La Niña and El Niño As Stimuli for New Policy Structures and Processes
Donald M. BorockGettysburg College
Gettysburg, PA. USA
dborock@gettysburg.edu
Another reason for the scientists inability to move policy makers to act is not as apparent as those above. The scientists' were predicting global and regional change, not just national change, and there were three forces working against what they wanted to achieve: the Cold War, whose bipolar structure could not adapt to objective global and regional considerations; a lack of vision of the normal economic changes that promoted globalism and regionalism; and the lack of global and regional policy structures and processes which were necessary for coping with the probabilities of the forecasts.
Policy makers were not totally static during this period. National legislation was passed to protect the environment, international conferences were held to discuss climate change, and international conventions were signed to reduce the anthropogenic contribution to natural climate change. However, these actions were fairly moderate in the face of the forecasts. Much of the initiative for this activity came from the public, when what appeared to be reasonable interpretations about climate change and definitive information on and examples of environmental degradation and the causes and effects of ozone depletion began to filter down to it. Although these initiatives and particularly the appearance of public interest may be viewed as successes, they did not produce significant changes in policy structures or processes.
1998 is a pivotal year in terms of creating an impetus for policy makers to address the impacts of normal, (even if extreme), climate regularities as well as potential climate change. The broad and intense coverage of the 1997-98 El Niño was unprecedented and La Niña is likely to receive the same attention from the media, policy makers and the public. The entire decade of the 1990s, thus far, is pivotal too because the bipolar structure of the Cold War has disappeared giving way to a multi-centric structure (greater dispersion and variety of power than multi-polarity) which is the outgrowth of the socio-economic process of globalization and regionalization the world has been going through since the 1960s.
The recognition of globalization and regionalization is a critical juncture for scientists and policy makers, because it provides the environment for the development of new policy structures and processes for contending with normal climate processes as well as a potential human-induced climate change. Operating within the framework of globalization and regionalization will not be easy. The former tends to weaken social cohesion and the autonomy of the state, while the latter can become chauvinistic and protectionist. The roles of the state, the firm (commerce, manufacturing, industry, etc.), and various other international actors will have to be worked out. The multi-centric political system also offers some problems. It lacks a hegemon and appears to be more unstable and uncertain. On the other hand, the interdependence between states that leads to regionalization, globalization and multi-centricity promotes, among most policy makers, an understanding that national well being is dependent on global well being, and vice versa.
Given the dynamics of these three forces, what type of new policy structure and processes should be developed to contend with expected climate events such as La Niña and El Niño as well as the predictions of climate change? To borrow an acronym from the military, the overarching framework should operate with the context of C3I: cooperation, coordination, consensus, and information. Good information is essential but this will continue to be a problem for policy makers. Although more is known about climate than ever before, there is still much to learn. The GCMs are not precise and the forecasts continue to be, on the whole, controversial. Information on resiliency and vulnerability will have to be better than what is currently available, and more definitive measures to distinguish between natural climate consequences and anthropogenic impacts will have to be developed. The policy structure and processes, therefore, must be flexible. Consensus is a key ingredient and it applies to decisions made by policy makers as well as the relationship between policy makers and the public. Policy makers will have to agree on how to respond to climate conditions; when to take long or short term views and when to opt for prevention mitigation or adaptation. An informed public is crucial, for without public support and the airing of views, the policy makers will not be able to achieve their goals. Cooperation has been improving among international actors as a result of globalization and regionalization and it will need to continue. The "winners - losers" view of climate impacts must give way to a "winner - winner" perspective. Advanced and advancing states will have to assist poor states, and many non-state organizations will have to give up their ideological stance. The public and private sectors will also have to cooperate when matters call for government intervention and when it would be more appropriate for the market to respond.
Coordination will entail a different attitudinal and behavioral mind set for policy makers, bureaucrats and the private sector, and the beginnings of this change is already evident, because of globalization and regionalization. Coordination will also include a policy linkage between non-climate political and socio-economic impacts of the international system with their climate-impact counterparts because climate policy making cannot take place in a vacuum.
As stated above, the policy structure and processes have to be flexible and they must accommodate globalization and regionalization. Therefore, the basic organizational structure has to be regional. Since there are several regions and cooperation among them is essential, the networking process within and between regions will be adaptive rather than hierarchical. This will overcome parochial national policy making and departmentalization. The regional organizations will have to contend with both the macro and micro levels of policy making and policy integration: from national to regional and from regional to global. They must have the ability to pool resources (experience and information) and create a series of decision alternatives, accompanied by sufficient data, for policy makers to make decisions. To accomplish this they must be able to organize diverse government agencies, intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations to collect and analyze data and to develop policy options. Regional organizations must develop several different types of devices for policy makers such as: cooperative, collaborative and negotiating arrangements; confidence - and consensus-building instruments; and methods for establishing priorities. They will also need to create methods for continual policy evaluation to determine policy effectiveness and to provide the means to shift policies if that becomes necessary.
The regional organizations will have multiple tasks. Therefore, their staffs will have to be composed of persons who have multiple skills. They will have to be flexible in terms of anticipating forecasts and contending with them. They will have to understand how climate affects the natural political and socio-economic systems and how these systems impact on climate; basically, the interaction of climate and non-climate trends and stresses. The staffs are essentially contingency management teams. They are not the policy makers but rather the policy managers that suggest and coordinate policy and policy shifts among several different agencies and groups within and between regions.
The national and international attention given to the impending arrival of La Niña and the experience with and departure of El Niño provide a perfect milieu within which national and international leaders can begin to develop a flexible policy-making framework that can contend with the certainties and uncertainties of events within normal climate cycles, as well as the forecasts of climate change. This is the opportunity the scientists have long awaited. They and the policy makers should not let it slip away.