Hongtao Yi

Back-pedaling or continuing quietly? Assessing the impact of ICLEI membership termination on cities’ sustainability actions

ABSTRACT Over the past decade, cities have emerged as leaders in sustainability and climate protection in the United States. ICLEI, a voluntary network of local governments, played an important role driving this trend. After years of steady growth, ICLEI became a target of political opposition and its membership dropped significantly from 2010 to 2012. This begs the question of whether cities’ termination of their ICLEI affiliation diminishes their implementation of sustainability actions. Two surveys administered in 2010 and 2014 provide data on cities’ implementation of an array of sustainability actions. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) method, the impact of ICLEI termination on local governments’ administrative and policy commitments to sustainability is assessed. The results suggest that ending ICLEI membership does not significantly impact local sustainability actions, and also indicate that the durability of policy actions may be only loosely linked to the policies that justify them.

Municipal-owned utilities and demand side management

Municipal-owned utilities perform an important role in local government efforts. Municipal ownership of utility operations provides advantages in involving citizens in sustainability and energy-efficiency practices. This paper explores the variation in municipal-owned utilities investment in energy-efficiency strategies by examining how spending on energy-efficiency strategies is affected by costs, politics, and fiscal conditions, and citizen demand. Using a unique data set of the 145 municipal-owned utilities in cities with populations over 25,000, we estimate a Heckman Selection Model to test our predictions. Decisions to adopt energy-efficiency programs are associated with siting difficulties and available generation capacity. The level of energy-efficiency expenditures is associated with a city level political structure and the availability of local retail partners. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed in conclusion.

Climate action plan adoptions in the US states

Purpose – This paper aims to examine state adoption of climate action plans (CAPs) and investigates the factors driving the adoption of these climate policies in the states. Design/methodology/approach – The framework that is formulated to explain the state climate actions involves four dimensions: climate risks, climate politics, climate economic and climate policy diffusions. These hypotheses are tested with event history analysis on a panel data set on 48 US continental states from 1994 to 2008. Findings – This paper found empirical evidence to support climate politics, economics and policy diffusion explanations. It also found that climate risks are not taken into account in states’ climate actions. A comparison is conducted to compare the differences in state and local climate policymaking. Originality/value – The paper investigates the motivations of state governments in adopting CAPs, and makes comparisons with local climate strategies. It contributes to academic understanding of the multilevel gov...

China’s Local Government Innovations in Inter-Local Collaboration

Over the past decade, Chinese local governments have adopted numerous innovations to address pressing social, economic, and environmental concerns. Realizing the limitations of unilateral policy actions, cities have increasingly relied on inter-local collaboration to address urgent regional policy issues in service delivery, environmental protection, infrastructure construction, economic development, and disaster response. Despite the fact that inter-local collaborations have been adopted widely in China, there is still a lack of theoretical understanding of their motivations and mechanisms. Drawing on the Institutional Collective Action framework, three mechanisms of inter-local collaborations—informal partnership, formal collaboration, and imposed authority—are studied. Case studies are conducted to show the dynamics and mechanisms of innovative inter-local collaboration mechanisms in China. The framework presented in this study could serve as a useful lens for additional empirical research.

Quantifying solid waste and recycling employment in Florida, USA: Trends in public and private sectors:

Measuring and tracking the numbers of jobs in solid waste management and recycling industries over time provide basic data to inform decision makers about the important role played by this sector in a state or region’s ‘green economy’. This study estimates the number of people employed in the solid waste and recycling industry from 1989 through 2011 in the state of Florida (USA), applying a classification scheme based on the Standard Industrial Code (SIC) and utilizing the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) database. The results indicate that solid waste and recycling jobs in the private sector steadily increased from 1989 to 2011, whereas government employment for solid waste management fluctuated over the same period.