Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality
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organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises, and principle 7 asserts
that the rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not
challenged by external governmental authorities. Together these place the
locus of power at the local level rather than at higher levels. These last two
principles actually establish a context for the preceding six principles. In
practice, this indicates that, whereas international groups like the United
Nations can provide valuable advice on organization and oversight, the real
power for action must be irrevocably delegated down to very local levels
(e.g. cities and regions, such as the Los Angeles area). The United Nations
can set goals and standards, but the actual governance needs to pass down
to the nations, and then to regions, to cities or districts, and even to the scale
of neighborhoods.
It is at the very local level that the other design features make clear sense.
At the local level it is crucial to clearly establish the boundaries that define
users versus non- users and that define the resource system being used versus
the larger environment (principle 1). It is only at the local level that it makes
sense to ensure congruence with local social and environmental conditions
(principle 2), to meaningfully propose that most individuals affected by the
operational rules can participate in modifying those rules (principle 3), or to
establish conflict resolution mechanisms with rapid access and that operate
within low- cost local arenas (principle 6). Even the monitoring of users and
the status of the resource (principle 4) includes the caveat that those monitors
should be accountable to the users, which is more easily and effectively done
at a local level.
A clear difficulty in designing effective air quality management systems
is that air is not bound to specific local users or local systems. Instead, air is
inherently non- excludable. This makes boundaries (between users and nonusers; between the resource and the larger environment) always blurry to
some extent, and thus complicates accurate monitoring, enforcement, and
sanctions, or even conflict resolution. The very nature of air quality (including
greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change) requires a particularly
clear and strongly structured organization of nested enterprises that can capture the issues of air quality, from the very local to the global system levels.
To some extent we understand the patterns of air flow at regional, national,
international, and global levels; we can in principle create a nested structure
which corresponds to those patterns.
Another difficulty in designing effective air quality management is
not nearly so inherent, but rather created by existing institutions. At first
blush, it would seem that “users” of a resource – a fundamental unit
within Ostrom’s design principles – are clearly and easily defined as
people. However, air quality issues are in large part influenced by users
that are not individuals; they are cities, states, companies that operate
over large areas, and even multinational corporations. These users are
not bound by geography like a human individual, so matters once again
becomes complicated and blurry when trying to apply Ostrom’s design
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1 4 4
organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises, and principle 7 asserts
that the rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not
challenged by external governmental authorities. Together these place the
locus of power at the local level rather than at higher levels. These last two
principles actually establish a context for the preceding six principles. In
practice, this indicates that, whereas international groups like the United
Nations can provide valuable advice on organization and oversight, the real
power for action must be irrevocably delegated down to very local levels
(e.g. cities and regions, such as the Los Angeles area). The United Nations
can set goals and standards, but the actual governance needs to pass down
to the nations, and then to regions, to cities or districts, and even to the scale
of neighborhoods.
It is at the very local level that the other design features make clear sense.
At the local level it is crucial to clearly establish the boundaries that define
users versus non- users and that define the resource system being used versus
the larger environment (principle 1). It is only at the local level that it makes
sense to ensure congruence with local social and environmental conditions
(principle 2), to meaningfully propose that most individuals affected by the
operational rules can participate in modifying those rules (principle 3), or to
establish conflict resolution mechanisms with rapid access and that operate
within low- cost local arenas (principle 6). Even the monitoring of users and
the status of the resource (principle 4) includes the caveat that those monitors
should be accountable to the users, which is more easily and effectively done
at a local level.
A clear difficulty in designing effective air quality management systems
is that air is not bound to specific local users or local systems. Instead, air is
inherently non- excludable. This makes boundaries (between users and nonusers; between the resource and the larger environment) always blurry to
some extent, and thus complicates accurate monitoring, enforcement, and
sanctions, or even conflict resolution. The very nature of air quality (including
greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change) requires a particularly
clear and strongly structured organization of nested enterprises that can capture the issues of air quality, from the very local to the global system levels.
To some extent we understand the patterns of air flow at regional, national,
international, and global levels; we can in principle create a nested structure
which corresponds to those patterns.
Another difficulty in designing effective air quality management is
not nearly so inherent, but rather created by existing institutions. At first
blush, it would seem that “users” of a resource – a fundamental unit
within Ostrom’s design principles – are clearly and easily defined as
people. However, air quality issues are in large part influenced by users
that are not individuals; they are cities, states, companies that operate
over large areas, and even multinational corporations. These users are
not bound by geography like a human individual, so matters once again
becomes complicated and blurry when trying to apply Ostrom’s design