Evaluating Climate Chanage Action Plans: National Actions for International Commitment(53 Environmental Science Research)

The atmospheric scientists of the world are in general agreement that the threat of climate change is real, inevitable, and serious. The accumulation of greenhouse gases, principally CO from burning fossil fuels, is the main cause. 2 At the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, 166 nations signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change and agreed to draw up plans to contain greenhouse gases at 1990 levels. Never in world history had so many nations agreed on anything. . Developing these plans has not been easy and no two countries have had the same circumstances and conditions to meet. Countries have not approached their problems in the same manner and many nations find the task almost impossible to solve under the ground rules set up in Rio. This volume contains the papers presented at a meeting organized by the Center for Environmental Information and held in Washington, D.C., November 30 to December 2, 1994. The principal aim of the meeting was to evaluate the U.S. and other national climate action plans which had been released a few weeks before. Specifically, these papers concentrate on an overview of the U.S. plan; the perspec­ tives of business, industry, electric utilities, and environmental organizations; mitigation actions in various plans; integrated assessment; an overview of plans from various nations; and the need to amend the convention. The meeting was sponsored and cosponsored by 35 governmental agencies, environ­ mental groups, industrial organizations, and educational institutions.

Table of Contents:
1. The International Negotiating Committee Process.- 2. The United States Perspective.- 3. Session I Discussion with Oscar Avalle and Daniel Reifsnyder.- 4. Scientific Status Report.- 5. Discussion with Robert Watson.- 6. The United States Action Plan: An Overview.- 7. Luncheon Discussion with Karl Hausker.- 8. Perspectives on the U.S. Climate Action Plan: The State Perspective.- 9. The Environmental Perspective.- 10. Industry/Business Perspectives.- 11. Business/Industry Perspectives.- 12. Session II Discussion with Robert Beck, John Hemphill, Daniel Lashof, and David Rinebolt.- 13. Critique of Session II.- 14. Critique of Session II.- 15. Discussion with Elizabeth Cook and David Montgomery.- 16. Electric Power Supply Alternatives: CO2 Mitigations.- 17. Session III Discussion with Charles Siebenthal.- 18. Industrial Demand: The Climate Wise Program.- 19. Electric Utilities: The Climate Challenge Plan.- 20. Discussion with Dirk Forrister and Pamela Herman.- 21. Transportation.- 22. Discussion with Wesley Warren.- 23. EPA’s Programs for Cost-Effectively Reducing Methane Emissions and Emissions of Other Greenhouse Gases.- 24. Funding the U.S. Climate Action Plan.- 25. Luncheon Discussion with T. J. Glauthier.- 26. Canada’s National Action Plan.- 27. Climate Protection in Germany.- 28. Session IV Discussion with Richard Findlay and Wolfram Schoett.- 29. Japan’s Action Report on Climate Change.- 30. The National Action Plan for the United Kingdom.- 31. The Development of an Asia Pacific Regional Response to Climate Change.- 32. Discussion with Richard Findlay, Mark Hammond, Satoshi Tanaka, Wolfram Schoett, and John Topping.- 33. Critique of Session IV.- 34. Discussion with Mark Hammond, Jennifer Morgan, Wolfram Schoett, and John Topping.- 35. After the Year 2000.- 36.Session V Discussion with Carol Werner.- 37. Integrated Assessment: A Tool for Policy Making.- 38. Innovative Responses.- 39. Discussion with Irving Mintzer.- 40. Setting Goals under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.- 41. Discussion with Jonathan Pershing and Elizabeth Thorndike.- 42. Closing Remarks.- 43. Discussion with M. Granger Morgan, William Nitze, and Jonathan Pershing.- 44. Program of the Tenth Annual Conference of the Center for Environmental Information, Inc..- Participants.