CIESIN Reproduced from: Office of Technology Assessment. 1993. Preparing for an uncertain climate. Washington, D.C.: GPO.

Box 1-C--Solutions from General to Specific: Addressing the Overarching Problem

During the course of developing policy options for coping with climate change, OTA heard repeatedly from many experts that climate change alone is not necessarily the most worrisome threat to national resources. Rather, climate change is likely to exacerbate various trends and problems that already plague natural resource management. Current management policies and practices for coasts, water resources, agriculture, wetlands, natural areas, and forests are perceived in many quarters as being inadequate in ways that not onIy hinder management today, but could impose greater constraints under a changing climate. Four particular problems were found to be common to several or all of the sectors: 1) Institutional and geographical fragmentation; 2) inadequate communication of information that would improve response to climatic risks; 3) lack of contingency planning and other measures to prepare for extreme events or weather surprises; and 4) Information gaps in various key scientific and policy areas.

Addressing these overarching problems will pose numerous challenges for Congress and Federal agencies. All four problems have been recognized to varying degrees in the past, but progress toward solving them has been slow. Attempting to solve any of them could require far-reaching policy changes, but small piecemeal actions could be undertaken for individual resource sectors by many different government agencies or by congressional appropriations, legislation, and oversight committees. Big, bold policy changes could accomplish the job more uniformly or effectively, but reaching agreement on solutions and then garnering sufficient support to implement them could prove impossible. Incremental changes do not require such widespread support and may accomplish specific goals, but such policies can also detract from needed larger changes by leaving the impression that no further action is necessary.

In the resource and research chapters of this report (vols. 1 and 2, chs. 3 through 6), we suggest numerous policy options that address parts of the four overarching problems in ways that are specific to each resource sector. In many cases these resource-specific options could be formulated in broader terms to attempt across-the-board solutions to the overarching problems identified above. Furthermore, many of the sector-specific options are interconnected, and could be more effective if enacted in a coordinated way. In some cases, any of several different resource-specific policy options could form a first step toward solving an overarching problem. A few of these options are described below.

Fragmentation

Although these options seem varied, all four address, in some way, the problem of institutional fragmentation and the need for greater coordination and integrated management. If enacted Individually, these policies could focus on specific problems in the management of water resources, wetlands, and preserves. However, any of the four could also serve as part of a larger effort to coordinate the management of all three resources. Reinstated river basin commissions could form a local base for watershed management that could be broadened to include attention to wetlands and other natural areas within the watershed. Similarly, a Federal coordination council for ecosystem management could use watershed units as one level of coordination and examine the interaction of water resources with other natural resources in that unit. The problem in trying to expand any of these individual options to cover the overarching concerns would be in how best to assign authority and enforcement capabilities for any coordinating agency without interfering with the jurisdiction of the agencies to be coordinated.

Several of the policy options for wetlands, preserves, and forests, either explicitly address the problem of geographic fragmentation or could be used to do so. The options listed above would promote priority setting for land acquisition or restoration of valuable natural areas, including wetlands, forests, and other types of preserves. Reducing landscape fragmentation could be viewed as a high-priority goal. furthermore, existing conservation incentive programs of various types could be required to focus on the lands most valuable for preventing or ameliorating fragmentation.

Communication of climate risk

One of the major ways the Federal Government affects the responsiveness to climate risk is in the distribution of public money for disaster assistance and insurance subsidies. Subsidized and regulated prices distort the perception of changing risks and could slow the response to growing water scarcity and to increases in the frequency of droughts, floods, and storms. The options listed above suggest that policies to reduce or eliminate such subsidies could be beneficial in encouraging greater precautions and faster responses to changing climate risk in nearly every individual resource sector--as well as in reducing Federal spending in an era of constrained budgets. If enacted together, these options could go a long way toward addressing the overarching problem of misperception of risk.

The U.S. Tax Code can provide both incentives and disincentives for financial risks. Tax incentives can be used to encourage behavior, that might reduce risks to humans and the environment, including investments in water conservation and in protecting natural areas. Tax disincentives could be used to help prevent unproductive behavior, such as coastal development in high-risk zones or where development leads to the destruction of wetlands or creates barriers against their movement inland as the sea level rises.

The Government is the source of considerable information that can serve to improve private sector response to a changing climate. Outreach and extension services will be valuable in communicating changes in the effectiveness of farm management techniques and crop choices, speeding the process of adaptation. Inventories, monitoring, climate data, and resource-status assessments will indicate trends in natural resource conditions and signal changes in the future supply of products and service from natural resources systems. Better understanding of these trends will help businesses and individuals to anticipate and adjust more effectively to changing future conditions. Inappropriate signals about climate risk that create an unrealistic expectation of stable conditions may encourage unwise financial investments in resource-dependent communities that are at risk of decline. The public generally is not well-informed about the risks associated with living in coastal areas, and this lack of awareness has led and will continue to lead to large public and private expenditures. Educating people now about the risk of a rising sea level could greatly reduce future damages.

Contingency planning

Droughts, forest fires, floods, and hurricanes have all become the focus of public attention in recent years after events such as the nationwide drought in 1988, the 5-year California drought of 1988-1992, the Mississippi floods in the summer of 1993, and Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew in 1988 and 1992. In many cases, contingency plans set up to deal with such disasters were either inadequate or nonexistent. Policy options for water resources and forests suggest different types of contingency planning that may help address future disasters as the climate changes. Because the presence of forests and wetlands moderates how water moves through the landscape, both should be considered in flood planning and development.

Preparing for extreme future climate conditions through the development of technologies or institutions will assist in recovery and can help reduce the threat of future damage. The development of crops well-suited to harsher future climate may provide some insurance against a steep decline in our agricultural sector. Contingency preparations for forests and preserves must consider the potential need for active restoration or protection in natural processes become excessively disturbed. Seed banks may provide the material to rebuild a forest in the event of severe decline and loss of species or populations from their natural range.

Information gaps

Many policy options suggest particular research question or promote the use of specific existing programs to address some of the information gaps regarding climate change. Coordinating these different research efforts and ensuring that each considers some of the related concerns of others might yield synergistic results. For example, while the Experimental Forests should be useful sites for examining how forests may adapt to climate change, research could be focused more broadly to consider issues that affect natural areas (including questions of how to maintain biodiversity and how to restore damaged ecosystems and forested wetlands.

While these research programs in individual areas are forming useful building blocks toward solving the overarching problem of lack of knowledge, a broader program of coordinated research across-the-board could also be attempted. Some of the research listed could be coordinated under the Ecological Systems and Processes priority group in the USGCRP. However, the USGCRP goals and purview need to be broadened to include ecosystem research, adaptation and mitigation research, and an iterative integrated assessment in order to be more useful to policy-making.