2 Formation of the IPCC
What was new about the problem of ‘global warming’ (as the climate change due
to the increase of gases began to be called) was that it is an example of global
pollution or pollution on the global scale, i.e. pollution emitted by one person
locally that has global effects. This can be compared with pollution due to human
activities on a local scale, of air, water or land that has been around for a very long
time. The other example of global pollution which was recognized about the same
time is the damage to the ozone layer in the stratosphere that results from the
release of small quantities of chemicals containing chlorine (e.g. the chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs).
The existence of global pollution requires global solutions, i.e. solutions that
are organized on a global scale. In the late 1980s, therefore, as political concern
began to be expressed about the possibility of deleterious climate change, the
organization of that concern was international, as indeed had been the work of
the scientists on which the political concern was based. In June of 1988 an
international conference was staged in Toronto which for the first time pressed
for specific international action to mitigate climate change. It was in that year too
that world leaders began to speak out about it; for instance, Mrs Thatcher
expressed her concern in a speech to the Royal Society of London that was widely
publicized.
It was therefore timely that in 1988 a new international scientific body to
address the issue, the IPCC, was set up jointly by the World Meteorological
Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP). Bert Bolin from Sweden, a scientist with a distinguished record of
contributions to the science of climate, agreed to chair the IPCC. Three Working
Groups were established, WGI to address the science of anthropogenic climate
change, WGII to address the impacts and WGIII to address the policy options. I
was appointed chairman of WGI and I will illustrate from my experience of that
Working Group the work of the IPCC and how, through the IPCC, scientists
have been able to assist in the determination of policy.
The establishment of the IPCC followed closely that of the Montreal Protocol
which had been set up in the previous year, 1987, by UNEP and WMO to address
the problem of the depletion of stratospheric ozone by CFCs and related
chlorine-containing chemicals. This problem addressed by the Montreal Protocol
was a more limited one than that of global climate change, especially in the range
and size of the human activities that contribute to it. However, through the
negotiation of the Protocol with its arrangements for inputs from scientists and
other experts, methods had begun to be developed in the international arena
through which problems of global pollution could be addressed. It was therefore
appropriate that the IPCC should build on this experience. The development
within the IPCC of ways to involve large numbers of scientists and of formal
procedures for peer review in turn influenced the on-going work of the
Assessment Panels of the Montreal Protocol.
J. Houghton
2
What was new about the problem of ‘global warming’ (as the climate change due
to the increase of gases began to be called) was that it is an example of global
pollution or pollution on the global scale, i.e. pollution emitted by one person
locally that has global effects. This can be compared with pollution due to human
activities on a local scale, of air, water or land that has been around for a very long
time. The other example of global pollution which was recognized about the same
time is the damage to the ozone layer in the stratosphere that results from the
release of small quantities of chemicals containing chlorine (e.g. the chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs).
The existence of global pollution requires global solutions, i.e. solutions that
are organized on a global scale. In the late 1980s, therefore, as political concern
began to be expressed about the possibility of deleterious climate change, the
organization of that concern was international, as indeed had been the work of
the scientists on which the political concern was based. In June of 1988 an
international conference was staged in Toronto which for the first time pressed
for specific international action to mitigate climate change. It was in that year too
that world leaders began to speak out about it; for instance, Mrs Thatcher
expressed her concern in a speech to the Royal Society of London that was widely
publicized.
It was therefore timely that in 1988 a new international scientific body to
address the issue, the IPCC, was set up jointly by the World Meteorological
Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP). Bert Bolin from Sweden, a scientist with a distinguished record of
contributions to the science of climate, agreed to chair the IPCC. Three Working
Groups were established, WGI to address the science of anthropogenic climate
change, WGII to address the impacts and WGIII to address the policy options. I
was appointed chairman of WGI and I will illustrate from my experience of that
Working Group the work of the IPCC and how, through the IPCC, scientists
have been able to assist in the determination of policy.
The establishment of the IPCC followed closely that of the Montreal Protocol
which had been set up in the previous year, 1987, by UNEP and WMO to address
the problem of the depletion of stratospheric ozone by CFCs and related
chlorine-containing chemicals. This problem addressed by the Montreal Protocol
was a more limited one than that of global climate change, especially in the range
and size of the human activities that contribute to it. However, through the
negotiation of the Protocol with its arrangements for inputs from scientists and
other experts, methods had begun to be developed in the international arena
through which problems of global pollution could be addressed. It was therefore
appropriate that the IPCC should build on this experience. The development
within the IPCC of ways to involve large numbers of scientists and of formal
procedures for peer review in turn influenced the on-going work of the
Assessment Panels of the Montreal Protocol.
J. Houghton
2