IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v30y2022i5p1072-1085.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate change acknowledgment to promote sustainable development: A critical discourse analysis of local action plans in coastal Florida

Author

Listed:
  • Srimayi Tenali
  • Phil McManus

Abstract

Globally, the consequences of climate change have rapidly necessitated local government action to mitigate and adapt to rising sea levels, increased storm frequency, and higher temperatures. Acknowledgement of underlying climate issues, however, varies widely across regions and towns. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper evaluates the climate change acknowledgment of five municipality sustainability action plans (SAP) in coastal Florida and the broader implications for sustainable development. Public pressure, environmental champions, and recent storm events causing infrastructure damage were identified as key factors underpinning coastal climate change acknowledgement. Notably, the plans that admitted the anthropogenic causes of climate change were more optimistic and action focused. By emphasizing local mitigation efforts and opportunities, they were more empowering than those that treated climate threats as inevitable external circumstances. Anthropogenic climate change acknowledgment is thus a powerful tool for local governments to catalyze action when developing their sustainability goals and plans.

Suggested Citation

  • Srimayi Tenali & Phil McManus, 2022. "Climate change acknowledgment to promote sustainable development: A critical discourse analysis of local action plans in coastal Florida," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1072-1085, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:30:y:2022:i:5:p:1072-1085
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.2301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2301
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.2301?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sarah Burch, 2011. "Sustainable development paths: investigating the roots of local policy responses to climate change," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 176-188, May/June.
    2. David M. Konisky & Llewelyn Hughes & Charles H. Kaylor, 2016. "Extreme weather events and climate change concern," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 533-547, February.
    3. Richard Clark Feiock, 2020. "City Scale Vs. Regional Scale Co-Benefits of Climate and Sustainability Policy: An Institutional Collective Action Analysis," International Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 26(2), pages 61-63, October.
    4. Jayce L. Farmer & Andres J. Rodriguez Lombeida, 2021. "How State Interventions affect Municipalities Taking the Lead in Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-19, June.
    5. Matthew Sparke & Daniel Bessner, 2019. "Reaction, Resilience, and the Trumpist Behemoth: Environmental Risk Management from “Hoax” to Technique of Domination," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(2), pages 533-544, March.
    6. Francesco Fuso Nerini & Benjamin Sovacool & Nick Hughes & Laura Cozzi & Ellie Cosgrave & Mark Howells & Massimo Tavoni & Julia Tomei & Hisham Zerriffi & Ben Milligan, 2019. "Connecting climate action with other Sustainable Development Goals," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(8), pages 674-680, August.
    7. Laura Tozer, 2018. "Urban climate change and sustainability planning: an analysis of sustainability and climate change discourses in local government plans in Canada," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 61(1), pages 176-194, January.
    8. Sooksiri Wichaisri & Apichat Sopadang, 2018. "Trends and Future Directions in Sustainable Development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 1-17, January.
    9. Ellen Bassett & Vivek Shandas, 2010. "Innovation and Climate Action Planning," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(4), pages 435-450.
    10. Jinan N. Allan & Joseph T. Ripberger & Wesley Wehde & Makenzie Krocak & Carol L. Silva & Hank C. Jenkins‐Smith, 2020. "Geographic Distributions of Extreme Weather Risk Perceptions in the United States," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(12), pages 2498-2508, December.
    11. Lu Liao & Mildred E. Warner & George C. Homsy, 2020. "When Do Plans Matter?," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 86(1), pages 60-74, January.
    12. Sisse Liv Jørgensen & Mette Termansen, 2016. "Linking climate change perceptions to adaptation and mitigation action," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 283-296, September.
    13. Ayşın Dedekorkut-Howes & Elnaz Torabi & Michael Howes, 2021. "Planning for a different kind of sea change: lessons from Australia for sea level rise and coastal flooding," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 152-170, February.
    14. Wanyun Shao & Kirby Goidel, 2016. "Seeing is Believing? An Examination of Perceptions of Local Weather Conditions and Climate Change Among Residents in the U.S. Gulf Coast," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(11), pages 2136-2157, November.
    15. Jeff Tollefson, 2021. "IPCC climate report: Earth is warmer than it’s been in 125,000 years," Nature, Nature, vol. 596(7871), pages 171-172, August.
    16. Takis Ap. Kapsalis & Vasilis C. Kapsalis, 2020. "Sustainable Development and Its Dependence on Local Community Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-13, April.
    17. Lucie Laurian & Mark Walker & Jan Crawford, 2017. "Implementing Environmental Sustainability in Local Government: The Impacts of Framing, Agency Culture, and Structure in US Cities and Counties," International Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(3), pages 270-283, February.
    18. Natasha Grist, 2008. "Positioning climate change in sustainable development discourse," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(6), pages 783-803.
    19. David Konisky & Llewelyn Hughes & Charles Kaylor, 2016. "Extreme weather events and climate change concern," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 533-547, February.
    20. Linda Steg, 2018. "Limiting climate change requires research on climate action," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(9), pages 759-761, September.
    21. Seok Kang, 2019. "Communicating sustainable development in the digital age: The relationship between citizens' storytelling and engagement intention," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 337-348, May.
    22. Christina Demski & Stuart Capstick & Nick Pidgeon & Robert Gennaro Sposato & Alexa Spence, 2017. "Experience of extreme weather affects climate change mitigation and adaptation responses," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 149-164, January.
    23. Gerhard Hartmuth & Katja Huber & Dieter Rink, 2008. "Operationalization and contextualization of sustainability at the local level," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(4), pages 261-270.
    24. Stephanie J. Zawadzki & Thijs Bouman & Linda Steg & Vladimir Bojarskich & Perri B. Druen, 2020. "Translating climate beliefs into action in a changing political landscape," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 21-42, July.
    25. Stanislav E. Shmelev & Irina A. Shmeleva, 2018. "Global urban sustainability assessment: A multidimensional approach," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(6), pages 904-920, November.
    26. Cynthia Rosenzweig & William Solecki & Stephen A. Hammer & Shagun Mehrotra, 2010. "Cities lead the way in climate–change action," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7318), pages 909-911, October.
    27. Nicholas Stern, 2008. "The Economics of Climate Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 1-37, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jatta Pitkänen & Hanna Lehtimäki & Ari Jokinen, 2023. "Sustainability Project Champions as Environmental Leaders in a City Organization: Driving the Urban Circular Economy," South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, , vol. 12(1), pages 52-64, April.
    2. Jeremy Galbreath & Daniel Tisch, 2022. "Sustainable development in the wine industry: The impact of the natural environment and gender‐diverse leadership," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1869-1881, December.
    3. Peter Ferguson & Linda Wollersheim, 2023. "From sustainable development to resilience? (Dis)continuities in climate and development policy governance discourse," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 67-77, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Uji, Azusa & Song, Jaehyun & Dolšak, Nives & Prakash, Aseem, 2024. "Willingness to incur private costs for climate adaptation? Public support for undergrounding electricity transmission lines in California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Llewelyn Hughes & David M. Konisky & Sandra Potter, 2020. "Extreme weather and climate opinion: evidence from Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 723-743, November.
    3. Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo-Obasi, 2022. "Gender Sensitive Responses to Climate Change in Nigeria: The Role of Multinationals’ Corporate Social Responsibility in Oil Host Communities," Working Papers 22/041, European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (EXCAS).
    4. P. Stahlmann-Brown & P. Walsh, 2022. "Soil moisture and expectations regarding future climate: evidence from panel data," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 1-20, March.
    5. Fengxiu Zhang, 2022. "Not all extreme weather events are equal: Impacts on risk perception and adaptation in public transit agencies," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 1-21, March.
    6. Chad Zanocco & Hilary Boudet & Roberta Nilson & Hannah Satein & Hannah Whitley & June Flora, 2018. "Place, proximity, and perceived harm: extreme weather events and views about climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 349-365, August.
    7. Joseph P. Reser & Graham L. Bradley, 2020. "The nature, significance, and influence of perceived personal experience of climate change," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(5), September.
    8. Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo-Obasi, 2022. "Gender Sensitive Responses to Climate Change in Nigeria: The Role of Multinationals’ Corporate Social Responsibility in Oil Host Communities," Working Papers of The Association for Promoting Women in Research and Development in Africa (ASPROWORDA). 22/008, The Association for Promoting Women in Research and Development in Africa (ASPROWORDA).
    9. Astghik Mavisakalyan & Vladimir Otrachshenko & Olga Popova, 2023. "Does democracy protect the environment? The role of the Arctic Council," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(5), pages 1-21, May.
    10. Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo-Obasi, 2022. "Gender Sensitive Responses to Climate Change in Nigeria: The Role of Multinationals’ Corporate Social Responsibility in Oil Host Communities," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 22/041, African Governance and Development Institute..
    11. Lauri Peterson, 2021. "Silver Lining to Extreme Weather Events? Democracy and Climate Change Mitigation," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 21(1), pages 23-53, Winter.
    12. Paul M. Lohmann & Andreas Kontoleon, 2023. "Do Flood and Heatwave Experiences Shape Climate Opinion? Causal Evidence from Flooding and Heatwaves in England and Wales," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(1), pages 263-304, October.
    13. Guglielmo Zappalà, 2023. "Drought Exposure and Accuracy: Motivated Reasoning in Climate Change Beliefs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 85(3), pages 649-672, August.
    14. Jeremiah Bohr, 2017. "Is it hot in here or is it just me? Temperature anomalies and political polarization over global warming in the American public," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 271-285, May.
    15. Best, Rohan & Burke, Paul J., 2018. "Adoption of solar and wind energy: The roles of carbon pricing and aggregate policy support," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 404-417.
    16. Donatella Baiardi, 2021. "What do you think about climate change?," Working Papers 477, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2021.
    17. Wanyun Shao & Feng Hao, 2020. "Approval of political leaders can slant evaluation of political issues: evidence from public concern for climate change in the USA," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 201-212, January.
    18. Baiardi, Donatella & Morana, Claudio, 2021. "Climate change awareness: Empirical evidence for the European Union," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    19. Sitong Yang & Shouwei Li & Xue Rui & Tianxiang Zhao, 2024. "The impact of climate risk on the asset side and liability side of the insurance industry: evidence from China," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1-51, June.
    20. Fang, Yan Ru & Hossain, MD Shouquat & Peng, Shuan & Han, Ling & Yang, Pingjian, 2024. "Sustainable energy development of crop straw in five southern provinces of China: Bioenergy production, land, and water saving potential," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:30:y:2022:i:5:p:1072-1085. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.