By its decision 1/CP.3, the Conference of the Parties (COP) adopted the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In that same decision, the COP requested the Chairmen of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) to give guidance to the secretariat on the preparatory work needed for consideration by COP 4 of the five items listed in paragraph 5 of that decision and to allocate work thereon to the respective subsidiary bodies, as appropriate (decision 1/CP.3, para. 5). In order to promote substantive progress at the eighth sessions of the SBSTA and the SBI, the Chairmen of the subsidiary bodies requested the secretariat to invite Parties to submit their views on the preparatory work needed for COP 4 on each of the above-mentioned five items by 21 March 1998. Nine such submissions have been received. In accordance with the procedure for miscellaneous documents, these submissions are attached and reproduced in the language in which they were received and without formal editing.