CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTION

The First Plenary meeting of Working Group III of the IPCC, the Response Strategies Working Group (RSWG), was held in Washington, January 30-February 2, 1989. This meeting was largely organizational, and it was not until after a subsequent RSWG Officers Meeting in Geneva, May 8-12, 1989, that the real work by the four RSWG subgroups, the Emissions Scenarios Task Force (Task A), and "Implementation Measures" Topic Coordinators (Task B) began.

The Second RSWG Plenary Session was held in Geneva, from October 2-6, 1989, to discuss the implementation measures: (1) public education and information; (2) technology development and transfer; (3) financial measures; (4) economic measures; and (5) legal measures, including elements of a framework climate convention. A consensus was reached on five topical papers dealing with these measures, with the understanding that they would be "living documents" subject to further modification as new information and developments might require.

The Third Plenary Meeting of RSWG, held in Geneva, June 5-9, 1990, achieved three objectives:

1) It reached consensus on the attached "policymakers summary," the first interim report of the RSWG.

2) It completed final editing and accepted the reports of the four RSWG subgroups, of the coordinators of Task A, and of the coordinators of the five Task B topical papers. These documents comprise the underlying material for the consensus report of this meeting, the policymakers summary; they are not themselves the product of a RSWG plenary consensus, although many governments participated in their formulation.

Finally,

3) The Working Group agreed to submit comments on its suggested future work programme to the RSWG Chairman by July 1, 1990, for transmission to the Chair of the IPCC. There was general agreement that the work of the RSWG should continue.

The primary task of the RSWG was, in the broad sense, technical, not political. The charge of IPCC to RSWG was to lay out as fully and fairly as possible a set of response policy options and the factual basis for those options.

Consistent with that charge, it was not the purpose of the RSWG to select or recommend political actions, much less to carry out a negotiation on the many difficult policy questions that attach to the climate change issue, although clearly the information might tend to suggest one or another option. Selection of options for implementation is appropriately left to the policymakers of governments and/or negotiation of a convention.

The work of RSWG continues. The Energy and Industry Subgroup has, since the June RSWG Plenary Meeting, held additional meetings in London (June 1990) and Paris (September 1990), the results of which are not reflected in this report.

It should be noted that quantitative estimates provided in the report regarding CFCs, including those in Scenario A ("Business as Usual"), generally do not reflect decisions made in June 1990 by the Parties to the Montreal Protocol. Those decisions accelerate the timetable to phase out production and consumption of CFCs, halons, carbon tetrachloride, and methylchloroform.

It should further be noted that quantitative estimates of forestry activities (e.g., deforestation, biomass burning, including fuel wood, and other changes in land-use practices), as well as agricultural and other activities provided in the Report continue to be reviewed by experts.

Two specific items of unfinished business submitted to RSWG by the Ministers at the November 1989 meeting in Noordwijk are the consideration of the feasibility of achieving: (1) targets to limit or reduce CO2 emissions, including, e.g., a 20 percent reduction of CO2 emission levels by the year 2005; (2) a world net forest growth of 12 million hectares a year in the beginning of the next century.

The subgroup chairs and topic coordinators took the responsibility for completing their individual reports and, along with their respective governments, contributed generously of their time and resources to that end.

The RSWG Policymakers Summary is the culmination of the first year of effort by this body. The RSWG has gone to considerable lengths to ensure that the summary accurately reflects the work of the various subgroups and tasks. Given the very strict time schedule under which the RSWG was asked to work, this first report can be only a beginning.

--FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL

Chairman
Response Strategies Working Group
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change