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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 8, AUGUST 1990

REPORTS...
FROM WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE

Institute headquarters is at 1709 New York Ave. NW, Washington DC 20006. Order reports from WRI Publications, POB 4852, Hampden Sta., Baltimore MD 21211.

Item #d90aug38

World Resources 1990-91, 384 pp., June 1990, $17.50 + $3 handling.

This fourth edition has a special focus on global climate change, including a new greenhouse index tabulating contributions to global warming by individual countries. Brazil, China and India now lead the United States and the Soviet Union in greenhouse gas emissions. India's methane emissions (from rice paddies and livestock) are second only to those of the United States. Deforestation in 1987 occurred at a rate eight times that calculated by the United Nations in 1980, although estimates are difficult. Other statistics cover such topics as energy, global systems and climate, population and health.

Item #d90aug39

Taking Stock: The Tropical Forestry Action Plan after Five Years, R. Winterbottom, July 1990, $10 + $3 handling.

Started five years ago by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, the UN Development Program and World Resources Institute, the TFAP underestimated the need for new institutional mechanisms. Eagerness to invest in the forestry sector has overshadowed the original goal of arresting deforestation, and the plan must be significantly reworked. Recommends the convening of an international forum outside the current TFAP structure to achieve this, and other steps to strengthen the program.

Item #d90aug40

Lessons Learned in Global Environmental Governance, P.H. Sand, July 1990, $10 + $3 handling.

Discusses how environmental issues such as ozone depletion, global warming and deforestation can be resolved by upgrading and fine-tuning the mechanisms already used in more than 100 environmental treaties, and by drawing on the experience of existing global and regional environmental institutions. Suggests methods for overcoming two fundamental drawbacks in any international treaty process: only minimum standards tend to be adopted because all parties must be pleased; the time lag is lengthy for drafting and adopting standards and bringing them into force.