# Presentation: 917304

## Science for Carbon Management:Making effective connections between users and producers of information

- Lisa Dilling, Univ. of Colorado
- David Fairman, Consensus Building Institute
- Roger Pielke, Jr., Univ. of Colorado
- Tony King, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

## Outline

- The mandate for useful carbon science
- The carbon management opportunity
- The need for a deliberate strategy
- Synthesis and Assessment: SOCCR
- Research: Reconciling Supply and Demand
- Missed opportunities and alternatives

## The Public Mandate

- 1957 Keeling begins Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 monitoring under IGY
- 1977 NAS: research “involved in the carbon dioxide problem” to “close gaps in knowledge so that future decisions regarding the exploitation of energy resources can be made on as sound a basis as possible”
- 1978 DOE: “predict the environmental, social and economic costs of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations with sufficient confidence to permit policy decisions to be made on the future use of fossil fuels”
- 1978 U.S. National Climate Program Act; CO2 research in “Responding to impacts and policy implications of climate, carbon dioxide, environment and society,”
- 1990 U.S. passes Global Change Research Act (USGCRP) to produce “usable information on which to base policy decisions relating to global change”
- 2001 U.S. Administration announces Climate Change Research Initiative, of which carbon cycle science is a focus to “best support improved public debate and decision making in the near term”
- 2003 U.S. Administration reorganizes USGCRP under the Climate Change Science Program “to provide the best possible scientific information to support public discussion and decision making on climate-related issues”

## An Opportunity?

## Carbon sequestration

- Terrestrial
- Management practices
- Land conservation/restoration
- Oceanic
- Deep ocean injection
- Ocean fertilization
- Geologic
- Injection into confined geologic medium (e.g. aquifer)
- Reaction to form new stable mineral

## Potential Carbon Decision Makers

- Public
- Elected officials
- Agency Civil Servants
- National, Regional, State, Local
- Private
- Individuals
- Industry
- Small-scale business
- Shareholders
- Non-profit

## Carbon decision context

- No decision maker has solely a “climate protection” mandate
- No-one is managing for carbon exclusively:
- Multiple interests and incentives
- Multiple goals
- Multiple scales
- Private sector decisions dominated by “responses to economic opportunities as mediated by institutional factors” (Lambin et al. 2001)

## Basic research alone often falls short of providing decision support

- Evidence from NAPAP, providing seasonal climate forecasts, etc.
- Many reasons, such as the “wrong” information; communication; lack of trust; institutional constraints; and so on

- When the process of science is separated from decision makers’ needs– difficult to know what is useful

## Creating science useful to decisions requires a deliberate research approach

- The creation of knowledge must be “use-inspired”
- The process of science cannot remain isolated from societal needs
- Must create knowledge that is “credible, salient and legitimate” (Clark)
- Carbon cycle program currently lacks such an approach and therefore represents an opportunity for advancing decision support

## 1) Synthesis and Assessment 

- State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR) goals:
- Highly credible scientific synthesis
- Relevant to non-scientific stakeholders
- Deliberate process of engaging scientists and stakeholders
- Stages of engagement: assessment interviews, website comments, workshops
- Engagement from the beginning--influenced the outline and early drafting process, while authors retain responsibility for content

- www.ucar.edu/soccr

## Stakeholders involved in SOCCR 

- Government agencies
- Business
- Utilities, Forestry, Agriculture, Carbon trading
- NGOs
- Environmental, Industry, Trade
- Scientists
- Lacked strong participation from cities, states

- www.ucar.edu/soccr

## 2) Research

- Reconciling supply and demand for carbon cycle science information (SPARC)
- Characterize ‘supply’ and ‘demand’
- Identify missed opportunities
- Clarify institutional alternatives to improve the process of producing science useful for decision support

## Example “Missed Opportunities”

- Mismatch of scale– urban areas had potential needs for information, CC science focuses on global and biome scale
- Types of information –value of credits, economic valuation more of interest than carbon budgets
- International and national users have institutional connection to science (e.g. IPCC, Federal agencies such as USDA, DOE), but other scales and sectors the connection is less clear

## Alternative processes for carbon cycle science:

- Knowledge seeks application (e.g. NASA App.)
- Problem-oriented research
- Explicit design of research projects (e.g. RISA)
- Science-practice interface
- Ongoing interaction with decision makers
- Co-production of knowledge
- Boundary organizations (e.g. USDA Ext. service, some RISAs)

## Thank you!

- Support provided for various aspects of work by:
- NSF (Decision-making under uncertainty emphasis)
- NOAA-OGP
- NASA, DOE, NOAA, NSF (SOCCR)
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

- Contact Info:
- Lisa Dilling, University of Colorado at Boulder: _[ldilling@cires.colorado.edu](mailto:ldilling@cires.colorado.edu)_
- http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu