The Climate Convention: A Perspective from the Environmental Lobby

1 Ted Hanisch, `The Rio Climate Convention: Real Solutions or Political Rhetoric?' Security Dialogue, vol.23, no.4, pp. 63-73.

2 J. T. Houghton, G. J. Jenkins and J.J. Ephrams eds, Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

3 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group 1.1992 IPCC Supplement. Scientific Assessment of Climate Change. Final report, Guangzhou, China, January 1992. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, First Scientific Assessment Report, WMO-UNEP, 1990.

4 Scientists Declaration, Second World Climate Conference, November 1990, Geneva. This strongly-worded document, drawn up by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme based on the deliberations of more than 700 of the world's cimate scientists, urged cuts in CO₂, and stressed the technical potential for achieving such cuts cost-effectively.

5 Climate sensitivity is the amount temperature would rise, at equilibrium, as a result of doubling CO₂ in theatmosphere.

6 D. Chandler, `Fear expressed of runaway greenhouse effect.' Boston Globe, 10 February 1992. See full accounting in J. K. Leggett, `Running down to Rio,' New Scientist, 2 May 1992, pp. 38-42.

7 Stockholm Environment Institute, `Responding to Climate Change: Tools for Policy Development', October 1990. Carbondioxide equivalent is the heat-trapping capability of the sum of greenhouse gases, expressed in terms of the amount of CO₂ (in parts per million, or ppm) that would have the same effect. The low climate sensitivity cited here is 2°C, the high climate sensitivity is 4°C.

8 The contribution of CFCs in the decade of the 1980s was thought at the time of the 1990 IPCC science assessment to have been some 24%. By the time of the 1992 IPCC report, scientists had realized that CFCs were depleting ozone (another greenhouse gas) so fast that their net contribution was much less than 24%. Additionally, sulphate-aerosols - largely derived from coal-burning - had been shown to be reflecting more solar radiation than was the case in 1990.

9 See for example, B. Huntley in J.K. Leggett, ed., Global Warming: the Greenpeace Report, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

10 The IPCC calculated in its 1990 report that the production and consumption of fossil fuels contributed almost 60% to the human-enhanced greenhouse effect. This makes the relative share of fossil fuels (via the direct production of CO₂ [mainly] and methane, and the indirect production of ozone) much higher than 60%.