At the same time, however, human beings are busy conducting yet another "unprecedented experiment" in destabilizing another of the biogeochemical world’s life-sustaining circuits—the global nitrogen cycle. In specific, humans have doubled the rate of nitrogen (N) fixation—that is, the rate at which N is made put into a bio-available condition (Ayres, Schlesinger, and Socolow, 1994). Peter Vitousek at Stanford and Pamela Matson at the University of California note that changes of N across ecosystem boundaries which separate the biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere "...have been altered more for nitrogen than any other element." As they also point out, "The nitrogen cycle is second only to carbon in its potential to drive global change..."

Is it premature to elevate N science and policy to a significantly greater degree? To be sure, as The New York Times re-stated the sentiment of one prominent scientist, "The problem is so newly appreciated... that attention has yet to focus on solutions." Moreover, the empirical evidence fails to testify to particularly "shocking" effects (eg, the finding of the Antarctic ozone hole). Nor has the perturbed N cycle attracted the attention of its biogeochemical sibling (eg, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]). Nevertheless, the appropriate time for heightened scientific and policy attention is warranted long before such thresholds are reached. Because establishing priorities and defining the research agenda influences how problems are framed—and then solved, the time to debate the merits of a N-related policy program is at hand.

In general, this paper seeks to respond to the "emerging global concern" by launching such a debate; it puts forth a proposal to initiate an informal dialogue which brings together the global change and the sustainable development communities—diverse groups that have material interests in solving N pollution problems, amicably and efficiently. In particular, this paper (which is itself an "unprecedented experiment" in negotiation) asserts that the global N cycle merits a comprehensive program—tentatively called the Global Nitrogen Initiative (GNI)—that contains both a scientific and a policy dimension. The paper has five sections.

Section I pleads the case (particularly to UNEP) that the GNI embodies a useful "framework" solution to the multifaceted problem posed by athropogenic N perturbations. Specifically, it explores ten reasons why the N cycle deserves elevated levels of international concern and policy dialogue. The Section II introduces the sustainable development and global change constituencies; it outlines the Initiative’s holistic-multimedia strategy (as well as considering likely risks and rewards); and it begins to analyze the Initiative’s possible structure through the concepts of "anticipatory action" and "fall forward" incrementalism.

Each of the next two sections probes one of the GNI’s two major components: 1) a series of regional scientific advisory bodies referred to singly as the "Group of Experts on Nitrogen-related Issues" (ie, the "Experts"); and 2) an informal policy body called the "World Nitrogen Commission" (ie, the "Eminents"). Section III examines the structure and purpose of the Experts, highlighting not only the tasks of issue identification and factfinding but also lessons to be drawn from treaty experiences, using LRTAP (ie, Europe’s "acid rain" treaty) as a case study.

Section IV analyzes the structure and purpose of the World Nitrogen Commission, highlighting how to promote an informal dialogue among multiple stakeholders in the "proto-stages" of bargaining for institutional formation. Members of the Eminents would be drawn from governments (eg, the North and the South), from international organizations (eg, the FCCC and the LRTAP Secretariats), from industry (eg, fertilizer and automotive corporations), and from nonprofit organizations (eg, the World Resources Institute and IIASA) as well as from the Expert advisory committees. Section V discusses policy prescriptions that might emerge from the GNI, including a nitrous oxide (N2O) protocol to combat climate change and ozone depletion. The conclusion offers the possibility of combining the IPCC’s global carbon cycle research and the GNI to establish an umbrella organization called the Intergovernmental Panel on Global Change.

A substantial burden of proof rightly lies in the path of the Global Nitrogen Initiative (GNI). To overcome the initial hurdle, we need to demonstrate that there is a "problem"—or, more precisely, a series of problems (and realistically foreseeable possibilities) which are either currently unaddressed or insufficiently addressed, and thereby warrant additional science-policy attention. Thus, in order to ascertain whether or not N-related issues satisfies this burden, we need to provide a forthright appraisal about how anthropogenic N interruptions are materially damaging human and environmental interests and about how they may reasonably impact these interests. This section outlines ten reasons that speak in favor of the GNI.

Prior to doing so, it is useful to ask "To whom is the case being pleaded?". The GNI has two primary audiences—one is general, the other specific. The general audience is a broad class of scientists and policymakers as well as members of the business and environmental communities either who are interested in global change or who view the "pollution" problem within the larger context of sustainable economic development. The specific audience is UNEP—the organization with unparalleled authority and expertise to undertake such an endeavor. Executive Director Elisabeth Dowdeswell has articulated the organization’s mission well: "UNEP is both an architect of global agreements and a catalyst for national action on environmental issues. It must provide leadership and a forum for international agreements; it must educate and provide public information and be a resource for the development of national and regional plans, assessments and agreements."

So what are the ten reasons which individually or collectively urge the elevation of the GNI as a science-policy concern? Even though the Introduction already touched on the initial two reasons, let us explore them a little more. First, the scale of anthropogenic perturbations—ie, the doubling of the rate of N fixation—is unprecedented. Accounting for this interference are three principal human activities: 1) the increased production of N-fertilizers, 2) the increased planting of legume crops, and 3) the increased combustion of fossil fuels. The estimates (measured in millions of metric tons [MMt] annually) for each class are 80, 40, and 20, respectively. Because natural fixed or bioavailable N sources are estimated at 140 MMt, the ratio which approximates the human-created to the total annual rate of N fixation is about 1/2, which is to say, the anthropogenic and the natural rates are roughly equal.

Second, not only is life (including humans) dependent on N but it is also susceptible to these anthropogenic interruptions. It does so through multiple scopes (global, regional, and local) each of which in some sense can be considered local. To avoid confusion, when referring to a particular scope, I will use the terms planetary, regional, or local. For example, agricultural fertilizers tend to cause planetary impacts (eg, climate change) as well as local impacts (eg, agricultural "runoff"); the scope the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions tends to be regional (eg, acid rain) and local (eg, urban smog).

Fourth, the state of knowledge regarding the N cycle and its anthropogenic disruptions involves substantial uncertainty which can be lessened (but never eliminated). Again, Vitousek and Matson maintain, "Despite the importance of the nitrogen cycle and the global significance of its alteration, the cycle remains poorly understood in important ways..." Such ignorance recently became manifest yet again in a Nature article which¾ through the "ubiquitous" presence of fixed N in multiple water samples ¾ reasoned that the estimates of human mobilization of the global N cycle must be raised by 50 percent.

Fifth, established trends that are responsible for the N-related environmental harm augur additional intrusions. Granted, caution is always warranted when extrapolating from existing trends. Still, we should not expect the future to appreciable ameliorate the collective N problem. The rising human population is forecasted to reach 7.5 billion in 2015 and 9.8 billion in 2050. These additional people will more than likely increase the use of nitrogen fertilizer and fossil fuels—ie, the two most severely destabilizing sources. In fact, one study predicts: 1) withinin 25 years, worldwide production of N fertilizer will grow more than 60 percent from its present level; and 2) around the year 2020, NOx emissions from fossil fuels will increase by more than 100 percent (Galloway et al., 1994). Even though regulation, education, and technology (existing and future innovations) may ameliorate the environmental damage, some 90 percent of the population growth will occur in the developing world—an area already plagued by inadequate supplies of these preventive and remedial goods.

Sixth, knowledge of the N cycle will prove especially useful to understanding the carbon cycle, as the two are inextricably related. It is known that some plant species uptake N and carbon macro-nutrients in certain ratios. In fact, nitrogen interacts so strongly with the carbon cycle that in many ecosystems it regulates carbon flows (Vitousek and Matson, 1993). Yet, it is unknown whether simultaneously destabilizing both cycles affects the existence or the predominance of positive and negative feedbacks. Relatedly, research may be paying off in that accumulating evidence ties the location of the infamous "missing carbon" sink to the temperate and boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere, exactly where the fixed-N’s "fertilizer effect" is fairly well documented. IPCC modelers and policymakers have an obvious interest in this information.

Seventh, reasonably foreseeable threats and their links to multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) couple to form yet another reason to establish the GNI. An illustration about forests, N, and climate change is useful in order to highlight the risks from reasonably foreseeable potential threats—those with a lower expected probability but a more severe environmental impact. A study which collected 30 years of data in the Northeastern U.S., concluded that nitric and sulfuric acid were depleting soil minerals and that the yearly rate of biomass accumulation remained at zero, where it had been since 1987 (Likens, 1996). In other words, that forest has not stored any additional carbon in some ten years. Given that IPCC estimates of carbon sequestration include the "fertilizer" effect, a major climate change strategy might need revision, if evidence such as the Likens research proves to be not an anomaly (which it is currently) but a forerunner.

Relatedly, given the known consequences (as well as the lower-probability but higher-risk effects), N perturbations impact (or threaten to impact) a host of environmental regimes, including the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), the Montreal Protocol, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the Statement on Forest Principles (SFP). In addition to the impacts of forest changes regarding the FCCC and the WCFSD (see Reason No. 4, above), biodiversity offers another example. It is known that bio-available N compounds have slightly shifted biodiversity in directions that advantage N-loving (so-called "nitrophilic" species such as the dogwood) and that disadvantage species vulnerable to mineral leaching (eg, snails, which need calcium to keep their eggs sufficiently hard). To be sure, these shifts are minor. But a continued (or even elevated shift) in biodiversity would attract significantly greater concern amongst parties to the CBD.

Eighth, we must keep in mind the nature of these habitats and organisms: they are dynamic and non-linear. While the empirical record has not shown any environmental injury of an irreparable (let alone catastrophic) magnitude, forests, seas, and the systems of organisms behave more erratically with greater concentrations of compounds. Paracelsus’ famous adage seems appropriate: "The poison is the dosage." Indeed, merely because the environment has had the capacity to absorb N perturbations thus far, we would be unwise to assume its ability to repeat this feat. What are the tolerance margins of estuaries and seas? Temperate forests? Tropical forests?

Ninth, a further reason for the GNI is structural inadequacy of current regulation. Let us consider the somewhat "disappointing" results of acid rain legislation. The 1988 Sofia Convention—(ie, the Nitrogen Oxides Protocol to Europe’s Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution Convention or LRTAP)—has managed, at best, to reduce NOx levels by 10 percent in Europe over, although emissions of sulfuric oxides (ie, SOx) have fallen much more significantly. Moreover, in the 1970-94 period covered by the U.S. Clean Air Act, emissions of NOx annual increased 14 percent (from 20.6 million to 23.6 million tons), while SOx emissions over the same period experienced a 32 percent decline. Yet, a reason why these and other regulations have proven disappointing—that is, environments remain more acidic than predicted—probably lies in the fact other air-quality laws have dramatically reduced the amount of "atmospheric dust" whose alkaloid or base compounds serve as natural "antacids," tending to neutralize the acidic SOx and NOx (Hedin and Likens, 1996). Atmospheric dust is itself quite harmful to human health when inhaled and degrades visibility in addition to many other human and environmental problems (Hedin and Likens, 1996). Thus given the simultaneous decrease of both acid and base compounds, the net effect is to stymie the environmental improvement of the acid rain legislation. The point is, that as nations continue to improve their air quality by reducing atmospheric dust (ie, by removing natural antacids), the effects of acid rain will likely worsen unless SOx and NOx emissions are equally reduced. Such regulatory tightening just to "standstill" exposes endemic impediments of the current regulatory structure (which exist for other N-related issues such as eutrophication as well), and thereby lends support for a new public policy approach to managing N pollutants.

Tenth, we must keep in mind that waiting has costs too, which are often subsidized by the taxpayer or the environment—not to mention the taxpayers and environments of nations downstream or downwind. Indeed, N-induced environmental harm is already imposing costs in terms of human health, economic goods (eg, property damaged by acid rain), and the environment. While these costs are often poorly quantified (or, monetized), they need be factored into the calculus of deciding the existence and form of the GNI.

In conclusion, this section has pleaded a preliminary case that some type of international policy enterprise—presently termed the Global Nitrogen Initiative—is needed to address the myriad ways in which anthropogenic perturbations to the N cycle harm people and the environment (broadly construed). Moreover, it has also petitioned that UNEP be engaged in this undertaking, possibly by establishing a GNI Steering Committee.

(For the remainder of this paper, it will be necessary to distinguish the GNI from the host of existing policies which in some way regulate N compounds. Consequently, I will use the term "anticipatory action" or "preemptive action" when referring to the GNI’s science-policy endeavors.)

Assuming that the case for the GNI (or, at least, some institutional form of anticipatory action) has surpassed an initial threshold and that UNEP (or some other institution) might consider looking at such a venture, it is worthwhile to inquire about the Initiative’s possible structure. Remembering that N-induced environmental harm occurs at the planetary, regional, and local levels, the first task is to define the GNI’s scope. Only skeletal thus far, the GNI proposal that I offer encompasses a series of regional scientific bodies coupled to an informal, multi-stakeholder, "world policy" dialogue. The regional scientific units are each called the Group of Experts on Nitrogen-related Issues (ie, GENI or the "Experts"), while the single dialogue unit is called the World Nitrogen Commission (ie, WNC or the "Eminents"). While Sections III and IV probe the scientific and the policy bodies respectively, it is instructive at this point to explore the GNI’s targeted "coalition" and targeted "strategy".

With respect to the coalition, the GNI will require the participation of multiple interests that can be roughly placed into either of two (non-mutually exclusive) categories: sustainable development and global change. Within the context of sustainable development, the Initiative offers insights and solutions in addressing known problems of how N impacts acidification, eutrophication, biodiversity, and climate change as well as air and water quality. Within the context of global change, it promises to reduce the uncertainties of how the planet’s second most important molecule functions throughout its cycles (including its multiple feedbacks with the carbon cycle) and how its cycling is vulnerable to anthropogenic perturbations. In turn, the GNI is about managing two matters: 1) resources such as forests, fisheries, transportation, agriculture as well as air and water quality; and 2) risks such as assessing (and quantifying) the impacts of N compounds on climate change, ozone depletion, biodiversity loss, and human health.

The GNI needs to be useful to both the sustainable development and the global change factions. To make the coalition work, each constituency needs to understand the worldview of the other.

In the corner of sustainable development, the regime covered by the 1975 Mediterranean Action Plan (or, the MedPlan which was the first U.N. Regional Seas Program) illustrates how the evolving perceptions of the pollution-environment nexus has changed the way the "problem" is viewed. According to Aldo Chircop, "Regional cooperation has been influenced by changing perceptions of environmental degradation." In the 1950’s the marine pollution from ships was the concern; in the 1960s the concern over pollution effects had switched to living resources (especially fisheries); and in the 1970’s the concern had shifted to multiple sources of marine pollution introduced by many human activities. By the 1980s, the environmental concern had broadened to encompass the pattern of economic development in general (Chircop, ????). Indeed the Mediterranean is well aware of the strategic need to approach environment and development interdependently. Citing the example of the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE), Chircop concludes about the collective learning process of the MedPlan regime, "There was never any doubt about the need for interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches. But with sustainable development as a new framework, a range of subjects, disciplines, and institutions are brought into interaction in a broader framework."

In general, former OECD official James MacNeill sees sustainable development as remedying a structural incongruence, when he writes "Our political, economic, and ecological systems have become totally interlocked in the real world. But they remain almost completely divorced in our economic and political institutions." Such isolation is one of the greatest barriers to sustainable development (MacNeill, 1989-90). It is also one of the greatest barriers to an improved dialogue among the multiple stakeholders who might improve the quantity of environmental resources and the quality of environmental conditions. In specific, the need to address N-induced harms through the lens of sustainable development—in a holistic fashion where opportunities lie for former adversaries to become partners in solving mutual problems, amicably and efficiently.

In the corner of global change, this new science which took shape in the 1980s has revolutionized the natural sciences, spawning "a new kind of international and interdisciplinary scientific research that allows co-ordinated, collaborative projects incorporating microbiologists and space scientists, botanists and paleontologists." Global change could easily incorporate an increased attention to N-related impacts. On a broad scale, knowledge about the N cycle could assist biogeochemical modeling of, say, regional vegetation. As Section I already outlined, it is in numerous and varied ways that N compounds affect or may affect global change.

Many institutions are engaged in this diverse scientific enterprise, including UNEP, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP). In fact, IGBP has dissected the global change problem into six core areas: atmospheric chemistry, terrestrial ecosystems, biospheric aspects of hydrology, ocean flux, land-ocean interactions, and past climates. In addition, regional opportunities appear to be opening as well, as demonstrated by new centers like the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), European Network for Research in Global Change (ENRICH), and the Asia-Pacific Network (APN).

Nevertheless, it is probably of even greater importance that the transformation of global change as an earth science to a more participatory discipline which actively integrates economic and social factors is well underway. A most notable illustration of this phenomenon is an institution established by the International Social Science Council—the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Programme (HDP).

Three questions for which HDP seeks comprehensive answers are relevant to the GNI. According to Professor Martin Parry, Chair of the HDP Steering Committee, "What are the social and economic driving forces of global environmental change? ...[H]ow do they link with the biophysical processes? What actions are feasible in terms of adaptation (i.e. response to the effect) and mitigation (i.e. response to the driver)?" To probe these topics, HDP initiated four research programs: land-use and cover change, industrial transformation and energy use, demographic and social dimensions of resource use, and attitudes and perceptions. Section I testifies that the GNI touches on at least three of these programs.

In order to develop a more practical inquiry over the multi-dimensional causes, responses, and adaptations to global environmental change, there is a need to improve the dialogue between natural and social sciences. According to University of East Anglia Professor Timothy O’Riordan, a needed step is probably to establish "a more interactive science, utilizing imaginative ways of accounting for the spatial and time scale differences when seeking to calculate the impacts of global environmental change for citizens in different locations and in different social roles."

It seems that global change may be starting to actually dovetail with sustainable development. O’Riordan continues: "Public and private sectors are looking for partnerships between scientific research and their daily activities and there is thus a real case for a more open and participatory science for global environmental change." After chairing an HDP panel, IIASA’s Dr. Jill Jägar summarized the discussion: "A particularly important point... was the need to involve the private sector from the planning process onwards. The theme of sustainable development was clearly seen as a linking element for the various communities interested in the human dimensions of global environmental change.

Having sketched the worldviews of the GNI’s coalition (ie, the sustainable development and the global change constituencies), we need to lay out the GNI’s overall strategy. The Initiative seeks to target the N cycles in their planetary, regional, and local manifestations in an approach that is awkwardly titled multi-media holism. This "holistic multi-media" approach entails the monitoring and modeling of N sources and sinks (both anthropocentric and natural) through the three media of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the soil-bearing pedosphere (ie, air, water, and land).

To make the strategy more functional, however, the GNI sets up two subgroups that largely bifurcates the "N2O emissions" issue from the series of regional initiatives. This bifurcation is done because, while the overlap between the local and the planetary is not insignificant (eg, agricultural runoff), the N2O emissions issue can readily be addressed as a protocol to existing MEAs with the obvious candidates being the FCCC or the Vienna ozone convention. (This particular topic receives further attention in Section V.)

The holistic multi-media approach carries both risks and rewards. First, being so comprehensive, the strategy may suffer from a lack of focus which in turn will make solving problems and attracting coalition partners difficult, if not impossible. In other words, by including so much the strategy runs the risk of achieving nothing; it runs the risk of excessive ambition. Second, the single-minded "focus-on-effects" approach has proven to be the approach-of-choice for the simple reason of being strikingly successful. For instance, the FCCC focuses on compounds according to a single effect: it targets not CO2 per se, but rather, all greenhouse gases. Moreover, the heightened research devoted to the carbon cycle is a consequence of the search to understand and mitigate the phenomenon of climate change. Similarly, the purview of the Vienna Convention is not isolated to CFCs but to all ozone-depleting chemicals.

Attendant with these risks, the "holistic multi-media" approach offers rewards. First, the approach corresponds to the interests of the global change community quite well. A holistic, mutli-media program can be seen through the historical progression and close collaboration between the World Climate Research Program (ie, WCRP, from the 1970s) and IGBP (from the 1980s) and more recently with the fledging HDP (from the 1990s). University of Bern Professor Hans Oeschger asserts, "It is being realized that our only chance of coping with global change is by a holistic approach..." Yet this greater complexity is merely continues global change’s genesis in the 1950s of large-scale, interdisciplinary collaboratives, which are well adapted to approaching problems in a fashion that seeks comprehensively to monitor and to measure cycles, stocks, and flows.

Second, the strategy explicitly recognizes "cross-media" effects. That is, sometimes a narrowly-conceived "solution" may not actually solve but merely shift a problem into other media where the detrimental consequences may be more or less severe. For example, the incineration of municipal garbage may ameliorate the landfill problem by shifting the effects to the atmosphere—ie, reducing one problem by creating another. Similarly, the need for fossil fuel substitutes, say, for nuclear energy, must factor in that such a large-scale switch would aggravate hazardous waste disposal problems in different media. The point is that, while modeling would be impossible at present, the strategy seeks not to shift problems but to bring together the relevant stakeholders into an informal policy dialogue in order look for "win-win" opportunities and to calculate the likely tradeoffs.

Third, the holistic multi-media approach offers an enlarged range of opportunities among planetary, regional, and local interests. According to University of Chicago Professor Duncan Snidal, "Global problems almost always have important local dimensions and the key to their solution may lie there. Conversely, there will often be compelling reasons to bring local problems to the global level for resolution. Environmental issues are likely to be addressed best through policies that combine the advantages of the different levels." For example, the losers from regional acid rain and urban smog both benefit from a reduction of NOx emissions. Similarly, groups that are interested in the reduction of agricultural runoff or of greenhouse gases all benefit from limiting the application of N fertilizers. While the GNI’s scope is regional, it seeks to incorporate interested stakeholders from all three levels to improve the opportunities for cooperation.

At the risk of an epic understatement, creating and sustaining the GNI’s functional coalition (ie, between sustainable development and global change interests) is stretching the limits of international environmental diplomacy. Nevertheless, in an attempt to make diplomacy and negotiation more elastic, let us perform two tasks before examining the GNI in detail: 1) to distinguish "preemptive action" from "preemptive problem-solving"; and 2) to review the "fall forward" theory of negotiation incrementalism.

During a crisis, the best policy at times is obtained by turning accepted wisdom on its head in that a tense atmosphere over a pressing issue leads more often to a "rush to judgment" rather than a "ripe moment". Sometimes the reverse is also true. The best time to initiate a policy endeavor is during the calm.

Although I have just articulated ten reasons why preemptive action is warranted, it may seem that many learned scholars and practitioners would disagree. According to Johns Hopkins Professor William Zartman, "The process of working out environmental solutions does take on many of the characteristics associated with a policy cycle—catastrophe, research, effectiveness versus efficiency as criteria for a solution in principle, implementation in detail." While environmental policy usually has stages, is it necessary or even desirable that catastrophe precedes research? Zartman considers "preemptive problem-solving" to be anomalous. In his words, "The lesson [regarding international environmental negotiation] seems pervasive: ... it is necessary to wait for the horse to be stolen before the gate is locked. Preemptive problem solving is rare and often lacks the drive and urgency of negotiation in the wake of catastrophe."

Zartman’s reasoning is quite sensible. Paradoxically, a crisis does not resolve conflict; it creates it. Conflict is merely an incompatibility between two conditions or positions (Zartman, 1992). And a crisis brings the latent incompatibility into clear view. Then, parties can crystallize their interests; and negotiation—the process of reconciling conflicting views in a single decision—can lead to problem-solving.

However, Zartman acknowledges the utility of mutually-agreed issue identification and collaborative data gathering. In his words, "Negotiation is a matter of the parties’ separately preparing and jointly identifying a formula that defines the problem in a resolvable way... That process is made possible when the parties are prepared by thorough and often cooperative diagnosis or pre-negotiation at the outset." He continues, "The importance of scientific study on environmental question bears most directly on... bringing out the degree of risks and costs in both inaction and various forms of action". Therefore, it appears that the "pervasive" lesson is actually the value of mutually-identified diagnostic science. In response, I hold that such efforts are best undertaken preemptively.

Much more than semantics, pre-negotiation sets in motion a continuously temporary process of incremental regime formation. Indeed, a well-structured diagnostic stage can improve the possibility of successful conclusion of an environmental negotiation—adopting norms that solve problems. According to Zartman, the inchoate essence that mark the subject, the problem, and the solution "...all indicate an ad-hoc trial-and-error means of crafting a formula that is necessarily only temporary." Thus, another lesson relevant to diagnosis and subsequent negotiation can be drawn: "the temporary formula should be so constructed that it calls for its own improvement and moves the process along ... [so] that it ‘falls forward’ as a temporary solution that cannot last."

Because the factual uncertainties surrounding N sources and effects are so significant (particularly outside of Europe and North America), a greater emphasis will be placed on the scientific body vis-à-vis the policy dimension. Nevertheless, policymakers and nongovernmental interests (NGIs, a broad class which includes the entire range of nonprofit groups as well as business) have indispensable and innovative roles to play in holding the coalition together. Thus, having addressed a few initiative-wide issues on preemptive action and "fall forward" incrementalism, our next task is to analyze at length the GNI’s regional scientific advisory committees.

Due to its emphasis on regional transoundary pollutants, the GNI incorporates many aspects of a most successful pollution-oriented, international environmental treaty—ie, the Long Range Transoundary Air Pollution Convention which is more widely known as LRTAP. In order to "put meat on the bones" of the admittedly skeletal GNI, let us start with general observations that can be drawn from many environmental institutions. Then I will sketch the anatomy of one of the GNI’s regional scientific advisory bodies—ie, GENI or the Experts—by exploring how international environmental institutions, especially LRTAP, influences the Expert’s form and function.

While Zartman employed a diagnosis-formulation-implementation model of the negotiation process, Porter and Brown offer a more useful four-stage heuristic—issue identification, factfinding, bargaining on regime creation, and regime strengthening (1996). The stages are by and large sequential, although considerable overlap and feedback do occur. With respect to the GENI, the two initial stages are particularly relevant.

In addition to elevating (if not introducing) a concern to the world community, issue identification involves determining "the scope and magnitude of the environmental threat, its primary causes, and the type of international action required to address the issue." Moreover, the people who identify and publicize the issue often announce new scientific evidence or theories, as happened in the case of ozone depletion, acid rain, and climate change.

Factfinding involves the information gathering and data collection procedures from the scientific research that quantifies the scope, magnitude, causes, and remedies of environmental damage. Porter and Brown note that sometimes a mediating international organization "...has brought interested parties together in an attempt to establish a baseline of facts on which there is agreement." The role of UNEP in establishing and structuring the GNI becomes more and more apparent.

How are these two stages relevant to the Expert’s tasks? In order for the UNEP Steering Committee to select certain regions which contain particularly desirable characteristics (eg, significant use of fossil fuel or N fertilizer as well as tropical savannas which are known N sources), it must engage in issue identification and factfinding. First, the UNEP and the Experts would survey the "what is known" about N and its impacts as well as "what needs to be known" better. The temporary conclusion to this endeavor is to impart a vision of the goals and a short term plan in which the process falls forward, remembering all the while that creating the support of the sustainable development and the global change constituencies is essential to bringing and to holding the coalition together.

Second, the GENI would design and implement regional "flow-monitoring" programs which would track pertinent N-compound cycles, including identifying and quantifying transboundary N flows. As Professor Marc Levy observes about the LRTAP instance, a multilateral monitoring program referred to as EMEP proved unequivocally that SO2 could travel a 1,000 km or more and that five of the eleven participating European countries "received more pollution from abroad than from domestic sources." In part, some countries acquired the knowledge that acidification was harming state interests. EMEP—with its origins in a post-Stockholm OECD program (1973-1977, and subsequently in the Economic Commission for Europe)—has been instrumental to the LRTAP Convention and its protocol negotiations because it has helped resolve scientific disputes. According to Levy, "When LRTAP was created only two of its thirty members thought acid rain was a serious environmental problem. Now all do, and they are in the midst of an ambitious work plan to develop strict regulatory protocols."

Importantly, the scientific findings of LRTAP was unchallenged because: 1) the multilateral program was perceived as objective; and 2) the coordinated structure of the program’s design guaranteed that the results in each participating country could be compared to one another. Regarding this second point, Levy writes, "Coordination of national research programs can be considered the bedrock of all LRTAP’s activity... Without standardization of data collection, measurements, and analysis procedures, even those countries with an active interest in acidification would be unable to pool their results."

The message to the regional Experts is relatively straightforward. Impartial joint science is necessary to governments and regional sustainable development interests to trust the measurements of domestic and transboundary emissions and injury. It is also necessary for the global change community who need standardized information gathering and measurements for the data to be useful to its interests. Thus, the multiple GENI programs would have uniform standards on their "flow-monitoring" projects to ensure comparability—locally, regionally, and globally.

Third, GENI would assess impacts and uncertainties as well as integrative relationships. For example, to what degree is the N-fertilization (from fossil fuel combustion) that increases the carbon sequestration in temperate forests serving to counter the climate change effects of increased N2O concentrations (from agricultural N fertilizers)? While this particular relationship (most relevant to global change) is beyond the capacity of current computer modeling efforts, the LRTAP regime uses a simulation model (ie, RAINS developed by IIASA) to address a different integrative relationship. This model connects energy use, long-range pollution transport, environmental damage, and socio-economic factors to forecast the effects of potential regulatory responses to acid rain. Indeed, RAINS is one of the few models that covers "the pathway from economic and industrial factors affecting emissions to the ecological effects resulting from emissions." The regional Experts might do well to adapt RAINS to its specific regional conditions about acidification and to discuss other types of integrative modeling. Efforts from climate change modeling may also assist this endeavor.

Fourth, the Experts would prioritize risks. For instance, which of the following three empirically-verified concerns is the most severe: 1) the impact of N2O increases on climate change and ozone depletion; 2) the impact of N saturation on mineral leaching, tree growth, and carbon sequestration; or 3) the impact of coastal N eutrophication (ie, nuisance algal blooms) on marine productivity, marine mammals, and fisheries? Diplomacy is the order of the day because prioritizing involves value judgments to a greater degree than most of GENI’s other tasks, given that disagreement over criterion will probably emerge between and among the regional and the global constituencies.

Fifth, GENI would gather and disseminate data and research, serving as a clearinghouse that consolidates and advances the growing but disparate knowledge to date. Regional reports would be sent to the panel convening the global change interests.

Yet LRTAP offers another lesson in that its factfinding actually pre-dated issue identification. Acid rain became a political issue in 1967 and 1968 when Oden, a Swedish soil scientist, published two articles which called transboundary air pollution "chemical war". Oden’s work used data from the European Air Chemistry Network, a program which had its genesis in the mid-1940’s and became "the first large-scale and long-term data on the changing chemistry of precipitation and its importance or agriculture and forestry." Norway and Sweden became quite interested, because valuable fish stocks were threatened (Levy, 1993). Oden’s research sparked concern and debate, which led to the establishment of the LRTAP regime—EMEP, the Convention itself (1979), the Sulfur Protocol (1985), the Nitrogen Protocol (1988), and negotiations on new issue-areas as well as on strengthening existing ones continues in earnest.

The relevance of Oden’s work to the Experts is that a relatively long-range, long-term data set was necessary to get the ear of governments. It was more than 20 years before the research started the process which made regional ecological harm a transboundary political concern. It is true that an undertaking like the European Air Chemistry Network does not need the imprimatur of international institutions. Still, such a designation facilitates similar research projects by signaling that scientific peers deem it important and by helping attract financial support who view the designation as a legitimating mark for scientific undertaking.

Also noteworthy, LRTAP has evolved to address issues beyond acidification from SOx and NOx to include, among others, volatile organic compounds (so-called VOCs). Moreover, European researchers are growing increasingly concerned over an area directly relevant to the GNI—the "fertilization" effect from NOx emissions.

While the coordinating challenges of the Experts (individually and collectively) scientific projects seem daunting enough, the policy body—the World Nitrogen Commission (WNC) or the "Eminents"—faces even more complex endeavors.

Climate change research has produced much knowledge about how the carbon cycle works and how this "building block" of life regulates organisms and ecosystems. The unparalleled policy responses of climate change might be characterized as a "top-down" approach, in which governments in collaboration with scientists have been the primary engines. Yet three traits of climate change make its policy manifestations largely inappropriate models for the GNI. First, as already mentioned, climate change is focused around an single effect, dealing with all greenhouse gases. Second, because the residence times and spatial distributions of most greenhouse gases (especially the most significant one, CO2) are respectively so long and so vast, its scope is planetary. Third, the consensus among scientists appears that CO2 and climate change may cause irreversible or catastrophic damage.

In contrast, the current consensus among scientists appears that, while N-compounds do cause environmental deterioration, no single harm threatens irreversible or catastrophic damage. Moreover, the GNI seeks a regional multi-media approach around multiple "effects" (eg, climate change, habitat acidification, and low-level ozone) that actually encompass all three scopes (planetary, regional, and local). With such an ambitious task that lacks the "favorable" aspects of the climate change issue, how can the GNI ever expect to achieve any results?

An initial answer is to switch emphasis from a "top-down" model to a "bottom-up" approach in order to "meet in the middle". Indeed, the two unprecedented global change experiments (ie, involving the carbon and the N cycles), both demand unprecedented responses; yet their strategies must be quite different. To be sure, governments are and (for the indefinite future) will always be essential actors. They are the players in the international system with lasting authority and legitimacy.

Still, a representative panoply of nongovernmental interests needs to be part of the Initiative’s WNC. The WNC is loosely modeled on the format of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) and of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD). These groups assembled professionals and dignitaries from different geographical, ideological, and socio-economic backgrounds to gain consensus on problem definition and to elevate concern accordingly. Drawing on the portraits of the sustainable development and the global change communities (Section II), let us take a closer look at the WNC by detailing its purpose, composition, and function. Possessing a four-part purpose, the WNC aims for the following goals: 1) to develop a consensus on various N-related environmental problems; 2) to elevate a concern for these issues among interested stakeholders; 3) to search for solutions to these problems before a crisis (or, conceivably, a series of crises) surfaces; and 4) to the extent that a crisis arises, to serve as a forum for constructive dialogue.

To attain these goals, the Eminents has three guiding principles: 1) to expand the roles of NGIs; 2) to create options seeking mutual gains early and often; and 3) to build decentralized coalitions. Recent advancements in negotiating theory impart some good advice.

First, the Salzburg Initiative—a recommendation which emerged in 1991-92 from a multi-year initiative composed of pre-eminent scholars, policymakers, and representatives of NGIs affected by international environmental negotiations—articulated the need to include the expertise and opinions of NGIs. According to MIT Professor Lawrence Susskind and Initiative Co-chair, "NGIs broaden the range of views expressed during the analysis of scientific, technical, and legal evidence used to diagnose the seriousness of environmental threats. They broaden the scope of the peer-review process in making sense of conflicting scientific evidence."

For example, the MedPlan—as well as other Mediterranean regional regimes—lacks input and support from the popular constituencies which benefit from it. In fact, the decisionmakers that MAP has been designed to include have been the regional political and bureaucratic interests, who along with professional and technical elites have been generally the only participants (Chircop, 1992). The response for a more functional, effective regime is to include non-governmental constituencies not in the decisionmaking, per se, but rather in the diagnosis and policy-formulation stages. Chircop remarks: "It is sad, but true, that 16 years after its inception MAP remains largely unknown among the coastal Mediterranean peoples. There is a need for an additional approach that also targets the Mediterranean public and visitors to the region."

Second, the Eminent’s composition reflects the desire to build decentralized coalitions. As a result, the WNC would bring together major stakeholders which affect or are affected by N-induced environmental deterioration. The host of actors might potentially include representatives from five sectors: 1) from governments, 2) from nonprofit groups, 3) from business and industry, 4) from the scientific community, and 5) from pertinent intergovernmental organizations (IGOs).

Specifically, representative governments might include three pairs of interests: those from the North and the South; those that export or import fossil fuels and N fertilizers; and those that export or import pollution in the form of N2O and NOx. In addition, environmental and consumer groups from the non-profit sector include those interested in planetary issues (eg, global warming and ozone depletion), in regional issues (eg, acidification and eutrophication), and in locals issues (eg, local air and water quality). Moreover, participants from business might include those involved in energy, transportation, agriculture (small- and large-scale), fertilizer, and pollution control industries as well as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Furthermore, the scientific community might be represented by "the Experts", IIASA, and HDP. And from the IGOs, four areas need or should be considered for inclusion: 1) UNEP; 2) UN associations such as WMO and IBGP; 3) multilateral "independents" such as IPCC and WCFSD; and 4) MEA secretariats such as LRTAP, FCCC, MP, and CBD. Many of these veteran interests, especially LRTAP, may speed the learning curve as their institutional memories may help the GNI fall forward by identifying promising paths and, more importantly, by avoiding pitfalls. Finally, a UNEP-sponsored facilitator or convener might oversee a work program.

Third, attempting to serve the interests of the coalition’s members will necessitate creating options for mutual gain. Fisher et al. have performed a valuable service in identifying four major hurdles that limit the supply of options: 1) premature judgment; 2) searching for a single answer; 3) the assumption of a fixed pie; and 4) thinking that ‘solving their problem is their problem.’ More importantly, they offer practical ways to clear the hurdles. Three are particularly poignant with creating and keeping the wieldy coalition. Initially, there must be a clear separation between inventing options and judging them. Then a determined effort must reinforce the broadening of tabled options; there are multiple answers. Lastly, it is necessary to search for mutual gains. WNC members and facilitators would be versed in this protocol.

Before illustrating specific potential opportunities for cooperation, it becomes pertinent to explore the actors who will likely oppose the Initiative as well as to probe possible strategies for their defection. Although the N20-emissions and the NOx-emissions subgroups will probably encounter different levels of interest, apathy, and hostility, it is anticipated that numerous interests—both governmental and nongovernmental—will oppose both of the GNI generally and its subgroups particularly. For example, because fossil fuels mean jobs and lifestyle, we need a blunt appraisal of probable detractors.

First, many governments will be skeptical (if not hostile) to the GNI, especially given that most every national economy depends on the lifeblood of fossil fuels—ie, through importing, exporting, processing or consuming. Second, sensitivities will extend to industry and consumer interests who would prefer the status quo: incurring environmental costs, because they are neither as concentrated and nor as certain (particularly in their intermediate- and long-term consequences) as the immediate economic costs of internalizing the externalities—eg, through additional gasoline taxes or pollution control regulation. To a lesser degree in the case of N fertilizers, countries and companies who export or who import N fertilizers may respectively feel that their market access opportunities are being unnecessarily diminished (ie, the exporters) or that their food security prospects are being unwarrantingly jeopardized (ie, the importers).

To overcome this reluctance, the GNI needs to "divide and coalesce" in specific and general ways. Specifically, the GNI might seek the pollution control industries to help demonstrate that cleaner technologies are, if not strictly cost-effective, not even mildly ruinous to corporate revenues and profits. At the same time, alternative regulation is to institute so-called "green taxes". A variation of this increasingly popular approach (Barde and Owens, 1996) is to increase taxes on pollution and other "bads" while decreasing taxes on income and other "goods"; such a strategy offers the possibility of cleaning the environment while remaining "revenue neutral". Because green taxes directly respond to the concerns of governments and taxpayers, it may attract defectors from the likely formidable blocking coalition.

In general, the GNI’s "divide and coalesce" strategy separates the planetary and the regional sub-group as they address largely distinct constituencies. Around each subgroup the GNI needs to build a nexus of interest groups that coalesce around the scientific information and its cost-benefit distributions which have may threaten some groups or may offer opportunities for others. Regardless of the specific strategies of each subgroup, it is useful to both to acknowledge four common traits which may thwart blocking coalitions and may promote international cooperation.

First, UNEP can play an indispensable role in providing coordinating services, advisory consultation, scientific expertise, and political legitimacy (which helps attract financial support from governments and private donors).

Second, it is essential the U.S., if not actively engaged, becomes a passive supporter of the Initiative. Porter and Brown provide a concise overview of U.S. power in global environmental politics: "[T]he United States has greater diplomatic influence on other state actors and IOs than any other state. When the United States has taken the lead, as it did on the Montreal Protocol on ozone depletion, whaling, or the African elephant, the result has been a much stronger regime than would otherwise have been established. But when it has been a veto state, as in the sulfur dioxide protocol to the acid rain convention, the hazardous waste trade convention, and the climate convention, the result is a significantly weaker regime."

Third, the GNI must look to link non-environmental issues to form coalitions. The high politics of Cold War détente brought many East Bloc nations under the LRTAP governance; negotiators had linked acid rain to other foreign policy issues. According to Levy, "These countries were nor concerned about domestic damage, but reduced emissions in order to achieve other foreign policy goals." Moreover, Porter and Brown note three additional instances in which issue-linkages to non-environmental concerns played a primary role: "Japan’s concern with economic and diplomatic ties with other major trading nations and its international image helped tilt its stand on the [African elephant] ivory ban. French and British desires to maintain close relations with former colonies were a factor conditioning their views on the hazardous waste trade issue. The threat of trade sanctions constrained Japan and (until 1993) Norway from openly defying the ban on whaling."

Fourth, as touched on earlier, winners from the status quo may translate into losers. It is necessary to anticipate the probable losers who have a clear incentive to form a blocking coalition as well as to anticipate the likely winners who have reciprocal reasons to form a leading coalition. This analysis is especially poignant to business and industry for two reasons: 1) they often have considerable concentrated power; and 2) they need to come to realize that the emerging framework of sustainable development is less of threat than opportunity. Thus, remembering that sustainable economic growth views pollution as a development problem, the GNI must look to (and provide information to) the business community—those with a self-interest in promoting solutions. Alternatively stated, sustainable development itself is probably the most important issue-linkage of all.

Of course, these areas are interdependent. For example, regarding the negotiating history of stratospheric ozone depletion, the reason why the U.S. finally became a "leader" (as opposed to "laggard") probably had less to do with the 1985 Antarctic ozone hole "discovery" than the "conversion" of American CFC producers who began to realize that the costs of losing CFC markets would most likely be far outweighed by the benefits in developing and in supplying environmentally-friendlier substitutes. The GNI would do well to recognize how private domestic interests influence the negotiating positions of their respective governments. In this way the GNI may work with and demonstrate to governments and industry alike that finding solutions to environmental problems can have more winners than is typically presumed and can have losers who are not as devastated as is typically presumed as well. Indeed, sometimes myopia is the lens stigmatizing cost-benefit projections.

So what are possible opportunities for cooperation? The WNC would initially seek to discover shared interests within and among the sustainable development and the global change communities. Let us review the results from a study that measured N emissions from two commercial sugar cane plantations in Hawaii (Matson et al., 1996). One plantation used multiple "split" applications, containing increased amounts of N according to the needs of the growing crop; and the N fertilizer was dissolved in water and delivered under the soil’s surface. The second plantation applied N fertilizer onto the soil surface, fewer times but more intensively. N-use in the more knowledge-intensive system was 33 percent per crop less than that used in the fertilizer-intensive system; emissions of N2O and nitric oxide were 10-fold less in the latter vis-à-vis the former. The important points for cooperation are that the knowledge-intensive system achieved a higher yield with greater profitability, demonstrating that "applying more knowledge proved cheaper than applying more fertilizer" (Vitousek et al., 1997).

Who would want to know this information? A list that comes to mind includes: farmers who are wasting money; fertilizer producers who are concerned about future revenues; corporations developing irrigation-delivery and pollution-control technologies; local groups concerned about contaminated drinking and environmental damage from agricultural "run-off"; agricultural bureaucrats who may subsidize fertilizer sales; environmental bureaucrats; foreign affairs bureaucrats charged with climate change duties from the N2O emissions; numerous MEA Secretariats; and the host of scientists and policymakers involved with either in climate change, ozone depletion, N cycling, and other areas of global change issues. Importantly, the same information is valued by different groups because they can use it to further their own interests. That is, the sustainable development community gains from an environmentally-friendlier production with higher profitability, while its global change counterpart gains from the lower pollution rates of the harmful N compounds. The points are that groups value information differently and that the chances for cooperation improve when more benefits are available for distribution.

Obviously, the NOx subgroup faces a more difficult challenge in that the "fossil fuel combustion" issue is more contentious than the "N fertilizer-agricultural yield" issue. Thus, a need within and among the sustainable development and the global change communities becomes paramount: dovetailing interests and identifying issue-linkages. For instance, interests injured by regional acid rain (and eutrophication) or by local smog need to form a coalition with environment and health regulators as well as the pollution control and the "alternative" energy industries. This public-private partnership of the sustainable development community must work with opposed groups and implement defection strategies (eg, green taxes). At the same time, the interests of the global change community—IGOs such as the WCFSD, WMO and the World Health Organization and MEA Secretariats such as LRTAP, CBD and U.N. Regional Seas Programs, to name a few—may dovetail nicely as they need standardized information about NOx emissions and their effects on human health as well as terrestrial and marine ecosystems and their species. Lastly, what issue-linkages can be used to make valuable players who have little or no interest in N-related issues?

Before we conclude this section, let us explore ways to finance the GNI. Potential sources come from two classes—re-routing current funds and new money. Regarding the former, one estimate of the 1995 research budget for global change in the United States alone was almost $2 billion. This article has repeatedly demonstrated the link between N on the one hand and carbon, forest productivity, and climate change on the other hand. Thus, the question arises: Can the global change community receive greater benefits by re-directing funds from existing budgets toward the GNI?

Regarding the latter source of "new money," potential contributors include the government, non-profit groups, business, and consumers (whose activities are damaging the environment). As mentioned previously, green taxes offer a tremendous source of revenues. Section I demonstrated that N-fertilizer use and fossil fuel combustion are responsible most of the environmental harms. Given the market size of the related industries, an insignificant tax which internalized these externalities would raise appreciable funds.

Still, the GNI is all about forming new partnerships between the public and private sectors. Thus , we should not overlook the possibility that non-profit groups and corporations may be willing to support the endeavor. Obviously, business draws from a much larger pool. In specific, pollution-control industries such as engine-efficiency and irrigation-delivery might see an interest in a cleaner environment, and thus "invest" in the GNI. Their trade groups or the World Business Council on Sustainable Development might be approached as well. To be sure, corporate interests are necessarily centered around profits; and these interests cannot be seen as having "captured" the GNI. Nevertheless, within the sustainable development framework, the GNI seeks the active participation of business as it can become (and needs to become) a genuine partner in the economy-ecology policy nexus.

Although the GNI is obviously in the earliest stage of mere discussion, does it offer specific policy recommendations? Let us briefly examine a few of them. First, the "N2O emissions" subgroup might be best addressed as a protocol to the Vienna Ozone Convention or the FCCC. Each treaty has advantages. An advantage of the Vienna Convention is that the regime is already functioning, performing rather well its purpose of overseeing the monitoring and the phase-outs of many ozone-depleting chemicals. An advantage of the FCCC option is that the concern over N2O is more developed for its greenhouse warming potential than for its ozone-depleting capacity.

I think that the most effective N2O strategy is to pursue the ozone protocol option in that the FCCC’s plate is already filled with other GHGs and in that the FCCC negotiations have yet to complete a binding protocol. In short, the ozone protocol offers a much higher probability of more speedy improvements in environmental conditions. As a result, the more immediate benefits of reduced N2O emissions would have an obvious positive "spillover" for climate change.

Second, "NOx emissions" subgroup would select and prioritize the optimal mix of regional monitoring modeling projects, with special consideration given to two areas: 1) the relatively extensive research already undertaken with LRTAP and the U.S. Clean Air Act amendments; and 2) the need to research the tropics. Furthermore, if airsheds approximate the watersheds of the UN Regional Seas Programs, it is possible to append regional Experts Groups to those established institutional arrangements. Importantly, in order to foster the goal of including NGIs from the "planning-process forward", selection and prioritization processes would involve joint collaboration between the Experts and the Eminents.

Fourth, the GNI would have a Tech-Transfer Project that would help move knowledge and resources to developing nations with regard to both N fertilizer and NOx emissions, it is necessary to promote significant transfers of N-efficient technology to developing countries (Vitousek et al., 1997).

Fifth, if it becomes apparent that the GNI’s structure outlined in previous sections is unfeasible, an alternative "virtual" structure—the GNI’s cyber-version—is available. A brief outline is warranted.

A criticism leveled at the GNI can be summed up as follows: "Without a ‘smoking gun’ of irreparable damage, let’s not start another international environmental institution. There are already to many; and many of them are just a waste of resources, including time, money, and goodwill."

The virtual-GNI would start in three parts—a web site, an e-mail list server, and a GNI "chat room". First, the web site—eg, www.gni.org—would provide information about the organization: that is, its structure, function, goals (including mission statement) and strategy; the scientific concerns and findings; and the policy alternatives including technological innovations. It would also have a page of (hypertext) links which connect to web-sites related to the environment, sustainable development, and global change, especially those addressing nitrogen and other biogeochemical cycles. Second, an e-mail list server would keep the multi-stakeholder constituencies updated on recent findings and undertakings of both immediate and ancillary interest that might advance interdisciplinary thought and cooperation. Third, a chat room—or a series of chat rooms, if necessary—would be inaugurated and moderated to engage the multi-stakeholders in an ongoing conversation so that each interest group learns more about each other and thereby improving the probabilities of mutual-gain collaborations.

The virtual-GNI has advantages and disadvantages, which we review in reverse order. Disadvantages of the cyber-GNI include: 1) running a potential risk that this scaled-down approach hinders a larger-scale structure that might well be warranted already; and 2) the need to start relatively low on the learning curve. However, the advantages appear many. The most important is probably that the reduced financial requirements make the enterprise much more feasible. Another benefit is the structure’s non-geographical nature, which saves costs of time, travel and money. The virtual-GNI would be also a convenient and efficient forum to gather information about N-related science and policy as well as to discuss it among the sustainable development and global change communities and to disseminate it among these groups and to a wider audience. Finally, in addition to advancing an informal participatory network, the cyber-structure would promote fall-forward incrementalism in that it is malleable enough to grow if future research confirms that the risks and harms from N-related environmental problems are increasing. Indeed, scientific and policy agendas to build upon would already be in place as well as a chronicle of the issue’s history.

In closing, it is worthwhile to speculate how this "unprecedented experiment" in negotiation might serve as a template for modeling and policymaking other "grand" nutrient cycles, their inter-relationships and their environmental effects. For example, it has been repeatedly stressed how carbon and N interact, and how the two have implications for the FCCC, CBD, and WCFSD. Interestingly, the IPCC has developed a quite elaborate carbon cycling research program. Would the efforts of future climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies (including joint implementation projects) be facilitated by an informal multi-stake holder dialogue that parallels the Initiative’s WNC?

Moreover, the GNI template might also be relevant to the sulfur cycle. It is known that SOx and NOx cause acid rain and associated problems. It is also known that a first-order effect of certain sulfuric compounds is to counteract climate warming as they reflect solar radiation, thereby acting as a planetary coolant. Thus, a sulfur initiative, so to speak, might complement scientific policy to debate surrounding multiple MEAs as well. Relatedly, as the LRTAP experience demonstrates, the simultaneous monitoring and modeling of SOx and NOx can be done with minimal financial and institutional additions. In this way the regional N and sulfur Experts as well as their Eminents might couple with the IPCC and a world carbon commission to form an umbrella organization—the Intergovernmental Panel on Global Change and Sustainable Development.

Such a coupling of scientific and policy endeavors that involve the grand nutrient cycles and their inter-relationships promises to monitor and model the complexities of our increasingly dependent interdependent panel. In so doing, it should generate information so that the international community may proactively discuss the cross-media effects and rationally choose among policy options amidst a less-truncated cost benefit analysis. In turn, the existing diversity within and among members of the international order might join with these non-state actors to establish collaborative partnerships that address old problems in a new framework.

While the GNI—not to mention the entire series of holistic multi-media approaches to the biogeochemical cycles—is admittedly ambitious, it is far from necessary to establish the entire Initiative at once. This is especially so given the lack of experience with the holistic multimedia approach (particularly on such a large scale). Although LRTAP has moved us well along the learning curve, it is probably prudent to initiate a series of pilot projects—including a cyber-project, the "virtual" GNI.

Whether the full-fledged GNI or its virtual manifestation surface, it is expected that, as research provides information about the cost and benefits that business-as-usual continuously distributes, rational agents will seek to form coalitions to further their re-evaluated interests. It is also expected that the GNI will serve as a catalyst which promotes a dialogue among the winners and losers—a catalyst which leads to less finger-pointing and more problem-solving.

Lastly, the stages involved in constructing the GNI—like other instances of global environmental politic—cannot be rushed. Indeed, consensus-building involved with issue-identification, factfinding and bargaining over institutional formation takes considerable time. Yet, because the stages will greatly influence, if not ultimately determine, the GNI’s strength and effectiveness, prudence urges to begin at once, but modestly so. LRTAP illustrates this point well: "Transboundary air pollution, or acid rain, is an issue on which a veto coalition has been divided and weakened over time by defections, permitting a strengthening of a regime that was initially extraordinarily ineffective." In the same way, as science more clearly demonstrates environmental conditions and risks, the GNI’s institutional capacity can be built, if necessary, upon an already-hardening foundation.

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