CRS Report: 98-738 - Climate Change: Three Policy Perspectives

The 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change requires that signa-tories, including the United States, establish policies for constraining future emission levels of suspected greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO₂). Both the Bush and Clinton Administrations drafted action plans in response to requirements of the convention. These plans have raised significant controversy and debate.

This debate has intensified since the 1997 Kyoto Agreement which, if ratified, would commit the United States to reduce greenhouse gases by 7% over the 5-year period 2008-2012 from specified baseline years. Such controversy is inherent, in part, because of the great uncertainties about the likelihood and magnitude of possible future climate change; the consequences for human well being; and the costs and benefits of minimizing or adapting to possible future climate change. Controversy is also driven by differences in the way competing policy communities view the basic assumptions underlying approaches to this complex issue.

This paper examines three reasonably distinct starting points from which a U.S. response to the convention is being framed. These starting points, or policy "lenses," lead to divergent perceptions of the issue with respect to uncertainty, cost and benefit accounting, and urgency. They also imply differing but overlapping processes and actions for possible implementation, thus shaping recommendations of policy advo-cates for the federal government's appropriate role in reducing greenhouse gases.

A technological lens views environmental problems as the result of inappropriate or misused technologies. The solutions to the problems lie in improving or correcting technology. The implied governmental role would be to provide leadership and incentives for technological development.

An economic lens views environmental problems as the result of inappropriate or misleading market signals (prices). The solutions to the problems lie in ensuring that the prices of goods and services reflect their total costs, including environmental damages. The implied governmental role would be to improve the functions of the market to include environmental costs, so the private sector can respond efficiently.

An ecological lens views environmental problems as the result of indifference to or disregard for the planet's ecosystem on which all life depends. The solutions to the problems lie in developing an understanding of and a respect for that ecosystem, and providing people with mechanisms to express that understanding in their daily choices. The implied governmental role would be to support ecologically based education and values, as well as to promote "green" products and processes, for example through procurement policies and labeling requirements.

Some global climate change initiatives are underway; all the perspectives are relevant in evaluating them and possible further policies. Administration initiatives such as the Climate Change Technology Initiative have been questioned as premature by some in Congress. The purpose here is not to suggest that one lens is "better" than another, but rather to articulate the implications of the differing perspectives in order to clarify terms of debate among diverse policy communities.

Introduction

Even as the possible role of human activities affecting global climate is being actively questioned, national and international climate change policy actions are being debated.⁽¹⁾ As a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United States committed to an objective of achieving "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system"; and to preparing "national action plans" to address emissions of greenhouse gases.⁽²⁾ The Clinton Administration has seen the possibility of global climate change mitigation as an explicit policy objective influencing the direction of U.S. energy and environmental programs. How proactive that policy should be became subject to debate in 1994 with the release of the Administration's "Climate Change Action Plan."⁽³⁾

This debate has been reignited by the Kyoto Protocol, agreed to in December, 1997.⁽⁴⁾ Specifically, under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, the United States would commit to reducing its average annual net carbon-equivalent emissions of 6 gases by 7% below specified baseline years over the 5-year period 2008-2012.⁽⁵⁾ If ratified by the Senate, the Kyoto Agreement would move the debate beyond the "study only"⁽⁶⁾ and the "no regrets"⁽⁷⁾ policies of the Bush Administration, and the present non-coercive, voluntary policies of the Clinton Administration.

The outcome of the Kyoto Agreement is unclear. In July, 1997, prior to Kyoto, the Senate agreed by a unanimous vote 95-0 to S.Res. 98, stating that the Administration should not accept an agreement that would seriously harm the economy or that did not require developing countries to meet appropriate reduction requirements. The Administration signed the agreement, saying that costs would not be excessive (particularly because it included emissions trading and joint implementation provisions); and while the Agreement did not impose requirements on developing countries, this issue is to be taken up at meetings in Buenos Aires in November 1998. So the Administration has postponed submitting the Agreement to the Senate for ratification at least until after that time.

Meanwhile, the Administration's current policy takes modest steps to stimulate changes in the technological, economic, and ecological actions of the nation in order to sustain carbon dioxide reduction in the long term. In terms of new technology, the focus of the Clinton plan is on longer term research and development. For example, the Administration's proposed FY1999 budget requested $3.6 million in tax credits and $2.7 billion in new research and development spending over the next 5 years for a new global climate change initiative. The incentives focus primarily on more energy-efficient buildings, industrial cogeneration and control of minor greenhouse gases, fuel efficient vehicles, and reducing carbon emissions in electricity generation.⁽⁸⁾ These actions could be classed as consistent with a "no regrets" approach, the Framework Convention, and U.S. energy policy as articulated in the Energy Policy Act of 1992 ⁽⁹⁾ -- although some have raised questions about these being "backdoor" efforts to implement the Kyoto Agreement before it is ratified.⁽¹⁰⁾

In terms of changing market signals to consumers and industry, the Clinton Administration's major concrete policy initiative was the modified Btu tax, originally proposed in 1993.⁽¹¹⁾ Although not specifically designed to address climate change, the Btu tax would have set a precedent for using energy pricing as a means of effecting changes in consumer preference. Congress rejected the Btu tax proposal, however, and the Administration has not pursued it. Nor did the Administration include a CO₂ reduction scheme in its 1998 electric restructuring proposal, S. 2287, as some environmental groups had urged. However, it did make inclusion of emission trading and joint implementation a focal point of its policy position during the Kyoto negotiations, an effort resulting in those mechanisms being included in the final agreements. Also, the Administration's proposed FY1999 budget calls on EPA, assisted by DOE, to analyze options for developing a domestic emission trading system and early reduction program. EPA would work with interested parties to begin building the institutional capacity to implement a tradeable permit program.⁽¹²⁾

Because of the enormous uncertainties associated with global climate change -- whether global climate change is occurring or will occur, what the effects might be and their magnitude, the consequences that would follow from actions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, the costs of actions or of taking no action, the time frame of impacts, etc. -- each individual's perception of what, if anything, to do is strongly influenced by personal values, experience, education and training, and outlook in how to cope with uncertainty.⁽¹³⁾ These personal variations affect one's definition of the issue and the weight one gives possible approaches to it. This is not just stating the obvious that economists, lawyers, biologists, atmospheric scientists, and others bring different expertise to the issue, or that optimists and pessimists can see the same glass as half full and half empty. This is highlighting the fact that the magnitude of uncertainty accentuates those differences that would apply even if the facts concerning global climate change were indisputable.

In the end, the origin of and support for different global climate change policy options arise from differing orientations to, or philosophies for, thinking about uncertainty, taking risks, human progress and adaptability, and personal and community values. Differing perspectives of persons affect their observations and interpretations of the issue, influencing their decisions on whether policy interventions are necessary and, if so, what kinds of intervention. At the same time, personal perspectives can change; new knowledge, education, and/or moral suasion may impact on policymaking and individual and corporate behavior, and may also be necessary to create conditions for successfully implementing initiatives relating to climate change.

Footnotes

1. ^(back) This paper discusses policy perspectives on the issue and potential actions, but not the underlying controversy concerning the reality and urgency of global climate change -- sometimes more narrowly termed "global warming." For background, see Wayne A. Morrissey and John R. Justus Global Climate Change, CRS Issue Brief IB89005 [updated regularly].

2. ^(back) The Senate consented to ratification of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change on October 7, 1992, with a two-thirds majority division vote; President Bush signed the instrument of ratification of the Convention on October 13, 1992.

3. ^(back) William J. Clinton and Albert Gore, Jr., The Climate Change Action Plan (October 1993); Climate Action Report: Submission of the United States of America Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [1994].

4. ^(back)On the agreement, see Susan R. Fletcher, Global Climate Change Treaty: Summary of the Kyoto Protocol, CRS Report 98-2 ENR, December 22, 1997.

5. ^(back)On the specifics of the Kyoto reduction requirements, see Larry Parker and John Blodgett, Global Climate Change: Reducing Greenhouse Gases -- How Much from What Baseline? CRS Report 98-235 ENR, March 11, 1998.

6. ^(back) This approach can be summarized as focusing on the study of global climate processes, with particular attention to the potential human role in causing change. It implies taking no action to change human activities on the basis of possible impacts on global climate unless further information verifies the need. This is not to simply "ignore the problem," since it implies focused research with additional resources. Arguably, too, this investment in research would be warranted if a more aggressive plan of action were adopted.

7. ^(back) Adopting a "no regrets" policy can be summarized as assessing policy options across the range of federal activities for their potential impact on global climate change, and where alternative policies to achieve a goal otherwise appear similar, adopt the one most consistent with protecting against the risk of global climate change. The idea of "no regrets" derives from the presumption that even if global climate change proves a false alarm, one would not regret adopting policies that are protective if there were no additional (or at most minimal) costs and the policies were justified on other grounds (e.g., have other environmental benefits or energy security benefits).

8. ^(back)See Michael M. Simpson, Global Climate Change: Research and Development Provisions in the President's Climate Change Technology Initiative, CRS Report 98-408 STM, April 27, 1998; and Salvatore Lazzari, Global Climate Change: The Energy Tax Incentives in the President's FY1999 Budget, CRS Report 98-193 E, March 4, 1998.

9. ^(back)Besides the numerous titles on energy efficiency and renewable energy, title XVI provides for data collection, analysis, and reporting of greenhouse gases, including a national energy strategy designed to achieve to the maximum extent practicable and at least cost "the stabilization and eventual reduction in the generation of greenhouse gases."

10. ^(back) Wayne A. Morrissey, Global Climate Change: Congressional Concern About "Back Door" Implementation of the 1997 U.N. Kyoto Protocol, CRS Report 98-664.

11. ^(back) See Lawrence C. Kumins, The Btu Tax Proposal: House Action, Senate Reaction, and the Transportation Fuels Tax, Issue Brief IB93061 [archived].

12. ^(back) For further discussion, see Larry Parker, Global Climate Change: Market-Based Strategies to Reduce Greenhouse Gases, CRS Issue Brief IB97057 [updated regularly].

13. ^(back)Implications of differing perceptions are discussed in, for example, John Blodgett Economic and Environmental Policymaking: Two-Stepping to a Waltz, CRS Report 94-175 ENR [archived]; Steven Kelman, What Price Incentives: Economists and the Environment (Boston: Auburn Publishing Co., 1981); Lester B. Lave and Hadi Dowlatabadi, "Climate Change: The Effects of Personal Beliefs and Scientific Uncertainty," Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 27, no. 10 (1993), 1962-1972; Richard B. Norgaard and Richard B. Howarth, "Climate Rights of Future Generations, Economic Analysis, and the Policy Process," in U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Technologies and Strategies for Addressing Global Climate Change, Hearings, 17 July 1991 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1992), pp. 160-173; and "Science and Nonsense in the Global Warming Debate," ENDS Report 233 (June 1993), 21-23;

.........

CRS Reports Home

National Council for Science and the Environment
1725 K Street, Suite 212 - Washington, DC 20006
202-530-5810 - info@NCSEonline.org

98-738: Global Climate Change: Three Policy Perspectives

Larry Parker Specialist Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division John Blodgett Assistant Chief Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division

Larry Parker
Specialist
Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division
John Blodgett
Assistant Chief
Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division