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Featured Research

Galik, C. S., Ba, Y., & Bobbitt, C. (2023). Institutional stability and change in environmental governance regimes. Policy & Politics, 51, 439-465. https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16806127945591.

Efforts to better understand what prevents institutions from changing to meet contemporary demands – or what facilitates the evolution of existing constructs to address new challenges – are of particular import and relevance to environmental governance. While the existing literature provides valuable conceptualisation and empirical evaluation of institutional stability and change, the lack of a consistent and holistic typology complicates the evaluation of institutions over time. In this article, we use a combined stability–change typology to assess the dominant modes of institutional change and stability over a multi-decadal timespan across three environmental governance systems – air quality governance in the US and China, and climate governance in the European Union. Across cases, we find that these modes are not mutually exclusive but can occur simultaneously, in concert or in conflict. We also find that observed patterns of change and stability are reflective of the social and political context in which systems operate, as well as the focus of the system itself (for example, localised air quality versus global climate change). Apart from providing a proof-of-concept analysis of institutional change and stability, our findings raise questions about the mechanisms underlying spatial and temporal patterns across identified modes. Indirectly, our findings also further highlight challenges to designing systems both resilient to exogenous stressors and capable of adapting to new situations. Our combined stability–change typology may help to advance understanding of whether and how such balancing has occurred in the past, thus facilitating future efforts to address contemporary challenges.

Ba, Y., & Galik, C. S. (2023). Historical industrial transitions influence local sustainability planning, capability, and performance. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 46, 100690. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2022.100690.

We evaluate the influence of long-term industrial transitions on local sustainability action. We construct two aspects of historical industrial transitions—direction and magnitude—along with three aspects of local government sustainability action: planning, capabilities, and performance. Using a national survey of local sustainability practice and nearly five decades of historical manufacturing employment data in the U.S., we find local communities with more substantial swings in manufacturing jobs to be less likely to engage in sustainability planning, cultivate sustainability-related capabilities, and make progress towards meeting sustainability-related objectives, underscoring the potential challenges associated with top-down programs and the importance of decentralized solutions.

Keskar, A., Galik, C. S., & Johnson, J. X. (2023). Planning for winter peaking power systems in the United States. Energy Policy, 173, 113376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113376.

Most regions in the United States experience peak electricity demand during the summer months. Several regions, however, are dual peaking with distinct summer and winter peaks of roughly equal magnitude. Deep decarbonization of our energy system could lead to greater instances of dual or winter peaking power systems across the country. This seasonal shift has important implications for grid operations. Furthermore, the compounding impacts of decarbonization strategies and climate change could introduce new challenges in ensuring sufficient generator availability during peak demand. This paper provides policy recommendations to plan for a shift to dual or winter peaking power systems. We first analyze the seasonal peak demand trends between 2016 and 2021 at the regional and subregional levels. We provide key examples of how regulators and system operators plan for winter resource adequacy, focusing on the measures undertaken by different stakeholders, post-Winter Storm Uri. We then detail challenges posed by the multilevel regulation framework in planning for winter peaking power systems for both extreme cold events and a gradual shift due to electrification. Finally, we provide our policy recommendations for utilities and regulators on how they can robustly meet the challenges of winter peaking systems.

Galik, C. S., Baker, J. S., Daigneault, A., & Latta, G. (2022). Crediting Temporary Forest Carbon: Retrospective and Empirical Perspectives on Accounting Options. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change – Forest Management. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2022.933020.

The costs and technical expertise associated with forest carbon offset projects can be significant, while decades-long time commitments can discourage participation from the outset. Considering these challenges, several new approaches have emerged in the United States under the auspices of both long-standing and recently-established programs, attempting to leverage increased carbon mitigation. What several of these approaches have in common is reduced emphasis on long-term storage, what we refer to as a traditional perspective of permanence. Instead, each considers shorter periods of time—up to and including single year harvest deferrals—as eligible project commitments. Here, we provide a brief discussion of the historical permanence and accounting literature, with an emphasis on contradictory views and how these perspectives have evolved over time. Next, we quantitatively assess the long-term influence of different permanence requirements as envisioned in several new and existing forest carbon programs, estimating net mitigation across a variety of forest types and project configurations. We conclude with a presentation of our quantitative findings in the context of the existing literature, while also highlighting unmet research needs on these so-called new offsets, those emerging novel approaches for forest carbon mitigation that challenge the research and practice status quo.

Other Recent Research

Ba, Y., & Galik, C. S. (2022). Historical manufacturing volatility and local sustainability efforts: A link to the past. Global Environmental Change, 72, 102421. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102421.

Godlevskaya, D., Galik, C. S., & Kaufman, N. (2021). Major US electric utility climate pledges have the potential to collectively reduce power sector emissions by one-third. One Earth, 4(12), 1741-1751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.11.008.

Galik, C. S., & Chelbi, L. (2021). Revisiting institutional stability: A systematic review and distillation of dominant modes. Environmental Policy and Governance, http://doi.org/10.1002/eet.1941.

Galik, C.S. (2020). A continuing need to revisit BECCS and its potential. Nature Climate Change, 10, 2-3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0650-2.

Galik, C.S., Latta, G.S., & Gambino, C. (2019). Piecemeal or combined? Assessing greenhouse gas mitigation spillovers in US forest and agriculture policy portfolios. Climate Policy, 19, 1270-1283. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1663719.