EPA Announces Phase 2 Winners of the Environmental Justice Video Challenge for Students

Honorable Mention ($12,500): DRIVERS4EJ – Western Washington University, University of Washington

Community Organization Partner ($10,000): Duwamish Valley Youth Corps 

Student Team Members ($2,500): Drew Slaney, Jenny Meyer, Rudi Mondragon, Isebella Bergsma, Cianna Bergsma-Galarosa, Christopher Castro, AJ Cooper, Guadalupe Sanchez, Alexis Sorm, Randall Thall, Wala Abdin, Montana Siddle, Nicole Araya, Naythan Ramos, Issaiah Cummins.

Congratulations!

Check out our publication “Can polycentric governance lower industrial greenhouse gas emissions: Evidence from the United States“

Abstract for our latest publication in Environmental Policy & Governance. 

The governance challenges embedded in climate change are daunting. Conventional logic holds that national and international action is necessary. While the United States is a major source of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions – second only to China – national action on climate change has been lacking. However, hundreds of subnational US governments and thousands of industrial facilities are actively engaged in addressing climate change. Given the potential mismatch between the global nature of the problem and the policy reach of subnational governments, we evaluate the extent to which polycentric variation in subnational climate action is associated with changes in GHG emissions. We develop a unique data set that incudes facility-level GHG emissions from major industrial sectors in the United States over 8 years and subnational climate governance action across all 50 states. This large-N data set allows us to systematically test hypothesis from polycentric governance. This type of comparative analysis can help to better understand the conditions under which polycentric governance is associated with improved climate change outcomes, that is, declining GHG emissions. Our results suggest that even when controlling for past emissions, some elements of polycentric governance are associated with decreases in GHG emissions. Future research would benefit from augmenting the large N comparative analysis presented here with mixed methods research to more fully understand the dynamic processes shaping both climate policy and GHG emissions.

Dorothy M. Daley, Troy D. Abel, Mark Stephan, Saatvika Rai, Ellen Rogers