Usable Knowledge for Managing Responses to Global Environmental Change: Recommendations to promote collaborative assessments and information systems

Abstract

The recent agreement in Kyoto underscores the critical relationship between scientific understandings of global environmental change and national, international, and even local policies.For the first time, representatives of the nations of the world agreed to reduce their future production of greenhouse gases in order to limit the damage that human activities can cause in theEarth’s atmosphere. At the core of the agreement was a belief by policy makers, who may have had little scientific training themselves, in scientists’ assessments of the causes and consequencesof changes in the global atmosphere. Because those changes can neither be seen nor felt as yet, andbecause the consequences of the Kyoto agreement could have significant economic implications for many nations, this policy response to scientific research was particularly significant. The Kyoto agreement is just the beginning. There will be a growing need for scientists and policy makers to work together on environmental issues in the years ahead.