Vote Resilience!
Is there a useful role for a national government and national programming for improving the efficacy of adaptation and resilience? This question has been coming up quite a bit recently.
Some years ago, I was leaving Washington, DC, late on a Friday afternoon after several days of meetings. The plane was relatively empty, so the airline blessed me with an upgrade to a more comfy seat — one I certainly did not pay for and could not otherwise afford. It was bliss.
A woman about my age sat next to me, audibly relieved to be leaving DC, a city which has many people who essentially commute from across the US as part of our distinct political class. I am pretty sure she paid for her seat. She struck me as a senior legislative aide or a paid lobbyist with a large firm trying to influence federal officials. She ordered a drink from the steward, happy to vent to her new seatmate about “Washington” and “the government” and “the feds.”
I listened to her, but with some silent, wry skepticism. “You don’t agree,” she said. “What good does the national government do you?”
In a year in which some 100 countries are facing national elections, this question seems very relevant to several billion people in 2024. In the context of adaptation and resilience, the synergies and tensions between national and subnational levels are also coming up a lot in many countries right now, sometimes even as an electoral issue. In UNFCCC contexts, the move to empower communities for resilience is often called locally led adaptation (LLA), which is a movement to get decision making decentralized, especially for groups and categories that might have historically faced bias or had their autonomy removed or eroded over time.
Two weeks ago, these issues came up once again in DC with regard to my home country — a place AGWA has worked in less than in many other countries. We had a workshop of around 50 people convened by the US Chamber of Commerce (a powerful business trade organization) and AGWA near our national capitol building. Representatives from the White House and a number of federal agencies, as well as some senior legislative aides, representatives of state and county officials, and companies engaged in implementing adaptation and resilience projects gathered around the table. Even a few NGOs and universities were there. We were gathered to discuss a basic question: does the US need a national resilience plan and strategy, as has been developed in countries ranging from the Netherlands and Germany to Brazil and Bangladesh? Or should we really leave local authorities to manage climate impacts?
Most speakers felt that some type of national approach was necessary, but their emphasis varied wildly. Several speakers said we need to give cities and states the tools to see and understand climate risk. If they understood risk, they could handle the challenges on their own. Others were more aggressive: do we need to create national programs to construct major infrastructure projects or develop loan and grant programs to finance local choices? Should we tax hydrocarbons to fund resilience? Are other funding mechanisms necessary?
While the US is by any measure a rich country, that wealth is not evenly distributed, with many regions and communities with quite limited capacity and resources. Equity and fairness are major parts of the adaptation discussion here, as well as the interaction between climate and national and global security issues like immigration, trade, and investment.
Moreover, as many people in the workshop pointed out, many “local” issues have regional and even national aspects. As do many adaptation and resilience solutions. A city dealing with flood issues might require support with managing financial assistance that goes beyond commercial outlets — or upstream management. Two states fighting over increasingly scarce water resources for energy, agriculture, and urban supplies (I’m looking at you, Colorado River Compact!) might need a “neutral” national authority to adjudicate a fair set of solutions. Being local is important. But overly local solutions may actually come into conflict with each other, such as grabbing scarce shared resources or transferring risks from one locality to another.
A larger point may also be that simply that being aware of risk is not the same as being aware of your solutions — much less how to develop fully resilient solutions. Knowledge does not necessarily lead to effective action, especially in a large, diverse country. Solving problems at scale needs institutions that can operate at scale.
My plane seatmate unhappy with “government” might have been speaking to the wrong person. My parents were humble public school teachers, trying to serve their community and live a modest life. To help make ends meet, they tried farming too for the summers, while for thirty years my father had a part-time job as a reservist in the military. I could see the faces of positive government action every morning when I woke up.
I wasn’t sure what to say to her, but I stumbled through some basic points: “Are you worried when your kid drinks milk you bought at the store? Do you assume that stoplights will regulate traffic? Are you concerned about whether this plane will take off on the same runway where another plane is landing?” Government is all around us. And when it works, good government can create a platform for effective action, especially in times of change and turmoil.
We need those humble, effective, responsible faces looking out for us — and with us — now. They have kids too, looking back up at them. They know what is at stake.
John H. Matthews
Corvallis, Oregon, USA