Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Rethinking Economics and the Environment
- Part II Environmental Injustice
- Part III Climate Policy
- Chapter 17 Smart Climate Policy
- Chapter 18 Investment in Disadvantaged Communities
- Chapter 19 Dividends for All
- Chapter 20 Truth Spill
- Chapter 21 Four Pillars of Climate Justice
- Chapter 22 The Perverse Logic of Offsets
- Chapter 23 Climate Policy as Wealth Creation
- Chapter 24 The Carbon Dividend
- Chapter 25 Keeping the Government Whole
- Chapter 26 Air Quality Co-benefits in Climate Policy
- Chapter 27 Climate Adaptation: Protecting Money or People?
- Chapter 28 Forging a Sustainable Climate Policy
- Notes
- Publication History
- Index
Chapter 28 - Forging a Sustainable Climate Policy
from Part III - Climate Policy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Rethinking Economics and the Environment
- Part II Environmental Injustice
- Part III Climate Policy
- Chapter 17 Smart Climate Policy
- Chapter 18 Investment in Disadvantaged Communities
- Chapter 19 Dividends for All
- Chapter 20 Truth Spill
- Chapter 21 Four Pillars of Climate Justice
- Chapter 22 The Perverse Logic of Offsets
- Chapter 23 Climate Policy as Wealth Creation
- Chapter 24 The Carbon Dividend
- Chapter 25 Keeping the Government Whole
- Chapter 26 Air Quality Co-benefits in Climate Policy
- Chapter 27 Climate Adaptation: Protecting Money or People?
- Chapter 28 Forging a Sustainable Climate Policy
- Notes
- Publication History
- Index
Summary
It's time to move beyond the false premise that climate policy necessarily means sacrifices by the present generation.
An effective climate policy for the United States must be sustainable politically as well as environmentally. The environmental requirement–to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases so as to prevent massive destabilization of the Earth's climate–is often translated into the policy target of cutting emissions by at least 80 per cent against their 1990 level by the year 2050. Finding a comparable formula for political sustainability has proven more elusive.
Establishing an effective policy is not just a matter of crafting a bill that can pass Congress. The policy must also win public support wide and deep enough to enable it to endure over the decades needed to complete America's transition to a clean energy economy. In other words, the policy must secure support among voters of all partisan persuasions, comparable to that enjoyed by Social Security and Medicare.
To achieve this goal, we must move beyond past strategies that have tried–and failed–to forge a winning political coalition for the clean energy transition. These strategies started from a flawed but widely accepted premise: the assumption that effective climate policy necessarily requires the present generation to make economic sacrifices in order to safeguard the climate for future generations. This framing of the problem has been echoed by environmentalists and fossil fuel firms alike. By ignoring possibilities to design clean energy policies that can benefit the present generation at home–and not only future generations worldwide–this ‘eat your broccoli’ message fatally undermines political support for effective climate policy.
Benefits Here and Now
Clean energy policy can bring tangible benefits here and now by three avenues:
• Air quality. Burning fossil fuels releases not only carbon dioxide but also hazardous air pollutants that harm the health and economic well-being of all Americans, and particularly children whose developing bodies and minds are most susceptible to their toxic impacts. The clean energy transition would prevent thousands of premature deaths, thousands of asthma attacks in children requiring emergency room visits, and millions of lost work days every year. By designing policies that target emissions from sources that impact disadvantaged communities who bear disproportionate pollution burdens, we can protect public health and advance the goal of environmental justice.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Economics for People and the PlanetInequality in the Era of Climate Change, pp. 135 - 142Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2019