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30 - Article 2 and long-term climate stabilization: methods and models for decisionmaking under uncertainty

from Part IV - Policy design and decisionmaking under uncertainty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2010

By
Ferenc L. Toth
Edited by
Michael E. Schlesinger ,
Haroon S. Kheshgi ,
Joel Smith ,
Francisco C. de la Chesnaye ,
John M. Reilly ,
Tom Wilson  and
Charles Kolstad
Ferenc L. Toth
Affiliation:
International Atomic Energy Agency Vienna, Austria
Michael E. Schlesinger
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Haroon S. Kheshgi
Affiliation:
ExxonMobil Research and Engineering
Joel Smith
Affiliation:
Stratus Consulting Ltd, Boulder
Francisco C. de la Chesnaye
Affiliation:
US Environmental Protection Agency
John M. Reilly
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tom Wilson
Affiliation:
Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto
Charles Kolstad
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Summary

Introduction

The policy-oriented framing of the question about how much anthropogenic climate change the Earth's societies and ecosystems could endure is at least 20 years old. International conferences in Villach (Austria) in 1985 and 1987, and especially the one in Bellagio (Italy) in 1987, involved both scientists and policymakers in contemplating climate change and proposed that long-term environmental targets, such as the rates of global mean temperature increase or sea-level rise, should be used in policymaking (WCP, 1988). Referring to observed historical values, it was recommended to keep the rate of temperature increase below 0.1 °C per decade, based primarily on the estimated rate of ecological adaptation. This seemingly arbitrary proposition is rather specific compared with the riddle implied in the formulation of Article 2 about the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Article 2 of the UNFCCC frames the requirement for long-term climate policy in terms of an environmental objective “to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” This calls for “inverse approaches” that provide information about possible emission strategies with respect to externally specified environmental targets. Early attempts by Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1994a) and by Wigley et al. (1996) depict emission paths with respect to given CO2concentration targets.

Type
Chapter
Information
Human-Induced Climate Change
An Interdisciplinary Assessment
 , pp. 365 - 376
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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