{"id":19599,"date":"2021-09-10T13:25:41","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T16:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/?p=19599"},"modified":"2021-12-06T11:35:14","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T14:35:14","slug":"bulletin-no2-climate-governance-and-the-elements-a-proposal-regarding-the-current-national-institutional-structure-for-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/bulletin-no2-climate-governance-and-the-elements-a-proposal-regarding-the-current-national-institutional-structure-for-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulletin N\u00ba2 Chile\u2019s New Constitution and Climate Change | Climate Governance and the Elements: A Proposal Regarding the Current National Institutional Structure for Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”Read the public policy recommendations” style=”flat” shape=”square” color=”primary” align=”left” i_icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-handshake-o” add_icon=”true” link=”url:%23recommendations|||”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Authors: Marco Billi and Pilar Moraga<\/em>\u00a0|\u00a0Editorial Leadership: Dominique Herv\u00e9 and Pilar Moraga<\/em>\u00a0|\u00a0Editorial Team: Jos\u00e9 Barraza.<\/em><\/p>\n

Climate change is produced<\/strong> by human activities that affect multiple aspects of ecological and climatic systems, including the composition of the atmosphere, bodies of water (rivers, seas, glaciers) and vegetation, thereby reducing their capacities to regulate the climate (IPCC, 2021; Gallardo et al., 2019). The effects <\/strong>of climate change are already visible in Chile, which can be appreciated by the variation of averages of temperature, precipitation, and other climatic variables, and by the increase of the variability, frequency, and intensity of extreme events. This leads to consequences <\/strong>for the availability and quality of water resources, the health and wellbeing of the population, the conservation and equilibrium of ecosystems, productive activities, and sociocultural practices (Pica-T\u00e9llez et al., 2020).<\/p>\n

Climate Governance in Chile<\/h5>\n

Climate governance <\/strong>is the way in which societies define objectives and priorities related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, make decisions, and implement and supervise actions for meeting such objectives and priorities (Billi et al., 2021; Sapiains et al., 2020). However, national climate governance is inadequate <\/strong>in the face of the challenges climate change poses today, principally because of the fragmentation and disorganization of State institutions that address this phenomenon.<\/p>\n

The Current Fragmentation Between Agencies, Institutions, and Elements<\/h5>\n

Several problems for national governance related to climate change are the lack of management coordination<\/strong>, an excessive centralization <\/strong>of resources and skills, and a low consideration for territorial<\/strong> specificities <\/strong>and ecosystems.<\/p>\n

Although the new climate institutional structure has advanced to the point of becoming an incipient coordination mechanism (Arriaga et al., 2018) that could strengthen the approval of the Climate Change Framework Law, governance continues to be highly fragmented <\/strong>in multiple agencies, regulations, and land management instruments that are disconnected from each other. Some examples of this are the artificial separation between land tenure and water use rights, the tendency of administrative limits to divide between watersheds and atmospheric basins, the arbitrary separation between urban zones and rural zones (masking peri-urban zones and those at the urban-rural interface), the duplication of ministries\u2019 functions (including between entities in the same ministry), and the pluralization of actors and institutions in charge of the management of the Elements (For water alone, there exist more than 40 distinct public agencies). This deeply affects the efficiency in the use of the State\u2019s limited resources to conduct integrated action for ecological and climatic management of the elements.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This integration is fundamental because the causes and consequences of climate change depend on the interaction <\/strong>of a variety of processes (human and natural) at multiple scales<\/strong>, which affects the four elements (water, air, earth, and fire). For example, changes in soil use influence water availability and fires (Centro de Ciencia del Clima y la Resiliencia CR2, 2015). The latter, for their part, increase due to climate change and drought, releasing greenhouse gases (which accelerate climate change) and local contaminants into the atmosphere (Centro de Ciencia del Clima y la Resiliencia CR2, 2020a). Pollution, finally, affects water and soil quality, and their ability to regulate the climate, and can in turn be compounded by climate change (Centro de Ciencia del Clima y la Resiliencia CR2, 2020b). Therefore, there needs to be an integrated management of the Elements that manages these interdependencies<\/strong>, driving progress toward a lower-carbon and climate-resilient society.<\/p>\n

Uncoordinated, Reactive, Inequitable, Hardly Participative, and Hardly Transparent Governance<\/h5>\n

In addition to the fragmentation of institutions, there are other significant gaps in the country\u2019s current climate governance: in first place, the current governance tends towards privileging reactive measures<\/strong>, which apply only when the effects of climate change occur (such as droughts, fires or floods) and are focused on responding to the emergency with a short-term perspective. This limits the possibility of conducting actions that have a long-term perspective and that can generate both changes in ambition and necessary efficiencies in order to prepare us today for future changes.<\/p>\n

Likewise, we observe a growing inequitable distribution <\/strong>related to both the impacts of climate change and access to the benefits that the Elements provide. This can be seen in: the elevated levels of atmospheric pollution that the so-called \u201csacrifice zones\u201d experience; in the high energy poverty indicators of some communities; in the risk of fires, floods, and droughts that greatly affect more vulnerable communities environmentally, socially, and economically; and in the concentration of land-ownership and rights to water use.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, poorly-effective participation mechanisms<\/strong>, are often late, of a limited scope, and are only of an informative or consultative character. This leads to the erasure of local and indigenous knowledge, delegitimizes their cosmovisions, and does not empower them in the face of the unequal power of giant economic corporations, and generates conflict and a lack of trust between actors.<\/p>\n

All of this results in significant deficiencies in the availability, quality or accessibility of data<\/strong>, with respect to hidro-climatic and ecosystem conditions, such as information about property rights, and those required for monitoring and evaluation of management. To the above, one can add the limited use of existing data <\/strong>and the lack of consideration of projections and of future scenarios in the design of public policies.<\/p>\n

Climate Governance and the Elements<\/h5>\n

The future climate scenario requires a transformative change in the governance of the four elements of nature, each of which provides important services and benefits to human societies. In the context of climate change and future climate scenarios, this governance should be in charge of managing the risks and impacts and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in a way that can include major responses in the face of droughts, floods, atmospheric pollution, fires, and the loss of ecosystems, among other challenges. In this sense, it is urgent to advance towards a new model of governance<\/strong>, which we have called Climate Governance of the Elements<\/strong>. This model is situated in just climate action <\/strong>as the central axis for the management of the State, which is aimed towards realizing incremental and transformative actions in order to promote mitigation and adaptation to climate change, advancing towards: a more equitable distribution of costs and benefits; the protection of highly-vulnerable groups; the conservation of ecosystems; and the protection of the interests of future generations, all based on inclusive and supportive procedures for making decisions and assigning and enforcing responsibilities (Herv\u00e9, Cordero y Moraga, 2020).<\/p>\n

To accomplish this, we propose that the Climate Governance of the Elements supports itself based on three key principals:<\/p>\n