Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the scientific community, Bolin and his WMO and UNEP colleagues meant
for the IPCC to serve as a politically negotiated scientific baseline for bind-
ing international laws and policies. Both scientists and politicians already
recognized that any serious effort to mitigate CO
2
and other greenhouse
gases would involve major changes in national-level energy strategies and
land-use policies— two sectors fundamental to economic growth in devel-
oping and industrial nations alike. But they also realized that the ability of
any international legal framework to address climate change would depend
largely on the level of certainty and concern expressed in the IPCC assess-
ment. Consequently, debate over the language and details of the IPCC's
first assessment report almost immediately became the front line of a larger
battle over a future international legal regime— the UNFCCC— that many
believed could have a significant impact on national economies and on the
world economy as a whole.
For the U.S. and foreign governments alike, climate science was a sur-
rogate for climate politics at nearly every level of discussion during the first
IPCC meetings, beginning with the leadership and structure of the body
itself. UNEP and the WMO allocated leadership of the working groups
largely according to the political importance of the nations represented.
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John Houghton of the United Kingdom headed Working Group 1 on basic
science; the Soviet Union's Yuri Izrael took over Working Group 2 on
impacts; and a U.S. State Department official, Fred Bernthal, served as the
chief of the politically sensitive Working Group 3 on potential responses.
Each chairperson worked with co- and vice-chairpersons from other nations
so that each working group represented a constellation of different and often
competing economic and political interests. Bernthal, for example, worked
on policy responses with representatives from China, Canada, Malta, the
Netherlands, and Zimbabwe; Houghton worked with representatives from
Senegal and Brazil.
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From 1988 to 1990, every step of the assessment pro-
cess, from decisions about what questions to address and what scientists to
consult, to discussions about what verbiage to use in presenting findings,
reflected ongoing negotiations between the working-group chairs, cochairs,
and vice-chairs. The IPCC quickly began to reflect both the beauty and ter-
ror that so often characterize international political negotiations.
Governments were not the only interested parties in the IPCC pro-
cess. Once in session, working-group meetings also included scientific
“observers” representing NGOs and industry. For environmentalists, the
