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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 3, NUMBER 4, APRIL 1990

NEWS...
IPCC MEETS

Item #d90apr115

The third plenary meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was held February 5-7, 1990, in Washington, D.C. Mostafa Tolba, head of the U.N. Environment Program, presented a plan for negotiating a climate change treaty, to begin after the IPCC final report is completed in August and prior to the Second World Climate Conference (Oct. 29-Nov. 7, Geneva). Representatives of ten European countries, led by Austria, introduced a proposal for faster progress on a global convention, which was resisted by the major industrialized nations including the United States, Japan and the Soviet Union.

In a separate initiative, nongovernmental representatives of 12 countries convened prior to the IPCC meeting under the auspices of the Climate Institute and developed a 40-page draft framework convention on climate change. Patterned after the Vienna Convention on Protection of the Ozone Layer, the document also includes annexes on research and monitoring, information exchange, agriculture, and economic assistance to developing nations. It encourages the emissions trading approach recently advocated by the United States to control greenhouse gas emissions (see Global Climate Change Digest, NEWS, Mar. 1990), and includes protocols on the effects of sea level rise on coastal communities, resolution of disputes over water resources, and forest conservation. Copies of the plan, discussed in Greenhouse Effect Rep. (p. 18, Mar. 1990), are available from the Climate Institute, 316 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, S. 403, Washington DC 20003 (202-547-0104).

IPCC members have stated that it is important that the panel maintains its original role of assembling policy options, rather than promoting any specific approach. See also: "Preparations for Global Climate Change Pact Could Begin in Fall under IPCC Meeting Plan," Intl. Environ. Rptr., pp. 41-42, Feb. 1990; "UN Fragments over Treaty," Nature, p. 581, Feb. 15; Global Environ. Change Rep., pp. 1-3, Feb. 9; "European Nations Want Action Now on Global Warming," H. Gavaghan, New Scientist, p. 20, Feb. 17.