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18
IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY: OPTIONS FOR ACTION
Martin W. Holdgate
INTRODUCTION: A GLOBAL DILEMMA
The title of this forum begs a question: Does humanity have a common
future in the face of global change?
We do not have a common present. We live in a world of depressing
gulfs between rich and poor, educated and illiterate, cared for and
neglected, and consumer and producer societies. We live in nations with
dramatic differences in population growth and pressure on the natural
resource base.
Lessons of history suggest that stresses are as likely to produce
competition or isolationism as cooperation. Are not the stresses of
higher global temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, rising sea
levels, and increased W -B penetration more likely to exacerbate current
problems, especially in regions whose population is likely to double
within 25 years, and plunge nations into misery and strife? We already
have environmental refugees moving from areas of depleted resources and
causing frontier conflicts. What must be done if we are to prevent
turmoil as a consequence of global change?
The answer, surely, is to try to get the most practical and effective
policies followed where we can, as soon as we can, even if we cannot
solve all the world's problems at a stroke. For being daunted by the
challenge will solve nothing. Partial success is better than total
failure.
THE CRITERIA FOR A SUCCESSFUL RESPONSE
Any public policy addressing this situation must meet five criteria:
1. It must start from the social and political realities of today's
world, in all its diversity and complexity.
2. It must accept that governments and people have more immediate
preoccupations than what the world will be like 50 years hence
3. It must accept that it is the activities of the developed world
that have largely caused the problems now confronting us and that the
North is looked to by the South to solve those problems in a way that
will not inhibit the South's essential development.
187
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188
4. It must accept that policies and actions have to be developed
nationally in ways that fit national traditions, politics, and aspira-
tions and that are capable of effective implementation on the ground.
5. It must accept that national efforts must be linked internation-
ally, but in an equitable way that does not impose the judgments of the
North on the South.
I suggest that a successful global approach, a mosaic though it must
be of international, national, and local actions, will have five ingre-
dients:
1. Awareness building.
2. Avoidance strategies.
3. Adaptive strategies.
4. Abatement measures.
5. Assistance mechanisms.
These will be discussed in turn.
Awareness needs to be cultivated at international, national, and
personal levels. There is evidence that governments are aware of the
potential immensity of the problems: For example, the U.N. General
Assembly responded positively to the debate initiated by the president of
the Maldives, who pointed out that virtually none of his country's 1191
islands would remain after a 2-m rise in sea level. The U.N. Environment
Programme (UNEP) has held informal discussions with ministers who placed
global change high on their list of concerns. One hundred twenty-four
delegations, 80 of them led at the ministerial level, attended the recent
London Conference on the Ozone Layer. An Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change has been established to consider the changes, their im-
pacts, and responses. The Commonwealth has established an expert group
to advise its heads of government on these same issues.
There is less evidence of effective national analysis and planning,
and what there is lies mostly in the developed world. In the United
States, Congress has requested that the Environmental Protection Agency
prepare a report on policy options for stabilizing global climate. On
April 26, 1989, the British prime minister, five members of the cabinet,
and five other ministers discussed the questions with 50 leading scien-
tists and industrialists. But these discussions are only slowly cascad-
ing down to catalyze strategies in individual firms and local communi-
ties. At a personal level, awareness depends immensely on the mass
media. Such personal awareness is essential because global impact is the
integral of innumerable human actions that appear trivial when consid-
ered alone. Twenty years ago, how could anyone who puffed an aerosol can
have suspected that he or she was depleting stratospheric ozone over
Antarctica in springtime? Even a woman in the Sahel who cuts the last
bush in a desperate quest for firewood is likely to be aware of the local
rather than the wider implications.
So building awareness is one key to the evolution of policy. Aware-
ness-building campaigns should emphasize the need for sound science, in-
cluding the gathering of more data for input to better models. They
need to explain in nonhysterical terms what the scientific evaluations
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189
imply and what can be done. They need to build commitment at the citizen
level to the expenditure, and to the changes in products on the market,
that will be needed. In developing countries they will need to explain
how local administrations can act to avoid problems and at the same time
maintain the impetus of environmentally sound development.
Avoidance strategies and adaptive strategies are closely linked. The
first means evaluating how the best available scenarios of global change
could affect a region, a country, or an industrial corporation, and
desisting from actions that could aggravate risk and loss. The second
means changing plans and actions in a more definitive way to shift the
process of planned investment and development onto a durable course.
For example, we have good reason to expect that sea levels will rise
by some 10 to 20 cm by 2030 and will go on rising thereafter. It makes
sense to avoid development low down on unprotected coastal plains and
deltas that are at special risk. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cal-
culated that natural salt marsh systems in Boston Harbor provided sea
defenses that averted some U.S.$17 billion worth of expenditures on con-
struction. Salt marshes, like mangroves in the tropics, have a capacity
for upward growth if sediment is supplied, pollutant discharges from the
land are controlled, and damaging overuse, like excessive cutting of
mangroves, is avoided. Coral reefs, whose shelter is essential to the
survival of many atoll nations, can grow at up to 10 mm per year if
likewise protected from damage and pollution. While the capacity of all
these systems may be outstripped if sea level rises follow some projec-
tions, it makes sense to survey such natural defenses and avoid action
that reduces their effectiveness.
Forests, similarly, play a crucial part in controlling water runoff,
preventing erosion, and in the Amazon, maintaining rainfall. The current
destruction promises to establish a vicious cycle of climatic, hydrolog-
ical, and production decline. Yet it is pursued for reasons that appear
economically compelling in the short term. What is needed is the demon-
stration that sustainable use is more compelling. I have seen estimates
that such sustainable extraction of timber, fruits, medicinal plants, and
wildlife, correctly valued, can yield over U.S.$200 per hectare per annum
as against a one-time U.S.$150 for irreversible destructive clearance.
Avoidance strategies mean substituting more durable and resilient land
use. Adaptive strategies mean preparing now for the changes likely to
occur under the best available scenarios: reviewing cropping systems,
forestry, river management, irrigation, and the distribution of urban and
industrial development so that they will be in the right place at the
right time. For those concerned with conserving biological diversity,
adaptive strategies require looking at the pattern of protected areas,
which in 50 years may no longer provide suitable habitats for the organ-
isms they are supposed to safeguard.
We have to plan now, without waiting for models that give us a clear
regional breakdown of likely change, because every decade we delay may
aggravate losses. But because of the scientific uncertainties, plans
themselves must be flexible and adaptive. One pattern we could follow is
that of the National Conservation Strategy, adopted by many governments
with help from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and
Natural Resources (IUCN).
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A successful national strategy has three important features. First,
it has to draw together the "horizontal" dimension of government, making
all departments that depend on and influence environmental resources plan
for their sustainable use, and this means involving finance, industry,
energy, agriculture, forestry, and commerce as well as the obvious "green
centers" of national parks and wildlife. Second, the strategy has to
extend ''vertically" from central through local government and has to
bring in industrial corporations, village communities--especially women--
and citizen groups. It has to create genuine dialog about what to do for
the common benefit. It has to promote a genuine attachment of the true
cost of environmental change to development projects. And third, it has
to create a continuing process, not just another document on the shelf.
This kind of process, moreover, addresses the whole question of wise use
of national resources; it therefore allows the impact of change to be put
in a social context.
But while avoidance and adaptation can save lives, costs, and much
pointless destruction, the lesson of this forum is that we face changes
far too grave to allow us merely to adjust to them while their causes are
unchecked. We face a bigger alteration of climate in a shorter time than
the world's ecosystems have experienced even during the dramatic oscil-
lations of the past 200,000 years. This will shift the zones of ecolog-
ical tolerance of species hundreds of kilometers horizontally, and hun-
dreds of meters vertically, with unpredictable consequences for natural
systems and crops. Low-lying nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu, or the
Maldives may face submergence in 100 years. We have to attack the
causes and this means abatement.
Priorities for abatement need to be based on (1) the relative
significance of a damaging substance and (2) the practicability of
contra 1 .
Best estimates suggest that carbon dioxide (C02) contributes 50
percent of the greenhouse effect; methane, 18 percent; chlorofluorocar-
bons (CFCs), 14 percent; nitrous oxide, 6 percent; and others, notably
tropospheric ozone, 12 percent.
There are special reasons to start with CFCs, also clearly incrimi-
nated as depleters of stratospheric ozone. The recent London conference
concluded that we had to adopt as our objective the total elimination of
production and consumption of CFCs and haloes. It heard from industry
that substitutes are available or are under development. It urged the
universal acceptance, strengthening, and more rapid implementation of the
Montreal Protocol. There is no reason why we cannot eliminate CFCs by
the end of the century.
We can also press ahead with the application of existing technology
to scrub sulfur oxides from flue gases and to cut emissions of nitrogen
oxides from power stations and the precursors of tropospheric ozone from
automobile emissions. All these things are relatively simple techni-
cally. If we cannot deal with them, there is not much hope for our
action against more intractable greenhouse gases.
It may be more difficult to act against methane and nitrous oxide,
since a high proportion of the former appears to originate in wet rice
cultivation and livestock. But by common consent, abating CO2 is the
great challenge.
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191
About 80 percent of anthropogenic CO2 emissions come from fossil fuel
combustion. Coal, oil, and natural gas all yield it, but coal produces
the most per unit of energy produced. North America contributes
27.5 percent; Eastern Europe, 25 percent; Western Europe, 15 percent;
Asia, 8 percent; the Pacific region, 6 percent; and the other developing
countries, 5 percent; so it is very much a developed world responsibility
even though the developing countries bid to overtake us in 30 years. As
a matter of equity, it is the developed countries that are looked to for
abatements that will make room for Third World growth without environ-
mental disaster.
One target might be to halve CO2 emissions from the developed coun-
tries by 2020. This is ambitious, for current energy-use projections
imply an increase of over 25 percent on that time scale. I have seen
reviews suggesting eight possible approaches:
1. Reforestation.
2. Generating energy from organic waste, which otherwise goes to
landfills and releases methane.
3. Improved efficiency in the generation and use of energy from
fossil fuels.
4. Substitution of fuels like natural gas that produce less CO2
per unit of energy generated.
5. Removal of CO2 from power station flue gases.
6. More efficient use of fuel for transport.
7. Development of renewable sources (hydra, wind, wave, geothermal,
solar, and fuels from biomass).
8. Increased use of nuclear energy.
The optimal mix and scale of benefit from each must vary from country
to country. Some, like reforestation and generation of energy from
waste, are worth doing and can have great public appeal, even if their
contribution is small. Others, like substituting natural gas for coal,
presuppose the availability of supplies. In most developed countries,
however, the most promising approaches are likely to be energy conser-
vation (which in Europe could contribute 40 percent of the target),
development of fuel-efficient transport (12 percent), and if the public
can be satisfied on grounds of safety, increased use of nuclear energy
(23 percent).
The target is attainable--at a cost. But only if the citizen is
prepared to act. For energy conservation in the home, factory, and
office depends on consumer commitment, and economies in transport may
mean some reduction in vehicle performance. Market forces can help both,
and this points to an expensive energy policy with, for example, the
threatened tax on gasoline of U.S.$1 to U.S.$2 per gallon. Tax incen-
tives can help pull through investment in home insulation. Public
statements of technical targets may be needed to bring forward more
efficient products like the 80-miles-per-gallon automobile (recall that
technical targets for emission abatement pulled through the 3-way cata-
lyst). There is, self-evidently, a feedback loop here to awareness,
which can pull products through by creating environmentally sound
markets.
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Internationally, if not nationally, assistance will undoubtedly be
needed to secure the changes required. Many of the poorest countries are
also among the most vulnerable to climatic change, if deserts become more
arid and the sea encroaches on densely populated coasts (and half the
population of the world lives in coastal zones). Such assistance will be
needed for three main purposes:
1. To finance national surveys and development of avoidance and
adaptive strategies.
2. To promote development of forestry and agroforestry systems and
other land-use practices most likely to be resilient in the face of
change.
3. To transfer technology that will incorporate substitutes for CFC,s
and greenhouse gas abatement methods.
Cooperation will also be needed in ways that go beyond traditional
development aid. World markets and trading patterns must be adjusted to
favor products from developing countries suited to a changing world.
Real resources will need to be transferred from the North to the South to
promote the conservation of biological diversity that the North uses but
the South shields. We need also cooperation in science to gather good
worldwide data and develop better models. A good start has been made
through the World Climate Program, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, and other groups.
Beyond this, there is a case for expressing our common commitment in
a framework convention on the limitation of climatic change. This might
bind its contracting parties as follows:
1. To observe a code of conduct in respect of measures to protect
the atmosphere.
2. To cooperate in research and assessment.
3. To provide assistance for technology transfer.
4. To negotiate specific protocols for the limitation and reduction
of greenhouse gases.
Such a convention will inevitably take thorough debate, but it is my
impression that there is international recognition of the need to do
something to give voice to the collective commitment of the world
community.
Finally, we need to review the world's institutional machinery.
Primarily, this means the United Nations. There have been many pro-
posals, but I suggest it will be easiest to work with the structure we
have.
1. The U.N. Security Council, whose mandate is wide enough, might
periodically review major environmental issues of global concern that
could threaten peace and security.
2. A commission on environmental change might provide technical
backup to the Security Council, perhaps continuing the work of the
Intergovernmental Panel on C1, mate Change .
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193
The Agencies Coordinating Council could make a real effort to
the U.N. agencies together.
The U.N.
3.
harness
4. The U.N. Environment Programme, perhaps given a new mandate at
the second U.N. conference on the environment due in 1992, could continue
to provide a wider forum for environmental discussion.
But the United Nations alone is not enough. The action pattern we
need is much broader. As chief executive of the world's largest pro-
fessional organization concerned with conservation, may I make a plea for
the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)? With a membership of 62 gov-
ernments, 130 state agencies, and over 300 NGOs active in 120 countries,
we can operate with a flexibility denied to the intergovernmental ma-
chinery and build institutions especially in the developing world. Such
machinery is needed, for the developing countries need a vehicle for
stating their needs and reversing the traditional dominance of "northern"'
concepts and priorities.
CONCLUSIONS
-
My conclusions are simple. We must stimulate public awareness of the
problems that confront us, but on the basis of good science rather than
exaggeration and half-truth. We must promote individual commitment to
actions that may cost more now, to save immense costs later. We need to
promote national, local, and corporate measures of avoidance and adap-
tation, and we should do this now in parallel with the increased perfec-
~ . We must accept the need for assis-
tance, especially to the developing world ~ if they are to pursue energy-
efficient pathways. And we must redesign our international machinery for
coordination and cooperation, including the development of a new inter-
national instrument or convention and stronger organizational mechanisms.
We may not succeed everywhere--I admit to being pessimistic about the
prospects in some areas--but we can ensure more success by acting now
than by doing nothing in the misplaced hope that the problems will solve
talon ot science. which we also need
themselves.
r
Representative terms from entire chapter:
developed world
