Greening the Economy Sustainably

Abstract

Key officials at all levels of government have characterized climate change as "the greatest challenge [we have] ever faced." An enormous amount has already been written about climate change in the legal literature and elsewhere. Yet it is abundantly clear that we have not yet come up with a coherent strategy for tackling this challenge either domestically or beyond. My purpose in this article is to suggest the overarching importance of three fundamental features of rapidly evolving climate change initiatives.

Part I offers a conceptual frame for developing strategies for mitigating and adapting to climate change. The purpose of this Part is to articulate the goals we should pursue in addressing climate change. While it generally is sound strategy to articulate, and be clear about, goals as an essential element of policy development, doing so is particularly valuable when the goals tend toward the amorphous, such as the pursuit of "sustainable" climate solutions.

Part II reviews some of the foundational information policy makers need to make sound decisions about climate solutions. This is an area in which the need for information is great but the pace of activity is frenetic and accelerating rapidly. The goal in this Part is to provide an overview of some of the types of information policy makers should develop, and consider, in formulating sustainable climate solutions.

Part III considers the myriad institutional governance questions we face in developing climate solutions. The division of responsibility within our system of government has ebbed and flowed since the country's founding. This Part identifies some of the key components of our system of government and raises questions about whether our current division of responsibility is a good fit for developing and implementing climate solutions. There clearly is considerable skepticism that our current structure is adequate, including at the highest levels of government - witness President Obama's very early decision to create an entirely new office in the White House focused on climate change and to task EPA's former Administrator to head that office. New governance structures of this sort raise significant questions concerning the role they will fill, their impact on the roles and responsibilities of existing institutions, and how the new entities will interact with the old, in the environmental/natural resource arena (EPA, CEQ, DOI, etc.), and beyond (e.g., the Office of National Security, the Office of Economic Policy, the Department of Labor, etc.). California's 2008 enactment of Senate Bill 375, which has the potential to fundamentally change state/local relations in the land use area to address climate change issues, signals that governments at the state and local levels similarly are likely to consider modifying their governance structures to address climate solutions. It is likely, in short, that the perceived importance of the climate change challenge will lead to significant changes in the shape of governance institutions at all levels of government in the United States and perhaps beyond. The implications for government legitimacy, accountability, transparency, and effectiveness are potentially momentous.