During this session, CGS Research Assistants Dmitry Churlyaev and Sasha Kreis will share their novel framework for evaluating regional contributions to national climate action.
Abstract: As global climate goals tighten and national politics become more unpredictable, subnational entities have become essential for translating high-level commitments into tangible results, crucial to the success of national climate pledges amid federal policy rollbacks and budget cuts. Through developing a comprehensive understanding of the key governance gaps, fiscal constraints, strength of policy potentials, active stakeholders, and sectoral implications in any given region, our novel framework systematically evaluates how subnational entities can meaningfully contribute to national climate action. We address key holes in existing literature by defining the distinctions between policy-making and policy implementation potential, exploring national-subnational governance linkages, and integrating formal and de facto fiscal landscape considerations into climate governance research. By tailoring the potential pathways toward regional needs and integrating subnational agendas into national policies, the regions with the highest potentials and those driving down national ambitions may be revealed, and recommendations may be generated accordingly.