Ted Halstead was an American author, policy entrepreneur, and public speaker who founded four non-profit think tanks and advocacy organizations: the Climate Leadership Council, Americans for Carbon Dividends, New America, and Redefining Progress. His areas of expertise included climate policy, economic policy, environmental policy, healthcare, and political reform.
The politics of climate change results from different perspectives on how to respond to climate change. Global warming is driven largely by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human economic activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, certain industries like cement and steel production, and land use for agriculture and forestry. Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels have provided the main source of energy for economic and technological development. The centrality of fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive industries has resulted in much resistance to climate friendly policy, despite widespread scientific consensus that such policy is necessary.
Business action on climate change is a topic which since 2000 includes a range of activities relating to climate change, and to influencing political decisions on climate change-related regulation, such as the Kyoto Protocol. Major multinationals have played and to some extent continue to play a significant role in the politics of climate change, especially in the United States, through lobbying of government and funding of climate change deniers. Business also plays a key role in the mitigation of climate change, through decisions to invest in researching and implementing new energy technologies and energy efficiency measures.
Woodwell Climate Research Center, formerly known as the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) until August 2020, is a scientific research organization that studies climate change impacts and solutions. The International Center for Climate Governance named WHRC the world's top climate change think tank for 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.
The Alliance to Save Energy is a bipartisan, nonprofit coalition of business, government, environmental, and consumer groups based in Washington, D.C. The Alliance states that it advocates for "energy-efficiency policies that minimize costs to society and individual consumers, and that lessen greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on the global climate." The Alliance's chief activities include public relations, research, and lobbying to change U.S. energy policy.
Resources for the Future (RFF) is an American nonprofit organization, founded in 1952, that conducts independent research into environmental, energy, and natural resource issues, primarily via economics and other social sciences. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., RFF performs research around the world.
The U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), formed in 2006 and launched publicly on January 22, 2007, is a co-operative group of businesses and leading environmental organizations. The group's primary purpose is to call on the U.S. government to require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
The environmental policy of the United States is a federal governmental action to regulate activities that have an environmental impact in the United States. The goal of environmental policy is to protect the environment for future generations while interfering as little as possible with the efficiency of commerce or the liberty of the people and to limit inequity in who is burdened with environmental costs. As his first official act bringing in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon signed the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law on New Years Day, 1970. Also in the same year, America began celebrating Earth Day, which has been called "the big bang of U.S. environmental politics, launching the country on a sweeping social learning curve about ecological management never before experienced or attempted in any other nation." NEPA established a comprehensive US national environmental policy and created the requirement to prepare an environmental impact statement for "major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environment." Author and consultant Charles H. Eccleston has called NEPA the world's "environmental Magna Carta".
New Energy for America was a plan led by Barack Obama and Joe Biden beginning in 2008 to invest in renewable energy sources, reduce reliance on foreign oil, address global warming issues, and create jobs for Americans. The main objective of the New Energy for America plan was to implement clean energy sources in the United States to switch from nonrenewable resources to renewable resources. The plan led by the Obama Administration aimed to implement short-term solutions to provide immediate relief from pain at the pump, and mid- to- long-term solutions to provide a New Energy for America plan. The goals of the clean energy plan hoped to: invest in renewable technologies that will boost domestic manufacturing and increase homegrown energy, invest in training for workers of clean technologies, strengthen the middle class, and help the economy.
Green growth is a concept in economic theory and policymaking used to describe paths of economic growth that are environmentally sustainable. It is based on the understanding that as long as economic growth remains a predominant goal, a decoupling of economic growth from resource use and adverse environmental impacts is required. As such, green growth is closely related to the concepts of green economy and low-carbon or sustainable development. A main driver for green growth is the transition towards sustainable energy systems. Advocates of green growth policies argue that well-implemented green policies can create opportunities for employment in sectors such as renewable energy, green agriculture, or sustainable forestry.
The climate change policy of the United States has major impacts on global climate change and global climate change mitigation. This is because the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world after China, and is among the countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person in the world. Cumulatively, the United States has emitted over a trillion metric tons of greenhouse gases, more than any country in the world.
Eileen B. Claussen is an American climate and energy policy administrator, diplomat, and lobbyist. She held senior posts at the U.S. Department of State, National Security Council, and Environmental Protection Agency before founding the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in 1998. She then launched the center's successor organization, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), in 2011, and retired as president of C2ES in 2014.
Sustainability studies is an academic discipline that focuses on the interdisciplinary perspective of the concept of sustainability. Programs include instruction in sustainable development, geography, environmental policies, ethics, ecology, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, economics, natural resources, sociology, and anthropology. Sustainability studies also focuses on the importance of climate change, poverty, social justice and environmental justice. Many universities across the world currently offer sustainability studies as a degree program. The main goal of sustainability studies is for students to find ways to develop novel solutions to environmental problems.
Robert Perciasepe is an American former government official who currently serves as a senior adviser to McKinsey and Company and the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, following his role as President of the organization. He served as the Deputy Administrator and Acting Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the administration of Barack Obama.
Nathaniel O. Keohane is an American environmental economist who serves as president at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES).
The World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research non-profit organization established in 1982 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation under the leadership of James Gustave Speth. Subsequent presidents include Jonathan Lash, Andrew D. Steer and current president Ani Dasgupta (2021-).
The Niskanen Center is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that advocates environmentalism, immigration reform, civil liberties, and strengthening social insurance around market-oriented principles. Named after William A. Niskanen, an economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, it states that its "main audience is Washington insiders", and characterizes itself as moderate. The organization has been credited with fostering bipartisan dialogue and promoting pragmatic solutions to contemporary political challenges on issues such as family benefits, climate change, and criminal justice reform.
The Center for Development and Strategy (CDS) is an environmental and economic American think tank and online publisher based in Buffalo, New York, in the United States. The center develops policy studies, risk briefs, and OpEds on political, economic and environmental issues throughout the world, with a specific focus on issues concerning sustainability, development, and national security.
Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES) is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for a clean energy policy of the United States. CRES was founded in 2013 to engage Republican lawmakers in the national conversation about clean energy and promote the concept of energy policy as a nonpartisan issue.
Climate change and cities are deeply connected. Cities are one of the greatest contributors and likely best opportunities for addressing climate change. Cities are also one of the most vulnerable parts of the human society to the effects of climate change, and likely one of the most important solutions for reducing the environmental impact of humans. The UN projects that 68% of the world population will live in urban areas by 2050. In the year 2016, 31 mega-cities reported having at least 10 million in their population, 8 of which surpassed 20 million people. However, secondary cities - small to medium size cities are rapidly increasing in number and are some of the fastest growing urbanizing areas in the world further contributing to climate change impacts. Cities have a significant influence on construction and transportation—two of the key contributors to global warming emissions. Moreover, because of processes that create climate conflict and climate refugees, city areas are expected to grow during the next several decades, stressing infrastructure and concentrating more impoverished peoples in cities.
