On the Practical Implications of the Carbon Dioxide Question

Abstract

There is no doubt that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other "greenhouse" gases have been increasing and will continue to do so for the next several decades at least. Climate models predict that this will lead to a significant rise in world temperatures, particularly in polar regions, during the next 50-100 years. However, there is uncertainty about the timing and magnitude of the warming, as well as about the strategies that ought to be adopted to try to reverse the trend, or at least to cope with it. This Working Paper by William Clark is a perceptive contribution to these latter policy questions. It was commissioned as a keynote presentation at the WMO/UNEP/ICSU Assessment Conference on the Role of Carbon Dioxide and of other Radiatively Active Constituents, in Climate Variations and Associated Impacts, to be held in Villach, Austria, 9-15 October, 1985. Dr. W.C. Clark was Editor of the widely acclaimed Carbon Dioxide Review (Oxford University Press, 1982). He came to IIASA in the summer of 1984 and is Leader of the Project on Ecologically Sustainable Development of the Biosphere. One of his special interests is the search for better methods of applying incomplete scientific knowledge to environmental policy formulation. In my view, Dr. Clark has been particularly successful in this paper in providing a new perspective concerning the carbon dioxide issue.