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Chapter 8 focuses on the United States. Although significant national green policy legislation is not at the national level, local policy-industry feedback spirals have occurred in California and Colorado, creating political viability for green policy experimentation. In California, we trace a feedback spiral from early policy moves to reduce particulate pollution; through AB32, a major package of emissions reduction legislation; to the defeat of Proposition 23’s challenge. California suggests that green spirals sometimes emerge quite slowly and unintentionally from tangentially related early moves. We note that venture capital has recently been critical but may not be an effective long-term model. In Colorado, we examine Amendment 37, a green policy package that assembled a surprisingly broad support coalition. Colorado suggests that green spirals can happen quite swiftly if supporters can find ways to activate latent partnerships between different interest groups that can derive tangible benefits from initial regulation.

The purpose of this chapter lies in outlining the key objectives of President Lee Myung-bak’s vision of green growth and some major challenges that need to be overcome. Ultimately, the Korean government intends to create a partnership with the advocates of “green” and the advocates of “growth” to promote more balanced and sustainable growth. Within the historical context of authoritarian leadership behind Korea’s Heavy and Chemical Industry drive during the 1960s, we note that the transition from authoritarian to authoritative governance also bears significance in how the green growth story rolls out. In this sense, Korea’s green growth story is unique in two aspects: one, it was a conscious effort by the Lee administration to initiate a “green” spiral; two, the multiple ambitious objectives pursued by the government—energy security, economic growth, and emissions reduction—are aligned to sustain the push for greener growth.

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.