 nternational focus on global environmental change was initiated by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), created in 1986 by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). In 1984, ICSU had held a special symposium on Global Change, and the conclusion of the general assembly was that a special international program on global change should be launched for the 1990s. The Assembly requested that all countries form a national focal point forglobal change research to link up with the IGBP. Although the program was to officially concentrate on physical and biological issues, the human dimensions of global change and the social science disciplines have increasingly been incorporated as scientists recognize that global change cannot be understood in the absence of human causes and impacts. In 1989, a United Nations General Assembly resolution also mentioned the need for further research on global climate change issues, bringing the subject its highest level of international acknowledgment.
The IGBP published a research strategy in 1990, developing a set of linked projects to examine those environmental systems and processes. These projects include: the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) Research program, which is examining how the chemistry of the global atmosphere is regulated and what role biological processes play in producing and consuming trace gases; the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) research program, which is looking at how global changes will affect terrestrial ecosystems; the Biospheric Aspects of the Hydrological Cycle (BAHC) research, which is investigating how vegetation interacts with physical processes of the hydrological cycle; and the Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) project, which is examining how changes in land-use, sea level and climate will alter coastal ecosystems. In addition, the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) and the Global Ocean Euphotic Zone Study projects are looking at how ocean biogeochemical processes influence and respond to climate change, and the Past Global Changes (PAGES) research project is investigating significant climatic and environmental changes that have occurred in the past and their causes. Three other integrative IGBP activities are: the Task Force on Global Analysis, Interpretation and Modelling (GAIM); Data and Information Systems (IGBP-DIS); and the System for Analysis, Research and Training (START).
Nine months after ICSU announced the IGBP, a consortium of the United Nations University, the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and the International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Studies (IFIAS), announced the international Human Dimensions of Global Change Program (HDP). In 1990, ISSC established its Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change program (HDP), whose framework for research identified seven areas where research is necessary for understanding global change: land cover/land use change; social dimensions of resource use;perception and assessment of global environmental conditions and changes; impacts of local, national and international social, economic and political structures and institutions; energy production and consumption; industrial growth; and environmental security and sustainable development.
International initiatives organized specifically to examine global climate change include the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) which, since 1979, has been jointly carried out by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and ICSU as the research component of the World Climate Program. WCRP addresses both anthropogenic climate change as well as natural climatic variations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Word Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the state of knowledge about climate change science and the environmental and socio-economic impacts of climate change. IPCC formulates response strategies and provides advice and counsel to governments through the WMO and UNEP. Another new program is now being established, the Global Change Observing System (GCOS), co-sponsored by WMO, UNEP and ICSU (with IGBP involvement). Its emphasis will be on detecting and monitoring climate change and the responses of atmospheric, terrestrial and marine systems.
The CGCP Research Committee (now Research/Policy Committee) acts as the Canadian National Committee (CNC) for the IGBP and as the national focal point for the international Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Program (HDP). In this role, the Committee is responsible for maintaining links with these international programs and for stimulating Canadian activities that contribute to their work. The CGCP is also linked by representatives to the World Climate Research Program through the Canadian Climate Program (CCP), and to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC). The CGCP of the Royal Society of Canada is quite unique in that it provides a structure for the integration of IGBP and HDP.
Other national initiatives coordinating global change research similar to the CGCP include the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which was established in 1990 as the American federal government s scientific effort to understand, monitor and predict global change. It publisheda 1990 report on research strategies for understanding changes in the global environment, and now coordinates American contributions to the international global change programs.
In the United Kingdom, the lead agency for setting the framework for global environmental change research is the Inter-Agency Committee on Global Environmental Change (IACGEC). Their 1993 framework has four categories: enabling and supportive requirements (modelling, supercomputers, space- and earth-based observational technology, etc.); environmental processes (including climate and hydrology, biogeochemical dynamics, past environmental change, socio-economic considerations, and stratospheric processes); impacts and response measures (such as population growth, resource use, biodiversity, agriculture and food, water resources, human health, energy demand, transport); and research requirements.3 The Economic and Social Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council also have global environmental change programs.
In addition to international and national initiatives related to global change research, regional collaboration is beginning. For example, the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research was established following an agreement signed by representatives of eleven governments of North, Central and South American countries in May 1992. The Institute will sponsor basic research on global change processes of particular relevance and importance for the Americas. Initial research topics include: tropical ecosystems and biochemical cycles; impacts of climate change on biodiversity; El Niño-Southern Oscillation and interannual climate variability, and ocean-land-atmosphere interactions in the intertropical Americas; comparative studies of oceanic, coastal and estuarine processes in the temperate zone; comparative studies of temperate terrestrial ecosystems; and high latitude processes.
Various European Community research programs are now also addressing global change issues. For example, the new European Community Research and Development Programme in the Field of the Environment has a large global change component that includes seven topics: natural climatic change; climate change from anthropogenic forcing; climate change impacts; stratospheric ozone; tropospheric physics and chemistry; biogeochemical cycles; and ecosystem dynamics. Socio-economic topics are covered in another part of the overall program.
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