GAO climate change report to US Congress

[Kathleen Williams]

Below is the executive summary of a report provided by Larry Riley in AZ.
The full report can be accessed at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07863.pdf. 

Thanks for sharing, Larry!

 

Kathleen Williams

Executive Director

Instream Flow Council

406-586-6879

www.instreamflowcouncil.org 

 

 

Highlights of GAO-07-863, a report to congressional requesters 

 

CLIMATE CHANGE 

Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land
and Water Resources 

 

Climate change has implications for the vast land and water resources
managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest Service (FS), U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), and National Park Service (NPS). These resources
generally occur within four ecosystem types: coasts and oceans, forests,
fresh waters, and grasslands and shrublands. 

GAO obtained experts' views on (1) the effects of climate change on federal
resources and (2) the challenges managers face in addressing climate change
effects on these resources. GAO held a workshop with the National Academies
in which 54 scientists, economists, and federal resource managers
participated, and conducted 4 case studies. 

 

What GAO Recommends 

GAO recommends that the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the
Interior develop guidance incorporating agencies' best practices, which
advises managers on how to address climate change effects on the resources
they manage and gather the information needed to do so. In commenting on a
draft of this report, the three departments generally agreed with the
recommendation and provided technical comments, which GAO has incorporated
into the report as appropriate. 

 

According to experts at the GAO workshop, federal land and water resources
are vulnerable to a wide range of effects from climate change, some of which
are already occurring. These effects include, among others, (1) physical
effects, such as droughts, floods, glacial melting, and sea level rise; (2)
biological effects, such as increases in insect and disease infestations,
shifts in species distribution, and changes in the timing of natural events;
and (3) economic and social effects, such as adverse impacts on tourism,
infrastructure, fishing, and other resource uses. 

Experts at the GAO workshop also identified several challenges that resource
managers face in addressing the observed and potential effects of climate
change in their management and planning efforts. In particular, BLM, FS,
FWS, NOAA, and NPS have not made climate change a priority, and the
agencies' strategic plans do not specifically address climate change.
Resource managers focus first on near-term, required activities, leaving
less time for addressing longer-term issues such as climate change. 

 

In addition, resource managers have limited guidance about whether or how to
address climate change and, therefore, are uncertain about what actions, if
any, they should take. In general, resource managers lack specific guidance
for incorporating climate change into their management actions and planning
efforts. Without such guidance, their ability to address climate change and
effectively manage resources is constrained. While a broad order developed
in January 2001 directed BLM, FWS, and NPS to consider and analyze potential
climate change effects in their management plans and activities, the
agencies have not yet provided specific direction to managers on how they
are to implement the order. A BLM official stated at an April 2007 hearing
that BLM is establishing policy and technical committees to address
necessary actions and develop guidance to address climate change in agency
management practices. FWS and NPS officials said that their agencies have
not developed specific guidance but believe that they are operating in a
manner consistent with the 2001 order. While NOAA and FS have not provided
specific guidance to their resource managers, NOAA officials said that the
agency is establishing a working group to determine what actions to take to
address climate change effects. FS officials said that FS planning processes
are designed to identify and respond to emerging issues such as climate
change. 

 

Finally, resource managers do not have sufficient site-specific information
to plan for and manage the effects of climate change on the federal
resources they manage. In particular, the managers lack computational models
for local projections of expected changes and detailed inventories and
monitoring systems for an adequate baseline understanding of existing local
species. Without such information, managers are limited to reacting to
already-observed climate change effects on their units, which makes it
difficult to plan for future changes.

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