Charles F. Sabel - Fixing the Climate: Strategies for an Uncertain World

FIXING THE CLIMATE

Fixing the Climate

Strategies for an Uncertain World

Charles F. Sabel

David G. Victor

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 2022 by Princeton University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sabel, Charles F., 1947 author. | Victor, David G., author.

Title: Fixing the climate : strategies for an uncertain world / Charles F. Sabel, David G. Victor.

Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021041684 (print) | LCCN 2021041685 (ebook) | ISBN 9780691224558 (hardback) | ISBN 9780691224541 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Environmental policyInternational cooperation. | Climatic changesInternational cooperation. | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Environmental Policy | LAW / Environmental

Classification: LCC GE170 .S24 2022 (print) | LCC GE170 (ebook) | DDC 363.738/74526dc23/eng/2022128

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021041684

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021041685

Version 1.0

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Editorial: Bridget Flannery-McCoy and Alena Chekanov

Production Editorial: Sara Lerner and Nathan Carr

Jacket Design: Michel Vrana

Production: Erin Suydam

Publicity: Kate Hensley, James Schneider, and Kathryn Stevens

Copyeditor: Cindy Milstein

Jacket Credit: iStock

From Charles F. Sabel:

To my daughter, Francesca, who showed me how to build back, better

From David G. Victor:

For my children, Apple and Eero, an inspiration to get serious about healing the planet

1. ix
2. xi

This book emerged over seven years, starting with an invitation from Bob Keohane, Grinne de Brca, and Rick Locke to a November 2014 seminar at Brown University on experimentalist governance. Once we had full drafts of the manuscript, we benefited in particular from detailed comments from Tom Hale and two anonymous reviewers at Princeton University Press.

Early on, we presented a draft of the major ideas at seminars at Princeton University, Columbia University, Indiana University, and the Paris Institute of Political Sciences. Chuck is grateful to Piero Ghezzi, Ron Gilson, Bernard Hoekman, Jeremy Kessler, Rory ODonnell, Dani Rodrik, Robert Scott, and Jonathan Zeitlin for collaborations, in parallel, that helped sharpen the ideas. David thanks Simon Sharpe, Frank Geels, and Danny Cullenward for their collaborations that helped evolve concepts along with their application to climate policy.

Our analysis of the Montreal Protocol in relied heavily on expert inputs. Rory ODonnell and Larry OConnell, the past and current directors of the National Economic and Social Council, were partners in developing the Irish water case, and in relation to the California Air Resources Board case, we depended on the extraordinary research that Lauren Packard did for a seminar paper at Yale Law School. Our case study on US sulfur regulation was aided by insights from Tom Alley, Kerry Bowers, Tony Facchiano, Nanda Srinivasan, Arshad Mansoor, Randall Rush, Tom Wilson, and especially Chuck Dene, who walked us through the early years of sulfur control technology. For the Advanced Research Projects AgencyEnergy case, we learned from Erica Fuchs, Michael Piore, Arun Majumdar, Laura Diaz Anadon, Kelly Sims Gallagher, David Hart, and Ellen Williams. Our research on the Brazilian Amazon was guided by Stephan Schwartzman, Daniel Barcelos Vargas, Salo Coslovsky, Pablo Pacheco, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, and invaluable research by Vitor Martins Dias and Gustavo Fontana Pedrollo as well as commentary on our case study by the distinguished participants in an online seminar organized by Daniel Vargas. Our case study on integrating renewables into the California grid benefited from insights from Jeff Dagle, Reiko Kerr, Ben Wender, Tom Overbye, Sue Tierney, Ken Silver, Larsh Johnson, and particularly Josh Gerber and Rachel McMahon.

Near the end of this project, Josh Cohen and Deb Chasman invited us to excerpt the book for debates in the December 2020 issue of the Boston Review; the debates, which occurred just as the United States was contemplating a possible Green New Deal that could have evolved in experimentalist ways, helped us push this book to the end. It also introduced us to Matt Lord, who edited our piece in the Boston Review and became our editor for the book as a whole. Almost everyone needs an editor who, like Matt, combines the rigor of the mathematician and the intellectual fearlessness of the philosopher. We certainly did. The peerless Jenny Mansbridge read the book at the very end with her usual acuity and insight. Her influence on our thinking began long before that; it was, in keeping with the books theme, atmospheric and helped encourage our inchoate efforts to connect novel responses to uncertainty with the reimagination of democracy.

Special thanks to Linda Wong and Jackson Salovaara for exceptional research assistance, vita Yumul, Steve Carlson, Emily Carlton, Jen Potvin, and Kate Garber for their help with the references, and again, and above all, vita, whose technical prowess, unmatched resourcefulness, and generous commitment to the project saved us again and again from the consequences of our computer-assisted bumbling. The Stanley Foundation, The Brookings Institution, Columbia Law School, Electric Power Research Institute, Norwegian Research Foundation, and the University of California at San Diego all provided financial support. At Princeton University Press, thanks to Eric Crahan, David Campbell, Alena Chekanov, Cindy Milstein, and especially the patient Bridget Flannery-McCoy for steering this study to publication, and helping us muster the courage of our convictions throughout.