Issue No.14

Contents:
1. NEWS - POST-COP5 SPECIAL
A. THE EMERGING ORDER OF EARTH OBSERVATION SYSTEMS
B. EMISSIONS AND ENERGY SCENARIOS
C. WTO SECRETARIAT RELEASES NEW TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT REPORT
D. NEW INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
2. THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE TO INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY ICT


1. NEWS

Quote of the week: "One of the disturbing conclusions of the empirical literature is that the turning points of global environmental problems such as global warming ...[on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)] are estimated at considerably higher incomes than [those of] more localized problems," authors of the new WTO report cited in Story C below.

A. THE EMERGING ORDER OF EARTH OBSERVATION SYSTEMS

The new Integrated Global Observing Strategy IGOS, http://www.igospartners.org,  has its origins in the following bodies, where acronyms abound:
1. the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites CEOS; Website includes tutorials on Earth Observation EO, http://www.ceos.org
1a. CEOS, which itself has a Working Group on Information Systems and Services WGISS, developing standardization formats, http://wgiss.ceos.org/wgiss
2. the "G3OS", itself consisting of:
2a. Global Climate Observing System GCOS, http://www.wmo.ch/web/gcos/gcoshome.html
2b. Global Ocean Observing System GOOS, http://ioc.unesco.org/goos
2c. Global Terrestrial Observing System GTOS, http://www.fao.org/gtos
3. the World Climate Research Programme WCRP, via http://www.wmo.ch (see also New Journals below)
4. the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme IGBP, http://www.igbp.kva.se

For those readers still decichering acronyms, you will find help at http://www.wmo.ch/web/gcos/abbrev.html. The goose in the ocean is good, but my personal favorite is still the Global Hierarchical Observing Strategy (GHOST), http://www.wmo.ch/web/gcos/pub/ghost.html

EU/ US Improving Cooperation in Earth Observation EO
The European Union is improving its cooperation with the United States in the field of EO. With reference to the Fifth Framework Programme, it stated that "for the first time, organisations from the USA will be eligible to join in projects, funded by a reciprocal US agreement," per CORDIS Focus, June 1999, No.20, RTD Results Supplement, p.38. "Early indications of environmental subjects that will benefit from joint EU/US projects are: tools to model climate change and to monitor implementation of the Kyoto agreements, especially in the field of earth observation."

One American institution specializing in such systems, which was represented at COP5, is the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, CIESIN, http://wwwgateway.ciesin.org. Besides this gateway, CIESIN also has a Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change HDGEC Discussion List. To join HDGEC, send an email with the line "subscribe hdgec" in the body of the message to majordomo@listhost.ciesin.org
CIESIN has a database of Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators, http://sedac.ciesin.org/entri

New Journals
There is also a new journal on this topic called International Environmental Agreements being initiated at Kluwer Academic Publishers, attn. Ms. Rowena Vrolijk, PO Box 17, NL-3300 AA Dordrecht, Netherlands; Editor-in-Chief: Pier Vellinga, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, mailto:pier.vellinga@ivm.vu.nl

We discovered at least three other new journals at COP5, one of them available free from UNEP and entitled Synergies: Promoting Collaboration on Environmental Treaties, http://www.unep.ch/conventions. Its Vol.1, No. 1 reflects on the three-day international conference that took place last July in Tokyo called "Inter-Linkages: Synergies and Coordination between Multilateral Environmental Agreements" MEAs. Gary Sampson of the London School of Economics and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the United Nations University in Tokyo, for instance, spoke at the Tokyo conference on how to ensure cohesiveness between the different MEAs on a global basis, and suggested that such cohesiveness is one of the main advantages enjoyed by the institutional model WTO, http://www.iisd.ca/sd/interlinkages/sdvol27no3e.html. There will be follow-through to Inter-Linkages at the United Nations University, http://www.geic.or.jp/interlinkages. Sampson, who was formerly director of the WTO Trade and Environment Division, is preparing a new policy essay, preview.

The new Integrated Global Observing Strategy IGOS has its own new biannual IGOS Bulletin available from dominique.fournydelloye@cnes.fr. The 4-page Issue No. 1 includes an endorsement from the research community represented by Hartmut Grassl, mailto:grassl@dkrz.de, director of the World Climate Research Programme WCRP (as of 1 October 1999, Professor of Meteorology University of Hamburg, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology). Grassl says IGOS is needed most urgently to address major climate research questions involving decadal time-scale variability and cloud feedback.

Another new journal is available by subscription only and entitled Environmental Finance Climate Change, Emissions; Weather; Investment; Lending; Insurance, http://www.environmental-finance.com

B. EMISSIONS AND ENERGY SCENARIOS
Sneak Previews of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC's Third Assessment Report TAR
Near CIESIN's offices in Palisades NY (see previous article) is also located the IPCC's US-based Working Group II. Its representative Kasey S. White reports that a Special Report on Emissions Scenarios SRES will be forthcoming in 2000, http://www.nacc.usgcrp.gov

Meanwhile WWF has commissioned scientists in East Anglia to produce four different possible future worlds using the four future emissions pathways defined in SRES. WWF describes the results in a publicity campaign announced on 19th October, http://www.panda.org/news/press/news.cfm?id=1714

More detail is available from the University of East Anglia on how continents will suffer in varying degrees, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/research/wwfscenarios.html

Apparently equally disturbing results are forthcoming in the IPCC's TAR. The New Scientist reported in its 18th September 1999 issue that the TAR will claim there is no longer any generally accepted Business as Usual scenario, http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990918/newsstory2.html. The report itself is not forthcoming until March 2000.
Now the BBC too has "seen a summary" of the preliminary version by Working Group 2 now undergoing review by experts. The BBC's correspondent is most alarmed by the news on thresholds, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_526000/526690.stm
Apparently an aggressive approach is necessary to access the preliminary document; our email inquiry to the IPCC dated 28 Sept. remains unanswered, http://www.ipcc.ch

Renewable Energy Scenario from the European Business Council
In 1998 Harry Lehmann of the Wuppertal Institute and the European Business Council for a Sustainable Energy Future, E5, published his sustainable energy scenario as a chapter in the 268-page paperback Long-Term Integration of Renewable Energy Sources into the European Energy System, co-published by the Centre for European Economic Research ZEW Mannheim. Now he has an update, but it is currently available only in German. If you can use that, or have a translating / publishing possibility, contact him directly, harry.lehmann@wupperinst.org

At COP5 renewables expert Jeremy Leggett presented his new book entitled _The Carbon War_ Dispatches from the End of the Oil Century, http://www.carbonwar.com
Another guest at E5's side event is already reacting to Leggett's prediction: Royal Dutch / Shell has just opened a new plant for solar cells in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, http://www.shell.com/library/press/0,1254,4440,00.html

Competitiveness Scenario from the EU's Joint Research Centre in Spain
Another recent article on scenarios comes from Antonio Soria. However, as Lehmann objects, it does not include a significant amount of renewables. Instead the article focus on economic aspects as its title suggests, "Technology Options for the Kyoto Carbon Emission Targets and European Competitiveness". It is published in the IPTS Report dated October 1999, http://www.jrc.es/pages/iptsreport/vol38/english/FUT4E386.htm

The IPTS Report is published by the Institute for Prospective Technology Studies of the EU's Joint Research Centre in Spain. Readers can apply for free subscriptions to the paper edition, http://www.jrc.es/iptsreport/subscribe.html
However, the online edition features a search facility offering access to such papers as the following from authors known to the editor of Computers and Climate, some of the texts being readable in HTML, others downloadable in MS-Word formats:
Article on combined heat and power CHP generation by Matthias Weber, http://www.jrc.es/iptsreport/vol02/english/art7.doc
Article on Kyoto by Astrid Zwick, http://www.jrc.es/iptsreport/vol02/english/art2.doc

Zwick and Soria, http://www.jrc.es/iptsreport/vol05/english/art-en1.doc
dto, http://www.jrc.es/vol18/english/ENE1E186.htm
Zwick on the discrepancy between measured and calculated amounts of CO2 emissions, http://www.jrc.es/iptsreport/vol08/english/Ene1E086.htm

C. WTO SECRETARIAT RELEASES NEW TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT REPORT
One of the conclusions reached by authors Hakan Nordström and S.Vaughan in the new report is that "Trade would unambiguously raise welfare if proper environmental policies were in place". In explaining their point, the authors refer to "an observation that has become known in academic circles as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)". The course of the EKZ first rises, but then "decreases after a certain income level has been reached." The report ends with the question as to whether the Environmental Kuznets Curve EKZ is naturally predetermined or could be shifted to lower incomes, and hence earlier abatement measures, by implementing better policies. A copy of the report leaked to The Economist caused the venerable journal to be taken aback as it discovered an admission by the WTO "for the first time [that]... trade can harm the environment," (Oct.9, p.103). Other reactions have since then come in from Germany and the U.K. In Germany, the new environmental info. service of the monthly Politische Oekologie, gave a quite different interpretation (11/99, p.9), http://www.punkt-um.net. Punkt.um is more critical of the WTO's basic attitude that "trade does not cause much environmental damage", so that Nordström/ Vaughan's "qualification" is seen as less of an epiphany than that which impressed The Economist. In the U.K., the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex offers translation services and a link to the full text, http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/wtoenv.htm

The WTO's Website has two levels of summaries in addition to the full text. The main conclusions are that environmental policy is important; externalities and subsidies are counterproductive. At least one of the report's conclusions is sure to stimulate dissension: "The cooperative model of the WTO, based on legal rights and obligations, could potentially serve as a model for a new global architecture of environmental cooperation," http://www.wto.org/wto/new/press140.htm. Whether the WTO can overcome its current crisis in the run-up to Seattle is a prerequisite to considering the need for the next step in securing its position: it has to explain its activities better to the public. This need has recently been emphasised by Guy de Jonquieres in the Financial Times, 11th Oct, p. 22, and former Under Secretary of Commerce, Jeffrey Garten, in Business Week, Nov. 8, p.12.


D. NEW  INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Don't miss this new collection of literature references on climate change by the Pacific Institute,
http://www.pacinst.org/CCBib.html

Preview
The next issue of Computers and Climate may be the last. The newsletter's current funding under the ASIS project is set to expire early next year. Several avenues to continue funding are being explored. Readers who know of possible means should contact ruddyconsult@imailbox.com

2. THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE TO INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY ICT
A Screensaver that Works for Climate Protection
http://www.futureframe.de/news/991015-2.htm
Netaid Concert Website Includes Links to Using the Internet for Fighting Poverty and Improving the Environment
http://www.netaid.org/internet/index.htm
A Partner Org. Has a Discussion on Info.Society Technologies
http://www.rec.org/REC/programs/telematics/enwap/noticeboard.html