8 April 1998
ENGLISH ONLY
UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
SUBSIDIARY BODY FOR SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVICE
Eighth session
Bonn, 2-12 June 1998
Item 3 of the provisional agenda
1. At its sixth session, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and
Technological Advice (SBSTA), invited Parties to submit comments on
the planned structure and content of the Third Assessment Report
(TAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to the
secretariat, by 20 January 1998, for compilation into a miscellaneous
document (FCCC/SBSTA/1997/6, para. 44). The secretariat has
previously made submissions from Parties available which were
received by 30 May 1997. These were compiled into document
FCCC/SBSTA/1997/MISC.4.
2. The secretariat has received three such
submissions.(1) In accordance with the
procedures for miscellaneous documents, these submissions are
attached and reproduced in the language in which they were received
and without formal editing.
FCCC/SBSTA/1998/MISC.1
GE.98-
Paper No. Page
1. Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) 3
(Submission received 10 August 1997)
AOSIS VIEWS ON THE WORK OF THE IPCC
2. Australia 5
(Submission received 9 January 1998)
COMMENTS ON THE IPCC THIRD ASSESSMENT
REPORT
3. Sri Lanka 7
(Submission received 9 December 1997)
COMMENTS FROM SRI LANKA ON THE IPCC
THIRD ASSESSMENT REPORT
AOSIS members wishes to express their sincere appreciation to the
excellent work done to date by the IPCC and its Bureau. It noted with
appreciation the information provided by the Chairman and the
Chairman-elect at the present sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies to
the UNFCCC, particularly regarding the Third Assessment Report (TAR).
AOSIS gives its full support to the on-going and valuable work of the
IPCC and re-iterates the need for the IPCC to continue to maintain
its independent and non-political role in fulfilling its
mandate.
On the financial contributions to the work of the IPCC, AOSIS
wishes to thank parties that contributes to the IPCC Trust Fund which
allowed experts from developing countries, including AOSIS experts,
to participate in the work of the IPCC. AOSIS urges these Parties to
continue to provide adequate funding to the Trust Fund to ensure the
further involvement of experts from non-Annex Parties in the future
work of the IPCC.
AOSIS requests that the IPCC, in carrying out its work, to
cooperate closely with other international organizations such as the
World Meteorological Program (WMO) involved in international research
programs to advance our understanding of the climate system and its
response to climate change. AOSIS gives its full support to the
Climate Agenda program.
Regarding the TAR, AOSIS noted with satisfaction the regional
emphasis on the report and the efforts by the IPCC to fully involved
experts from non-Annex I country parties. AOSIS requests the IPCC to
address the following issues in the TAR.
- The IPCC to further narrow down the remaining uncertainties in the IPCC projections
and scenarios.
- The ranges used by the IPCC in past reports and papers are based on collective
judgment of IPCC authors and reviewers of each chapters and
papers. AOSIS sees the need for the IPCC to develop and draw formal
methodologies to achieve more consistency in setting criteria for
high and low range limits.
- On computer modeling, AOSIS requests the IPCC to put more efforts to narrow
down grid box scales to smaller scales in order for these models
to be meaningful and applicable to AOSIS members.
- Provision of accurate information and analysis on the effectiveness and implications
of proposed PAMs to mitigate and adapt to climate change and sea
level rise, in particular the socio-economic implications including
losses incurred by implementing PAMs in Annex I parties.
- Put more efforts on assessment of regional impacts and responses to climate change
and sea level rise particularly adaptation options. Of particular
importance to AOSIS is the need to further improve our understanding
of the role of the oceans in determining the response time of the
climate system. In this regard, efforts gear towards further
understanding regional weather patterns which have major influence on
AOSIS members (e.g. El Nino Southern Oscillation, Tropical cyclones
etc.) should be of high priority for the work of the
IPCC.
- Structure of TAR could be improved. AOSIS expresses concerns on the structure of
past papers and reports. It took a great deal of efforts to
synthesize these into manageable sections.
A. General Comments
1. Presentationally, it would be extremely helpful if the TAR
included a section/chapter which summarised the key advances, changes
and developments since the second assessment report (SAR) of 1995.
This would be particularly helpful to readers familiar with the SAR
who want readily identifiable description of the extent to which the
TAR included new information and makes different
assessments.
2. The report could usefully include a section that covers the
frequently asked questions/misinterpretations associated with
previous IPCC findings.
3. Models - both scientific and econometric - will continue to
play important roles as tools in making climate change assessments.
The TAR should provide an updated assessment of the utility (and
uncertainties) of such models, including integrated assessment
models, ie what are the various models telling us now and how can
they be improved.
4. The SAR assessments of the extent of "no regrets" mitigation
opportunities should be refined with a focus less on technical
potential and more on a realistic assessment of practical
possibilities (and how to overcome barriers to implementing "no
regrets" measures), including in developing countries. An assessment
of newly emerging "no regrets" measures, as technologies develop and
become more cost effective in terms of their greenhouse gas
mitigation benefits, would also be valuable.
5. The assessment of the mitigation potential of technologies,
practices and policies should consider the implications of the
patterns of global production and trade in energy intensive
goods.
B. Policy-relevant questions for the Synthesis
Report
1. To what extent is it important to be able to distinguish
between human induced greenhouse gas emissions and those from
non-anthropogenic sources, given the different definitions of climate
change employed by the IPCC and under the UNFCCC. Would a
natural/anthropogenic emissions counting system be
effective?
2. How does our understanding of the interactions of
non-atmospheric features of the climate system (e.g. oceans,
cryosphere) compare with that of the atmospheric
aspects?
3. What progress has been made in determining the possible interactions of climate change with major causes of climatic variability such as the El Nino - Southern Oscillation?
4. What progress has been made in refining global warming
potentials, to enable better accounting of emission reductions of
greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide?
5. What progress has been made in reducing uncertainties in the
measurement of carbon sequestration/emissions through land use and
forestry changes and other sectors of high measurements
uncertainty?
6. How important is it to avoid rapid rates of
warming?
7. What are the consequences of delaying emissions reduction
action under various concentration profiles (concentration level and
target year)? Can the economic costs and benefits of delay be
quantified?
8. How can optimal emissions pathways be defined?
9. How does more comprehensive assessment of non-energy abatement
options affect the assessment of costs and benefits?
10. How well does the assessment of abatement options deal with
existing market imperfections (including subsidies - direct and
indirect -, information failure, institutional inertia and
imperfection, bounded rationality, social vs private discounting,
non-greenhouse externalities, etc)? What analytic tools are available
to assess policy options in the "real world"? How many of the
available analytic tools deal with non-energy issues?
11. What is the likely magnitude of the so-called "rebound
effect", where investments in energy efficiency are offset to some
degree by resulting increase in output? How does analysis of the
issue differ at the firm, industry, national and international
level?
12. To what extent will the provisions of the FCCC and Kyoto
Protocol affect, positively or negatively, the range of options
identified for technologies, practices, policies and policy
instruments to adapt to, or reduce, greenhouse gas emissions from
sources and to enhance removals of greenhouse gases by
sinks?
13. What are the implications for atmospheric concentration,
climate and sea level of the proposed targets and timetables to
reduce emissions contained in the Kyoto Protocol?
1. Emissions Scenarios
The Assessment reports depends heavily on the five emissions
scenarios IS92 a-e. All the estimates of mean temperature rise (MTR)
and sea-level rise (SLR) are given corresponding to each of these
scenarios. However, none of these scenarios is defined in the report.
One has to go back to the 1992 Assessment Report (AR1) for their
definitions. Since it occupies only one page (p of 1992 AR), I
suggest that this page be reproduced in the AR3, if you are planning
to use the same scenarios in the new report.
2. Mean Temperature Rise and Sea Level Rise
Estimates
The MTR and SLR estimates for 2100 are given subject to two
variables, one the emission scenarios and the other climate
sensitivity. For each of these, there are 3 values, high, medium and
low. Hence, the results could be presented in the form of a matrix as
given below. The data given in the AR2, some of which had to be
interpolated from the diagrams, cover only a few elements in the
matrix. It might be at least of academic interest to give the balance
elements in the matrix.
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3. Climate Sensitivity
One of the variables used, namely climate sensitivity has been
defined as the temperature rise in the atmosphere corresponding to
doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration. This is denoted in the
AR2 as T and its unit is given as °C. Generally the term
sensitivity is defined as the amount of response per unit measure of
a stimulant. Here the stimulant is 2xCO2 and the response
is the temperature rise. Hence the unit of sensitivity should be
expressed as °C/2xCO2. This will
also remove the confusion that may arise by having the same unit
°C for sensitivity as well as for the
temperature rise as appearing in AR2. This is specially so because
the sensitivity range (1.5 - 4.5 °C) is of the
same order of magnitude as the temperature rise range.
4. Availability of Fossil Fuel
In fixing the emissions scenarios up to 2100, it has been assumed
that there will not be any constrains on the supply of fossil fuels
during the next century. However, other sources of data indicates
that at the present rate of consumption, the economically recoverable
deposits may not last that long. Hence, a brief clarification on this
point may be desirable.