Last Updated:
February 28, 2007

GCRIO Program Overview

Library 
Our extensive collection of documents.

Privacy Policy

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

FROM VOLUME 5, NUMBER 7, JULY 1992

REPORTS...
GENERAL INTEREST AND POLICY

Item #d92jul70

1992 Supplement: Scientific Assessment of Climate Change (summary), IPCC Working Group I, 24 pp., Feb. 1992, no charge. Request from Shelagh Varney, Meteor. Off., Hadley Ctr., London Rd., Bracknell RG12 2SY, UK (tel: +44-344-856888; fax: +44-344-856912).

This is a typeset, more finished version of the text previously listed (in Reports, May 1992) as available from the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva. Also published in a 200-page edition including supporting scientific material. (See Books, this issue--July 1992.)

Item #d92jul71

Global Warming: The Benefits of Emission Abatement, Org. for Econ. Coop. & Devel. (OECD), 70 pp., 1992, $15/F60. OECD Pubs., 2001 L St. NW, S-700, Washington DC 20036 (202-785-6323); or OECD, 2, rue André-Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France (tel: 33-1 45-24-82-00); or other OECD outlets.

Develops a conceptual framework for analyzing benefits, emphasizing how global warming will affect each country differently and how its potential impacts on society are difficult to capture using traditional economic measures. Environmental factors such as species diversity, human amenity and morbidity are especially important, as are the timing of impacts, levels of response and questions of equity. Makes new estimates of prospective damages (primarily for the U.S.) based on a survey of existing literature, finding they are probably greater than those suggested by previous studies, especially considered over the long term. To provide more reliable cost-benefit analyses, research emphasis should shift from costs of policy action to their benefits.

Item #d92jul72

Cool Tools: State and Local Policy Options to Confront a Changing Climate, P. Wexler, Ed., 96 pp., Mar. 1992. Univ. Maryland Ctr. for Global Change, Exec. Bldg., S. 401, 7100 Baltimore Ave., College Pk. MD 20740 (301-403-4165).

Presents some results from a database being assembled by the Center, summarizing or describing policy initiatives--enacted, defeated and considered--arranged by areas of activity relevant to emissions abatement (state energy offices, state procurement, utility regulation, transportation, land use planning, energy taxes). Proposals are selected to demonstrate the range of innovation offered, rather than the most recent or successful.

Item #d92jul73

Preparing U.S. Agriculture for Global Climate Change, Council for Agric. Sci. & Technol. (CAST), June 1992. Full report $15; 8-page summary $3 from CAST, 137 Lynn Ave., Ames IA 50010 (515-292-2125).

An 11-member panel studied how U.S. farming and forestry could prepare within a few decades to sustain more production while emitting less, and storing more, greenhouse gases. The history of technological change in U.S. agriculture shows that it has great capacity to adjust to climate change if agricultural research and the adoption of new technology are encouraged. Water availability, which will decline regardless of whether climate changes, will play a key role. The greatest opportunity for U.S. agriculture to help mitigate climate change lies in storing carbon in soil and trees and displacing fossil fuel with biomass sources of energy.

Item #d92jul74

Global Warming Research: Learning from NAPAP's Mistakes, E.S. Rubin, 26-page booklet, July 1992, no charge. Ctr. Study Amer. Business, Campus Box 1208, Washington Univ., St. Louis MI 63130 (314-935-5630).

As was the case with the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, currently planned U.S. global change research will do little to answer the questions most important to policy makers in the coming decade, such as the potential ecological, economic or human health impacts, and the economic consequences of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions. A program of integrated assessments by multidisciplinary teams could help this problem.

Item #d92jul75

Growing Trees: A Least-Cost Approach to Cool Global Warming, 30-page exec. summary, July 1992, no charge. Ctr. for Clean Air Policy, 444 N. Capitol St., S. 602, Washington DC 20001 (202-624-7709).

Gives results (which have broad applicability) of a year-long study on the use of trees and other options to offset CO₂ emissions at an electric utility plant in Ohio. Emissions can be offset 20% with increased cost to consumers of only 2%, using trees and coalbed methane recovery. Global warming policies should ensure that utilities have flexibility in molding compliance strategies.

Item #d92jul76

Human & Ecosystem Health: Canadian Perspectives, Canadian Action, 1992, Can$10. Can. Public Health Assoc. (CPHA), 400-1565 Carling Ave., Ottawa, Ont. K1Z 8R1, Can. (613-725-3769).

An overview of issues related to sustainable development and improved health by an ad hoc task force of CPHA, which includes specific recommendations on climate change, resource depletion and ecosystem contamination.

Item #d92jul77

Global Pollution from Jet Aircraft Could Increase in the Future (GAO/RCED-92-72), 28 pp., Jan. 1992, single copies free. U.S. General Accounting Office, POB 6015, Gaithersburg MD 20877 (202-275-6241).

Evaluates present and future contributions to ground-level and global pollution by jet aircraft, and the roles of various federal agencies in controlling those emissions. Nitrogen oxides could have a significant impact on stratospheric ozone depletion in the future, if the number of aircraft increases as expected in the absence of compensating technological developments.