A
major new paper
in the journal One Earth
from a collaboration between U.S. and European authors on the importance of
incorporating behavioral, cultural, social, and political considerations into
integrated assessment models of greenhouse gas emissions pathways, especially
in the context of the IPCC process.
Abstract:
Limiting global warming to 2°C or less compared with pre-industrial
temperatures will require unprecedented rates of decarbonization globally.
The scale and scope of transformational change required across sectors and
actors in society raises critical questions of feasibility.
Much of the literature on mitigation pathways addresses technological and
economic aspects of feasibility, but overlooks the behavioral, cultural, and
social factors that affect theoretical and practical mitigation pathways.
We present a tripartite framework that “unpacks”" the concept of mitigation
pathways by distinguishing three factors that together determine actual
mitigation: technical potential, initiative feasibility, and behavioral
plasticity.
The framework aims to integrate and streamline heterogeneous disciplinary
research traditions toward a more comprehensive and transparent approach that
will facilitate learning across disciplines and enable mitigation pathways to
more fully reflect available knowledge.
We offer three suggestions for integrating the tripartite framework into
current research on climate change mitigation.
Mike Vandenbergh and I have
a new paper out, in the journal
Energy Research & Social Science, on our three-part framework for assessing
the impacts of private climate governance.
We discussed our three-part framework in previous writing, such as
“Accounting for Political Feasibility”,
“Beyond Gridlock”,
and
Beyond Politics.
Here, we discuss some practical steps toward applying the framework to assessing
the prospects and potential impacts of private climate governance and some of
the research needs and priorities for using our framework more broadly.
My book, Beyond Politics was included in
a list of the top environmental books of the last 50 years in a
retrospective
by Oliver A. Houck and G Tracy Mehan in Environmental Forum, published by
the Environmental Law Institute.
Michael Vandenbergh and I were interviewed by Aaron J. Freiwald for the
Good Law/Bad Law podcast. We discussed our recent book and the role of the
private sector in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Michael Vandenbergh and I participated in a webinar hosted by the
Environmental Law Institute on our book,
Beyond Politics: The Private Governance Response to Climate Change.
Cassie Phillips (director of the Private Environmental Governance
Initiative at ELI) moderated.
Stephen Harper (Global Director of Environment and Energy Policy at
Intel) and Jackie Roberts (Chief Sustainability Officer at the Carlisle
Group) provided private industry perspectives.
I have a new paper in the journal
Energy Efficiency, co-authored with Alex Maki, Emmett McKinney,
Mike Vandenbergh, and Mark Cohen,
about employers who offer employee benefits to promote energy efficiency.
For people working to address climate change, there is certainly no viable alternative to reading this book.
Beyond Politics presses readers to think beyond their current conception of climate change solutions and, while
laying out a reasoned private governance response accompanied by a realistic assessment of its limitations, provides
the groundwork for future research and initiatives to reduce emissions.
The Program on Law and Sustainability at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law
at Arizona State University has awarded the
Morrison Prize to
Mike Vandenbergh and me for our article
“Beyond Gridlock,”
40 Columbia Environmental Law Journal, 217–303 (2015). The Morrison prize
recognizes the paper published in the previous year in North America that is
“likely to have the most significant positive long-term impact on the advancement
of the environmental sustainability movement.”