Climate Politics and Policy

The Luskin Center for Innovation conducts research to inform evidence-based climate policy and planning. This includes assessing the co-benefits of climate policies in order to learn how to efficiently reduce GHG emissions while maximizing local benefits such as improved air quality and public health.

Much of our sector-specific climate policy and planning research is organized in our transportation, energy, and water program areas. Other climate research is crosscutting. Examples of these crosscutting studies are provided below.

CURRENT PROJECT(S)

Evaluation of Seven Transformative Climate Communities Program Investments

Researcher(s): Alex Aguirre Levitas, Samantha Astudillo, Camille Burrus, Elena Hernandez, and Jason Karpman

Funder: California Strategic Growth Council

Our team is documenting community-led, climate action that is funded by the Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) Program in seven communities: Fresno, Ontario, Pomona, South Stockton, and three Los Angeles neighborhoods (Northeast San Fernando Valley, South Los Angeles, and Watts). We are collecting and sharing data on measurable accomplishments as well as stories from residents, business owners, workers, and others who have shaped — or been shaped by TCC.

Learn more

Local Political Response to Climate Risks

Researcher(s): Megan Mullin

Funder: Carnegie Corporation of New York

This project examines the role of local democracy in reshaping towns and cities as they confront growing climate hazards. With support from an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the research brings together survey data and case studies to appraise how the costs and benefits of climate adaptation policies get distributed both in theory and in practice, and whether local efforts to become more resilient reinforce existing inequalities.

Reshaping Communities: Local Political Response to Climate Risks (current)

Researcher: Megan Mullin

Project supported by an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship on the role of local democracy in reshaping towns and cities as they confront growing climate hazards. The research examines whether local efforts to become more resilient reinforce racial and economic inequalities caused by past policies.

Evaluation of Transformative Climate Communities Program Investments (current)

Researchers: Alex Aguirre Levitas, Samantha Astudillo, Camille Burrus, Elena Hernandez, and Jason Karpman

The Transformative Climate Communities Program (TCC) may be the most innovative, comprehensive, and equitable experiment in community-scale climate action, ever. It empowers underinvested communities to choose and implement their vision, strategies, and projects – all with data-driven milestones and measurable outcomes. The Luskin Center for Innovation is documenting the groundbreaking progress of TCC-supported action in seven cities: Fresno, Ontario, Pomona, Stockton, and the South L.A., Watts, and Northeast San Fernando Valley neighborhoods of Los Angeles. TCC projects, including clean transportation, affordable housing, renewable energy, energy efficiency, urban greening, and more, are benefiting communities profoundly, providing savings on energy and rent, greener streets, job training, and more.

PUBLISHED RESEARCH

Cap-and-Trade’s Financial Impact in Disadvantaged Communities (2016 report)
Authors: Julien Gattaciecca, Colleen Callahan, and J.R. DeShazo

Luskin Center for Innovation experts assessed the financial impacts on disadvantaged communities of California’s carbon Cap-and-Trade Program, which places the world’s first economy-wide cap on GHG emissions and establishes market mechanisms to price carbon allowances. The regulated entities are large emitters of GHGs, including electric utilities, natural gas utilities, and fuel distributors. Researchers analyzed the Cap-and-Trade compliance costs that result from the regulated entities’ purchase of carbon allowances. The costs of these allowances create price signals that communicate to consumers the amount of GHG emissions associated with electricity, natural gas, and gasoline consumption. While allowing price signals to encourage lower GHG consumption choices, policymakers also want to ensure that the cost burden does not fall disproportionately on low-income Californians. The state has put in place many mitigation strategies that researchers found to be financially protecting low-income households, in most cases, in the communities that the study analyzed.

Assessing Solar and Efficiency Opportunities: Part of President Obama’s Climate Data Initiative (2014 report)
Authors: Colleen Callahan, J.R. DeShazo, Henry McCann, and Norman Wong

In response to then-President Obama’s Climate Data Initiative, the UCLA Luskin Center and Environmental Defense Fund released the Los Angeles Solar and Efficiency Report (LASER) — a data-driven mapping tool designed to help communities identify opportunities to invest in projects that will save households money, create clean energy jobs, and strengthen climate resilience. The tool illustrates existing pollution and climate change impacts at a community level and illustrates “hot spots” ripe for rooftop solar investment and energy efficiency building potential at the parcel level.

Climate Action Planning: Progress Report on Southern California (2012 report)
Authors: J.R. DeShazo and Juan Matute

This report is an assessment of local climate action planning in Southern California. It is based on the Southern California Climate Action Information Sharing Network, a resource that provides cities and stakeholders with access to city climate planning information and allows cities to take credit for actions they’ve taken. We list 10 cities whose climate performance stands out.

US Partisan Polarization on Climate Change: Can Stalemate Give Way to Opportunity? (2023 article in Political Science & Politics)

Researcher(s): Megan Mullin and Patrick J Egan

This study highlights three recent developments that could advance climate policy, despite partisan politics: 1) partisan cohesion and Democratic initiative, 2) clean-energy expansion in Republican states, and 3) partisan distribution of climate impacts.

Read about the article

To Adapt to Climate Impacts, Come to Grips with Politics (2022 article in Nature)

Researcher(s): Megan Mullin

This article speaks to the need to understand and surmount political hurdles to adapt to climate change. This research was led by Megan Mullin during her transition from Duke University to the Luskin Center for Innovation.

Read the article

Form and Flow: The Spatial Politics of Urban Resilience and Climate Justice (2021 article in Climatic Change)

Researcher(s): Kian Goh

Cities around the world are formulating plans to respond to climate change and adapt to its impact. Often, marginalized urban residents resist these plans, offering “counterplans” to protest unjust and exclusionary actions. In this book, Kian Goh examines climate change response strategies in New York, Jakarta, and Rotterdam and the mobilization of community groups to fight the perceived injustices and oversights of these plans.

Read the article

Avoiding climate change: “Agnostic adaptation” and the politics of public silence (2020 article in Annals of the American Association of Geographers)

Researcher(s): Liz Koslov

The term agnostic adaptation refers to actions that address climate change’s effects without acknowledging its existence or human causes. This article explores how action and silence coexist and even serve to reinforce each other.

Read the article

Cap-and-Trade’s Financial Impact in Disadvantaged Communities (2016 report)

Author(s): Julien Gattaciecca, Colleen Callahan and J.R. DeShazo

LCI assessed the financial impacts on disadvantaged communities of California’s carbon Cap-and-Trade Program, which places the world’s first economy-wide cap on GHG emissions and establishes market mechanisms to price carbon allowances. The regulated entities are large emitters of GHGs, including electric utilities, natural gas utilities, and fuel distributors. LCI researchers analyzed Cap-and-Trade compliance costs that result from the regulated entities’ purchase of carbon allowances. The costs of these allowances create price signals that communicate to consumers the amount of GHG emissions associated with electricity, natural gas, and gasoline consumption. While allowing price signals to encourage lower GHG consumption choices, policymakers also want to ensure that the cost burden does not fall disproportionately on low-income Californians. The state has put in place many mitigation strategies that LCI researchers found to be financially protecting low-income households, in most cases, in the communities that the study analyzed.

Read the report

Los Angeles Solar and Efficiency Report (LASER) (2013 report)

Author(s): Colleen Callahan, J.R. DeShazo, Henry McCann, and Norman Wong

In response to then President Obama’s Climate Data Initiative, the Luskin Center for Innovation and the Environmental Defense Fund released the Los Angeles Solar and Efficiency Report (LASER) — a data-driven mapping tool designed to help communities identify opportunities to invest in projects that will save households money, create clean energy jobs, and strengthen climate resilience. The tool illustrates existing pollution and climate change impacts at a community level and illustrates “hot spots” ripe for rooftop solar investment and energy efficiency building potential at the parcel level.

Read the report

Climate Action Planning: Progress Report on Southern California (2012 report)

Author(s): J.R. DeShazo and Juan Matute

Read the report

The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.

Click on the linked words to hear the pronunciation for the Tongva-language words.

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