GREEN GROWTH: FROM RELIGION TO REALITY - Sustainia

Chapter 5ture, and industrial breakdown. This effect is exemplifiedin a comparative study of the wind industries across statescarried out by a Minnesota research group in 2010 (Fischleinet al., 2010). The study examined the dynamics of thewind industry in four states – Massachusetts, Minnesota,Montana, and Texas – that exhibited a variety of levels ofwind resources, legislative support, and actual installedcapacity. We recap three of these stories as illustration:Massachusetts has a promising energy industry profile(a lack of local fossil fuel resources to create blocking interests),environmentally friendly citizens, and a stronghistory of supportive legislative policy, including renewableportfolio standards. In spite of this, citizen-levelresistance to wind (due to aesthetic and environmentalconcerns), infrastructure problems, and burdensome existingregulation have largely blocked wind development.Minnesota uses a high proportion of coal for power.Nonetheless, Minnesota has both a renewable portfoliostandard and a community-based energy developmentprogram that includes incentives for community winddevelopment with local ownership. This program hashelped reinforce green policy by building support forlocal wind farming, which is well suited to Minnesota’ssparse population patterns.Texas already has significant wind resources deployed, inspite of a citizen base that is relatively uninterested in environmentalconcerns. Texas is one of the few US states tohave successfully created a deregulated, highly competitiveelectricity industry. Wind development looked likea particularly competitive option in Texas for two particularreasons. First, wind was made more economicallyviable by the fact that Texas’ major competitive energysource was natural gas, and natural gas was (at least atthe time) typically more expensive than coal – so windsprices looked more competitive in Texas than they didin states reliant mainly on coal. Second, deregulation didtrigger some worries about potential trends toward pollution,and constituents thought wind might help guardagainst that risk.We can derive a number of implications for state-levelpolicy simply from looking at this bounded example ofthe wind industry:First, states’ individual decisions about whether topursue particular green growth policy options differ alot. This is obvious in the wind cases discussed above,and holds generally for state-level green policy mixes.Second, policy choices differ partly because the particularcharacteristics of states differ – in terms of resourceprofile, industrial profile, infrastructure, geography, andpolitical and policy history. None of these characteristicsis individually determinative: politics may trump resourceprofiles (and vice versa), economics may trumppolitics (and vice versa), and so on.Third, there are a wide variety of veto points at the statelevel. These can range from physical blocks like unsuitableinfrastructure to political blocks like resistant citizens.They may be specific to the particular policy under consideration.State-level veto points emerge from the particularpolitical and economic structures of states and areseparate from the veto points found at the federal level.Fourth, similarly, individual states have individual setsof relevant key players or groups acting as green policysupporters and gatekeepers. These players may be linkedto key players at the federal level, but can function independentlyat the state level."Fifth, successful green growth stories happen when(a) a high enough proportion of relevant key playerssupport specific green growth policies, and (b) vetopoints are avoided or overcome"Fifth, successful green growth stories happen when (a)a high enough proportion of relevant key players supportspecific green growth policies, and (b) veto points areavoided or overcome.Sixth, individual moves toward green growth policy(such as energy efficiency and renewables policy) can beself-reinforcing. This occurs if green policy moves createobservable benefits and learning effects, and increasecomfort levels, in ways that increase the proportion ofkey players that are willing to support or tolerate greengrowth policy.In sum, what the points above suggest is that theevolution of green growth policy is path-dependent,with prior history shaping the tools accessible to policymakers.Particular choices regarding infrastructure orpolicy at one point in a state’s history serve to enable orchoke off access to subsequent choices in the next phaseof policy-making.5 ConclusionWe see these points play out in more detail in the indepthstate cases that follow. The California case is a storythat begins with policy actions triggered by crises thatcreate political opportunity. Events such as the air pollutioncrisis of the 1940s and 1950s or the oil shock of the1970s created windows of opportunity where blocks toaction were low, allowing California to initiate multiplerounds of de facto3 green growth policy. These roundsof policy in turn created or expanded the size of greenfriendlykey players and groups, by creating learningeffects and by creating new interest groups that benefitfrom green policies. Each succeeding phase of policy laidthe groundwork for the next phase.The Colorado case is a story that begins with a geographicand economic profile that created obstacles inthe form of a thriving fossil fuel industry. It also createdopportunities – a huge, exploitable wind resourcelocated within a conservative rural constituency, creatingan argument for renewable energy policy within thisotherwise skeptical constituency. Colorado also has a3 As the term de facto suggests,“green growth” per se has, untilrecently, not been California’sgoal in taking emissions reductionactions; however, the effectin practice has been to drive, first,the decoupling of emissions fromgrowth and, later, the attempt tolink growth to green technology.48