Abstract
Natural and social scientists are increasingly stepping out of purely academic roles to actively inform science-based climate change policies. This chapter examines a practical example of science and policy interaction. We focus on the implementation of California’s global warming law, based on our participation in the public process surrounding the development of two new carbon offset protocols. Most of our work on the protocols focused on strategies for ensuring that the environmental quality of the program remains robust in the face of significant scientific and behavioral uncertainty about protocol outcomes. In addition to responding to technical issues raised by government staff, our contributions—along with those from other outside scientists—helped expand the protocol development discussion to include important scientific issues that would not have otherwise been part of the process. We close by highlighting the need for more scientists to proactively engage the climate policy development process.
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Notes
- 1.
Though other pollution impacts that are coincident with the greenhouse gas emissions may have important local and regional effects, including on public health
- 2.
Cal. Code Regs. tit. 17, § 95802(a)(14); see also Cal. Health & Safety Code § 38562(d)(1)-(2).
- 3.
Cal. Health & Safety Code § 38562(d)(2).
- 4.
Cal. Code Regs. tit. 17, § 95802(a)(4).
- 5.
Cal. Code Regs. tit. 17, § 95802(a)(76).
- 6.
Trona is a mineral mined as the primary source of sodium carbonate in the United States.
- 7.
For a more detailed description of this assessment, please see comments submitted by Barbara Haya on behalf of our research team dated February 14, 2014, “RE: Comments on the informal draft of the Mine Methane Capture (MMC) Projects Compliance Offset Protocol released 31 January 2014” available on California Air Resources Board’s Workshop Comments Log: http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/comm2/bccommlog.php?listname=discussion-draft-ws.
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Haya, B., Strong, A., Grubert, E., Cullenward, D. (2016). Carbon Offsets in California: Science in the Policy Development Process. In: Drake, J., Kontar, Y., Eichelberger, J., Rupp, T., Taylor, K. (eds) Communicating Climate-Change and Natural Hazard Risk and Cultivating Resilience. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20161-0_15
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