America's Climate Choices (2011) / Chapter Skim
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4 A Framework for Making America's Climate Choices
4 A Framework for Making America's Climate Choices
Pages 39-50
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From page 39... ...
Yet as discussed in Chapter 3, the many complexities inherent to climate change make it difficult to define the specific actions that are needed in an effective long-term response strategy. This chapter introduces iterative risk management as an approach that lets decision makers begin to address climate change now, in a systematic way, while allowing response strategies to be adjusted and improved as new information and knowledge are gained.
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From page 40... ...
At the national level, history contains countless examples of policy makers taking action to address serious but poorly defined risks that could be neither eliminated nor responsibly ignored. For instance, investments in deterrence during the Cold War were justified as reducing the 40
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From page 41... ...
The committee suggests that some essential elements of a sound risk management strategy for responding to climate change include: • Enacting policies and programs that reduce risk by limiting the causes of cli mate change and reducing vulnerability to its impacts; • Investing in research and development efforts that increase knowledge and improve the number and effectiveness of response options; • Developing institutions and processes that ensure pertinent information is collected and that link scientific and technical analysis with public deliberation and decision making; and • Periodically evaluating how response efforts are progressing, and updating response goals and strategies in light of new information and understanding.1 To some extent, it is possible to make substitutions or trade-offs among investments in different elements of climate change response. For instance, substantially limiting the magnitude of climate change could make it less important to invest in adaptation efforts (recognizing that the outcomes of these different types of actions can occur over widely differing temporal and spatial scales, thus complicating direct trade-off relationships)
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From page 42... ...
Many of the costs of climate change impacts are difficult or impossible to quantify.6 The sheer diversity and extent of potential costs and benefits of climate change make it very difficult to aggregate costs. Estimates can vary widely, depending on normative judgments about risk aversion and about how to account for equity concerns across generations, social groups, and regions of the world.7 Estimating the costs of actions to address climate change, while seemingly a more tractable task, is also problematic -- for instance, because the costs of emission reductions over the coming decades depend critically on the pace of technological change.8 An iterative risk management approach9 for making climate change-related decisions overcomes many of these limitations.
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From page 43... ...
These concepts are illustrated in Figure 4.1 and discussed further in Chapter 5. Similar principles have been recommended and illustrated by other high-level advisory groups worldwide, including, for instance, the IPCC, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, the Australian Greenhouse Office, and the UK Climate Impacts Programme.10 Closer to home, a number of NRC and other reports have pointed to the planning efforts being carried out by New York City as a good example of a climate change response strategy that embodies many key elements of iterative risk management.11 These efforts -- which are set forth in PlaNYC, the city's sustainability and growth management initiative -- include for instance: • ambitious goals for limiting greenhouse gas (GHG)
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From page 44... ...
. c NRC, Understanding Risk, Public Participation, Informing Decisions, Advancing the Science, and Informing Effective Decisions; EPA, Improved Science-Based Environmental Stakeholder Processes: A Commentary by the EPA Science Advisory Board, EPA-SAB-EC-COM-01-006 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
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From page 45... ...
These activities explicitly call for iterative processes in which goals and strategies are regularly monitored and reassessed, to determine whether intended objectives are being met, to discern any unforeseen consequences, and to allow for periodic corrections. NRC, Adapting to the Impacts and Informing Effective Decisions contain more details about these New York City activities, and other case studies illustrating how iterative risk management principles are being implemented in both the public and private sectors.
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From page 46... ...
Some actions -- such as those involving investment in new technologies, infrastructure, and workforce capacity -- may offer little or no direct risk reduction potential themselves but can open the door to future options that may significantly reduce risk. For example, investing in development of a "smart grid" would provide flexibility for integrating distributed renewable electricity generation, and investing in the training of scientists and engineers can improve scientific understanding and the likelihood of significant technological breakthroughs over time.12 Other options, in contrast, may foreclose future risk-reducing possibilities.
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From page 47... ...
In a world of finite resources, cost and cost-effectiveness are important criteria for helping policy makers decide among different response options. Cost-effectiveness analysis assumes a similar level of risk reduction among options -- if two options have similar risk reduction potential and likely effectiveness, a decision maker would choose the option with lower costs.
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From page 48... ...
For example, increasing energy efficiency to limit GHG emissions can also reduce emissions of conventional pollutants,18 and reducing GHG emissions from the transportation sector could potentially reduce petroleum consumption and thus the nation's vulnerability to high oil prices and oil-supply disruptions.19 Encouraging carbon sequestration through soil and forest management practices (e.g., minimum tillage practices, reducing timber harvesting, improving manure management, reducing livestock herd size) may also offer the benefits of helping to control nutrient runoff, soil erosion, and habitat loss.20 It is wise to consider potential co-benefits of this kind when choosing among alternative possible strategies for reducing climate risks.
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From page 49... ...
The degree to which any particular policy option meets the different criteria listed above depends not only on the type of policy but also its scope and stringency. For example, an overly weak auto fuel efficiency standard may be cheap and politically feasible but not very effective in reducing climate-related risks, whereas an overly tough standard may promise high levels of risk reduction but be very expensive, pose significant equity concerns, and be difficult to implement successfully.
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From page 50... ...
The decision sciences offer a variety of methods for helping decision makers evaluate and make trade-offs among options,24 but even these methods do not obviate the need for deliberation and judgment. CHAPTER CONCLUSION In the committee's judgment, iterative risk management -- which emphasizes taking action now, but in doing so, being ready to learn from experience and adjust these efforts later on -- offers the most useful approach for guiding America's climate choices.
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