Scenarios for Climate Change
I was recently invited to participate in a foresight workshop sponsored by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). The workshop was the third in a series of events designed to explore future paths of climate change impacts and agricultural adaptation in Canada.
Foresighting (definition) is an activity designed to explore the possible paths that an issue or a sector might follow. It is increasingly being used in government and industry to get people to actively think about future scenarios and to step outside the cognitive box of the status quo or of the simple extrapolation of current activities.
While the KIS project has not actively undertaken any foresighting activities, there are some important similarities in what foresighting and KIS are trying to achieve. One of the underlying tenets of the KIS project is that agriculture and rural communities are undergoing major changes and new conceptualizations of the sector and the issues it is facing will be required to respond and adapt effectively to these changes. For instance, one of the activities undertaken by KIS was Agriculture 2020, an exercise in which various futures were articulated.
The first part of the AAFC's foresighting exercise was the development of four different scenarios about the future (the scenarios were described by looking back from the year 2030). The futures were designed to provide a context for identifying issues, generating strategic responses and understanding the consequences of different reactions. The second part of AAFC's exercise was an examination of the science issues that agriculture will have to face in each scenario. The third part of the exercise - the one in which I participated - as the examination of the policy and market instruments that the sector requires in each scenario.
The four scenarios that were examined represent a unique combination of two critical uncertainties facing agriculture - the nature of climate change impacts and the nature of the global geopolitical environment. The four scenarios are presented in the figure below. More details on the scenarios can be found here.
It is interesting that the scenario developers focused on uncertainties surrounding climate change impacts and the global geopolitical environment as being the most critical. The first of these reflects technological uncertainty and asks, "Will science be able to react quickly enough to keep up with climate changes?" The other dimension reflects socio-economic and political uncertainty and asks, "Will we be able, individually and collectively, to update the social, political and economic institutions and organizations that frame and make decisions so that they are capable of keeping up with an increasingly complex decision making environment, one in which coordination and co-operation are likely to be increasingly important?" In short, one of the dimensions reflects society's ability to undertake technological innovation, while the other is about society's ability to generate institutional and organizational innovations.
Participation in the workshop left me with a number of thoughts and observations. Here are two.
First, I was very impressed by the ability of a very diverse group (attending were civil servants, industry representatives, farmers, academics and what be termed interested observers from other sectors and other parts of society) to engage in a quite abstract discussion of future climate change scenarios. It was clear that the impact of climate change and geopolitical forces on the world is of immense interest, and that people have been thinking about these issues. With few exceptions, the discussions were wide ranging and did not seem to be tied to the standard philosophical perspectives typically found in agricultural discussions in Canada (e.g., the market versus marketing boards). This capacity to engage critically in issues that are likely to define the future of agriculture is essential if the sector is to morph and develop in the ways that are required.
Second, although everyone was willing to discuss the critical issues, it was perhaps not surprising that collectively we had difficulty getting beyond a simple extrapolation of the current situation. Interestingly, this was most obvious (at least to me) in the case of the Hot and Hungry scenario (although it was present in all the scenarios). The Hot and Hungry world is a nasty place to be. Science has been unable to keep up with the impacts of climate change, and society has become increasingly non-cooperative. Yet, the policies and market institutions envisioned in this world were just extensions of what we have today.
One of the premises behind the foresighting exercise, I believe, is that, if we do not like one or more of the outcomes that we have envisioned, we can then take steps to make sure they do not happen. Yet, there are many things that will not allow this to happen (witness the inability of the financial sector to be able to change its behaviour in advance of the financial crisis). Short time horizons, the interests of influential groups and collective action problems are three important reasons why taking steps now to avoid bad outcomes in the future is difficult.
To this list we need to add our tendency to fall back on the status quo (psychologists call this the status quo bias). It is often our inability to really understand the implications of a new situation that limit our ability to act in ways that could avoid the situation. My conjecture is that this tendency for the status quo - the equivalent of getting caught in a cognitive rut - is one of the great challenges we must address if we want to adequately adapt our science and our institutions to whatever outcomes emerge from climate change (or any of the other challenges that will present themselves).
This blog entry was authored by Murray Fulton. To read additional Illative Blog entries or to leave comments on this entry, please visit www.illativeblog.ca. The Illative Blog is an initiative by the Knowledge Impact in Society (KIS) Project based out of the University of Saskatchewan. Email correspondence can be sent to kis.project@usask.ca
Murray you have summed it up nicely. The predominant focus for decades has been growing export sales, increasing production and production efficiencies. We have constructed institutional support around these objectives.
What if the rules change? What if our institutions become our biggest barriers to assist transition? What if the capacity of history to foretell our future has been compromised? If so, what models do we have to embrace to reshape policy?
Regardless of the outcome, it is apparent that under any of the four scenarios, agriculture is on the verge of monumental change as is the rest of society and with it the potential to reforge our values and beliefs as Canadians. This is good work Leah!
Murray, very interesting and thanks for the insight. I am curious, was there any discussion as to how environmental indicators will penetrate existing market measurements such as GDP? As well, how financial markets will value environmental goods and services, or what penalties will be imposed for non compliance? With out this type of market clarity, a lot of the public and private sector efforts seem to lack the influential bite required to change the status quo. It appears there is some activity in Washington to address these questions, but will the legislation have any significant impact in the short run or at all? Thoughts?