The Environment, A Bipartisan Issue?: Partisanship Polarization and Climate Change Policies in the United States

Dotto, Valentina and Richardson-Oakes, Anne (2019) The Environment, A Bipartisan Issue?: Partisanship Polarization and Climate Change Policies in the United States. British Journal of American Legal Studies, 8 (3). ISSN 2049-4092

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Responding to climate change presents significant challenges on both international and domestic fronts. The current U.S. federal government disclaims a connection between climate change, and human activity, and embraces an environmental program that includes withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Agreement at international level and retrenchment from regulation domestically. This Article comments on the rollback of Obama-era environmental regulations now taking place at federal level and locates these policies in the context of the domestic polarization and partisanship that now characterizes U.S. politics. It notes that environmental regulation divides the Republican and Democratic Parties but that the response of individual party members may be more nuanced, particularly amongst younger voters. The Article comments on state level initiatives to counteract the effects of climate change that have gathered bipartisan support but are now subject to partisan actions by the federal government designed to limit their effectiveness. The Article concludes with the observation that as the combination of an aging demographic and alignment with a declining fossil fuel industry shrinks the GOP traditional constituency, it is to be hoped that far-sighted politicians from both parties will embrace credibility on this issue as a key component of enhancing their own as well as the planet’s survival

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number:	10.2478/bjals-2019-0017
Dates:	Date Event 11 November 2019 Accepted 31 December 2019 Published Online
Subjects:	CAH16 - law > CAH16-01 - law > CAH16-01-01 - law
Divisions:	Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences > College of Law, Social and Criminal Justice
Depositing User:	Anne Richardson Oakes
Date Deposited:	04 Dec 2019 11:31
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2022 14:08
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/8508

Actions (login required)

View Item