2025/10/20 by Scott Moore · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Adaptation (eye) #Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration #Climate change #Climate policy #Federalism #Hostility #Policy Transfer and Learning #Political Systems and Governance #Politics
paper · doi:10.1093/publius/pjaf070
published in Publius The Journal of Federalism 56(1), 105-124 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2025/10/20 · openalex created_date 2025/12/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract A central idea in the climate federalism literature is that subnational action can help to compensate for federal inaction or hostility to addressing climate change. This article calls for a new course for climate federalism in light of two emerging shifts that challenge this notion of compensatory federalism. First, the first and second Trump Administrations, joined by some states, have sought not only to dismantle federal climate policy but also to prevent subnational governments from pursuing their own. I term this “coercive climate federalism,” a development that challenges established claims about redundancy, experimentation, and diffusion. Second, adaptation policy is rapidly growing in importance relative to mitigation, partly due to the acceleration of climate impacts and because it is less exposed to coercion. Together, these shifts call for refining the conceptual foundations of climate federalism and building a research agenda attuned to rapidly changing political and environmental realities.