists on clean energy and other community development projects. Advocates also repositioned the sustainable development (and green jobs) agenda within the broader framework of community development. The success of this repositioning strategy depended on cultivating cross-sector alliances between environmentalists, labor, economic and racial justice groups, and civil rights organizations in support of green jobs programs.