The Adaptation Answer

Principles for Including a Natural Resources Adaptation Fund within Cap and Trade Climate Legislation to Help America’s Fish, Wildlife, and Ecosystems Survive Global Warming

Scientists now agree that the concentration of heat-trapping gases already in the atmosphere is causing and will cause significant adverse impacts to the United States and the world. Thus legislation must address not only the causes of worsening global warming, but also the effects of the unavoidable global warming we already face. This must include new dedicated resources to protect and restore the natural environment, including fish wildlife, and their habitat, on which all human health and economic vitality depends.

Therefore, any comprehensive climate legislation must include:

1. Dedicated Annual Funding Based on an Auction System. A carbon cap-and-trade emissions limitation bill should include an auction system for the distribution of emissions allowances. Proceeds from this auction system should be devoted to confronting the climate change challenge, including actions to address the harmful impacts of climate change on the natural environment.

2. Auction Proceeds for Protecting Fish, Wildlife, and Ecosystems. A significant share of the allowance value generated from any cap-and-trade program should be dedicated to protecting and restoring the natural environment, including fish, wildlife and their habitat on which human health depends. Protecting the habitats of fish and wildlife, including terrestrial, freshwater aquatic, estuarine, coastal and marine species, serves all Americans by protecting the clean water, clean air,biodiversity, open space and working natural landscapes that define our quality of life and are the foundation for a strong economy.

3. Broad Authority for Fish, Wildlife, and Ecosystem Protection. Auction proceeds under this bill should provide dedicated funding, not subject to annual appropriations,for climate-related ecosystem protection to ensure that federal, state, and tribal resource agencies and their partners can meet the new challenge of conserving land, water and habitat in the face of an altered and rapidly changing climate. Eligible activities may include conservation, restoration,land acquisition, fish and wildlife protection, habitat enhancement, planning,research, monitoring, and education activities that are carried out pursuant to comprehensive ecosystem climate adaptation strategies.

4. Eligible Resource Agencies. Agencies eligible for auction proceeds are those federal, state,and tribal agencies with authority and responsibility for programs and resources important to helping fish, wildlife and ecosystems survive climate change. These agencies are referred to in this document as resource agencies.

5. Federal Multi-Agency Comprehensive National Strategy. The activities of the federal resource agencies needed to restore and protect fish, wildlife and ecosystems against the impacts of climate change should be directed and coordinated through a comprehensive national strategy, developed in close consultation with the states, tribes, and other stakeholders, and with advice from the National Academy of Sciences and a science advisory board.

6. State Comprehensive Strategies. The activities of the state resource agencies should be directed and coordinated through individual state comprehensive strategies for fish and wildlife adaptation to climate change that are approved by the Secretary of the Interior and integrated into state wildlife action plans,state coastal zone management plans, and other state wildlife species or habitat plans. Opportunities should be provided for scientific and public input during the development and implementation of these strategies.

7. Cost-Share Requirements. In order to ensure full and effective utilization of funds under this program, required cost-share contributions by states and other non-federal entities receiving auction proceeds, should be capped at relatively modest levels for climate-related conservation actions. This cost-share requirement should supersede existing cost-share requirements in the programs through which the adaptation strategy is delivered.

8. Enhanced Scientific Capacity. The scientific capacity of the federal resource agencies to evaluate and address the impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife, and ecosystems should be enhanced through, among other things, the establishment of national climate change and fish and wildlife science centers, housed within agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.