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)

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.

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Researcher(s): Alex Aguirre Levitas, Samantha Astudillo, Camille Burrus, Elena Hernandez, and Jason Karpman
Funder: California Strategic Growth Council

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.

Researcher(s): Megan Mullin
Funder: Carnegie Corporation of New York

PUBLISHED RESEARCH

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.

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Researcher(s): Megan Mullin

This article speaks to the need to understand and surmount political hurdles to adapt to climate change.

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Researcher(s): Andrew G. Keeler, Megan Mullin, Dylan E. McNamara & Martin D. Smith

This article introduces an innovation in buyout policy that would allow residents to remain in their homes as renters after being bought out. The researchers develop the basic structure of such a policy, recommend funding mechanisms, and discuss the policy’s potential for improving outcomes in the case of necessary migration away from coastal areas.

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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.

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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.

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A Financial Analysis of Cap-and-Trade’s Impact on Households in Disadvantaged Communities Across California

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

This study assesses the financial impacts on disadvantaged communities of California’s carbon Cap-and-Trade Program. The researchers found that the state has put in place many mitigation strategies that are financially protecting low-income households, in most cases, in the communities that the study analyzed.

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An Atlas of Investment Potential in Los Angeles County Version 2.0

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.

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Author(s): 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.

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