Policy and political challenges for a better world: The United States and China pathways towards the 2030 Agenda

Mario Biggeri, Luca Bortolotti, Donatella Saccone and Mattia Tassinari

Ecological Economics, 2023, vol. 209, issue C

Abstract: The Agenda 2030 poses critical elements regarding the transition towards a more sustainable development. This paper aims at exploring and comparing the path of sustainable development within the United States and China at the subnational level. An index of Integrated Sustainable Development is introduced to measure local sustainable development on an internationally-comparable scale. This Index is computed both at the national and subnational level and the resulting scores are compared within and across the two countries, also through the adoption of convergence and cluster analysis, allowing to answer four questions: Are the US and China moving towards a sustainable development agenda? Are the current achievements uniformly distributed within the two countries? Are states/provinces converging towards a more uniform level of sustainable development? Do the existing differences and analogies between states and provinces give rise to common clusters across the two countries? The results lead to one robust conclusion: while the US can claim a better result in the national and subnational rankings of sustainable development, China exhibits a more balanced achievement in terms of synergies across Goals and spatial distribution. Nonetheless, both countries are characterized by subnational disparities and scarce achievements of Planet-related Goals. Policy recommendations are discussed accordingly.

Keywords: Sustainable development; China; United States; Multidimensional composite index; Sustainable local development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:209:y:2023:i:c:s0921800923000848

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107821

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