Showing papers by "Bert Bolin published in 2007"

A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Abstract: Foreword Abbreviations Part I. The Early History of the Climate Change Issue: 1. Nineteenth century discoveries 2. The natural carbon cycle and life on earth 3. Global research initiatives in meteorology and climatology 4. Early international assessments of climate change Part II. The Climate Change Issue Becomes One of Global Concern: 5. Setting the stage 6. The scientific basis for a climate convention 7. Serving the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee 8. The IPCC second assessment report 9. In the aftermath of the IPCC second assessment 10. The Kyoto Protocol is agreed and a third assessment begun 11. A decade of hesitance and slow progress Part III. Are We at a Turning Point in Addressing Climate Change?: 12. Key scientific findings of prime political relevance 13. Climate change and a future sustainable global energy supply Some concluding remarks Notes References Name index Subject index.

A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The IPCC second assessment report

Abstract: The polarisation of the views on the reliability and adequacy of the scientific and technical knowledge base increase. First party conference of the FCCC It is important first of all to make clear that the Climate Convention that came into force in 1994 is a framework convention that primarily specifies the procedures to follow and agreements on the general structure of the intergovernmental arrangements required in order to deal with the climate change issue. It does not specify any quantitative and binding commitments for the parties, but regulates the important matter of establishing a reporting system between countries and the Convention secretariat. Two prime tasks for the first conference of the parties in Berlin in March–April 1995 were accordingly to elect chairpersons and members of committees to be set up, and to formulate the goals for the negotiations between countries during the next few years, i.e. the ‘Berlin mandate’. As chairman of the IPCC I was also anxious to get a clear idea about the forthcoming interplay between the IPCC and the SBSTA which was to be formed by the Convention. The upcoming first conference of the parties stimulated discussion in wider circles of the assessments carried out so far by the IPCC, and the process for the assessment that IPCC had developed. There would obviously be more publicity about the climate change issue and also the IPCC during coming months. I was going to give a presentation at the UN at the beginning of February and it was decided that I would then spend a few days in Washington DC, and thereby become more acquainted with representatives of the US press.

A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: Nineteenth-century discoveries

Abstract: Variations of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide may well change the global climate. The nineteenth century saw a remarkable development of our knowledge about past climatic variation. The French natural philosopher Joseph Fourier (1824) put forward the idea that the climate on earth was determined by the heat balance between incoming solar radiation (‘light heat’) and outgoing radiation (‘dark heat’) and this idea was further pursued by Claude Pouillet (1837). They both realised that the atmosphere might serve as an absorbing layer for the outgoing radiation to space and that the temperature at the earth's surface might therefore be significantly higher than would otherwise be the case. At about the same time the Swiss ‘naturalist’, Louis Agassiz (1840) suggested that features in the countryside, such as misplaced boulders, grooved and polished rocks, etc., were indications of glacial movements and that major parts of central Europe, perhaps even northerly latitudes in general, had been glaciated. This revolutionary idea was, of course, not readily accepted by his colleagues, but it stimulated others to search for further evidence. Agassiz's idea found acceptance during the following decades, not least because of his studies in the Great Lakes area in the USA. The idea that the atmosphere plays an important role in determining the prevailing climate of the earth was further developed in England by John Tyndall (1865). He actually measured the heat absorption of gases, including carbon dioxide and water vapour, and emphasised their importance for the maintenance of the prevailing climate on earth.