Climate change: beyond the atmospheric phenomenon

The plenary session of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is to be held in Geneva during 17?20 April 2002. The IPCC is a body set up in 1988 through the initiative of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme essentially to provide scientific assessments of all aspects of climate change which is threatening the globe. One of the items in the agenda of the forthcoming session in Geneva is the election of the new Bureau of this body, which has a total of 30 members, including the Chairman of the Panel. The current Chairman, Dr Robert Watson, is seeking a second term and is being challenged by the nominee of the Government of India, who happens to be the undersigned. This election has taken a curious turn with the US Administration not nominating a US citizen, Watson himself, and instead expressing support for the Indian candidate. The outcome will be known within a week, but whoever is the new Chairman will have to emphasize much greater attention to the impacts of climate change, particularly on a regional basis, and the economics of the mitigation options as well as adaptation to climate change impacts. The IPCC is required to carry out policy-relevant, but not policy-prescriptive, work, and hence if its work is to have a value to policy-makers, then it has to get beyond the atmospheric phenomenon of climate change, into the realm of economics and technology.