“A Bigger Fluctuation” -- Climate Policy after Trump’s Paris Withdrawal Declaration

Mar 10, 2019 12 min read

On June 1st, 2017, President Trump declared that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement. This declaration has created a lot of concerns that U.S. policy will fail to address climate change and support energy transition in the future. This essay will introduce an equilibrium-and-fluctuation model of American politics and use this model to analyze the climate policy change in recent decades. Finally, this essay will argue that the declaration will actually promote climate policy development, considering the bipartisan characteristics of American politics, policy diffusion under federalism, and the agenda-setting process through media coverage and public opinion.

Equilibrium and fluctuation model of the U.S. bipartisan political system
Major policy change usually happens slowly in America with its fundamental rule-making institution and bipartisan nature. In the legislative branch, it is required that the majority of Congress need to vote to pass certain legislation, which introduces multiple veto players such as House median voter, Senate median voter, and Senate filibuster. These players create a gridlock where policy cannot be moved. At the time when one party controls both the House and the Senate, some policies may be able to move to one direction due to the shrunk gridlock, but these policies will usually go back to the mid when the other party gains control again. In the executive branch, the President can break the gridlock and make changes by issuing executive orders. However, future presidents can also easily reverse these changes via the same process. Similarly, in the legislative branch, the legal decision of the Supreme Court seldom inclines to one party, since both sides of Congress will avoid such a situation.

Hence, policies in the U.S. usually fluctuates around an equilibrium state through negative feedback. Whenever one party moves a policy to one side, the other party will soon move it back to the equilibrium. Baumgartner F. R. and Jones B. D. (1993, p.15) argue that the equilibrium is stable if the institutions of rule-making do not change and the definition of a certain issue under such institutions does not change. Rule-making institution change requires a fundamental political structure change, which is unlikely to happen in developed countries. Therefore, a definition change of a certain issue would be the common reason for major policy shifts.

The mechanism of such a policy shift is “a bigger fluctuation.” In system science, an equilibrium system tends to stay in the status quo with any minor perturbations. However, when the perturbation is big enough, the old negative feedback would turn to positive feedback, creating an avalanche effect and pushing the system to a new equilibrium. In my opinion, a similar mechanism also works in political science. A definition change would create multiple institution changes. While the results of these institutions changes create benefits for the majority of the stakeholders, they will further consolidate the institutional changes, thus creating positive feedback. An example the supports this model is the historical change of renewable energy policy in Germany and the U.S. Laird F. N. and Stefes C. (2009) compared the renewable energy policy in the two countries. They argued that in Germany, with the high cost of coal mining and intensive public concern of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the two major competitors of renewable power lost their supports in the late 1980s. This created a window for policymakers in Germany to intensively promote renewable power by introducing feed-in tariff (FIT) policy– a governmental subsidy on the renewable energy industry. FIT significantly accelerated the development of German renewable industry. This industrial growth pushed public opinion more favorable to renewables, making conservative parties reluctant to reverse the policy.

On the other hand, policymakers in the U.S. lacked the motivation to push renewables. First, the coal industry in the U.S. was still at its prime time in the late 1980s (EIA, 2012). Second, Mideastern oil crisis did create some anxiety, but the Bush Administration put more efforts in promoting fossil fuel rather than renewables. With the oil price decreased after several years, the window for American renewable policy change closed.

Massachusetts v. EPA, and the Obama Administration’s climate policy
Joining the Paris Agreement is a crucial part of the Obama Administration’s climate policy. This section will discuss the Obama Administration’s climate policy after the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA supreme court case and analyze how they fit into the model discussed above.

The Massachusetts v. EPA case is a typical example of the definition change of a specific issue under existing institutions, thus opening a window for major policy shifts. In 2007, the State of Massachusetts argued that greenhouse gases should be qualified as air pollutants and regulated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. The State filed a lawsuit against the EPA, and this case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which finally decided that the EPA has the responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases (Massachusetts v. EPA, 2007).

The case then became the Obama Administration’s reference to push aggressive climate policies. Joining the Paris Agreement and the Clean Power Plan (CPP) are two major achievements among these policies. However, both of them were implemented via executive power of the President. This means that they did not get approval from the Congress and can be easily reversed by new executive orders from the following presidents, which is exactly what is happening in the current Trump Administration. Hence, the Paris Agreement and the CPP are still fluctuations around the equilibrium.

However, there are some fundamental differences in these fluctuations. First of all, the fluctuations are bigger. This is shown by an unusual dysfunction of federalism which leads to sharper conflicts between the two parties. Konisky D. M. and Woods N. D. (2016) noticed the more frequent governmental overreach of the Obama Administration. It is estimated that about fifty federal environmental regulation plans were issued to the state level, far more than the Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration. At the same time, conservative states showed more protests against the federal environmental regulations. Multiple litigations against the Obama EPA were filed, arguing that it did not follow its regulation-setting role. Another example is the trend of leaving regional cap and trade program in some states with Republican governors. In 2011, former Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie declared that New Jersey would leave the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)—a voluntary inter-state cap and trade program in the New England region (RGGI, inc., 2011). Interestingly, with the newly elected Democratic Governor Phil Murray, New Jersey now plans to rejoin the RGGI (NJ DEP, 2018).

Second, plans like the CPP is required by existing institutions. With the Massachusetts v. EPA case, if the Trump Administration wants to reverse the CPP, they must propose a substitution plan. In 2018, EPA proposed the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. ACE emphasizes more on heat-rate efficiency improvement and gives the states more flexibility to develop their own plans (US EPA, 2018). However, with intensive questions on if the ACE could reduce greenhouse gas emission, there will possibly be more evaluations and even litigations on it. This shows that with an institutional definition change, attempts to reverse climate policy are harder than before.

Hence, as observed above, although the climate policy changes in the Obama Administration still fall into the fluctuation around the equilibrium, they also display a set of unstable characteristics. According to the equilibrium and fluctuation model discussed in the previous section, the unstable features could be a sign that the climate policy equilibrium is starting to shift.

“A Bigger Fluctuation,” and the Trump Administration’s Climate Policy
With the context set, there is a now different perspective to view President Trump declaration of leaving the Paris Agreement. By using the model, this section will discuss how the declaration turns out to push more stringent and innovative climate policies mostly in the state level and what is the mechanism behind this process.

The declaration itself is just another normal fluctuation around the equilibrium, but its media influence is far bigger than normal. The global media coverage on climate change in June 2017 when the declaration happened went up about 46% compared to May 2017, while in North America, media coverage is twice the amount of May 2017 (Boykoff et al., 2017). Intensive media coverage of this spotlight incident brought climate change to the public’s attention again.

Furthermore, despite the negative attitude towards climate change of the incident, public opinions seem still in favor of climate policy. McGarth L. F. and Bernauer T.’s (2017) research indicates that climate policy has high support rates in the U.S., and this support rate is insensitive to the underlying cost and possible free-riding problem. Tingley D. and Tomz M.’s (2014) work shows similar results, arguing that the majority of the public thinks that their country should have unconditional commitments to solving climate change. Hence, with the vast media coverage and the supportive public opinion, it is predictable that climate policy will be brought on the agenda more frequently, thus creating more possibility for new climate policies. In the federal level, due to the gridlock in Congress, such policies might still be hard to be passed, but in the state level, new climate policies will be more promising. An example of this is the new renewable portfolio standard (NPS) for California. On September 10th , 2018, Californian Democratic Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order, promising the state will be 100 percent clean energy by 2045 (CA Exe. Order, 2018). Also, there has been an on-going discussion in the Oregon legislative branch, trying to pass the Clean Energy Jobs Bill. If passed, the law will introduce a cap and trade program to Oregon (OR Legis. Assemb., 2019). In the federal level, new policies are also emerging. On February 7th , 2019, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez released the outline of a new policy proposal— “Green New Deal.” The package includes climate resiliency, infrastructure upgrade, renewable energy transition, and increasing energy efficiency, etc. (H.R. Con., 2019)

However, these new policies are more stringent and innovative than usual, showing a “bigger fluctuation” characteristic. The new NPS in California is ambitious in terms of achieving 100 percent renewable energy in such a short term. The “Green New Deal” combines climate policy and economy policy in one package, looking for supports from both parties. Policymakers supporting climate policy are now thinking out of the box.

On the other hand, conservative policymakers are confined by the revised Clean Air Act. The review of the ACE is still under process, so the only thing they can do is to wait and to prepare for possible turn-down of the ACE. The space they can move around in terms of climate policy is very limited right now.

Hence, while two parties are still combating in the climate policy arena, Democrats have more potential to introduce new policies especially in the state level, thus breaking the old equilibrium.

Predictions on the Future Climate Policy Change
Finally, it is important to understand how these new emerging policies could lead to a federal level climate policy shift. This section will discuss a possible mechanism of policy diffusion among states, and how this diffusion could ultimately lead to federal policy change.

Politicians typically vote based on three factors– party, ideology, and constituency. With the polarization between two parties right now, votes from conservative Republicans in any states will be hard to get. However, in the swing states, the polarization should be less severe than usual, meaning that there will be more moderates Republicans and Democrats legislators. These legislators do not weigh the Party factor too much, and their ideology tends to be more mixed. Hence, constituency will be a more important consideration for them when voting for a certain policy. If the liberal states which are adopting new climate policies can show robust economic growth in the long term, public opinion in the swing states could also incline to support such policies. For example, in the states where coal jobs are degrading, policy-induced renewable job growth in another state may incentivize local workers to ask for similar policies, thus shifting the constituency. For electoral consideration, the moderate voters in the state will start to support similar policies in the state legislative branch.

At this point, a positive feedback has already started. With swing states getting on board with climate policies, conservative states could start to change too, ultimately influencing Congress legislation and shifting federal level climate policies. Similar policy diffusion appeared frequently in the past. For example, historical Californian regulations on motor vehicle emissions turned out to affect federal regulation design (Konisky, D. M., & Woods, N. D., 2016). Also, this might explain the failure of American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Voted in 2009, the Act never passed the filibuster veto in the Senate. ACES came out only three years after the Assembly Bill 32 (AB32) in California. Without enough time to display AB32’s effect on the economy, voters from the other states could be more hesitant when making decisions.

In summary, President Trump’s declaration of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement could potentially accelerate federal level climate policy change. First of all, the media effects it induced keep the climate policy on the agenda. The resistance it created intensified the climate policy fluctuations which have grown stronger since the Obama Administration. Secondly, while Democratic states are getting more stringent and innovative in climate policy design, Republican states are confined by the revised Clean Air Act. Finally, the successful implementation of climate policy in some states could diffuse to other states, creating a positive feedback. This positive feedback could ultimately urge a federal level climate policy change, shifting the equilibrium.

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Yingfei "Ted" Jiang
Sustainability Specialist

客亦知夫水與月乎？逝者如斯，而未嘗往也；盈虛者如彼，而卒莫消長也。蓋將自其變者而觀之，則天地曾不能以一瞬；自其不變者而觀之，則物與我皆無盡也，而又何羨乎？ 且夫天地之間，物各有主，茍非吾之所有，雖一毫而莫取。惟江上之清風，與山間之明月，耳得之而為聲，目遇之而成色，取之無禁，用之不竭，是造物者之無盡藏也，而吾與子之所共食。 –蘇軾《赤壁賦》

Do you happen to know the nature of water or the moon? Water is always on the run like this, but never lost in its course; the moon always waxes and wanes like that, but never out of its sphere. When viewed from a changing perspective, the universe can hardly be the same even within a blink of an eye, But when looked at from an unchanging perspective, everything conserves itself, and so do we. Therefore, what’s in them to be admired? Besides, in this universe, everything has its rightful owner. If something does not belong to you, then you shall not even have a bit of it. Only the refreshing breeze on the river and the bright moon over the hills are an exception. If you can hear it, it is a sound to you; if you can see it, it is a view to you. It never ends and is never exhausted. It is the infinite treasure granted to us by our Creator for both of us to enjoy. – Su Shi, Ode to the Red Cliff