1. Think Globally, Assess Regionally, Act Locally
D. Goldin and C. Kennel, cochairs; J. Boright, M.Clark, J. Falk, I. Serageldin, A. Zehnder, rapporteurs
Declaration of the Special Adjunct Session of the 2009 Science and Technology in Society Forum
“Developing a Framework for Regional Climate Change Impact Assessments and Local Action”,
Kyoto, October 3, 2009
Climate change, already here, will increase in coming decades. Greenhouse gas emissions are
running ahead of the worst-case scenario of IPCC, so that temperature will increase more rapidly
than expected. Aerosols, because they reflect sunlight back to space, have offset the temperature
increase expected from the greenhouse gas accumulation to date; as we reduce air pollution for
health and environment reasons, we will see an unavoidable increase of perhaps 2 degrees C,
regardless of what we do to reduce future emissions.
Mitigation aims to cut off global warming at its source by reducing emissions of greenhouse
gases, primarily carbon dioxide. Mitigation now seems harder than we once thought. Not only are
there serious political and economic difficulties, but it will take decades to deploy new energy
technologies on a global scale.
In these circumstances, NAS President R. Cicerone proposes that our strategy must be to “avoid
the unmanageable, and manage the unavoidable”. As we continue our vital efforts on mitigation,
we will have to adapt to the changes we cannot prevent.
Assessment of the impacts of present and future climate change is the first step to adaptation.
Assessment for adaptation differs from assessment for mitigation in one important aspect: key
adaptation decisions will be needed from very many local leaders, rather than from the relatively
smaller number of international leaders dealing with mitigation policy.
This fact defines the basic question before this special session of world leaders in science and
technology. How should the tools and institutions deployed to assess global climate change be
adapted to the needs of local decision-makers in hundreds of regions around the world? What
new social, institutional, technical, and financial innovations are needed?
Regional climate change impact assessments bridge the global and local, and can enlist local and
decision-makers in direct and culturally appropriate ways. Regional assessments help local
leaders see what the future holds for the things their populations care about, understand the
decisions they will need to make, and support their public communication. In addition, local
knowledge and monitoring are required to identify the uncertainties and critical triggers of the
climate system and anticipate the impacts.
Each region has a unique combination of interacting environmental, economic, and social factors,
and its own ways of reaching decisions. Local participation is essential, as is communicating in
terms local people understand. To earn the trust of local populations, each region should design
and carry out its own assessments, with international support but not direction.
Climate change is only one of the problems local leaders face. It often appears less pressing than
ongoing environmental degradation and resource depletion, or the need for social and economic
development. Even so, the universality of the climate problem has called forth a global
community of researchers and practitioners whose social techniques and technical tools can help
local leaders deal with the great problems of environment and development with which climate

2. change is intertwined.
Adaptation requires a systems approach that links the physical and biological aspects of climate
change to social response. It cannot be managed top-down. Integrated solutions should be sought
through linked innovation in science, technology, policy, politics, institutions, and finance. It will
have to be a distributed effort that is guided but not directed.
Knowledge Action Networks that focus on specific regions and impacts can link the global
science, technology, and policy communities to local initiatives. These are sponsored social
networks connecting the generators of pertinent knowledge with local decision makers. Modern
information techniques can ensure good communication within and between the global, regional,
and local levels.
Every region has knowledge leaders who can forge relationships with local decision-makers, but
often there aren’t enough of them. The critical mass sufficient to characterize the multiple
impacts of climate change and communicate them to decision makers is often lacking. Capacity
building is therefore a critical issue. Moreover, even where there is adequate human capacity,
regional science and policy communities often lack access to information and tools because of
bureaucratic obstacles and government security concerns. In these cases, independent
organizations that provide trustworthy information are needed. Here as elsewhere, there is room
for non-governmental initiatives.
Regional assessments and adjustments in action plans will be needed throughout this century.
Each region will have to monitor, model, assess, and decide, again and again. This need will
spark continuous improvement of observations, models, and information systems in order to
dissect and forecast the ongoing interacting changes.
We believe that global climate change assessments should be supplemented by a mosaic of
regional assessments of the impacts of climate change on natural and human systems.
We should not expect that the globe can be sub-divided neatly into non-overlapping regions with
sharp boundaries nor the regions to define the same geographical area for the different
assessments they need. Each physical, biological, and human system has a natural spatial
configuration that must be respected: the boundaries of assessment regions will be adapted to the
problem. We should think, therefore, of forming a complex, hierarchical network of loosely
connected, self-assembled regional assessments.
We need a new institutional framework for regional assessments and the knowledge action
networks that will carry them out. An international fund is needed to encourage the assembly and
support of these networks. The international science, technology, and policy community should
help with capacity building and technology transfer; standards and certification; and provision of
data, models and observations.
We suggest starting with water, because of its dominant role in human consumption, food
security, health, and natural disasters. The capacity to model and monitor exists, and can be
translated relatively easily. Moreover, every region and locality manages water, so there are
working decision makers with whom scientists can interact.
Understanding how different regions deal with science-based decision making for water may
provide insight into how the even more complex problems of ecology, health, and human
development can be addressed.