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The purpose of this paper is to investigate local climate change mitigation planning in California with the goal of understanding how the relationships between the state, the local air agencies, and the localities within their jurisdictions shape the willingness and capacity of local communities to plan for climate change mitigation through greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

The research: analyses documents relating to localities' climate change mitigation planning activities, including the production of action plans, general plan elements, emissions inventories, or official resolutions supporting mitigation planning, establishment of partnerships with other governmental and non‐governmental organizations, and development of community input processes and planning committee membership and structure. It also involves measurement and descriptive analysis of variables capturing: local air agencies' institutional character, orientation regarding climate change policymaking, and mitigation planning activities and programs; and localities' mitigation planning processes and policies, institutional and demographic characteristics, and relationships with other sub‐state entities working on climate change mitigation.

Intergovernmental partnerships can powerfully impact localities' technical and financial capacities for pursuing climate change mitigation planning. This exploratory study points to the potential for strong leadership by air quality control agencies to greatly influence the decision of localities within their jurisdictions to engage in voluntary mitigation planning. Furthermore, decentralized collaboration does not prevent, and may encourage, policy harmonization through localities' widespread reliance on the technical assistance from specialized non‐governmental organizations.

Findings might enable advocates of local‐level climate change mitigation planning to target their resources for maximal returns in terms of geographic policy coverage and pledged GHG emissions reductions. Theoretically, this study contributes to discussions on the relationship between the quality of policy outputs and various forms of environmental governance.

Climate change mitigation planning in the USA is in a formative stage. In fact, the authors found that even the California Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) must work continuously and with imperfect data to compile a list of the state's local‐level mitigation planning efforts. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge of local planning policy innovations in California and highlights the importance of leadership from the regional scale for city‐level engagement with mitigation planning.

The objective of this study was to determine whether an association between coparenting trajectories and parental commitment exists five years after the birth of focal children. Situated in commitment theory, the study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate latent growth curve models to test the relationship between coparenting trajectories and commitment theory. Results show that the coparenting trajectory decreased over the four-year period, but reports remained high. Mothers who report high levels of coparenting also report being committed to the biological father, albeit commitment is low. This finding shows that parents may be dedicated to their children and constrained by the parental dyad. These findings support the hypothesis that children are constraining the parental dyad. Further, coparenting among unmarried, cohabiting parents influence parental relationships over time–substantiating the argument that a “new package deal” exists.

Social implications – If parents feel constrained to each other due to shared children, policies directed at coparenting, rather than marriage incentives and promotion, could help parents learn to negotiate their parental duties with each other to ensure that both parents are vested in their children’s lives.