Adaptation Planning and Climate Impact Assessments: Learning From NEPA's Flaws

• Date: 01 July 2009

7-2009 nEwS & anaLYSiS 39 ELR 10605

Adaptation Planning and

Climate Impact Assessments:

Learning From NEPA’s Flaws

by Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A. Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law and Chair of the Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley.

Given past and current emission levels, the pla net is

already committed to signicant climate change.

Strong mitigation eorts can head o some of the

most serious potential impacts but cannot prevent signicant

harm, particularly in vulnerable areas such as the arid western

United States. Impacts on water supply are particularly wor-

risome, but a variety of other impacts are also forecast. Cop-

ing with these impacts will require retooling water systems,

changing agricultural practices, reconsidering development

patterns, creating conservation measures for endangered spe-

cies, and other interventions into societal practices. Many of

these impacts revolve around water: its supply, its uses, its

ood risks.

We need to ensure that we evaluate adaptation needs

through a sensible, well-designed process, and we can learn a

lot from the shortcomings of ex isting processes for assessing

environmental impacts. When we prepare Climate Adapta-

tion Statements, we should benet from our experience with

environmental impact statements (EISs). We should take

advantage of what we have learned from our experience with

existing procedures rather than replicating their aws.

As w e wi ll see, t here are five major le ssons to be

lea rned from exami ning th e shortc omings of cu rrent

ass ess ment proc edures:

• e need for mainstreaming adaptation assessment

into the normal decisionmak ing process. In contrast,

the EIS process has been isolated from government’s

primary decision processes.

• e need for better monitoring and follow-up. Unlike

NEPA, which provides few learning mechanisms,

adaptation assessment must include consistent follow-

up and monitoring of adaptation predictions.

Author’s Note: is project was supported, in part, by the National

Science Foundation (NSF) under EFGRI Grant No. 0836047. Any

opinions, ndings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in

this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reect the

views of the NSF. Michael Hanemann contributed helpful comments

on an earlier draft.

• Better access for adaptation assessment. Under NEPA,

the government has not taken advantage of modern

information technology to make all of t he EIS docu-

ments easily available and connected w ith geographic

information systems. Public access should be a priority

for adaptation assessment.

• e inadequate treatment of uncertainty in impact

statements. is is a key issue for adaptation because

of the relative crudeness of regional downscaling of cli-

mate models. Fortunately, more sophisticated method-

ologies for analyzing risk are becoming available.

• e outdated triggering mechanism for EIS prepara-

tion. Existing environmental assessment mechanisms

are triggered by agency actions —they do not require

assessments of the status quo but only of proposed

changes in the status quo. Adaptation assessment may

be most needed in situations where no proposed action

is pending, but the agency needs to be more proactive.

We now have almost 40 years of experience with EISs. We

can learn from both the positive and negative aspects of that

experience1 how to best assess climate adaptation needs. Now

is the time to establish the procedures that can guide climate

impact assessment in the upcoming decades.

I. Background on Climate Change, Water-

Related Impacts, and Adaptation

It is important to keep in mind the scope of the adapta-

tion issue. Key concerns include the eect of sea-level rise

on coastal areas, oods on coasts and inland waterways,

droughts, and water quality.2

1. e consensus among environmental law scholars seems to be that NEPA has

been awed but useful. For citations to the literature, see Alyson C. Flournoy

et al., Harnessing the Power of Information to Protect Our Public Natural Resource

Legacy, 86 T. L. R. 1575, 1581 n.25 (2008).

2. For up-to-date information about potential climate impacts, see U.S. C

C S. P  S.  G C R, A

C C (2008), available at http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/

sap/sap3-4/nal-report/#nalreport.