Coalitions that Clash: California's Climate Leadership and the Perpetuation of Environmental Inequality

Abstract

At a time when the US federal government failed to act on climate change, California's success as a subnational climate policy leader has been widely celebrated. However, California's landmark climate law drove a wedge between two segments of the state's environmental community. On one side was a coalition of "market-oriented" environmental social movement organizations (SMOs), who allied with private corporations to advance market-friendly climate policy. On the other side was a coalition of "justice-oriented" environmental SMOs, who viewed capitalist markets as the problem and sought climate policy that would mitigate the uneven distribution of environmental harms within the state. The social movement literature is not well equipped to understand this case, in which coalitional politics helped one environmental social movement succeed in its policy objectives at the expense of another. In this chapter, we draw on legislative and regulatory texts, archival material, and interviews with relevant political actors to compare the policymaking influence of each of these coalitions, and we argue that the composition of the two coalitions is the key to understanding why one was more successful than the other. At the same time, we point out the justice-oriented coalition's growing power, as market-oriented SMOs seek to preserve their legitimacy.

Characteristics of Large Environmental Nonprofits That Identify Climate Change and Social Justice as Focal Concerns

“…Energy and natural resources groups, although attentive to climate change, are decidedly unlikely to mention issues of social justice in mission statements or yearly aims. In this, we see echoes of what Basseches et al (2021) This research also has methodological implications for the use of IRS data on nonprofit organizations. Specifically, we document the high degree of misclassification within NTEE codes that serve as the basis for most nonprofit analyses.…”

“…Energy and natural resources groups, although attentive to climate change, are decidedly unlikely to mention issues of social justice in mission statements or yearly aims. In this, we see echoes of what Basseches et al (2021) conclude were two different climate movements pushing for climate policy in California; what they refer to as “justice-oriented” and “market-oriented” coalitions. The market-oriented climate coalition, what Carroll et al (2020) identify as a “clean growth” project in Canada, represents an interlocking web of corporate, state, and civil society actors who work “to mobilize popular support and technical expertise on the climate issue in ways that.…”