Madrid 1995: Diagnosing climate change

摘要

John Houghton chaired the tense IPCC meeting without which there would be no Kyoto Protocol. Here he recalls how science won the day. Climate change is increasingly recognized as one of the most serious threats to humankind. But it was not always so. That the majority of world leaders are now convinced of this peril, even though its full effects will not be felt for decades, is due largely to the work of one organization: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC draws together hundreds of the worlds top scientists to study and assess the effects and consequences of human activity on the climate. As an intergovernmental organization under the United Nations, its five-yearly assessments must be accepted by governments, and the IPCC recommendations are then taken as the basis for policy. Crucially, the content of the final text is determined solely by the science, based on the research literature.