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Newsletter No. 47 Issue No. 47 September, 2001 The International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP): A Study of Global Change IGBP is sponsored by the International www.igbp.kva.se Council for Science (ICSU) The Global Change Open Science Conference – Amsterdam, July 2001 This edition of the Global Change Newsletter focuses on outcomes of the recent Open Science Conference, Chal- lenges of a Changing Earth. The Newsletter begins with an introduction to the event and feedback from conference participants. Four influential global change scientists, Bert Bolin, Robert Watson, Bob Scholes and Ian Noble, reach a consensus over the role of terrestrial carbon sinks in reducing green- house gas emissions (page 4). This important statement Peter Haugan takes a serious look at the future of the IGBP was hammered out over lunch during the conference in re- post Amsterdam on page 36 and Executive Director, Will sponse to confusion amongst journalists and others regard- Steffen, offers a response (page 37). Also in the correspond- ing the importance of terrestrial sinks. ence section, Gamini Seneviratne looks for new ways to From page 5, we have a series of 9 articles based on pres- enhance terrestrial carbon sinks. entations in the abundant parallel sessions and the centre- Many people have asked about the plenary papers from fold presents four of the eight winners of the Student Poster the conference. These are currently being collated for pub- Awards. On page 16, we provide a preliminary analysis of lication by Springer and will hopefully be available early next media coverage resulting from the conference. year. We’ll keep you posted. Contents Feedback from conference participants ................................. 2 How and why people and institutions matter beyond economy ................................................................... 20 Kyoto and Terrestrial sinks ..................................................... 4 Student Posters ..................................................................... 23 Bridging western scientific and traditional knowledge of Climate Change ............................................... 5 Agents and their Environment: Syndromes of land-use change in developing countries ............................... 27 Secondary Production in the Oceans and the Response to Climate Change .......................................... 9 Climate Change in the Tropical Pacific ................................... 30 Effects of Increasing Atmospheric CO on Estimations of ENSO effects on sugarcane 2 Phytoplankton Communities .................................................. 12 yields in Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela ................................... 33 Media at the OSC .................................................................. 16 Correspondence .................................................................... 36 Land cover change over the last three IGBP and Related Meetings .................................................. 41 centuries due to human activities ........................................... 17 1 The Global Change Open Science Conference, Challenges of a Changing Earth, in Amsterdam was a landmark event in many respects. It was the first time that the three Global Environmental Change Programmes, IGBP, IHDP (International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change) and WCRP (World Climate Research Programme) held a combined conference on such a large scale. It was undoubtedly a turning point in the process of forging a three-way partnership that will significantly enhance Earth System Science at the international level. Facing the Challenge The conference was also unique in bringing press agencies, New Scientist, Nature, Science, together so many global change scientists from The Los Angeles Times and many more (see all over the world. More than 400 scientists (just page 16 for a preliminary analysis of media under a third of the total participation) attended coverage). from 62 developing countries. Overall, the Many have commented on the high quality and conference brought together around 1400 breadth of the presentations, with one common scientists representing 105 countries, making it complaint being insufficient time for questions a truly global event. and discussion. Here we present more feedback Challenges of a Changing Earth also attracted from participants who attended the conference. more than 50 journalists with many more We welcome your feedback, either in the form of reporting from a distance. The conference was “Letters to the Editor” or comments for internal covered by BBC World Service, Reuters, use, rather than for publication. Please send your Associated Press, French, Dutch and German comments to [email protected] 2 “I’ve attended more meetings than I care to count in my should have provided tangible/proactive action plans 30-odd years in this area. This one was by far the best with specific targets set as well as an evaluation in every dimension. Most people nowadays have a framework for the plans. A lot still remains to be done if vague notion about human-induced changes in the we in the developing countries are to make any impact global environment - ozone depletion, climate change, in global change research, and we shall continue biodiversity, etc. However, hardly anyone save the relying on the developed world more.” people represented in Amsterdam truly comprehends Evans Kituyi, African Centre for Technology Stud- the enormity and gravity of these changes - and the ies, Kenya desperate urgency of doing something to constrain them. Scientists in general are far too cautious, far too civilized, far too concerned for abstract notions of “The conference for the first time presented convincing process and credibility. All these considerations are evidence of major change to the global system, largely laudable when developing fundamental knowledge based on paleological studies using ground-based data over the course of generations. However, they are - demonstrating the central importance of preserving grossly inappropriate when faced with the impending and extending ground-based monitoring of atmos- global holocaust that is one possible scenario arising pheric and other earth system variables.” from the results presented in Amsterdam.” Dr Michael Hutchinson, Centre for Resource and John Perry, Consultant to START (synthesis), USA Environmental Studies, Australia “The conference has successfully reviewed advances “The multi-disciplinary global congregation on climate on influence of human and natural processes on the change made the Conference a very thought-provoking global environmental changes. I think that if relevant event. However identification of collaborating themes research achievements regarding interaction between for research on impact and adaptation in the develop- human and nature processes as well as how they ing countries, could have made the conference much jointly exert their influence on the environment could be more meaningful.” showed more, it would contribute to understand better Amit Garg, Indian Institute of Management, India the challenges of a changing Earth we face. I suggest that it is better to hold one such conference every around three years if possible.” “This year’s “Global Change” Open Science Confer- ence in Amsterdam was a highlight in international Yetang Hong, State Key Laboratory of Environmen- scientific and environmental exchange. I was particu- tal Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences larly interested in the expertise and creativity of sug- gested solutions to environmental issues from and “The most impressive aspect of the conference was to within developing countries. Many of the sensitive see the large number of scientists and scientific balances of nature may only be understood from within presentations relating to so many different aspects of a local ecosystem. “Western” solutions might not global change almost all, without exception, driving always meet the requirements. It is my hope that this home the same message that there is a problem i.e. conference has stimulated and enabled broader that change is occurring at a pace which demands very information exchange between the developed and less swift action from all countries. The participation of developed countries as well as between disciplines and developing country scientists was essential because scientific approaches. Modern technologies like Re- the meeting contextualised their research very force- mote Sensing are highly valuable tools for interdiscipli- fully especially for those whose research was not nary research.” initially motivated by global change concerns. Unfortu- Ulrike Granoegger, Academy For Future Science, nately, the seminar on reinforcing capacity in develop- Germany ing countries was too short to propose concrete ways of achieving this aim in the area of global change but many of the difficulties facing all scientists in these “I was generally impressed with the quality of the countries were highlighted. presentations and the high level of co-operation among the programmes. It would have been nice to get a bit Richard A Hall, International Foundation for Sci- more discussion though - a few questions at least (but I ence, Sweden suppose time was the major constraint). I was pleased to discover that the work we are doing on national “[The conference was] unique because of the large assessments for adaptation to climate change reso- representation from developing countries - thanks to nates with other researchers, even though we are IGBP for support
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