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Information and Communications Technology and Institutional
Design for Climate Change
Rónán Kennedy,* Lecturer in Law, Law School, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland
Required parameters are missing or incorrect.
Abstract
Information and communications technology (ICT) can be used to gather data on environmental
conditions, forecast future events and regulate human behaviour. Although the potential of ICT as a
tool for environmental regulation (“informational governance”) has not yet been fully explored, it
1 impacts
Introduction
on climate change governance internationally, by creating new opportunities for networks;
nationally,
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1 further research is necessary in order to gain a full understanding
of climate change
institutions,
communications
technology
(ICT),and
this is a phenomenon that has not yet received sufficient attention in
these
issues.
the of
legal
academy.
Although the widespread use of ICT has brought about dramatic and fundamental changes in social,
cultural and economic interaction, academic study of this phenomenon has neglected to consider how this
applies to the tools of government (Hood and Margetts 2007, 177) and the situation of the environment
(Mol 2008, 12). Similarly, consideration of changes in environmental governance has neglected the role
of ICT (Mol 2008, 19). While there is now a substantial body of literature on regulation2 in ICT, much of
*
Email: [email protected]. My thanks to Professors Jane Holder and Richard Macrory of University
College London and my colleagues Michael Coyne, Anna-Louise Hinds, Dr. Paul Lambert and Dr. Laurent Pech for
their comments on earlier drafts.
1
ICT, in this paper, primarily refers to digital computer technology, the protocols used to connect these together and
software which enables human interaction with these tools. It encompasses the familiar desktop and laptop
computer, the ubiquitous mobile telephone and “smartphone”, and wired and wireless networks, including the
Internet. In the particular context of environmental regulation, it features satellite-based remote observation systems,
networks of remote sensors connected to a central monitoring service and mobile sensing devices (such as pollution
detectors).
2
Regulation encompasses any means of social control and behaviour modification, whether coming directly or
indirectly from the state or through limits imposed by private parties.
1
it focuses on either the ‘information’ or the ‘communications’ aspects,3 not on both together and rarely on
its use for regulation rather than something to be regulated.4 While there is some writing on how ICT can
be used for environmental regulation (ER) (Esty 2004; Taipale 2003; Mol 2008; Karkkainen 2001), we
have not yet developed a full under- standing of the issues.
This paper attempts to help fill these gaps, at least in the (somewhat) limited context of the challenges of
dealing with climate change law and policy in a globalised and de-centered world. It explains the
development of “informational governance”, considers the place of information in environmental
regulation, and how this impacts on climate change institutions5 and governance internationally,
nationally, locally and within the organization. It highlights some issues that recur across these various
scales and concludes with recommendations for future reforms and further research.
2
Environmental “Informational Regulation”
The development of more refined and effective means of ER requires on-going attention. There is an
ongoing process of “regulatory reconfiguration” towards “smart regulation”: reflexive, pluralist, and
open, including ecological modernisation or ecologically sound capitalism (Gunningham 2005). As we
will see, it is in this context that we see the development of governance models of ER, particularly
informational governance.
“Informational Governance”
Governance can be understood as “a process of governing which departs from the traditional model where
collectively binding decisions are taken by elected representatives within parliaments and implemented by
bureaucrats within public administrations. . . . [It] is often described as a process of co-ordination within
networks . . . [T]he core meaning of governance [is] steering and co-ordination of interdependent (usually
collective) actors based on institutionalized rule systems.” (Treib, Bähr, and Falkner 2007, 3)
3
There is a great deal of commentary on data protection and privacy issues (for example Slobogin 2007) and a
probably larger discussion of Internet regulation (for example Murray 2006; Goldsmith and Wu 2008; Zittrain
2009).
4
Efforts to understand regulation by technology have focused on the role of architecture (in the broadest sense),
where regulatory choices are embedded in the design of technology (for example Yeung 2008), the overreaching of
intellectual property (such as Lessig 2002; Lessig 2006) or on so-called “normative technology”, where there are
“intentionally built-in mechanisms to influence people’s behaviour” (Koops 2008, 158), while the elucidation of
information policy for the future has focused on the economic and cultural aspects (for example Benkler 2006),
rather than the implications for regulation and the state. What little discussion exists on the impact of ICT on law has
focused on the consequences for legal practitioners rather than law as a discipline (Susskind 1998; Susskind 2003;
Susskind 2009).
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Institutions include both the legal entities and informal organizations that operate in the field of environmental
regulation and the rules and processes within which they operate, including legal rules and informal norms.
2
We are moving from an Information Society to an Information Age, bringing with it Castell’s “network
society”, globalised communications, (paradoxically) increased uncertainty regarding knowledge, and
governance replacing government (Mol 2008, 37–53). From this emerges informational governance: “the
idea that information is fundamentally restructuring processes, institutions and practices of environmental
governance” (Mol 2008, 83). This development is founded on the changes in power and impact in society
which ICT facilitates, linked to globalisation, the redefinition of the role of the nation-state, and a loss of
trust in science.
However, it must be distinguished from “informational regulation”, which is founded more on law and
economics than on political science or sociology (Mol 2008, 85–90). From a theoretical perspective, it
can be understood as a process of ecological modernisation, culminating in a developing ecological
rationality. This abstraction of environmental realities into information spaces enables new transformative
power. We should not assume that this is a entirely positive development: inequalities of power persists in
new media and information networks; information may not always be reliable; state regulation remains
relevant; and the need for local infrastructure can limit its effectiveness in, for example, developing
countries (Mol 2006, 501-07).
Informational governance can be paralleled with the development of the “ informational economy”:
a specific form of social organization in which information generation, processing, and
transmission become fundamental sources of productivity and power. . . . [I]n
informational governance information becomes a crucial (re)source with transformative
powers for a variety of actors and networks. Information and knowledge processes now
begin to be constituting and transformative factors in network governance, instead of
merely enabling conditions for the formulation of state policies. In consequence, the
conventional environmental struggles, which have been oriented around state laws,
policies, and measures since the 1960s, are increasingly relocated around access to,
production and verification of, and control over, information. This coincides with a
change in the central actors: from the state having a dominant position in environmental
policy-making, towards a diversity of interdependent actors in multi-level networks
around flows of information. (Mol 2006, 500–01)
All of this takes place in the context of globalisation, which impacts directly on the feasibility and
desirability of different governance arrangements in varied contexts. One size does not fit all. What works
at the national level will not necessarily work when it is extrapolated to the supra-national context without
appropriate alterations (Sonnenfeld and Mol 2002, 1324–25).
Role of Information in Environmental Regulation
Information is a key aspect of the regulatory process, but that input is often flawed or incomplete
(Doremus 2008). Although regulators rely on a wide and changing range of information in order to
quantify and reduce pollution, information-gathering requirements are usually an afterthought in
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regulatory schemes and lead to large volumes of data but little information (Karkkainen 2001, 283–85). In
addition, technological constraints often limit the capacity, scope and effectiveness of environmental
regulation (Cole 2002, 67–84). Information and communications technology can provide the tools that are
needed to overcome these difficulties (Esty 2004).
Information technology can also assist with the construction of a “reflexive” model of environmental law
(Mol 2008, 114–115):
a legal theory and a practical approach to regulation that seeks to encourage selfreflective and self-critical processes within social institutions concerning the effects they
have on the natural environment. . . . The idea is to employ law not directly in terms of
giving specific orders or commands, but indirectly to establish incentives and
procedures that encourage institutions to think critically, creatively, and continually
about how their activities affect the environment and how they may improve their
environmental performance. (Orts 1995, 780)
As an example of how this operates in practice, the US Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), which requires
firms to disclose their emissions of toxic chemicals seems to focus the attention of senior management to
the issue in a way that brings about change (Hamilton 2005, 54). It also helps to create (unfavourable)
news stories and impacts on stock prices (Hamilton 2005, 58–74). These news stories are a significant
incentive for firms to reduce pollution (Hamilton 2005, 190). This type of pressure may also be effective
in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (Schatz 2008). Similarly, poor national performance on
comparative measures of environmental performance can be a significant spur for action (Esty 2004,
168). However, if reflexive law is most effective in affecting individuals (Gaines and Kimber 2001), ICT
for ER may be most useful at that level.
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ICT and Climate Change Governance
ICT impacts on climate change governance at a number of different levels: internationally, by creating
new opportunities for networks; nationally, by lowering transaction costs for both the public and private
sector; locally, by facilitating innovation and transparency; and in the organization, through networking
and internal reflection and assessment.
ICT and International Mitigation Efforts
Climate change has been an important issue internationally for some years. The efforts of the international
community to deal with it have given rise to two principal international agreements. Climate change
became an issue of serious concern to scientists in the mid-1980s. The political momentum was slower to
develop. It did not begin until the late 1980s, through collaboration between the United Nations
Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. They set up the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988, which tried to put together the predictive models to create a
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state of the art report and provide policy-related advice about the size of the problem and what the
possible responses were. It fed these into a series of ministerial conferences on climate change.
In 1989, the US government indicated that it would support an international treaty dealing with the issue.
In December of that year, the United Nations General Assembly (GA) adopted a resolution calling on
states “to prepare as a matter of urgency a framework convention on climate”. In December of the
following year, after the first IPCC report predicted that the average global temperature would rise by an
average of 0.3°C per decade, the GA established a negotiating process that led to the Framework
Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). This took two years to negotiate and was opened for signature at
the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992 (Knox 2004, 135–136).
This entered into force on March 21, 1994.
Under Article 2 of the FCCC, the objective of the Convention (and of any related legal instruments) is to
stabilize “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level which would prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” This “should be achieved within a time-frame
sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not
threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.”
The Convention imposes some binding obligations on parties. These do not go as far as imposing a clear
requirement to reduce emissions to a particular target. Instead, the FCCC is a typical framework
convention, containing a set of principles. It also creates a set of institutions and some subsidiary bodies.
It does not contain specific legally binding commitments on the parties. It mentions ideas of precaution
and assigns responsibility for solving the problems of climate change primarily to the industrialized
northern states.
All parties must provide inventories of emissions, implement mitigating programmes, promote
technology transfer, manage sinks and reservoirs, plan adaptation to climate change, take into account in
domestic policy, gather scientific data, exchange information, promote awareness, and communicate with
the Conference of the Parties (Article 4.1). Article 4.2 is the nearest reference to a goal for the
international community: to bring greenhouse gas emissions to a safe level. The industrialized countries
are to take the lead in this. They are to stabilize their emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.
Article 4.2 (d) required that the first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention would review
these commitments to see if they were adequate to the intention of the convention, in light of the growing
scientific understanding of the problem. When this review took place, it was clear that there was a need
for more binding obligations. This led to the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol to the FCCC in 1997.
The parties to the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are divided into three groups. Annex I parties are listed
in an annex to the Convention. These are developed countries, generally in the north. Some are former
communist countries which are, in the words of the annex, “undergoing the process of transition to a
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market economy.” Annex II parties are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development. The remainder, those not listed in an annex, are developing countries, generally located in
the south. These are not subject to any emission reduction obligations.
Annex I parties to the FCCC who have also ratified the Kyoto Protocol are subject to several legally
binding obligations under those agreements. Under Article 2, they must “elaborate policies and measures”
to limit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Examples of what these might be are listed in the Article
but there are no measurable targets to be met.
Article 3 imposes a more demanding requirement, that they must “ensure that their aggregate
anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of the greenhouse gases listed [in the Kyoto Protocol]
do not exceed their assigned amounts [under the Protocol], with a view to reducing their overall emissions
of such gases by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012.” This
means that each country has a target for emission reduction which it must meet by 2012. (Some former
communist countries may select a base year other than 1990, as for some, the peak of their industrial
production was after that year, and all parties are permitted to use 1995 as a base year for emissions of
hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride.)
Reductions in emissions do not have to be entirely met by actual domestic reductions in emissions. The
Kyoto Protocol provides a number of options for parties to use in ‘balancing the books’ for emissions.
These are known as the “flexible mechanisms”.
The primary form of emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol is restricted to Annex B parties
(industrialised countries). It is governed by Article 17, which provides:
The Conference of the Parties shall define the relevant principles, modalities, rules and
guidelines, in particular for verification, reporting and accountability for emissions
trading. The Parties included in Annex B may participate in emissions trading for the
purposes of fulfilling their commitments under Article 3. Any such trading shall be
supplemental to domestic actions for the purpose of meeting quantified emission
limitation and reduction commitments under that Article.
This restricts trading to those who have accepted binding emissions targets under Kyoto. It leaves the
detail of the mechanisms by which trading takes place to be worked out.
The second flexible mechanism is known as ‘joint implementation’. This is provided for in Article 6.1:
For the purpose of meeting its commitments under Article 3, any Party included in
Annex I may transfer to, or acquire from, any other such Party emission reduction units
resulting from projects aimed at reducing anthropogenic emissions by sources or
enhancing anthropogenic removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in any sector of the
economy, provided that:
(a) Any such project has the approval of the Parties involved;
(b) Any such project provides a reduction in emissions by sources, or an enhancement of
removals by sinks, that is additional to any that would otherwise occur;
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(c) It does not acquire any emission reduction units if it is not in compliance with its
obligations under Articles 5 and 7; and
(d) The acquisition of emission reduction units shall be supplemental to domestic actions
for the purposes of meeting commitments under Article 3.
Basically, this allows developed countries to collaborate on projects that reduce overall emissions either
by using cleaner technology or by creating new or better carbon sinks. The resulting emission reduction
units (ERUs) can be traded and used to offset carbon emissions in another location.
There is also a form of project-based emission reduction between developed and developing countries.
This is known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It is provided for by Article 12:
12.3. Under the clean development mechanism:
(a) Parties not included in Annex I will benefit from project activities resulting in certified
emission reductions; and
(b) Parties included in Annex I may use the certified emission reductions accruing from
such project activities to contribute to compliance with part of their quantified emission
limitation and reduction commitments under Article 3, as determined by the Conference of
the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol.
The purpose behind this provision is that a developed country can fund a project in a developing country
which will reduce emissions in that developing country. The developed country can then claim certified
emissions reductions (CERs) in return. These can be used to offset GHG emissions in the developed
country.
As the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol develop into an increasingly more sophisticated and controversial
regime, it is clear that mitigating climate change will require new frameworks of international
environmental governance. Progress is too slow to deal with the challenges involved in a timely fashion
(Cottier 2009, 4). There are significant procedural and substantive challenges in the ongoing negotiation
process: unwieldy procedures, north/south suspicions, ideological grandstanding, and the need for
consensus (Depledge 2010).
As a result, we may see more bilateral and small-scale multi-lateral treaties being concluded, with the
European Union taking the lead (Dimitrov 2010, 22). Although the European Emissions Trading System
(ETS) is far from an ideal solution, it may become the foundation for a global patchwork of
interconnected trading schemes. It is theoretically possible to connect emissions trading systems on a
global scale (Sterk et al. 2010) and this is a policy goal of the Union, particularly of the UK government
(Clifton 2009, 17). It may become the leading such system in the world, with the price of European Union
Allowances being quoted as the dominant indicator of the price of global carbon emissions (Convery and
Redmond 2007, 108). Because of its scale, any such global trading system will have to rely on ICT in
order to function.
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Amongst the conditions that assist in environmental regime effectiveness are high problem-solving
capacity, the existence of networks of experts (Miles et al. 2001, 460–61) and transparency (Young 1999,
276). Systems for implementation review depend on the existence of sufficient good quality data
(Raustiala and Victor 1998, 680–81). The development of cross-country data on energy efficiency can
highlight best practice, encourage reflexive regulation and spur technology transfer (Figueres and Ivanova
2002, 13). ICT can help to build these capabilities and to create a Global Environmental Mechanism (Esty
and Ivanova 2002), supporting the creation of “global public policy networks” (Streck 2002). ICT also
has the potential to re-structure the existing North-South divide, by allowing developing countries to
create a shared infrastructure of knowledge and resources, bypassing the need to rely on developed
countries for assistance (Weber and Bussell 2005).
Therefore, reporting of emissions should occur more regularly, in more detail and following a common
format (Breidenich and Bodansky 2009, 22). To assist with this, remote sensing (RS) can measure land
under cultivation, deforestation and afforestation, providing a measure of green-house gas (GHG)
emissions (National Research Council of the National Academies 2010, 41), but cost is an issue in
ensuring future use of this technology (National Research Council of the National Academies 2010, 57–
58). Land-based, airborne and satellite sensor networks can help estimate the volume of GHGs emitted by
particular installations (National Research Council of the National Academies 2010, 72). RS could also be
used to support enforcement (Sherbinin, Kline, and Raustiala 2002; Aschbacher 2002; Rosenqvist et al.
2003; Peter 2004). However, despite these possibilities, and the important role of satellite data in the
history of the Montreal Protocol, RS has not received sufficient attention in the development of policy
(Leeuw et al. 2010).
ICT and National Mitigation Efforts
Nationally, ICT can provide the “glue” to connect local mitigation initiatives to national targets in a way
that preserves flexibility at an appropriate level (Esty 2004, 184). ICT can help to solve several of the
problems that prevent comprehensive and fully effective environmental regulation. In the marketplace, it
can help with the search costs involved in finding markets for what were formerly considered to be
“waste” by-products; increasing precision in defining environmental rights through global positioning
systems and geographical information systems (GIS); better valuation of potential future harms; shifting
decision-making to the market where appropriate; and lowering the cost of contracting for compensation
for environmental harms to a level where many more can participate (Esty 2004, 175–180).
For regulators, more precise information can help create more specialised, decentralised and sophisticated
organizations. Quantification and visualisation can better communicate environmental problems. Closer
identification of problems allows matching the scale of the problem with the appropriate scale of the
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response. Transparency can help avoid (but not prevent) distortions of the political process. Greater
access to information will drive increasing administrative efficiency (Esty 2004, 182–87).
The Internet creates many new potential networks (Fountain 2001, 97), including so-called “virtual
agencies” (Fountain 2001, 99), although this is not a straightforward process (Fountain 2001, 144):
creating and maintaining the connections between different agencies with divergent agendas is a
significant challenge (Fountain 2001, 158). The application of e-government is also not uniform globally:
differences in available resources, willingness to cooperate and resistance to change mean that developed
world bureaucracies lead in the adoption of ICT (West 2007, 30). Therefore, these prescriptions do not
apply uniformly to all countries. The local economic, technological, political and social situation is an
important indicator of whether or not ICT can be usefully applied. For developing countries, particularly
those which are information-poor, ICT may simply not work well as a tool of environmental regulation
(Mol 2009, 126). It should not be blindly applied without proper regard to the local conditions and
capacity. However, it can offer opportunities to leapfrog stages of development, particularly through
wireless networks and mobile devices (Houghton 2009, 48–49).
ICT and Local Mitigation Efforts
Local institutions are critical to climate change mitigation (Agrawal 2008, 24), providing functions such
as “information gathering and dissemination, resource mobilization and allocation, skills development
and capacity building, . . . leadership, and relating to other decision makers and institutions.” (Agrawal
2008, 28) Local government can play an important role in driving forward regulation, technological
innovation and national and international negotiation processes (Stewart 2008, 683–88). Part of this effort
will involve creating sustainable communities through reflexive regulation (Dernbach 2009, 180–83).
This can provide a space in which different experiments in ER through ICT can be tried out.
According to Ostrom, although the conventional understanding is that a large-scale collective problem
requires large-scale collective action, which is difficult to effect, the observed reality is different.
Individuals and small groups do self-organize to co-operate, and may do so better than governments. She
puts forward a number of factors which should be present in order for self-organization to be effective
(Ostrom 2010):
(1) reliable information is available about the immediate and long-term costs and
benefits of actions;
(2) the individuals involved see the common resource as important for their own
achievements and have a long-term time horizon;
(3) gaining a reputation for being a trustworthy reciprocator is important to those
involved;
(4) individuals can communicate with at least some of the others involved;
(5) informal monitoring and sanctioning is feasible and considered appropriate; and
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(6) social capital and leadership exist, related to previous successes in solving joint
problems.
ICT can help to ensure that these are present. The appropriate use of technology can provide good,
relevant and up-to-date information; assist with forecasting; build the social networks that are important
in building trust; facilitate communication; and allow the use of transparency as a means of social control.
ICT and Organizational Mitigation Efforts
Organizations such as firms and state bodies are, in many ways, a response to the transaction costs
involved in coordinating the activities of different individuals and physical resources (Coase 1937). ICT,
properly applied, can lower these costs, sometimes dramatically (Taipale 2003, 66). It can thus create new
functionality, markets and business models.
This is most obvious if one considers the impact that the Internet has had on global communications, with
email, voice-over-IP and social networking transforming the way in which businesses and individuals
deal with each other. Its impact on organizations can also be profound. Through collaborative ICT-based
systems such as NASA’s Clickworkers, Wikipedia and the Kuro5hin peer-review process, individual
effort can be harnessed into a collective whole. This “wisdom of the crowd” can emerge without the
conscious knowledge of those involved, as is the case with Amazon’s book recommendations and
Google’s PageRank algorithm. In some instances, organising around peer production may be more
efficient than the traditional mechanisms of property rights and firms (Benkler 2002, 369–403).
As a result, there may be a reduced need to create formal entities. Non-governmental organizations may
become “non-organizations”. Groups of concerned citizens can come together to campaign on a particular
issue, without needing very much physical apparatus or legal status. On a national and international scale,
although NGOs have maintained their focus on local issues, they have used ICTs to connect to global
networks of activists (Mol 2008, 196–197). Similarly, in the state sector, “virtual agencies” (cross-agency
networks) can be created as required and then dissolved more quickly, on a project-by-project basis,
rather than new agencies being created for short periods of time.
For commercial organizations, climate change regulation has its principal impact through requiring the
internalising of externalities, for example, carbon trading or carbon taxation. Although it may seem that
taking action to reduce emissions now may be economically damaging, there are strong indications that
this is not in fact the case because of cost saving, branding opportunities and greater understanding of
internal and external processes (Northrop 2004).
As a result, commercial organizations will be going through processes of monitoring and reflection,
whether internally or externally imposed. As regulation becomes more process-based, allowing the
management teams in individual firms to make their own decisions within general goals, organizations
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are turning more and more to ICT as a means of managing the scale and complexity of risk management
and control.
The resulting “governance, risk and compliance” (GRC) software, systems, and services offer powerful
tools but also create potential dangers: a bias to only measure risks that can be automatically considered;
an incomplete understanding by designers and programmers of the legal, technical and social context;
inflexibility of systems and processes once they are embedded in an organization; over-reliance on
decisions made by technology; and the use of the system to hide “gaming”. Responding to these issues
requires accountability and openness through review by experts and courts, best achieved through an
iterative engagement by regulators with regulatees, mediated by technology, using standardisation as a
means of transparency, backed up by structural reform and increased use of technology by regulators and
revised in collaboration with technology providers (Bamberger 2010).
ICT and Adaptation
Climate change will impact on the ability of individuals and communities to survive. This is a particular
concern for the poor, who are vulnerable to the impacts of weather, food shortages and other disruptions
to their environment. This is best understood using a “sustainable livelihoods approach”, encompassing
assets, structures and processes.
For a livelihood system to be resilient to climate change, it must possess properties of robustness, scale,
redundancy, rapidity, flexibility, self-organization and learning. ICT can bolster each of these, through
(for example) better information capture by GIS, increasing access to information and human resources,
providing alternative communications methods (even in disrupted situations such as flooding), rapid and
flexible access to all of these, in a context that empowers individuals to organize at a local level and learn
or teach as they go. ICT can also help with early-warning systems for weather or disease, strengthening
local knowledge on responsive farming techniques and building institutional capacity. However, it must
be borne in mind that ICT is expensive, sometimes not appropriate to local culture and language and may
accentuate or create power imbalances (Ospina and Heeks 2010).
Summary
ICT impacts on climate change governance by creating new possibilities for linking regimes and creating
networks that bypass blockages in existing institutional arrangements. It enables small-scale
environmental agreements to be effective, facilitates more responsive and appropriate national and local
government and helps organizations to exist and connect more easily. Throughout, ICT provides the tools
to better understand and manage the mitigation and adaptation process, but has important limitations
which must be borne in mind.
11
4
Recurring Issues
In the application of ICT to climate change governance, there are a number of significant thematic issues
that re-occur across different levels and scale of operation. ICT can lower costs and create new flexibility.
It can also impact negatively on individual privacy. This requires us to ensure that systems and data are
kept as open as possible, pay attention to new possibilities in institutional design, and balance these aims
with the need to protect personal data.
“Agile” Regulation
Markets are not static; the individual actors adapt and evolve. Policy must change in response (Whitt
2009, 489–05). This is particularly important in environmental regulation (Ruhl 2005–2006). ICT can
play a very important role in this, facilitating greater transparency and accountability (Esty 2004, 167–70)
and shorter response times (Taipale 2003, 67). Information can come to the regulator more quickly, and
be made available to the public more quickly in turn, in a form that is more easily processed, understood
and acted upon.
This gives the regulator the possibility of reacting much more quickly to anomalous events, of processing
routine applications in a speedier way, and of opening its processes to NGO input in a more streamlined
fashion. In the context of tighter public finances, this creates opportunities to structure ER in new ways,
for example, the development of “environmental collaborative monitoring networks”, in which individual
citizen volunteers “crowd-source” information on environmental quality (Gouveia and Fonseca 2008). In
order to assist with this, the state should consider how it can better ensure the quality of the environmental
data which it makes available, provide material resources and training for local NGOs, and perhaps even
offer bounties for citizens who discover pollution control violations (Overdevest and Mayer 2008, 1520–
23).
ICT allows more detailed tracking and detection of human activity, particularly regulatory breaches
through, for example, speed cameras. Regulatory interventions can be targeted more closely at particular
segments of the population. Enforcement can be improved and made more efficient through, for example,
remote sensing (Markowitz 2002). Digital technology may “de-centre” government (and governance) but
also permits the more precise application of regulation (Hood and Margetts 2007, 185–203). However,
when designing these applications, proper attention must be paid to retaining human discretion.
More Iterative Processes
Associated with this is the possibility of a more iterative regulatory process. ICT can more quickly
highlight the occurrence of harms, particularly those caused by small-scale activity which only becomes
damaging when aggregated. Regulatory innovations can be tried for short periods of time, in particular
12
markets or in specific geographic areas. The results of these “experiments” can be analysed and used as
the basis for revisions in the future, allowing for a more rapid evolution of best practice (Esty 2004, 162–
64).
The greater availability of information can lead to a more informed public and a better deliberative
process (Noveck 2009, 108–09), thereby allowing for an evolutionary approach to law reform (Noveck
2009, 185) and a more inclusive law-making process. This is not without its costs and risks and is best
used on a trial basis at this early stage (Benjamin 2006). By itself, more information will not promote
democracy: empowering citizens to contribute to the rule-making process does not mean that they will
(Coglianese 2007, 116), and e-democracy projects may fail (Grönlund 2007).
“Mash-ups”
If data is made available to the public in electronic form, it can be combined with data from other sources,
public or private, in new and interesting ways. For example, Scorecard (http://www.scorecard.org)
collects together information from US government databases, and many other sources, to provide an easyto-access (searchable by zipcode) source for the public to learn about environmental issues in their
locality. The Tropical Ecology and Monitoring Network (http://www.teamnetwork.org/) gathers
information about biodiversity in distributed sites, collects it using mobile technology and disseminates it
globally using ICT. The Asthmapolis website (http://asthmapolis.com/) tracks the use of inhalers by
individuals and combines them to produce a map of asthma hot spots, which are a useful indication of
pollution problems. This type of regulatory innovation should be encouraged: when data is made publicly
available, it should be in open, documented formats or accessible through an Application Programming
Interface (API) which allows other services to re-use it.
Cross-border Collaborations
If we consider the impact of lower transaction costs, the speed of iteration and the flexibility of mash-ups,
it becomes clear that ICT permits the creation of cross-border organizations and collaborations much
more easily than would have been the case in the past. This is a significant development, particularly for
the non-governmental sector, which is traditionally hampered by lack of resources. ICT also allows
international capital to cross borders more easily, something which is important for developing countries
which require access to funds for investment in infrastructure and innovation.
Gathering Enough Data
In order for information to be useful for ER, there must be plenty of it. In order to ensure that this is the
case, we need to set clear priorities in line with environmental management needs, ensure that data
extraction is kept up-to-date, work in a cross-disciplinary fashion, and make the result readily accessible
13
(Doremus 2008). In the field of regulation, experimental efforts such as the TRI can and should be
extended to cover other industries and pollutants (Stephan 2002).
In certain circumstances, the centralisation of information gathering may be appropriate and lead to
economies of scale. This might be made an explicit part of the process of preparing regulations.
Elsewhere, the production of environmental information may require subsidies to private actors. In
addition, the structure of regulatory regimes can reward ignorance of environmental harm and risk,
requiring restructuring so that industry must prove the safety of its practices and products, along with
changes in accounting rules. “Safe harbours” for organizations that engage in self-examination and the
use of “environmental contracting” to encourage the production of information should also be explored
(Esty 2004, 199-208).
In some instances, regulated firms may seek to rely on trade secrets and other aspects of intellectual
property (IP) in order to prevent environmental information from entering into the public domain (Lyndon
2007). This may require reform, such as penalties for concealing health and safety information, requiring
disclosure of research funding sources, sanctions for abuse of process; while positive incentives might
include standarised information requirements, reduced regulatory burdens as a result of the production of
exculpatory information, and subsidised government research (Wagner 2004, 1726–45). In addition, firms
may be concerned about self-incrimination and their liability in negligence. Any legal regime that makes
use of information disclosure provisions must make it clear that such information cannot be used in
criminal prosecutions and cannot, by itself, found a claim in negligence.
Privacy
Not all applications or uses of ICT are benign. We are seeing the development of the “Information State”,
“a state that tries to identify and solve problems of governance through the collection, collation, analysis,
and production of information”, which may (or perhaps already has) become the “National Surveillance
State” (Balkin 2008–2009, 3). We need to be conscious of issues of personal privacy and autonomy.
Information collected about citizens by the state may be used for unforeseen purposes in the future (Behn
2007, 285). Data mining by the government should be controlled, particularly when it targets
individually-identifiable persons (Slobogin 2008). It is essential that we embed privacy concerns into the
design of ICT ER systems (Cavoukian, Polonetsky, and Wolf 2010).
5
Recommendations
Applying these insights in practice is not simply a matter of encouraging the production and distribution
of information or the application of ICT. Disclosure by itself is not a sufficient tool of governance;
administrative, technical and social constraints can hamper its effectiveness (Gupta 2009). A focus on
14
process can become an end in itself, or conversely procedures can be left too vague. Too much
transparency can lead to drowning in information. The scope, credibility, salience and legitimacy of what
is provided are vital to its influence (Gupta 2008). We must therefore proceed with care.
Harnessing the potential benefits of ICT will require changes to institutional structures at a number of
different scales, in order to:

embed awareness of the potential of ICT in multi-lateral climate change agreements;

use transparency as a means for accountability to the public;

place as much data as possible in the public domain, in a re-usable form;

reduce the legal risks for entities that share or manipulate data; and

respect individual privacy preferences.
Amongst the changes which should be considered are:

the explicit use of, for example, earth observation and remote sensing technology for verification
and enforcement of emissions reductions commitments;

making data gathered through this process open and available to the public domain, in welldocumented and open formats, without intellectual property or trade secret limitations;

involving NGOs and the public in the production and improvement of this data, and encouraging
its application in new and innovative ways;

piloting ICT-based ER projects in different localities or for limited periods of time, in conjunction
with academic researchers;

providing “safe harbours” for private entities who place data about their GHG emissions in the
public domain;

limiting the scope of IP claims over data provided by private entities;

supporting the creation of global networks of commercial organisations, developing countries and
NGOs which leverage ICT to share best practices and scientific data in order to better measure
and reduce GHG emissions;

encouraging the use of ICT in appropriate ways by national and local government, taking into
account differences in capacity and infrastructure;

ensuring that where GRC software is developed, proper cognisance is taken of the limitations of
digital tools in capturing and managing complexity; and

throughout, where data is collected on individuals, protecting it either through anonymisation,
well-thought out opt-out/opt-in procedures or data security obligations.
To explore briefly how these might apply in practice, consider UNFCCC Decision 11.9, which
[r]equest[ed] the Global Climate Observing System secretariat [in collaboration with the
(then ad hoc) Group on Earth Observations] ... to coordinate the development of a
15
phased 5- to 10-year implementation plan for the integrated global observing systems
for climate, using a mix of high-quality satellite and in situ measurements, dedicated
infrastructure and targeted capacity-building[.]
This derives its mandate from Article 4.1(g)–(h) and Article 5 of the Convention, on “data archives
related to the climate system”, the “full, open and prompt exchange of relevant scientific, technological,
technical, socio-economic and legal information” and the development of research and systematic
observation. As a result, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) has produced an implementation
plan (World Meteorological Organization 2004), on which the GCOS secretariat recently provided an
update (Global Climate Observing System 2009). This is a concrete example of the application of ICT to
adaptation, with some relevance to mitigation.
While the original decision stresses “[t]he importance of adhering to applicable adopted principles of free
and unrestricted exchange of data and products” (paragraph 1(d) of the decision), the plan only mentions
“the crucial importance of data management systems that facilitate access, use and interpretation of the
data” (Global Climate Observing System 2009, 20) leaving the question of cost and restriction
ambiguous, does not discuss access by NGOs or the public (the principal focus seems to be “current and
future generations of scientists and decision-makers” (Global Climate Observing System 2009, 8)) and
contains no information on IP or privacy issues, although it does mention “restrictive data policies”
(Global Climate Observing System 2009, 9), without elaborating on what these are. These questions
should be explicitly dealt with in plans of this type.
The plan does contain some positive features, such as a recognition that “[i]nternational standards for
metadata … need to be adopted and maintained by the Parties in creation and archiving of climate data
records.” (Global Climate Observing System 2009, 10) However, the plan should, for example:

make it easy for external users to gain access to this data, through the Internet and public APIs;

require that all data collected by GCOS-funded projects is made publicly available, without
intellectual property claims;

consult with regulators as to their data needs and ensure that these are met; and

acknowledge, and give a voice to, commercial organizations, NGOs and the general public in the
development of data, including contributions from amateur scientists.
These remarks are not intended to be a criticism of GCOS or of the plan, which is focused on global
scientific data rather than the needs of regulators or the protection of the individual. As already
mentioned, awareness of the possible application of ICT for climate governance is its early stages.
However, there is clearly scope to use ICT to create greater interaction between various aspects of the
international climate change regime, such as Articles 4.1(g)–(h) and 5 on global climate data and Articles
4.2 (mitigation), 4.5 (technology transfer), 6 (education, training and public awareness) and 12 (GHG
16
inventories) of the Convention, and also Article 10 of the Kyoto Protocol (“cost-effective national and . . .
regional programmes”), taking into account the proposals outlined above. Treaty provisions, conference
and committee decisions and implementation plans should highlight the potential of ICT and best practice
principles for maximizing its benefits. Including an awareness of the collaborative and regulatory
possibilities and the potential problems created by ICT in high-level scientific and policy decision-making
will bring real improvements in global, national and regional climate change governance.
6
Further Research
This paper is only a preliminary attempt to sketch some of the applications of ICT for ER and the issues
that arise. Many questions remain unanswered, and further research is required. Amongst the areas that
should be investigated are:

The practical and legal issues involved in the use of EO and RS for verification and enforcement
in climate change agreements will change as technology develops and should be investigated on
an ongoing basis.

Research on whether reflexive approaches to ER actually yield effective and efficient results, and
if so, when and how, would provide policy-makers with valuable guidance.

Research on the extent to which ICT is effective as a means of behaviour modification, what are
the factors in its success or failure, and what legal and ethical issues this gives rise to is needed.

A proper cost/benefit analysis of information dissemination projects would be very useful.

Practical perspectives on the uses of ICT for ER, perhaps gathered through thematic interviews
with regulators, regulatees and activists, would provide contextual understanding.

The development of a legal “toolbox” for privacy protection in ICT for ER is essential.

The development of a similar toolbox for the development of safe harbours for regulated entities
who provide GHG data to the public.

Comparative research on the successful application of ICT for ER in different contexts and
cultures would be very valuable.
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