TESTIMONY OF
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF COMMERCE
UNITED STATES SENATE
January 8, 2003
Good afternoon Senator
McCain, Senator Hollings and members of the Committee. I am
James R. Mahoney, Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Deputy Administrator of
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I am appearing today in my capacity as
Director of the United States Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). CCSP
integrates the federal research on global change and climate change, as
sponsored by thirteen federal agencies (the Departments of Agriculture,
Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health & Human Services, the Interior, State,
and Transportation; together with the Environmental Protection Agency, the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation,
the Agency for International Development, and the Smithsonian Institution) and
overseen by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Council on
Environmental Quality, the National Economic Council and the Office of
Management and Budget. In February 2002
President Bush created a new cabinet-level management structure, the Committee
on Climate Change Science and Technology Integration, to manage the over $3
billion annual budget federal climate change research and technology
development programs. CCSP, which
integrates the work of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) created
by the Global Change Research Act of 1990 with the Climate Change Research
Initiative (CCRI) launched by the President in June 2001, is a key element of
the President’s climate science and technology development management
structure.
In response to your invitation, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to present testimony on the Administration’s November 2002 Discussion Draft Strategic Plan for federal research on climate change, and on the uniquely successful workshop on the draft plan, held in Washington, DC, on December 3 to 5, 2002. The workshop was designed to facilitate extensive discussion and comments on the draft plan from all interested domestic and international groups and individuals, including the scientific community, a wide range of stakeholders, interested members of the public, and the media. The open comment period begun before the workshop continues until a deadline of January 18, 2003, for receipt of written comments. We look forward to providing this Committee, as well as other interested elements of the Congress, with a report on the comments and their resolution – and with the updated strategic plan – by the end of April 2003, as announced in the workshop documents. I note that all elements of the strategic planning process, including the Discussion Draft Strategic Plan, all of the workshop proceedings and all written public comments, will be available at the web site www.climatescience.gov .
SUMMARY OF
THIS STATEMENT
1. “Credible Fact Finder”: Responding
to the direction of President Bush that the best available scientific
information be developed to support decision making on global climate change
issues, CCSP has developed its strategic planning and public review processes
to facilitate “credible fact finding” on (a) key climate science issues, (b) comprehensive, high quality climate and
ecosystem observing and data management
systems, and (c) the development of meaningful decision support resources in
the form of responses to “if …, then …” questions, which depends on
achieving significant progress under (a) and (b) above.
2. New, Integrated Management Structure: The
CCSP has implemented a comprehensive, interagency management structure to
assure effective and efficient deployment of approximately $1.7 billion (annual
budget) in directly sponsored research and $1.3 billion of related research
conducted by the thirteen CCSP collaborating federal agencies. During the past nine months this new management
structure has (a) completed a comprehensive strategic review of the ongoing
research programs in all CCSP collaborating agencies, (b) produced an
interagency integrated climate science budget request for FY 2004, to be
included in the President’s budget request to be sent to Congress, and (c)
prepared the basis for operational interagency management of the
FY 2003 appropriated budgets when they become available.
3. November 2002 Discussion Draft Strategic Plan: The CCSP recently published an extensive
“draft for discussion” of its new 10-year strategic plan. The draft plan is structured around key questions in the science,
observations and decision support areas, to encourage a focus on the
information needed to underpin public discussion of climate change issues. The Discussion
Draft Strategic Plan responds to the requirements for periodic updates as
specified by the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (PL 101-606), and to the
direction of President Bush that climate change research activities be
accelerated, so as to provide the best possible scientific information that can
be developed in the near term. The Discussion Draft Strategic Plan
(discussed further below) is available on the web site www.climatescience.gov .
4. December 3-5, 2002, Workshop on the Discussion Draft Strategic Plan: The workshop held last month here in
Washington was a key element in the process of developing the scientific basis
to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of a range of climate change
mitigation and adaptation options. The
workshop was the most highly attended and structured discussion of climate
change issues held to date, and it was conducted with a 100 percent commitment
to open and transparent discussion of the issues. The workshop is discussed extensively later
in this statement, and all of the documentation on the workshop proceedings
also appears on the web site www.climatescience.gov .
5. Comprehensive Review by the National Academy of Sciences: CCSP has requested that the National Academy
of Sciences – National Research Council (NAS) conduct a comprehensive review of
the draft and final versions of the CCSP Strategic Plan. The Academy appointed a special 17-member
committee of experts in the physical, biological, social and economic sciences,
and this committee reviewed the Discussion Draft Strategic Plan, and
participated throughout the recent workshop.
The NAS committee will provide preliminary public recommendations by
February 2003 to assist in the update of the strategic plan. The committee will provide a second public
report in September 2003, commenting on the updated strategic plan as well as
the open public review process being used to develop the strategic plan and the
subsequent findings to be reported by CCSP.
6. Updated CCSP Strategic Plan Scheduled for April 2003: CCSP will publish its updated strategic plan
for the climate science program by the end of April 2003, after consideration
of all of the workshop discussions and the full range of the written comments
received by the January 18, 2003, deadline for comments. The plan, which will be subject to future
modification as warranted by the emergence of key science findings and key
public questions to be addressed, will guide the conduct of the federal
research activities during the critical next few years of public discussion
about climate change.
7. Shift to the Reporting of Findings After the Strategic Plan is
Completed: As described in the Discussion Draft Strategic Plan, CCSP will focus on the development
of structured, climate science findings after the updated strategic plan is
completed in April 2003. Future reports
will address the three principal foci of the strategic plan: (a) reducing key scientific uncertainties,
(b) designing and implementing a comprehensive
global climate and ecosystem monitoring and data management system, and (c)
providing decision support resources
to support public evaluation of climate change response options, based on
evaluation of a wide range of scenarios and response options.
8. Integration of Scientific and Technological Developments: One of the principal themes of the workshop
was the likely need for breakthrough technology options to address the
long-term challenge of global climate change.
The only effective approaches to long-term global stabilization and
ultimate reduction of net greenhouse gas emissions, if found necessary, will
require major new technologies, not simply incremental improvements of current
technology. The likely growth of global
population and economic output in the upcoming decades will only amplify this
need. CCSP is working closely with the
Climate Change Technology Program to assure that: (a) science drives the
definition of technology needs, and (b) science is used to evaluate both the intended and the unintended consequences of proposed technology innovations.
9. Major US-Led Earth Observation Summit Announced: Building on the need for a truly integrated
global climate and ecosystem observing and data management system as documented
in the CCSP Discussion Draft Strategic
Plan and discussed extensively during the December workshop, the
Administration is taking the initiative to host an Earth Observation Summit to be held in Washington, DC, during the
summer 2003 time frame. The meeting will
bring together senior international government and nongovernment leaders in
climate science, technology and environment, to develop a commitment to a new
level of comprehensive, climate-quality global monitoring, and to initiate the
planning to implement this commitment.
The meeting (further described later in this statement) will target the
Science Advisors and the Science or Technology Ministers of the G-8 nations and
other nations, and will serve as a foundation for reinvigorating comprehensive
observation of the Earth’s climate system, which will be a focus of the
December 2003 Conference of the Parties
of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
10. Request for Congressional Dialog and Input to the Strategic Plan: The climate change science strategic planning
process has already benefited from a wide range of review and comment (before,
during and after the recent workshop) by the domestic and international climate
science community, by a large group of stakeholders representing diverse
interests on climate change issues, and by the rapidly increasing group of
users of climate change information and projections. We invite comments and questions by members
and staff of the Senate and the House of Representatives so that the
question-based strategic plan can be fully responsive to the public
interest. We have already engaged in
briefings with a number of members and staff, and we are prepared to respond
promptly to other requests for briefings or written responses to questions.
The remainder of this statement provides further
details in four of the key areas mentioned above: (1) background information on
the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the Climate Change Research
Initiative; (2) the November 2002 CCSP Discussion
Draft Strategic Plan; (3) the December 2002 Workshop on the draft strategic
plan, including its purpose, structure, operations and feedback to date; and
(4) the summer 2003 U.S.-led Earth Observation Summit planned to promote a new
level of state-of-the-science measurement and data management capability to
support decision making about global change.
I.
BACKGROUND ON THE U.S. GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH PROGRAM AND THE CLIMATE
CHANGE RESEARCH INITIATIVE
The
U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), well known to many in this
audience, was launched as a series of research initiatives in 1987, and was
codified by the Global Change Research Act, which was signed into law by
President George H. W. Bush in 1990. To
date, over $20 billion of research funding has supported the USGCRP, which has
contributed significantly to the international body of research, monitoring and
computer modeling of global change over the past 15 years. The USGCRP is continuing its major role in
the exploration, discovery and analysis of global change phenomena, and is
sharing the results of this research with the entire world community.
In
May 2001, the Bush Administration asked the National Academy of Sciences -
National Research Council to provide an updated evaluation of key questions
about climate change science, in view of the body of research developed by the
international climate science community, with specific reference to the
recently completed Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). The findings of
the NAS Committee on the Science of Climate Change, reported in June 2001,
continue to guide the development of the focused climate research and
technology programs announced by President Bush also in June 2001:
“Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s
atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures
and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.
Temperatures are, in fact, rising.
The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due
to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these
changes is also a reflection of natural variability.”
“Because there is considerable uncertainty in
current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to
emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude
of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future
adjustments (either upward or downward).
Reducing the wide range of uncertainty inherent in current model
predictions of global climate change will require major advances in
understanding and modeling of both (1) the factors that determine atmospheric
concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and (2) the so-called
'feedbacks' that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a
prescribed increase in greenhouse gases.
There is also a pressing need for a global system designed for
monitoring climate.”
“Making progress in reducing the large
uncertainties in projections of future climate will require addressing a number
of fundamental scientific questions relating to the buildup of greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere and the behavior of the climate system. Issues that need to be addressed include: (a) the future usage of fossil fuels; (b) the
future emissions of methane; (c) the fraction of the future fossil fuel carbon
that will remain in the atmosphere and provide radiative forcing versus
exchange with the oceans or net exchange with the land biosphere; (d) the
feedbacks in the climate system that determine both the magnitude of the change
and the rate of energy uptake by the oceans, which together determine the
magnitude and time history of the temperature increases for a given radiative
forcing; (e) details of the regional and local climate change consequent to an
overall level of global climate change; (f) the nature and causes of the
natural variability of climate and its interactions with forced changes; and
(g) the direct and indirect effects of the changing distributions of aerosols. Maintaining a vigorous, ongoing program of
basic research, funded and managed independently of the climate assessment
activity, will be crucial for narrowing these uncertainties.”
“Because of the large and still uncertain
level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the
uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and
particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the buildup of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th
century cannot be unequivocally established.
The fact that the magnitude of the observed warming is large in
comparison to natural variability as simulated in climate models is suggestive
of such a linkage, but it does not constitute proof of one because the model
simulations could be deficient in natural variability on the decadal to century
time scale.”
I
also quote from a February 2002 statement of President Bush, responding to the
NAS report:
“Addressing global climate change will require a
sustained effort, over many generations.
My approach recognizes that sustained economic growth is the solution,
not the problem - because a nation that grows its economy is a nation that can
afford investments in efficiency, new technologies, and a cleaner environment.”
President Bush took several steps to address climate
change issues in June 2001, including issuing a new challenge to the climate
change scientific and technological communities. He created the Climate Change Research
Initiative (CCRI) and the parallel National Climate Change Technology
Initiative (NCCTI), and asked federal science and technology specialists to
take on new responsibilities to accelerate the development of policies to
respond to climate change issues.
Specifically, a short-term focus (defined as covering 2 to 5 years) was
assigned to CCRI, to speed the development of information that can improve
science-based decision-making.
In
February 2002 President Bush further strengthened the climate change science
and technology programs by creating a new cabinet-level management structure,
placing responsibility and accountability for the $3+ billion annual budget
science and technology programs in the relevant cabinet departments. In September 2002, Commerce Secretary Evans
and Energy Secretary Abraham reported to the President on the first six months
of climate change science, technology and emission reduction activities
achieved under the new cabinet level management structure. The report from Secretaries Evans and
Abraham, which includes the organization chart for the federal program, is
attached to this statement.
Implementation of the President’s new management structure has resulted
in several actions that have strengthened the federal programs in climate
change science and technology development.
For example:
·
A thorough reevaluation of the climate change science programs in all
13 participating federal agencies was completed in August 2001. This has created a substantial new basis for
interagency collaboration, and has provided the essential background for
preparation of the interagency CCSP Discussion Draft Strategic Plan.
·
A full interagency crosscut of the FY 2004 climate change research
budget request was prepared in September 2002.
This integrated interagency budget crosscut will facilitate efficiency
and effectiveness in the commitment of future budget resources to the climate
change science program.
·
The interagency science and technology programs are now being reviewed
on a frequent basis by high-level appointees of President Bush. For example, the President has designated an
operating review committee composed of deputy cabinet level officials
representing each of the collaborating agencies. This review committee has held a full agenda
meeting nearly every month since the President designated its oversight
responsibility in February 2002, and has been responsible for achieving a
substantially improved level of integration among the federal climate science
and technology programs, together with the voluntary emission reduction
programs and the several international collaborative programs in which the
United States participates.
CCSP is designed to serve in a “credible fact
finder” capacity, providing a source of credible and useful information in
three broad categories:
1. Science: The causes and projected
effects of global climate change, including the understanding of both
individual processes and multiple-factor interactions.
2. Observations and data: Observing system design and measurement
methodologies for climate and ecosystem parameters, including high quality data
archives, to facilitate trend analyses and other measurement-based scientific
studies.
3. Decision support resources: Evaluation of “If …,
then …” questions, which depends on achieving
significant progress under (1) and (2) above.
The research activities sponsored by the CCSP are designed to provide critical information about a number of the natural resource issues affected by climate variability and change. This will involve both a focus on national and global level mitigation and adaptation issues as well as a focus on regional and sectoral adaptation responses to climate variability.
II. THE DISCUSSION DRAFT STRATEGIC PLAN FOR
THE U.S. CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE PROGRAM
The CCSP Discussion Draft Strategic Plan
outlines a comprehensive, collaborative approach for developing a more accurate
understanding of climate change and its potential impacts. It builds upon the significant investments we
have already made in climate change science, and it is guided by the priority
information needs identified by stakeholders and scientists, both nationally
and internationally.
The Discussion Draft Strategic Plan, the comprehensive workshop
discussions and written comment processes, and the ongoing review by the National
Academy of Sciences were all designed to support the “credible fact finder”
role of CCSP. The following guidelines
are being used to advance the CCSP “credible fact finder” strategy:
1.
Question-based strategic
plan: The
draft plan was developed from a series of key questions in each of the
principal climate change science topic areas.
For each question the draft plan summarized the current state of
knowledge; described the improved information expected within the next 2 to 4
years and beyond; and reviewed the uncertainties unlikely to be resolved within
2 to 4 years. This question-based
approach fosters agreement on the appropriate questions to be addressed, and it
enhances communication among the large number of contributors to and users of
the strategic plan.
2.
Integration of Long Term
USGCRP and Short Term Focused CCRI Studies:
USGCRP
has largely focused on long-term studies in key science areas, including
atmospheric composition, climate variability, the carbon cycle, the water
cycle, climate-ecosystem interactions, human dimensions of climate change, land
use/land cover interactions with regional climate change, and climate model
development and evaluation. CCRI has a short-term focus on reducing scientific
uncertainty where possible, developing integrated global observing systems for
oceans, atmosphere and ecosystems, and developing decision support resources to
enhance public and policy-maker evaluation of climate change response
options. The CCSP integrated management
of the USGCRP and CCRI helps bridge between the discovery and characterization focus of USGCRP and the differentiation and strategy investigation
focus that President Bush called for in the CCRI.
3.
Combined scientific
community and stakeholder review: All of the
strategic plan review actions (including the workshop, the written comment
period and future opportunities to comment on CCSP draft findings) are intended
to encourage review, comments, challenges, questions and alternative
recommendations from both the international scientific community and the
various interested stakeholder communities.
4.
Policy relevant but policy
neutral analyses: The CCSP studies are
intended to be policy relevant (i.e., focused on the range of climate change
outcomes and response options of interest to the United States and other
governments) while remaining policy neutral to assure credibility among all
interested stakeholders. The CCSP
studies and reports do not recommend specific policy options; instead, the studies
address “If …, then …” questions that explore the projected outcomes of various
policy options.
5.
Transparency and
comprehensiveness guidelines: CCSP has a policy of full
transparency in its plans, reports and data records. To maintain credibility
among users of the CCSP analyses and projections, CCSP draft and final plans,
reports of findings and projections of future outcomes will be posted on
publicly accessible web sites, and all comments communicated by interested
stakeholders also will be posted for public review. CCSP will aim to make its analyses
comprehensive (i.e., covering the range of plausible policy options) within the
limits of the resources available for analysis. Moreover, CCSP will facilitate
comparison with other studies whenever possible.
6.
Reporting of the basis for
findings and the degree of certainty in findings: CCSP aims to describe the basis for each of its key
findings and projections, with sufficient detail to allow independent reviewers
to replicate the underlying analyses.
CCSP will also characterize the degree of certainty associated with its
each of its key findings and projections.
Where appropriate, “confidence level” descriptions will be used to
communicate these characterizations. The
introduction of uncertainty is not intended to imply a basis for inaction. In cases where the uncertainty of analyses or
projections is so large as to make the discrimination between options
impractical, this finding will be reported directly.
III. THE U.S.
CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE PROGRAM STRATEGIC PLAN WORKSHOP
A. Themes for the Workshop
Two important themes were used to guide the workshop deliberations:
The workshop was a seminal event in the consideration of global climate change issues, attended by a very large group of United States and international climate specialists and stakeholders.
· More than 1,300 climate specialists participated in the workshop, including individuals from 47 states and 36 nations. This appears to be the largest-ever participation in a focused climate science review program. Participants included substantial representation from all of the climate science areas, as well as extensive representation from each of the principal domestic and international stakeholder groups dealing with climate science issues.
· The workshop set a high standard for open and transparent proceedings – which was the goal of the Administration. The Discussion Draft Strategic Plan was published for review by all participants prior to the workshop; all plenary sessions (including all keynote addresses) were recorded and posted on the web site for public review and use; findings of all 24 specialty sessions were documented for public use; all invited commenter presentations are currently being posted on the web site; and all written comments received up to January 18, 2003, will be posted on the web site.
· The principal science leaders and the relevant cabinet-level agency leaders in the United States government all participated in the workshop, along with the principal international climate science leaders. These included:
o The Honorable Spencer Abraham, Secretary of Energy
o Dr. Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences
o Dr. Samuel W. Bodman, Deputy Secretary of Commerce (on behalf of Secretary Donald L. Evans, who was out of the country during the workshop)
o The Honorable Robert Card, Undersecretary of Energy
o Dr. Rita R. Colwell, Director of the National Science Foundation
o The Honorable David Garman, Assistant Secretary of Energy
o VADM Conrad C. Lautenbacher, USN (Ret), Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
o Dr. John H. Marburger, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
o Professor G.O.P. Obasi, Secretary General, World Meteorological Organization
o The Honorable Sean O’Keefe, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
o Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
o The Honorable Christine Todd Whitman, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
· Approximately 225 climate specialists were invited participants during the specialty sessions of the workshop, including presenters of the plan elements, invited review panelists, moderators and rapporteurs. More than 300 other individuals provided comments during the specialty sessions. The specialty sessions focused on specific themes of the strategic plan as well as crosscutting themes in the plan. The 24 specialty discussion sessions during the workshop were:
1. Emerging Climate Science Issues
2. Observations and Monitoring Systems
3. Atmospheric Composition
4. Carbon Cycle
5. Climate Modeling
6. Climate – Land Use/Land Cover Interactions
7. Climate Variability and Change
8. Water Cycle
9. Human Contributions and Responses to Climate Change
10. Climate-Quality Data Management Systems
11. Scenario Development to Support National-Scope Decisions
12. International Collaboration
13. Climate Variability and Change (second session of topic #7)
14. Climate – Ecosystem Interactions
15. Resolution of Disparities in Tropospheric Temperature Records
16. Stabilizing Greenhouse Gases in the Earth’s Atmosphere: Opportunities for Technology and Innovation
17. Resource Management Decision Support
18. Grand Challenges in Observations, Modeling and Information systems
19. Crosscut: Climate Variability – Atmospheric Composition – Water Cycle
20. Crosscut: Carbon Cycle – Ecosystems – Land Use/Land Cover
21. Interactions Between Data, Observations and Modeling
22. Scenario Development and Risk – Based Decision Support
23. Applied Climate Modeling
24. Reporting and Outreach Plans
The general response to the process of providing a
public draft plan prior to the workshop, encouraging fully open discussion at
the workshop, and accommodating written comments received after the workshop
was extremely positive.
The following lists illustrate some of the general
and specific comments received at the workshop.
These comments are not priority ranked, because the open comment period
is still under way.
Illustrative general comments: General recommendations voiced at the
workshop included:
Illustrative specific comments: The following list is a sample of the many
hundreds of specific recommendations voiced during the workshop:
D. Next Steps After
Completion of the CCSP Strategic Plan
Following the April 2003 completion of the new strategic plan, CCSP will focus on the reporting of findings and “if …, then …” analyses to the interested national and international communities. We plan to report findings using the same open and transparent approach as adopted for the Discussion Draft Strategic Plan and the workshop. The goal is for the Climate Change Science Program to serve as “credible fact finder” on the challenging issues associated with characterizing and, where necessary, mitigating and adapting to climate change.
IV. ANNOUNCEMENT OF A SUMMER
2003 EARTH OBSERVATION SUMMIT
As part of the Administration’s plan to enhance the
use of sound science, credible decision support methods, and high quality
observations on oceans, climate, and ecosystems, the Administration is taking
the initiative to host an Earth Observation Summit in Washington, DC, in
the summer of 2003. The CCSP workshop
provided the starting point for this high level event, which will serve as a
foundation for reinvigorating the Earth’s observing system. This activity is being coordinated through
the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Environment and
Natural Resources.
Although our capability to provide global
observations of the Earth system is at an all-time high, the requirements for
comprehensive, integrated climate and ecosystem observations are also
demanding. The investments made by the
United States over the past decade through the USGCRP, as well as by our
foreign partners (notably in Europe and Japan), have provided unprecedented
global views of the Earth as a complex, interacting system. However, such advances do not limit the need
for highly calibrated and well-distributed in-situ measuring systems,
especially in developing countries and countries with economies in transition.
The Earth
Observation Summit will be significant at the international level, particularly
for meeting the needs of sustainable development and international
environmental conventions such as the U.N. Framework Convention on
Climate Change.
The expected applications
for a fully integrated Earth observation system are many, including natural
resource management, daily weather prediction, El Niño prediction, and
evaluation of climate models. The
ultimate goal is transparency in the global acquisition and use of climate and
ecosystem information, and better international coordination in creating the
measurement and data management resources.
Seamless acquisition and long-term storage of data on the Earth’s
biological, physical and chemical cycles — water, carbon, open ocean nutrients,
atmospheric chemistry, energy balance, etc.
— are essential to fill in the data gaps for more accurate modeling. Global data collection will provide earlier
and better forecasts of extreme natural events that can lead to major benefits
in energy use, and in food and water management.
To achieve an integrated global observing system, a significant number
of developed countries and organizations must be willing to commit the
necessary resources to make it happen.
The Earth Observation Summit will bring together senior international
governmental and nongovernmental leaders for science, technology and the
environment involved in global Earth observation. We plan to invite the Science Advisors or
Science and Technology Ministers of the G-8 and other developed nations to
participate in the summit. We aim to
join the participants in a renewed evaluation of the benefits an integrated
global observing system. We believe this
summit is especially timely as all nations prepare to review the adequacy of
the Earth’s climate observing system at the Ninth Conference of the Parties to
the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2003.
CLOSING COMMENT
Comprehensive, objective, transparent and well-reviewed scientific
inquiry must be the core methodology used to evaluate the highly complex
relationships between natural and anthropogenic influences on Earth systems,
and to project potential outcomes of the many different investment and action
strategies that have been proposed to mitigate or adapt to potential changes in
global conditions. If we fail to fully
evaluate the scientific information bearing on global change, we would be
subject to the justifiable criticism that our strategy to cope with potentially
our largest-ever investment in environmental management would be seen as a
“ready-fire-aim” approach. CCSP will
provide substantial, credible information to inform the public search for
effective and efficient strategies responsive to the challenges of global
climate change.
ATTACHMENTS
1.
The
original announcement and invitation to participate in the climate science
workshop (one page) is attached.
2. The September 2002 letter report from
Commerce Secretary Evans and Energy Secretary Abraham to President Bush is also
attached. It provides an update on the
progress on the climate change science and technology programs and the
voluntary emission reduction program under the new cabinet–level management
structure initiated by President Bush in February 2002.