The Rio Climate Convention:

1 Gro Harlem Brundtland et al., Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

2 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an expert panel established by WMO and UNEP headed by Professor Bert Bolin. The panel was able to agree on rather complicated issues in its first report: J. T. Houghton, G.J. Jenkins and J.J. Ephramus, eds, Climate Change, The IPCC Scientific Assessment, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990). The findings were confirmed in J. T. Houghton, B.A. Callander and S. K. Varney eds, Climate Change 1992, The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992).

3 Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change, headed by Jean Ripert of France.

4 David Pearce, `Internalising Long Term Environmental Costs' p. 21, in Ted Hanisch, ed., A Comprehensive Approach to Climate Change (Oslo: CICERO 1991).

5 When no other source is specified, citations are from the Rio Convention on Climate Change, Doc A/AC.237/18, Part II, Add I from the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change. Note that stabilization of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere is a dramatically more demanding objective than stabilizing current emissions. If current emissions of CO₂ had been stabilised by 1990, the atmospheric concentration would still be 50% higher by 2100 than today. Even if all anthropogenic emissions of CO₂ had halted by now, half of the increase in atmospheric concentration since pre-industrial times would still remain by the year 2100 (Houghton et al, Climate Change...)

6 Note that `developed countries' include OECD and former COMECON members. This means that no Asian country with the exception of Japan and no Middle East country is included.

7 For a closer description of this mechanism, see T. Hanisch, R. K. Pachauri, D. Scmitt and P. Vellinga: `The Climate Convention: Criteria and Guidelines for Joint Implementation', CICERO Policy Note 1992:2, (Oslo: University of Oslo, 1992)

8 William Cline, presents an overview of these studies in The Economics of Global Warming, (Washington: Institute of International Economics, 1992) He concludes that cost may be zero for a 20% reduction in emissions if implemented over three decades. However, if one introduces reductions in emissions in the shorter run, say in the course of a decade, the costs are likely to increase.

9 DRI/McGraw-Hill, Economic Effects of Using Carbon Taxes to Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Major OECD Countries (Washington DC: McGraw-Hill 1992).

10 The study by McGraw-Hill was certainly not designed to underestimate the possible burden on the US economy, so one would expect the difference betwen US and Japan to be at least as great.