Collaborating on Climate Action: Lessons from CBI’s Work on Climate Change

CBI started working on climate change in 1996, supporting informal international negotiations that contributed to the Kyoto Protocol, and climate work has remained a CBI priority over the past quarter century. From global to local, from the Arctic to southern Chile, and across sectors and ideological viewpoints, we have worked with public and private stakeholders on climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts at every level. Along the way, we have established durable strategies for collaborative climate action. 

While we know the climate is changing and action is needed now, there has been and will be controversy and debate on causes, risks, options, and the costs and benefits of climate action. With increasing action to mitigate climate change, addressing the concerns of those who face the impacts of fossil fuel phaseouts and clean energy build-outs has become a crucial challenge. Around the globe,  from the coal mining regions of West Virginia and Colombia to rural Maine and coastal Louisiana, we see three forces combining:

  • rapid economic change driven by climate action, bringing both immediate and potentially existential loss to some and potential longer-term benefits for many others;
  • limits on local capacity to organize for voice and influence on climate decisions; and
  • intensifying distrust of government, science, big business, big environmental groups, and “elites” of all kinds.

Government, environmental, and business actors who are pushing climate action forward need to recognize the necessity of dialogue with local constituencies in order to build mutual trust and collaborative solutions. The urge to act now and deal with the adverse impacts later is understandable but mistaken: Such attitudes harden opposition, increase partisanship, and raise the risk that the political pendulum will swing back and erase short-term gains. 

Local community leaders and residents have to grapple with sometimes wrenching changes that are not fully in their control, and the process of coming to terms with change is not going to be easy. It isn’t enough to say, “We all have to do our part to stop climate change.” It’s going to be necessary to answer the following questions together, with full participation of those most affected: 

  • What can we do to address climate change that will be good for this community and for the world? 
  • How do we balance the local economic and social costs necessary to make progress with the global environmental gains that could be achieved? 
  • How will we ensure that those who may bear costs have real influence on how local-global trade-offs are made and on the sort of compensation they receive? 

When working on climate change, CBI aims to build shared understanding, shared values, and agreement on options and actions. We do not conduct technical analysis or advocate for particular solutions; instead, we seek to enable constructive dialogue, negotiation, and decision-making, in ways that strengthen understanding and relationships despite the real tensions and trade-offs inherent in most climate-related decisions. We’ve found three strategies particularly helpful to support collaboration on climate change challenges:

  • Building shared vision
  • Jointly assessing and prioritizing options for action
  • Focusing on equity and fairness
     

Building Shared Vision

 

With the Maine and Vermont Climate Councils and the Massachusetts Clean Heat Commission, we’re facilitating diverse groups convened by governors and legislatures to develop comprehensive plans for mitigation and adaptation. With The Nature Conservancy, we’re seeking to develop a New England strategy for decarbonizing the electric system. Like other cross-sector efforts to address climate change at the sub-national level, these start with a recognition that many stakeholders, from electric utilities to public health agencies, from Native American communities to commercial fishermen, will be directly affected by climate change policy and investment decisions and should have a voice in decision-making.

The first step is to develop a shared answer to these two questions: “Why are we here? And what do we aim to accomplish together?” Those already embroiled in climate-related debates clearly risk coming to the table ready to continue the fight. Getting from that understandable starting posture to an open mind, in search of approaches and investments that can generate substantial benefits and fairly distribute costs, is no small feat for individuals or groups. We’ve found it valuable to:

  • meet with each participant before the group first convenes, to learn more about their interests and concerns, and identify visions for success;
  • design the first group meeting to share what we gathered and prompt participants to describe their hopes and concerns, rather than diving straight into issue-analysis or procedural questions;
  • capture and articulate shared values and vision in a document, which will be a touchstone—a regular reminder of the “big picture”—as the group works on specific issues; and
  • use the shared vision and values as a point of reference when dealing with challenging trade-offs and conflicting interests, to help participants establish outcomes in keeping with their values.
     

Jointly Assessing and Prioritizing Options for Action

 

Climate change action-planning is almost always a tangle of interconnected issues and options. Questions abound. If conservation NGOs and donors want to increase their focus on climate, should they shift their priority from the forests with the highest biodiversity to those with the highest carbon sequestration benefit, or narrow it to the subset of forests that provide the greatest joint biodiversity and carbon benefit? If Long Island utilities want to expand the use of solar installations in an already dense suburban landscape, should they focus on the highest solar value locations, or on locations with the lowest environmental and community acceptance risks? And if a coastal community faces rising sea levels and storm surges, should it begin immediately to limit development in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, or wait until those neighborhoods are impossible to maintain?

As we work with stakeholders to explore climate mitigation and adaptation options, we often use three questions to structure their joint assessment and priority-setting:

  • What are the key criteria that should drive the assessment and selection of options for climate action? 

Answering this question together can help ensure that all major issues of concern are translated into criteria, issues such as: impact on GHG emissions; impact on biodiversity and the environment; and impact on jobs, businesses, and community spaces. While creating shared criteria will not answer the question of how to resolve trade-offs among them, it will make those trade-offs apparent and encourage a search for options that meet multiple criteria.

  • How can we maximize gains and minimize losses across these criteria? 

This question frames positively the trade-off challenge, and encourages stakeholders to get creative in their search for good options. On Long Island, the use of GIS mapping against multiple criteria identified large open parking lots as very attractive areas for siting solar panels. The environmental impact was low to negative (with no significant habitat impact, and with reduced asphalt heat in the summer, for instance) and community acceptability was high. In Maine and Vermont, economic analysis of possible clean energy transition pathways highlighted opportunities for clean energy jobs and businesses, though it also raised questions about equitable access to jobs and contracts. As we note below, CBI also works with participants to wrestle with the hard questions of who may benefit and who may lose out—which could include losing jobs, homes, or ways of life.

  • How can we factor uncertainties about climate impacts and investments into our decision-making? 

In many cases, the ultimate effects of climate mitigation and adaptation depend on interlocking changes in climate and human responses, which can’t be fully known or anticipated today. While there may be some “no regrets” options, they are not usually sufficient on their own for achieving mitigation and adaptation goals. Investments in “hardening” infrastructure for coastal communities, or commissioning new gas-fired power plants to meet regional demand because renewables can’t yet do so, require immediate decisions whose net benefits and costs may not be known for 50 years. These conversations require stakeholders to acknowledge fundamental uncertainties and make decisions now, with the understanding that inaction is also a choice with consequences.

Focusing on Equity and Fairness

 

Perhaps the greatest challenge for climate stakeholders is ensuring a fair allocation of climate action’s costs and benefits. At every level, from international negotiations to local land use decision-making, the issue of equity should be central. If New England’s offshore wind farms disrupt commercially valuable fish populations and the navigation of fishing boats, what compensation will commercial fishermen receive? How will marginalized communities of color in the Gulf of Mexico decide whether to relocate inland, and what public support will they receive if they do? Where should regional transmission lines, needed to provide electricity for home heat pumps and electric vehicles, be sited, and what voice should potentially affected communities have in the siting decision?

Our approach to these questions starts with ensuring effective representation of those who may have to bear the costs. While there can be a temptation for government agencies and businesses involved in climate action to limit input from those who may oppose action, our experience is that those stakeholders will find a way to be heard and have influence. It is better to create an open process that seeks their constructive engagement and gives them real influence on decisions, rather than excluding them and hoping they don’t campaign against action.

The design of decision rules is also important for striking a balance between inclusion of all relevant stakeholders and enabling decision-making. We seek to ensure that no one stakeholder has unilateral veto power, and we generally construct decision rules to make it clear that dissent will not necessarily stop action. But it is also important to ensure dissenting voices and perspectives are shared, transparent, considered, and not “squashed” by groupthink or majority voting rules. 

Addressing issues of equity and fairness matters. We’ve found that climate action deliberations that put off discussion of equity until late in the process, on the theory that “it’s better to grow the pie before dividing it,” risk losing the trust of stakeholders.. While it’s true that the full costs and benefits of action can’t be known until the process has run its course, integrating considerations of equity from the beginning, with a shared commitment to advance climate action, can help stakeholders build confidence in each other’s willingness to look for optimal outcomes. We also acknowledge that the work of incorporating equity into climate work is challenging, and we see ourselves as learners in this morally and politically difficult space.

Finally, it’s important for groups working on climate action to consider ways to address effects that may not be fully foreseeable. Contingent commitments—ranging from limits on electricity rate increases to compensation for lost fish catch beyond a specified threshold—can help address disagreements about the likely outcome of climate policies or programs. In addition, establishing clearly defined ways for people to raise concerns can support the rights and voices of those who may bear costs. In our work with the Green Climate Fund, we have been building the capacity of organizations around the world to respond effectively to complaints related to climate action projects. The availability of a credible complaints mechanism can make a major difference in communities’ approaches to proposed actions.

CBI aims to continue facilitating inclusive, constructive deliberation and decision-making on climate action. We will continue sharing what we learn as we go, and we welcome your insights and feedback on the views we’ve offered here.