A Proposed Structure for an International Convention on Climate Change

Abstract

Formal negotiations toward an international convention on climate change will begin shortly after completion of the interim report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); presentation of the report to the Second World Climate Conference will be this fall. In a 25 May speech responding to greenhouse warming predictions made by the IPCC science working group, Margaret Thatcher said that Britain would reduce the proposed growth of its CO{sub 2} emissions enough to stabilize them at 1990 levels by 2005 if other countries did their part. Yet the United States, Japan, and other countries that emit substantial quantities of greenhouse gases continue to resist potentially expensive emission-reduction targets or control measures, citing continuing uncertainties about the extent, timing, and distribution of future climate change and its economic consequences. Similarly, developing countries are unlikely to agree to emissions targets or control measures that they perceive as impeding their economic development and will almost certainly condition their participation on a commitment by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries to provide additional development assistance. A central task for a climate convention will be to provide the international community with a permanent mechanism for coordinating its efforts to deal withmore » climate change.« less