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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 2, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 1989

NEWS...
IPCC MEETS IN GENEVA

Item #d89jan2

Delegates from over 35 countries assembled in Geneva November 9-11, 1988, for the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Proposed by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program, the IPCC will address climate change, its environmental, economic and social impacts, and possible national and international responses. Recommendations will be made to the WMO and UNEP for consideration by member nations. Moustafa Tolba, executive director of UNEP, hopes the work will result in a global treaty as early as 1992.

Alan D. Hecht, director of the U.S. National Climate Program Office and a delegate to the meeting, reported all countries that made statements were in strong support. Working groups were established on scientific understanding, potential impacts on the environment and society, and strategies for response, to be headed respectively by the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States. They will attempt to conclude their work in time for the Second World Climate Conference, planned for Geneva in 1990. The science group will meet in London January 24-26, 1989, headed by John Houghton of the U.K. Meteorological Office, and the impacts group in Moscow January 30 - February 2. The lead U.S. agency for the response strategy working group, meeting January 30 - February 1 in Washington, is still being determined. Financial support for the IPCC will be provided initially by members through a trust fund; working groups will be funded by the countries involved.

For more details see Intl. Environ. Rptr., p. 644, Dec. 14, 1988; New Scientist, p. 25, Nov. 19 (on Britain's role in the meteorological study). Or contact the National Climate Program Office, 11400 Rockville Pike, Rockville MD 20852 (301-443-8646).