FEDERAL CLIMATE POLICY AS A CASE STUDY FOR SCIENCE-POLICY INTERACTION

After the House of Representatives passed comprehensive climate legislation in the 111th Congress, the U.S. Senate failed to pass companion legislation or even bring less ambitious energy legislation up for a vote. This failure to enact legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions occurred despite intense international pressure, strongly worded warnings about inaction from an overwhelming majority of climate scientists, and an unprecedented level of scientific outreach to the legislative branch. Though there were many contributing factors to the demise of climate legislation in the Senate, its most recent failure provides a particularly useful case study for examining the interactions between scientists, the public, and policymakers.

In this talk, I will discuss the failure of climate legislation from multiple perspectives: as a climate scientist engaging the general public; as an educator teaching graduate level energy policy; and as a policymaker working with senators on federal climate policy. The public, well-educated students, and high-ranking elected public officials all exhibit similar characteristics that make evaluating climate and other resource policy options challenging. All of these groups exhibit difficulty quantifying relative risk, understanding the scale of many resource issues, and placing their operative timescales in context. Improvement in these areas of difficulty will require educational efforts both inside and outside of the classroom at all levels. In addition, there should be a special focus to equip geoscientists with a fundamental understanding of policy formation.