THE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW Institute’s mission statement is to advance environmental protection by improving environmental law, policy, and management.
Even if aggressive mitigation measures are undertaken, the effects of climate change will be felt for decades. In response, countries and communities are developing and revising legal and institutional frameworks to improve adaptive capacity. Adaptation measures center on improving resilience, adaptive management, and early warning and emergency response. Laws and institutions can improve resilience to the potential effects of climate change by ameliorating other stressors. Laws governing planning and development, such as environmental impact assessment guidelines, can, and should, take climate change into consideration. Resilience alone is not sufficient to cope with the potential effects and uncertainties associated with climate change.
Adaptive management provides a framework for managing uncertainty. This iterative approach, which recognizes the uncertainties inherent in climate change and response measures, assesses needs and options, develops and implements response measures, monitors and assesses these measures, and modifies them, as appropriate. These different measures are illustrated by examples from managing water resources, the coastal zone, forests, and livelihoods, including agriculture.
Precipitation patterns
Changes in precipitation patterns foreshadow potentially substantial effects on ecosystems and human communities, including wetlands, lakes, rivers, agriculture, and domestic use. Measures to improve efficient water use, manage water demand, reuse water, and expand water resources can all improve resilience. Such measures include differential pricing structures, permitting, and requirements for water-conserving techniques. Adaptive water management, though still a developing field, is equally important. Experiences to date include the Murray-Darling Basin (Australia), and in the United States, experiences in hydropower licensing (Clark Fork Project), and management of the Platte River.
Early warning systems are essential to identifying potential climate-related threats, such as drought or hurricanes, and enabling timely and appropriate responses. Though developed countries have more sophisticated warning and response systems, developing countries have created a variety of cost-effective warning and response systems to cope with El Nino or to respond to hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
Coastal zone
The combined threat of sea-level rise, more severe hurricanes, and global migration toward the coasts has made it increasingly important for coastal zones to adapt to climate change. Coastal adaptation measures must cut across sectors and improve resilience of both existing and planned development. In addition to land-use planning, other laws and programs, such as those governing flood insurance, can have a profound effect on coastal development. National, state, and local laws and policies should be amended to steer development in more appropriate directions. Initiatives to retain and strengthen wetlands and barrier islands, which help buffer hurricanes and storm surges, can also improve the resilience of coastal areas.
A threshold question in coastal adaptation is whether to accept the effects of climate change (for example, by adopting a Living Coastline) or to rely increasingly on engineered solutions to resist such changes. Engineered solutions, such as the levies in New Orleans, often pose small risks of failure, but catastrophic results if they do fail, these are already leading to the armoring of coasts in many places, degrading rich tidal areas.
Finally, early warning and emergency response systems must be strengthened. As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, both developed and developing countries are vulnerable to hurricanes, and the ineffectual emergency response revealed the challenges of implementing an effective response system. Fortunately, other experiences in emergency environmental response, such as the Joint United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Environmental Unit (though it does not address climate change) can provide guidance for the development of more effective emergency response systems.
Forests
Forests, and the millions of species that depend on them, are valuable economically and ecologically, providing an estimated $4.7 trillion in goods and services annually. Their ecosystem services include nutrient cycling, carbon sinks, climate regulation, and raw materials. Approximately 60 million people rely on forests for their livelihoods, with the production and manufacturing of industrial wood products estimated to contribute $400 billion to the global economy, approximately 2 percent of the global Gross Domestic Product.
Forests are especially vulnerable to climate change, given the difficulty in migrating to keep pace with temperature changes, and the varying climate tolerance levels of forest ecosystem species. Mountain forests are limited to migrating upslope to mountain peaks, while development may block migration of lowland forests. Climate change will also exacerbate existing stress from changing land use patterns that fragment habitats. Impacts such as unusually intense fires and devastating parasite infestations, historically stemmed by cold winter temperatures, are already occurring. Such impacts affect both the economic productivity and biodiversity of forests.
Increasingly, forests are managed adaptively, if not specifically in response to climate change. Adaptive measures have sought to reduce pressures on biodiversity from habitat conversion, over-harvesting, pollution, and alien species invasions. Specific projects include an adaptive management approach by the U.S. Forest Service to stem decline of the northern spotted owl. In addition, the 1994 U.S. Northwest Forest Plan established 10 Adaptive Management Areas, each with a focus, strategic plan, and activities consistent with their purpose. The Northwest Forest Plan demonstrates the importance of a clear organizational commitment, capacity, and leadership; effective public participation processes; clearly-defined elements of an adaptive management plan (including goals and objectives); and the use of creative and innovative approaches.
The mere presence of forests will help bolster environmental resilience to climate change by preserving biodiversity. Conservation of biodiversity and maintenance of ecosystem structure and function are important climate change adaptation strategies, because genetically-diverse populations and species-rich ecosystems are better able to adapt to climate change. Management structures can help build forest resilience by minimizing factors that degrade forests. For example, forests with natural species diversity can better adapt to other threats, such as population growth and depletion and degradation of forests, than can monoculture tree farms. Methods for maintaining species diversity without prohibiting tree harvesting include selective cutting and controlled burning.
Livelihoods
The relationship between climate change and livelihoods is multi-dimensional; livelihoods are affected by climate change and used to mitigate its impacts. By restricting the availability of natural resources and ecosystem services (through drought, floods, and disease), climate change can make it more difficult for people to engage in the traditional livelihoods with which they have supported themselves and their families. At the same time, natural resource-dependent communities can reduce their vulnerability to climate change by diversifying their livelihoods and, consequently, the resources upon which they depend. To that end, laws, policies, and institutions can play a key role in facilitating the use of alternative resources and materials by communities seeking to adapt to the impacts of climate change. These tools can also be used to promote stakeholder participation in natural resource management decisions.
Climate change can hinder agricultural productivity and make certain crops less suitable for planting. Laws and institutions can be employed to improve water-management regimes, techniques, and practices; facilitate the continued development of drought-resistant crops and the use of genetically diverse crops and species; provide incentives for the planting of crops that are better adapted to changing climatic zones; and introduce new agricultural technologies. Climate change can affect fisheries, another key source of livelihoods, through changes in water temperatures and levels, as well as circulation and flows. Laws and institutions can facilitate adaptation by enforcing existing restrictions on pollution and habitat degradation, monitoring the impacts caused by climate change, creating protected areas for vulnerable species or habitats, and establishing commercial permitting and licensing systems for new species, when necessary and appropriate.
The way forward
Broad popular and political support is essential for successful adaptation, given that it will require measures that are challenging, costly, and innovative. Much of the burden and cost of changes ultimately will be borne by potentially affected communities. In order to be effective, then, adaptation must be done in a participatory and transparent manner.
Among the most significant challenges for adaptation is the uncertainty associated with specific effects of climate change in particular locales. Legislative bodies typically have found it difficult to draft laws that effectively deal with uncertainty and contingencies, but these will become increasingly important. One mechanism for coping with uncertainty is to set aside funds to pay for projects that may be needed, depending on changed circumstances. This is less likely to be viable in developing countries, unless such funds are made available through the World Bank or other multilateral institutions.
The transition to adaptive management likely will focus on four broad themes. First, policymakers, regulated entities, and the public must become more comfortable managing uncertainty. Carefully constructed and implemented adaptive management pilot projects can help increase confidence. Second, mechanisms for collecting and sharing information must be strengthened. Most countries have such mechanisms, but they often suffer from inadequate staff, funding, and technical resources. In addition, a clear legal framework for adaptive management can provide a mandate and serve to address barriers to sharing information. Third, processes must be developed to periodically assess the information that has been gathered. Finally, there must be an ability and willingness to periodically revise the laws, regulations, permits, and other measures, based on these assessments. Because provisions requiring periodic revision are lacking in most current environmental laws, policymakers should be educated about why and how to draft such provisions. Some U.S. states have experience with these provisions and may be considered as models.
