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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 4, NUMBER 9, SEPTEMBER 1991

REPORTS...
OF GENERAL INTEREST

Item #d91sep42

Stratospheric Ozone 1991, UK Stratospheric Ozone Group, July 1991. HMSO (Her Majesty's Sta. Off.) Pub. Ctr., POB 276, London SW8 5DT, UK (tel: 01-873 9090); £4. (See News, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Sep. 1991.)

Item #d91sep43

Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming, Report of the Adaptation Panel, P.E. Waggoner, Chairman (Conn. Agric. Exper. Sta., New Haven, Conn.), approx. 148 pp., Aug. 1991. The second of three reports expanding upon the synthesis report, Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming, released April 1991 by the National Academy of Sciences (Global Climate Change Digest, News, May 1991). Unlike the previous report, which is available as a pre-publication manuscript (Global Climate Change Digest, Reports/Of General Interest, July 1991), this and the third panel report will be published only in a complete volume containing all four reports, next year.

The primary task of the 14-member panel was not to develop a research agenda, but to examine what would happen if climate changed and humanity and nature did not, and to find ways to temper any harm and to enhance any benefits of a new climate. At one end of the spectrum are human industrial and energy production activities that would be relatively unaffected by climate change. Most cities would adapt because moving a city would be the more expensive option. The composition of ecological communities would change; those that can move rapidly would be favored; some species may become extinct. Recommends improvements in information and analysis, in institutions, and in investments. Panel member Jane Lubchenco expressed concern about the report's complacent tone, and disagreed with the report's implicit message that "we can adapt with little or no problem," concluding that even the incomplete analysis of the Adaptation Panel supports the recommendations of the Synthesis Panel to adopt effective but inexpensive actions to slow the onset of greenhouse warming.

Item #d91sep44

Methane Emissions from Coal Mining--Issues and Opportunities for Reduction, 1991. Available (no charge) from Global Change Div., U.S. EPA, Washington DC 20460 (202-260-7750).

(See News, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Sep. 1991.) Between 33 and 64 million metric tons of the greenhouse gas methane were released to the atmosphere worldwide in 1987 from coal mining and processing; this amount is expected to increase. However, methane could be recovered and used as a fuel to offset CO₂ emissions.

Item #d91sep45

Healing the Environment. Part Two: A Look at Coalbed Methane as a Cost-Effective Means of Addressing Global Climate Change, R.N. Warner, 24 pp., July 1991. Ctr. Clean Air Policy, 444 N. Capitol St., S. 526, Washington DC 20001 (202-614-7709).

(See News, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Sep. 1991.) Under a CO₂ emissions trading program, coalbed methane could be economically recovered and used to offset CO₂ emissions from the utility sector. Several technologies are available to capture rather than vent this gas.

Item #d91sep46

Climate Change: The Consensus and the Debate, 48 pp., $5, May 1991. Contact Min. Environ. Pubs., POB 10-362, Wellington, N.Z. (tel: 04 437-090). Discusses the state of current knowledge, the main areas of uncertainty, what is being done to reduce scientific uncertainties, and New Zealand and international policy.

Item #d91sep47

Report of the Forest Commission and the Scottish Forestry Trust, D. Anderson (Oxford Univ.), June 1991. Available from Scot. For. Trust, 5 Dublin St. Ln. S., Edinburgh EH1 3PX, Scotland, UK.

Calls for carbon taxes ($3 per barrel of oil or $30 per metric ton of carbon) and credits to reduce CO₂ accumulations in the atmosphere. Such a tax would act as a conservation incentive, reduce demand for such fuels, and encourage development of noncarbon-emitting energy technologies.