A Strategy for Addressing Climate Change in the North Carolina Legislature
Abstract
The North Carolina Conservation Network (ConNet) is seeking a successful legislative
strategy to achieve the passage of policy in North Carolina General Assembly addressing
climate change. This is a particular challenge in the light of the 2010 election,
which ushered in a Republican majority in both Houses, which are generally either
indifferent or hostile to climate policy and ConNet. Further, ConNet’s previous legislative
strategy frequently depended on strong ties to the then Democratic legislative leadership
which helped to move their legislative priorities forward, legislators who no longer
hold that power.
This is not the only challenge facing ConNet’s strategy. Even when there was a Democratic
legislative majority, achievements were generally in the related field of energy policy
and few climate policies made it through the many informal planning processes to actually
make it to the Assembly floor. Finally, ConNet is a coalition of diverse environmental
organizations which has split in the past over legislative issues. Therefore, ConNet
needs a strategy that is amenable to all of its coalition members, or have a strategy
for handling disagreement without severely weakening their coalition.
This paper examines both policy and political strategy options available to ConNet
in the next legislative session. Policy options include greenhouse gas mitigation
policy, energy generation and efficiency policy, climate adaptation policy and fuels
policy. The analysis will narrow these options by evaluating their policy effectiveness,
political feasibility, and their alignment with the short and long-term interests
of ConNet and its coalition. The paper will also suggest some political strategy
options that can be effective in moving these policy options forward in the short
and long term. They are titled in this paper: “Divide and Conquer”, “Fight the Power”,
“New Coalitions”, “Proactive Agenda”, “Reactive Agenda” and “Venue Change”. Each
uses the resources available to the ConNet coalition and its members to attempt to
move climate policy forward, or at least limit reversals of policy implemented thus
far.
Type
Master's projectDepartment
The Sanford School of Public PolicyPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/5293Citation
Conlin, BethAnn (2012). A Strategy for Addressing Climate Change in the North Carolina Legislature. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/5293.More Info
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