HOW TO MORE EFFECTIVELY PASS FEDERAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND RENEWABLE ENERGY LEGISLATION IN THE U.S.

Abstract

This study’s purpose is to broadly assess and interpret the literature to reach novel conclusions on recommendations for strategies on how to pass federal climate change legislation in the U.S. more successfully in the future. This research is necessary, due to a gap in existing literature on how to successfully pass climate change legislation. Literature is abundant and there is a common understanding amongst the public on the factors and actors blocking climate change legislation in the U.S., but there is far less of a public and academic consensus on how to combat these anti-climate change actors and factors successfully. This study examines 25 peer reviewed academic journals and looks to uncover patterns revealed in the literature. The literature highlights the barriers of federalism and provides these as solutions to overcome the complexities built into the system. The study points to three prominent patterns in the literature recommending that in order for climate change legislation to pass, legislators, lobbyists, climate advocates, scientists, etc. must understand the complexity and interdisciplinary impacts of climate change and therefore the multifaceted approach needed in policymaking. Next, similarly, the literature points to the need for compromise in order for climate change legislation to pass in the U.S. at the federal level, recommending a focus on reframing issues as “energy security” or “sustainable development” so as to make them nonpartisan terms and please varying actors. Finally, and again similarly, the literature recommends that the climate change movement needs to broaden its framework in order to open up the movement to more actors to more successfully combat the strong, large, and wealthy counter-climate change movement.