Work Sample: Natural Disasters and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Policy

 


Context

This essay was written for my administrative politics class during the spring semester, 2020. The purpose of our paper was to focus on a topic that was important to public administration and politics, and deduce the quality of the policies in place for that specific policy area. For this paper, I choose to discuss natural disasters and greenhouse gas emissions policy, and analyze the policies in place.

Natural Disasters and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Policy

Introduction:

The environment that encompasses our world is highly fragile, as serious environmental issues have detrimental effects on the health of our planet. Climate change is one of the major dilemmas regarding current environmental issues, as it has been most prevalent in our society. Climate change is seen through various effects, one of the most devastating being increased severity and emergence of natural disasters. Recent natural disasters in the United States have led to more destruction and turmoil for many communities all over the nation. These enhanced disasters have left many families without homes, local economies in shambles, and greater allocation of disaster relief resources and programs in order to combat the worsening conditions. All of this can be attested to increased greenhouse gas levels throughout history, as with changing culture, markets and economies leading to the further development of technology in all sectors of life and business, a surge in greenhouse gas emissions has caused further problems of natural disasters and climate change.

With growing concern of climate change, natural disaster severity and commonality, and greenhouse gas emissions, the United States has attempted to create public policy in order to reverse the damages of greenhouse gases. With the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 under the Nixon administration, and the creation of state environmental departments, there has been enforcement that has allowed for further initiatives to reverse the effects of greenhouse gas emissions (McVey, 2018). However, even with the greater focus on reversing climate change, the federal and state governments have been highly criticized for their incompetence with rising global climate concerns. Many people and private environmental protection organizations have been highly concerned with the ability of the government to lower emissions of greenhouse gases. Especially with the Environmental Protection Agency losing a significant amount of funding, becoming diluted, and lacking of a central purpose, there is growing concern on the accountability of our government. With this being said, it is important to understand how the effects of greenhouse gases, including natural disaster severity, helps us to observe the current issues of policy and enforcement that has been establish.

The Effects of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Natural Disasters:

Natural disasters, without amplified conditions, are already highly dangerous and extremely concerning to the people affected directly and indirectly by the disaster. With increase in greenhouse gas emissions, there has been evidence that shows this increase as being directly correlated to the increase in more intense natural disasters. According to the Independent Evaluation at Asian Development Bank, it is suggested that climate conditions, including natural disasters, have appeared to become more significant as carbon dioxide accumulation in the

Additionally, with an increase in natural disasters, due to increased greenhouse gas emissions, severity of disasters is another significant issue that has occurred. If natural disasters occur more frequently than ever before, then an issue of severity is highly concerning, as these destructive disasters leave an even greater mark on the communities it ravages. According to an article published by Scientific American, there has been evidence, through recent natural disasters in the United States, that these disasters have been more extreme due to greenhouse gas emissions and worsening conditions of climate change. One natural disaster this is evident by is Hurricane Florence, which hit the Caribbean and both North and South Carolina. While Hurricanes are known to be destructive storms, Hurricane Florence was fueled by the conditions of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. With higher ocean temperatures from climate change, Hurricane Florence grew into a category four storm, one that left the Carolinas with immense amounts of flooding. Another natural disaster that caused a significant amount of turmoil was the scorching heat of the summer of 2018. This summer was exacerbated due to the effects of climate change, as the deterioration of the ozone layer made this summer one of the hottest in recorded history. Not only did this hot summer cause a significant amount of wildfires in California, but also ”ruined crops, boosted toxic algae blooms, shut down nuclear-reactor cooling systems, and triggered blackouts across four continents (Francis, 2019),” showing the impact of severe natural disasters on the United States and the world. (Francis, 2019).climate increases. The Figure above demonstrates this trend, as throughout the years 1970-2013, with the rise of carbon dioxide levels, there has been an increase of disasters relating to hydrometeorological conditions and climatological conditions. This suggests that with the increase in greenhouse gas emissions through these four decades, there has been a correlated trend of increase of natural disaster, both relating to climate conditions and conditions of water and energy in relation to lower atmosphere (Independent Evaluation at Asian Development Bank, 2015). This increase in natural disasters due to increasing greenhouse gas emission levels is a major concern for not only the United States, but the world, as with an increase in natural disaster appearance comes more adversity that is to be faced by communities that are more susceptible to these disasters.

It is clear that with the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, there is more trauma that is experienced all over the United States and the world. The United States, being a major contributor to this issue, has ironically been one of the most affected by increased greenhouse gas emissions. With numerous states having to allocate immense amounts of relief and disaster resources for people who have had their houses burned by wildfires or submerged by flooding, it is clear that the efforts to combat climate change have been ineffective due to the current environment status. Current policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions have shown to be ineffective in preventing worse climate conditions. Thus, greenhouse gas emissions need to be more thoroughly evaluated in order to understand specific policy that could be adapted to minimize the amount of emissions currently in the United States. Without the proper creation, implementation, and enforcement of policy to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, there will continue to be an ever-growing problem of natural disasters due to climate change. Looking at the past and current state of environmental policy gives us this insight to what the current problems of policy are and how we can analyze them in order to suggest changes of current greenhouse gas.

Greenhouse Gas Policy Throughout U.S. History:

After the start of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the growth of industry led to a constant increase of greenhouse gases, as the United States passed a significant amount of countries in emissions. As shown in the figure below, the United States quickly rose to one of the top carbon dioxide emitters in the world, showing the need for the creation of greenhouse gas policy in the U.S. (Friedrich and Damassa, 2014).

Policy to combat carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions started in the 1970’s, when the Environmental Protection Agency was created. With the development of the Environmental Protection Agency, a multitude of policy regarding greenhouse gas emissions started to be adopted, in response to the growing concern. Beginning in 1977, President Jimmy Carter started the momentous change for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act Amendments. These amendments allowed for the E.P.A. to have access to more power in regulating certain greenhouse gases known as Hazardous Air Pollutants, which not only caused problems to the environment and climate change, but also affected the health of people directly. Following the adaption of these amendments, in 1994, President Bill Clinton mobilized greenhouse gas policy through issuing an executive order “that all federal agencies prioritized environmental justice for minorities and low income (McVey, 2018)” to prevent the risk of furthered damage to these communities and their exposure to hazardous air pollutants. These are the first two major attempts to combat greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, as the government’s interest in trying to limit climate change was growing immensely. After this, efforts continued to expand, as with the Environment Protection Agency broadening their efforts, they were able to establish monitorization of air quality, especially in areas that had recently been affected by natural disasters. Congress also took action with the creation of committees in both the House and Senate in order to help focus efforts on global warming and climate change. Furthermore, President George Bush, along with the help from Japan, established the Kyoto Protocol, which led to a worldwide effort in order to reduce emissions. Finally, with the lead of President Barack Obama, he attempted to create the Clean Power Plan to coincide with one of the biggest strategies from the federal government in order to combat climate change (McVey, 2018).

State efforts had also been established in order to combat climate change. Specifically, California has been one of the first states to pave the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In 2002, the Governor of California established the California Air Resources Board, which “is charged with protecting the public from the harmful effects of air pollution and developing programs and actions to fight climate change (CARB).” This state agency has established in-depth approaches in order attempt to clean the air in California. With these approaches, California has been able to improve their air quality levels in order to prevent health risks to people, analyze the performance of the agency in doing a variety of climate change actions that would reduce greenhouse gases, and overall, establish state efforts to demonstrate initiatives to lower greenhouse gas emissions (CARB). Another state that has taken on similar climate change initiatives was New York. In 2009, with the creation of the New York State Climate Action Council, the council worked in order to protect the climate of New York State. The council has a variety of agencies that works under them, in order to improve greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the council’s efforts led to the signing of the Climate Leaderships and Protection Act, which “requires New York to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 40% (NYCAC).” This is just one of the examples of how New York State has taken on important initiatives to allow for cleaner air, prevent against the deterioration of the climate, and once again provide for state initiatives that allow for the demonstration of tackling climate change (NYCAC). Other states have taken on initiatives that have allowed for similar effects, meaning that certain state governments have shown their ability to create effective greenhouse gas policy.

Issues with Current U.S. Greenhouse Gas Policy:

While the United States has had some past success in battling climate change, in recent history, there has seemed to be a lot of problems with greenhouse gas policy.  While climate change has been highly important in the past, there are concerns of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Trump Administration and certain state governments not taking on the same level of care as former administrations and other state governments. Specifically, there is a lot of skepticism and criticism when discussing the actions of the Environmental Protection Agency. One of the comments that is made about the E.P.A. is that they have failed to properly protect the air quality in the United States. While the agency has made an opposite claim, the actions shown through policy implementation demonstrate the agency’s incompetence. For example, the E.P.A. has cut the standards for car pollution by allowing more cars with inefficient engines, leading to the production of higher levels of greenhouse gases from these inefficient cars. Furthermore, the E.P.A. attempted to limit states from enacting initiatives that increased these standards in their own states, showing how their mission is clouded (The Climate Reality Project, 2019). Additionally, the E.P.A. has been criticized for directly enforcing policy that is in opposition to recent science. When looking at the current state of our environment, there has shown to be a need to shift our focus quickly to tackling climate change, as it is necessary to prevent against irreversible damage to our world. However, the E.P.A. has been acting against this notion, leaving for a lot of questionable actions. For example, the E.P.A. had suggested the repeal of the Clean Power Plan. The Clean Power Plan would’ve prevented against the increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, thus not only having a positive effect on our environment, but also allowing for the improvement of the health of millions of Americans (Center for Sustainable Systems at University of Michigan, 2017). With these and other questionable actions from the E.P.A., there is a lack of accountability, leading to a necessity for better performance management from the public. Furthermore, with this carelessness for climate change issues, it presents further issues for the United States for a cleaner environment in the future.

While the E.P.A. is blamed for a lot of these actions that have resulted in a reverting of climate change policy, it is important to look at President Trump’s administration and his outspokenness against climate change focus, showing how the current administration is another huge issue that is highly criticized for climate change problems. Examining the actions of the Trump administration as a whole, a major dilemma that has occurred was the President’s decisions to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a worldly initiative to attempt to reduce the threat of climate change, with almost 200 countries worldwide having signed the agreement. With the withdrawal of the United States from the agreement, the decision is said to have a terrible impact on both the United States and the world’s attempt at combating climate change. With the United States being one of the top polluters in the entire world, President Trump has taken an action that would allow for the United States to continue to pollute at a high rate. Ultimately, this mistake by President Trump and his administration shows a need for proper environmental policy (Blau, 2018). But to say that President Trump has overshadowed the need for greenhouse gas policy would be an overstatement, as the President has made it his mission to reverse the environmental policies established by President Obama. Specifically, President Trump has established numerous executive orders in attempt to limit the costs of President Obama’s environmental initiatives. These executive orders include “reducing regulation and controlling regulatory cost (Aldy, 2017),” which limits the abilities of regulatory agencies, including the E.P.A., and ensuring that each agency removed the regulations on climate control and energy that President Obama had created. President Trump’s ultimate goal seems to be to “reverse policy progress made under the Obama administration, and remove any regulations that may burden domestic energy development, with a fossil fuel emphasis (Aldy, 2017),” suggesting that President Trump’s focus leads him away from ensuring proper policy for greenhouse gas emissions and protecting the nation from climate change issues like natural disasters. Finally, President Trump’s leadership within the E.P.A. are beyond questionable, as he has assigned numerous people to take charge who do not consider themselves environmentalist, compromising any success the E.P.A. could have established (Aldy, 2017). It is clear that both the E.P.A. and the Trump administration both have very specific roles in reversing the policy against greenhouse gas emissions, as neither have been able to make positive change for the nation.

State governments have also shown their incompetence in creating greenhouse gas policy, as even though certain states have taken initiatives that has greatly improved greenhouse gas emissions, there are still many states that have little policy regarding this issue. In demonstrating this, many states have not adopted any policy on greenhouse gas reduction, including the implementation of carbon pricing policies, energy efficiency policies, transportation policies, and other policies that would greatly affect the current status of climate change in the United States (C2ES). Furthermore, after the President withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, states, on their own accord, showed their support for the agreement. However, only 24 states and Puerto Rico had showed their support, suggesting that 26 states did not
support the Paris Agreement and felt that it was unnecessary for them to be a part of the mission.

The figure above shows this majority of states not showing their support for the Paris Agreement, suggesting their disinterest in global climate recovery (Green, 2019). With a majority of states showing their lack of in creating and supporting greenhouse gas policy, that would positively affect the United States and the world, it demonstrates the overall problem with current views on climate change.

Analyzation of Current Greenhouse Gas Policy:

In relation to the various principles of public administration, the United States has not served the essential purpose it has needed to. With issues of accountability and performance management, federal and state governments have a necessity to understand its citizen regarding greenhouse gas policy. When discussing accountability issues, it has been shown through this lack of necessary policy that the government hasn’t been accountable to the people of the United States. This can be attested to a variety of aspects, the first being the need for positive or negative control. The mission of the E.P.A. is beyond blurred, leaving it with incompetent and untrustworthy leadership, and haven committed acts that has questioned the purpose of the agency. The need for further control to ensure the proper direction of policy is critical to the future of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions policy. Through the use of positive control, which requires agencies to do what they should do, or negative control, which is to prevent agencies from doing what they shouldn’t do, it can help to establish policy by ensuring that the E.P.A. understands it role in enforcing policy that further helps limit greenhouse gas emissions (Kettl, 2018, p. 8). The second aspect that needs to be accounted for is program accountability, as the E.P.A. needs to establish its programs to properly meet its defined purpose. While the E.P.A. claims that is mission is to “protect human health and the environment (EPA)”, and it states that it claims that “federal laws protecting human health and the environment are administered and enforced fairly, effectively and as Congress intended (EPA),” a lot of the programs that the E.P.A. has established and enforced have either been unsuccessful or rescinded, showing that its message does not match with the performance of its programs. This entails that program accountability is lackluster and needs to be further enhanced and created more accountable to achieve the purpose of the program and maintain the mission of the E.P.A. (Kettl, 2018, p.16). The third aspect that needs to be accounted for is the debate of leaving administrators accountable for themselves, rather than through the rule of law and legal standards. The Fredrich-Finer Debate issues that administrators should be held accountable, but in different ways in which these individuals believe keeps administrators accountable. Friedrich states that administrators should be able to hold themselves accountable, as the law should not make the job of an administrator inefficient, while Finer states that administrators should not be above the rule of law, and that legal standards should hold these figures accountable (Jackson, 2009). While administrators and officials have been keeping themselves accountable, they have not have had to deal with legal standards regarding environmental issues, so it is important to change this accountability style in order to allow the law to hold these figures and the government accountable. In discussing greenhouse gas policy, the lack of or removal of necessary policy shows that these figures should be held more accountable, beyond themselves, but rather under the law. The final aspect that is to be accounted for are the three themes of public administration: politics, performance and accountability. It is stated that in order to have an effective government, one that is seen by the people as legitimate, all of these themes are to be equally met in order to have a government that is reliable, is able to deliver effectiveness and that their choices are to be made among the values of our nation (Kettl, 2018). It can be said though that the government hasn’t been able to maintain or properly balance these themes, as when referring to greenhouse gas policy, there has been a lack of accountability to create or maintain proper policy, deliver effective policy, or make choices on policy that uphold our values. This suggests questionable behavior from the government, that to many seems unethical and does not allow for the evolution of effective policy of greenhouse gas emissions.

Another way to analyze greenhouse gas policy and the government’s actions is through performance management. Performance management can take on a few forms, one of the most important being citizen feedback. When looking at current citizen feedback on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change issues, it has shown that the majority of Americans are not being represented, as the majority believes that there should be more effective policy to combat greenhouse gas emissions. A lot of citizens feel that it is important to establish policy that will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce the current issues that are related to climate change. Furthermore, it is shown that the majority of Americans feel as if, at this
moment, the federal government isn’t doing enough to try to protect the climate.

The figure above shows that 67% of Americans currently believe that not enough is being done to reverse climate change and stop problems like severe natural disaster (Pew Research Center, 2019). This shows that citizen feedback of our governments and agencies isn’t properly taken into account, as administrators are choosing to shape and enforce policy in matters in which they see benefits themselves the most. This is a major problem that the government shouldn’t overlook, as in order to establish effective policy, citizen feedback should be accounted for.

Lastly, while the government is heavily criticized for the lack of effective greenhouse gas policy, it is important to understand the legal issues that arise with the creation of policy. If implementation of policy is presented with legal issues, it can prevent important policy to be fully established. This can be seen with the Clean Power Plan, as with the finalization of the plan set in place, many legal issues arouse on the plan’s constitutionality, regulatory authority and standing with statutory law. These legal issues posed many restrictions to this plan and thus never allowed for it to fully materialize (Koehrer, 2016). Through this, it can be said that the current administration and governments shouldn’t be fully blamed for ineffective policy, as it is hard to make effective policy legal. Nevertheless, the current administration and governments have been removing important greenhouse gas laws that are needed in order to provide for a cleaner future. This shows that while there may be issues with the law, the current administration and government should be blamed for issues of ineffective policy, as there has been questionable actions by our government in deciding policy at the moment.

Conclusion:

Greenhouse gas policy is necessary for reduction of severe natural disasters and other climate change related issues. However, policy hasn’t been focused on properly, showing how the government hasn’t been as accountable to the people. In order to move beyond this point, two steps need to be taken. This first is that the federal and state governments need to understand the responsibility they hold in determining the future of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. While the government is currently failing to understand the issue at hand, it is their responsibility to take action and ownership for the current failures, in order for greenhouse gas policy to move forward. This ownership will also keep figures of our nation accountable as well, including corporations, who attribute to this problem directly (Cuomo, 2011). The other step that needs to be taken is the implementation and evaluation of policy. Greenhouse gas policy, during the process of creating and implementing, or rescinding, needs to be more thoroughly analyzed in order to understand the importance of that policy. Policy that had been rescinded under the Trump administration were highly important, thus should’ve been more thoroughly analyzed in order to understand the importance of that policy. If these changes can be made, there is a lot of hope for the future of greenhouse gas policy. Ultimately, Natural disasters and other climate change related issues continue to intensify and become worse as this problem continues to exist. If policy that is effective to combat greenhouse gas emissions isn’t established sooner than later, these climate change issues will become an even bigger problem for our nation and the world in the future, thus making it harder to combat. It is important that for the sake of the world, policy is created that will help to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, in order to prevent natural disasters and other issues to grow into problems that devastate our planet.

Sources

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Aldy, J. E. (2017). Real world headwinds for Trump climate change policy. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists73(6), 376–381. doi: 10.1080/00963402.2017.1388673

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Cuomo, C. J. (n.d.). Climate Change, Vulnerability, and Responsibility. Responsibility and Identity in Global Justice26(4), 690–714. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/41328876 Accessed: 22-03-2020 19:00 UTC

Francis, J. (2019, June). Rough Weather Ahead. Scientific American.

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Kettl, D. F. (2021). Politics of the administrative process. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press, an imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc.

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Reflection:

While the assignment was one that took a lot of time and effort to write, I thoroughly enjoyed writing this piece. The paper, for me, had two beneficial aspects to it: It allowed me to strengthen my research skills and confirmed my interest in politics and the environment. The process of researching this topic and finding the appropriate sources allowed me to strengthen my patience and determination. While I had experience conducting research in the past, this final paper expanded my abilities and challenged me to search more effectively and efficiently for the information to support my argument. While long, I really enjoyed researching this environmental and political topic. I am highly motivated to work towards protecting our environment and maintaining the ecosystems of our planet, so the process of implementing safeguards to do this is through the administration and political process.