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Series Foreword Climate change is often described as the most important environmental problem of the twenty-first century, both because of the magnitude of risks associated with it and the obviously large number of people affected. How governments respond to climate change, both domestically and internationally, also speaks to the broader challenges of confronting third-generation environmental problems. First, these problems are global in scale and therefore require the cooperation of nations that do not necessarily put the well-being of the Earth’s population ahead of national interests—essentially posing a worldwide “tragedy of the commons.” For example, why should China or the United States cut back sharply on the use of coal if each nation gains little advantage in doing so? Second, the ill-effects (environmental and public health) occur mostly in the future, yet the short-term economic costs of policy actions can be substantial and may adversely affect many powerful interests, such as fossil fuel companies, in addition to creating a burden on the general population. Third, there is almost always considerable scientific uncertainty that can greatly complicate the delicate search for solutions that are broadly acceptable to all interests. Fourth, precisely because they involve long-term and rather complex phenomena, the issues are almost always of low salience to the general public and struggle to gain attention and political support for action, even when polls show an impressive general level of concern. Under these circumstances, how can public policies be advanced both within nations and internationally? One way to learn about what is possible is to examine what nations have already done using the tools of comparative analysis. Such research can speak to the domestic political factors that affect both national and international willingness to mitigate climate change. By 2009 all developed nations except the United States had endorsed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which seeks to reduce industrialized countries’ x Series Foreword collective emissions to roughly 5 percent below their 1990 levels, and many had adopted and implemented various climate change policies to make those commitments meaningful. Under the Obama administration, the United States finally made a serious effort to approve a national climate change policy, and a diversity of policy actions had already been taken by more than half of the states and more than 950 local governments across the nation. In short, there is now a record that can be examined and assessed to learn more about the politics of climate change policymaking. Kathryn Harrison and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom have assembled a team of experienced and talented students of comparative environmental politics to dissect that record in major nations in an effort to assess the progress that has been made and to understand why, to date, it has been so limited. The chapters share a common theoretical framework that points to the role of electoral and political incentives, the normative commitments of policymakers, and the structure and capacity of political institutions as well as the linkage of domestic politics to international policymaking on climate change. This is an opportune time for such a study since nations have already begun negotiations for the post-Kyoto regime that is to take effect in 2012, and future agreements will reflect many of the same forces that the authors describe here. Earlier versions of some chapters were published in a special issue of Global Environmental Politics in November 2007, and they have since been updated and linked to the overall purpose of this volume. The book offers a unique and valuable comparison of the domestic political forces within each nation that affect climate change policymaking and thus provides insights into the conditions under which some countries have been able to adopt innovative and aggressive positions on climate change both domestically and internationally. This is the first study to bring together such analyses of domestic policymaking on climate change in one volume using a common analytic framework. Because the nations and regional governments covered are among the most important players in international climate change policy—the European Union, China, Russia, Japan, Canada, Australia, and the United States—the results should be of interest to a wide audience. The book illustrates well the goals of the MIT Press series in American and Comparative Environmental Policy. We encourage work that examines a broad range of environmental policy issues. We are particularly interested in volumes that incorporate interdisciplinary research and focus on the linkages between public policy and environmental problems [3.21.104.109] Project MUSE (2024...

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