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2015 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

16. Climate Change and the Politics of Uncertainty: Lessons from Iraq

verfasst von : Michael Heazle

Erschienen in: Risk Governance

Verlag: Springer Netherlands

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Abstract

A fundamental obstacle to more effective management of uncertainty in wicked policy problems is a collective failure during policy debates to recognize that our values and interests not only shape the way we look at science and expert advice, but that they also drive disagreement over how problems should be identified, prioritized, and responded to. The sooner these values can be openly debated, I argue, the sooner competition between goals and priorities can be resolved, thereby allowing disputes over uncertainty in competing specialist advice to be overcome. Science will then be able to concentrate on the task of how best to achieve, as opposed to expecting it to somehow determine, what is politically acceptable.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Climate Governance and Climate Change and Society
Nächstes Kapitel Water Risk Management, Governance, IWRM and Implementation
Fußnoten
1
Weapon of mass destruction.
 
2
The notion of a “global climate” is an abstract derived from the concept of a “global average temperature.” Climate behavior and temperature are regional phenomena that vary significantly and can be influenced by a very broad range of both local and more global factors. Reliable modeling of regional climate behavior remains beyond the capability of contemporary climate models and our understanding of the climate system.
 
3
Quoted in Pielke and Sarewitz (2002/2003). By 2002, the U.S. had spent more than US$20 billion on funding research under this project.
 
4
For post-positivist related perspectives on science and technology and the role of expert advice in policy making, see Funtowicz and Ravetz (1992, 1993); Ravetz (1999); Daston (2005); Hajer (2003); and Goldenberg (2006).
 
5
Daniel Sarewitz’s call for more “incremental approaches to decision making” on the basis of consensus being achieved, not on scientific or knowledge disputes but on values and interests, invokes Lindblom’s ideas about the need to abandon the quest for “synoptic” or complete knowledge as the basis of policy and instead to face up to our inability to know very much at all about complex policy issues, or even to reach shared understandings of policy goals. Lindblom’s famous description of policy making and analysis as “a science of muddling through,” made necessary by the sheer complexity of policy problems, represents what he later stated “is and ought to be the usual method of policy making.” See Lindblom (1959, p. 517).
 
6
The argument put forward by Howard and others that nuclear energy should be an option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions also serves as an example of the precautionary principle dilemma. Is the risk of a nuclear accident more or less acceptable than the still unknown but possible risks posed by greenhouse gas emissions? Who decides and on what basis?
 
7
See, for example, Baker (2007) and Nordhaus (2006).
 
8
Nicholas Stern’s cost-benefit analysis of the present versus future costs of acting and not acting to mitigate anthropogenic climate change attracted criticism from many economists due to (1) its employment of a pure rate of time preference or social discount rate of almost zero (0.1 %) and an overall discount rate of only 1.4 % as opposed to the 4–6 % realm normally used when discounting future costs and benefits; (2) the report allegedly downplaying the real cost of spending 1 % of annual world GDP on mitigation and the sacrifice this will require, particularly among developed countries where it will more likely amount to 1.8 % of each economy’s GDP annually; and (3) Stern’s ‘cherry picking’ of worst case scenarios and damage estimates as the basis of his cost-benefit analysis. See also, for example, Neumayer (2007); Nordhaus (2006); and Pielke (2006).
 
9
Princeton physicist and climate skeptic Freeman Dyson also sees conflicts over fundamental values as underpinning the competing scientific arguments over global warming’s causes. Nicholas Dawidoff (2009) writes that: “Beyond the specific points of factual dispute [over global warming science], Dyson has said that it all boils down to ‘a deeper disagreement about values’ between those who think ‘nature knows best’ and that any gross human disruption of the natural environment is ‘evil,’ and ‘humanists,’ like himself, who contend that protecting the existing biosphere is not as important as fighting more repugnant evils like war, poverty and unemployment.”
 
10
One of the best known critiques of the rationalist model is Charles Lindblom’s “science of muddling though.” See works by Lindblom (1959, pp. 79–88; 1979, pp. 517–526). More contemporary examples include Jasanoff (1990); Stone (2002); Pielke (2007); and Nieman and Stambough (1998).
 
11
According to Habermas (1971, p. 75), scientisation causes values-based issues (i.e., political issues) to be redefined as technical issues that can be rationally solved or managed by scientific enquiry. See also Sarewitz (2000).
 
12
Wicked policy problems are broadly understood as policy issues of great complexity involving systems within systems, which not only defy any uniform definition but also are highly resistant to analysis and resolution due to the numerous system uncertainties (epistemic and variability) and multi-causal factors involved.
 
13
Former Australian delegate to the IPCC John Zillman (1997) writes that: “According to the [UNFCCC] Convention, ‘climate change’ is that which is due to human activity and is in addition to natural variability. The IPCC WG I, on the other hand, regards ‘climate change’ as including natural variations. Thus, when the IPCC says ‘climate has changed over the past century,’ it is simply saying the climate now is not the same as it was a century ago (whatever the cause) whereas the UNFCCC listener will reasonably interpret such a statement as the scientific community affirming that human influence has changed climate over the past century.”
 
14
Email call for conference participants received 3 April 2009 from Mary Mansfield via the Climate Change Info Mailing List; sent by bounce-875604-330596@lists.iisd.ca.
 
15
Whether or not executive decision makers are reacting to a policy challenge or proactively pursuing ideological preferences, justified in the “national interest,” the imperative that they publicly state what they intend to do, and how they intend doing it, and why is a major determinant of the policy process; it is an aspect of policy making that, in addition to defining policy, clearly reflects the strong link between policy and its justification. According to former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, “in any given week as Secretary, I received dozens of memoranda advocating various particular policy directions. However persuasive their contents, they did not constitute U.S. policy unless they were incorporated into a speech, public statement or formal government document. The challenge of articulating a position publicly compels leaders to make policy choices. Often decisions on what to do and what to say publicly are made simultaneously.” Quoted in Chollet and Goldgeier (2002, p. 170).
 
16
Speaking at Georgetown University in March 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (1997) made future U.S. policy on Iraq contingent on Saddam’s removal from power: “We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted. Our view, which is unshakeable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council Resolutions to which it is subject. Is it possible to conceive of such a government under Saddam Hussein?… The evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein’s intentions will never be peaceful…. Clearly, a change in Iraq’s government could lead to a change in U.S. policy. Should that occur, we would stand ready, in co-ordination with our allies and friends, to enter rapidly into a dialogue with the successor regime.” Quoted in “The Iraq Crisis” (1998).
 
17
The Howard government attracted considerable criticism, especially from the E.U., when it demanded and received an 8 % increase on its 1990 emission levels during negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol. Prime Minister Howard later announced Australia would not ratify the Kyoto agreement in 2003.
 
18
It is also worth noting that U.K. emissions began increasing in the late 1990s under the Blair government.
 
19
Some critics of the science and economic advice used to support the Kyoto reductions even went so far as to suggest that European governments initially supported the protocol’s implementation only because they believed that it would never come into force due to the opposition of the U.S. and other likeminded governments. See, for example, Singer (2000).
 
20
Michael Grubb notes that approximately half of the U.K.’s emissions reduction in the 1990s can be attributed to the switch from coal to natural gas electrical generation. See Grubb (2002, p. 142).
 
21
William Nordhaus makes a similar point in criticizing the use of base year emission targets: “Base year emissions have become increasingly obsolete as the economic and political fortunes of different countries have changed. The 1990 base year penalizes efficient countries (like Sweden) or rapidly growing countries (such as Korea and the United States). It also gives a premium to countries with slow growth or with historically high carbon-energy use (such as Britain, Russia, and Ukraine).” See Nordhaus (2005).
 
22
Not to mention our inability to know what either the climate or we might be doing in 50 or 100 years time.
 
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Metadaten
Titel
Climate Change and the Politics of Uncertainty: Lessons from Iraq
verfasst von
Michael Heazle
Copyright-Jahr
2015
Verlag
Springer Netherlands
Buch
Risk Governance

Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9327-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-94-017-9328-5

Copyright-Jahr: 2015

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9328-5_16