Overview: Mitigation of Climate Change

UNFCCC COP 6 Part Two Special Event, July 2001

IPCC Third Assessment Report

Structure and operation of IPCC

Plenary: all (>150) countries

Bureau, Secretariat, TSUs

Wg I Wg II Wg III TFInv

Scientific authors (hundreds of CLAs, LAs, CAs)

housandsExpert and GovernmentReviewers (thousands)

The TAR WG 3 process

• Broad array of disciplines, geographical balance of authors: 150 lead authors, 80 contributing authors, over 300 reviewers, 64 authors from developing countries

• 3 year process which involves four lead author meetings and several chapter meetings

• One expert review and an expert/government review

• 19 review editors were involved to ensure the inclusion of review comments

• SPM was approved and underlying report accepted unanimously by IPCC WG 3 plenary in Accra, Ghana, March, 2001

Inputs to the Report

• The assessment used over 4000 peer reviewed literature and publicly available relevant reports

• Previous IPCC reports, including Special Report on Aviation and the Atmosphere, Technology Transfer, Emission Scenarios, and LULUCF

• The results of ten expert meetings on specialised topics

Structure of the report (1)

• Setting the stage: climate change and sustainable development

• GHG mitigation scenarios and implications

• Technological and economic potentials– energy and industrial options

– biological options

• Barriers and opportunities

Structure of the report (2)

• Policies, measures and instruments

• Mitigation cost and ancillary benefits– Costing methodologies– Global, regional and national costs and

ancillary benefits– Sector costs and ancillary benefits

• Decision making frameworks

Main messages (1)

• There is a strong link between sustainable development, environmental management and climate change mitigation

• Technologies are presently available, in the short term, to stop the growth of global GHG emissions and, in the long term, to limit climate change impacts

Main messages (2)

• The costs of implementing the Kyoto Protocol can be kept low, provided implementation is done efficiently;

• Long-term costs depend on the choice of stabilisation level, baseline and the timing of mitigation

Main messages (3)

• The problem of controlling emissions is to overcome the many political, economic, social and behavioural barriers to implement mitigation options

• Decision making on climate change is risk management; for low level stabilisation, early mitigation action is needed

• Integrating mitigation and sustainable development policies improves the prospect of achieving stabilization and sustainable development goals