Verification 1997: The Vertic Yearbook by Richard Guthrie

Author:Richard Guthrie [Guthrie, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367098957
Google: DO8HyAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 52732556
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1997-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

References and Notes

1 In fact, the titles of the Bodies are not quite as self-explanatory as they seem. The SUBSTA has, in practice, taken on the role of the old Working Group One of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on the Convention. It not only considers scientific and technical matters but almost all matters concerning implementation review. The SBI, like the old Working Group Two of the INC, has mainly been left to deal with financial matters.

2 The ‘Berlin Mandate’, agreed at CoP-1, is to negotiate a legal instrument to cover the period beyond the year 2000, for which there are no commitments specified in the Convention. The commitments to emission limitations in the instrument (which could be either a protocol or an amendment to the Convention) are to cover developed country Parties to the Convention only — that is those specified in Annex 1 of the Convention.

3 The position of the US was particularly obscure on both these points, although most other developed country parties, and particularly the EU, favoured a protocol containing legally-binding targets.

4 The reason for the Chairman being cautious was that it was clear from the outset that some Parties were against a multilateral process and should thus be gently persuaded, rather than pushed, into the discussions.

5 An example of a case where joint agreement on a single policy amongst all Parties was in the case of so-called bunker fuels: the fuels used in international air and marine transport. Here it was, and still is, essential for the Parties to come to agreement on how to attribute emissions due to the use of such fuels.

6 In addition, some Parties were awaiting the findings of the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC, discussed later in this section.

7 OPEC is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

8 The most influential of the fossil fuel lobby groups is the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) led by Mr. Don Pearlman, a US lawyer with financial backing from undisclosed sources.

9 The peak use of disruptive tactics was in one late night session of the final INC in early 1995 when the stream of ‘runners’ sent by Mr. Pearlman to the Saudi and Kuwaiti delegations so upset the Chairman and Bureaux that they henceforth banned all non-governmental organisations from the floor during debates. Since the second CoP, Saudi Arabia has ceased to employ disruptive tactics and has put its case instead, which has resulted in rather more sympathy for its cause.

10 AOSIS and its allies, such as Bangladesh and Egypt, are almost all low-lying countries that risk inundation by the sea if any significant climate change occurs.

11 The task of whether to accept or reject the SAR was nominally the job of the SUBSTA but the decision heavily influenced the deliberations of the AGBM. A discussion of the SAR is thus appropriate here.

12 Sir John Houghton, UK, Chair of the IPCC Science Working Group 1, described the likely mean temperature change by the middle of next century as roughly half an ice age change.

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