Co-operation on a long timescale
In times of drastic change, cooperation becomes crucial (Roch and
Samuelson 1997; Cardenas et al. 2004). The spectrum of consequences
expected from climate change will require legitimate, transparent, and
honest cooperation among scientists, industry, society, politicians, and
indigenous knowledge holders (Actions 20, 27). Inclusion of indigenous
and traditional knowledge and perspectives, for example, allow different
viewpoints to be incorporated into decision-making. This also has the
potential to improve policy responsiveness as traditional landowners
notice some effects of climate change earlier, due to traditional
practices and interactions with the oceans (Green and Raygorodetsky
2010). The effects of climate change will not be addressed through
short-term policies politics (Slawinski et al. 2017). Whilst flexibility
is key to addressing unplanned change, there is a requirement for an
imminent strong overarching climate change focused policy and agreements
that go beyond typical political timeframes and include
whole-of-government responses (Actions 8, 22). Examples of such policy
at international levels are the Paris Climate Agreement or the EU Water
Framework Directive. However, enduring climate change policy on national
agendas is lacking (for example, Carbon Pricing in Australia (Crowley
2017)). Governments need to address policy gaps and propose flexible
policies that are appealing to increasingly dominant sections of the
electorate (Jordan et al. 2015; Burch et al. 2019).