The Price of Globalism: Small-Scale Solutions to Climate Change

“It’s like if you owe your bookie a thousand dollars, you’re like, ‘OK, I’ve got to pay this dude back.’ But if you owe your bookie one million dollars, you’re like, ‘I guess I’m just going to die.’”⁠ In an SNL skit parodying the U.N.'s 2018 Climate Change Report, comedian Colin Jost encapsulates the hopelessness and, frankly, indifference inspired in the face of as seemingly insurmountable a problem as climate change. For governments—institutional behemoths already too often paralyzed to put forth policies—the skit raises crucial questions about intervention: should governing bodies become involved in climate-related issues, and, if so, how can they best do so?

This piece contends for immediate government intervention against climate change, both because it is more effective than other courses of action, and because it is a moral imperative to intervene. While there are prevalent counterarguments to both points, I argue here that climate intervention through regional government, at local and state levels, is key to overcoming these concerns and paving the way for effective action by removing the barriers of red-tape federalism and thus the disconnect between civic interest and political action.

First, despite inevitable flaws in the public policy process, it must be acknowledged that the most historically effective action against climate change has often begun with the pen and paper of a public official. One particular example is the implementation of statewide cap-and-trade systems. In an ideal market, private companies and individuals would pay for the environmental externalities of the resources they consume and the pollution they cause. The inability to uphold this paradigm makes climate change a type of market failure (Oreskes), and one that can be characterized as a “tragedy of the commons”—a situation in which individuals consume a public resource in self-interest but at the expense of the common good (O'Gorman). Cap-and-trade policies address this by implementing a Pigouvian tax, or associative price, to reduce emissions. Despite being historically known as a coal state, a carbon fee in Athens, Ohio has collected thousands of dollars annually towards renewable energy and led the city toward having among the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in their state (Astor). California has achieved full compliance to their greenhouse gas emission cap from companies statewide, and is on track to reduce forty percent of their target emissions by 2030 ("100%"). Without enforced government legislation, the private sector would have been allowed to act neglectfully and inflate the market failure of climate change without bounds. Government intervention delimits these bounds, with a level of sheer influence that scales: for example, after Governor Tony Evers of Wisconsin declared goals for a complete transition to clean electricity, over eighty percent of cities in the state and at least a hundred and fifty businesses pledged to follow suit (Ricketts). The data and results make it clear: government intervention is a critical tool and aid that cannot be overlooked

Many opponents of government intervention rely upon the mindset that a government that governs least governs best, often turning to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for a quintessential example of ineffective bureaucratic action. Involving thirty-eight industrialized countries, the conference pledged to cut five percent of greenhouse gas emissions. But realizing its financial toll, the US Senate killed the program—leading many to follow suit. In retrospect, many experts label the Kyoto Protocol as wasted effort hindered by red-tape federalism that eats at our most invaluable resource in the war against climate change: time. Another counterargument against the effectiveness of government intervention is the fear that radical changes in public policy will cripple the livelihood of fossil fuel industry workers, of which there are thirty-two million, plus the millions more who depend on them (International Energy Association). It is unreasonable to contend that these arguments are not justified. However, red-tape federalism and the resulting disconnect between civic interest and political action is an argument against grand and overreaching government interventions, often at an abstract global scale; not against government intervention in general. Here, the evidence points to smaller civic and state solutions as both effective, and responsive to the needs of their jurisdictions. As a counter to the regression of the Trump Administration from the Paris Agreement, a crusade of thousands of local, city, and state governments individually dedicated themselves and reached nearly eighty percent completion of their original pledge to cut nineteen percent of total emissions by 2025 (Ricketts). Bolstered by this commitment, the Biden administration reentered the Paris Agreement and funded an additional two trillion dollars to the cause (Peltier). State and local interventions, though seemingly minute, are extremely effective at achieving both short-term results and sowing the seeds of long-term influence. Due to their comparatively smaller demographic and lack of constrictions, they can act, and iteratively address problems, more swiftly. Smaller-scale government intervention can also more effectively target the individuals they purport to represent: for instance, New York and Maine have required state regulators to pass laws supporting their local front-line communities and workers in tandem with their progressive emission policies (Ricketts). While federal intervention is a necessary action that we must eventually take, grassroots government action has been proven to be an effective model of intervention against climate change, and one in line with the interest of communities closest to the earth they seek to protect. 

Aside from effectiveness, governments have a moral imperative to intervene in climate change. First, the scope of climate change is an unprecedented crisis in our world, and unfathomable to the scale of an individual. As authoritative entities, addressing issues that threaten the community is within the government’s fundamental obligation—to executively, legislatively, and judicially solve issues and dilemmas that we as individuals cannot. Programs like New Jersey or Massachusetts’s Environmental Justice Council, for example, possess the authority to create systemic changes that are impossible to achieve individually by low-income and minority communities disproportionately affected by climate change (State and Federal). Second, from a more universal perspective, governments are obligated to protect the planet that we inhabit. To follow in the enlightenment of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, “It is our collective and individual responsibility to persevere and tend to the environment in which we all live” (emphasis mine). Governmental bodies must work toward maintaining the natural vitality of our planet, not just for the world living in it today but also for the generations to follow. Finally, much of the rapid escalation of climate change can be attributed to political complacency. Despite global recognition of the climate change threat since the 1972 U.N. Stockholm Conference, many countries still flounder in implementing effective policies. Inaction is not an excuse, but an active choice many governments have taken, allowing their countries to develop economies dependent on fossil fuels and thus shrinking the window of opportunity for recovery. Given the role of authority they assume—not to mention their culpability in exacerbating the climate crisis—governments’ ethical duty to intervene in climate change is paramount.

Another counter-point opposing government intervention in climate issues, often used in rhetoric, is to deflect the moral responsibility for climate change away from the government and onto the individual. For example, big oil corporations like BP and ExxonMobil have spent decades crafting the idea of individual carbon footprints rather than taking responsibility for their own environmental impact (Schendler). This diversion tactic hides that, although individual efforts are a key component, the solution lies not in separating but in cultivating the relationship between communities and government intervention—a goal which can be achieved optimally through local and state action. For instance, New Jersey recently required the evaluation of facilities like power plants and landfills to deny any permits they determine as disproportionately impacting the local community. In a similar effort, Massachusetts has prohibited any project impacting the air quality of low-income and minority-dominated neighborhoods within a five-mile radius (State and Federal). While self-accountability is an admirable trait, the burden of mitigation should not fall on any individual or single organization. Instead, it should be a collective endeavor. Grassroots government intervention creates a platform for communities to voice their concerns, minimizing inequities within public policy and allowing the relevant authoritative bodies to act most authentically in the public’s interest. Smaller-scale intervention also gives governments a clearer geographical scope for them to work with, rather than against, communities to tackle local climate issues under a shared ethic of responsibility.

Often, the superficially grand efforts of global collaboration offer nothing but empty promises against climate change. Enough time has been spent in fruitless geopolitics, overshadowing our pursuit of a cleaner world. Instead, the government should take an active role in climate issues for its advantages and moral imperatives, using regenerative local and state interventions to proliferate change at a global, debt-reducing scale. 

References

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"100% of Companies in Cap-and-trade Program Meet 2020 Compliance Obligations." California Air Resources Board, 3 Nov. 2021, ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/100-companies-cap-and-trade-program-meet-2020-compliance-obligations. 

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Rosen, Amanda M. The Wrong Solution at the Right Time: The Failure of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. 15 Feb. 2015. Wiley Online Library, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/polp.12105. 

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