Climate Change and Agriculture - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 464

Without strong enforcement of international agreements, full-costing is unlikely
to occur on a global scale. Lack of agreement at environmental conferences and lack
of compliance when agreements are made severely limit what the current global gov-
ernance structures can accomplish. Cramton and Stoft (2012) propose one very note-
worthy solution: Have each country “vote” for the level of commitment it would like to
establish universally, with the lowest vote becoming international law. They continue:
While accepting the least-strict commitment may sound weak, the result is the glob-
ally-optimal price for carbon. Voting succeeds because each country realizes that,
if its vote is accepted, its vote will determine abatement in every country. So, unlike
with global cap and trade, adopting a stronger policy does not just impose a national
burden that mainly benefits others. Instead, adopting a stronger policy causes all
others to abate more, which benefits the voting country. Hence voting for a collective
commitment succeeds, where choosing individual commitments fails.
They also demonstrate how the Green Climate Fund (established in 2010 and with fund-
ing expected in late 2013) could further increase participation and make bids higher and
more binding.
Even if full-costing is not adopted in entirety, it is still possible for national and local
governments to move in a direction that is closer to full-costing without causing sig-
nificant harm to domestic industries. Current subsidies that lead to the overuse of water,
fertilizer, and pesticides could be removed and replaced with environmentally neutral
income support. Deforestation could be slowed or halted by appropriately penaliz-
ing overlogging or rewarding deforestation abatement. Decentralized PES schemes in
which users pay for the services tend to be more efficient than when government pays,
because the latter schemes are poorly targeted, often include other goals that lower
environmental efficiency, and feature less enforcement of conditions (Wunder, Engel,
and Pagiola, 2008). Water scarcity in southern Australia and the southwestern US led
to experiments with limited trading of water entitlements since the 1980s. Between 5
and 20 percent of the total water flow in each area was traded in 2007-08. Grafton et
al. (2011) indicate that schemes are more successful where water rights are decoupled
from land rights, water storage capacity is large and able to facilitate both upstream
and downstream trade, and there is significant institutional support. Indeed, they cite
institutional support and third-party concerns as the primary constraints in current
systems. Porras (2013) argues that Costa Rica's reforestation PES encouraged NGOs pro-
liferation around environmental issues, often creating additional PES schemes. Cassin,
et al. (2011) catalogue a growing number of NGO-sponsored PES programs through-
out sub-Saharan Africa that are successfully reducing deforestation, improving soil and
quality, and conserving biodiversity.
Alix-Garcia, et al. (2009) give a detailed description of the political processes
involved in Mexico's forestry and hydrology PES, which give a cautionary tale about
neglecting the political economy. The program was plagued from beginning to end by
intra- and interdepartmental conflict. Its funding rules, terms, and goals were changed
multiple times as it moved between organizations and met with resistance from other