Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data (2001)

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STAKEHOLDER VIEWPOINTS 25 POLICY MAKER VIEWS The goal of policy makers (elected officials and political appointees in government agencies) is to make informed judgments about what is in the best long-term interests of the communities they represent. Their rewards include a sense of satisfaction in work that benefits their community, as well as their re- election or continuation in a position of authority. In a democracy, policy makers are accountable to the general public, which includes the other stakeholder groups. However, concerns of the general public have to be weighed against specific tradeoffs with regulation and acute local concerns. Balancing these conflicting interests for the benefit of the community as a whole is a major challenge for policy makers. Policy makers are responsible for looking after the “big picture,” such as understanding the causes of global environmental change and dealing with its consequences. They seek policies that work and are capable of evolving in view of the uncertainties that dominate the long-term projection of both economic development and environmental change. Such policies must foster (1) negotiation, when there are competing interests; (2) competition, when there is an effective stimulant; and (3) consensus on basic goals and principles. Haunting thoughtful people everywhere is the prospect of a “tragedy of the commons,”12 in which, for lack of an effective governance mechanism, an entire resource is annihilated by the collective rational actions of all the individuals who depend on it. The policies of a country take precedence over those of its individual government agencies. Similarly, in international settings, policies aimed at attaining a worldwide public good take precedence over those of individual countries (see Box 2.3). In such cases, governments are themselves policy makers (see “Government Agency Views” above). 12 G.Hardin, 1968, The tragedy of the commons, Science, v. 162, p. 1243– 1248. 

STAKEHOLDER VIEWPOINTS 26 BOX 2.3 INTERGOVERNMENTAL DATA POLICIES Because many environmental issues transcend national borders, governments often collaborate to collect and exchange environmental information. Many intergovernmental agreements rely on full and open exchange among the parties to the agreement. Examples include the following: • United Nations Principles on Remote Sensing (1986).a Provides for access to remotely sensed Earth observations that are (1) capable of averting any phenomenon harmful to the Earth's natural environment or (2) useful to nation states affected by natural disasters or likely to be affected by impending natural disasters. The data are to be made available on a nondiscriminatory basis at reasonable prices and as promptly as possible. • Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (1991).b OECD governments should strengthen their efforts to support and encourage the international science community to assess environmental risks to human health and natural ecosystems and to promote a full and open exchange of environmental data and information. • Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992).c All parties, taking into account their specific national priorities, shall promote and cooperate in the full, open, and prompt exchange of information related to climate change, and to the economic and social consequences of various response strategies. The full and open policyd was reaffirmed at the Conference of Parties in 1998. • Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (1993).e Calls for full and open sharing of datasets for all ocean programs. Data submitted for international exchange should be provided to global ocean researchers at the lowest possible cost (ideally the marginal cost) and placed in the public domain within two years of collection. In some cases intergovernmental policies of full and open exchange survived World War II and the Cold War, but are now being revised to permit member nations to commercialize their data. The classic case is the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which has provided the framework for the exchange of meteorological data among its member nations for over a century.f At the 1995 WMO Congress, the previous policy of full and open exchange was replaced by a two-tiered data exchange system.g Tier 1 includes a minimum list of data that are required to describe and forecast accurately weather and climate, and