National Academies Praise Bush Admin. Climate Change Plan, Cite Room for Improvements

WASHINGTON -- While the federal government has taken a good first step toward better understanding and responding to climate change by drafting a strategic plan that contains new research initiatives, the plan lacks a clear guiding vision and does not sufficiently meet the needs of decision-makers who must deal with the effects of climate change, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report also noted that the president's fiscal year 2004 budget request appears to leave funding relatively unchanged for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), which wrote the draft plan, despite the important new initiatives called for in the plan.

"While past climate-change science has focused on how climate is changing and affecting other natural systems, future science must also focus on more applied research that can directly support decision-making," said committee chair Thomas E. Graedel, professor of industrial ecology, Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven, Conn. "Research is especially needed to improve our understanding of the possible impacts of climate change on ecosystems and human society, as well as options for responding to -- and reducing -- these effects."

The federal government formed CCSP a year ago to facilitate climate-change research across 13 federal agencies. CCSP released its draft strategic plan for public comment in November and also held a workshop in Washington where hundreds of climate scientists and other stakeholders commented on the plan. CCSP asked the Research Council to review the draft plan as well.

The draft plan provides a solid foundation for future research by identifying some exciting new initiatives that build on the success of the Global Change Research Program, which has been funding valuable research for more than a decade, the committee said. It commended CCSP for introducing an emphasis on the need for science to address national needs, including support for people in the public and private sectors whose decisions are affected by climate change. In addition, CCSP has made genuine overtures to the research community, indicating a strong interest in developing a plan that is consistent with current scientific thinking. Some of the more important initiatives in the plan include a call for models that can offer trusted projections, or forecasts, of climate change, and cutting-edge research into aerosols and the carbon cycle that is needed to improve our understanding of climate change and variability.

However, the plan needs to be revised substantially, the committee concluded. To begin with, the plan should more clearly articulate CCSP's goals and priorities for meeting national needs. These goals should be accompanied by ways to measure progress, clear timetables, and an assessment of whether current research efforts are capable of meeting them.

The plan also should be revised to present clear and consistent goals for a new component of CCSP called the Climate Change Research Initiative, designed to support activities that would produce results of value to decision-makers within two to four years. For example, trusted climate forecasts could be of great use to policy-makers, regional water managers, or even individuals deciding on which car or appliance to purchase. The committee applauded this emphasis on scientific support for decision-makers, but said that many of the activities included in this part of the plan, although important scientifically, are unlikely to produce the desired results within two to four years. The committee agreed with CCSP's new emphasis on short-term results to inform decisions, but said that scientific support for decision-making also will be needed over the long haul.

Revisions are also necessary to fulfill key information needs, the committee said. For example, there is a strong need for research aimed at developing models that can forecast the regional impact of climate change. This information is essential for local officials. For instance, municipalities may need to construct coastal barriers if sea levels keep rising because polar ice caps continue to melt, and authorities in the western United States may confront increased water shortages if less snow falls in the Rocky Mountains.

The draft plan has serious gaps when it comes to studying the effects of climate change on human societies and ecosystems, the committee said. The revised plan should ensure that CCSP supports research on understanding and predicting the impacts of climate change, and providing the scientific foundation for possible actions to minimize the effects. Research on the costs and benefits of possible strategies for responding to climate change is also needed.

The draft plan misses an opportunity to improve cooperation with other countries on research, observation networks, and future assessments because the plan is too focused on U.S. issues and includes little on international activities. International cooperation is especially needed to help build a global system for observing climate, which the revised strategic plan should address in more detail, the committee said.

The draft plan also does not adequately build on prior U.S. and international reports that have provided scientific information to policy-makers, the committee added. It said the revised plan should better take into account the lessons learned about climate forecasts and stakeholder involvement found in such reports, especially the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Climate Variability and Change and the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

While it acknowledges both that uncertainty is inherent in science and that it is not an excuse for inaction by policy-makers, the draft plan has not identified where an improved understanding of the significance of uncertainties, or reductions in uncertainty, is expected to have the greatest value to decision-makers, the committee added. The revised plan should do more to identify which uncertainties are most important to reduce and by how much, and to look at how uncertainties can be better explained to policy-makers. The committee did not have time to examine the president's proposed budget for next fiscal year in detail, but a cursory review indicated that funding for the Climate Change Research Initiative was increased at the expense of the Global Change Research Program. Funding decisions should be guided by priorities in the revised strategic plan, the committee said. CCSP should move forward with the important new elements of the Climate Change Research Initiative while preserving crucial parts of the Global Change Research Program. The committee noted that significant investments will be needed to develop the computing power necessary for some of the modeling and data collection called for in the draft plan.

Existing management processes may not be adequate to ensure that the 13 agencies involved in CCSP cooperate toward the program's goals, the committee found. The revised strategic plan needs to clearly describe the responsibilities of program leadership and ways to foster greater agency cooperation. At the same time, CCSP should encourage participation by other mission-oriented agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the land management agencies of the Department of the Interior.

The committee, whose work was sponsored by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, will review a revised strategic plan later this year. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. A committee roster follows. Copies of Planning Climate and Global Change Research: A Review of the Draft U.S. Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan will be available this spring from the National Academies Press; tel. (202) 334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Reporters may obtain a pre-publication copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).

Thomas E. Graedel* (chair)
Professor of Industrial Ecology School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Yale University New Haven, Conn.

Linda Capuano
Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Business Development Honeywell Engines & Systems San Jose, Calif.

Elizabeth Chornesky
Freelance Consultant, and Research Associate University of California Santa Cruz

Mary Gade
Partner Environmental Practice Group Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal Chicago

Katharine L. Jacobs
Special Assistant for Policy and Planning Arizona Department of Water Resources Tucson

Anthony C. Janetos
Senior Research Fellow H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment Washington, D.C.

Charles D. Kolstad
3M Visiting Professor of Environmental Economics Department of Economics Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge

Diana M. Liverman
Director of the Center for Latin American Studies; Professor of Geography and Regional Development; and Member of the Executive Committee of the Institute for the Study of Plant Earth University of Arizona Tucson

Jerry D. Mahlman
Senior Research Fellow National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder, Colo.

Diane McKnight
Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering University of Colorado Boulder

Michael J. Prather
Professor and Kavli Chair Earth System Science Department University of California Irvine

Eugene Rosa
Professor of Sociology, and Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service Washington State University Pullman

William H. Schlesinger
James B. Duke Professor of Biogeochemistry, and Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences Duke University Durham, N.C.

David L. Skole
Professor of Geography, and Director of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations Michigan State University East Lansing

Andrew R. Solow
Associate Scientist, and Director of the Marine Policy Center Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole

Robert A. Weller
Director Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole

Stephen Wittrig
Director Clean Energy: Facing the Future Program BP Amoco Chemical Corp. Naperville, Ill.

Look at the front page of the New York Times and see how they spun this report to be a total slam on Bush!!! Blaring headline on the front page!!!!

Here is the link article and link....

Experts Fault Bush's Proposal to Examine Climate Change
By ANDREW C. REVKIN NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/26/science/26CLIM.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

panel of experts has strongly criticized the Bush administration's proposed research plan on the risks of global warming, saying that it "lacks most of the elements of a strategic plan" and that its goals cannot be achieved without far more money than the White House has sought for climate research.

The 17 experts, in a report issued yesterday, said that without substantial changes, the administration's plan would be unlikely to accomplish the aim laid out by President Bush in several speeches: to help decision makers and the public determine how serious the problem is so that they can make clear choices about how to deal with it.

The president has said that more research is needed before the administration can even consider mandatory restrictions on heat-trapping greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The expert panel, convened by the National Academy of Sciences at the administration's request, said some of the plan's proposals for new research seemed to rehash questions that had already been largely settled.

It also found that the plan listed dozens of disparate research goals without setting priorities — a particularly important failing, it said, inasmuch as the plan is intended to integrate about $1.7 billion a year in climate research now being conducted by more than a dozen agencies.

The plan, the experts concluded, lacks "a guiding vision, executable goals, clear timetables and criteria for measuring progress, an assessment of whether existing programs are capable of meeting these goals, explicit prioritization and a management plan."

Senior administration officials said they welcomed the panel's critique of the draft plan, and added that the final plan, scheduled for release in April, would most likely reflect some of the suggestions.

"It may sound like `Oh, yes, please hit me again,' " said Dr. James R. Mahoney, an assistant secretary of commerce who is director of the federal Climate Change Science Program. But, he added, "I absolutely welcome their comments, even though it may sound like they're fairly harsh."

The administration's plan calls for a vast array of work through the rest of the decade on goals like improving computer simulations of climate shifts, integrating measurements of global change and clarifying regional effects of warming.

The panel brought together to critique the plan was drawn from the academic world, businesses including Honeywell and BP, and a private environmental organization. (The names of its members, along with the text of the report, are online at www.nas.edu.)

The experts credited the administration for undertaking the effort in the first place. A broad government plan for climate research is required under a 1990 law, the Global Change Research Act, but was never completed during the administration of Mr. Bush's father or in the Clinton administration. As a result, many experts say, climate research has suffered.

For example, American efforts to refine advanced computer models used to project the effects of rising greenhouse-gas concentrations have fallen behind those overseas, partly because of a lack of coordination.

A unified approach is necessary, the new report concluded. But while the administration's plan is "an important first step," the experts said, it needs many changes, and more money.

"They get an A for effort," said one panel member, Dr. Diane M. McKnight, a professor of engineering at the University of Colorado. Another author, Dr. Michael J. Prather, an earth sciences expert at the University of California at Irvine, joined in academic metaphor: "This is the student paper that gets sent back two-thirds of the way through the term with red marks all over it. It doesn't have a grade yet."

A particular concern among some on the panel was the plan's proposed focus on scientific questions that many experts say have been resolved.

"In some areas, it's as if these people were not cognizant of the existing science," said one member, Dr. William H. Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. "Stuff that would have been cutting edge in 1980 is listed as a priority for the future."

For example, the report said, far more is already known about human activity's contribution to global warming than is suggested by the administration's plan, which, the panel said, expresses too much uncertainty about the question.

As for the report's assessment that the plan is more ambitious than the current government financing of $1.7 billion for climate research can support, Dr. Mahoney, of the Commerce Department, acknowledged that the budget was not likely to grow significantly this year or next, but noted that most other government programs were experiencing significant cuts.

In concluding that a flat budget would not be enough, the report said the goals could be accomplished only with "greatly increased" spending or sharp cutbacks in other government research money to allow the savings to flow to climate studies.

The panel was convened by the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences, which advises the government on scientific and technical matters.

Its report, said lawmakers who have long criticized the administration's climate policies, supports their contention that the goal of more research is really an excuse for more delay. "Global climate change affects every aspect of our daily lives, from land and water resources to agriculture and human health," said Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is seeking his party's nomination to run against Mr. Bush next year. He said the findings "should be a wake-up call for this administration."

Senator James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, defended the plan, saying it followed "a prudent course by trying to strengthen our limited understanding of the underlying causes and impacts of climate change."

Since the draft research plan was issued in November, more than 270 written comments have been received, from sources as varied as environmental groups and companies whose business could be harmed by limits on emissions.

Dr. Mahoney said the initial plan had always been considered a rough draft. "It's like getting a ship into motion," he said. "Let's make a solid start, and then we've got something to critique and build on."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.