INTRODUCTION
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) at the request of governments. Its function is to assess, from published, peer- reviewed, worldwide literature, the present state of knowledge of climate change, especially as influenced by the anthropogenic factors of greenhouse gases and aerosols in the atmosphere. Its first assessment report was issued in 1990. An update was prepared in 1992 for the negotiators of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and, in addition, a special report "Climate Change 1994" was later completed by IPCC to assist the first meeting of the Conference of Parties (Berlin, March-April 1995). It focused on radiative forcing of climate change and on evaluation of the IPCC IS 92 emission scenarios. IPCC s second assessment report is currently (November 1995) being completed, with all parts having undergone peer reviews and government reviews. For the first time, the draft reports contain an assessment of economics literature and that of some of the other social sciences. Canada has provided the Co-Chair and Technical Support Unit for this part of the assessment and several lead authors for all Working Groups. The reports will be completed and approved by IPCC members by the end of 195 but their main thrust and assessments are reasonably well established. The full second assessment report has four sections: 1. the natural sciences (Working Group 1)2. impacts, adaptation and mitigation options (Working Group 2) 3. economic and social perspectives (Working Group 3) and 4. a synthesis report directed mainly at providing input to governmental interpretation of the ultimate objective of the Framework Convention (Article 2). This report, by the Canadian Climate Program Board and Canadian Global Change Program Board, is intended to assist Canadian policy makers by extracting the key assessment findings of particular relevance to Canada from the 1994 report and the 1995 draft report. |