Introduction

In October 1992, the CGCP Research Committee identified a new list of global change themes to provide direction for Canadian global change research over the next decade. These themes were developed to represent that information most needed by Canadian governments and policy makers to form effective and relevant decisions on global change issues. This paper is the first edition of a biannual document describing those research themes. As we learn more about both the scientific and political aspects of global change over time, research needs and issues will change. There is a need for regular monitoring and evaluation of the CGCP themes and framework, and comments and additions for the next revision are encouraged.

The CGCP Research Committee (which has evolved into a smaller "Research/Policy Committee" since this document was researched) was guided by, and reported to, the CGCP Board of Directors, which is composed of scientists, private sector and special interest group representatives, and seniorgovernment officials with research and policy concerns. The Research Committee consisted of 20 Canadian experts from academia, government and industry, all working within a range of disciplines related to global change. The Committee oversaw a number of research panels and project committees, and developed and periodically reviewed thematic research priorities for the CGCP. The Committee also stimulated the development of reports addressing topical scientific and public policy issues; fostered interdisciplinary and multi-agency research projects that will improve Canada s capacity to respond to global change; and provided a link between Canadian research and international activities.

The purpose of this document is not to provide an exhaustive or comprehensive examination of global change issues or global change research requirements. Rather, it is an attempt to highlight and bring together diverse themes of global change that the Canadian Global Change Program has identified for research priority, and to summarize some of the most important accompanying issues in an accessible way for government and research granting council policy- and decision-makers. This document is not a review of existing research, as other CGCP publications provide a more detailed coverage of research and specific issues; these publications will, over time, be used to update this document on research themes.

What is Global Change?
Global change includes more than just "global climate change", although the terms are sometimes confused. Global change encompasses any of the processes of the biosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, oceans, and human societies which affect, and are affected by, the global environment. The term global change includes both the causes as well as the impacts of change on human populations and the environment. Such impacts may directly alter global processes, as with climate change, or they may accumulate indirectly at discrete and local levels, as with the growth of deserts. These changes then continue to cause further change to the same or different processes, and the cycle continues. In addition to climate change and desertification, other primary global change phenomena include sea level change, atmospheric ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, and deforestation. Global change, like the planet itself, functions in an interdependent feedback system, with all change causing, and caused by, some other change. The human systems and the non-human environmentalsystems meet both where humans directly alter the environment and where environmental change directly affects and alters human activities and values.

It is important to remember that there is nothing new about global change; the earth and its atmosphere and geosphere are a dynamic system composed of countless interacting sub-systems. Change has been taking place naturally for billions of years. What is relatively new is the pace and the cause of change. The rate of global change has dramatically accelerated as a direct result of human activities, and over the last decade the international community has recognized that human and earth systems may not be able to adapt fast enough to this change for their own survival. While it is relatively easy to observe the change, it is much more difficult to sort out how we can best find solutions and/or agree on what those solutions should be and who bears responsibility. Global change is not necessarily negative in and of itself; our values will also determine what we view and understand as negative, neutral, or positive.

The Need for Global Change Research
Research on the specific topics of global change, as well as on its holistic aspects, is necessary to improve our mitigative and adaptive capability in terms of future change, and also to enable our communities to adapt as well as possible at the individual, community, national, and international policy levels. Global change research needs to focus on the interactions of human and non-human natural systems and produce interdisciplinary, applied and policy-relevant results to determine how and why the global environment is changing, the risks and consequences involved in that change, and the various options human societies have available to respond.

Global change research examines the consequences of imposing anthropogenic stress on balanced global processes and explores, for example, how climate, oceans, lakes, deserts, and tropical rainforests will react and adjust in response to changes. Global change research is also concerned with how human societies and economies cause and are affected by these changes. To accomplish these goals, there is a need for a new kind of integrated research that transcends the traditional disciplines. The research community must look at what is currently known in the various disciplineswhich are relevant to global change (and most are), and examine how that knowledge can be married with other disciplines to form the basis for meaningful and practical analysis and action.

What is required may be thought of as mission-oriented basic research, in which practical concerns guide the choice of topics towards areas in which research that asks fundamental questions not only will illuminate behavioural and social processes [and natural processes] but will also have practical applications.

Global change research must also include looking back to understand the significant environmental variations that have occurred over geologic time, and how biological, geochemical and oceanic systems have responded. This includes looking to past changes in regional and global patterns of land use to examine whether early human activities have had effects on climate or environmental changes (such as desertification).

The CGCP Research Committee proposed the strategic themes outlined in this paper based upon the need to determine exactly what it is that we need to learn more about in Canada in order to develop policies that will be effective in preparing our nation for global change, in managing the change we cannot avoid, and to prevent, wherever possible, any further negative change. As one of the functions of the CGCP is to provide the supporting arguments for policy decisions, these priorities are identified to facilitate the research effort that will contribute to policy. The CGCP also provides advice t the granting councils and government departments on global change research funding priorities. This discussion will briefly describe what some of the problem areas in global change are, and why they were identified by the Research Committee as research priorities.