Climate Policies According to Cost Benefit Analysis Approach: Case Study of Biden-Harris’ Domestic Climate Agenda

This paper aims to highlight the problematic climate policy-making mechanisms in different political systems, given the growing difficulty of democratic political systems to efficiently manage the climate issue, in light of cost-benefit analysis and the various economic, political, societal, environmental, and cost-benefit perspectives of different parties. The paper focuses on the US as a case study during the Biden-Harris administration era. To answer the research question and ascertain the hypothesis of a correlation between the effectiveness of U. S. climate policies and the legitimacy of the U. S. President, the study adopts the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) methodology. The research concludes with many findings, perhaps the most prominent of which are that the cost-benefit assessment and the effectiveness of policies are correlated with the context from which they arise and the extent to which they receive support or opposition based on citizens' trust and the impact of various related factors. Furthermore, climate policies that consider economic and societal dimensions along with the environment enjoy more political and popular support from American citizens. It is also found that cost-benefit analyses are at the heart of climate policy-making under the Biden-Harris administration. Despite the U.S. administration’s efforts to consider the economic impact of climate policies on stakeholders' economic gains, the high political and societal cost has negatively impacted legitimacy and political stability, casting a shadow over the difficulty of passing many climate policies and bills under the circumstances of severe division and partisan polarisation.