Chapter 10
A strategy for action to slow
and stabilise climate change
Following theawareness of the problems of climate change aroused
by the IPCC scientific assessments, the necessity of international action
has been recognised. In this chapter I address the forms that action could
take.
The climate convention
The United Nations Framework Convention on climate change signed by
over 160 countries at the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 came into force on 21
March 1994. It has set the agenda for action to slow and stabilise climate
change. The signatories to the Convention (some of the detailed wording
is presented in the box below) recognised the reality of global warming,
recognised also the uncertainties associated with current predictions of
climate change, agreed that action to mitigate the effects of climate
change needs to be taken and pointed out that developed countries should
take the leadin this action.
The Convention mentions one particular aim concerned with the
relatively short-term and one far reaching objective. The particular aim
is that developed countries (Annex I countries in Climate Convention
parlance) should take action to return greenhouse gas emissions, in par-
ticular those of carbon dioxide, to their 1990 levels by the year 2000.
The long-term objective of the Convention, expressed in Article 2, is
that the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere should be
stabilised ‘at a level which would prevent dangerous anthropogenic inter-
ference with the climate system’, the stabilisation to be achieved within
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